It was a year ago today that I put on my finest Sergio Tacchini tracksuit and went to see Thee Sacred Souls with my girlfriend. This was a couple weeks before my 50th birthday, and I’d been looking forward to it forever, setting off celebration of reaching a decade my father and grandfather never made it to. The show was wonderful. Then I had a suicidal episode right before my birthday, and it ended up not being that celebratory at all, more like figuring out support networks I never counted on before, and accepting the limitations of age. It’s all good now, but February of last year was dodgy.
Since that time, both my youngest kids (16 and 20) have had that “Could I Call You Rose?” song play on their Spotify playlists in the car, not sure where it came from. And then Thee Sacred Souls just had one of them NPR Tiny Desk concerts last week that all the normal white people who think they’re quirky absolutely love. It’s nice to see them blow up, and in fact, even see the whole souldies movement start to gain traction with the paying public. Getting back into records and limiting myself to 45s meant that there’s a long period of no releases, from the late ‘90s through the past decade, with the exception of the souldies movement, which kept 45s alive all through that time. The vinyl resurgence never happened with this realm, because vinyl never went away, and in fact, all the major label color variations of shit has clogged up the vinyl production pipeline for those who’d been using it all along.
All part of the deal in living in a society though. This particular song was part of the Pennyrose Valentine’s Day bundle last season, with Thee Sacred Souls dropping “Future Lover” as a single while they were on US tour. I slept on it at first, but upon a few more spins, this one has snuck into my regular rotation of modern souldies classics. And if you’re a 45 connoisseur like myself, this one pairs excellently with a number of Otis Redding 45s, notably “Think About It” and “You Left The Water Running”, which both got references to the physical space of a shared house, and those opening knocks of “Future Lover” just pop right on in as you fade out the Otis, and life goes on man, it always goes on, until it don’t. And when that happens, you’re not gonna be worried about your records no more anyways.
Thankful I'm still listening to records, to be honest, after the past year. Life is shorter, no need to make it shorter, and no need not to find joy in this godawful civilization we've been doomed to live inside.
Since that time, both my youngest kids (16 and 20) have had that “Could I Call You Rose?” song play on their Spotify playlists in the car, not sure where it came from. And then Thee Sacred Souls just had one of them NPR Tiny Desk concerts last week that all the normal white people who think they’re quirky absolutely love. It’s nice to see them blow up, and in fact, even see the whole souldies movement start to gain traction with the paying public. Getting back into records and limiting myself to 45s meant that there’s a long period of no releases, from the late ‘90s through the past decade, with the exception of the souldies movement, which kept 45s alive all through that time. The vinyl resurgence never happened with this realm, because vinyl never went away, and in fact, all the major label color variations of shit has clogged up the vinyl production pipeline for those who’d been using it all along.
All part of the deal in living in a society though. This particular song was part of the Pennyrose Valentine’s Day bundle last season, with Thee Sacred Souls dropping “Future Lover” as a single while they were on US tour. I slept on it at first, but upon a few more spins, this one has snuck into my regular rotation of modern souldies classics. And if you’re a 45 connoisseur like myself, this one pairs excellently with a number of Otis Redding 45s, notably “Think About It” and “You Left The Water Running”, which both got references to the physical space of a shared house, and those opening knocks of “Future Lover” just pop right on in as you fade out the Otis, and life goes on man, it always goes on, until it don’t. And when that happens, you’re not gonna be worried about your records no more anyways.
Thankful I'm still listening to records, to be honest, after the past year. Life is shorter, no need to make it shorter, and no need not to find joy in this godawful civilization we've been doomed to live inside.
