10 December - CD's & sex

Searching high and lo amongst hundreds of CDs for a couple I need for a friend’s wedding at registry office. I’m sure I don’t have any Lenny Kravitz and indeed I don’t, but think I have Nick Cave. But alas the wrong album. She’s looking for ‘Love Letter’ to walk down the aisle to, and it’s not on mine. This is the problem with relationships, I never bought Nick because one of the exes had them all. Same for that adorable, poisonous, oh why does he have to be gay, Rufus Wainwright. Go and see a show if you think the lyrics are not clear enough. On his last tour he was more of a friend of Dorothy than Elton John ever was. I had to go and buy them all after we split up. Me and the ex, not me and Rufus obviously. He wouldn’t do me even if he were on crack. Anyway, a trip to the record shops is in order. I take the opportunity to re-arrange the CDs further. Always a favourite activity. They are not in alphabetical order, and I enjoy infuriating men who look through them. I feel a scene from ‘Diner’ coming on. You know the one, he will not marry her unless she knows the b-sides and colour of labels of his 7” collection. My CD’s follow genre: solo male artists, UK pop bands, reggae, old stuff, electronica, dance, more dance, wannabe Sinatras, soundtracks, classical, opera, friends and their producers, hip hop, rap solo female artists, US bands, new rock, old rock, gosh no metal apart from er. Metalllica and Rammstein, rest of the world, but only if it’s Asian etc. (I hated the term world music as much as I hate folk and the day you find me enjoying Japanese music, please shoot me). And so on. So I come across the jazz. I seem to have some lovely packaged and still cellophaned collections of greats. I put them aside and at least unpeel the cellophane. Later on I put Stan Getz on, why not? No idea of what to expect. I only like Miles Davis and little else. It occurs to me I’m doing this because of Toph. He loves jazz and was off seeing one of the Marsalis brothers a few days ago. Here I go again, chamaeleonising for mating it should be called. I will not pretend I love jazz, I haven’t in fact when chatting to him. It’s a bad mistake to make, it leads to years or months at least of being taken to shows you don’t enjoy. That’s why I come out a little too forcefully when I say ‘No way, salsa, samba, merengue no no no. Only whilst in Rio darling.’ So uhm, I’m now trying to imagine if people who like jazz do it in a different way from people who like glam. I mean, it’s free form some of it, but some of it is so self centred but in a stylised way that I cannot imagine…. It does go one for long though…A friend of mine is big on gospel and church music. I always imagine he does it like he’s in a big choir. Sort of sharing… performing to the gallery, joyously. Must ask him. His wife sings in the chorus so wonder if they stop in the middle of it to clap their hands and praise the lord. Personally, I try to avoid doing it to music but if I have to, give me something hypnothic, low frequency electronica that lasts a long time or some drugged up vintage Primal Scream. And then some cello concertos to fall asleep to.