Richard Kriheli

The other day, while perusing my iTunes library for the umpteenth time, my wife asked me if there was any new music on my list. I thought about it for a minute and went blank. What was shocking was that I really don’t have anything new. Riding the train this morning, listening to Sabbath, Cash and Run DMC, it suddenly became clear. Richard Kriheli is a dinosaur. And my tracks are old.

Time upon a once, I was quite the music enthusiast. Clocking in at close to 700 cd’s, and most of them ripped to my Mac – you can safely say that I have a modest obsession. Or had one. From my first Walkman in ‘83 to my iPhone today, I rarely go a day without headphones on at one point or another. But something has changed. You won’t find many current tracks on my playlist or any new cd’s on my shelf. Why is that? Did something happen to music, the industry, the distribution or did something happen to me? Am I just at that age where I frown upon anything that didn’t excite me like the past? Or does music these days just flat out blow? Lots of questions to address.

What is confounding is that with the internet, the ability to freeload music or buy single tracks if need be, I find myself looking for nothing. In a time where music is everywhere and underground is mainstream, it is still hard to find anything great – even stuff that is recycled. These days it is obviously hard to justify forking over fifteen bucks in a record store for a cd as well. As far as problems with distribution and industry saturation are concerned, allow me digress a little and focus on the music itself.

In short, it doesn’t speak to me anymore. It doesn’t inspire or excite me. Aside from buying my annual Prince release or getting something slightly radical and new from Patton or Reznor here and there – almost everything else is dry. Gone are the days where I am counting down to a new release and running home to absorb it. Gone are the days where I had to be selective about what to get because I just simply could not afford everything. But now, that I can afford enough, the music cannot afford me. So I turn to you, my friends, in hopes that there was no extinction-level-event that precluded this mass good music die-off. In hopes that maybe there was a lull in the evolutionary process and I am just missing out on unearthing good tunes.

Help me excavate. I know there are gems out there that I am missing out on. We are living in one of the most effed up and depressing eras in many generations. I fully expect that should spawn some really great material. Where can it be found? Give me some suggestions because if my tracklist is stagnant, thus is my life.

Every morning on my trudge to work, I walk by Virgin Megastore Union Square which houses both great and crappy music. And there are people inside, standing in line, cd’s in their hands. I am outside looking in. Way outside, and Triassic.