among your real life friends, are you the established music geek?

My two closest RL friends are both music geeks.

"too" (checking Dom)

The thing is I'm really not much of an authority on music. Maybe more on jazz than other styles.

of the people i'm less close to, we're sortafriends because of our shared music and/or movie geekdom, so it depends on the group, really.

Oh God, yes. Hell, I thought I was an authority on music until I started hanging out at this place. What a humbling experience it has been.

or do you have a lot of frinds with similar musical appetites?

Plenty whose interests intersect with mine, but in various differing ways. There's always some music which no-one else but me likes - distressingly, this includes the Richard Hawley album.

I also have close friends with what I consider to be appalling taste in music. We just talk about other stuff. Ten years ago, I doubt this would have happened.

and if you are, do your friends ever try to impress you, by dropping in that they like something they think you'll approve of, in a way that is a little embarrassing? (not that the artist/song they drop in is embarrassing, or that them liking it is embarrassing, but their looking for approval on it makes you feel uncomfortable?)

This has happened, though progressively less so. It used to happen a lot with the Blue Nile, for some reason - as a lot of my friends reckoned they'd be "my" sort of band. They never were.

or perhaps, they're pandering to tastes you had a couple of years ago, and are now a little embarrassed by, but you don't have the heart to tell your friend this because they seem so pleased to have something in common with you?

I had this happen recently with reference to the Cafe Del Mar compilations, which I stopped playing several years ago.

Do you feel that your friends will always expect you to know about certain musics, and they will really expect you to have a strong opinion on it?

Yes, and the burden of expectation can sometimes be a little wearisome. I used to be the guy that everyone fired questions at, all the way through Top Of The Pops/The Tube - which pissed me off as I wanted to concentrate.

If you are the 'music geek' among your friends, do you like the role?

It's become less important. Having places like this, and the blogosphere in general, around means I get to have most of my music-geeky conversations virtually. This frees me up to talk about other stuff offline. Plus I've long since stopped trying to evangelise about my new discoveries - it almost never works.

That's criminal!

I'm generally regarded as less of a "geek" and more of a "snob," which I think is unfortunate.

"WHAT IS DUROOTI COLUMNS??"

among group A) I am the established MuG and go-to guy for bet-settling answers to trivia questions and music recommendations.

among group B) I am but an acolyte and tyro, even an imposter.

I also considered that you started this thread as a joke to take the piss out of anyone who replied seriously. 'among your real life friends'??? you gotta be shitting me!!?

I think I would say yes, except for the fact that I do not verbally flaunt my interest in music, so this honor is never an immediate one. The only reason anyone really knows that I listen to extensive amounts of under the radar music is because I keep an online journal read by my close contacts, and half the time I'm jibbering on about the atonal madness of some band and how the noise is currently affecting me real good, or I am just putting too many words together (as I do here. It seems everywhere I go, my answers tend to be long-winded and wordy, sorry) about what is on my playlist, any releases I'm anticipating, or songs that make me swoon. Some of them read through, but most of them skim over because they have no idea what I am saying because it is this 2 page journal filled with aliterative prose about bands they have never heard of (and will never seek out to hear, again) The majority of my good friends listen to things like RHCP and Coldplay, and in terms of musical tastes, they know I like some weird shit because I usually link an mp3 to connect the verbals with something sonic, but mostly they might tell you, 'she's the one who doesn't like coldplay.'

I assume I'm mostly speaking to myself, anyway, when I write, as, the reason I don't talk about music is because I am not a rock snob and have always been quite shy when it comes talking about things I value. I genuinely enjoy music so I always thought using it as a vehicle to up my cool factor was lame and cheap. This is probably why very few of my close friends enjoy "music." I never felt it right to tie myself to a scene, because I didn't need the niche of it.
This is hard sometimes, though, because I don't have a lot of friends interested in shows. Most of the girls I know just use their collection to try to get boys interested in them, which, I don't know WHY, because or boys around here dig Mars Volta too damn much.

