I Want to Sleep with You in the Desert Tonight

The Eagles — "Peaceful Easy Feeling" (1972)

Greetings, Jagged Time Lapse subscribers, and a hearty welcome to all you newcomers.

Back when I first launched this Substack, I wrote the following:

For about five or six years now, I’ve also been toying with the idea of a musical memoir of my adolescence — a turbulent and confusing period in which my life and sanity were truly, to paraphrase Lou Reed, saved by rock and roll (and AM radio pop, and disco, and new wave, and heavy metal, etc.). I’ve already penned a few chapters for the book, but I need a kick in the ass to get going again, and I think launching this Substack will definitely give me one.

Jagged Time Lapse has definitely succeeded on that score. So far, this Substack has inspired me to put down chapters about my first used record store experience, my first visit to a NYC record store, the first concert I ever paid my own money to see, among others. These pieces may take a slightly different shape whenever I’m finally ready and able to compile them into a book; but in the meantime, my paid subscribers get to witness (and hopefully enjoy) it as I wrestle with this work-in-progress. Here’s another chapter for ya…

Unlike The Dude in The Big Lebowski, I don’t hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man. I don’t love ‘em, either; but I’d still totally consider going to see their upcoming “The Long Goodbye” final tour — if, you know, Glenn Frey were still alive, my ticket was free, and I got to personally handpick the set list. And even though the band sanded off a lot of their more potentially interesting edges in pursuit of professionalism and making hits (and wound up inspiring a lot of even blander country-rock artists in the process), I still hold a special place in my heart for them, for a couple of reasons.