the one about music

I haven’t gotten into a new band in a very long time. The last ‘just released’ album I bought was The Spinning Top by Graham Coxon (highly recommended, by the way), which was influenced by a lot of finger-picking folk guitarists. Mr Coxon apparently decided he wanted to learn how to fingerpick, sat down to teach himself, and learned. You can’t help but hate him a little for that.

I always seem to go backwards, from the artists I really love to music that influenced them. Like a Wikipedia linkjump, until you find yourself reading about rare south Asian marsupials and have no idea how you got there. I guess in this case, Davy Graham would be a south Asian marsupial.

I’ve already discovered Syd Barrett, The Buzzcocks, The Jam, Nick Drake, Pavement, and The Kinks via Mr Coxon, but lately I’ve been listening to Davy Graham quite a bit. “Anji” (Angi/Angie) is probably the most famous song he wrote; it’s been covered by Bert Jansch, Simon & Garfunkel, and a ton of other people. Bob Dylan covered “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” If you like 60s folk/blues, you should listen to Davy Graham.

I feel a bit like one of those middle-aged music snobs who claims there’s no good new music out there, but I can’t help it. Stuff from the past is just inherently better! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go whip up some Ovaltine and watch Murder, She Wrote.