The Gentleman Loser

Music tells us who we are

Baby, I've been

Breaking glass

In your room again

Listen

Don't look at the carpet,

I drew something awful on it

New Blue Moods

Bear with me for a bit.

Several years ago I was at a low and chaotic place in life. My marriage was ending and I had to leave our apartment. Back then, as now, the only money I was making was through writing so hahahaha that meant I spent most of eight months sleeping clandestinely on the floor of the work studio I shared with another musician (unless you’ve lived in New York City you just can’t get how so much in relationships here is determined by real estate). On top of all that, I was also dealing with major depression that had been recently diagnosed, though in me for about a decade. Of the many things that came out of that, one of the positive ones was writing this article, “Indigo Moods,” for VAN (behind paywall, sorry, in this economy I can’t even read it anymore).

The article is about how depression was affecting my listening. In short, I could listen receptively and respond to music that I was being assigned to think about and cover, but wasn’t listening to the music that I knew already, especially if I loved it. There was not only no pleasure in it, but it put my mental state in a relief that was agonizing. I was supposed to love music, but the “flaw in love” that Andrew Solomon writes about in The Noonday Demon, had turned that off—I hated myself, and that tainted everything that I had enjoyed for myself. Unworthy of love, nothing I had previously loved could be worthy.

I try and keep track of what’s happening inside me. One major concern is that I should do more about my health, doctor appointments and such, but I don’t do nearly enough. These are things I know and tell myself I should do, but then I never take that step. This is a specific thing that always has me concerned that depression is returning. But I also eat well, and enjoy eating, and get plenty of exercise, and enjoy that, so this feels more like a stupid bad habit than self neglect. Of course I could be wrong.

Chronicles of Failure

More pernicious and persistent is a sense of failure that I struggle with constantly. This is material and spiritual—let’s call it that. I feel like my work is generally good in that I can take an idea that fires me and articulate it and send it out into the world—I have things to say and am saying them. And there’s satisfaction in knowing that I have books out there people can read, into the future, and that someone doing research on, say, Bob Ostertag or Missy Mazzoli or Timo Andres or David Garland or Andrew Violette, will be using my writing in the Grove Dictionary of Music. But I have almost no sense that anyone is actually reading any of these words, I get so little feedback that, well, I don’t pan operas on purpose—only when they deserve it—but when I do, I often obsessively check for comments to see if anyone actually read the thing and got pissed off.

And the material feedback feels even more like failure. Does what I’m doing have any value? In terms of what I get paid, and how I’ve now fallen below the level of being able to support myself, the answer is hardly at all. In essential material ways, things are worse right now than my previous low. I’m filing for bankruptcy, work is drying up, I still cannot figure out what I’m doing wrong that’s tanking every job application, I can’t get paid for the freelance work I have done, and the Trump regime may have just kicked me off Medicaid.

But the music is, somehow, good. And I’m thankful that, in spite of everything, my listening is still there. And I’ve been thinking about how it’s working.

There are two things that I've been saying and writing pretty much every week since the now long-gone classical.tv published a column of mine. One is the critical argument that there's no such thing as difficult music-no such thing! The other is to me more meaningful, which is that making music is a social activity.

Homo Musicalis

We, as people, make music together, we gather together to witness others making music for us. Music is the language we speak to each other when we don't know each other's vernacular, it is one of the cornerstones of all of civilization. It holds so much of civilization in it. When you listen to music, you're almost- always listening to many ancient ideas brought to life. Each note of music can hold information equivalent to a novel, it says so much.

Our relationship to music changes along with our relationships with each other, and ourselves. “Breaking Glass” I quoted in my VAN article because it was not only exactly how I saw myself, but I only wanted to read those words on paper, I couldn't bear listening to the song. I also kept thinking, those nights in the studio, how I would manage to see my daughter, and the first line of "Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City." That's not what the song is about, but man that fucking line was everything I feared at the time.

I love Steely Dan (and Bowie, and all the music I do) because of what they tell me. When I'm playing a record, we have a social thing going on. Despite the crushing personal stress and the awfulness of the regime's war on American society, I can listen, and do so with interest, with pleasure. I played a lot of Steely Dan while working on this, and the combination of the changes in me and my circumstances took a song I’d heard hundreds of times and made it new, like I finally figured out what it meant to me, I understood what they were telling me. In "Midnight Cruiser,"Jim Hodder sings, “I am another gentleman loser / Drive me to Harlem, or somewhere the same.”

Gentlemen loser, heh. That’s it. The truth hurts, but then, I am what I am.

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SPECIAL NOTICE: Things are truly critical right now, so I’m making a push to get more of you to become paying subscribers. I’ve got a sweet, sweet giveaway for new annual subscriptions that come in through Labor Day (and for the subscribers who came on from May 1 through today, you will be retroactively included!):

New subscriptions will be eligible to win, by random drawing and choosing by ranked results, one of these recordings of minimalist music:

Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995

Philip Glass: The Symphonies (Nos. 1-10)

Steve Reich: WTC 9/11 (2CD set autographed by Reich)

Each of these is lightly used, discs NM/NM- in Discogs rating system (WTC 9/11 has a slight tear in the cardboard digipack)

Please subscribe, and good luck!

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Some Other Things

My book has a cover! Thanks to all who voted in the recent poll, it really did help me decide because I was on the fence. There’s also a publication date, April 2, 2026, and you can preorder now, do it early and often, please!

In other good publishing news, MacMillan is republishing Greg Tate’s Flyboy in the Buttermilk, in a new edition with forwards and introductions from Questlove, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Hanif Abdurraqib. This is an essential read for anyone interested in contemporary American music, and out of print copies are ridiculously expensive right now, so here’s some much needed power to the people.

Last but not least, today is Louis Armstrong Day (observed), and the tunes are blowing up until midnight on WKCR, so let’s all celebrate some of the greatness, and great Blackness, of American civilization.

I’ll be back on Monday, Mahler’s Day. Good listening to all.