A few weeks ago, I was reading a blog post by one of my favorite authors which led to the inspiration of this three-part post. He isn’t critically renowned or even nationally credited. He is an ex-pro athlete who dabbled in the NBA for years before heading overseas to play. And while he isn’t Ernest Hemmingway, his writing style is entertaining due to his dry wit and I always enjoy immersing myself in his ramblings. Generally, his topics range from women, to jobs, to traveling, to self-worth, and to music.

The latest post was in regard to music. Something near and dear to my heart, this is a topic that I enjoy reading about; especially from a dude who has an ‘alternate’ take on life much like myself. The article was about feeding your hunger for music and there was one point that really resonated with me. Here it is: Most people believe that we decide what music we will like early in their lives. We pick a genre of music and refuse to ‘hear’ anything else. It's like a busy highway full of gridlocked traffic. There is no way in hell that you are going to let that driver in the ‘Country’ genre merge into your lane.

(2) How we amassed our interests:
Both the author of that blog and I do not agree with this generalization. In fact, both of us would say that your spectrum of music appreciation grows exponentially as your years increase. With time, we should all be listening to more good music. There are many reasons for this, several I plan on addressing here. This is not an all-inclusive story of how we amassed our library or the end-all-be-all for feeding your hunger for new music. But it is a starting point for a thread of consciousness.

1. Life events (birth, death, marriage, relocation)
In my most ‘humble’ opinion (it’s my blog); I would estimate that life changing events are the largest influence on amassing music and broadening your listening repertoire. The first life event, birth. Yours. You were dropped into this sometimes hapless existence to parents who most likely had some sort musical interest, maybe even slightly demented. This was my first exposure to anything other than my mother’s heart beat and father’s rambling through a layer of tummy. My earliest memories as wee little one were listening to Eddie Rabbitt and John Denver. This is ground zero. Next, the birth of your kids, or maybe even someone else’s kids. I have found that on two particular occasions in my life, my musical exploration grew at a larger than normal step. Having two little boys had me clamoring for new music that captured how I felt at those life waypoints. I felt older after Son #2 and immediately reconnected with my inner punk demons and the Dead Kennedys again.

Getting married is another opportunity for your musical catalog to grow. Marriage to my wife afforded me the opportunity for two particular exercises. First, we scored our entire ceremony and produced a musical CD gift for all of our guests. The activity opens you up to new emotions and ways to communicate your message. This was a ‘softer’ period in my life with a little Edwin McCain. Keep in mind this was balanced with a Staind and Frank Sinatra. So I mentioned there were two exercises from the marriage that grew our musical interests and our library. The second is that after marriage, things become ‘community.’ This includes music. My wife and I inherited each other’s music into one consolidated library. However, I strongly disclaim that the Waiting to Exhale Soundtrack is not mine. The wack music is hers.

It’s funny how moving from place to place will grow your interests and expand your library. When I moved to Los Angeles, I was in this urban, hip-hop, soul kind of vibe. But being removed from my comfortable shell in Northwest, I found myself looking to connect with something that echoed how I was feeling. Alone. The move to LA circled me back to a little of my roots. The darker, brooding, anti-establishment, introspective music I grew up on in my adolescent years. Enter Pennywise. Now I am not proud of my Creed albums but hearing them unlocked more doors to find deeper interests like Face to Face, Linkin Park, and Peepshow. Sometimes it’s not the initial find; it’s the subsequent find many links later. I call it the network effect.

2. Media outlets (internet, retail, digital music channels, napster, radio, television, film)
Traditional and non-traditional media outlets are the most common way we grew our music interest and our collection of recorded music. Who hasn’t watched MTV at some point in their life and eventually ran to Tower Records (where?) and bought the cassette or CD? I say cassette because no one watches MTV now. It is a timeline reference. I discovered Remy Shand this way. It’s the same with the radio. Back in the day, you had to call the radio station or hope the DJ said what he or she recently played so that you could some how rob your piggy bank and hit the shopping mall for that single. Now, just get on the radio station’s website and see what they just played. Films have been a source of musical discovery too. I remember watching the Collective for the first time and hearing Slackstring play Sunday Jen. I had to get that album.

