Are You Experienced?

As I prepare to go to a show in DC tonight for a band that many of my friends have not heard of, it occurs to me that discovering new music is a serious problem for a lot of people. We are creatures of habit, and even I find myself listening to the same albums over and over again. There's a sense of familiarity and a touch of nostalgia in listening to a favorite album, Stadium Arcadium comes to mind for me. This habit of listening to the same music over and over doesn't help us discover new music though. I get it, finding new bands requires a bit of work. First you have to find a suggestion of a band someone thinks you might like. Then you have to listen to a few songs, and if you're not hooked by the first couple, there's a chance you might never listen again. Even if you do like the first few songs you listen to, it takes several listens to become familiar enough with the band's work to consider yourself a fan. I have a way out of that. We need to rediscover old music.

It always shocks me to find out that I have friends who have never listened to Jimi Hendrix. As much as Rolling Stone gets criticized for making classic rock-centric lists, Hendrix tops their "100 Greatest Guitarists" list, and with good reason. Although people who haven't given Jimi a seriously listen dismiss him as an acid dropping hippie, he revolutionized the way the guitar is played and was a fantastic blues player. Which, starting with Robert Johnson and the delta blues could be considered the first really American music.

There aren't a whole lot of blues standards anymore. Without getting too technical, I feel comfortable saying that all of the pop music on the radio today is based on the same three chords that a standard twelve-bar blues uses. There's really no such thing as "new music" when its all based on the same music that we've been listening to for a hundred years now. So if you have trouble finding "new" music, but haven't listened to Hendrix, you're really doing yourself a disservice since all of the electric guitar players you're listening to now pull from him (for the record, I understand that "all players" is a pretty strong statement, but I don't know anyone who plays guitar seriously and doesn't know "Purple Haze"). If you're a Hendrix virgin, start with Are You Experienced?. By the end, you'll be able to say "yes."