This Could Be the Start of Something Big

A couple weeks ago I read an memoir of a young widower, Rob Sheffield called Love Is A Mixed Tape. At the beginning of each chapter, there's a mix tape track listing, which upon reading, immediately rejuvenated my sometimes scary obsession with music which seems to have been somewhat dormant over the past several years. I had to read each mix tape before I could even being to read the rest of the book.

I loved reading of someone else's obsession with a single song... it makes me feel so normal. Sheffield's first mix tape was the Beatles' "Hey Jude" that he recorded in a continuous loop on each side of the tape. After polling a few guys I know, it's not uncommon for middle school aged boys to make mix tapes of a single song. Over the past year or so, I have been obsessed with Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind", the Stars covering the Smiths' "This Charming Man," and "Twilight Creeps" by Crooked Fingers. And "Razzle Dazzle Rose" by Camera Obscura was my summer anthem. I haven't gone as far as putting any of these songs on a continuous loop on a mix tape, but I am sure that my Ipod has recorded at least 50 plays of that Camera Obscura song alone.

Saturday, I went to the Father and Son warehouse sale with my friends Skip and Germ who suggested that I start writing about my obsession with music and my radio shows. So here I am. I am scared. I am scared of putting myself "out there" and I am scared of writing. I have always felt that finding words and putting them together coherently is not my strength. But I guess this is a good forum to experiment in, right?

But obsessing over music is something that I am good at... really good. Sometimes when I hear a snippet of a song in a TV commercial, I'll jump up and go try to find it in my collection so that I can hear it unadulterated. (The search for the Of Montreal song in the Outback commercial nearly drove me INSANE.) I can be sitting in a restaurant and sometimes I have to actively fight the desire to zone in on the background music playing just so that I can maintain table conversation. Listening to barely audible restaurant music can be distracting... but depending on the company, listening to the restaurant music may not necessarily be bad. AND if you end up finding out that a restaurant is playing your favorite Bobby Darin song, it makes the food taste better.

So here I am. Writing about music. Writing about me. Let's see how this goes.