Leafing through my music binders this morning I knew I wanted to hear something new and something old simultaneously. In other words something I hadn't heard in awhile. Every now and then I get this itch. The urge to step backwards in time and re-discover an album, one familiar to the ears, yet somehow erased from recent memory. These are the albums that make you go "holy shit! I forgot how good this was!".

I think all true music nerds can relate to this one. One of the traps of being a serious aural junkie is that you tend to get your fill, then move on. It's hard to keep track of all the artists, albums, songs, etc. in your head. You get excited by new artists, spend your days and nights collecting re-issues and b-sides of your favorite older artists, and somehow forget the Marcy Playground's of this world even existed (I stick by it. They were a great band).

On the very last page of the very last binder of discs, marked "Art Rock/New Wave/Post-Punk" (I have a problem), I came across Jim Carroll's Dry Dreams, and it occurred to me that this album came out exactly 30 years ago, in 1982. After giving it a few listens, and fondly remembering his influence, I felt it only appropriate to write about him.

The name Jim Carroll probably sounds familiar if you're over the age of 25, and if you are in your early twenties or teens I'm sure you've never heard of him. If you're in your thirties, you might know all about him and may even worship him. He certainly has a pretty big cult following, although I've found that people tend to either be all about him or couldn't care less. Kind of like how people are with Hunter S. Thompson or Chuck Klosterman.

Most know him as the author of The Basketball Diaries, a series of journals that outline the adventures of a heroin-addicted, outcast-poet youth who was as brilliant with words as he was the language of the streets. This book made him famous, along with several other publications of his poetry and are certainly worth the read.

To appreciate the full scope of Carrolls genius though you have to listen to his music. His first album, Catholic Boy, with the Jim Carroll Band, is a bonafide classic. Two parts punk rock, two parts beat poet street, and all attitude. "People Who Died" is still played in dive bars worldwide, and dj's always find way's of throwing it in the mix. I swear I've heard that song at the Pink more times in the last 15 years than maybe any other. Actually, wait, thats a lie; Johnny Thunders "Born to Lose".

What makes JC so compelling is that he represents an era that doesn't exist anymore. The old New York. Seedy, and grimy, and dangerous. Before the Bowery and the Lower East Side were shopping districts. He represents the New York you saw, albeit charicaturized in The Warriors. And despite his bouts with drugs and alcohol, he never lost his keen sense of self-awareness. He knew where he came from and was a proud spokesperson for the weirdos of the street generation.

To me, Carroll was always an unsung hero. His insight into city life and the larger society was razor sharp and so pin-point accurate. The guy was just so many different shades of cool it would be useless to try and analyze all of them. You just have to experience his poetry and his music and his lyrics firsthand. I remember first discovering him and feeling like a whole new world opened up, as cliche as it is to say. Some of the music sounds dated now, but if your listening to the words that won't really matter.

Jim died in 2009; a tragic blow for the underground. He was a standout in a world full of phony artists who try hard to cultivate an image or an identity or a sound. Carroll never tried. His art was always a reflection of who he was, as most great art usually is. The streets were effectively his. So today, 30 years later, I salute the dude that got me excited all over again.

"People Who Died" on repeat, all day long.


"People Who Died" - The Jim Carroll Band by scottrek13