Greetings from Laurel Canyon…
One of the nice things about having my own blog and radio show is just that—they are in fact mine. To my contemporaries, I often describe both The Idelic Hour and Idelicsounds.com as “personality posts.” What you are hearing on the show is the actual soundtrack for my week. It’s the new bands I am discovering and those old songs—I call them friends—who help me get through “thick and thin.”
This week’s show my might be the heaviest in tone to date. It’s a playlist to help reflect on the passage of time and the inevitable departure we all will undertake. It’s dedicated to Irene, my best friend’s mom, who passed away last week.
I can’t say I’ve been close or seen much of Irene these last twenty years. The news that she had been bed ridden and terminally ill with cancer came the evening of June 6th. I was on the road, still procrastinating about writing Irene a “goodbye” letter, when I got the email that she had passed the night of June 9th. Reflecting on her loss got me dreaming about days long gone. Upon reflection, my best friend’s mom had quite an influence on your humbled Idelic host.
Irene was into pop art, Billie Holiday, The Beatles, old films, and ice cream. She dug that James Taylor album “Gorilla” and Don McClean’s “America Pie.” She sent us to Europe on a teen tour to live with British kids and rented us a camper to drive across country for the Bicentennial summer in ’76. She bought us theatre tickets to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Broadway and took us to The Garden see Elvis Presley the one and only time he played in NYC. She showed us downtown and the art galleries of Soho and got us into CBGBs.
This episode, Idelic “Irene” is my farewell and open goodbye letter.
Thanks for being a cool best friend’s mom, Irene. Our memories will live in my heart and these songs.
The Idelic Hit of the Week: Marissa Nadler | Baby, I Will Leave You In The Morning
