another chapter of best friends

I spent some well deserved healthy time with a few of my closest friends this weekend. We have a long history and I can always count on them for guidance, grounding, and soul healing. There once was a time when I'd get lost in the music while also getting lost in the drink. Over time I've changed a few things and although my glass has been empty for nearly two years, my relationship with the music is as impressionable today as it was the day I first opened each album and carefully pulled it from the sleeve. With years of memoirs behind us both, I'd go as far to say that much of what I found in those packages of paper and vinyl so many years ago attributed to much of the man I've become.

The ones pictured are just a sampling of the records that my turntable greeted during the past few days. Each one is like a diary excerpt to me and the reunion is always an inviting welcome.

My weekend diary included the following pages:

• ELO, Eldorado
• Bob Segar and the Silver Bullet Band, Night Moves
• Steeley Day, Katy Lied
• Bruce Springsteen, The River
• The Pretenders, II
• Steve Miller Band, The Joker
• Elton John, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
• Paul McCarney and Wings, Red Rose Speedway
• Illinois Speed Press, Duet
• Rod Stewart, Never a Dull Moment
• Bachman Turner Overdrive, Four Wheel Drive
• Bad Company, Bad Company
• Greg Allman Band, Playin' Up a Storm
• …and several others.

I'm a lucky man with a mess of best friends. Play on.

the new age of music... not new age music.

A Few Tunes, ©2011 gary garbett.com

I've spent hours of my life in rooms and buildings housing some of the finest music I've ever heard. I'm certain that I've passed some landmark gems over the years, but I've also discovered some of the most inspiring, rebellious, melodic, experimental, thought provoking, body shaking, emotional, poetic, somber, and angst-ridden collections of sound by walking my index and middle finger, one in front of the other, through an endless landscape of spines. Record stores. I so miss them. I miss the physicalness of holding a record, absorbing the artwork, and reading the text. That was the introduction of a friendship, sort of the getting to know you period before committing to anything further. Without it, I'd have missed out on some of the greatest and inspiring friendships of my life.

I made a pact with myself years ago. I swore off ever becoming "that guy". You know him. That guy. The one who complains about the world's woes and how it just ain't what it use to be. Time has a distinct way of changing everything. Not necessarily for the good or the bad, but simply for the sake of forward advancement. Life is simply like that. Hell, we're like that. The experience of spending hours browsing and shopping in a record store, like movie and bookstores, is rapidly reshaping. Without being that guy, it just ain't what it once was.

With all of this said, Robert Plant's Band of Joy is quite an impressive album. Apparently I bought Plant’s newest release as a digital download from Amazon on Black Friday weekend last November. After stumbling across the digital file yesterday on my laptop, I gave it a first listen …on Valentine's Day eve, nearly three months since making the initial purchase. I rest my case and once again, "if I can't hold it, I must not own it" comes to mind. Now I’m wondering what else I’ve not listened to, watched, or read.