Mrs Moose is, as you will imagine, a very patient and long-suffering woman.
There are many, terrible reasons why this is true, some of which are too awful for you to contemplate, but my taste in music is one of them. Actually she positively likes a good 80% of the music I do. Another 15% she tolerates. Then there is the 5% which she will tell me to turn off.
Today a thankfully rare instance of this came up, about seven minutes into this jolly wee ditty.
What is your partner’s musical breaking point?
Listening to that for the first time, and thought it was lovely – until he started singing… Then I began to understand your wife and turned it off. 🙂
You understand my wife?
I have a book commission for you Loc’….
I know from actual experience of that track that my GLW would get about 30 seconds in before a less than polite request to change to something else. I put it down to a knee jerk reaction rather than it actually being offensive, but hey, we’re all different.
Ms Moles from thirty years of observation checks out of the room if I have on either: wittering women – Kate Bush, Nanci Griffiths and Natalie Merchant are the prime examples of this; or shouty blokes – The Clash being first amongst equals. There is the potential for shift – The Jam are also shouty blokes but she’s happy with a lot of Weller’s solo work as it’s so 60s influenced. Her 60s stuff that is, rather than The Who.
La Bush is also one of Mrs M’s dislikes. I have a theory that it’s because she thinks of KB primarily as a woman who twats about in a letoard making silly faces, rather than as a musician. After the recent “Maygate” business Mrs M said “Well I don’t know why anybody’s taking Kate Bush seriously… I mean ever, not just about this”
It seems like Mrs M shares my view of Kate Bush, I really can’t understand the reverence she is afforded on here.
KB is one of the many people I like a great deal…. while understanding totally why other people don’t.
Remove the “great deal” from your like and I’m with you, Moosey.
Hello all
Views on “Kate” may be related to the age gender and sexual preferences of the listener. I may be wrong but I’m guessing there’s a quite a few 50 something blokes amongst AW’ers and amongst her fans. Which I am not.
Regards to Mrs M
Mrs MM
Well there may be something in that.
Mrs M thinks KB has a silly squawky voice and thinks her twee hippy songs are preposterous.
However, as I have pointed out, she is more than prepared to tolerate preposterous twee hippy songs sung in an equally silly voice by the young Marc Bolan. That’s the young, beautiful, male Marc Bolan. Funny that…
Maygate was a moment that confirmed everything about KB that she has long held.
There is no Mrs B these days, but Frank Zappa and The Fall were not exactly favourites in those faraway days. Now the disapproval comes from my 13 year old (“I had no idea the Beatles were this weird” was her appalled comment on a revisit to 1967-69 at the weekend), while my Daddy-worshipping 8 year old tries to convince herself she likes the latest Zappa bootleg or remaster. Poor kid…
Child torturer!
Me & Mrs O share very similar tastes, probably about a 99% success rate both ways. This falls down sharply when we get to The Fall.
She absolutely hates them! It’s not just Mark E Smiths voice that grates on her, it is pretty much everything about them. Headphones only when the fall are played in our house.
The lengthier prog pieces in general, but with a special loathing reserved for anything by Yes.
Dylan, first and last and always. Although she did like his Theme Time Radio Hour, and is always delighted when I entertain her with my impression of his Bobness’s dulcet tones.
Stereolab. I wrong-footed on one of our early dates, with a trip to see them at the Astoria.
The first bar of French Disko is enough to provoke effing and jeffing.
Hip hop, specifically use of ‘the N word’. In hip hop, ‘the N word’ is used to describe all people — enemies, friends, fans, people in the street — so the potential for her to hear it is huge. The solution is to play white-boy hip hop, and I can’t stick Eminem, so if I’m in a hip hop mood we tend to listen to a lot of Beastie Boys.
Have you tried Vanilla Ice, Leicester?
Presumably not Get It Together though? 😉
That’s fine. The odd n-word isn’t really a problem. Same with bitch. What annoys her is the repetition and over-use. Ruff Ryders Anthem, something like that. Bless her doe eyes.
With her all the way on the N-word.
Unnecessary in totality.
Crass.
If the subliminal purpose of it’s use is to make Whites feel guilty then doubly so.
Yes, it doesn’t bother me from an ideological point of view, but the overall reliance on it as a lyrical crutch word gets tiresome.
That’s EXACTLY what a massive racist would say.
“Lyrical crutch word.”
Please, I’m too tired for this.
