The snow’s coming down
I’m watching it fall
Lots of people around
Baby please come home
I love The Limiñanas. I mean, I loooo-oooove them. This French garage rock duo manages to keep their sound fresh yet rooted in classic psychedelic sound, with a nod toward groups like The Beach Boys, Velvet Underground, and a host of crunchy psychedelic songsters from the early 1960s. (Think: 13th Floor Elevators, Them, and The Bad Seeds.)
There’s an amazing live performance of The Limiñanas on the oldest and most awesome continuous free-form radio station in the U.S., WFMU, who has graciously posted for listening (or download) the whole thing on the award-winning Free Music Archive (FMA). The entire Evan Funk Davies Show set is here: The Limiñanas on WFMU in 2011. WFMU is my favorite radio station of all time ever, and the Free Music Archive has been a second home for me in the last three years. (Here’s my FMA user page: Bluebird Blvd. loves the FMA.
One of the best albums I purchased last year was The Limiñanas “I’ve Got Trouble in Mind / Rare Stuff 2009-2014.” The Husband loved it, and he has notoriously objected to my musical tastes with a loud, clear voice in the not-so-distant past.
This, of course, was before I started listening to 20+ hours of music a week for our original feature the 5-Minute Dance Party on Bluebird Blvd., a practice for which I am forever grateful because it got me out of a music rut. Listening to new music trains my ear to like new things, and who doesn’t want to like new things?
There’s an old ruse that in your late 20s you lose the ability to listen to new music without prejudice because you are no longer being exposed to new music constantly, the way you were in high school and college. By American standards, you’re also no longer the target listening market, but that’s a discussion for another day.
Here’s my advice for what it’s worth: Keep listening. Just keep listening to new things and old things from all over the world and in many genres and you’ll begin hearing sound again like it was the first time you ever listened to the radio as a teenager and had the feeling that the music on the air was just for you, you, you.
Merry Christmas, dearest readers. Lots of love to you on this most silent night.
Seasons greetings to you too Bluey! 😀
Loving your ‘keep listening’ advice! The musical tastes man of the house are still trapped in his late teens/early twenties, he’s not interested in anything new and it drives me mad! Luckily, he’s outnumbered by the boys and I and our loudly playing iThings blasting whatever has attracted out attention this week. 😀
Merry Christmas Ms. Bluebird and Husband! I hope you had a wonderful one and a shiny New Year to you too!
I am old, well, as old as I’m letting myself be, and I have been practising listening to new stuff lately. Some I loathe, some I’m intrigued by, some I outright adore! I have a nephew who visited for Christmas who jams constantly in that abandoned way only young men and women have, and I was exposed to new sounds.
I’ve recently rediscovered the Beatles on streaming too and that has been eye opening. Some of the sappy ones I am not sure I like anymore and the weird ones totally mesmerize me.
Lovely post about music and you’re wise m’dear and thank you for reminding us to “listen” with abandon.
<3
Diane