I’m excited to put up this interview with Eric from MarathonPacks today. He’s one of the freshest new kids in the blogging community and he does a fantastic job. I was really impressed by his Top 50 Albums of 2005 list, and he also added a nice addendumfeaturing additional lists of favorites and let-downs. Thanks to Eric for his time and doing this! Check out his interview and check out his site.

Let’s get some general background on you. Where do you live, how long, etc.

–I was born and raised in Indianapolis, did my undergrad at Indiana University, went off and made documentaries for a few years, and now I’m doing part-time grad work at IU and teaching full-time at a smaller liberal arts school in Indiana. Geographically, I’m very boring.

I want get an idea of your musical taste evolution if you will. What were some of the first albums/tapes/CD’s you bought?

–The first musical item to come into my possession was Herbie Hancock’s Rockit, as a present from my mom for my sister’s birthday. We used to do that kind of celebratory placating, so the sibling wouldn’t feel left out on the other’s birthday. The first tape I ever bought for myself was The Best of the Monkees, which I played until it broke. When we got our first CD player, I got Introducing the Hardline with Terence Trent D’Arby and Momentary Lapse of Reason, because I loved the video. In late middle/early high school, I went through an extended rebellious hip-hop phase, when I’d buy or burn anything I could get my hands on. That resulted in my formative musical education being peppered by the great (Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ, Midnight Marauders, Sleeping With the Enemy, Bizarre Ride 2 tha Pharcyde, the Juice soundtrack), the not-so-great (anything by Hi-C, AMG, Esham, or MC Pooh) and the who? (Ron C., 4.1.5., Penthouse Players Clique). I got into “good” music during my junior/senior year in high school, but still have some of those old hip-hop tapes.

How about some of the more recent CD’s you’ve purchased?

–I just got Tapes ‘n Tapes’ The Loon in the mail yesterday. Lots of stuff that didn’t make the year-end list, like the latest Smog, Andrew Bird, Sleater-Kinney. I’m presently thoroughly enjoying Hanne Hukkelberg’s Little Things and Mazarin’s We’re Already There as well.

Where do you buy the majority of your records? Do you support a particular record store in your area, buy online, and if so, where?

–I do the majority of my shopping online, trying to buy from labels or artists directly when possible. It’s really sad for a town like Bloomington, Indiana, with such a progressive view toward art and culture, to have only two independent record stores (Tracks and TD’s CDs and LPs). When Best Buy and Borders came to town, five of the others dropped like flies. Dodge mentioned Luna Records and Indy CD and Vinyl in Indy, and they’re great. I’m a sucker for this chain, which I think might only be in the midwest, called Half-Price Books. They have a metric ton of used vinyl and CDs–I’ll hit it whenever I can. I buy a lot at shows, too, but I’m skeptical of bands I discover in a live setting. I think I like them, and then I get home and listen to the disc, and whoa–not good.

When I started listening to music, there were certain musicians that led me in the path of a lot of other bands. Did you have any similar experiences with bands growing up?

–A few very good friends of mine served that role. My buddy Josh turned me on to the Beatles, prog, and Wu-Tang in high school. My dear friend Jolie is a Dylan encyclopedia. My friend Hoss broadened my appreciation of soul and R&B during freshman and sophmore years in college, and another friend Jen steered me in the way of Stereolab, Blackalicious, Tortoise, Boards of Canada, and others. I’ve also been fortunate enough to take and teach several college courses on popular music (Blues, 60s rock, punk/post-punk) that filled in the blanks. The internet was helpful, too. I would search for information on a band, and it would inevitably lead to dozens of others.

What are some of your favorite records of all time?

– I’ll group them by decade, if that’s OK. Naturally, there are tons left out:

60s: Forever Change, Something Else by the Kinks, Blonde on Blonde, Pet Sounds, Freak Out!, every Beatles and Stones single and album, most Motown and Stax.

70s: The Clash (US Version), Pink Flag, Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information, all Steely Dan, Al Green Gets Next to You, Hunky Dory, Station to Station, Country Life, In the Right Place, Marquee Moon, Armed Forces, For Your Pleasure, Singles Going Steady, Mothership Connection, Off the Wall, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, The Best of Bill Withers, Exile on Main Street, X’s Los Angeles, Talking Heads ‘77, etc.

80s: All Husker Du, REM, Talking Heads, XTC, Pixies, Prince, The Pretenders first three, U2s first three, The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall, Boys Don’t Cry, Paul’s Boutique, Pretty Hate Machine, Hex Enduction Hour, Key Lime Pie, Daydream Nation, etc.

90s: Here.

2000-04: Here.

Any idea how many albums are in your collection?

–Somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500–I haven’t counted in a while. I’ve pared down to about 3-400 albums and 2-300 tapes. Like Dodge, I’ll sell large chunks periodically. I’ve got a few mp3s, too–it’s great what one can find at the local public and university library.

If you could spend time with 3 musicians, who would you choose?

–I’d like to have been there when David Byrne and Jonathan Demme were planning Stop Making Sense, and it would have been cool to sit in on bongos on the early T. Rex albums. For number three, I’d like to go back in time and offer to drive Buddy Holly and Otis Redding to the gigs they never made.

