|
Reviewer's Bio
Linden Park
I was born in Seoul, Korea in 1974. My father loved music, and my fondest childhood memory — to this day — is listening to the LPs from this handsomely gargantuan Deutsche Grammophon box set of "the Classics." He would sit me on his knees and hold my wrists as he would punctuate the air with the beats, according to the music's swells and dissipations, to Karajan's Sibelius or Böhm's Brahms. I would literally memorize the biographies of composers, which accompanied the DG set.
The first time I was introduced seriously to popular/rock music was when I was introduced to Joy Division by a wise, older cousin, just before moving to the United States. This was in 1983, when the street air was routinely filled with the stench of tear gas used by the police against the students who were rioting against the authoritarian government en masse. Perhaps this is the reason why I can still vividly attribute the spirit of rebellion and anti-establishment to certain genres of rock or popular music, whereas my peers who grew up in a relative calm of the Reagan years can only imagine such a thing...
Fast forward twenty-some years, and I'm now a Generation X-er, married to a beautiful wife, with two baby daughters. I work in the legal industry, but I'd like to think my life's work still lies in literature. I'm at work on a novel like a typical New Yorker, and I write occasional book reviews on literary fiction.
Like any typical Gen X-er, I grew up on grunge and shoegaze rock, as well as hip-hop. Still, my clear passion was - and still is - for classical music. I play the piano and can still stumble through the first movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 or Prokofieff's Sonata No. 3. In 2006, I interviewed The New Yorker's classical music critic Alex Ross on his book The Rest Is Noise and 20th century classical music in a public forum which was publicized through WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show and TimeOut NY Magazine, etc.
There are two deliberate reasons why I typified myself as a Gen X-er for this bio. Reason 1: I'm of the last generation that is still old enough to have experienced the era of physical media at its most prolific apex. (Generation Y wasn't around when the chain stores stopped carrying vinyl.) This puts me at an interesting junction: as a relatively young person in his 30's, I have an allegiance for the physical media which is more tenacious than mere nostalgia. But I also have a natural allegiance, as well, for the futurity of the new technology.
I hope to believe that this double-sidedness of my allegiance will translate to an open-mindedness as an audio and music critic. Sure, I still believe that there is something irreplaceably beautiful about the finite life of a vinyl record: of course something that mimics the course of our own lives, heading toward death as its grooves wear out, should encompass to a certain extent the same beauty and aura of life itself, no? Although I am not as easily moved by the music reproduced by PC-fi yet (fingers crossed) I strongly believe that all of us will be better served if our music can be flawlessly reproducible and easily accessible (Walter Benjamin might have been wrong about Marxism, but maybe for the technology for the reproduction of music? Who knows, he may have been a prophet.)
The second reason why I categorized myself as a Gen X-er: I believe that every generation gets its negative stereotypical portrayal. My generation has been labeled as a direction-less, ambition-less, and grungy motley of dissolute people with disregard for tradition and order. G-d knows that to a large extent, that does accurately characterize the path of my life so far, but I'd also like to believe that I've done my small part in subverting that kind of characterization, too. I love to listen to and talk about Monteverdi or Elliott Carter as much as I do Sonic Youth. I am also a living proof that you don't have to be of a certain generation to love Mischa Levitzky or Josef Hofmann (Viva 78s!) and simultaneously love what hi-rez recordings can do.
The same analogy holds true for tubes vs. solid state, horns vs. dynamic loudspeakers, etc. Often, we become so entrenched in certain camps of audio philosophy or dogma that we become dismissive before even listening. I hope that my omnivorous and unruly love of music translates into my writing in these pages of Enjoy the Music.com, and if nothing else, invite open conversations and a desire to listen with simple curiosity and a generosity of spirit. Music arrives to us in many forms via different, unpredictable conduits, and that's that. When I catch it from time to time, it will be my privilege to let you know.
|
