Very, very, very rarely, parenthood and cool coincide. When I say “rare,” I mean, endangered species rare.
But the folks at Paste hit the nail on the head with this one.
I am so buying a copy and playing the playlist for the kiddos.
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Give the Kids Indie Cred!
Monday, January 26th, 2009New Running Playlist – Special Guest Star Todd!
Thursday, October 30th, 2008Since my Ipod died, I have been using Todd’s dinosaur (about four pounds!) Ipod on my runs. I haven’t quite gotten around to convincing him that I should control what music he puts on his own Ipod (yet), so I have been using his Running mix. Lots of the same stuff I have, plus some I haven’t used that worked out well. The only thing we definitely don’t agree on? I just can’t run to The Shins or Vampire Weekend. I don’t even like Vampire Weekend, actually. And I think The Shins are boring.*
There. I said it.
*Except for “New Slang,” which is, of course, brilliant.
Todd’s Running Playlist:
- There There Radiohead Hail to the Thief
- Feel Good Inc (Single Edit) Gorillaz Feel Good Inc – Single
- Ch-Check It Out The Beastie Boys To The 5 Boroughs
- Obstacle 1 Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights
- Blue Orchid The White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan
- Hopeless The Wrens The Meadowlands
- What Ever Happened The Strokes Room On Fire
- Banquet Bloc Party Silent Alarm
- Harnessed in Slums Archers Of Loaf Vee Vee
- Helicopter Bloc Party Silent Alarm
- Favours In The Beetroot Fields British Sea Power The Decline Of British Sea Power
- 7/4 (Shoreline) Broken Social Scene Broken Social Scene
- Sister Jack Spoon Gimme Fiction
- Smack My Bitch Up The Prodigy The Fat Of The Land
- Vertigo U2 How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
- Where’s Your Head At Basement Jaxx Rooty
- B.O.B. OutKast Stankonia
- Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) Arcade Fire Funeral
- Richard III Supergrass In It For the Money
- Alec Eiffel Pixies Trompe le Monde
- Alison Pixies Bossanova
- Wolf Like Me TV On The Radio Return To Cookie Mountain
- Handful Of Billions Sound Team Movie Monster
- Anti-Anti Snowden Anti-Anti
- Now That You’re Home Manchester Orchestra I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child
- Wolves at Night Manchester Orchestra I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child
- Cowbell Tapes ‘n Tapes The Loon
- Pitfalls Film School Film School
- Australia The Shins Wincing the Night Away
- Wasted Time Kings Of Leon Youth and Young Manhood
- Common Reactor Silversun Pickups Carnavas
- No Cars Go Arcade Fire Neon Bible
- Keep The Car Running Arcade Fire Neon Bible
- Bone Broke The White Stripes Icky Thump
- Icky Thump The White Stripes Icky Thump
- Finer Feelings Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
- d is for dangerous Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare
- teddy picker Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare
- Red Alert Basement Jaxx The Singles
- Under Pressure David Bowie & Queen
- Bump Spank Rock Yoyoyoyoyo (Record-Play)
- Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats Los Campesinos! Hold On Now, Youngster…
- Liferz Blood on the Wall Liferz
- Rize Blood on the Wall Liferz
- Go Go Go Blood on the Wall Liferz
- Hibernation Blood on the Wall Liferz
- Living Well Is The Best Revenge R.E.M. Accelerate
- Time to Pretend MGMT Oracular Spectacular
- Sissy Blues The Deadly Snakes Porcella -Or- A Bird In The Hand Is Worthless [Vinyl]
- I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You Black Kids Wizard of Ahhhs
- Boston Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
- A-Punk Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
- Mansard Roof Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
- O Katrina! The Black Lips Good Bad Not Evil
My Buddy
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008The other day, i was listening to the radio on my television. One of those music channels options. I do that sometimes when i am washing dishes or cleaning the main floor of the house, because i get tired of the CDs in my kitchen. (You can only listen to my usuals: Blonde on Blonde, Pleased to Meet Me, and Picaresque so many times. It is funny how my recently played songs on Last.fm never actually take into account my time listening to cds in the kitchen the old-fashioned way.)
A song came on, and as so often happens in my distracted life, it was halfway over before I realized that I had known and sang along with every word, despite the fact that I don’t think I had ever heard the song before. I stood at the sink, up to my elbows in dirty dishes (we are currently grieving for our deceased dishwasher), looking blankly out the window on my fall garden, and trying to pull a memory out of the ether. It came to me in a flash, a quick glimpse of my grandma’s smiling face, with thick coke-bottle glasses, laughing at the piano in our old house.
