I'm a man of means by no means

King of the Road (video) ~ Roger Miller

I'm not a big fan of country music. I really don't like much of the country music being created these days, and although I like old school country a lot more, that's not saying a whole lot.

Recently I've been thinking about the country songs I have always liked. This is one of them, it was one of my favorite songs as a little girl.

Here is a video of Roger Miller goofing off with Johnny Cash, wherein they sing this song together.
King of the Road (video) ~ REM

A.

Too drunk to turn the lights out, but too tired to drink more

The High Party ~ Ted Leo

A coworker has asked me to suggest some new music. I was going through my collection, saving songs to my thumb drive for him to sample.

I always have a hard time recommending music to people when I'm not sure of their tastes. He told me he doesn't like new country. That's what I had to go on.

There were a few artists I knew I would include in his sampler, but then I was at a loss. Or, I should say, I didn't know how to narrow things down further.

As I was scrolling through my music collection I stumbled upon this song. This was a song that for a month or two I played at least 5 to 10 times a day, but I haven't listened to it in months, maybe over a year.

It's back.

A.

Just hear this and then I'll go

Last Goodbye ~ Jeff Buckley

I've had Jeff in my head for two days now, singing to me, and following me around my day. It hasn't been bad, let me tell you, as I love his songs, all of them really, though I have a soft spot for the album this song is off of, Grace. It reminds me of so many things, Last Goodbye. The first memory is of the television series My So-Called Life. Back when Mtv used to air the episodes, the summer just following the first (and only) season, this song was in the so-called "buzz bin", and would play often during the commercial breaks.

The song also reminds me of my favourite book, God-Shaped Hole, and the character Jacob Grace who was inspired by Jeff.

I remember this was when I worked at Tower Records, and my friend Shelley and I used to play Grace in the store every chance we had. We had tickets to see him play and I ended up getting sick, and missed the show - I thought I'd have time to see him again, and sadly I didn't.

The song also reminds me of riding the Red Line in Chicago, back and forth to one of my temporary jobs, while I read the 33 1/3 book written about the album Grace. My boyfriend, at the time, used to let me borrow his iPod and I'd listen to this song, and the others off of Grace (especially Mojo Pin), and devour the story of the album, Jeff himself, and the love of music.

And today, well it resonates with me deeply as I realize that I have to say goodbye to someone I hoped to have in my life for years to come, if not forever. Maybe it is not a last goodbye, perhaps it is just a pause in the story, an interlude, or some kind of intermission (the audience going out for a cigarette, or something from the concession stand). Deep down I know I hope it is not forever. But, for now, the friendship (or whatever it was, whatever we were in that undefined place we found ourselves in), is hurting me - and it seems it is hurting him, too. So, for now, I'll let Jeff sing me out of the room, and out of his life - because that is the only solution I can see at this vantage point.

(I think I'll pass on the concellation kiss, I think that is what got us to this point in the first place - and I wouldn't be able to say goodbye if you kissed me again).

L.

I thought I was someone else, someone good

Perfect Day ~ Lou Reed and Luciano Pavarotti

It's sunny, and it's a beautiful day outside. Not too hot.

We went to a cooking demonstration and wine tasting at a neighborhood wine shop this afternoon. Five years ago that never would have happened in this neighborhood. But while there has been a bit of gentrification here, the neighborhood still has its rough edges. Which is exactly how I like it.

I'm looking forward to Lollapalooza more and more, because I can't wait to see Lou Reed. His set is the only untouchable one for me. Part of me feels like a fraud, however. I have some of his albums, but by no means do I know his catalog. I sort of feel like that person who just became punk and acted like they always were punk. I make fun of those people. Now I am one. Although I don't know his catalog backwards and forwards, I've always appreciated his (and the Velvet Underground's) contribution. That has to count for something, right?

Yesterday I watched a Lou Reed performance that I DVRed, and I got goosebumps and a lump on my throat when he sang this song (though on his own, without the amazing tenor). I know I will cry if he plays this at Lolla. Thousands of people singing along. It will be awesome.

And what about this combination? I'm thinking Lou Reed had to be pooping his pants here. I mean, first, to get someone like Pavarotti to sing your song, that has to be the ultimate, right? And to be on a stage with him... I imagine the best singers would be insecure in that situation. I don't know.

A.

I'm here today, expect it to stay on, and on, and on

Waltz #2 (live, video) ~ Elliott Smith

"Tell Mr. Man with impossible plans,
to just leave me alone.
In the place where I make no mistakes,
in the place where I have what it takes.

I'm never gonna know you now,
but I'm gonna love you anyhow."

One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. The rhythm of the waltz, the predictable movement; you expect it, you see it coming, and you keep going - whether you mean to, or not. Something keeps pulling your legs this way, your feet that way, and your arms embrace the form in front of you - but he has turned translucent, disappearing into thin air, becoming something faded and imaginary.

