What Are You Listening To?

An Answer Can Be Found
Camp Kill Yourself [CKY]
 

My first exposure to CKY wasn't through Jackass, funny enough. I feel like that sorta MTV shit should've been my thing growing up, but I completely missed that train. Aside from Skate 3 I never really set foot on a skateboard, and the few times I did, I ate shit. I don't think it's too late to get into skating, I just have other ways to break all my bones now.
I first heard their track "As the Tables Turn" in my playthrough of Burnout Revenge on the PS2, I had no idea how my mind skimmed over that track, I was playing the game long enough for the whole soundtrack to loop back into itself several times. I remember exactly when I paid attention to the song, it was during the Burning Lap on White Mountain. I fucking hate those mountains, but it was thanks to their tediousness that I noticed this song.

Anyways, I added the song to my shuffle playlist. I didn't really take the time to exploring their discography, at the time, my friend was introducing me to Megadeth through their album "Rust in Peace" (I'll probably write about this someday, I only went through the album once.) Even when I had the time to start listening to the album, I think I just ended up looping the first song "Suddenly Tragic" before adding it to my shuffle playlist and moving on.

Then one day I felt like checking out the album out of curiosity. There's nothing specific that compelled me into listening to CKY on that day, I just wanted to see if the other tracks on the album were just as good as my favourite song. I had a good track record with finding new favourites through the original album. It was pretty rare for a whole album to be underwhelming or just boring compared to my favourite song from it, that only happened to me once with "Bottomless Pit" by Death Grips and the song "Eh"

The entire album was pretty good! I liked most of the songs. There were just the odd one or two songs that didn't really stick with me, not that I dislike them, I just don't vibe with it as much. "Familiar Realm" specifically is one of those songs, that shit gives me birthday party/wedding vibes for some reasons. The last song "Don't Hold Your Breath" is a pretty good wrap up to the whole album, but on it's own it feels incomplete, it's hard to imagine myself listening to this song in a shuffle playlist.  
Someday I might actually bother to listen to their other albums, I might end up liking their other discography better than this album, but that will come whenever I feel like it. I don't have this album physically yet, but I plan on getting the CD online.

I briefly found about their relation with Jackass through a google search, but I didn't really go through much beyond the wikipedia page. It wasn't until snwboardr noticed that I've been looping the same song when he messaged me about it. That conversation led to him showing me shit about CKY, and from there he skimmed through old skateboard tapes online and told me personal stories. Honestly during that whole conversation, I almost contemplated picking up a skateboard and going out to break my shins with nothing but a shit-eating grin on my face. Again, Im already occupied with something else that can give me that sorta adrenaline, so it will be a while before I eventually pull off my first kickflip. Who knows what the future holds.

Here's a few of my favourite tracks from this album:

Ever since I was a small child, I've loved classical music. I started out listening to Mozart CDs at my grandparents' house and Tchaikovsky and others at my house. I developed perfect pitch and then started learning to play the piano when I was 7. I wanted to play music like what I was hearing. After learning piano, most of the music I heard was music I was playing. So my relationship with music quickly developed so that music commanded my full attention while I was hearing it, because usually I would be playing it, and that obviously requires my attention to do.

Around 2010 I got an old stereo set with a radio in my bedroom, and I would spend hours searching through the stations, marveling at how there were some specific times of day when far more stations were able to be discovered. But there was no classical station near me, or at least not one that played classical music consistently. I did end up hearing some (at the time) popular music on other stations, and it never did anything for me. I was always resolutely against popular music.

But my strictly classical music taste didn't really evolve until 2016. It was around that time that I first heard The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky (specifically  this video ), as well as the Six Romanian Folk Dances by Béla Bartók. That second piece was particularly groundbreaking to me—as soon as I heard it, I knew with certainty that that was what I wanted to play. I learned the piece when I was 17–18, and that solidified Bartók as my favorite composer for many years. I went on to learn many more of his piano pieces (those that weren't too difficult for me, anyway). After 2021 my piano playing took a sharp decline, but the most recent Bartók I learned was a bit of For Children, excerpts from which are linked below.

Sometime in the last few years, I also heard of Alma Deutscher through YouTube recommendations. Ever since I jumped on the Bartók bandwagon, I had largely abandoned Mozart, but much of Bartók's music is so discordant that it left me wanting some consonance in my life. Deutscher filled that role beautifully—her music takes similar forms to Mozart's, but it's just much more creative and beautiful (at least in my opinion). I've linked her Waltz of the Sirens below, which is one of my favorites. I can hum her melodies to myself in a way that I can't do as easily with Bartók's music (though don't get me wrong, that's not for lack of trying), and pieces like her Violin Concerto or Cinderella's Waltz (the piano version in her album) just feel like they heal my soul.

Finally, in September, I discovered (again through a random YouTube recommendation) Partita for 8 Voices by Caroline Shaw. I clicked it because it seemed interesting, and oh my goodness, by the 25-second mark I was absolutely HOOKED. I listened to the entire thing three times in a row, and have since been replaying it every couple days on average. It is such a diverse piece of music, and it absolutely blew my mind. I had no idea voices could sound like that. I have yet to delve more into Shaw's music, since I still don't feel like I've exhausted my enjoyment for the Partita, but I have a feeling there will be a lot of good in store when I do.

I was going to write about some of my favorite parts of the Partita, but honestly just the whole thing is so incredible that whenever I go to listen to one part, I just keep listening through the whole thing. But if I had to pick, I'd say Allemande 0:24–1:39, Allemande 3:21–end (but the whole thing is great), Sarabande 1:42–3:23, Sarabande 4:08–end, Courante 1:44–2:52, Courante 5:03–5:23, Courante 5:47–7:06, Courante 8:02–end, Passacaglia 1:09–2:13, Passacaglia 2:32–3:38, Passacaglia 4:31–end.

This piece of music has made me much more aware of subtle differences in vowel sounds, as well as the throat singing and overtone singing being fascinating to listen to. I've also never heard vocal music sound as percussive as the breathing in the Courante without flat-out beatboxing. And given that B major is my favorite key, the B major chords in the Allemande and Sarabande give me chills every time. You have to listen on good speakers though—the bass is nowhere near as good otherwise. I've also taken to quoting the spoken text from the Allemande and Passacaglia when I'm bored. It makes me want to draw Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing 305, which Shaw quotes in the piece.

I realize now that whenever music has lyrics, it nearly always becomes a lot worse for me to listen to. The lyrics are incredibly distracting, since it's something else for my brain to try and figure out in addition to the music. The exceptions are when the lyrics are very simple, in another language, or otherwise abstract enough that I can dismiss them as having little to no meaning and focus largely on the music itself instead. I think this last case is what happens with the Partita, but I still find the lyrics fascinating in a way that I can't say I've ever experienced with anything else before. I will even find myself speaking the lyrics to myself sometimes.

 (DVD version)