My Buddy. It was My Buddy.
I used to love to watch my grandmother play the piano. She could still play, even into her 80s, and i think now that it is a lost art. Now, only the virtuosos play piano. But in her day, all young girls learned to play the piano, and standing around the piano playing songs and singing together was one of their favorite past-times. My grandmother would play songs out of the Cokesbury Hymnal. Her favorite was In the Garden. To this day, i get weepy every time I hear that beautiful hymn. I think that when I was little, I had no idea it was religious in nature, and the walking with, and talking with, and telling me that I am his own just made me feel so very loved. I never hear that song without thinking of Grandma Smith. But it was Grandma playing the songs My Buddy, and I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles that I really loved. She would sing as she played, and Lisa and I would sing along with her, following along in the songbook the words that she sang by heart, the songs she had listened to as a girl in Slidell, Louisiana and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
“Nights are long since you went away I think about you all thru the day My buddy, My buddy, No buddy quite so true
Miss your voice, The touch of your hand Just long to know that you understand My buddy, My buddy, Ooh your buddy misses you
Miss your voice, The touch of your hand Just long to know that you understand My buddy, My buddy, Your buddy misses you
Yes I do”
Grandma, you’ve been gone for 16 years now, and your buddy still misses you every day.
My Running Playlist
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008I’ve been running a lot lately, and getting bored with my current running playlists. Here’s what’s on them, in case you’re bored with yours:
Living Well Is The Best Revenge R.E.M.
Shellshock New Order
The Grey Estates Wolf Parade
Blank Generation Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Power Doesn’t Run On Nothing The Thermals
A Ghost To Most Drive-By Truckers
Breathe Me Sia
No Pause Girl Talk
Hands In The Air Girl Talk
Here’s The Thing Girl Talk
Don’t Stop Girl Talk
Konichiwa Bitches (Album Version) Robyn
Destroyer Kinks
Weightless Nada Surf
I’mAlright Kenny Loggins (bite me)
Digital Love Miracle Fortress
Long Division Death Cab For Cutie
Shut Up and Let Me Go The Ting Tings
I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You Black Kids
That’s Not My Name The Ting Tings
Could You Be The One Husker Du
Great DJ The Ting Tings
List of Demands (Reparations) Saul Williams
Stay Positive The Hold Steady
Right Hand On My Heart The Whigs
5 Years Time Noah & The Whale
Hold Up Girl Talk
Knife (Girl Talk Remix) Grizzly Bear
What’s Golden Jurassic 5 Power In Numbers
Pavilion Velcro Stars
Secret Identity How I Became The Bomb
No Cars Go Arcade Fire
Common Reactor Silversun Pickups
Keep The Car Running Arcade Fire
I Still Remember Bloc Party
Tom Courtnenay Yo La Tengo
Beautiful Day U2
Head On Pixies
Thieves Ministry
50ft Queenie PJ Harvey
Song 2 Blur
(Drawing) Rings Around The World
Sister Surround The Soundtrack Of Our Lives
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Feel Good Inc (Single Edit) Gorillaz
Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta Geto Boys (Kinda like to cool down to this one.)
What do you run to? For the love of god, give me some suggestions. I am bored silly with most of these.
Anybody Wanna Give Me $179?
Monday, September 8th, 2008
If I had a spare $179 lying around, this would be totally cool.
Bulldawg Bounce
Saturday, September 6th, 2008This is just plain funny. Not great, but fun. Go Dawgs!
HT to Pecanne Log, whom i don’t know, but read pretty regularly.
Actual Pictures of Me That I Don’t Hate
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Here is one. There are not many.
I like that I am wearing one of my favorite hats from high school. It makes me sad that I didn’t keep my hat collection, although Todd is very thankful that I didn’t, and they were great hats, but not worth losing a marriage over. Woulda made a good dressup trunk for Tiller, though. That is Pop, over there on the left. Same old outfit as always; Heavy plaid workshirt (this was obviously Christmas, but he wore the same thing in summer, working in 80 and 90 degree weather) and “dungarees.” I just love that word. I love that he still says “dungarees” and “brogans,” and “aught” for zero. This is at the old house in Roswell. Check out that bigass tv! And the radio on top. Lisa’s pink one from the 80s – there was some serious Flashdance dancing done on the parquet hallway floor to that radio. Lots of Pretty in Pink soundtrack, U2, Depeche Mode, and Violent Femmes played on it too, as I remember. That clock on the mantel is on my mantel now, and i have been meaning to post a little something about how I learned to work an 8-day wound clock. Lost art.
