My Moratorium: The Bucks Stop Here

After a nine-month buying frenzy, I began my annual music moratorium on Sunday. I normally withdraw from the marketplace for the last two months of the year, but the glut of excellent 2006 releases has forced me onto the wagon a month early. Surprisingly, stopping cold turkey has been easier than usual. There have been temptations in the past four days, but I don't think I'm going to struggle this year. I might even have reached a turning point.

More on that later. First, some background. There are two main reasons I stop buying CDs at the end of the year: So the people who might like to buy me a Christmas gift have the opportunity to walk into Tower Records (if Tower still is afloat for the holidays) and find me something that I don't have, and to make up for months of overspending.

And I have overspent. The prospect of making my best-of-2006 lists already is boggling my mind, with at least 20 albums fighting to get into my year-end top 10. Making matters worse, there probably will be more candidates. I just won't be buying most of them.

If you're inclined to feel sorry for the poor music addict battling temptation, don't. (Frankly, I would expect this crowd to be tougher than that anyway). I get some relief from my self-imposed ban. My wife, the lovely and talented Sharon Moores, usually allows me one special dispensation a month during the moratorium so that I can purchase what I consider must-have new releases (new Brian Setzer, new Mindy Smith and the Jay Farrar-Anders Parker "Gob Iron" collaboration are likely candidates), unbelievable bargains or impossible-to-pass-up treasures (if I find a used copy of Guy Clark's "Craftsman" collection, that sucker is mine). I also have the privilege of hearing pre-release copies of discs that are generously provided by record labels to HickoryWind for reviews. Finally, and this is a big one, my music buddies always are generous with their new discs, loaning them to me so I can hear what I'm missing and live vicariously through them. It also makes it easier to compile a year-end list. Or harder, as the case may be.

I'm also unworthy of your pity because I rode into this moratorium as I do all others: with a few last-minute purchases to tide me over. This year, I went into the break by buying two remastered discs by The Band, "Stage Fright" and "Northern Lights-Southern Cross," and the excellent instrumental gospel project from Robert Randolph, North Mississippi Allstars and John Medeski, "The Word." I'd been lusting after that one since its release in 2001, but for some reason I hadn't bought it until Saturday night.

I was tempted by the thought of other purchases almost immediately after shutting off the tap. Part of it was the allure of forbidden fruit, and part of it was because I'm a sucker for the power of suggestion. I'm constantly spurred into impulse purchases by things I see, hear and read. On Sunday, I made a long-overdue purchase of Peter Guralnick's book "Feel Like Going Home." It's a great read that deserves its reputation, but the downside is that also reminded me of the lack of Charlie Patton, Slim Harpo, Otis Spann, Johnny Shines, Son House, Skip James and Robert Pete Williams (among others) in my collection. And those Band CDs I mentioned? The led me to The Band's "Rock of Ages." The first track on that album, a cover of the Motown track "Don't Do It," which features a great, funky horn arrangement by Allen Toussaint (actually, they're all over that disc), got me thinking about how we don't have any Toussaint in our library either. Toussaint reminded me of our lack of Lee Dorsey and Fats Domino. Cripes, I've been almost as neglectful of New Orleans as FEMA.

I'm sure you get the picture; I've got a ton of discs, and yet I almost constantly think about getting more. I've been rethinking that philosophy, though, since reading this passage in Guralnick's book in which he describes the scarcity of albums in his collection as a youngster: "... [W]e played the records that we did have over and over until we knew the words to every song, and could anticipate each riff and drumroll."

That sentence made me feel a little guilty, kind of like when I'm eating a donut and a TV ad comes on for one of those children's charities that shows a starving African baby with flies on his face. The last few bites of that pastry just don't taste very good. I can remember back when I had only a few CDs, and I knew the Allman Brothers' "At Fillmore East" inside and out. Nowadays, with more money to purchase tunes but too many commitments to properly enjoy each disc before buying the next one, albums get filed away on the shelves before their time. I even suffer the occasional embarrassment of hearing a track I really like only to find out later that I have it in my collection already.

So at least for the next 12 weeks or so, I'm going to be more thankful for what I have and less focused on what I want. I'm going to stop and smell the roses, maybe even listen to Ryan Adams' "Cold Roses." I want to properly digest this year's haul and get in touch with the feelings that made me a voracious consumer of recorded music in the first place. I look forward to relearning long-forgotten verses and retracing the steps that brought me here today. It's been a great trip, one well worth taking again.