Speaking of the internet, what a great way to grow your interests and music collection. Now there are legal ways of procuring music and there are those gray areas that some people, including the RIAA, have issues with. I usually end up here after I have discovered a new artist or band on some other media format like film or TV. I heard The Gaslight Anthem in a movie and booted up the old laptop and bought the ‘59 Sounds album. As far as gray area procurement goes; who hasn’t used Napster (the old one, not the new pay version), Limewire, or BitTorrent to grow your music catalog. I literally have tons of hard drive space full of music downloads. For the most part, it was one-offs I just couldn’t justify buying. I would never buy a Third Eye Blind or a Train album, but I will download their songs for free. Are the police at my door?

Whether you are talking about my great taste in music or my wife’s wack albums, the vast majority of our music has come from retail outlets. The first outlet, mail order catalog sales; Remember BMG and Columbia House? I used to setup fake aliases with my mailing address just to sign up to get 15 free CD’s with a new membership. Sign up a friend and get 6 more! I kept adding ‘friends’ and the funny thing was all of my ‘friends’ lived at the same address. Unfortunately, you were at the mercy of the selections they carried. Usually it the popular radio friendly stuff. I used the service to pick up CD’s like Mariah Carey. The ones I would NEVER buy.

Then there are the albums I would buy. The one thing I have always loved was going to the record store. So the digital revolution in music I welcomed, but I knew it wouldn’t give me that same feeling or sensory overload as wondering aimlessly through Amoeba Music or Tower Records. Sometimes it was a targeted mission like when I went to find that new 2Pac CD. Other times, I just wanted to walk around, hear the clacking sound the CD’s make as people bang them together, and discover something new. To that end, there were times a friend and I would stumble down to the Tower Records in Santa Monica. I went in just browsing through genres and admiring the cover art. I felt that good inspiring cover art would lead to good music. One of those many nights, I strolled through the blues section only to find a CD with cover art of an illustration of an overweight black dude in a wife beater. The character was spanking two females with junk in their trunk. The CD was An Ass Pocket of Whiskey by RL Burnside. The art may be a turn off to some but his version of the blues was truly innovative.

3. Network connections (friends, family, and artist similarities)
In regard to exposure to music, I think a great opportunity comes from those around you. Friends, family, enemies, they all have musical interests. On literally thousands of occasions, I have been somewhere, with somebody, and heard something that really connected with me. When I lived in Long Beach, my room mate listened to some great stuff. He had a race car, and on a long early morning drive to the race track, he threw in a CD which was so different that anything I had ever heard. He was into Metallica but this CD was not even close. It was Lifehouse. I was blown away. Another example of the network effect is the opportunity to share with others. I stumbled on to a local band, The Classic Crime, once by listening to our digital music channels. I was an instant fan. My wife and I went to one of their concerts in Seattle. At the show, we invited a young couple to come sit with us at our booth at the bar. Turns out, the guy was an A&R rep at Tooth and Nail Records. We all hit it off and chatted about music. He sent me a dozen new albums of bands he felt I would like based on our conversation at the bar. This network connection opened my eyes to Anberlin, Fair, and Jonezetta. I passed this music on to my friends and continued the network effect. I love enjoying it and dissecting it with them and hope that they, as I have, diverge in their musical interests.

I have found that this entry on our blog was pretty difficult to curtail and keep to my 1000 word maximum. There was just too much to share here on how we expanded our music catalog and or interests. Each one of the items above could be an entry. So just like how our musical interests have expanded exponentially over the years, this entry grew at an alarming rate. But it to me it was important to convey the grow theorem behind our library. Once again, you can tell a lot about people by taking a peak through the window at their musical catalog. It is truly in snap shot of their souls.

Next up: (3) Where to go to find more