There is something 'unassailably cool' (thx Nick) about spending a weekend with someone who loves music, or for that matter anything, as much as you do. There is one person I know who's appetite for music is as voracious as mine. We had a grand ol' time.
Rick I met in '93, an especially difficult time when I had just dropped out of college. It was the first time I had really ever failed at anything big in my life. I was living in Burke, VA and was still young enough to be staying with my mother. That situation wasn't long for change itself and, after growing up in Richmond, I was quickly out the door without knowing much of anything or anyone in northern VA. I met Rick via of all things a christian radio program that played metal music late every Friday. I distinctly remember the first time we sat in my car listening to Rick extol to me the genius of secular doom metal band, Paradise Lost. At the time, our mutual christian upbringings made this exchange akin to unfurling some forbidden black magic scroll in a dimly lit cavern, even though now it of course is merely Paradise Lost.
This was also the first time I saw Rick's zeal for music fully on display. Rick sat in my '88 burgundy Ford Escort convulsing like a madman. His right hand alternated between playing an awkward air guitar in my passenger seat in one second and the next, pointing it toward my center console as if to direct Icon's musical action in time with the arrangement. His countenance similarly schitzophenically shifted from a look of intellectual challenge, an appropriate doom-metal scowl and the sheer bliss of his cathartic response. I looked on bemused, a bit intimidated but also excited to have met someone who like me 'got it' regarding the depth to be had within the joys of music but also, unlike me, had obviously no fear about losing himself in it. Either Rick was comfortable with me as a friend already or this dude just didn't give a fuck.
Fast forward 16 years - Rick still doesn't give a fuck. Today we don't listen to much Paradise Lost, but that air guitar has remained a constant as our tastes have evolved and we share our latest finding with one another. We also still have orgasmically great conversations mostly about post-punk, indie-pop and to the degree it effects the first two, classic rock. We both listen between the lines observing within ourselves our responses and wonder how art magically creates that spark of inspiration. We listen with subjective ears but also objectively study pop music's past always curious to better understand that great tapestry of sound that has dominated the last 40 or so years.
My swath is wider than Rick's but his is far deeper. When he is unearthing scores of obscure '81 post-punk 45s, I have soon-to-be purchased Fela Kuti, Roxy Music, Eluvium, PJ Harvey & Deathspell Omega discs in the same fist.
On Sunday, Rick told me this craving of his had reached critical mass and we had track down all classic period albums of Slayer's back catalog. After hitting up Plan 9 for the 3rd time that weekend there was only one absentee and so the better part of that afternoon was spent scouring Richmond for South of Heaven, talking and playing music. We talked a lot about 'plugging in holes', those blessed things that remind you there is still so much to discover musically and you'll never have it all. I plugged in some holes myself. I bought or rebought Look Sharp!, This Year's Model, Stories From the City Stories From the Sea, Abba Gold, Camera Obscura's My Maudlin Career, Doom's Born Like This, Santogold, Roxy's For Your Pleasure, Bat For Lashes' Two Suns, Disappointed By Candy and played Made Out of Babies in the car. We saw the Watchman at the Byrd, Hostel 1 & 2 at my apartment, ate at several distinctly Richmond resturants & watering holes (Millie's, Richbrau, The Halligan, Joe's Inn) and visited a few historic sites.
Rick is much cooler than I am. He has a DJ night in DC that has garnered national attention, he interviews the who's who of Pitchfork-approved indie visionaries, pals around with far more hipsters and, as I am limited to a paltry 1200 cds, has far more music. However, even he joked how once his greatest fear was that he'd run out of discovery, learn everything there was to know that interested him and be left in this druggery of having arrived at his desired position of expertise. Thankfully, art boasts its greatest asset which is the more you learn the more you realized you'll never know.
