#8 Bjork's Vespertine

Watching T.V. Movies on the Living Room Armchair

#2 No Need to Argue, The Cranberries

It seems that, for many of us, the albums we listened to in our adolescent years continue to rise to the top. This one carried me through that time of loneliness and confusion and inspired me to make music myself. The first songs I learned to play on guitar were "Ode to my Family" and "Zombie." I sang along with Dolores until I was out of breath. To this day, my weak voice is somehow made powerful when I'm singing her melodies.

My favorite songs continue to be "Can't Be With You", "Daffodil Lament" and "Dreaming My Dreams."

Do You Believe What I Say Now...

:: 01 ::

Weezer
The Blue Album

This album has always been there for me, singing the soundtrack of my life. When I'm sad, I listen to it. When I'm mad, I listen to it. And when I'm happy, I listen to it. How perfect could one CD be. I can't say enough about the emotional connection I have with it. I guess it goes back to those high school days, old girlfriends, and stupid people; and when Rivers Cuomo was the only person in the world that understood me.

That's it. I'm out.

Be Like The Squirrel, Girl

:: 02 ::

The White Stripes
Elephant

I'm Calm Like A Bomb

:: 03 ::

Rage Against The Machine
The Battle of LA

Because You Can't, You Won't, And You Don't.... stop

:: 04 ::

Beastie Boys
Ill Communication

Out Of Her Head She Sang

:: 05 ::

Foo Fighters
The Colour & The Shape

You Don't Know How Lucky You Are

:: 06 ::

The Beatles
The White Album

Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where...

#8 - Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

If anyone on this list needs an explanation of how good this album is, you can email me. I don't expect my inbox to be filling up any time soon.

Favorites: Only Living Boy in New York, The Boxer, Baby Driver
Least Favorite: Bridge Over Troubled Water (ironic, no?)

In Memorium

Monday, 12 Mar 2007

Lead singer for rock band Boston found dead

WASHINGTON: Brad Delp, the lead singer of the 1970s and '80s rock band Boston was found dead at his home in southern New Hampshire on Friday, local police said.

Delp, 55, apparently was home alone and there was no indication of foul play, Atkinson, New Hampshire, police said.

With Delp's big, high-register voice, Boston scored hits with More Than a Feeling, Long Time, and Peace of Mind. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, but it remained active off and on, producing its last album Corporate America in 2002.

Delp was born in Boston, and bought his first guitar at age 13 after seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, according to his website. Since 1994, he spent his spare time working in a tribute band called Beatle Juice, the band's website said.

The band's website carried a statement, "We've just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll."

Walk into the Wild...

#8 Harrod and Funck, Harrod and Funck.

The rest of the albums from here on out are virtually interchangeable. This has been one of my favorite albums since high school. A friend's older brother told us the story of how these guys would attract hundreds of people with their music on the sidewalks and subways of Boston. I saw these guys live at Calvin College and became an immediate fan. They are excellent musicians and great story tellers. My favorite songs on this album are Something, Walk Into the Wild, and the Lion Song (which my brother played for us at the rehearsal dinner before our wedding). I can't think of any songs on this album that I don't like. Unfortunately, they broke up in 1999 after only releasing 3 albums. Jason Harrod still makes music and has released a few albums lately (not nearly as good as the glory days) Check these guys out if you get a chance- http://www.harrodandfunck.com/

Bittersweet Symphony

#1 - Urban Hymns (The Verve) 1997

My favorite album containing my favorite song, Lucky Man. This album has always been, and will likely always be, #1.

Backwoods Bazan

Since many of you have a past/present with David Bazan of Pedro the Lion, I thought I would offer a link to an interview I did with him in the Fall that just now made it to virtual print.

Check it out here. Coming soon: My #3.

#3 - Many In High Places Are Not Well - HiM


Believe it or not, I used to hate jazz...and I didn't even know what Afro-beat was. This band taught me to embrace them both. Doug Scharin uses percussion to penetrate every aspect of this group. Whereas most drummers provide the beat and fill in the empty space, he is the foundation upon which everything else is built. He combines these genres to create a perfect balance in a lively yet sensual sound.

