Some things never change

I don't remember when I discovered music as an escape. I know by the time I was 10, I was already disappearing into my bedroom for hours at a time, listening to hand-me-down records, discarded from my aunt (the beatles, the lovin' spoonful) or retired from the jukebox in the tavern where my mom tended bar. I had a box of 45's (and still do) that contained gems collected by my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt. Someone bought me the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack when that was the big thing. My grandpa bought me an Andy Gibb album. My first record, one that I chose myself, was Blondie's 'Parallel Lines.' The first album I bought with my own money, as much as money was my own at age 12, was Flock of Seagulls (I still think "Standing in the Doorway" is an awesome song).

I haven't felt very sociable lately. That's not exactly it. I just haven't felt very connected lately. When I feel disconnected, I tend to disconnect from my usual social outlets, both "real" and "virtual", which--surprise, surprise--makes me feel that much more out of touch.

But this time, my usual escape--music--does include a slight social aspect. It started with last.fm, where I started cataloging all my records, concerts. I discovered a lot of fantastic stuff there, mostly music that I had somehow missed along the way (like early 80's band Magazine). No socializing (for me) there, but it was almost (kind of sort of...okay, maybe not really) the same effect as going alone to a concert and being surrounded by people who are just as much into some weird band as you are.

Now it's Blip.fm. I like its current limitations. It's Twitter-esque in its mode of communication, although the tweets--blips!--contain songs, sometimes nothing more, sometimes a message, sometimes a reply. I hear songs that I haven't heard in years (someone played the Blow Monkeys the other day, yanking me to some weird spot in my own distant past--no I was never a Blow Monkeys fan, but "Digging Your Scene" definitely has a particular time flavor), songs that are new, songs from other parts of the world that I have little chance of hearing in my own cultural wasteland. I send a song out into the world and sometimes someone hears it. It's like being alone and not being alone at the same time. Kind of comforting, kind of weird. Yeah. Music, the wonder drug, or something like that.

Speaking of music that takes me to a certain time and space, this one takes me back to an apartment on Hudson Street when, looking back, everything was still ahead of me. It makes me happy and sad and wistful and hopeful all at the same time: