I often fantasize about pulling a
Men in Black mind-erase thing on myself, specifically targeting my preconceptions regarding music. Would I still enjoy 80s new wave if I had no memory of it accompanying my youth? What would I make of acid jazz with no context? Would I still run screaming from the room if you played Take It Easy by the Eagles without the decades of built-up antipathy toward that band? (Probably.) I think I d most enjoy the process with folk music. Not because I don t like folk music by and large, I do. But no other genre has so many preconceptions built up inside my head. When I hear the banjo kick in, my mind sees mountain roads, dilapidated shacks out in the woods, drinking moonshine by a fire, all that good stuff.