Cousins Plus (2009)

Here is a picture after Sunday night's softball games. A few of my cousins weren't there but I'd have to say we are a good lookin' bunch.

A river runs through it

Here is a picture of the route we took and some other pics from an enjoyable trip on the Cannon River (from Cannon Falls to Welch) we took with Amy and Joe a couple of weekends ago.

I wanted to see how far we canoed (11.37 mi) so I ended up using mapmyrun.com because we couldn't figure out another way to do it.

Thank you Betty Crocker

Here is the link talking about the products as well.

A Praise Chorus

Before I begin, for perspective, I just want to state that a decade ago I was listening to bands like Modest Mouse and Death Cab For Cutie. Their music has always been very good but it didn't have the refinement then that it does now, which makes some of what they release these days contain a certain radio friendly feel to them.

It's no secret that the music I love most generally does not make it to the radio.

Which leads me to why I am posting. I've been working (slowly) on a couple of compilation CDs recently. One is for Molly, which I still don't even have a direction for yet and the other is for Nick.

Nick and I have some different tastes in music. I do like a decent amount of what he listens to but we just place a different value on what the music means to us. Don't get me wrong, I think he very much enjoys listening, but the two of us never end up in any sort of deep meaningful conversation about a song (or songs) as I am capable of with many other people in my life (especially people like Messer and Jason these days)...which is just fine by me.

I told him that I want to try to put a CD together of things I'd like him to hear that would be good for, tempo wise at a minimum, something like working out.

I have targeted a handful of white male angst type songs already. I think he'll enjoy them. But, I also wanted to make sure I put a few songs on there of music that I appreciate because of how the songs are structured musically.

The absolute best song for this is Jimmy Eat World's A Praise Chorus. I've decided that if I had only one song to explain the beauty of the Indie music sound with, it's the song I'd pick. It did had a short radio stint because it has a certain level of radio sound but it didn't take off like a song like The Middle did.

But, it has everything that makes the Indie sound so incredible.

What makes this song the quintessential Indie song to me?

A lot of high hat, a catchy drum beat that drives the song, a faster pace, solid lyrics, blending the verses with the chorus, a portion of the song that changes structure and leans itself towards nostalgia and sing-a-long status and emotional vocals which you wouldn't necessarily define as crisp/clean. Listen for yourself: