Music for old white men.

on Feb 21 in ReFramed by sfeinberg

Anyone at Seiden who’s had to drive with Matt and me to client meetings has had to endure the peculiar agony of listening to two old white men dork out on Boomer music, aka Dad Rock.

You’ll be in the back seat (because old white men hog the front), fiddling with your iPhone in an attempt to look productive, wishing to hell you could bust out the headphones or maybe just not come back from the pit stop at the Grover Cleveland Service Area on the Jersey Turnpike.

Instead, you listen to dialogue like this, as the Sirius Loft or Classic Vinyl channel plays on and on:

Matt: What do you think is Steely Dan’s most popular album?

Steve: Popular as in sold the most?

Matt: Yeah.

Steve: Including downloads, or just album sales?

Matt: Total.

Steve: Do you know the answer? Is this a test?

Matt: Just give it your best shot.

Steve: Countdown to Ecstasy.

Matt: No. It was Aja.

Steve: I would have thought Aja was too jazzy.

Matt: Did you know that the drummer on that album, Jeff Porcaro, also played for Sonny and Cher?

And on and on. No wonder hitch-hiking from the Jersey marshes back into the city looks like a viable option. It’s torture. I know, and I’m one of the perpetrators.

But take comfort in the fact that, if you’ve been through this routine, you’re part of a Seiden tradition that goes back years. Talk to Seiden alumna Zenia Zaveri about the endless hours on the Long Island Expressway on the way to Weight Watchers. Or talk to Anu Patel about her music-filled hours down to Chesterbrook for Shire meetings.

Anu, to her credit, gets my vote for most willing to openly show her indifference/contempt to the Matt & Steve music talkathon. Also most able to kick some game about Boomer music minutiae when it suited her.

Not that it matters, but here’s some things about the music Matt and I obsess about. Most of it is in the shared Boomer guy sweet spot: Grateful Dead, Stones, Steely Dan, Mark Knopfler, Emmy Lou Harris, Steve Earle.

But our 5-year age difference means there’s music on both sides of the divide the other guy is not down with. Folk music from the early to mid-60s Matt files under “Beatnik” and views as archival aural history at best. Example: Richard & Mimi Farina. Any band after Springsteen (1973) untill the appearance of Dire Straits and Talking Heads Steve views as inauthentic hair-band crap. Example: Mott the Hoople.

But that leaves a vast pool of common musical memories to exhume, share and discuss. If you’re stuck in the car with us, be forewarned. But if you decide to put on the Dre Beatz and opt out, we won’t hold it against you.

Hell, we’re so old we might not even notice.