[Landline addenda] A destination without an address
“LANDLINE” — AN EMAIL BULLETIN BY JAY BABCOCK
No. 0023 (a)
SUNDAY, JAN. 9, 2022
This is an addenda for last Tuesday’s secrets/treasures-oriented Landline No. 23.
1. BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE HAVE ASKED
I am continuously updating my music recommendations at Bandcamp (be sure to look at both “Wishlist” and “Collection”), which is the best way to check out music and support artists at fair prices.
I occasionally update a playlist on spotify (unsequenced, 413 songs); when that playlist gets too long I move stuff over to an archive on spotify (unsequenced, 1078 songs).
So much tremendous stuff out there! I will be writing more often about current music finds in future Landlines. In the meantime, hopefully these nudges and hand-wavings help.
One (important) note: I find spotify useful but its business model is exploitative and abhorrent in the extreme. Musicians, and our culture, deserve much better. For insights on this wretched situation and how we can get out of it, I recommend following Damon Krukowski on twitter or checking out his substack newsletter.
2. SECRET SOUNDS THAT BEN CHASNY RECOMMENDS
Friend of Landline (and friend of us all, really) Ben Chasny writes:
“I just came across Matt Marble’s “Secret Sound” podcast and it's so great. Covers all sort of fringe musicians of the last couple centuries in America with heterodox spiritual beliefs. It's really inclusive too so it's not just a bunch of academic old white guys. I've found the episodes on folks I didn't know before are often my favorites, like the one on Charles Kellogg. Dude even has an episode on Exuma (it's great). I'm just passing the word along…”
Thank you, Ben — “Secret Sound” is great. And thank you Ben for your gorgeous new KPM record.
3. A PLACE OF SOLACE
In 2004, experiencing yet another wave of deep depression and anxiety — this time compounded by grief over the recent suicide of my oldest and dearest friend — I found myself returning again and again to a place, hidden but not secret, inside L.A.’s Griffith Park. It was made by this man — and, as I discovered, someone else.
Here is a piece I wrote about Amir’s Garden that was published in LAWeekly in July, 2004…