Music From Back Home

Being away from home can do strange things to you. One of those things is that sometimes you start to miss things from home that you didn't really appreciate when you were there.

The other day, I was on my computer doing one of those "put your iTunes on shuffle and write down the first twenty songs that come up" (for those of you who are not aware this is a very common thing for people my age to put up in their facebook profiles when they're bored or have a paper to write). One of the songs that I came across was a Black Keys song that I had received in a mix from a friend back home. The Black Keys are a sort of Blues-Rock-Punk guitar drum-duo from Akron, Ohio that have really been making a name for themselves recently. And that's saying something since not a lot has come out of Akron since it was the center of a burgeoning punk scene back in the late seventies.

I always liked the Black Keys but I didn't listen to them all that much. I was listening to a lot of ska and jazz then and it just didn´t fit with the other stuff I was listening to. But when I heard them today it was like I'd been hit by a brick. I went on All Music Guide to figure out what album the songs were from (my friend either hadn't labelled them or I'd just forgot to write it down). In any case I started reading about them and got really excited about them and the music they were putting out. I read about their other albums and killed about an hour snooping around for information on a band that probably played in Cleveland a half dozen times last year.

When you´re far from home lots of things can make you excited to be reminded of it. And the important thing is that it´s not just American things. Because American culture is everywhere--from the department stores, to the movies even the music, you can see American imports everywhere. Midwest rustbelt culture, not so much. The Black Eyed Peas, don´t feel like home, but the Black Keys do. Funny how that works.