The images fade, just as the memories begin to; or maybe I just tell myself they are leaving because I cannot take the sting of those moments being nothing now except for a rememberance.

I woke this morning heavy with melancholy. The sunlight through the blinds causing me to squint before I've even open my eyes fully. Somehow I've turned toward the window in my sleep, something I usually do not do, I note.

Was I dreaming of those moments not so long ago? interlocking fingers, conversations whispered in a room where so little light streamed in. We were both a little lost in the dark, or I guess we hid there - not that I ever wanted to be hidden.

Now I'm left with nothing to hold but consoling words and the same explanations. All I have left are my memories. Whatever and ever, right? You never meant me any harm. So why does it hurt so much then? I think I'd rather just let it all fade to grey, to cloudy skies, to a place where I can feel good again.

"I'm so glad that my memory's remote,
'cos I'm doing just fine hour to hour, note to note.
Here it is, the revenge to the tune,
you're no good, you're no good, you're no good, you're no good.
Can't you tell that it's well understood?"

L.

Non-Review of Franz Ferdinand, 4/30/09

The show was great. I can't believe I almost didn't go. I should have known better. I have seen them before, I knew how the should would be. Why was I willing to miss that? What matters is I went, and it was awesome.

See more horrible pics here.

There are no full-length videos up yet, but here are some short ones.

No You Girls
Take Me Out
Tell Her Tonight
Bite Hard

A

But what else can we do?

Time To Pretend (video) ~ MGMT

"I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute."

MGMT has been one of those bands that I've grown to love more and more as I've listened to them more and more. You know how it goes, you hear a band and you enjoy them, they hit your musical radar, you add them to your playlist shuffle, but you do not fall hard for them (not yet, at least). But they stick around, the pop up randomly and you find yourself singing along, they show up on mixes you make, and suddenly, without warning or provocation, you are seeking them out to listen to. You wake up in the morning with a song stuck in your head, tickling your lips, and becoming what you sing in the shower, or on that morning commute. You have to admit it then, you've sorta fallen.

I woke up singing this song, I sorta love it, and yeah, I've sorta fallen for MGMT.

L.

We're vincible.

Hurt Feelings ~ Flight of the Conchords

On the days when I wake up dragging, usually one of two things (who are we kidding, really both things) help me perk up.

1. Copious amounts of coffee

2. The one song I can tell will get me out of my funk. And then I have to play that song over and over until the clouds lift and I'm happy again.

My iPod only holds about 30% of my music collection, so at any given time that one song I *need* to listen to over and over might not be on there. Yesterday, however, it was. Thank goodness.

A

You'd say I'm putting you on

I'm So Tired ~ The Beatles

I think that pretty much sums things up.

A

Colors seem to fade

Colors (video) ~ Amos Lee

This week has been a bit rough, though I've done my best to not let it show. Perhaps it shows in the quiet moments, when I think no one notices, when my eyes slightly turn away and my breathing turns a bit heavier. There was this moment, split second in nature, where I felt like something I'd lost was back. And in that moment, while I kept my eyes tightly shut, I let myself spin around in it. I fool myself sometimes in the way I think, or choose to feel, or not feel. But in those still hours late into the night it is hard to deny the truth. What we had meant everything to me, so who am I to pretend it doesn't mean everything still. And who am I to deny the facts that I know it means so very little to you.

"Yesterday I got lost in the circus,
feeling like such a mess.
Now I'm down,
I'm just hanging on the corner,
I can't help but reminisce.

When you're gone all the colors fade."

L.

The souls of men and women, impassioned all

Verdi Cries (live, video) ~ Natalie Merchant

My love of the sea has been with me for as long as I can remember. It is set in the deep recess of self where memories of how my Grandmother's voice sounded, how it felt to buy my first vinyl record, and how it felt to ride my bike around the block, over and over, with that neverending Summer feeling pulsing through my veins. The ocean has been a constant, a place of solace, and a destination that I've been drawn to, time and time again.

This song has always been a favourite of mine. It reminds me of the sea, of times I've spent by the ocean, alone, or with those close to me, taking in all the beauty and sadness, and all the feelings evoked that fall in between the two.

I wonder how many secrets the sea carries with it, in the endless ebb and flow. And I wonder how many memories I will keep with me, until my last days of life, that the sea is a part of.

"I draw a jackal-headed woman in the sand,
sing of a lover's fate sealed by jealous hate,
then wash my hand in the sea.

with just three days more,

i'd have just about learned the entire score

to Aida.

holidays must end as you know.

All is memory taken home with me:

the opera, the stolen tea,
the sand drawing, the verging sea,
all years ago."

L.

And the best game you can name is the good old hockey game

The Hockey Song -- Stompin Tom Connors

My other obsession.

