a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by cW
cW  ·  3429 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Long Radio Silence -- music by January Zero

Thank you so much, my friend! For listening and enjoying, but also for picking up a copy. I hope that the tunes will continue to unfold and reveal themselves over time. That's my favorite thing that happens with music, anyhow. Glad to know you dig the Borrowed Lives. It's the oldest tune on there, and in some ways, the simplest, and I have often wondered if it felt at home on the recording. Another friend found it the least interesting track, so I'm glad to have your point of view in opposition to that.

Reconciled to Terry Gross, eh? Can't wait to tell N! She retains her bristling response to the celebrated interview-trix. I think she regards Ms. Gross's intuition as more likely to lead her to all the interviewee's sorest spots, where the Achilles heels and most lurid details hide. Surely, that too is a worthy tool for the interviewer, but one which creates an opposite emotional reaction, at least in N. I hope to hear some of the moments you are discussing, and to balance out my perhaps jaundiced perspective with them, as I remain ambivalent about her. She's no Barbara Walters or anything, i.e., doesn't every time go with the kneejerk lunge for the tear-jerk jugular, but I have sometimes found her style unnecessarily confrontational, incendiary even. She is not the anti-Charlie Rose, but approaches.

Mostly though, I'm just delighted to be returned to our first conversation. I do remember vaguely that we discussed her ages ago, and I'm delighted we're still in conversation, about Ms. Gross among ever so many other things!

Cheers, and again, thanks!





mk  ·  3428 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I hope that the tunes will continue to unfold and reveal themselves over time.

They have. Really, I am glad this baby was delivered.

Like flagamuffin, I found it to be superb music to cook by, especially on a November evening. I am not sure how you are making music that feels so Michigan in a warmer clime.

To be perfectly honest, I am not easily won over by music of this genre. Often, I find indie folk artists too prone to affectation, their music too thick, and their lyrics predictable. Heretical as it may be, I even consider Cohen to be guilty at times. I am a tough and irrational customer. The Long Radio Silence threads the needle of my folk indie tastes. This is honest music, and honest music has wings.

Tell N that I am sorry, but that she will have to suffer me making a case for Gross.