Dragging a kicking and screaming Tiller, age two, into Publix. As I lifted her into the buggy, trying to force her legs into the holes of the seat as she attempted to keep them straight and throw herself out onto the cement floor at the same time, the first notes of Stevie Wonder’s ever-so-cheery “Sir Duke” came on over the store music system. As my Mama says, sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Sir Duke: Tiller Pitches a Royal Fit
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007All Hallows Eve
Thursday, November 1st, 2007
Halloween was ultra fun. We carved the pumpkin (yes, I am a total slacker and waited till the last minute) and then went and had pizza at Grant Central. After that, we walked around East Atlanta Village for the Eav-O-Ween celebration.
All of the shop owners hand out candy to the local kids, and the people-watching is pretty fun. The kids were pretty cute, and I have to say that kids don’t get hipper than those who trick or treat The Earl and The Flatiron. Nothing like seeing your little ones waltz right up to a bar for trick or treating. Definitely beats the toothbrushes we used to get from Dr. Grove, the dentist who lived down our suburban street growing up.
After that, we came home and Todd traipsed the kids down the street, while I stayed back to drink beer, er. . . hand out candy. There is something so heartstring-tugging about seeing your husband walking down the street, holding hands with the costumed kids, their other hands gripping the pumpkins so tightly and with such purpose. I had a lovely time talking with the neighbors and then Todd and the kids returned, the kids dove into the candy, and we sat around talking some more, while handing out candy. Halloween in the hood is a little different than in the ‘burbs. The first few years, you are kind of put out by the older kids trick-or-treating (as one neighbor put it, if you are out on a date, you are probably too old to trick or treat) and the lack of discernible costumes, but you start to realize that it’s just the way that folks do things here, and you get into the spirit and go with the flow after a while. And I dare say that this year, it seemed like more people dressed up and that they were trying just a little bit harder.
Todd hosed the children down from layers of stickiness and put them both down. About nine, we closed up shop (lights out, candles out), and Todd walked down the street to check out the Gay Superheroes. It seems that the money house (what I call the neighbor’s house where everyone meets to party while handing out candy every year – a jackpot for the trick or treater) was doing a Superhero costume theme this year. I am sure they went all out and I should have sent the camera. Damn.
I’m drinking beer, fucking around with the Halloween photos, and listening to my Creepy mix. Decemberists’ Leslie Anne Levine is on right now. Awesome song. Awesome holiday.
The Dogwood Shuffle
Sunday, August 19th, 2007I’ve seen this around the web a few times before. You open ITunes, put every bit of music you own on Shuffle, and then you have to post the first five songs that play for everyone to see. No matter how embarrassing. Here goes:
- The Smiths – This Charming Man. So far, so good.
- Aimee Mann – Invisible Ink. Another good one. Great song, actually.
- Depeche Mode – Somebody. Okay, still retaining credibility here as a music lover. The embarrassing part about this song is the number of times that I sat in my room and played it on my cassette player, then rewound it again and again, all the while bawling my eyes out over some stupid boy. Ah, to be a middle-school-aged, angst-ridden Depeche Mode fan.
- Moby – Porcelain. Makes me want to buy diamonds. The first four here have pretty much set up a nice slit-your-wrists soundtrack.
- OutKast – Interlude. Okay, that ruined the mood, but i still got my rep protected.
The true test, folks, is to see what shows up if I do the same with my IPod:
- Archers of Loaf – Web in Front. One of my running songs.
- Sufjan Stevens – Chicago. One of Rollie’s all-time faves.
- Reindeer Section – You are My Joy.
- Don Henley – Boys of Summer. Shit. Not so cool, but I can’t help it. I have always loved the moody sound of this one. And I loved the black and white video.
- The World Has Turned and Left me Here – Weezer.
Phew! This could have been way worse. WAY worse. Thank God. Spank Rock’s “Bump” didn’t show up. Oops.
New. Favorite. Band.
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007From an interview with Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell on Pitchfork.
Pitchfork: Is there anything else that you want to get off your chest?
BB: College football starts in about fifty days.
Pitchfork: You’re not soaking up the baseball season?
BB: I am, actually. We haven’t been near it. When we were in Seattle for those three weeks I got to watch some Mariners games.
Pitchfork: So the M’s are your team?
BB: Yeah, the Mariners are my favorite pro baseball team, and the Georgia Bulldogs are my favorite college football.
Holy Shit. And more:
Bridwell, the songwriting force behind Horses’ acclaimed debut Everything All the Time, lives in a ranch-style home that will soon be smartly appointed with Georgia Bulldogs football memorabilia. He’s just moved in, so only the oblong G doormat is in place. A framed photo of the all-white English bulldog “Uga,” wearing a red t-shirt and performing a leaping chomp at a nervous Auburn wideout from the end zone sideline, sits on the hearth waiting to be hung.
And also:
They serve micheladas– cold beers with soy sauce, Tabasco, and half-limes.
Dear God. This might be love.
Okay, I really liked Band of Horses already. (They were number one on my Top Ten of 2006 list.) But the convergence of good music and SEC football fandom (and my Bulldogs, no less!) really gets me excited in an altogether freaky way.
Thanks to Todd for recognizing this momentous item, giving me the heads up, and being okay with me daydreaming about watching football with Ben all day and then going to watch Band of Horses that night. I will try to make said daydream include a victory over Tech or Florida, rather than Todd’s lil’ tigers. I’m nice that way.
Dance Mix
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007I was out with the girls a few weeks ago, and one of us asked everyone else what songs really made us want to get up and dance. She is putting a playlist together for her wedding, and was looking for suggestions.
Since then, I have been creating the wedding dance playlist of the century; 12 hours of butt-shaking goodness, which needs to be weeded down to about four hours. I have it down to about 7 at this point. For example, I can dance my ass off to Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Reverence,” but it is a wedding reception, with grandmas and great uncles, after all, and is your Mama’s best friend really gonna get off on a song that says, “I want to die just like Jesus Christ?” Probably not. It turns out that, upon reflection, much of mine and Todd’s music is the devil’s work, and we are going straight to the fires of hell. Right after I finish this playlist.
I thought, though, that before i started the weeding process, I would poll the Internet for final suggestions. What are your all-time favorite dance songs? And I know. You don’t like to dance. You can’t dance. BlahBlahBlah. You know there are a few songs that you can’t help moving your feet to, even if it is only in your bedroom with a hairbrush, or while you are cooking dinner alone at night.
Be honest. If it is “Let’s Hear if For the Boy” or “Dancing in the Sheets” from the Footloose soundtrack, just say so.
Not that I like that one or anything. I mean, what? No. I never owned that album. Shut up, Lisa.
About an Old Friend
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007There’s a pretty cool article in today’s New York Times, written by Aimee Mann, about “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” This weekend is the 40th anniversary of the release of the album; It came out about five years before I was released.
The interesting thing about the article is that she reminded me of what I thought of the album as a kid. At 35, I have lots of other ideas about the album that I’ve picked up here and there throughout the years, but she reminded me of the sheer curiosity with which a child picked that album up out of all of her parents’ other albums.
I am a lucky girl – My parents listened to some pretty cool stuff. Mom liked folk and rock and roll: She was a card-carrying member of the Elvis Presley Fan Club, but also listened to The Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Jan and Dean, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. I still remember wondering what “Virgin” meant – One of her friends had written it on her Bob Dylan album cover. (Her name is Virginia.)
Dad listened to rock and roll, too, but his tastes leaned more towards Jerry Lee Lewis and lots of 60’s soul. I still to this day think Otis Redding is the best “cleaning up the house on Saturday” music ever. I wore out all of the Otis discs and that Stax/Volt Review album he had. My sister and I put on clown makeup and danced around the playroom to the Everly Bros.’ “Kathy’s Clown.” To be fair to my parents, they also listened to some great classic country and 70’s honky-tonk Country and Western, too. People, we had a dog named “Waylon.” I shit you not.