My favorite team won the first playoff series in 13 years last night.

A.

Disappears into the sky

"You said you loved me,
and I kind of believe that,
but these days who knows what it means.

So we sat by the laundromat
with magazines and cigarettes
talked about a million other things."

Last Words ~ The Real Tuesday Weld

My heart is stolen in the little moments. Stolen conversations in the booths of 24-hour diners, waiting on the platform for a late train home, or sitting at the laundromat watching your clothes tumble in circles. I'm taken in my words, by random things said, and by people who have interesting things to say. And music, always music, you have to have some kind of connection to music to ever work your way into my heart.

The rest works itself out eventually, and love, well it comes in many shapes and forms. I'm not sure I quite understand how it happens, or what it is exactly; perhaps no one really knows for sure. But I know I love the way a song can make me feel, and the way it is when someone makes me laugh, or think about things for a good long time after the dialogue has faded into the air between. I think the rest I'm still trying to figure out. Until then, the music goes on, and today I really love this song.

L.

I hope you're having fun

My Best of Coachella: Andi's Mix

You! Me! Dancing! ~ Los Campesinos!
Cappo ~ No Age
Louie ~ Ida Maria
Runs in the Family ~ Amanda Palmer
Roka ~ Calexico
Seasick, Yet Still Docked ~ Morrissey
I'm Your Man ~ Leonard Cohen
Satellite ~ The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Plaster Casts of Everything ~ Liars
Wild Eyes ~ Vivian Girls
When You Sleep ~ My Bloody Valentine
One Hundred Years ~ The Cure
Heads Will Roll ~ Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Vampires (feat. Femi Kuti) ~ Thievery Corporation
Nothing To Worry About ~ Peter Bjorn and John
Old White Lincoln ~ The Gaslight Anthem
Lookout Mountain ~ Drive-By Truckers
Band on the Run ~ Paul McCartney

Andi's Coachella Mix, Zipped Up

Love is not a victory march

My Best of Coachella: Laura's I Heart Moon/Coachella Mix

Band On The Run ~ Paul McCartney & Wings
First of the Gang to Die (live) ~ Morrissey
Read My Mind ~ The Killers
Oh My God ~ Ida Maria
After Hours ~ We Are Scientists
Wishing Well ~ Airborne Toxic Event
Cape Canaveral ~ Conor Oberst
New Shoes ~ Paolo Nutini
Victor Jara's Hands ~ Calexico

Lebanese Blonde ~ Thievery Corporation
End of Amnesia ~ M. Ward
Anenome ~ The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Soon ~ My Bloody Valentine
In Between Days ~ The Cure
Once Upon a Time ~ The Gaslight Anthem
Another World ~ Antony & The Johnsons
When They Come ~ Devendra Banhart
Ampersand ~ Amanda Palmer
Hallelujah ~ Leonard Cohen

Laura's Coachella Mix ~ Zipped Up

Still running

Running to Stand Still (live, video) ~ U2

I remember the first time I heard this song and how it made me feel. My chest tightened up and the pending threat of tears stung my eyes, and I knew right then that I would probably love this song forever.

I don't think I immediately linked the song to heroin abuse, but instead recognized the feeling of helplessness, of desperation, and of wanting to scream and run from something so bad that you were instead left silent. Certain kinds of pain bring on a silence that weighs like a lifetime of labour, and it breaks apart pieces of yourself that you may never realized are falling away.

I suppose when I heard this song I was running away, too, though I would not see it as such until years later. Hindsight and that 20-20 thing, it gets you every time.

The loneliness still lingers in this song to me, and I still can see the girl I used to be dancing in the shadows of my memory. I have a bit more distance to some of the emotions, enough to listen and see the story that may or may not be woven into the song (no matter what our own perception colours our view). That said, the song still brings tears to my eyes.

Someday I hope to go to Joshua Tree and listen to this song, I think the experience would be amazing.

"You've got to cry without weeping,
talk without speaking,
scream without raising your voice."

L.

All my powers waste away

a-ha: The Sun Always Shines on TV (video)

When I started taking pictures more frequently, I noticed that I saw the world differently. I noticed little things here and there that I wouldn't have noticed before. Details that weren't apparent unless you were looking for them. It changed the way I see the things around me.

Similarly, my participation in gymnastics had a tremendous impact on how I listened to music on several levels.

First, I would go to meets (or watch them on television) and hear the music that other gymnasts had chosen. Classical, jazz, rock, ethnic, contemporary instrumental. I viewed the experience as a challenge: Can I figure out what that song is? It was a lot harder back in the 1980s, before the Shazam app. Hearing other people's choices exposed me to songs I might never have heard otherwise, and gave me an appreciation for some music, such as classical, that most kids my age didn't have.