I’ve managed to establish that the key things to avoid at Stately Counterpane Manor are:
1. “Too mournful”
2. “Too country”, and
3. Contains mouth organ.
As I’ve been on an alt-country/Americana trip the last couple of years, domestic harmony has been at risk.
Contains Neil Young means it’s off the menu in our house, which i find tricky.
Conversely Mrs never has no problem at all with Neil Young and Jon Anderson (while we’re here). It’s me that has trouble with their voices with the consequence that I’ve avoided their output, probably unfairly, and tend to absent myself when Mrs never decides to put some music on and selects those artistes. Luckily her current fave is Police Dog Hogan so harmony usually reigns.
Contains mouth organ. A lot of wives object to that.
(sorry)
The things she hates:
1 – Julian Cope
2 – Roy Harper
3 – Jethro Tull
4 – Kate Bush – however as I don’t own anything by her, this isn’t an issue.
Julian Cope? Wow.
He has a lovely voice and if you avoid all the weird metal stuff and noodling albums he has written some brilliant pop tunes.
How could you not like this:
I have been threatened with immediate ejection from the house if I so much as contemplate playing Captain Beefheart.
Whilst she tolerates the Sex Pistols, they are right on the edge of her throwing cutlery at me.
And the name Brain Eno should not be mentioned in our house.
In fairness, she tolerates most things, even going so far as actually buying me 3 Metallica CDs a couple of Christmases ago. These were presented with the caveat “you can play those when I’m out”.
Ms Moles is the Beefhearter in our house. I’m not a fan. Ditto early Pink Floyd. If Sid’s in, I’m out.
The following are not popular with Mrs duco:
1) Albert Ayler (“Usch – stäng av skiten!”)
2) John Coltrane
3) Thelonious Monk
4) Eric Dolphy
5) Joe Henderson
6) Freddie Hubbard
7) Andrew Hill
8) Henry Threadgill
9) Wadada Leo Smith
10) Anything, really, that might be termed … jazz
Me too…..modern jazz and/or anything with “discordant sounds,” The Aerosol Grey Machine and George Harrison’s first two LPs admirably fulfilling this second remit.
She really loves Captain Beefheart’s debut LP though.
Me too….anything with prominent soprano sax, in particular….
…and any Van der Graaf, but especially “….Lighthousekeepers “….Mme Stoke came into the room as we got to “where is the god that guides my hand” and she threatened actual bodily harm….
Wait, hold the ‘phone – Deramdaze is MARRIED? My illusion of you is shattered, Deram!
They’re all what might be termed the “Weird” end of the Jazz spectrum, so no great surprise.
Personally I’d have no problem with any of them except sometimes Ayler, Hill, Threadgill and Smith are sometimes not what my ears require.
I know a LOT of people, both male and female who would never ever tolerate being in hearing of Albert Ayler.
I sure the misses would fail to appreciate The Fall but I never even try that out. She did complain at Bert Jansch’s Avocet once – the tin-eared philistine.
Hmmm … well, if she complained at Bert Jansch’s Avocet, it’s probably best not to try Peter Brötzmann’s “Machine Gun” out on her…
I haven’t tested the waters with the Fall and Mr B yet, but I think he vaguely knows who they are.
Not a fan of Mightily Tull or the Feat, sadly. And a certain tightness will appear around her temples should I play Iris Dement or similar “twangy” country singer. Likes the Dan and Stevev Wilson though.
She likes the Dan? Wow. I remember a plaintive post a few years back by an Afterworder who told us of an argument with his other half in which she came out with a list of complaints delivered at increasing volume, concluding with a screamed “…and I hate Steely Dan!”
‘Tis true. ‘Twas I, Moose.
This sorry state of affairs has not been remedied – in spite of my very best efforts. Which, of course, in my considered analysis, deployed route one to goal.
Play more. Play louder. More often.
We remain at an impasse. Although we have not had an argument quite like it since.
So this is good. We are moving in the right direction. Are we not?
Hope you don’t think I was making light of this traumatic episode.
Mrs M doesn’t mind the Dan. But she isn’t keen. Especially if I do air guitar during My Old School, while pretending that the fridge-freezer is a Marshall stack.
As I said in the OP – long-suffering.
You can probably buy Marshall ‘fridge jackets’, to turn yer Hotpoint upright into a stack.
Great! That will go with my Korg Ironing Board Cover.
Overheard in an antique shop: “So we had the Aga repainted to look like a Mellotron…”
Mr B forgot the word ‘spatterguard’ the other evening, calling it “that thing shaped like a banjo”.
I’m sure spatterguard were in @duco01 ‘s ‘best of’. . .
