Daydream of Birdland

A few years ago Bob Dylan was questioned by police in New Jersey after they received a report of a suspicious person peeking into the windows of an empty house.  When asked why he was roaming around in a residential neighborhood, Dylan responded "I wanted to take a walk."  Dylan is still out there, roaming and making music, and chances are that house in Jersey is still unsold. 

2011 saw the breakup of REM and Sonic Youth.  I read a number of message boards after REM's announcement and with jaded eyes I read post after post praising the band...for calling it a day.  I don't know why so many of us think this way but at some point the bands we love, or at least tolerate when their efforts become less inspired, seem "old" and we want them to go away.

Does it really matter that REM would probably never make another "Reckoning" or "Automatic For The People"?  Not really, as long as they were working and creating new music, wasn't that enough?  Maybe, maybe not.  There is Dylan though, he's still out there.  Peeking into windows in New Jersey. 

Sonic Youth's breakup is less like a retirement. The best description of Sonic Youth's music that I ever heard was from one of my old friends.  He said "I'm not epileptic, but their music makes me feel like I am, and that isn't bad."  Shortly before they announced the band was breaking up, we learned that Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon had separated.  In light of divorce, a band breaking up is trivial.

The part of my brain that controls stupid behavior reacts to such news by saying, "This means Kim Gordon is available."  That same part of my brain follows up with "Lot of good that does me...we don't live in the same town."  That stupid part of my brain is also found in other people when they are glad to see a long-standing band break up.  I can't really explain it in any other way.

I think I was 19 when I first read On the Road.  Back then I didn't know who George Shearing was, but it was obvious how smitten Kerouac was with him.  Shearing was a total mystery to me but I understood what Kerouac felt when he described seeing Shearing perform.  I had similar experiences already, that feeling of being in the presence of some kind of perfection.  Or was it a feeling of peeking into a window, seeing something miraculous on the other side? 

In all the Shearing obituaries I read in 2011, none made note of Kerouac's lyrical praise of Shearing. It is a shame, actually.  Source inspiration so strong that it sends a writer into a transcendent state is never to be taken lightly.  REM and Sonic Youth are no longer with us in the figurative sense, George Shearing in the literal sense. There are albums and interviews and assessments left to mark their place.  The vibe of their time of brilliance is, however, gone; and with it is the true explanation for what they did and why they did it.  Kerouac left a template for decoding any mystery of their music.

Dylan is still out there though, he's peeking in windows.