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The Groups
Music Monday: Nostalgia Edition
I don’t know about you guys, but some days I can’t remember what day of the week it is, but I can always sing you the Sesame Street pinball song up to 12. In fact I have a whole subsection of my mind that is completely dedicated to songs from my childhood. Humming these tunes make me calm and happy. And with that in mind I share what treasures I was able to find in that sweet cacophony of media hodgepodge within the youtube search feature. Get out your pop rocks & lick a sticks and enjoy…
Now for some flashback questions that have been driving me nuts:
1) What was the name of the show or character that featured a grown man wearing a unitard. Half of the unitard was a depiction of the human muscles and the other half were bones.
2) How were Smurfs born?
3) Are The Littles and The Borrowers connected in any way?
4) Why did Blowpop gum always disintegrate after 4-6 rotations of chewing?
5) How is it possible that the most awesome book series of my childhood is out of print? Sweet Pickles…come back to me.
Music Monday: Clem Snide
If it wasn’t for Marta I would never have heard of Eef Barzelay (lead singer of Clem Snide). In fact, if it wasn’t for Marta I probably would still be listening to my mixed tapes from 1998.
A couple of years ago I left the life I was living in Los Angeles and drove to the South. I had always wanted to drive across country, but the idea of going solo was making me tense. Marta put together a thick wallet of CD’s to listen to as I made my drive. Many of the songs were location themed, but the first was a collection of eclectic music that was meant to help ease me into the mind-frame that one must adopt as they begin a long and tedious journey.
On this mix of music was my first introduction to Cat Power, The New Pornographers, Billy Nichols and the band that I want to tell you about today: Clem Snide. The first song I heard by this band is a stunning and lulling tune called Joan Jett of Arc. (amazing music site linked there…fyi)
Opening lyric: She fixed me a dinner of sunflower seeds and ready-whip topping inhaler. And takes me down south with with Hall and Oats in her mouth, my first love, my Joan Jett of Arc.
The next song of this band that I fell in love with is called I Love the Unknown. Sample lyric: “the doctor asked him what he was afraid of
just what was he running from?
he said, “it’s not a fear of success, nor of closeness
but of going through life feeling numb.”
It’s good stuff. All of it. Sadly there are not a lot of videos on line to share, so you will have to trust me. But just to reveal a bit of the fabulousness that is Clem Snide I will share a live performance of a song I had never heard until this morning about Lucille Ball:
oh and this is a beautiful song as well…it’s about love. And the video might make you sigh with bliss.
Last night I watched Into the Wild. And then I cried all night. I found myself feeling like I wanted to have an adventure. Certainly not an Alaskan walkabout, but something about the idea of taking off and being anonymous and starting over is alluring. No need to dive deep to wonder why that is.
I think the cement foot feelings of late are part of a process that I need to go through. I simply must be sad and be malcontent and be frustrated. I am glad that the W is allowing me to feel these feelings without feeling like they will overwhelm me. I feel like I am tired of swimming in an ocean, but I do not feel lost at sea. If anything it seems like I need to realize that all I must do to return to shore is stand up. The water is not as deep as it feels. Rationally I know this. Emotionally I am learning it.
I know this blog has gotten to be so tremendously tedious and annoying. There is nothing thrilling going on here, no news to count down to or look forward to. But this moment in my life is still connected, very much so, to the name of this blog. It will all be something that fuels how I go forward. Hopefully it will make me appreciate the journey to know that my path was a complicated one.
As Eef sings in the first song about Lucille: Because Happiness is boring. It’s always black and white. And the good times never last, the chocolates move too fast for us all.
Tomorrow (tuesday) I will share with you a post that I have been working on for a while about GM. Things have not been so terrific, but Alzheimer’s puts a damper on pretty much everything. I will be sharing some of my favorite photos of GM. And because I know that so many of you have your own darling Grandmothers here or watching over you I would love to meet them too. I’m going to activate a linky tomorrow so you can leave the address of your blog with a link to a post or photo about your Grandmother. That way we can spend time visiting with them and honoring them in whatever way you wish.