Spatterguard…. oh dear. Can’t you see whose thread this is?
Didn’t Rick Wakeman have a Baby Belling built into one of his Moogs?
Ralf Hutter… checking his Smart Meter during Neon Lights (appropriately enough)
Oh no Moose, not at all.
Things have been fine since we started attending Haitian relationship counselling services.
Is there gas in the marriage? Yes, there’ s gas in the marriage 😉
Bootlegs. ‘Why the hell do you want to listen to something that sounds this awful when the regular stuff sounds so much better..?’ We’ve actually just discussed this, and I have to be fair and say that she tolerates most of my music and we enjoy a large crossover of taste.
In the car we have a system whereby my iPod goes on shuffle, but either of us has the power of veto to not listen to something – it actually rarely happens….except maybe for a wobbly Let It Be outtake perhaps….
Bootlegs. ‘Why the hell do you want to listen to something that sounds this awful when the regular stuff sounds so much better..?’
To be fair, she has a point…..
Hmmm….Perhaps…. @Blue-Boy I was answering the question!
My wife is generally okay with my music. We overlap quite a bit, but she will turn her nose up at some of my metal, while she also has an unshared fondness for what I’ve just dubbed Radio 6 Indie – FrIghtened Rabbit and the like. She also gets Ryan Adams, which I certainly don’t.
The dog on the other hand does not seem to enjoy anything I like and will leave the room and go sit in the kitchen if I’m playing black metal or dub reggae.
Your first paragraph is more or less where I’m at too except my OH wouldn’t know Frightened Rabbit if she found them in the guest bed. Her tastes, such as they are, are rooted completely in the 90s.
TBH she’s not remotely fussed by music except as a vehicle for nostalgia and so I tend to listen alone or when travelling.
If you played me black metal I would leave the room, bypass the kitchen and keep going.
Me too. Why would you sit down to listen to that.
Listening to some Wayne Shorter yesterday morning, towards the end of side two she says in a world weary voice, “You know I don’t really like jazz very much…”
The Fall seems to be a lightening-rod for disharmony. While she doesn’t own any Fall albums, Ms Moles is fine with MES. In a similar vein – anyone else still maintain separate music collections? This after 30 years…though we will not actually buy ‘our own copies’ any more, one is generally enough.
Well, when I first moved in with the future Mrs M one of my first thoughts was “Great! Now I don’t have to buy Transformer!”
Let us be lovers, marry our fortunes together…
Autobot or Decepticon?
You’re not too old to go over my knee, young lady!
I listened to most of that track Moose, waiting for something awful to blare out of my tablet speakers, but – nothing. What exactly is it that Mrs Moose can’t bear? (Apart from you, of course.)
Couple of recent of examples from our house. Mr B asks “Who’s this, Louis Armstrong?” Um… no dear, it’s Tom Waits.
And the other night, when I was listening to ITLTSN in the tub, Mr B declared that “Van Morrison can’t really sing, can he?”.
Just this confound me further, he actually really dug a song I was playing yesterday – the 12″ of the Belle Stars’ Iko Iko. Not usually his sort of thing at all.
I bloody love him.
I’d played the whole album. The track before this one is a bit skronky so the effect on Her Maj was probably cumulative. Like that time when she broke that chair over my head.
Don’t worry, she was later full of tearful remorse.
“I loved that bloody chair”
‘I was listening to ITLTSN in the tub’
If Mr B (and Moose) will allow me, you sound like my kinda woman Mini
Ha! I was also drinking gin and eating BBQ Beef Hula Hoops. I know how to live.
Blimey Mini, stop it – this is becoming my fantasy….
http://i1350.photobucket.com/albums/p773/minibreakfast/bbq%20hoops_zps1v1mlqss.jpg
There’s a disgusting joke in there about Beef Hula Hoops somewhere, but frankly it’s beneath my dignity.
My FPO doesn’t like The Pogues or Julian Cope. On a car journey I played or tried to play Godspeed you black emperor!! Didn’t get very far with that one before I heard ‘What the hell is this rubbish’.
Sometimes I try to play something I am sure she will like. Ron Sexsmith has a nice voice and strong melodies. Even with him I got ‘this is depressing me, do we really have to listen to it?’.
I am lucky as Mrs Bungliemutt actively encourages me to switch on some tunes with her usual refrain of “this place is like a morgue”. She has a long-suffering acceptance of everything from Gregorian chant to Chuck Prophet, but has an unaccountable mental block where Bob Dylan is concerned, generally reacting with something along the lines of “what is that crap?”
