Catchgroove’s Musical Memoir: The Beginning of the Catchgroove blog

In the fall of 2011, I was recovering* from open heart surgery. I had time on my hands due to recovery so I decided to start a music blog. My son recommended WordPress as a blogging tool and I found it easy to use and free (except for a small annual charge for my catchgroove.com URL) – I have used it since day one. My first blog post was on 9/21/11 and was a review of my newish (at the time) turntable: a Pro-Ject Audio RPM 1.3. I must have had a lot of enthusiasm for the blog as I posted twelve reviews in nine days. As I write this post today I have over seven hundred blog posts published. Most are record reviews, but I do venture out into other topics too (concert reviews, think pieces, trip journals, food and beverage reviews, etc.).

My motivation from day one was not to write for anyone but myself. If others read my blog, great, but that was not the point. The point was to create a kind of personal music journal. People, knowing I was a musichead, would always ask me what I was listening to and I could never remember. Once I started the blog I could go to my phone, call up my blog’s website, and remind myself what I was listening to. 

Soon after I started the blog I discovered another important benefit – writing a record review forced me to listen with intention. It forced me to engage in the music in a new way. Why do I like this album? Who is this artist? What is the context of this record? How could I convince others to check it out? I rarely write a negative review as I don’t have the energy to listen to something I don’t like, let alone write about why I dislike it.

Why Catchgroove? ”Catchgroove” is my term for the run-out groove on a vinyl record. The run-out groove is also known as the matrix area, dead wax, or end-groove area. It is the area on a vinyl record located between the end of the final music band on a record and the label. This groove repeats in an endless cycle until the tone arm is lifted so that the stylus does not run into the label. Catchgroove is not a word I made up, but I also don’t know its origin. Run-out groove or dead wax are much more common terms. No idea where I heard it, but I liked that it also had a double meaning: my blog is meant to help people “catch a groove” that is, to discover a piece of music like a surfer catches a wave.

At first, I just posted the blog on WordPress. Over time I did want people to read my blog so I would post blog post links on Instagram (@catchgroove), Twitter (@catchgroove), and FaceBook (Jim Welby or catchgroove). Over the last few years, I have used Instagram (which copies the posts to FaceBook) as a mini-blog. I encourage people I meet to follow me on Instagram or Facebook as they will get both the mini-blog and links to the full blog. Given my cohort (I am 65), I get the most engagement from my FaceBook friends and from the various FaceBook groups I am part of. Facebook groups are particularly useful as you get your thoughts in front of the eyes of an audience that is already predisposed to your topic, for example, a music review of an artist’s latest project posted on the artist’s fan group.

Now that I am retired, my goal is to be more ambitious with the blog: post more, get into topics beyond music, get into topics in more detail, and create a music memoir. One challenge I have is that album reviews, once the lifeblood of my music consumption, are not very important to me anymore due to the convenience of music streaming. It is making me rethink what I should be posting.

After many years and many posts, I still don’t feel like I have found my “writing voice.” My wife, who edits my blog, always encourages me to write like I talk – especially when I am in an enthusiastic music conversation with another musichead. I have not figured out how to do that. Finding my “voice” is my ultimate goal. 

*Just a note on recovering from heart surgery. The initial couple of weeks sucked – my chest felt like I had been kicked by a mule. But by week three I felt better and the next four weeks were the best. At the time I was under a lot of stress at work. Knowing I would be away from work for six weeks was intimidating. However, my cardiologist encouraged me to rest and turn off work. His pitch was: “Focus on recovery and you will be close to 100% in six weeks. Cheat and sneak in work and your recovery will be months.” I took his advice and rested. When I say the last month of recovery was “the best,” what I mean is that I felt guiltless being lazy. I had open heart surgery – no one expected me to do anything but recover – I had the ultimate excuse. It was a wonderful selfish time and I successfully unplugged from work and rested. This put me in the right state of mind to start my blog – rest/recovery and writing were my only obligations. I brought the same focus to those things as I had my work. I have been retired now for a year and I am still trying to get into the zone I was in when I was recovering from surgery back in 2011 – I am getting there, but I am not there yet. But I know where I am trying to get.