Infinite Digging #9

On The Durutti Column, Los Indios Tabajaras, Eating Butter, and Magasin's Fall Shopping Spreadsheet.

I spent last weekend celebrating anniversaries starting with No Free Coffee’s 4-year anniversary dinner hosted by Converse. The dinner table was filled with warm faces, many coming from the coffee shop’s home base in Nashville, Tennessee. We exchanged LA recommendations for Nashville tips over a glass of wine and food provided by Lasita. The NFC team continued to celebrate their four-year milestone throughout the weekend with a pop-up for their limited-edition Converse muted slate blue and a camel brown Chuck 70s shoe embroidered with the signature NFC pink. From one celebration to another, I left dinner shortly after dessert to join Clink’s 3-year anniversary at Love Hour. One of the great joys in life is watching close friends flourish in projects they took risks on and I’m proud to be among those who’ve seen Clink grow from year one. The packed crowd filled the space with pink anniversary hats and the pink labeled wine bottles. One bottle led to another and before I knew it, I was home–drowsy from poor sleep, hungover, wondering how I’d pull myself together for high tee at the Langham Hotel in two hours to celebrate Kelly’s Birthday. High tea was followed by an intense game night that went on until 3 AM and then I headed home to do it all over the next day at Lennard’s birthday Prom. 

Not every weekend is like this. It was fun but exhausting– and I don’t get to write as often because I’m more occupied with not getting sick. Still, I wouldn’t trade the experiences of a present life for anything. Happy birthday to No Free Coffee, Clink, Kelly, and Lennard!

Here’s how the rest of my week went.

Masters of Guitars

This particular wormhole began a couple of months ago when I first listened to Mk.gee’s Two Star & the Dream Police. If the intricate genre-binding notes released with every pluck of the string weren’t enough to put me in a trance, the lyricism certainly was. I’ve listened to this album twenty times over since the first listen, which eventually led me back to another generational talent from Jersey: The Boss Bruce Springsteen. Born in the USA worked its way into my day-to-day playlist as I spent each day carried along by the strings on I’m On Fire. This path eventually led me to The Durutti Column, one of my favorite musical discoveries of the year. Do you know the feeling when you listen to a song or album for the first time and it leaves you in complete awe that you had no idea this existed, meaning there’s so much more for you to discover? It’s bliss, the only thing greater than the feeling is being able to share the moment. 

That’s what The Durutti Column’s discography feels like. Sketch for Summer, Storm for Steve, Future Perfect – all encapsulating a range of genres from alternative punk to ambient to electronic.

Excerpt from Daniel Dylan Wray’s interview with The Durutti Column’s frontman Vini Reilly

Vini Reilly has played for the likes of Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds and even Morrissey, yet he finds his own music boring. This intrigued me the most, especially after spending weeks blasting his guitar work so much that I could hear the melodies playing in my head even in a silent room. If he finds his own work boring, then who does he find interesting?

That led to my discovery of the Indigenous sibling duo, Los Indios Tabajaras, who recorded most of their music in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The brothers were originally part of the northern Brazilian Tabajara tribe before their community was colonized by Brazilian soldiers. Traveling on foot across Brazil, they absorbed various regional Brazilian music styles, which are deeply reflected in their songs. They began by performing in local bars, and after their music aired on the radio, their international career exploded, with their albums reaching millions of copies sold worldwide.

Heavily centered around strings, Los Indios Tabajaras’ music sounds like what a lazy Sunday feels like. It’s easy to hear where Vini Reily drew his inspiration when listening to Maria Elena. But, Reily wasn’t the only one influenced; the more I listened to the duo, the more I noticed echoes of their sound in music today – like their rendition of the 1913 Peruvian song El Condor Pasa and the more recent Huapango version.

I sat in my living room, trying to imagine what life would be like if I’d been born into an Indigenous tribe, walking across the country on foot, trading my guitar for beans, only for those same guitar skills to open up the rest of the world to me. What a life.

Eating Butter???

I didn’t know this was a thing and although the knowledge does affect me in any sort of way, I still wish I didn’t know this existed. I became aware of it after a friend of mine confided in me (I won’t share her name out of respect and privacy) that she eats butter as a snack. “You can’t just get regular butter though,” she explained. “You have to get the fancy kind like from wholefoods or something.” I mean, I still snack on Red 40 so who am I to judge? But here am I judging after learning that people aren’t eating butter in small dosages like Babybel cheese. There are some people out here who swear by eating a block of butter. This can’t be good, right? 

The Magasin Fall Shopping Spreadsheet

Magasin, if you haven't already subscribed to them on SubStack, is a fashion shopping newsletter but overall feels like a large group chat full of chic individuals who care about all things design. Magasin has successfully created a brand centered on the online community and each year they release a crowdsourced spreadsheet by that very community, filled with Fall wishlists, where Magasin readers are shopping, predictions on Fall trends, and more. Turn on Sex and The City, grab your favorite ice cream pint, and get ready to spend hours diving into the spreadsheet here. It’s also great fashion insight for those in the apparel.