Nothing, however, could compare to the magic a kid felt looking at that Sgt. Pepper’s album, and then finding that what was on the inside was just as other-worldly. In later years, Sgt. Pepper’s was the album I listened to (on endless repeat, all night long) the first time I did LSD. In fact, that experience made me not want to listen to if for years and years after.
But after reading Aimee Mann’s article this morning, I decided it was time to pull it out and listen to it again. Okay, i don’t have the album anymore, but Todd has a Beatles problem, and we own 22 Beatles albums; We could listen to The Beatles for 17 hours straight, according to ITunes. So, here I am, listening to “Good Morning, Good Morning” and thinking that it has been too long since I listened to this old friend.
Gotta go. The dog is barking. Oh wait. That’s just Sgt. Pepper’s.
You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby
Saturday, May 5th, 2007I’ve written about how I just don’t have time to keep up with new music like I used to do. It frustrates me at times that music is just one more thing that gets short shrift in my life next to my children. I think that means I am a good parent, but I still miss buying a new CD (and holding it and opening it, and smelling it, and reading all the liner notes while I listen).
Anyway, in a shotgun blast attempt to hear new music, I often listen to KEXP online (LOVE the morning show with John. Okay, love John) and I record MTV2’s Subterranean weekly and watch it when I get a chance. (I am a first-generation MTV child, after all.) I hadn’t watched in a while, though. Boy, was I surprised.
I think over half of the artists or bands they showed were female! And they weren’t just bassists, either. (With apologies to the Kims, of course.) Feist, Lady Sov, Amy Winehouse, Charlotte Gainsbourg, new Bjork (great video, as usual), Lily Allen, new Tori Amos. I don’t even like Tory Amos that much, but damn, she is looking good. She seems to have shed the hippy dippy, new agey blue-green look she always has going, and was pulling off more of a PJ Harvey attitude. Plus, she’s got ginormous balls – I don’t know if there is any amount of money that would make me utter any version of the statement “I am a MILF,” much less have it flashing in my video in huge Frankie Goes to Hollywood block lettering. It was cool stuff.
Seems like music is such a male realm that the females that were there in the past packed a huge punch for me. I was elated that last night, I actually had the option of saying, “God, she sucks,” or “Eaaahhh, not bad, but not really my style,” or “ooh, it’s nice to see a female playing guitar, even if I am not sure if I like the song or not.” (Which usually means I will like the songs after a few listens.) There was a band, CSS, with more girls than guys from Brazil. Brazilian women, can’t beat that.
Okay, now I went and looked at the Subterranean website, just to see if I missed anything, and there is a “Girls of Indie Rock Heat Up Subterranean This Week” headline. That explains that. It was a farce. That would explain the segment with Atlanta’s Mastodon in between the videos; It’s not like any female artists might have something interesting or intelligent to say about their music.
Guess we haven’t come such a long way, baby.
This Must Be The Place
Monday, March 5th, 2007I was reading the New York Times online yesterday morning, and came across a pretty long article on the band Arcade Fire, whom I love. They have a new album out, er . . . coming out tomorrow, officer, I swear I never illegally downloaded any of it already, cross my heart and hope to die. The new album, Neon Bible is totally not a disappointment, as those things can be sometimes; I am digging on it, and it was the weekend-without-children soundtrack. You should go out and buy it today (putting money in their brilliant pockets, and maybe those of good ole Mac and Laura – of Superchunk fame – and their label Merge. Love me some Merge. And if you have not heard the Arcade Fire’s debut, Funeral, well . . . get thee to a music store! You will not be disappointed, although you will be late to the game.
