Saturday, January 05, 2013

3 Chords & the Truth: The velvet sounds


Because there's nothing more pathetic than a 50-year-old listening to gangsta rap. Doing the hand gestures and copping the "Uh huh. We bad" vacant stare.

That's my answer to why, in middle age, I've become rather fascinated by the stuff people my age listened to long, long before I was my age, and in many cases, before I was any age.

Huh?

What I'm saying is I like me some Jackie Gleason Orchestra. Some Ray Conniff Singers. Some Andy Williams, Stan Kenton and Henry Mancini. Music from when a hi-fi was a hi-fi and a record album cost $2.99.

I hated this stuff when I was young and had delusions of cool. Now that I'm much older -- if not quite "old" -- I have come to the conclusion that Young Me was an idiot under the spell of peer pressure and the young's delusions of solipsistic self-importance.

That's called perspective, and perspective says that "grown-up music" was a lot cooler than I thought in 1975. Or 1969. Or 1979.

BUT THIS post is about 3 Chords & the Truth, which I've only just now mentioned. Good thing this is what the Big Show is all about this week, as we go back to the space-age bachelor pad but stop off at Don Draper's favorite cocktail lounge for a quick one on the way there.

Oh, sure. You think I'm being silly and weird.

No, pally. Silly and weird is the 60-something Roger Daltrey still singing "I hope I die before I get old." Unless the start of "old" now is age 87, one of the last two of The Who missed his expiration date.

So y'all turn on the podcast, get comfy, make yourself a martini and join me on an expedition into sustainable cool -- a reconsideration of what once my generation dismissed before the scales fell off our eyes. Or at least my eyes.

And while we're at it, we'll see what relatively new stuff fits into a midcentury modern vibe. Fun stuff.

Soooooooooo . . .

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

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