Many times Ive written about the dangers of nostalgia, so it should be no surprise that Ive fallen down the rabbit hole. Its sort of like the cheating husband who feels so guilty that he constantly accuses his wife of being unfaithful. In the back of my head, I was always peeking in at the way-back while preaching against it. I guess it was bound to happen. For the whys and hows, Ive got to take you back to my teenage bedroom. This is the room where I waited up well past a decent hour on Sunday nights to watch 120 Minutes on MTV. It had been the alternative, new-music staple since the late 80s. I arrived in the Matt Pinfield-hosted era. Pinfield was a world of artist information and trivia. His ramblings would turn up so many reference names that I had never heard of, giving me a weeks worth of homework in those wee hours before actual school was about to start. And I studied hard, digging for the sounds of these bands wherever I could find them, which in the pre-Google days meant heading to Ear X-Tacy in search of a listening station. I taped the episodes, and would rewatch throughout the week until the next episode arrived, and then the old one would be taped over. Looking back, I cant imagine the quality of that VHS was anything close to decent.
Fast forward to the present. After ending my six-year run with my own new music radio show, The Weekly Feed, in 2015, I quickly launched its follow-up series, The Speed of Sound, an interview podcast. Its given me a chance to focus on a different creative muscle, and it has enjoyed a great first year. Its a seasonal series, though, so when the first season wrapped up a few weeks ago, I found myself with time on my hands. I could have spent more time at the gym, taking care of myself, and all of those usual things, but only a few days later, I had booked a couple of interviews. They were different than usual. Both of these artists, The Romantics and Belly, werent really in the public eye at all. Outside of their hardcore fans, most music fans hadnt thought of them in years, maybe even decades. But I was curious as to their whereabouts, and what they were up to, so I reached out. The conversations that came from both of those interviews gave me a new sort of thrill. I was at once reaching back into my youth, but with both feet still going forward. Here were two artists who had enjoyed success 20 and 30 years prior, but were still working, still creating. In fact, they had never stopped, it was just that we had stopped keeping up.
It then occurred to me that there were tons of those bands whose music I had pored over so much that are still out there, probably enjoying their late freedom. So I started poking around more, finding other bands, reaching out, and having long, sprawling, great conversations that were nothing like the interviews that I had been doing for the past few years. At this point, Ive got dozens recorded or, at least, confirmed.
And for what?
Theres no one knocking to get a piece of these for their site or station. Theres no great wave of listeners awaiting to find out what theyve been up to. Maybe some slight curiosity, but I dont get the sensation of anyone waiting with bated breath. So then, that makes them for me. Except that I have a radio show, and I get to geek out about all of this on a mic, and maybe youll hear it, and itll take you back somewhere, too. Maybe itll prove something that I wasnt even looking for about life after the spotlight, or about the obstacles of being a career musician. You might even find yourself looking into all of the years of their music that you hadnt been paying attention to. Maybe its just as simple as allowing myself to go back to my old bedroom and live inside my TV for a little longer, but youre there, too. And well both enjoy that moment for a bit, and then Ill start the next song and bring us back to the present.
Kyle Meredith is the music director of WFPK and host of the nationally syndicated The Speed of Sound. Hunting bears was never his strong point.
This article appears in July 6, 2016.