Been a hard week.

 One of the hardest.

Times like these, more often now I turn to music that... sounds the way music used to. I know, I'm basically cashing in my chips as an independent, thinking person by hitting the nostalgia button... but there it is. Facts on the ground.

I been wondering why. After all, I was someone who "kept up" on music, through the 70's, 80's, 90's, the 00's. But then... something turned a bit. Well, not "something," actually. More like "me." I turned a bit. A bit... nostalgic. Which was a thing I'd always hated. Nostalgia. Fought it.

But lately, I've started to wonder. Question. Doubt myself. (Easy there, tiger....) Wondering if maybe a bit of "nostalgia" isn't the worst thing. Maybe it's just another of the long list of things I originally mocked and fought and then later came to love. Like... big cities. Frozen yogurt. Girls.

Anyway, it's all started me thinking about where nostalgia comes from. I could probably read some smart books about nostalgia that'd tell me some really clever things, but frankly, these days I just prefer to make up my own ideas.

So my theory is that, as we grow older, our losses start to mount. That simple. The Reaper gets our address and starts showing up in the hood. And after that, with each long, slow, sweep of his scythe, he takes away the houses we grew up in, the first car we drove all night, the dogs we wrestled with and then... he takes away the people we love.

And much of the time, there's not much we can do about it.

Ok, none of the time. When a person dies, none of the time is there anything we can do about it. They're dead. And... gone. 

Lost. 

There goes the tree you loved. The band you worshipped. The place you always got breakfast.

Hell, there goes your favourite body part.

So I've started to think maybe - on this one front - I need to cut people a bit more slack. Myself included. Maybe it's ok if people want to hang onto a bit of music from the past. And some of the memories and the people it carries and conjures. 

And no, this doesn't mean that it's ok to only listen to older stuff. Sorry, I'm not coming on here to defend 24 hours a day of Lynyrd Skynyrd. 24/3 is quite sufficient.

Besides, there's new stuff that often hearkens back, includes and recreates old sounds. Sure, some of it is faked up, forced shit that makes you want to beat the band members to death. But some of it has that same warmth, or joy, or rage and tears, that the originals had.

And hearing them, I like that their differences conjure up feelings and moods in me that float freer of the increasingly hard-wired memories, faces, events and associations that I often have with the older songs themselves.

Here's a few that have conjured for me lately.

1. Gayngs, "The Gaudy Side of Town." (2010.) A gorgeous tribute to 10cc, who found a gift groove from the Gods in the mid-70's with "I'm Not In Love." The whole Gayngs album was recorded at 69 bpm in tribute to 10cc, but "Gaudy" did something more than imitate. It refound that long lost groove. And I think you'll find that your next few dozen listens to this will take you off, not just to memories of the mid-70's, but into a warmer, and wider, dreamland. Give it a couple of minutes to warm up. And yes, 10cc always was hip, as a matter of fact.

2. Free Energy, "Free Energy. (2010.) If you ever liked The Cars or Cheap Trick or Tom Petty, well, here's... not quite the Cars. From Red Wing, Minnesota, I figure these kids have to be related to Dick. I mean, how else could you fit in this much cowbell? (Ok, granted, if James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem was your producer, that might do it. But my money's on the Dick linkage.) Admit it, you wish you were in this band.

3. The Parlor Mob, "You Can't Keep No Good Boy Down." (2008.) Ok, a band from New Jersey doing Led Zeppelin doesn't sound a great idea. With a lead singer that looks like Pauly Shore? Holy shit.

Ok. I should shut up and give these guys a chance to redeem themselves. IMO, they do.  

4. One eskimO, "Kandi." (2009.) From LisB, this is the kinda thing that goes onto my "play all night" list. Some of you might know Patsy Cline's "He Called Me Baby" from 1963, others Candi Staton's more R&B version from 1971. Well, take those two, pop them up into the 3rd dimension, and that's what you get from the Londoners of One eskimO. Thanks LisB!

5. Del Amitri, "Be My Downfall-Drowned On Dry Land." (2009.) And sometimes, the past is best conjured by those who... lived it. Those who had genius, and fought, but were defeated. Who rose, and gathered their gifts, rallied their friends, took their hard-won lessons, returned to the field, and fell again.

It happens.

And sometimes... that's all she wrote.

In Justin Currie of Del Amitri (a Scot - I know, you're surprised), that's what I see. There's a story that - 30 years ago on British TV - he was on a show with songwriters like Richard Thompson, and after Currie played a song he'd thrown away and never even bothered recording - the others volunteered to stop singing, if only he'd go on playing. I just watched a video of the same thing happening in 2010, Currie singing and Chris Difford - the great songwriter for Squeeze who did "Tempted" - breaks down in tears listening from his stool, and thanks him for his songs. 

He's apparently a bit of a drinker, Currie, and has a rep as a hard man to play with. But Del Amitri - who rank, for me, as one of the great pop bands of all-time - are so little known that I can't blame him. When he plays these days - as in this final video - you can see he can't stand to bare his soul on stage anymore, and has to paste up a cynical face. Acid, almost.

But if you want the taste of real bittersweet, songs that tap loss from the well, not the bottle, from the people who didn't bring you Cheers... you need Justin Currie. Here in Aberdeen, doing Be My Downfall & Drowned On Dry Land.

It's music you'd swear was nostalgia, but it isn't from your youth.

It's from your loss. 

And yes, the audience knows he's dropping two verses from the end of the song, verses he can't sing anymore:

Yeah, you can try to take it, try to hide it, or try to fake it. 

Yeah, you can try to make a stand. 

But some day they will find you shaking, holding up your hands, 

saying, "Someone take me back,

to some way I’ll live and that,

I understand." 

I understand....

When your will to live is choking,

when your spirit has been broken, 

when the whole damn thing seems token

and mundane. 

When the blackness all around you crowds you out and hounds you, 

picks you up and crowns you

"King of the Lame".