When the percentage of your friends who've won Nebula awards is in the double digits. . . .
So, on Mike Doughty's blog, back in the archives, there's entry about another musician, also named Doughty, whose work is listed on ITunes, and whose songs have names like "Gandalf's Guitar Garden" and "Hermit Thrush." The title of the entry is "I Once Heard Don Byron Say, 'Man, I can't get with that 'yeedle-deedle-deedle shit.'"
This, to me, was the height of funny. In years past, yeedle-deedle-deedle shit has been a rather prominent feature in my musical landscape. Back in my early twenties in Ann Arbor, a bookselling pal of mine gave me a copy of Ruby Vroom, Doughty's band Soul Coughing's first album. There was a track on it called "Bus to Beelzebub," and I liked that, but everything else-- eh. It lacked for yeedle. It wanted deedle. I read Charles Delint novels and could not get with Ruby Vroom.
But that was more than a decade ago. Earlier this week, I raced home from work because I was dying to listen to Soul Coughing. And a week or so before that, when my favorite earnest Irish band, the Saw Doctors, came through town, I amost didn't go see them. Their place in my heart seemed to be shrinking, and I felt more like listening to jazz, or blues, or abstract things from Scandinavia.
Two years ago, when I first heard Great Big Sea, (another high-profice Yeedle band) I hated them. They seemed to me to be like Oysterband, only bad. Then, after the Great Big Sea exposure, I stopped listening to Oysterband, because they sounded too much like Great Big Sea.
Then our music drive was bursting with tracks by The Arcade Fire and Sigur Ros, and hipter girls started complimenting me on my skirts, and I got to thinking that maybe I'd blundered into being hip again, even if it was in a thirty-something, messy-haired, bookwormish way.
But see, here's the thing: To be hip in a messy haired, thirty-something, bookwormish way is to be, ahem, a NERD, which is what I've been, without pause, since I was oh, three or so.
And right now, I'm listeneing to Richard Thomposon, Also, I'm listening to Oyster Band. And I'm remembering that I love them both. And yes, they do tend the give the room a not-un-Delint-like vibe. And even though I can no longer get with Charles Delint, the vibe is a fine, fine thing. Really, it is.
This, to me, was the height of funny. In years past, yeedle-deedle-deedle shit has been a rather prominent feature in my musical landscape. Back in my early twenties in Ann Arbor, a bookselling pal of mine gave me a copy of Ruby Vroom, Doughty's band Soul Coughing's first album. There was a track on it called "Bus to Beelzebub," and I liked that, but everything else-- eh. It lacked for yeedle. It wanted deedle. I read Charles Delint novels and could not get with Ruby Vroom.
But that was more than a decade ago. Earlier this week, I raced home from work because I was dying to listen to Soul Coughing. And a week or so before that, when my favorite earnest Irish band, the Saw Doctors, came through town, I amost didn't go see them. Their place in my heart seemed to be shrinking, and I felt more like listening to jazz, or blues, or abstract things from Scandinavia.
Two years ago, when I first heard Great Big Sea, (another high-profice Yeedle band) I hated them. They seemed to me to be like Oysterband, only bad. Then, after the Great Big Sea exposure, I stopped listening to Oysterband, because they sounded too much like Great Big Sea.
Then our music drive was bursting with tracks by The Arcade Fire and Sigur Ros, and hipter girls started complimenting me on my skirts, and I got to thinking that maybe I'd blundered into being hip again, even if it was in a thirty-something, messy-haired, bookwormish way.
But see, here's the thing: To be hip in a messy haired, thirty-something, bookwormish way is to be, ahem, a NERD, which is what I've been, without pause, since I was oh, three or so.
And right now, I'm listeneing to Richard Thomposon, Also, I'm listening to Oyster Band. And I'm remembering that I love them both. And yes, they do tend the give the room a not-un-Delint-like vibe. And even though I can no longer get with Charles Delint, the vibe is a fine, fine thing. Really, it is.