{"id":14147,"date":"2015-04-25T09:37:52","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T13:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=14147"},"modified":"2015-04-25T10:11:52","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T14:11:52","slug":"your-music-has-gone-to-a-better-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2015\/04\/25\/your-music-has-gone-to-a-better-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Your music has gone to a better place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many once-maniacal music collectors of my age, I still have a dozen feet of vinyl that hangs out in an out-of-the-way part of the house mostly ignored, like an old dog that can’t be troubled to move around much anymore.<\/p>\n

I imagine that many such collections just disappear one day; I’d come home and my wife, trying to be kind, would say that my music hadn’t died, it had just gone to live on a nice farm upstate.<\/p>\n

\"front\"<\/a>

“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” a heinous but mind-altering composition.<\/p><\/div>\n

NCPR seems to be that farm upstate, because every so often boxes of old vinyl LPs just turn up here. They are of every different breed from classical to comedy to rock to folk to jazz. And the various music hosts comb them over, looking for lost purebreds among the many mutts.<\/p>\n

Radio Bob was spinning discs from one such adoption yesterday in the mini-studio next to my office. Usually I ignore the hubbub, but I suddenly found myself up out of my chair, looking over his shoulder while “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly twisted the air. Now this is a 17-minute audio clich\u00e9–to modern ears a truly heinous bit of composition, overblown and self-indulgent. And yet I was instantly transported to a day in 1968 when I ran across a friend peeling the plastic off the just-released LP cover, a twelve by twelve square of riotous color, immense hair, and chubby Art Nouveau lettering. He was heading toward the library at (then) Potsdam State, where they had listening carrels decked out with pretty good turntables and a library necessity, headphones.<\/p>\n

My own home audio gear consisted of a fiberboard-encased portable record changer made by Montgomery Ward, with tinny speakers latched to it by buckles and hinges. Nothing in my 15 years had prepared me for this–Psychedelic. Rock. On. Headphones.<\/p>\n

I’ve never really been the same since. Clearly, my day’s work was going to be put on hold while I relived a time in my life when there was nothing more important than what music you bought and played, what bands you followed, what concerts you hitch-hiked to attend, what posters were on the bedroom wall.<\/p>\n

No music that came after those teen-aged years has had such life-changing consequences. And though the music itself is not so great looked at through the perspective of nearly half a century, I retain the belief that music is a mind-altering substance. It should change your life. It’s magical and important; it should be a really big deal.<\/p>\n

Is there a particular piece of music that first\u00a0blew your mind and rocked your world? Say what and when and why in a comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many once-maniacal music collectors of my age, I still have a dozen feet of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6128],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14147"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14152,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14147\/revisions\/14152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}