Funny Arcade Fire aside: They were in one of the skits on their recent SNL appearance and it was really hilarious, because, well, Rainn Wilson from The Office, and Arcade Fire. I tried to find a Youtube link and got overwhelmed, because evidently the internet brings into focus the fact that I do not have focus. (U2 and Arcade Fire doing “Love Will Tear Us Apart;” Arcade Fire and Bowie doing “Wake Up” and “Five Years.” Holy Shit!!!” I will die on YouTube.)
And that brings me, quite roundaboutedly (it’s a word, because I just made it up) to the point:
Arcade Fire. David Byrne. Together on a stage. DOING MY FAVORITE SONG OF ALL-TIME.
First of all, to all you lucky motherfuckers who happened to go to an Arcade Fire show in NYC and then had the unexpected pleasure of seeing them joined on stage by David Byrne, and then to realize that they were doing “This Must Be The Place (The Naive Melody)” – Well, I hope you all die, especially those of you who didn’t recognize the song, and so didn’t get how huge it would be to see the whole thing. For the one person who managed to get a little video of it and post it on YouTube – I love you and want to have your babies, and why couldn’t you have gotten the sound just a bit better, because really, the sound is so disappointing, but beggars can’t be choosers.
I cannot imagine. Okay, I can try to imagine the completely elated mindfuck of this whole moment, but really, how many Arcade Fire fans really even knew this song? It was old when I first heard it thanks to an ex. I immediately loved it. I have never stopped loving it. Boyfriend? Long gone. Still love the song, though. Everything about the unabashed cuteness of it and the way that it is so starry-eyed and dramatic, just like teenage lovers, and about how it still rings even more true and honest and sincere now that I actually know about adult love and what home really is. And God Almighty do I love that cowbell at the end. That cowbell is my soul ringing out joyously every time I hear it.
Best. Song. Ever.
Oh, yeah, and about how I get sidetracked and lost on the great Internet? Try to find something about Byrne and the Arcade Fire show and come across David Byrne’s blog, and not only find his thoughts on playing with Arcade Fire, but also an interesting entry about his visit to Savannah and SCAD with his daughter. How weird would it be to be in Savannah and run into David Byrne? At Lady and Sons, no less. And then I look at the date and it was written right after the weekend we were there. Damn. Of course, Todd has already had his run-in with Byrne and his bicycle, but it could happen twice, right?
The Only True Currency
Saturday, March 3rd, 2007“The only true currency in this bankrupt world… is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”
– Lester Bangs
Damn. Should have named Dogwood Girl “www.theonlytruecurrency.com.”
Kids and husband left around 3:30. I fucked around with my dying motherfucking DVR and cable for thirty minutes or so. Turned music up really loud. Removed all vestiges of life with children from my view. Then I put on mascara and switched my stuff from rather large Old Navy backpack Sharpied with “Rollie” and “Tiller” on the straps to my petite Kenneth Cole purse. (Note to Mike: This reminded me of a pair of jeans I had that you wrote on with a Sharpie, and also the Army hat you had in high school/college, again with writing on it, that I always tried to steal. Remember what they said? I cannot for the life of me.)
Went to Kroger. Bought two bottles of wine and one Martha Stewart spring gardening magazine. I want to plant stuff and watch it grow, for the second spring in a row, but with the house on the market, it is just container gardening all the way. Went to Outback. Ate petite filet, baked potato, and salad with blue cheese, along with rye bread, and a glass of cabernet. Crikey. Read Martha Stewart magazine and lingered over meal by myself.
Drove home. Came inside. Loved on dog. Went upstairs to put on PJs. Came downstairs. Bestowed treats on pets. Poured glass of wine. Sat on floor and pulled out DVD baskets to decide what to watch. Really wanted to watch American Idol. (The Shame!!!!) Decided on either: St. Elmo’s Fire. Say Anything. Some Kind of Wonderful. Almost Famous.
Almost Famous won out.
