Put a knife to my back, and I’ll say my favorite album of all time is Voodoo by D’angelo.
My wife pokes fun at me because I’m so in love with almost every angle of Pino Palladino’s basslines on it (although Charlie Hunter deserves a lot of credit for what he did on “The Root” and “Greatdayndamornin’”). I first heard the album in high school after an older friend gave me the CD, adding that he “bought it at Sound Exchange.” I eventually parted with embarrassing amounts of my minimum-wage earnings amassing CDs from the Tampa retailer’s Nebraska and Livingston Avenue locations. In 2016, I still own two gigantic moving boxes full of sound on plastic discs. A mentor convinced me that in 2063, they’ll be valued like vinyl is nowadays.
I’m not explaining this to wax nostalgic, or to say Voodoo is the singular collection of songs that changed my life. I’m telling you because Voodoo would only be tops if you forced me to pick. Countless albums theoretically fall into second position by margins as indecipherable as the wiry, individual goatee hairs that are barely visible on D’angelo’s face when you’re leaning into Voodoo’s iconic front cover.
No one should have to choose one thing that defines them, even in an intro letter from an incoming music editor. We’re all very complex.
I do, however, feel most confident about life’s seemingly endless questions when I’m experiencing a song. I can’t tell you how many times bundles of sounds and phrases, on records or live at a show, have made me feel OK about being alive. I’ve also spent enough time experiencing this sober to know it’s not just the bottle talking.
Still, I’m not elitist. This adoration of sound and composition is not divine, and it does not make anyone cooler than the next stick in the ground.
I knew half the moves from *Nsync’s 1998 Disney Channel special. I still know all the words on their Christmas album. I’ve lived in the liner notes on John Mayer’s Room For Squares and learned how to play guitar partly from watching Douche McDoucheface’s Any Given Thursday DVD. You should read my review of Taylor Swift’s Halloween night performance last year — I gushed about as hard as I did when I was at a festival screaming along to Ryan Adams’s performance of “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)” with Something Corporate singer Andrew McMahon. I also enjoy noise and continue to seek a firmer grasp of poetry. The Cure still kind of confuses me every now and then, and Eddie Vedder is definitely a little bit of a question mark. Morrissey… yeah.
Furthermore, I only fell in love with Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters two months ago, and I once cried to the Lion King soundtrack. Elton John is a hell of a drug. My dad’s love of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young informs me, and Mom’s obsession with ABBA is probably the reason I feel so safe and happy at an of Montreal pansexual disco party.
I have those experiences because people shared theirs with me, whether it was on a macro, more anonymous level, or one that required us to share the same air.
As the former social media coordinator at Gasparilla Music Festival, I spent years helping plan and execute the fest alongside hardworking, selfless board members and volunteers who set an example by living and dying not just on the scores of bands we did and didn’t book, but also on the experiences of the tens of thousands of people who walked through the gates. For more than three years at the Tampa Bay Times, I filed live music copy and occasional features to my editor Jay Cridlin (one of the best newspaper guys in town) and grew more tuned in to the patterns of performing artists at every level. I’ve come to appreciate that promoters at different scales all have unique ideas about exactly what a concert is supposed to mean to every individual who pays a cover. Freelancing for a half-decade at CL ignited a curiosity for local that was already vital. After a year spent writing national news for Consequence of Sound, I grew, but also realized that the place for my pen was at home, and at Suburban Apologist I was handed an opportunity to take a platform another person built and use it to run alongside contributors who blindly devoted themselves to the thing I care about the most: the creative community.
I believe in the mostly thankless, anonymous work artists do. I won’t shake my finger at the impulse to move away. I feel grateful, though, when they stick around town, and I get a little pissed when people try to shit on artists the second they express even the slightest criticism of the way our community tries to evolve the arts. We’re all caught in the ebb and flow of our instincts, dancing beside the energy we’re receiving from this plot of Florida we call home — we should try listening to all of it every now and then.
Two years ago at SubAp!, I wrote that the “scene” didn’t need saving because it was already happening all around us in the bars, clubs, DJ booths, bedrooms and kitchens where creatives collectively chase the seemingly unattainable ideas racing around the corners of their minds and bodies. I believed that our purpose was to “participate in it and then kiss, hug, and make friends with all the people who want to do the same thing.” I still want to do that, now that CL has trusted me to tend to the music section and be part of this team. If you’re creative or are affected by the output of Tampa Bay’s creative community, then I need you to tell me what moves you.
Our scene doesn’t need salvation. But it does deserve to be captured, chronicled, shared and celebrated in a way that reflects how much we believe in the good, damn good, and shitty parts of the whole. This scene deserves more voices telling its story, and I’m beyond grateful to be one of them.
Electronic hate can be hurled at Ray via email (rroa@southcomm.com) or on social networks (@rayroa). Piles of the brown stuff (or products for review consideration) should be sent to 1911 E. 13th. St., Suite W200, Tampa, FL 33605. Flowers should be delivered to Ray’s wife and pound puppy, who’ve been victims of his personality for far too long now.
This article appears in Aug 18-25, 2016.