Second, it heightened my awareness of how music was structured. Floor exercise music has a time limit, and it has to be instrumental. It also has to have a tempo conducive to dancing and tumbling. I would listen to a rock song and wonder, "Is the intro and guitar solo long enough that I can edit this down for a routine?" I would hear a piece of classical music and wonder, "What part of this 15-minute piece can I use?" Is it too slow? Is it so fast I would exhaust myself to keep up? Is it too monotonous?

I have discovered some songs through gymnastics that have become life-long favorite songs. When I was in junior high my coach gave me a collection of music from a company called Elite Expressions. It was a sampler of all different kinds of music, edited to the right length, that you could then order from the company for use in competition. I remember listening to the sampler the day I stayed at my grandma's house instead of going to school because I had my braces put on.

This was one of the songs on the sampler. The only a-ha song I knew at the time was "Take On Me". I loved that song, so when the speaker on the tape said that this song was by a-ha I listened very carefully. I only heard the instrumental bits edited together, but I knew immediately that I would love it. Ultimately I did not select it for myself, I chose "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire" instead.

Shortly thereafter I was in a record store, going through the 45s, when I found "Take On Me". "The Sun Always Shines On TV" was the B-side. How perfect was that?

and I have become the trigger for your gun

Trash (video) ~ Suede
Trash (video) ~ The Whip

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Do you ever have one of those moments where you pick up a book and randomly, by chance, open to a page and just see what it says? And that something you find is just what you needed to see, or feel, right at that very moment? Or, have you ever had one of those conversations with someone, either in-person or in-writing, and the words exchanged are similar, if not the same? Like those couples that after years together can fill in each other's sentences?

Or maybe, as it seems to happen to me quite often, your shuffled playlist becomes musically intuitive and touches on your mood, or taps you on the shoulder with an idea of some kind - either for a story, or a ramble of some sort. Music is ever a muse to me.

This afternoon it was Trash by The Whip followed right behing by Trash by Suede. I was immediately reminded of a conversation I had with a friend once about how someone should mash these songs up, that they were just screaming to be melded into one keen remix. And then, a few hours later, as I was putting a few books away, my collection of Oscar Wilde fell off the shelf. I did that random page opening trick, and lo and behold one of my favourite quotes of his greeted me - and it all just seemed to fit.

One person's trash is another person's sky full of stars just waiting to be wished upon.

Let me take you on a trip

I'm in the process of transitioning from one festival to another. My body (though maybe not my mind) is winding down from Coachella, and I'm starting to gear up for Lollapalooza. What better way to experience the melding of excitement than to listen to the headliner from one festival cover the headliner of the other festival?

And the smile and the shake of your head

A Night Like This (live 1993, video), The Cure

Snapshot of a tiny apartment on the top floor of a built in the late 1920's apartment. There was a wall-sized poster of The Cure in the bedroom. We bought it in this store in Berkeley during one of our many trips up the coast. I remember holding it, all rolled up and sticking out awkwardly, as we road the Bart underwater. You taught yourself how to play this song on your acoustic guitar, the one I gave you for your birthday, the one you once said you'd teach me to play on.

We didn't bother buying a television because we had so much music between the two of us. Some nights we would shut off all the lights, pull the shades down, lie on the floor side-by-side and just let the music wash over us. We would trade lists of favourite songs from bands we both loved, and this one was top on both of ours. This was back when things were good between us, when we recognized our common ground and appreciated our differences.

I heard that after I left you played this in that coffee house, open mic night, and said it was for me. Strange as you would have never told me any of that yourself, not then, and probably not ever. Music speaks volumes of otherwise unsaid sentiments though, I suppose.

I think this song would still make my list of favourites from The Cure, though I know I have others, so many others.

"Say goodbye on a night like this,

if it's the last thing we ever do;
you never looked as lost as this,
sometimes it doesn't even look like you.
It goes dark,
it goes darker still,
please stay.
But I watch you like I'm made of stone,
as you walk away."

Seeing them this past Sunday at Coachella was amazing. I think I'm still taking it in, still feeling it, and still remembering.

Oops

Macca lands festival in hot water

Sir Paul McCartney may have landed the Coachella music festival in trouble with the authorities after his late night performance overran.

Sir Paul, 61, who was the headline act at the weekend's Californian event, played for an extra 54 minutes.

Under laws put in place by the area's local authority, promoters Goldenvoice are liable for a £1,000 fine for every minute of music played after midnight.

The exact penalty is expected to be announced in a few weeks.

I knew he went over, but I didn't realize it was by 54 minutes. Perhaps that is why the Powers That Be cut Robert Smith's mic and killed the screens when The Cure went over by about a half hour.

I don't think anyone who saw Paul McCartney's set cares. I wish he could have played forever. It was such a special night.

I heart moon

Check, Check One, Sibilance, Sibilance