Jan 25, 2021
Episode 1 is Live! “The Curmudgeonly Way.”
“The Curmudgeonly Way” is the debut episode of The Curmudgeon Rock Report. We produce a conversational podcast about the rock ’n’ roll universe — or our rock ’n’ roll universe anyway. We have a unique and at times puzzling worldview about the way things are and the the way we think they should be.
In this episode, Christopher O’Connor and Arturo Andrade, longtime friends and popular music obsessives, introduce themselves with aplomb. They also discuss their upbringing on classic rock and punk and muse on their adult maturation into heavy metal and hip-hop explorations.
We then present a six-point worldview of rock ’n’ roll and the principles that shape our thinking. These points set up our “curmudgeonly journey” along this podcast’s path.
These six principles include:
1. A loss of communal experience doesn’t need to equal the end of the artform.
2. There’s more good music than ever before. You just have to work harder than ever to find it.
3. Rock is now a niche, but it’s STILL a counterculture
4. Conversely, there was something to be said about the old label A&R man as gatekeeper.
5. Dumb doesn’t necessarily equal bad.
6. Never forget what brung you and keep evolving with it. Listening as an adult is different than listening during the formative years.
We end the episode with a discussion on seminal influences and recommendation from our vaults.
Chris credits The Beatles’s 1962–66 and 1967–70 retrospective collections for tuning him in and turning him on, while Arturo expounds on how Nirvana’s “Nevermind” changed everything for him, leading him to discover at least 30 bands that influenced Kurt Cobain.
Finally, we enthusiacally endorse two obscurities that hold up very very well: Silver Apples’s self-titled 1968 debut, and Jonzun Crew’s 1983 album Lost in Space.
Intriguing question posed: What is the “green test?”
Other artists mentioned during this episode include:
Scott Walker
BTS
Phil Spector
OutKast
AC/DC
Ty Segall
Guided By Voices
Kool Keith
Weezer
Tom Petty
Nirvana
We also post our episodes to Anchor. Find this episode here: anchor.fm/curmudgeonly/episodes/The-Curmudgeonly-Way-epe97h
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/CurmudgeonPod
Send us thoughts, opinions, episode ideas and more: curmudgeonrock@gmail.com
Tip us for our efforts: patreon.com/curmudgeonrock
