Talk:Listening List: Ease Into It

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  1. Appetizer: The Hitpoints

Let's start with one that's decidedly non-traditional and all-instrumental to get the palette ready.

One of my all-time favorite records, the frenetic self-titled release features my friends Jake Stargelguitar, Royal Masat, Ethan Jodziewicz, and Geoff Saunders with The Hitpoints duo Eli Bishop and Matt Menefee. Paul Kowert and Sierra Hull are also featured.

I saw these boys in 2016 at MAGFest, with no idea that Jake was going to become one of my core collaborating partners in the years to come.

This record features some of the best video game themes of the 1990s, not only giving a best-in-class rendition of Chrono Trigger, but also rehabilitating some pieces that had previously seemed overplayed and underdone, such as The Athletic Theme from Super Mario World and Green Hill Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog. It also has mind-bending solos on Guile's Theme from Street Fighter II. A great listen front-and-back.

  1. Back in time, but only a little
    1. Tony Rice: Manzanita

If you put a gun to my head as if I'm little Sadie, and demand to know, with no preparation, what I believe to be the greatest bluegrass record of all time, I'll go with Tony Rice's 1979 release, Manzanita.

Not only does this record features front-to-back bangers, including the title track which is on the short list for greatest bluegrass instrumentals ever written, but it also has a starling prescience in the way that it positions its ensemble. For example, it showcases Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush - just 23 and 26 at the time, respectively, in what I think one can reasonably argue is the earliest record in which they each found what has become their signature sound.

This record has also become the substrate for the whacky Blue Railroad Train Squats meme.

    1. Old and In The Way
    • (Chose either the self-title record or High Lonesome Sound)**

If you haven't yet, this is a great time to light that joint you rolled.

I have to duck for cover to avoid the lightning strike that might seek me out when I say this: I think that Old and In The Way is very possibly the most influential bluegrass band of all time, and the sounds of what we today call "bluegrass" are much more lineal to Old and In The Way than they are to Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, or Maybelle Carter, essential as all of those pickers are.

Their live albums manage to communicate the feat inherent in their live shows: to play aging country-gospel songs like "Wicked Path of Sin" and "Angel Band" to an audience of tripping hippies, thirsty to drink from the river of time as it moves these songs from one generation into the next.

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