Reading at Boozefish: How to Spot Music Geeks

April 19, 2012: Rachel Ellyn (aka The Disfunctional Diva) and I did a reading at Boozefish Wine Bar in the Westport area of Kansas City. My selections were from various pieces I’ve written about music, tied together around the theme “How to Spot Music Geeks.” Earlier in the week, I posted my planned reading, but it underwent some transformation by the time Thursday night rolled around so I thought I’d repost. You can see the original post here.

My name is Dave and I have a problem. I am a music geek. This is a terrible affliction which may render its victims unable to have a conversation without slipping in bits of music trivia. Today I feel it is my responsibility to teach you “How to Spot Music Geeks.” If you know the warning signs, maybe you can help a music geek become a semi-functional human being who is a somewhat productive member of society. Please help – before it’s too late.

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1. Seek them out in their natural habitats.
Music geeks can be found at concert venues and bars featuring local bands. They often hang out in basements downloading songs on the computer. Depending on their station in life, it may be in their mother’s house – even if they’re well into their thirties.

Once upon a time, the best place to find music geeks was in a record store. Sadly, the digital age has shuttered many a store, but some do still exist. Even those which have closed, however, still hold fond memories for music geeks. My first reading is taken from my in-the-works music themed novel Music Lessons from The Pit. While The Pit is a fictional store, it is modeled after my own fond memories of shopping at used record stores. Read the excerpt at the Writ by Whit Facebook page or read the full chapter from which the excerpt is taken.

“My advice is, don’t spend money on therapy. Spend it in a record store.” – German film director Wim Wenders

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2. They take their love of music to obsessive levels.
Everyone can relate to having a favorite group or song, but Music geeks don’t just love music; they love it obsessively so. As evidence of the extremes to which music geeks will go, check out the title piece from my collection of essays, No One Needs 21 Versions of “Purple Haze”. Read the excerpt at the Writ by Whit Facebook page or check out the original post on the DMDB blog.

“Music is my religion.” – Jimi Hendrix

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3. Music geeks believe if it sells, it sucks.
This reading is an excerpt of an article I penned for my PopMatters.com column “Aural Fixation.” In the piece, entitled “Waxing Nostalgic: The Mantras of the Music Geek,” I recounted some of the discussion between three friends over dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. Read the excerpt at the Writ by Whit Facebook page or check out the original article in its entirety at PopMatters.com.

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4. They believe any advancement in technology is crap.
Within the “Waxing Nostalgic” piece, I also broke down the changes in music technology over roughly the last 60 years and showed how diehard music geeks have steadfastly resisted any changes to come along, preferring to faithfully stick to vinyl. Read the excerpt at the Writ by Whit Facebook page or check out the original article in its entirety at PopMatters.com.

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5. They bore everyone around them with music trivia.
Think of music geeks as savants. They may lack the skills to carry on normal conversation or be functioning members of society, but they excel in one area – the ability to completely bore the average adult with incessant music trivia. The most severe cases even write entire books devoted to the stuff.

For my book The Top 100 Songs of the Rock Era, I actually used a very objective method for determining which songs were featured. I aggregated hundreds of best-of lists along with chart data, sales figures, and awards to determine the top songs of the last half of the 20th century. Read a few snippets on the Writ by Whit Facebook page.

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There is hope, however.
Even the staunchest of music geeks is capable of reform. They can learn to recognize that anyone’s musical interests are valid. Read the excerpt on the Writ by Whit Facebook page or read the original post on the DMDB blog. Also available in No One Needs 21 Versions of “Purple Haze”.

“Without music life would be a mistake.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

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Resources and Related Links:

• DMDB Blog: Dave’s Music Database: April 19 Reading
• PopMatters.com Aural Fixation column
• WritByWhit.com
• Boozefish Wine Bar

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Dave’s Music Database: April 19 Reading

Dave Whitaker of Dave’s Music Database

Thursday, April 19, 2012, 7:00pm: I will be reading selections from my music books The Top 100 Songs of the Rock Era and No One Needs 21 Versions of “Purple Haze” at Boozefish, a wine bar in Kansas City. For those in the Kansas City area, drop by! Here are the details as posted in the original Facebook invitation. For those who can’t attend or those who want a sneak preview, I am offering up a glimpse of the performance here. Enjoy!

My name is Dave and I have a problem. I am a music geek. This is a terrible affliction which may render its victims unable to have a conversation without slipping in bits of music trivia. We embarrassingly dress like we still think we’re teenagers – jeans and rock T-shirts – even if we’re well into our forties. We can be found at bars, concert venues, or in basements huddled in front of computer screens downloading songs. Today I feel it is my responsibility to teach you “How to Spot the Music Geek.” If you know the warning signs, maybe you can help a music geek become a semi-functional human being who is a somewhat productive member of society. Please help – before it’s too late.

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1. Ways to Spot a Music Geek: Seek them out in their natural habitats.