What I like most about this picture is that I look really happy. I think it was Christmas of my Junior or Senior year. Probably senior. I look like I was ready to take on the world. I think i was ready to take on the world.
Pictures Past
Monday, August 4th, 2008Scott at The Austin Affair posted some old pics of us with Z and Ope. A great weekend, wherein we drove to Chapel Hill just to see Pavement, and once again, I am reminded that I should have worn some makeup every once in a while. Something about those pictures really capture the mid-90s for me.
Scott comments that it looks like Zach and i are fighting, but really, I am pretty sure that i was just looking like I normally did after spending hours in the car with these three. It took infinite patience and sense of humor to deal with these three on a road trip. Trust me.
Of course, I would love to be back in that car for just ten minutes today. Such good times.
These Important Years
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008So, you’ve probably been wondering where the hell I am, as normally I don’t take a shit without blogging about. I alluded to it in an earlier post, but we have our house under contract and are moving. I haven’t really had time to digest what that means for us, but I do know that I am having some serious identity crisis. I am a city girl now. I have lived in East Atlanta almost as long as I lived in my parents’ last house. But now the conflict between personal identity and parenthood has come to a head, and we made the decision to move into a better school district. We tried our damnedest to find a house we could afford in a decent intown school district to no avail. We just can’t afford private school. So, we are off to the burbs. No, we didn’t go whole hog and buy a house in Cumming or Suwanee, although we did consider the pros and cons of doing so. But when it came down to what we really wanted (shorter commutes, better access to the city (Braves game, etc.), and proximity to my sister (and my impending nephew!), we decided on . . . Atlanta. Turns out Atlanta is pretty big. The Atlanta we decided on is Dekalb Co., barely outside the perimeter, and in a great elementary district. We are getting a decent amount of house for our money, we will be close to some other friends who live in the area, and we will be staying true to our promise to educate our children well, which is the most important thing in the long run.
So, this week, Todd and I are counting down our last days in the EAV, and pretty bummed out about it. Sure, we will still come over here to drink and see old neighbors, and see shows, and for his book club, and when I just have to have a Blue Bacon Burger, but it is one of those moments where we feel really torn, and we know that having children means sacrifice and this is a sacrifice for us in many ways.
So, my sister (a.k.a. “The Best Sister in the World”) is watching the kids today while Todd and I make a seriously huge dent in the packing. (This of course also included a two-pint lunch at the Flatiron; All work and no play makes Annie very sad.) Afterwards, Todd started packing up Rollie’s room, and I have been packing the kitchen. On a side note, packing the kitchen is like playing a very weird game of Tetris; the spices are particularly satisfying to pack tightly together in the most streamlined of space-saving manners.
I was listening to an Itunes mix, with an ass ton of music on shuffle, and the Husker Du song, “These Important Years” came on, and I was reminded of the summer of 1990, packing up all of my stuff to leave for college, listening to that very song. It was one of those really strange deja vu moments, where time seems to have passed in a millisecond and to stand still at the same time, and I could be 18 or 25 or 30 or 36 (minus the tight abs and ass, of course) and I have that same sense of bittersweet excitement and sadness. The difference is that, at 36, I know that change is almost always a positive, and i have the power of hindsight, of knowing that i never regretted any of my moves, not one. They all meant the end of things that I look back fondly on now, but they also always meant that i was about to embark on something completely new that I had never experienced before: New friends, new love, new job, new place all by myself, new place all the way across the country, promotions, and learning, and husbands, and dogs, and cats, and kids. All of these were impossible if not for the constant change. Change is good. Change is responsible for these important years.
Pooped Out
Sunday, December 30th, 2007I am so tired. Todd and I went to the EARL last night after his book club at Flatiron. Anna Kramer opened, and I loved her! Got this video of a new Band of Horses song they say they hadn’t played before. Me likey. Their whole show was really great – I was impressed. I think they were much better than I thought they would be.
Must go to bed now – stayed up till 2:30 and woke up with kids at 7:30. I don’t know what their problem is, always wanting me to get up and feed them and stuff like that. They are so needy.