The first tracks I heard on this album were samples (which Papa downloaded) of Slow, Slow, Slow (Slow Dub Low version) and The Way Trees Are. I couldn't get enough of either song and eagerly anticipated this album's release. Papa and I picked it up at CD Alley and then went to Mellow Mushroom for dinner. I vividly remember sitting in the parking lot (I think it was before we ate) listening to these songs. Wow. Although they were slightly different from the downloaded versions that whet my appetite, hearing them in their entirety was incredibly satisfying.

It took me a while to warm up to the album as a whole. I think it was because I heard the best songs first. Then I got to a point where I wore it out. Any time I had control of the CD player, this is what I would pop in. Seeing them live with Mice Parade only added to my adoration. They made a dingy, smoke-filled bar feel like heaven on earth.

I don't know how I can put two more albums above this one. It feels more accurate to say that this is 1/3 of #1.

Peter and his monkey laugh, and I laugh with them

#5 Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West (Up, 1997)

The author Flannery O’Connor famously described the South as a place that is “Christ-haunted." Having lived in the South for coming up on seven years now, I’m here to tell you that Flannery O’Connor is full of shit. Forgive me if I misunderstand the rules of the undead, but for Christ to be able to haunt anything, wouldn’t he have to die first (again, I guess)? Believe me, Christ is far from dead in these parts. Saying that the South is haunted, to my mind, is essentially a way to say, “hey, every other person here is a Baptist, but we’re still cool and mysterious and gothic.”

Now, the South certainly does have more than enough myth and mystery to go around (listen to any album by the excellent Drive-By Truckers, for example). As The Lonesome Crowded West suggests, however, it’s much more accurate to say that the region that Jesus haunts is the wide wide American West. Unlike in the South, from the first years that my people first defiled the Indians’ holy grounds, the West has never taken well to the pieties and religions of its parents. And while j.c. certainly makes his presence known out there, this album envisions a tired-out deity who, in his very otherworldliness and flamboyance, blends in with the rest of the kooks. In Modest Mouse’s vision, God is a slob like one of us, but here the ‘us’ is a motley collection of angry cowboys, pornographers, grinning salesmen, get-rich schemers, and drunkard good-for-nothings.

Much like with The Moon and Antarctica, Modest Mouse creates on this record a coherent musical and thematic world, but what makes this record slightly better, in my opinion, is that this one is more comic. From the first track, “Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine,” wherein we all share an Orange Julius in America’s future ghost towns, through the last song, “Styrofoam Boots/It’s All Nice,” where the Big Man saunters through St. Peter’s (and his monkey’s) playground, “lookin’ a bit like everyone I’ve ever seen/ he moves like crisco disco, breath 100% Listerine,” this record puts forth an insightfully silly (but not entirely unserious) view of this great country. And though it sounds like a Very Important and Thought-Provoking Idea to say that a place is “Christ-haunted,” if we have learned anything from Casper and Scooby Doo episodes, it’s that ghosts are funny. The West is ridiculous. Cowboy Dan and “Doin’ the Cockroach” are ridiculous. And in this landscape, our buddy the carpenter’s apprentice (who appears in “Jesus Christ Was an Only Child”) and his apostles (in the heart-rending “Bankrupt on Selling”) are no different.

It’s not all fun times and chuckles, of course. The flip side of the car-salesman deity is the absent deity. In “Styrofoam Boots” we also hear that “well I’ll be damned,/ you were right, no one’s running this whole thing,” and “God takes care of himself, and you of you.” When we have a God reduced to haunting these (literally?) godforsaken places, even drunken Cowboy Dan can take his potshots (“He fired his rifle in the sky/ said, ‘God if I have to die, you will have to die’”). This unlikeable cowboy is a perfect metaphor for the utopian individualism and staggering hubris of the myth of the West, in which each person writes their own history. Even more than Ms. O’Connor, Cowboy Dan and Modest Mouse too are full of shit. Unlike with the countless myths of the South, however, at least this one doesn’t take itself all that seriously.

Clap Your Hands Say Low

Any one else psyched about Drums and Guns coming out in March? Here's a taste courtesy of Sub Pop with three essentials: Mimi harmonies, handclaps, and backwards guitar.

Low - Breaker, from Drums and Guns