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I’m sure you’ve seen some great concerts. Can you tell me what the first concert you saw was and when? To follow that up, are there any particular shows that stand out in terms of being favorites?

–My first concert was this Indiana-based AOR guy with a perm named Henry Lee Summer, after a Pacers game in 1986 or 87. We had to take off our shoes to get onto the floor, and people were slipping and falling all over the place. It sucked. Junior and senior years in high school, there was this great venue in Indy called 2nd Avenue, and I got to see Beck there right before “Loser” came out. Some guy threw a Subway hat on stage, and he put it on and did the robot while chanting “I’m the Subway pimp”. At the same place, the light rig fell during a Greenday show, and people actually threw pumpkins at the Smashing Pumpkins. I saw my share of Dead shows, and am not afraid to admit I had a great time. Other great ones were Nine Inch Nails on the Downward Spiral tour, any Guided By Voices or Ween show, YHT Wilco, Wayne from the Flaming Lips handing out confetti to the crowd during “She Don’t Use Jelly”…(gets up and finds the box with old ticket stubs)…oh, yeah, I almost got arrested at a Violet Femmes/TMBG concert in Richmond, KY, for smoking a joint, had Britt Daniel sleep with the girl I came with after a Spoon concert, and met Frank Black after a solo gig. He’s very nice. I saw David Byrne three days after 9/11, and he played a version of “Life During Wartime” that just gave me chills thinking about it. Then he played that Whitney Houston song.

What are some bands that you haven’t gotten the chance to see live, but would really like to?

–I saw Radiohead open for REM on the Monster tour at an ampitheatre, but would really like to see them in a more intimate setting. Same for Prince.

How did you choose the name of your blog?

–Dream.

Can you tell me what got you into blogging, and are you surprised by the popularity your blog has attained?

–Like most others, I wanted an outlet for my frequent and annoying diatribes on music and culture. I initially wasn’t planning on it being strictly about music, or to offer mp3s, but that’s how it worked out. I’m really happy that people read it and give me feedback. It’s really cool to be networked with so many great people with great ideas and opinions.

What are some of your favorite blogs? Music or otherwise.

–Music-wise, the basics hold up–yours, Large-Hearted Boy is a daily necessity, and he’s a super-nice guy to boot. I consider MOKB, YANP, and GvB to be a three-headed hydra of non-stop musical information. I think Matthew from Fluxblog is a great writer. I’ll frequently visit Stereogum, too, even though they mutilated my bandwidth last month by linking to me when I posted the Strokes video for “Juicebox.” Learned a big lesson there. Non-musically, there’s cultgoespop, PTWSTSTS, and Crooks and Liars. My sidebar is my bookmark list, really.

How important do you think music blogs are in general? Do you think they will continue to be as popular as they are today?

–That depends on how they evolve. I feel like the “blogosphere” is kind of in the stage now that San Francisco was before LSD was outlawed. Kind of a lawless, every-man-for-himself kind of vibe. Perhaps the “Wild West” would be a more apt metaphor. Ideally, I think that blogs would put the means of distribution and creation of meaning for music back in the hands of the consumer, where it’s never been before, which, if you think about it, is really exciting. Will it get there? Who knows…it depends on several factors. There are thousands of unsigned bands out there, but it’s not a good thing if there’s this kind of feeding frenzy everytime someone sounds remotely like Modest Mouse. It turns into a competitve corporate mindset, which is the opposite of what it should be. The “first to discover” snobbishness I think we can all leave at the record store. I also feel like the smaller labels really like the bloggers–I’ve gotten some great feedback from some of them, and it seems like good synergistic relationships are possible. Personally, I’d like to see them remain very personalized. That’s what’s great about it–the blogs I don’t like are the ones that don’t have any discernible taste. Blogging, I think most would agree, is a pretty self-involved activity–as much as promoting music, you’re promoting yourself, in a manner of speaking.

Let’s get away from music for a bit. What are some of your favorite movies and television shows?

–Movies–right now, classic American period Hitchcock (Strangers on a Train through The Birds), Coen Brothers, Stop Making Sense, Zelig, and documentaries (Maysles Brothers, Errol Morris, Fred Wiseman, Vertov, F for Fake). Television–I don’t have cable, so nothing current, but my all-time favorites are The Simpsons, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Arrested Development, Coach, and, I can’t lie, Full House.

Outside of music do you have any other interests or projects?

I’m in school, so that takes up the majority of my time. Reading and writing, cultural studies, film studies, music theory, etc. I’m currently working on a paper about mp3 blogging, the disappearance of the musical “text”, and new opportunities for the creation of meaning. Exciting, I know. I teach video production, so I love that as well. I walk my dog a lot, and spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, but not in that order of importance.

A lot of people have a favorite concert t-shirt, do you have one?

–I have an old green Reverend Horton Heat shirt from 1994 that I still wear.

In your opinion, what’s the best place to eat on your city?

–There are tons of places. The Irish Lion, Yat’s, Macri’s Deli, Mancino’s. There’s this new place called American Chopstick that’s way too close to my house.

Animals dressed as humans. Funny or not?

–Funny. Animals in movies and commercials with human-like moving mouths: profoundly disturbing.