Music from my Brothers
Soundtrack for a middle child
My younger brother and I have a ritual of dancing in the kitchen. It isn’t some expression of unbridled joy a la Drew Barrymore dancing in the rain. Instead, it’s our time to posture as our “coolest” selves, which really are our dorkiest selves because we’re in our parents’ kitchen and one of us inevitably stops to eat a toaster waffle. There’s a lot of stank face (me) and ambitious footwork (him), plus gratuitous head-banging from both of us.
I’ve never mastered the speakers in our household, so my brother serves as DJ. This is good, because it means I’m privy to an 18-year-old boy’s listening habits. I can keep to the cutting edge by assimilating his selections into my own creaky taste.
My brother and I have a joke where I ask him the name of whatever song is playing, and he smiles and says, “You like it?” –– which is to identify my question for what it is: a small concession of power. This week, I collected several new tracks for my playlists, even resorting to a surreptitious Shazam or two.
“Everyday Hustle” by Future, Metro Boomin, and Rick Ross earned a spot on my leg day soundtrack with its subtle but potent build. (Maybe it’s because I came of age during the “Party Rock Anthem” days, but my ear hasn’t quite unlearned the need for a dramatic beat drop.) There’s a lyric during Future’s first verse that both my mom and I misheard as a reference to “kugel” –– alas he isn’t rapping about baked casserole but about seducing “cougars” like the late-’90s rapper Trina.
From our latest kitchen concert I also saved “Russell County Line” by the alt-country outfit 49 Winchester. It resonates in part because I can tell I’ve heard it before, and something about the distant familiarity makes it more wistful. Ironically, it delivers a version of the beat drop I was craving when a kick of drums and electric guitar surges in the final chorus. The unleashed instruments cast new light on the song’s first half, making it seem artfully restrained.
Metro Boomin and country music bookended last Saturday night, when I attended a semi-thwarted Billy Currington concert with my older brother and his girlfriend. Some key moments: a delay caused by lightning; waiting out the weather in a dystopian warehouse; fist-bumping the opener by the merch stand, an artist who uses the villainous-sounding mononym Redferrin. On my walk home from the subway, I passed a motorcyclist who was shuffling through Metro Boomin tracks on his speaker. The producer tag “Metrooo” echoed off the buildings again and again.
I often poach music from my older brother, too; after all, he’s largely responsible for my family’s conversion to bonafide country fans some 10 years ago. On our drive to the concert, he shuffled his Liked tracks, while his girlfriend and I analyzed the architecture along the FDR Drive (“There’s something Soviet going on over there,” “Now that one just makes me feel lonely”). I pointed out that my brother was skipping every song similar to the music we were about to hear performed.
As we pulled up to the venue, “Just Can’t Get Enough” by the Black Eyed Peas came on, making me wonder why we ever left this song behind. As I’ve re-listened to it in recent days, I especially like the lyric, “We have a well-oiled back and forth text line” (actually, it’s “We LOL back and forth on the text line,” but sometimes songs are for mishearing the lyrics you prefer).
In my own solo streaming, I Just Can’t Get Enough of Carly Pearce’s latest album, “hummingbird,” which she released June 7. It’s been a while since I’ve found an album I can play without skipping tracks, and this one earns that special status. “Oklahoma,” a song about hitting the road in distress, rose to the top of my listening. Its chorus soars on a mini speaker in an echoey bathroom or through headphones in the stretching section of the gym.
A musical footnote:
On Thursday I toured the Rosen House at Caramoor, the music and arts center located on the Rosen family’s former Westchester estate. Lucie Rosen was an early adopter of the theremin, the electronic instrument that makes the sound effects used for ghosts in cartoons. According to our guide, Rosen believed the theremin was bound to replace the piano as the standard instrument of American households.
I had to snap a photo of this poster used to advertise one of Rosen’s theremin concerts. Imagine a restaurant review saying the chef prepares food with a “knowledge of cooking.”
Until next time!