Almost Famous is one of those movies that I never really get tired of. Todd makes fun of me, but I love Cameron Crowe. Can’t help it. He is sentimental in all the right ways, and few of the wrong ones. Even Elizabethtown was bearable. Not perfectly executed, (Brit as an American? Fucking KIRSTEN of wet t-shirt Spidey action DUNST ??? Please.) but perfectly well-meant.
I got nothing much else. Kinda drunk. Listening to music and blogging. Totally uncool.
Think that’s bad? Tomorrow night I am having dinner with my parents and wouldn’t be upset if they wanted to spend the night and play some cards. Because that is what the uncool, non-DVR-capable, Amish-like do on a Saturday.
Soundtrack: Fairport 1979-1980
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007
I skim the New York Times online just about every day, and the last thing I look at is the “On This Day” feature. From the New York Times today:
“On Feb. 22, 1980, in a stunning upset, the United States Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y., 4-to-3. (The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.)
You can see the a picture of the actual front page that day here.
This event, along with the Georgia Bulldogs winning the national championship earlier that year, is one of my earliest sports memories. It also elicits thoughts of the two years I spent living in Fairport, New York, near Rochester. I watched this hockey game at my friend Karen Rapp’s house. All of her brothers and sisters and their friends were there and it was the second time I ever heard the F-word. When the U.S. won, all the crazy hockey fans all over the neighborhood ran outside and honked car horns and I just thought it was the best thing ever.
I was in 2nd or 3rd grade at that time and Karen was in Kindergarten or First grade. She was the youngest of one of about 10 kids, and I loved to hang out at their house, because it was kind of like being in an episode of The Brady Bunch or Eight is Enough. She shared a room with two of her sisters and I still remember sitting on her sister’s bed while falling asleep, gazing at their Pink Floyd The Wall poster. It creeped me out. In their den in the afternoons, all of the kids and their friends would huddle around a little television and watch M.A.S.H. I hated MASH at the time, but grew to love it later. The other reason that I loved to hang out there was that Mrs. Rapp made homemade pizza for all of the kids on Friday nights. She would slave away making pizzas for the kids and their friends, serve it to us all, and then retire to the living room couch, lay down, put a pair of huge headphones on her head (plugged into the humongous stereo receiver) and listen to Neil Diamond. Mrs. Rapp loved Neil Diamond. She would have left Mr. Rapp, despite his kickass homemade maple syrup, for Neil Diamond.
Neil Diamond, in turn, reminds me of New York. Except for “Cracklin’ Rosie,” which reminds me of drinking with Dan and Evan, or “Sweet Caroline,” which reminds me of that crappy Jimmy Fallon baseball movie, Fever Pitch, based on the book by Nick Hornby, whose writing I really like, even though he seems to keep writing the same book over and over and just changing the characters’ names. Okay, I admit it. I even kind of like the movie, because I could drink with Drew Barrymore, and I would be lying if I said Jimmy Fallon isn’t rotated in and out of my top ten every once in a while, and because I would fall in love with a Sox-lovin’ Jimmy Fallon type if I was ten years younger and a workaholic Drew Barrymore lookalike.
Which brings me in a very convoluted manner to the rest of the post. A while ago, an acquaintance posted this video from YouTube on his blog. It is Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like the Wind,” live. Boy did it bring back the memories of living in New York, at about 7 or 8 years old. I thought about my Fisher Price doll house, and turning the lights off for bed, then reading horse books or playing dolls by flashlight till late at night, the radio on so low that only I could hear it.
That was back when you mostly listened to the radio or your parents’ albums. (I could and might dedicate a complete series of posts to those.) You had no idea what the musicians looked like, or what an album was. You just liked a song or you didn’t, and you’d better hope you liked it, because either way, you would hear it run into the ground for the next year, blaring out of the hard plastic speaker in the side of the faux-wood-sided station wagon as you rattled around to the grocery store in the way back (there were three sections to our station wagon: “Front,” “Back,” and “Way Back.”)
