Don't Funk with My Groove

I decided to stop being afraid of the overwhelm that tidal-waves over me when I have, in the past, skimmed music blogs. I mean, thoughtful, dig-it-up-for-you, Soundcloud-riddled music blogs run by people infinitely more obsessed and attuned than me who have time to cull information and put it out there for your work-avoiding consumption. Initially on this morning's decision, I felt vanquished at the seemingly inestimable number of these blogs that float in the tubes. One look at Hype Machine's resources had me flinching desperately like I used to when I'd walk through a bookstore and dared not pull a volume off a shelf because then I'd want to pull, look at, and buy them all. Remember those days?

Information on the internet is more manageable, right? No. With my index finger, I can slack-jawed stroll--scroll-- across hundreds, thousands, of virtual Joseph-Beth Booksellers bookshelves. Or record store bins, as it were.

I like Earmilk because they cover a swath of genres (and organize said genres) and simply talk about the music (not themselves or their personas). No gossip. I can feed some singer-songwriter urges as much as I can identify fresh house to run to. And--oh, alright: it was the daily "chill" track that drew me in.

I did have to unlike Earmilk on FB not long after I first discovered it about six or seven months ago. The site would post a blinding parade of links that, when viewed on a Blackberry, would nearly prod me into one of these maybe-migraines I sometimes get. Y'all don't need to link to every post on the blog, do you? How about a couple a day as, you know, a sort of end cap to get me down into the aisle?

But even though I am facing the slow-dawning realization over the past few days that I spend a good portion of each day scrolling through an unheavenly host of gooey brain discharge, this, at least, has a purpose. The satisfaction of discovery. The adrenaline rush of identification. Oh yeah, and the pure pleasure of...listening. Hearing.

Looking at a constant stream of check-ins and traffic/CTA gripes does not bring me pleasure, ultimately, nor have any real or palatable purpose. It's the short-term rush of knowing. Of occupying, even owning, the moment. Great. I know something in this moment. I am not alone with my own thoughts (or discovery or identification or pleasure) in this moment.

I think that Stupor Bowl XXXIVIVIX the other night nearly pushed me over the edge.

But I will say that the discovery-to-hearing trajectory, and the ineffable connection of shared humor, politics, emotion, discovery, identification and pleasure that interacting with the virtual world (looking at you, Twitter. I know, after I huffily professed to not get you)--all of these will keep me nimbly on the edge, I think. And that edge is balancing discovery and decisiveness.



I'm not sure about their name, though. It's a bit...poetry-slamish. There is something likeably Jill Scott-ish about them, too. But this groove --it's worth the search anxiety.