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jon_chaissonThis past Sunday I started up the beginning of my 80s college rock book Walk In Silence AGAIN, and I think this opening's the winner. I'd been toying around with how I was going to write this book for a good couple of months, debating: was it going to be a memoir? A history? A bit of both? Would I reach out to other listeners, deejays, and musicians like I'd originally planned? And if so, what part would they play? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that what I didn't want to write was a lifeless history, nor did I want to write about a scene I wasn't a part of (I only obsessed about the music, not the scene or the fashion. Well, not much, anyway).
I came to the conclusion that I could write it like I'm doing with the Blogging the Beatles series on my WordPress blog. To wit, I've been handling that project by way of going through the band's discography chronologically, giving a brief history of the song, and exploring my reaction (and others', historically) to the song and/or the album. One of the most pleasant results of doing this is that I'm hearing each song in a new and sometimes unexpected way. In effect, it's both a refresher on the music's history as well as a personal study of it.
Over the last few weeks I'd debated if that could be a feasible route for Walk in Silence, and the more I thought about it, I realized that was how I'd intended it to be in the first place. My personal experience with college radio in the 80s was a solitary one, for the most part--I certainly shared my obsession and my purchases with my closest friends, but most of the time was spent listening to the music and letting it affect me in a personal way. I can't say it was the same for everyone else out there, but I'd like to think that this would be the viewpoint for others out there, especially those in the northeast US college area who may not have gone to the shows or followed the fashion and the mindset, but certainly fell in love with the music and had it affect them in some way. I'm thinking that this book, at least in its first draft, will be mostly a solitary work. I may end up reaching out to others for input and filling in the blanks.
So now that I have that cleared up, I think I'll have much better time of writing this on the weekends. I specifically have Sundays open for this project, so I think from here on in, I'll get some serious word count done on it.
I came to the conclusion that I could write it like I'm doing with the Blogging the Beatles series on my WordPress blog. To wit, I've been handling that project by way of going through the band's discography chronologically, giving a brief history of the song, and exploring my reaction (and others', historically) to the song and/or the album. One of the most pleasant results of doing this is that I'm hearing each song in a new and sometimes unexpected way. In effect, it's both a refresher on the music's history as well as a personal study of it.
Over the last few weeks I'd debated if that could be a feasible route for Walk in Silence, and the more I thought about it, I realized that was how I'd intended it to be in the first place. My personal experience with college radio in the 80s was a solitary one, for the most part--I certainly shared my obsession and my purchases with my closest friends, but most of the time was spent listening to the music and letting it affect me in a personal way. I can't say it was the same for everyone else out there, but I'd like to think that this would be the viewpoint for others out there, especially those in the northeast US college area who may not have gone to the shows or followed the fashion and the mindset, but certainly fell in love with the music and had it affect them in some way. I'm thinking that this book, at least in its first draft, will be mostly a solitary work. I may end up reaching out to others for input and filling in the blanks.
So now that I have that cleared up, I think I'll have much better time of writing this on the weekends. I specifically have Sundays open for this project, so I think from here on in, I'll get some serious word count done on it.