Once upon a time, record stores were the easiest place to find music geeks. Sadly, many music stores have closed. My in-the-works music-themed novel tentatively titled Music Lessons from The Pit is tied around the closing of a music store. In 2007, “The Pit” could no longer compete in the digital age. As a last hurrah, the main character (Gil) and his college friends from the ‘80s are reuniting to celebrate their favorite hangout from 25 years ago. While driving there he plays songs from the era which bring back old memories. Think of this book as a sort of High Fidelity meets The Big Chill. The chapter, “Blue Monday”, introduces the reader to “The Pit.” Read it here.

“My advice is, don’t spend money on therapy. Spend it in a record store.” – German film director Wim Wenders

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2. Ways to Spot a Music Geek: They often huddle in groups.

Music geeks often travel in packs, largely because of their inability to form normal relationships with everyday human beings. My second reading focuses on a dinner I had with three friends. I turned it into an article for my Aural Fixation column for PopMatters.com. Read it here.

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3. Ways to Spot a Music Geek: They cannot go five minutes without inserting music trivia into conversation.

Think of music geeks as savants. They may lack the skills to carry on normal conversation or be functioning members of society, but they excel in one area – the ability to completely bore the average adult with incessant music trivia. The most severe cases even write entire books devoted to the stuff. It should be noted that music geeks don’t necessarily have any actual music talent.

“I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.” – Igor Stravinksy

Here’s what I say in the introduction of my book, The Top 100 Songs of the Rock Era.

I couldn’t find middle C on a piano if my life depended on it. In instrumental music in 5th grade, I failed to grasp that the intent was not to saw away at all the violin strings at once. Even the recorder exceeded my abilities. Some people are born to play an instrument. Others are born to play the radio. I had no hope of ever joining a band, but would become adept at babbling about bands more than any normal human being would ever care to know.

For that book, I actually used a very objective method for determining which songs were featured. I aggregated hundreds of best-of lists along with chart data, sales figures, and awards to determine the top songs of the last half of the 20th century. As a sample, read here to see what I said about The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

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4. Ways to Spot a Music Geek: Plain and simple, they love music.

This is the most universal aspect of the music geek. We can all relate to having a favorite song or favorite group. It’s just that the music geek takes it to dangerous levels. For example, check out the title essay of my collection No One Needs 21 Versions of “Purple Haze”.

“Music is my religion.” – Jimi Hendrix

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5. Ways to Spot a Music Geek: They can be pretentious snobs.

One of the lessons I’ve learned over the years is to try not to attack someone’s musical tastes. Frankly, I think it is more dangerous than discussing religion, politics, and sex. Music is ingrained in who we are and to criticize one’s music is to criticize that person’s very soul. In that spirit, I wrote “The Styx Defense,” which is also featured in No One Needs 21 Versions of “Purple Haze”. Read here.

“Without music life would be a mistake.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

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Resources and Related Links:

• Dave’s Music Database Facebook page
• DavesMusicDatabase.com
• WritbyWhit Facebook page
• WritbyWhit.com

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The History of the Dave's Music Database Blog

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Check out these books by Dave Whitaker available through DavesMusicDatabase.com or Amazon.

Also check the Dave’s Music Database Facebook page for daily music-related posts.

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The third anniversary of the DMDB blog is right around the corner (January 22). It has come a long way in three years! That first post, entitled “How to Get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”, mocked that institution’s biases with five observations about what will (or won’t) lead to canonization in Cleveland.

A couple weeks later, I put up the post “2009 Grammy Nominees for Album of the Year”. I analyzed the five hopefuls for the big prize and correctly predicted Robert Plant and Alison Krauss would take home the gold for Raising Sand.

I didn’t post again until July. By year’s end, I’d put up a whopping 13 posts. I upped the ante in 2010 with 14 posts. Things didn’t really get moving until mid-way through 2011 when I changed the focus of the blog from essays on music-related topics to more objective snapshots of musical history tied to that particular day.

The second DMDB publication gathered all the essays posted here on the blog. Click on the book cover to go to the DMDB website where you can order the book.

The move paid off in spades. Prior to the thematic switch, my biggest month was September 2009 with 422 hits. I more than doubled that number in June 2011 with the new approach. The numbers have gone up every month since. December 2011 saw more than 7300 hits and January 2012 looks to be on pace to double that number! Over the blog’s three-year life time, it has been seen by more than 31,000 pairs of eyeballs. The top post of all time is “Live Aid: July 13, 1985” with 1500+ hits, more than double the runner-up, “The Top 50 Pink Floyd Songs”.

Graph shows number of hits each month from May 2009 to December 2011.

I haven’t done lots of research to figure out how to garner such numbers and am not entirely certain why my numbers keep growing by leaps and bounds each month. I have followed a few basic tips which I think have made the difference. When I switched from essay to daily history format, that meant two things – I put up daily content and posts were shorter, generally 300-500 words. I also added images and video. However, I think most of my hits have simply come from google searches which land on the key words I’ve connected to each blog.

I don’t know exactly how it has happened, but I’m grateful to everyone who’s either read faithfully since the beginning or merely stumbled across an entry here and there. It has been a great journey and one I plan to continue indefinitely.

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