For the last several months, the very first thing I do when I get to work every morning has been to read the fantastically hilarious webcomic “
Questionable Content.” The cast consists primarily of 20-somethings who live in a smallish, but stylish town in New England. (If you want to read it, start from the first comic and go forward so you get to know the characters)
The main characters are living the somewhat stereotypical lives of hip, snarky young people who have been out of college for a couple of years, but are still a few years away from settling down. These aimless quartus-centenarians (look it up) include a partially reformed goth, a severe obsessive compulsive who counts things for a living (grains of sand, hairs on a man’s back, etc…), an emotionally crippled southern belle whose accent only surfaces when she’s been drinking, and the adorably inept indie boy who finds himself in a group of friends with far too much estrogen.
Supporting characters include a dominatrix mother, pot-smoking parents, government agents, a drunken redneck romance novelist, the lesbian head librarian at an all girl college, a mortician, and more than one sentient, mischievous robot.
Basically, they are the kind of people (and robots) I would love to hang out with.
Music is a very big part of these characters’ lives. Several of them are in a band that has yet to play in public, and much of their banter involves how hard they would face-punch various bands/musicians who they find too emo/pathetic/ridiculous. Music is a big part of the characters’ lives because it is a very big part of the author/artist’s life.
Jeph Jacques, the talent behind the comic, often includes music suggestions both in his newsposts at the bottom of each strip, as well as in the
comic itself. Because I enjoyed Jeph’s sense of humor so much, I thought I had better give his music tastes a try.
I have always loved music. Good music has always reached me on a very meaningful level and I have attached certain songs or artists to most memorable experiences in my life.
Simon & Garfunkle and the Rolling Stones remind me of mountain biking and canyoneering road trips down south with my Dad. These days I can’t drive more than an hour or so without listening to either or both of the above.
I got a Savage Garden album when I was an angsty teen and first listened to it on a vacation to my cousins’ house in Idaho. To this day when I hear any of those songs I can almost smell their old house.
Eve 6’s ‘Horrorscope’ was the album I listened to every Friday when I would drive home from school to stay at my parents’ place for the weekend and hang out with old friends. That album is still the ultimate “get pumped for the weekend” album.
I have dozens more examples, but I had best be moving on…
Some musical pieces I can’t listen to all the way through without feeling so emotionally naked that I sob uncontrollably.
Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude as performed by Yo-Yo-Ma and “Praan,” composed by Gary Schyman and sung by Palbasha Siddique are two of the most powerful works that immediately come to mind. (You know the latter of those two as the haunting soundtrack to Matt Harding’s 2008 “
Where the Hell is Matt” video).
I have always loved music, but until I began heeding Mr. Jacques’ suggestions, the scope of my musical experience was quite limited. I discovered music from commercials, TV shows and movies (most notably Zach Braff’s selections from Scrubs and Garden State), good – though rare – tracks on the radio, and sometimes from my hippie brothers.
Jeph introduced me to Indie Music: rock, folk, choral, instrumental, metal, poppy, hip-hoppy, and other various amazing audio accompaniments to life.
In the last month or so I have accumulated more music than I had in the last 5 years put together and, in a bigger departure from what had become my day-to-day routine, I have actually listened to all of it!
I am enjoying music in styles that I rarely if ever listened to in the past. Hip-hop and metal, for example; the shitty examples of these styles they play on the radio have never appealed to me at all, but I am loving a lot of this stuff by bands and artists I had never heard of before.
I would like to publicly thank Jeph Jacques, and several others since him (you know who you are) for opening me up to a whole new world of music appreciation. I am truly grateful for my guides on this quest of aural satisfaction.
Stuff you must listen to, especially if you haven’t heard of them before:
M83,
The Flaming Lips,
Band of Horses,
Royksopp,
Fever Ray,
Krallice,
She and Him,
Kings of Leon (a bit more mainstream, but fantastic nevertheless),
The Field,
Bon Iver(playing the SLC Twilight Concert Series for FREE on July 9),
M. Ward,
Gogol Bordello,
The Polyphonic Spree (I dare you to listen to their track “Section 9” and not grin like an idiot),
St. Vincent…. And so many more!
Do yourself a favor. Find something new, crank it up, sit back and relax with your pipe and a nice glass of
bourbon (or whatever mode of relaxation you prefer) and let yourself become lost in the music.
