30 Day Music Challenge - Day 7

Holy crap, looking at me posting two days in a row!  Woot!

Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event: Which to choose, which to choose?  I don't like making decisions, so I'm going with both.  Rhianna's Umbrella reminds me of my bachelorette party and Garth Brooks' Ain't Goin Down (Til the Sun Comes Up) reminds me of karaoke in Virginia Beach on vacation a few years ago.  I told you my taste in music was pretty diverse.  There's not really a story to the Rhianna song, other than that we were all wasted and singing and dancing to it in the limo between bars during my kick-ass bachelorette party.  Every time I hear the song now, that night is all I can think of.  Ella-ella-ella.  In Virginia Beach, while on vacation with J, Jocelyn, and some other dude, Jocelyn and I wanted to sing Ain't Goin Down (the crowd was pretty country, and we had just been celebrating the fact that we both know all the words on the drive down a few days before).  The karaoke DJ didn't have it, but agreed to just play the regular CD and let us sing it without words on the screen if we got it from the car.  So we did.  The crowd went wild.  It was awesome.  In my opinion, only Informer, by the illustrious white rapper Snow, is more impressive in the karaoke forum, especially without the lyrics on screen.

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 4, 5 & 6

I officially suck at this.  In my defense, I spent two whole days thinking about the Day 4 challenge, and still had a really hard time coming up with something.  For Day 5, it was a matter of picking which one of many to use, and Day 6 is the easiest one yet.

Day 04 - A song that makes you sad:  Wow.  Music makes me happy, not sad.  There are some songs that remind me of tough times, and in that way, I guess they sort of make me sad - but it's not the song that makes me sad, it's the memory that the song triggers.  Some songs are really sad songs, but they don't necessarily make me feel sad.  So, call this a cop out, but the only thing I can come up with is the I'll Cover You Reprise from Rent, especially as sung by Jesse L. Martin.  When he nails the line "When your heart has expired," my heart wants to break in half.


Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone: There are seriously so many to chose from!  Drawing out of the hat that is my brain, I'll go with Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants, but it's really that whole album that reminds me of Kate.  We used to play that album and pretty much anything by the Violent Femmes non-stop, hanging out at her mom's house during junior high and early high school summer vacations, squirting water bottles and throwing shit into the ceiling fan, just to see what would happen . . . Good times.

Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere: Hands down, this is the easiest challenge yet.  Rockstar, by Nickleback, reminds me of the Hoover Dam.  We drove there from Vegas about 5 years ago, when this song was all over the radio, and it was playing as we drove up to the dam and looked for parking.  The entire time we were walking around the dam, on the tour and then when we walked across the dam afterwards, I was singing this song.  Now every single time I hear it, I feel like I'm right back there.

Earth Day Remix - Just A Friend

So, for Earth Day (again, I know I'm late - STFU), Biz Markie did a remake of Just a Friend.  I meant to post this forever ago, but it just popped into my head now.  Love.  Check it:




My favorite part, by far, is when Biz says "Happy Earf Day" at the end.  Yessssss.

RS 40 reasons to be excited about music

The last issue of Rolling Stone that I received before my subscription ran out - now about two weeks ago, I reckon - included a special feature entitled 40 Reasons to be Excited about Music.  It was awesome.  Please go check it out:

Here.

I'm bummed that they featured the Black-Eyed Peas for this, because they're black-eyed garbage in my opinion, and there were a few other less than awesome featured artists, but overall, it's the idea of the article and some of the awesome things that pointed out in it that really made me feel great about music.  It was a great way to end my subscription to RS.  I wish I still got it, as I did love reading it so, but alas, fundage is tight, and magazine subscriptions are an expense that had to be cut.  Hey RS editors - wanna hook a blogger up?  Any devoted readers wanna gift me a subscription?

30 Day Music Challenge - Days 2 and 3

Obviously, this isn't going as planned.  It's day 3 and I've already missed a day.  Go me.  Alas, life gets in the way.  Here we go, with what will likely be only the first of many multiple-day responses.

Day 02 - Your least favorite song:  Again, this tends to change from hour to hour, but right now I think I gotta go with that godawful mess that is Tik-Tok, by Ke$ha.  Who was the asshole record exec that said this girl should have a recording contract?  Are you kidding me?  The first time I heard this song, I think it was #1 on American Top 40 (a guilty pleasure, I admit.  Though while I'm admitting things, I should probably add that I tune out of half the songs that they actually play on there because they all seem to suck so hard).  It was way up there in the countdown, anyway, so I gave it a shot.  I swear to you, it was like a train wreck for me.  I hated everything about it so, so much, but I couldn't shut it off.  She can't sing to save her life, even with Auto-tune, and I don't know who wrote this garbage, but even the lyrics are painful to try and listen to.  Further proof that anything with a hook can get radio play, no matter how bad it might suck.  A very close second = The 2010 remake of We Are the World.  I love the idea of the original, even if I don't love the song, but this remake was one of the worst things I've ever heard, whether their hearts were in the right place or not.  Even the production was bad, so shame on you, Quincy Jones.  What a flippin' mess.