Also, I have the worst memory, so although I am picky about what I strictly enjoy--at the same time still I love plenty of bands a notch below that standard--I can never recall the details in time to have the sort of trivia banter music geeks throw around. but that shit's annoying anyway, it's like shop talk but instead of cars you've got guitars. I like it technical, but not always. Yeah, so because of all these things, initially I seem ditzy, which is annoying.
And it certainly does not help that I'm not a boy--and the friends I DO have that like music are guys in NY. And because I didn't have the heart to outright bash their mixtape efforts, it took them a while to figure out they need to stop making mixes for me with Franz and the New Nogs and mostly pitchfork recommended indieblah with the precusor, "this is kind of obscure, you might not like it, and you probably haven't heard of it, but keep an open mind." Uhn.huh.

However, because I do have a strong opinion and have refined my tastes over time, I'm good at picking out what I like and why, so any of my friends value my opinion when it comes to bands. or movies. After the movie they usually want to hear my opinion, maybe because I'm not loud about it. But it is nice, if not a little funny.

I hate this. I'm a white college guy, when people (mostly other white guys) find out that I'm really into rap music, they always want to engage in some half-informed bitch session about "bling-bling" and how 50 Cent or whoever isn't "real hip-hop," or try to find common ground by bragging about how much they like Black Star or whatever (n.b. I like Black Star, but I like 50 Cent too), and I never have the heart to tell them that they don't look conscious, they look clueless, and moreover, I disagree with them entirely.

I love this!

NO WAY. I went to school with kids who play concert piano, so NO way would I disrespect their knowledge by overrating shitty punk albums. I just have music on a lot while I'm working so I hear a lot of music.

Yes I am.

But my answer above still counts.

And I have about three more music geek compatriots now.

your cats dont count

Ha!

all my friends these days are big music people but i definitely put people on to things and probably the ones i'm closest to over time changes with music taste a bit (apart from older childhood friends.) that probably sounds odd but it's mainly cos of the huge social dividing line between wanting to do drugs at clubs all weekend and not wanting that.

I'm in art / design...so I hear a lot of music! I am amazed when I talk to people on Facebook and they don't have jobs or commutes or situations where they are exposed to a lot of music. They go, "gee you know a lot about music". But a lot of it is internet radio, I mean I'm not going to listen to oldies all the time...although I have done that.

I definitely am the "music geek", although I have another director friend of mine who probably has a collection about as large. people know me as the "rap/metal" guy although I obv have much more than that in my collection.

since my friends are mostly people in the arts (theatre/singing) few of them share my tastes so I often go to concerts alone. although honestly I don't mind that.

People I know who have had music training (like reading charts) or who have won awards / performed in competition have this problem! I know people who love music and have it on all the time but who gave up "collecting" to learn repertoire....because they don't want to be "music geek"! Not disrespecting music geekdom, though, it is helpful. But sometimes I prefer to sit down and read how a piece of music was composed or recorded.

everyone is a music geek these days

I don't know a whole lot of people who are seriously into music - at least in the ILXy omnivore way - so I guess yes. I have a couple of friends who know much more about one genre (e.g. jazz/classical/metal) than I do but in general I talk about other topics with my irl friends and talk about music here.

is the ilxy way really an omnivore way? i think i disagree

I'd say there aren't many people here who exclusively care about one genre, most ILXors seem willing to check out what's going on outside their core interests even if it's only at EOY poll time. Like, if you only dig metal you'll probably be on www.metalonlyforum.com rather than ILM.

yeah but that's true of just about all non-music geeks, too. few normal people are stubborn about, like, only listening to the adult contemporary station and not liking anything else. if anything it's more likely you're an established music geek if you exclusively care about one genre, if you post on metalonlyforum.com. the scope of music discussed on ilx as a whole is definitely omnivorous but i don't know many posters who really embody that, seems more like people here have nichey tastes & are collectively aware of pop music & indie. but maybe those just aren't the ones i notice or become interested in

i don't think i'm actually disagreeing with you though lol

basically all my friends are music geeks