Live Oak Blues What happens.

Either because of my “developing” emotional maturity or because I am “young at heart,” I tend to gravitate toward folks younger than myself, in some cases significantly so. So it is with some trepidation when tell people I saw the Stones when Keith Richards still had black hair or that I have more memories from the 70s than I do the 90s. A dear friend of mine, after watching “Hot Tub Time Machine,” asked me once, with complete innocence, “were the 80s really like that?” Yeah, they kinda were.

I bring all this up because I did a radio show on “1987” yesterday and the whole thing didn’t sound like that long  ago to me–even though some of my listeners had yet to grace the planet in 1987. In 1987, I was in grad school, newly married, and on a self-important hiatus from popular music. I was listening exclusively to classical and jazz and, as far I was concerned, I was done with anything that had a back beat or a fuzz box. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed out on latter-day Smiths, Dinosaur Jr., and early Pixies. But I recovered shortly thereafter and made up for lost time and have stayed ahead of the wave ever since.

And I also know a bunch of new/old farts like myself, people who don’t bat an eye when I mention whole decades of existence, but who stay fresh as I like to do. Truth is, much of the music I listened to in the 70s, 80s, and 90s still sounds brand new to me. “London Calling” will never age, for example, and by that I mean it could be released today and still sound more vital and current than anything else. So bear with us: we may be graying, but we can still whoop your young asses any day of the week.