Ass Sniffers and Record Collectors: Sound Hounds are the purest of breeds
Why is it that when dogs first greet each other that they stick their noses right up the other dog’s ass and take a good whiff? I have two dogs. They are always doing this.
We’re out in the park playing fetch or taking a walk and we run into another dog. Like a fucking thin, red laser beam, my dogs zero in on the other dog’s asshole. This is the gut reaction, the centuries old knee-jerk response…dogs are natural born shit sniffers.
Yeah, they could smell the other dog’s face, they could sniff the other dog’s coat, but to really find out what that other dog is all about, to really get a feel for how they roll, they’ve got to get a good snort of that other dog’s shitter.
Record collectors are natural born shit sniffers, too.
That’s right. We ain’t no dogs, but we are shit sniffers of a high order…evolved, upright, thumbs. I’ll admit it, I’ve sniffed a lot of shit in my days, and I bet you have, too. We can’t help it either; it’s just what we do.
Record collectors. Music lovers. Sound hounds. When we meet people, there is only one way to find out what they are all about and that is to stick our noses as far up the other person’s record collection as possible. Case in point…
Take my new friend, George. George and I just met recently. I had heard about George through a friend. George has worked in the record / radio industry for a number of years. From what I was told, George knows his music (confirmed). So, when we were introducing ourselves I passed him a link to my record collection that I have stored in an online doc.
What better way for George to know where I am coming from than to have virtual finger flip through my collection. I am my collection. It says a lot about me. I am happy if George, or anyone else, makes their first impression of me based on it. Shit, I have been curating that now for close to twenty-years. As I tell my wife: “sorry baby, but my first love and longest lasting relationship has been with my music”. Oh yeah, she loves that one.
After he had a look through my list, George said something that made me smile. He said when visiting some one’s home for the first time, he heads straight for their record collection (like a thin, red laser beam). I laughed because I do exactly the same thing. Other people don’t want you looking through their fridge, they don’t want you pawing through their underwear drawer, but they certainly don’t mind if you flip their records.
(As George rightly pointed out…not many people have records anymore. Now we have to spin their CD rack, or worse, scroll through their iTunes)
George had good things to say about my collection (mustard officially passed). One thing he did notice was the “total lack of any punk”. Good eye, George…I am not a punk fan. He was cool with that (personal taste), but what he could not tolerate was me having no Clash records in my collection at all.
Before I go any further, let me say that my preconceived notions about the Clash and their music was completely misguided. I disobeyed a cardinal rule of one my heroes, Boo Diddley: You can’t judge a book by looking at it’s cover.
I am a blues man. Punk just never resonated with me. As far as I knew, the Clash was punk. I didn’t even take the time to validate that judgement. Fuck it, I have Otis Rush and Charley Patton…who needs the Clash.
I stand corrected. There is definitely room in my predominantly 12 bar collection for the Clash.
After getting berated by George for my Clash oversight, I went head first into “London Calling“. Yes there is punk in there, but there is so, so much more, too. There’s R&B, rock, Bo Diddley’s beat, jazzy shit, ska…you name it, its in there. There are rockers, slow ones, aggressive ones and flat out ball-busters. The best thing about it is that it sounds different and not contrived.
The band put themselves and their scene into the sound and what came out was a true and honest representation of who they were at that point in time. Like all true classics, that point in time has the legs to live on forever.
As always, I was interested in the story behind the album. I watched the docco on the making of it: “The Last Testament”. I was hooked after that. I LOVE the back story. It adds so much depth and richness to the listening experience. Have you seen it? If not, have a go…it is well worth it.
So, thanks to George’s sniffing around my record collection, I am now knee deep in learning about the Clash…and a better man for it. Hopefully I get a change to flip through George’s collection when we meet. Who knows, I may be able to turn him on to something that I think he is missing in his collection…?
We shit sniffers need to stick together.
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If you haven’t looked at my collection before, please do so. I call it Judd’s Juke Joint (click that link). I’m always updating it. You can even subscribe to it and get emails on when I feed the dragon and buy new sounds. There are a few tabs at the bottom of it: CDs & Downloads, Vinyl, DVDs and “The Honour Roll”. Have a look at all of them.
You’ll find a note atop Judd’s Juke Joint. It reads: I do not believe in conventional genres. Genres are used to sell records. I believe in music that is deeply engraved in the background of the music makers; all of of whom are connected by a shared experience that links them inextricably; music with a message and a literal truth. Everything else is a product of the record labels.
Damn straight.
Special note on Judd’s Juke Joint: While living in Sydney, Australia, my collection grew not just in numbers but in sheer quality. I owe most all of that to my good mate, Nev…The Kingfish. I’ve written about Nev many times on The 6149. Nev is the owner and resident keeper of the independent record store chain in Sydney Australia. He taught me more about the blues than I ever could have learned on my own.
Six days of the week you can find him hanging at his shop, Mojo Records, bestowing bits of blues wisdom on bow-down tracks and albums that are ball-tearer’s. Stop in and tell him Judd sent you…
Roust on, Kingfish. Long live “Nev’s Nuggets”!