Day 03 - A song that makes you happy:  J and I were just talking about songs like this.  There are a few that you just have to smile at, you know?  Today, I'm going with Fireflies, by Owl City.  I know a lot of people hate the sugary sweetness that is the whole Owl City album, and I have to admit that a whole album of this would probably make me want to kick a rainbow-farting unicorn in the head, but for a single song to make you smile, you can't really beat lines like "I get a thousand hugs / from ten thousand lightning bugs."  For the record, a few others include Jason Mraz's I'm Yours, Sublime's What I Got, RHCP's Zephyr, and pretty much the entire Jack Johnson Curious George album.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

I forgot how much I love Ian McEwan's writing.  The fact that there's some portion (however small) of this book where he's actually writing about writing almost made my head explode.  Seriously, I haven't marked passages in a book in years and years, but I found myself reading this one with a pencil handy.  I mean, how can anyone say that passages like this don't make you feel something:

Now the faintest stirring of a breeze rustled the display of sedge that stood before the fireplace.  two or three stout-bodied moths circled the lamp that stood upon the harpsichord.  When would anyone ever play it again?  That night creatures were drawn to lights where they could be most easily eaten by other creatures was one of those mysteries that gave her modest pleasure.  She preferred not to have it explained away.  At a formal dinner once a professor of some science or other, wanting to ake small talk, had pointed out a few insects gyrating above a candelabra.  He had told her that it was the visual impression of an even deeper darkness beyond the light that drew them in.  Even though they might be eaten, they had to obey the instinct that made them seek out the darkest place, on the far side of the light - and in this case it was an illusion.  It sounded to her like sophistry, or an explanation for its own sake.  How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect?  Not everything had a cause, and pretending  otherwise was an interference in the workings of the world that was futile, and could even lead to grief.  Some things were simply so.

Brilliant.  Anyway, this is the story of Briony, who's 13 when we meet her, and about to bear false witness to a crime that will change her and her family's lives forever.  That's the best description I can give.  I've come to realize that McEwan is one of those love-him-or-hate-him authors.  I love him, and plan to try and read as many more of his books as I can this year.  I reviewed On Chesil Beach a couple of years ago, and I read Saturday shortly after that, but I stopped there for some reason.  Atonement is my current favorite of the three, but I can't wait to read the rest.

Incidentally, Atonement has since been made into a movie, which I recently bumped to the #1 spot in my Netflix queue (I love that word, BTW).  I'm looking forward to watching it, just to see what they did with it, but as I said to J at one point as I was reading, I can't even understand why anyone even tried to make this book into a movie.  The writing is SO beautiful, it could never possibly be done justice on film.  We'll see.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 1

I've been overly lax in my blogging lately, so I'm going to take on this 30 day music challenge to try and motivate me to get my ass on here every day.  Each day, I post a response to a new question.  The plan is that hopefully while I'm here to post about this, I'll manage to write a post with a little more substance at the same time.  We'll see.  Thanks to Christiejolu over at Tales From My Head for the challenge.  Here's the complete list:

Day 01 - Your favorite song
Day 02 - Your least favorite song
Day 03 - A song that makes you happy
Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 - A song that you can dance to
Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 - A song from your favorite band
Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 - A song that describes you
Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 - A song from your favorite album
Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year

So, today being May 1, it's only appropriate to make this day 1.

Day 01 - Your favorite song:  We all know how I feel about favorites, but in the interest of actually trying to do this little challenge, I'll just list my favorite song rightthissecond, with the caveat that ten minutes after I post this, I may have changed my mind.  Right now, since I heard it 10 minutes ago, my favorite song is Badfish, by Sublime.  There's something very chill and mellow and awesome about this song.  I love the party scene intro at the beginning, and how it sets the tone for the rest of the song.  I just saw Badfish (the band) play last weekend at HOB in Boston, and they were great.  I'm stoked for them that they can attract such huge crowds all over the country now.  I can remember when they played almost every weekend at the Ocean Mist in Narragansett, while I was in college.  But they were just in Rolling Stone as one of the best cover bands out there right now.  Good for them.  Sublime is also fixing to have a reunion tour with a new singer.  They played a reunion show on 4/20 in LA and while the new singer comes off as a little young and maybe doesn't have the growly voice thing that made us love Bradley so, signs point to him doing a pretty decent job.  But we miss you, Brad.