Seat belts? What are seat belts?
Soundtrack: Fairport 1979-1981
“Ride Like the Wind” – Christopher Cross
“Sailing” – Christopher Cross
These two are kind of interchangeable, but i associate both of them inextricably with New York and listening to the radio undercover at night in my room
“Band on the Run” – Paul McCartney and Wings
This came out in like ’73, but I distinctly remember it playing on the radio while my sister and I took a bath in our bathroom in New York. The bathroom was brown, and had this weird wallpaper that had a Sherlock Holmes-like character with a brown bloodhound. The toilet seats were plastic and cushioned. Fancy.
“Keep on Loving You” – REO speedwagon
The ultimate Fairport song. Lisa, Karen Rapp, Matt Recht from next door and Jennifer Lofberg from across the street would all hang out in our garage. We were in an airband. We did this song.
“Another One Bites the Dust” – Queen
I remember this song coming out and everyone went crazy for it. I remember Karen’s brother, David, talking about it with my babysitter, Sarah. They were in high school. David was holding a Simon. Simon is this weird toy where it plays a noise, and you have to hit the colored bar corresponding to the sound you heard, and it starts playing more and more intricate patterns of sound. The person who can play what Simon plays the longest without fucking up wins. David, nerd that he was, pretended that he was some scientist who could control animals with sound, and the Simon was the sound machine he used to control us. Yes, the rest of the younger kids were animals.
“Another Brick in the Wall” – Pink Floyd
See above mention of the poster.
“Suicide is Painless” – MASH theme song – Mike Altman and Johnny Mandel
Yes, I had to look up the artists’ names. Reminds me of the dread i would feel every time I heard it (“Ugh, 30 minutes of complete boredom coming up”), much like the feeling I still get upon hearing the infernal ticking of the 60 Minutes clock.
“Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” – Rod Stewart
Another of the my babysitters, a next door neighbor, was a total stoner, I am pretty sure. She invited her boyfriend over while she was supposed to be watching us, and she let us watch Solid Gold and Rod Stewart did this song live, wearing these tight black pants, shaking his ass and she said she thought he had a cute butt. I thought she was a bad, bad girl for saying that, and I also wondered what could possibly be cute about someone’s butt?
“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” – The Charlie Daniels Band
I still love this song. It’s like a folk song, but it has that shock factor that you love as a kid (“I done tole you once, you son of a bitch, I’m the best that’s ever been.”) My parents had the album, and we played it on the record player in the office and totally spazzed out dancing to the electric fiddle bridge in the middle of it.
“Lost in Love” – Air Supply
I am not sure that this is not the same song as the Christopher Cross songs. Same feel. Bedroom at night, radio down low.
“Upside Down” – Diana Ross
Leftover disco 45 in my parents record collection. We wore this baby out. Dance Fever!
“Y.M.C.A.” – Village People
I cringe when i hear this now, but god almighty did I like it back in the day. At that time, I thought they just liked to dress as what they wanted to be when they grew up.
“The Winner Takes It All” – ABBA
Off of the album Super Trouper. Thank God I was not a boy, or i would be completely gay now. Village People? Diana Ross? ABBA? Dear God. We sang our guts out on this one. I wanted flowing dresses like the ones they had on the cover. I thought they looked like sexy Greek goddesses.
“Rumours” – Fleetwood Mac
I am not sure where Mom got this from, but i LOVED it. Probably the first album I ever really loved. I have to say, best album on this list. (Todd will probably argue that based on Wings being on here, but he is the only one who really listens to Wings.) I was forever staring at the cover and wondering why that guy’s belt looks like testicles hanging between his legs.
Trip down memory lane completed. Please exit the bus in an orderly manner. Maybe tomorrow you will get a recap of my parents’ albums’ influence on my musical tastes. Or, maybe you will get more ridicule of my sister and husband. Maybe you will be on the hotseat. You just never know with me.