Who knows where the time goes

“Too quiet, too earnest, too embarassing to like if you’re not an aging baby boomer.”
Didn’t stop me when I started to get into them in my teens during the 1980s.

True, and seeing you them so much was one reason for me to sample them.

On the other hand, it’s pretty undeniable that I have a preferance for baby boomer music that I have to make a constant effort to work against. Which is necessary seeing how many of my favorite musicians are retiring, sick or dying.

The non-earnest side of Fairport Convention is mostly to be found in Dave Swarbrick’s solo work. The problem with Swarbrick is that a) his solo albums are very uneven, especially after 1975, and b) he is so influential that the way he does things is now the way things are done, so it’s often hard to hear what’s so original about him. But when he’s on, he’s very very good.

As an aging boomer, I have to say my memories of Fairport and Steeleye gigs in the early 70s were far from quiet and earnest – more like barely controlled riots which could go badly wrong and sometimes did. But absolute magic when they hit the sweet spot.

Well, there’s that, too. I wasn’t alive to see them perform at the time, but from the ‘House Full’ album, they were anything but quiet. Dat was rauwe poep, man.

Oh man, I love acoustic guitar.

Luckily my music taste has *always* been hopelessly uncool and unsophisticated, so I don’t feel the pain of being “uncool” in my tastes as I age.