Welcome to the premier article of my new blog series. A chance for me to dive into the one area that I feel equipped to talk about at length; music. Since I’m stuck at home while a pandemic is going on, it seems as if there has never been a better time to start a blog.
But wait, you’re probably wondering “who are you and what makes you think it’s worth me getting emails about it on a weekly basis?” Both very good questions. As for the first, I am Andrew Dziengel and I’d like to think of myself as a music fan. Almost every moment of free time I have is dedicated to music: listening to it, discovering new artists, and boring my friends with lengthy debates on music theory. The second, I don’t really have a good answer. Maybe this blog will help you discover your new favorite artist, or have you revisit an old one you loved but had forgotten about. What I hope you get from this blog is the ignition you need to think about music. I want you to go down the rabbit hole of a particular genre or era of music. I want to be your guide as you tour the world of pop music in the last century.
It’s hard to decide what to write about in your first blog entry so I’ll talk a little bit about myself and sort of my history with music. I wouldn’t say I was that much into music as a child. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed music but it wasn’t something I would think about too often. Basically would listen to whatever the radio was playing and every once in awhile purchase a CD at the closest Sam Goody (First CD I purchased was Santanna’s “Supernatural” so I had good taste at a very young age).
It wasn’t until 2002 that ignited a change in me. I was watching SNL because Jack Black was the host and while I watched the episode hoping to see Tenacious D perform some tunes, it was the ACTUAL music guests that blew me away. It was a band I had never heard about before called the Strokes. They performed the single from their new album Is This It called “Last Nite” and quite frankly I was never the same. From that opening guitar (at the time didn’t realize how much it was like the beginning of Tom Petty and Heartbreakers “American Girl”) I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. These guys were cool! Their clothes were cool, their hair was cool, but most importantly their music was cool. They looked like they couldn’t care less about being there. It was as if they just happened to be walking by the stage and thought why not just play a song quick? This wasn’t the same rock and roll I would hear over and over on the local radio stations. This wasn’t overproduced same old same old. This was rock with hooks for days but done in less than four minutes. After that night I had to find out as much as I could about this band. Reading any magazine that would just mention them and asking people in my small town if they heard of them. However, since they weren’t played on the local radio, I was all alone with my fandom and in a way that was fine. That meant this music was mine.
After that I was into the “Meet Me in the Bathroom” rock bands and really got into buying CDs when I had a regular income in 2004, which happened at just the right time too because that summer the Strokes “Room on Fire,” Franz Ferdinand’s self-titled, The Killers “Hot Fuss”, and Modest Mouse’s “Good News for People Who Love Bad News” came out and created my foundation of what “my music” came to be. (Of course I was also really into the emo wave coming out at that time but that’s another article for another time)
College, though, is when I really became a music connoisseur discovering the real history of rock music. All of a sudden I was flooded with the music that shaped everything to come; Velvet Underground, Little Richard, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Holly and so much more. Since then I’ve been on the path to discovery. I wanted to know as much about music as anyone. I wanted to be able to recite artist x was inspired by artist y with a mix of artist z type of knowledge. Of course, as what usually comes with getting older and wiser, I realized that that it is simply impossible to know everything. So instead I just slowly chip away at artists’ work I love, new artists coming out today, and artists that I may have missed from history. Which leads us to this project. I want to get to know music again and forcing myself to write about it publicly is just the type of public shaming I need to go deeper than “oh I like this song because it sounds good.” I want to share my discoveries with you. Is it possible people may not like it? Absolutely. But everything every made is ‘not liked’ but at least one person. And to quote a movie I hate “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” I will be your uncool friend on this substack. If you’re interested in going on this journey or want to share in my public humiliation of sharing too much please hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss a thing.
I’m hoping this ends up being a once a week thing, but I make no promises. As for what to expect, I plan to do all sorts of different types of posts. Explore a genre I’m unfamiliar with, go through an artists discovery, or a real analysis of a classic album. I also hope to help establish a new canon of classic albums beginning in the late 90’s to 2015. What were the “Rumors,” “Revolver,”
and “Tapestry” of the past two decades? Also, I plan to make some quick recommendations of music to check out sprinkled throughout my posts. So let’s pretend we’re in the 2000s again and get excited about music blogs!
Andrew “Futuredizzy”
In the meantime, tell your friends!