How To Find New Music

A personal essay, I guess?

I grew up in a house of music. My dad kept his deep stock of sixties and seventies rock in our living room, and thumbing through his collection of records was my earliest aural education. Early favorites were Wings’ Band on the Run, Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Steely Dan’s Katy Lied, and Van Morrison’s Moondance - they provided a roadmap to a life of music connoisseurship.

As I got older, I developed my own taste in music, owing to my older brother’s influence, no doubt. He was a Wu-Tang Clan lover and introduced me to groups like The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest, which led me into the arms of De La Soul. Jazz-inflected hip-hop and neo-soul (D’Angelo, anyone?) provided the sonic backdrop to my teenage years.

De La Soul led me deeper into hip-hop and pre-dated my short-lived moment as a rapper. MC Orrin Hatch was my nom de plume - not after the Senator from Utah, mind you, but an homage to the pet rooster in Being John Malkovich. Along with a few friends, we recorded an album under the name Ninja Law Firm. But I digress…

College was boom times for music discovery. With the advent of Napster came immediate access to EVERYTHING, which meant I no longer had to shoplift albums from Blockbuster Music. We were downloading whole albums in minutes, burning CD’s, and exchanging tunes with the force and vigor of stockbrokers on the trading floor of Wall Street. These years were soundtracked by bands like Whiskeytown, Uncle Tupelo, Spoon, Drive-By Truckers, Lucero, Wilco, The Jayhawks, and The Shins.

My brother and I went to the same college, and one of his fraternity brothers was a guiding light in those years. He was a music lover of a different stripe - the kind of guy who might work in a record store and scoff at your shitty taste. He just seemed to be on whatever was new or next and was generous with his knowledge. He went on to become the Editor in Chief of Filter.

I miss those days of youth, shaping your taste with vast amounts of time to dedicate to staying in the know. Now I’m a dad with a full-time job (a few, really), but I’m no less hungry to stay up on what is new and exciting in many arenas - not least of all music. My capacity for input and learning hasn’t changed. I love to know what’s new or what deep cut I’ve been missing - not only with music but with movies, books, art - with all culture! I don’t have a guy living across the hall to feed me recommendations anymore, so I’ve got to find them myself.

When I hear a song I love that I’ve never heard before it’s like ascending to the astral plane. If a song hits me, I can’t concentrate. I have to commune with it, turn it up, play it back, and learn more about it. Here are the ways I discover new music: