revisionist history

A wonderful lyric by Tim Locke, super-talented front man of Fort Worth-based band Calhoun:

You left behind the good old days,

That never really were.

pandora

Why didn't I figure out the internet radio on the iPhone sooner?  I'm no longer going to stress about not being able to access our big music library on the iPhone.  Yeah, I'm the dweeb who set up Snow Patrol radio tonight.  It is not letting me down.

like a-ha, but with yarn

Cool music video by Montreal's Tricot Machine.  I found it on Drawn.

black cab sessions

I love this site!  I spent about an hour this morning listening to (and watching) session after session.  I can't pick a favorite (Brit pop! Singer-songwriters! Both of my favorites in one place!), but in the interest of free samples*, here is a fun song by Martha Wainwright:

*(the site is free too, so really this is merely a no-need-to-click-through-to-the-link sample.

finale

Here's a meme (most likely created for high school kids, but I'm young at heart!) that I haven't done before. In honor of the last day of NaBloPoMo, March Edition, I give you the shuffle songs meme:

The task?:
1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

What does next year have in store for me? The Fletcher Memorial Home (Pink Floyd)*

What’s my love life like? Starlight (Muse)

What do I say when life gets hard? Wow (Snow Patrol)

What do I think of on waking up? To Die In Little Pieces (Calhoun)

What song will I dance to at my wedding? Blackout (Muse)

What do I want as a career? Crazy (Patsy Cline)**

My favourite saying? 10:15 Saturday Night (The Cure)

Favourite place? Perfect Day (Zac Maloy)

What do I think of my parents? Designs on You (Old 97's)***

What’s my Pornstar name? Welcome Mat (Tim Locke)

Where would I go on a first date? Two Suns In The Sunset (Pink Floyd)****

Drug of choice? Soak Up The Sun (Sheryl Crow)*****

Describe me: Mid-Life Krysis (Travis)

What is the thing I like doing most? Electioneering (Radiohead)

What is my state of mind like at the moment? In Between Days (The Cure)

How will I die? The Other Way (Weezer)



*Definitely not off to a good start on this one.
**Would someone please pay me to be crazy? Please??
***This would have worked well for the career choice question.
****Sounds like it would also be a last date.
*****True!!

sing a song of good times, not bad

I used to see a lot more concerts than I do these days. However my "not that many concerts" probably still will sound like a lot, so I decided, based solely on the concerts that I wrote in my monthly At-A-Glance calendar that I keep on my desk at work (deemed to be 70-85% accurate), to provide an annotated list of the concerts that I saw in 2007:

January

none (hmm... not a good start to this list)

February

George Strait - MGM Grand, Las Vegas - Feb. 3, 2007 (I am not a big George Strait fan, but for my birthday weekend we saw George Strait (and the Super Bowl) in Vegas. I'm a giver.)
She Wants Revenge - Avalon, Hollywood - Feb. 7, 2007 (Mike is cursed when it comes to SWR shows. I believe we left this one before they started playing because the opening acts went on forever and he was so sick he couldn't stand.)
Incubus - Wiltern, LA - Feb. 11, 2007 (We left this one slightly early because I had whatever Mike had the week before. Wiltern is one of my favorite venues. And we usually ride the 720 bus to it. Makes us feel "hip" and "urban".)
Pete Yorn - Wiltern, LA - Feb. 16, 2007 (I heart Pete Yorn.)
James Taylor - Wilshire Theater, Beverly Hills - Feb. 21, 2007 (Simply amazing. He sat and told the stories behind many of his songs. If you like him at all, you should get this CD/DVD combo from that tour. He is funnier than many working stand-up comedians. And he has led an interesting life. Honorable mention goes to The Troubadour (a venue mentioned a few times below) for being featured prominently in the telling of the story behind You've Got A Friend.)

March

Eric Clapton - Staples Center, LA - March 14, 2007 (And the tickets were free from Mike's work. His perks are sometimes amusing.)

April

Gospel Brunch - HOB Sunset Strip, West Hollywood - Easter - April 8, 2007 (Great way to celebrate Easter. Eat your own weight in cheese grits and biscuits and gravy and listen to some amazing Gospel acts.)
The Killers - Staples Center, LA - April 9, 2007 (Free tickets from LJ's work. It was also Dodgers' opening day and there was a lot of drama involving the finding of lost tickets, etc. But we saw the game and the show.)
Muse - The Forum, Inglewood - April 10, 2007 (I love Muse live - as evidenced by my list of a couple of days ago - but this was my least favorite of their live shows. Probably because it was a huge venue and I had 12-year-old boys dancing the robot to their songs next to me.)
Travis - The Music Box @ Henry Fonda Theater, Hollywood - April 29, 2007 (That I managed to see this show was incredible. This was the day that Mike and I returned from Utah after his appendix-explosion incident. However I was exhausted and either Travis or the venue had some sound issues. The Music Box did not wow me.)

May

none

June

none (I actually think that we saw Anti-Flag at Wiltern in either May or June but it never made my calendar because it was a last-minute thing. Our friend is their manager and he called us when he got in town to let us know he'd be at the show. Best thing about that show was the Tom Morello played a punk version of This Land Is Your Land with them for the encore and we got to meet him backstage.)

July

Crowded House - Troubadour, West Hollywood - July 18, 2007 (One of my Top 5 concerts ever. Just wow. What living in LA is all about. Musically, that is. Small show, intimate venue, Neil Finn waxing nostalgic.)
Tom Morello/The Nightwatchman - Troubadour, West Hollywood - July 21, 2007
Snow Patrol - The Greek, Los Feliz - July 22, 2007

August

Squeeze - The Greek, Los Feliz - August 13, 2007 (The last time I saw Squeeze, I was in high school. Yikes.)
Wilco - The Greek, Los Feliz - August 29, 2007 (The vibe of Wilco is so perfect for a place like The Greek. I love Wilco under the stars.)

September

Calhoun - some dive bar that shall remain nameless (because they sucked at promoting my friends), Minneapolis - Sept. 13, 2007 (I love these guys and I've missed them horribly since I left Dallas. They gave me and Alice a private show. If you like alt-country (though their newer stuff is trending toward rock), check them out!)

October

She Wants Revenge - Troubadour, West Hollywood - Oct. 4, 2007 (Good venue for them and the Mike-SWR curse was finally broken.)

November

Aimee Mann - El Rey, LA - Nov. 30, 2007 (Fun Christmas show with special guests and goofy songs right down the street from my apartment.)

December

Almost Acoustic Christmas, Night 2 - Gibson Amphitheater @ Universal City - Dec. 9, 2007 (Feist, The Shins, Modest Mouse, special guest The Killers, Silversun Pickups, Jimmy Eat World, Muse. One of the hardest tickets every year in LA. Mike lucked into a couple - he had the Ticketmaster Mojo that day - and we had a wonderful evening.)

Not accounted for: We probably saw a show or two at Largo (I think David Garza and Colin Hay, at least) and another last minute show or two was probably left off the list. Oh, and I know I was dragged to Keith Urban (Staples) and to Sugarland (new Nokia Live venue across from Staples in downtown LA). Both of whom were remarkably good. Even to a non-country music fan.

songs that changed my life, part 1

I've been meaning to follow up on this post for some time and devote a paragraph or two to some of the songs that made me who I am, either musically or as a person. I guess you could call these favorites of sorts, but I sort of think of them as more than that. Inspirations or reflections of me. In all my glorious angsty-ness.

There's no way I could cover all or even a meaningful portion of songs in a single post, so I'm starting small. Hopefully I'll be inspired at some later date to add to this list:

1. Fall On Me (R.E.M.)

I still remember the first time I saw the video for Fall On Me. 1986. I was 16 years old, babysitting at someone's house who had Mtv (I'm pretty sure it was during a period that I didn't have cable at home). 120 Minutes came on and I watched it, possibly for the first time. At this point, I didn't really know what college music (remember when it was called that?) or alternative music was. I saw Michael Stipe flipping the cards, Dylanesque, and listened to the incredible lyrics and folk-inspired guitar parts and I was simply amazed. Falling in love with R.E.M. as an impressionable 16-year-old kid significantly altered the musical course of my life. Sure, my sister had introduced me to Talking Heads by this point, but in suburban upstate NY those sorts of acts didn't get much play. Mtv was changing things, of course. Making more kinds of music accessible to the masses. And seemingly just for me they were playing a 2-3 hour college music show. Something I couldn't have found in Albany, NY on the FM radio dial.

there's the progress we have found
a way to talk around the problem
building towered foresight
isn't anything at all
buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky and tell the sky

I still love this song today. I still love Life's Rich Pageant today. I still love R.E.M. today. They, to me, are an act that is hard to classify. They appeal to the folk-lover in me. To the alt-country lover. To the rock lover.

There is a concert video from a recent concert (in Japan? Europe?) that has been airing on The 101 for those of you with DirecTv and it is wonderful. Somehow even when they were one of the biggest acts in the world, they never seemed to sell out. Michael Stipe today is his own person. He's writing protest songs. He's painting a black mask on his face. He's doing things the way he wants to do them. You just get the impression that the money doesn't matter so much to him and that he could live quite happily without being played on Clear Channel ever again.

2. Jezebel (10,000 Maniacs*)

There are those songs that get us through the hardest times in our lives and that we forever associate with those events. This is one of those songs for me. I must have listened to it approximately 1 billion times during the 18 months surrounding my divorce. Honestly, I'm not sure what else to say, other than to post the lyrics:

to think of my task is chilling
to know I was carefully building the mask I was wearing
for two years, swearing I'd tear it off

I've sat in the dark explaining to myself that I'm
straining too hard for feelings I ought to find easily
called myself Jezebel I don't believe

before I say that the vows we've made
weigh like a stone in my heart
family is family, don't let this tear us apart

you lie there, an innocent baby
I feel like the thief who is raiding your home
entering and breaking and taking in every room

I know your feelings are tender
inside you the embers still glow
but I'm a shadow, I'm only a bed of blackened coal
call myself Jezebel for wanting to leave

I'm not saying I'm replacing love for some other word
to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you
I'm just saying we've mistaken one for thousands of words
and for that mistake, I've caused you such pain that I
damn that word

I've no more ways to hide
that I'm a desolate and empty, hollow place inside

I'm not saying I'm replacing love for some other word
to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you
I'm not saying love's a plaything
no, it's a powerful word
inspired by strong desire to bind myself to you

how I wish that we never had tried
to be man and his wife, to weave our lives
into a blindfold over both our eyes

Thank you, Natalie (and the other Maniacs), for getting me through.

3. Our Time Is Running Out (Muse)

If any song from the last 5 years should be on this list, it is Our Time Is Running Out. The first time I ever heard this song, I stopped what I was doing, just to listen and marvel. It hit me so hard and left me rambling to anyone who would listen about what an incredible album Absolution was. Mike and I saw Muse play KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas in December 2004, a couple of months after we moved to LA, and they completely stole the show. To me, they've always seemed a bit like a cross between Radiohead and Queen. And that is not a bad thing.

Our Time Is Running Out is in my Top 5 all time driving songs. Quintessential road trip mix tape material, were I still making those. Though I prefer to sing it loudly, desperately, in my car by myself. Hoping that the passing motorists can't see the tears streaming down my face.



* I thought this was a Natalie Merchant solo song, but it turns out that Our Time In Eden, an album that I've thought of for years as her first solo album (and listened to countless times), was actually the last 10,000 Maniacs album (of new material). Sorry to the other 9,999 Maniacs.

guitar queer-o

My favorite songs to play on Guitar Hero III:

1. Miss Murder (AFI) - I've played this one perfectly on Easy, so it has to be my favorite. They give you different looking stars if you play a song perfectly, it turns out. This sort of thing matters to me.
2. My Name Is Jonah (Weezer)
3. When You Were Young (Killers)
4. Knights Of Cydonia (Muse) - This is probably my favorite song that is available (though I'm a big Weezer fan too), but it is harder to play than songs 1-3 above. Apparently I don't love a challenge as much as I should.
5. Welcome To The Jungle (GNR) - a.k.a. Welcome back to freshman year of college.
6. Sunshine Of Your Love (Cream)

Songs that I like, but don't really enjoy playing on Guitar Hero III:

1. Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar)
2. Barracuda (Heart)

stink stank stunk

On Friday I attended my first (only?) Christmas concert this year. Aimee Mann and friends put on their 2nd annual Christmas show. There were several highlights, including a rap about the story of Hanukkah by The Jewish Fairy, a film with cameos by Will Farrell, Ben Stiller and several other funny guys who Aimee wanted as "special guests" at her show, and a killer rendition of the song that contains the lyrics in the title of this blog.

The last few years I haven't been big on holiday preparations and decorations. I remember times when I used to start shopping on or before Thanksgiving and would deck out my house or apartment with holiday cheer. I think that my holiday indifference started in part because my job necessitates that I'm usually busier than usual at year-end. Transactional attorneys are told when they start working that they shouldn't plan December vacations and that there is a good possibility that the time between December 25 and January 1 might be the busiest week of the year. Merry Christmas.

This year I'm happier than I've been in a while and I'd like to get back to my old self a bit, including putting more time and effort into spreading holiday cheer within myself. The first step will be today, when I send in my Amazon order for One More Drifter in the Snow. Because no one can belt out You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch better than Ms. Mann. Ho ho ho.

Is there anybody going to listen to my story...

This double CD came for me in the mail today (finally available in wide distribution, after a limited Best Buy release). I can't wait for my drive home! I've had Girl running through my mind ever since I opened the package a few hours ago. Sweet!

The Weekend of Too Many Plans

Have you ever felt like every cool upcoming event in your life is trying to happen at the same time? September 14-16 is that time for me this year. For some reason, that is THE WEEKEND to do pretty much everything.

It started with the Giants-Packers game. You know I'm a bit of an NFL freak by now, I hope. My favorite team (Giants) plays Mike's favorite team (Packers) about once every three years and the last time they did so, we flew to Green Bay to see the game (I had a great time; the Giants won). When we saw the football schedule this year, we noticed the Big Game would be occurring at Giants Stadium this year on September 16. Immediately we started talking about a trip to New York.

Then we found out that the ACL music festival is in Austin that weekend. I love that festival and the line-up looks awesome, but we had to brush it off. Giants-Packers weekend!

However...

I have a good friend in Minneapolis who I've never visited and when I sent her possible dates, Giants-Packers weekend slipped my mind, so I included that weekend. She wrote back that her birthday is that weekend and it seemed like fate that I should visit then, so I booked my ticket to Minnesota. Giants-Packers weekend be damned! (I am on a bit of a "break" with the Giants this year because my Giants friends have determined that the best way to get Coughlin the hell out of town is to lose a lot of games this year. A year of hardship for the greater good, or whatever. I'm not 100% on board, but there will be many fewer planned Gaints-watching outings this year.)

As soon as I booked my trip, I started hearing about fun stuff in LA. A concert by a band that we like (and who is repped by our friend's label, so she could get us backstage, etc.). A festival we wanted to check out. A friend's birthday party. The perfect storm of cool and fun events all scheduled for that same crazy weekend. It turned into an inside joke every time someone mentioned anything about that weekend.

I'll admit that I haven't really had buyer's remorse about scheduling the trip, because I always have a great time with said Minneapolis friend and I haven't seen her for 6 months or so. But still. Why must everything be scheduled for September 14-16??

Three days ago it all turned around for me. I was on MySpace and I saw a bulletin from my favorite Dallas band - Calhoun - that they have added a tour stop in Minneapolis on the night of September 13. Not only do I love their music, but we're friends with the lead singer and Mike mixed/sound engineered their first album. And I haven't seen them play in years. (Though we saw Tim play with another band in LA a couple of months ago. Pretty good, but no Calhoun.)

So I've changed my flights and now I'm arriving in Minneapolis that Thursday. For once the convergence of every cool event in my life happening at the same exact time has paid off! Happy days.

Songbook

Nick Hornby is one of my favorite authors. I'll buy pretty much anything of his that is published. Because he has rabid fans such as myself, he could publish a book full of his old grocery lists, and some of us would run out to try to find his favorite brand of peanut butter. Life is pretty good for Nick Hornby.

I'm reading Songbook right now. It is a collection of short essays written about songs that are important to him. This is a writing project that I can get behind. Music forms who we are and every person is coming from a different place when she thinks and talks about the music that she cares about. I'll likely never have the creative chops to write a novel during nanowrimo, but I should be able to write a few hundred words about the songs that make me ME.

So stay tuned. Maybe I'll tell you someday about how Fall On Me by REM changed my life or why Two Suns In The Sunset (Pink Floyd) and Our Time Is Running Out (Muse) both often reduce me to tears (kind of embarrassing to listen to in the car). I'm sure you wouldn't pay to buy it, but lucky for you I give this stuff away for free.

What songs would you like to tell the world about?

YOUR MONEY IS NOW OUR MONEY!

We'll spend it on drugs!

Come Play My Game*

I'm practically a walking billboard for Curbed LA these days, but I can't resist posting this link regarding the partial reopening of Griffith Park, post-fire. Now I'm picturing a bunch of goth kids wandering the merry-go-round, singing Prodigy. Sort of like the jets in West Side Story, but totally not.



*True confessions time: I'm not really sure whether this line is the background vocal in Firestarter or not, but when I'm singing along in my car, it is what I say. Then I say something like "psycho-somatic attic insane!" as the next background lyric, which I'm relatively certain is not correct. In case you are wondering, the lyrics websites seem to avoid this issue altogether by refusing to print the background vocals.

Ya Seen One Crowded, Polluted, Stinkin' Town...

Today I learned a thing or two about one of those crazy early 80's songs that I never really understood. Maybe everyone else knew that this song was part of a musical theater production about chess written by the men from ABBA? Murray Head must be forever grateful for landing that random part.

Get Thai'd!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

Mike and I flew back to LA yesterday. It was a very long day. Mike's day started at about 3:30 a.m. when the nurses were not able to successfully draw blood for his morning bloodwork and they managed to both wake him up and piss him off. Then he had the incredibly painful removal of the drain that has been in his abdomen since the surgery last Sunday. He called and woke me up at about 7:00 a.m. to vent about the pain and the lack of sleep.

Late-morning we managed to get him checked out of the hospital and picked up his prescriptions at Walgreen's (the whole nationwide pharmacy chain thing is really great, by the way). We went to my sister's house for lunch and in order to allow him to rest up a bit before our evening flight back home.

Aside: I had a really good visit with my family this trip. I've sort of put in place a 3 day rule for family visits, so when the trip changed from a 3 day excursion to a 10 day adventure, I was a bit concerned, but I had a great time overall visiting with mom and my sister and her daughters (quite possibly the cutest nieces in the entire world, but I'm not biased). Maybe our family unit isn't perfect still, but we've made a lot of progress in the last few months. And my sister was very welcoming and nice to Mike.

We left for the airport really early so that we wouldn't need to hurry. It was a good thing, since we ended up spending about a half hour talking to the good folks at Hertz about what we were going to end up paying for the car (the phone operator when I called to extend the reservation did her best to royally screw us and we ended up talking a $730 bill upon return down to a $330 bill for the 10 days' use of the car). Thanks to the kind folks working the counter at Hertz yesterday. They went out of their way to help us out, after seeing the state that Mike was in at that point.

The flight and airport scenes worked out okay and after about 4-5 hours of travel (including drives to and from the airport), I got Mike home and he spent some quality time with our very lonely, very needy cat. Mission accomplished.

Then I turned around and went to the concert that we had tickets for last night. Typically I would have bagged the show, but it was a small, not-very-publicized show by one of my favorite acts (Travis) a full 3 years since their last tour. They were in town for Coachella and they did an add-on show at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood. Sure, they'll be touring again this summer to promote their upcoming album, but this is exactly the sort of show that makes the LA music scene so cool, and I really didn't want to miss it. The show was pretty good (the not-so-great acoustics and my general fatigue are the only things that kept it from receiving a "Phenomenal" rating from me). They played some of my old favorites and the new stuff that they threw in was all pretty catchy and fun. I'm glad I went, but by the time it ended, I was so incredibly happy to head home to sleep in my own bed once again.

Welcome home.

Just Give It Away

I'm going to a George Strait concert in a couple of weeks. Until sometime this week, I had never (intentionally) listened to a George Strait song. But now I even have the chorus line from the first song on his new album firmly planted in my mind. Excellent earworm work, Mr. Strait.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with country music. Growing up, my mom listened to it every opportunity that she got (which, frankly, were not many, because my sister and I did our best to change her car radio immediately to something more pre-teen friendly). I teased her mercilessly about the subject matter of the songs she loved (always involving two-timing, alcohol and a truck). However something about the predictable nature of the music and the booming male voices was kind of soothing.

And when Garth Brooks hit... Well, let's just say that it is impossible for me to hear Friends In Low Places and not get a bit nostalgic. Post-college I even broadened my horizons a bit and learned to love Hank Williams Jr. and that song (I don't know who sings it) about calling a wino to decorate our home (so you'll feel more at ease here, and you won't have to roam). I mean really. Genius.

Still, there is country music that I flat out hate. Alan Jackson, Toby Keith and the other flag thumpers can shove it. And that song about Earl by the Dixie Chicks? Awful. Though some of their other stuff is fairly catchy.

So how does it come to be that I am travelling to another state on my birthday weekend in order to see the show of some country singer that I've never even listened to before? Well, it helps that the destination is Las Vegas. And that I'll be going with some of my favorite people in the whole world.

Mike is a country music fan. I'd say that he is a closet country music fan, but he's been more open and honest about it lately. (It is for some reason something that people outside of Texas are ashamed to admit.)

And my friend LJ, who works for one of the last remaining big record labels and can get us tickets to most shows worth seeing, is oddly obsessed with the new George Strait album. She heard it at work and, though she insists that she is not a country music fan, hurried to investigate where his tour stops will be. I guess that LA is not a hotbed for country music fans, because he is not coming here. So LJ planned this trip to go see a country music guy and when we heard it would be in Vegas, baby, AND that it would be on Super Bowl weekend, we thought we should go along for the ride.

I also intend to meet a balloon entertainer to the stars (!!!) on this trip. And to spend some time in "rehab" with Alice, another one of my most favorite people ever. Oh, glorious booze-laden rehab!!