Unaccountable?
My missus rarely enthuses over the music I listen to. She likes classical music and went through a student phase of world music. we’ve been to gigs – she liked Django bates, found steely dan too loud and impossible to hear the words (they won awards for the best PA on the road that year); when we saw the Rolling stones, she only knew “satisfaction). She turns down “Yes” (surely symphonic) and when i played “crime of the century” and got to the end of “School” (side 1, track 1) asked if we could listen to the world service. I’ve never introduced her to the darker corners of my music collection. It’s my theory that even when one tries to second guess a wife’s musical taste, it crashes. I dreamt up introducing another musically-unappreciated pal’s wife to laura Nyro, and that didn’t work though I thought a soulful, poppy female singer songwriter would be just the thing for a woman who liked 60s soul. Just as well I long ago found that liking a woman who liked the kind of stuff I did (musically) was generally disastrous. what does this say about the kind of music I like? or does it say musical compatibility is not necessary for a happy marriage, and our music is like our shed – a place of retreat and private contemplative pleasure?
Exactly. I’m looking at getting my garage (shed) sound-proofed.
Brooce gets the instant thumbs down from Mrs W. She simply cannot get past the Born in the USA macho denim earnest working-class blue-collar stuff.
She is normally a woman of impeccable taste with but one musical blind spot – her favourite record is Rumours which in the early days led to our first proper row. Nowadays I have come to accept the magnificent splendour of Rumours – I particularly like the appalling drumming, the inept guitar solos, the whingy voices and the toe- curling lyrics and tomorrow I’m going to tell her what I really think…..
Ah Broooce – in Ms Moles world a shouty bloke. Absolute thumbs down from her.
How odd Lodey. We appear to have married the same flawed woman.
As still somewhat new to my wife, resisting the insertion of current into said sentence, I thought I had hit AW heaven when she seemed to tolerate Jackie Leven in my courting tapes. Now we are bedded in, so to speak, she tells me she can’t stand him. In truth I like most of her choices, except bloody Bon Iver, and she likes an equivalent number of mine, except that number within the totality of mine is a minuscule proportion, which means she insists on me in headphones for most of mine. (And why do women play the same bloody CD time after time after time?)
The soon-to-be Mrs Theref has a thing about “angry white man” music.
So – most punk; Motorhead; and Biffy Clyro. It’s the only show she has refused to attend with me
Another phenomenon is how gradually artists who were initially poo-poohed are now adopted by your parter. So I am now convinced of the genius of Led Zep (as a good post-punk all of that was rubbish in 1982) and she will tolerate solo Weller.
It’s safe to say that Mrs Wad doesn’t share my new found love of hip hop and grime. On one memorable occasion, after I’d pushed it by playing two rap songs back to back, she burst out “for fuck’s sake, I’ve had enough of this sweary rap shit”, before realising what she’d done and going a bit red!
Even as I check this is the right version I can see her mouth tightening into a grimace…
The missus has, generally, awful taste in music. She loves “new country.” I’ve had to listen to quite a lot of a Garth Brooks boxset she got for Christmas.
However, having played her lots and lots of stuff over the years she really likes Nick Drake, John Martyn, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, and, surprisingly, Tom Waits – although only the earlier stuff. She draws the line at the “old hobo banging on pots & pans” era Waits.
I end up spending a lot of my music listening time with a pair of headphones clamped to my bonce.
In the car we ONLY listen to my wife’s music. Otherwise disaster. My wife in fact is a far bigger music nazi than I am. I’ve told her so multiple times over the years to her face (both in anger and in jest) such is life.
For the past 5 years she’s listened to nothing but A.O.R. Of the “limited release” Japanese import variety. Yesterday we listened to a Jim Messina solo album (of Loggins and Messina) ….it’s quite good.
Sigh…
The 5 years before that was all jazz fusion. So we still get some of that overlap.
Although alarmingly she appears to be transitioning towards light jazz (with vocals) so lot’s of Michael Franks, Gino Vannelli, Al Jareu.
When I first met her she was like a normal Afterworder. 2 huge books of CD’s. The first was filled with an eclectic selection of music a typical 21 year old Brit would be buying circa 2001. (Blur, their influences, their contemporaries, etc) The 2nd book represents her sharply fanatical turn to 60’s-70’s music. So really the two CD books represent the two afterword factions each with their representative music collections.
She never listens to that stuff anymore though.
Welcome to my world.