Music Monday: James (& Tori)
In high school I was never the girl with her finger on the pulse of the music scene. I was a theatre nerd through and through and my old Buick’s radio dial was firmly locked to the local oldie’s station. For fuck’s sake- my first purchase ever of a compact disk was Wilson Phillips. (and to this day I still know all the words to every song…it just won’t go away)
When I was at the all girl’s school (grades 8-10) I was aware that my classmates were listening to different music, watching the Mtv, and being influenced in a way that I just wasn’t. Those years I think the most hip music purchase I made was a collection of songs by OMD (who I still adore).
Grades 11 & 12 were spent at a struggling performing arts school. I say struggling as in those two years the school had such an identity crisis that it literally changed its name four times. Four.
During those years I craved the influence that my new friends had on me in regards to music. Those were the beautiful high school years where you didn’t just play music in your car - you sat in the parking lot and listened to the words.
How I became introduced to the amazing music of James hinges completely on my being introduced to a little lady named Tori Amos. I have a pretty shit memory when it comes to a lot of things, but I remember so clearly the first time I heard Tori. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Manannie’s car at the local community theatre. She pulled out a tape and declared that I would really like it. So she pushed it into the deck and the beginning chords of Tori’s Happy Phantom began to play.
I was hooked. It was the perfect soundtrack for my life at that time and I carried the thought of her songs in my head constantly.
Flash forward to spring break of my senior year and I am in Memphis hanging out with a friend I had met the previous summer at a state sponsored theatre program (told you I was a dork). We are, of course, driving around and listening to music and being teenage girls. She puts in her tape of Tori and like the fantastic freaks that we were we sang every single song out loud. We interpretive danced to Leather and soulfully sang along to China.
After the tape was complete my Memphis friend asked if I had ever heard of James. I am sure I thought she meant James Taylor, but no. She meant James. As in James. And she pulled out a tape with these guys on the cover in dresses eating bananas.
The first song began and it started so softly and so quietly and it kept building and building and it flowed perfectly into the next song and into the next song. It then became one of my all time favorite albums. Ever.
It’s interesting because if I put on an old Tori I feel the sadness and the angst of high school so deeply. But when I listen to James I feel the best parts of high school and later college. Most of the songs make me smile or have some sort of attached pleasant memory.
And then there is Sometimes. Sometimes is the song that makes me cry. You see the 3rd or 4th time I heard it I decided that it would be a sort of barometer for my great love. If I fell in love with someone and wanted to sit them down and listen to Sometimes then my romantic bliss would be satisfied. And as you can imagine nearly 15 years later and I have yet to sit anyone down with the song.
So I am going to share it with you. & yes, you must listen to the words (& try not to be distracted by the crazy dancer).
1) What were your power songs from high school?
2) are you wearing any green today?
3) Thank you for the sweet comments about GM with Tulips. Now I want to see all of ya’lls Grandmothers. How about we share a favorite Grandparent photograph with each other next Tuesday? Save the date!
Music Monday: Liam Finn
Fan of The Shins? Then you will loooooooove Liam Finn. Not kidding. You will love him.
He was recently on Letterman and blew me away. (if you are digging him you can find that episode on youtube as well- it is a live version of the above song)
Who are you listening to today?
Music Monday
Thanks to Ms. Prufrock I now have something of substance to share on a Monday. She is declaring that Mondays be dedicated to music. Not just any music, music that you love that you think other people should love too.
I found out about The Eames Era many months ago through some clicking around on itunes. You know…one of those “if you like this band then you might just like THIS band too.” Ah, itunes, you know me so well. The band that I was originally digging on is an awesome group called Camera Obscura (seriously lovely). But when I heard The Eames Era I knew I had found some good stuff. When I am able to put my headphones on & just write without having GM responsibilities this is the music I am listening to.
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