On Interchangeability

Now that I've sweet-talked my office's I.T. guy, Dale, into installing contraband (read: Adobe Flash player) on my work computer, I make it through the workdays a little easier with the soothing sounds of Pandora. This has revolutionized my daytime life, as you can imagine, starkly contrasting with what I've been listening to every day for the past year-and-a-half, which is my radio stations' Top 40, mainstream rock, or conservative news/talk-- respectively-- depending on the day. During a good moment I can pick from Matchbox 20 (on the Top 40) or the Rolling Stones (on the rock station) at any given time. On a bad day it's possible to roast on a spit of three concurrent flames torture (on the three-station cluster, I've heard us play a Ke$ha/ Nickleback/ Rush Limbaugh combo; not good; not good at all).

But these days I find myself energized by listening to music I actually like, since Pandora requires no download (not allowed-- even Dale has his limits; The Man rules all in Corporate Hell). Today it's the Black Crowes. And on this Crowes station I come across a live album of a show they did with Jimmy Page (Live at the Greek) and get so lost in the jam that I briefly retreat on a mind adventure about a tribute band that covers only this album, a band which I would call ZoCrowes. This band was increasingly appealing to me as I developed an expanding setlist of Black Crowes and Led Zeppelin covers (because, inside, I am a 45-year-old man). I became increasingly convinced that this was a band I would have to start. And front, since both Chris Robinson and Robert Plant look like chicks anyway.

So anyway, naturally, it wasn't long before the first epic guitar solo and I was mortified when I couldn't immediately determine if it was Rich or Jimmy. Eek-- had my ear for stylistic nuance that I had so relied on when writing about music deafened THIS severely? I knew it was bad, but come on. I can't pick out a Jimmy Page guitar solo? What kind of music writer am I?

It was just then that the riff split into a harmony, and I realized that they had been playing in a tone-matched, decidedly-undetectable unison. A-ha.

After an epic riff-off and my resulting transcendence to a new state of mind, the jam was complete and I was lulled back into complacency by the Crowes classic "Thorn in My Pride," the warm, sexy, feel-good jam with its chill subtlety that even Page probably couldn't nail, and it set in that greatness is all relative. There is no greatest guitarist; there is no best type of music and no good (or bad) type of person. You don't even have a favorite song. There is no way you can truly love "Wish You Were Here" and "Communication Breakdown" the same amount, because you are two completely different people in the moments when you need to hear those songs the most. Everything is what we make it; every moment is heaven and hell and chaos and zen all in one unbroken wholeness.

Continue to live your life from jam to jam; enjoy every solo and every harmony and do your best to just stop asking yourself questions about it already.

Peace and love,

Meg