Yup, the “never the twain shall meet” rule pretty much applies in our car as well leading to having the radio on almost exclusively unless I’m prepared to listen to Take That/Adele/Coldplay/ Buble on pretty strict rotation. The problem is we also struggle find a radio station that we can both put up with for any decent length of time so long journeys are interesting.
Whatever brought us together in the first place it certainly wasn’t shared musical taste. She even hated the band I was in!
Like many in my family, she has little or no interest in the world of music but, through the kids, she’ll latch on the odd thing. Adele is a breakthrough artist into civilian territory and she’s very into her. There’s an appreciation/respect afforded to the Beatles but she barely mentions my other music. She will respectfully suggest that I don’t put together a playlist for parties and the like. I don’t subject her to my stuff in the car, unless it’s my work car. It’s all bleepy noise to her – and she’s absolutely right, a great deal of it is.
I remember Noel Gallagher saying that nobody made any money from appealing to just the “cool” audience. Once you’ve got into the heads of the “squares” that’s when you hit the big time.
I’ve now done the Fall test on Mr B. He just muttered something about John Cage and shuffled off downstairs out of earshot.
The only comment Mrs M has made about the Fall was when we watched the BBC doc a few years back. She described MES as “An interesting man but clearly an arsehole”
Words of wisdom Mrs Moose
Mrs BB barely tolerates ‘your country girls’ (Emmylou, Lucinda, Gillian, Linda, et al). She loved Margo Price the other night though.
Dylan is a blind spot (apart from Street Legal because we were – ahem – stepping out when that album was out). And very weirdly, because she adores Bjork and Laura Marling, she really can’t abide Joni Mitchell.
Mrs T loves some country (Trisha Yearwood, Kim Richey, Gretchen Peters ), tolerates some (Emmylou, Martina McBride) and can’t abide some (Iris, Gillian, Joy Lynn White)
Mr B actually ‘accused’ me, like it was some sort of crime, of “making me like some country” by playing the fantabulous Trio CDs. I reminded him that one of his fave Dylan albums is Nashville Skyline, and he withdrew the complaint.
Trio not going down well with Mrs BB I have to say. Like Mrs T she does like Gretchen Peters thankfully.
Mrs Turtleface is pretty tolerant and we crossover probably 80% of the time. I’ve taken her to see the Stray Cats, turned her on to Edwyn Collins and she always accompanies me to every Roddy Frame gig we can make. She likes Nick Lowe (though maybe not as much as me) but like many others, The Fall are a problem, Half Man Half Biscuit are ‘funny lyrics but unlistenable’ and she’s really not keen on Heavy Trash. I love Tom Waits but she will ask me to turn it off.
Mostly though, I think I do quite well. I’d happily dispose of her ELO and Santana collection however.
How can a girl not like the Stray Cats? You can dance, and they have glistening muscles!
…. apparently
I’ve found that in general it’s best not to play music at all when Mrs thep’s around. She may like it and ask what it is, but sooner or later she’ll want to talk, and ask for it to be turned off. Or it might start gentle and get loud and shouty.
She nearly always listens to music on her headphones, and I have plenty of time in the house on my own if I want some loud, so it’s all good. She listens to nothing but podcasts in the car anyway, so that’s what I listen to if I’m with her. I’ve learnt a lot.
My daughter is staying and came home to me cleaning a loo with Hendrix live at Atlanta absolutely screaming. So that’s what you do she said with a smile.
CD, I’m guessing, as the vinyl probably can’t scrape right down to water level. What were you screaming about?
Yes CD , if you hold it on an angle the sharp edge the can be quite effective in dislodging some of the encrusted items.
African is ok but extended bouts of Zimbabwean staccato guitar put her on edge. Esp if I break out a few of my old dance moves.
Jazz fine til it gets free form.
Dylan fine cept for early period v nasal twang
Zappa – nyet
Loves the Dan 👍👍👍👍
Mrs. T is good with jazz. Dylan if tuneful.
“Good with jazz” sounds uncomfortably like “Good with children”.
I suppose jazz can also be expensive, difficult to control and liable to fill your home with an unholy racket.
Mmm. Quite a lot of variation on location here. I’m sticking to the car 🚗 journeys. Short journey. All talk. Long journeys. A mix and match from us both. Fly solo. Go nuts.
This morning: a song by The Rutles produced the response “This sounds like something from Childrens Television”
…like that’s a bad thing.
I found out at the weekend that she really doesn’t get Public Service Broadcasting.
Has she tried re-tuning?
I was going to say something indecorous about a powerful mast, thankfully you intervened.