Consuming the Tangible

Fifty-three years old.

Six more years until I outlive my father. I think about it all the time. I thought about it Wednesday night as I saw Gary Clark Jr. put on an incendiary show with new material getting worked for the next album (no photos though, hello my first experience with Yondr). I thought about it Thursday, on my actual birthday. And yeah, I thought about it all weekend as I watched this weird new organism that is my son with his first serious girlfriend, and he would never see this.

Strange as it may be, I’m glad I’m here, and healthy enough at fifty-three to see it, cherish it.

It’s a hodgepodge of records this week. The Circus Lupus is this week’s active listening assignment, a really fun diversion with my friends and fellow sonic heads Erik and Baxter, the genesis of which was Baxter and I going over the moon for Robyn Hitchcock, included here because I needed a break from all that Circus Lupus and so dedicated my birthday to Robyn in all his delightful permutations.

LaserCD just got in a slew of interesting French prog and jazz. Birthday money came in handy here, and I grabbed the two new to me bands, Siiilk and Potemkine; both have some great keyboards and are ambitious in their arrangements. I was also really taken with the cosmic groove of The Visitors, comprised of Carl and Earl Grubbs on saxophones. This beautiful remastered reissue of 1975’s Motherland has some of that Coltrane vibe that’s been appealing to me lately.

The second full length from Tom Penaguin not only satisfies my Canterbury prog cravings but also brings an impressive Zappa touch to the compositions. New Osees? I’ll always try, and this is already better than the last 2-3, so hopefully a sign of shifting away from the spastic clipped punk running through the past decade.

Be safe, be good to each other. See you next week.