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:

Cannon Fodder

Alright K8, here's my fifteen long-winded facts about me.  For the record, this was not easy to do.

1. I wanted to be a drummer growing up but when I tried out for band in fourth grade they suggested I try a different instrument.  I wasn’t very good keeping two different beats at the same time (I still struggle with that to tell you the truth).  After that day, I never considered playing in school band again. 
2. Later in life I wanted to be a lead guitarist in a band but eventually decided that the rock ‘n' roll lifestyle was not for me.  My friend Tristan, who would have been the lead singer of our band, ultimately went on to get signed by Headtrap Records and recently released a CD in San Diego.  He and I don’t keep in contact anymore but searching on YouTube this week I found some of his stuff.  Here is his rendition of Neil Diamond's Cracklin’ Rosie.  It’s decent.  I also think he’s the lead singer of a band called Country Rockin’ Rebels.  Man in Blue makes me think of the hours and hours him and I spent listening to many of the people he is singing about.
   
3. Growing up, I always wanted Cannon Fodder to be the name of the band that I was in.  I am not sure why but I love it.  The funny thing is that no one I have ever mentioned it to has liked it that I can recall.
4. I never learned how to play the guitar though I have dabbled with it quite a bit over the years.  It's still on my list of goals in life to accomplish but I'm guessing that I won't have time to try again until after the kids are much older.  When that time comes it wouldn't shock me if I decide that I am more interested in learning the piano instead.
5. One of my goals in college was to get at least one person each year to buy Soul Coughing's Ruby Vroom because I had "shown them the light" (I have issues, that's for another blog).  I know that I was able to accomplish that feat in the first three years of school but I don't recall if I got anyone else to after that.
6. There was a couple of years in college where really thought I'd move to Boston for the summer of 2000.  I wanted to graduate college, find a simple 9-5 job there and then spend every opportunity I could at Fenway Park before I finally accepted my assimilation into the real world.  It never happened though.
   
7. I was given the nickname "Ice" by my ninth grade basketball coach because I was a good free throw shooter.  The nickname never caught on with anyone else but the couple of times I have run into him over the years he still called me that and not Brian.  I have to admit, I kind of liked that.
   
8. I was published once, sort of.  I don't do much with the site anymore but I belong to a Red Sox forum called Sons of Sam Horn (SoSH).  After the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004, some of us on the site posted why it meant so much to us.  The book was called "Win it for...." and my blog post was one of the many chosen to be put into the book.
9. I didn't make the NDSU baseball team my freshmen year.  I was recruited by them and had a good tryout but it wasn't enough I guess.  The team was laden with upperclassmen and ended up something like 35-11 for the season so I somewhat understood.  After briefly considering retirement I decided that my focus for the next year was to have such a great tryout the following season that they'd have no choice but to keep me the second time around (which, I did by the way).  In the media guide they considered me to be redshirted the year prior which I found kind of funny.  I still had some very good players in front of me at first base and only ended up with one start and seven plate appearances that year.  The coach wanted me to be a power hitter (which I wasn't) and during that summer, after the season had completed, I sent a letter to my coach letting him know that I appreciated all that he had done for me but that I was walking away from baseball on my terms.  I always knew I could play with the Outlaws in the St. Paul Amatuer league until I wanted to hang up the cleats.  Ironically, the Outlaws folded that winter and I decided that I didn't want to find a new team so I never played baseball again.  To this day, I wish I was playing still but life works in funny ways sometimes.  At the same time, I have absolutely no gripes with where life has taken me instead.
10. I have been to a handful of baseball stadiums in my life (other then the Metrodome).  My list includes: Fenway Park (five games), Coors Field (three games), Wrigley Field (two games), Jack Murphy Stadium and Miller Park.  I am excited to be adding the New Busch Stadium (two games) and Kauffman Stadium to the list this summer as well.
11. I'm currently the godfather for two people, my cousin K8 who is a college student at UWEC and my niece Hailey who is two years old.  I'm very honored in regards to both situations.  I already know that K8 has grown up to be an amazing person and over the years I'm excited to watch Hailey do the same thing.
12. Mess, Ann, Gina and I were in Florida at the end of September, 2004.  We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and one of the days we were there they shut down all the parks (refunding us our hopper passes) and put a virtual lock down on the lodge because Hurricane Jeanne happened to be in town that day.  Where we were at it wasn't too crazy but it was interesting to look outside that day and see how strange (and strong) the wind was blowing.
13. I am a fairly decent juggler.  I've never really tried any of the offbeat items but I can, for example, juggle three different size balls without too much issue.  I am also capable of juggling three tennis balls for very long periods of time.
14. Growing up, I had to get stitches twice in my life (both on the right side of my chin).  Most people do not know that because my chin scratch covers it up.  I also broke two bones, my right big toe and my left ankle.  I am not sure when I broke my ankle.  During the x-rays of one of my many ankle sprains (this one in college) the doctors thought I had broken my ankle at that time but then realized that the bone chips floating in my ankle were rounded so it had actually happened sometime in the past.
15. I'm red-green color blind.  It's hard to explain to someone what that means.  I still see all colors just fine but there are times when the combination of those two shades made it difficult to see both colors together.  For example, if I use a red tee while golfing it can be very hard at times to find it on the ground.  Once the tee is pointed out to me, I can refocus my eyes and see both colors just fine but if I scan the ground I they blend together.  You wouldn't guess it but dark orange and a darker shade of green is the hardest combination for me to decipher.  Here is a sample of one of the color blindness tests.  What number do you see?  If it's 8, you're normal.  If it's 3, you might be red-green color blind.  I've taken these tests enough that I am able to tell that there is orange on the page which completes the picture to make the 8 but what I really see at a quick glance is a 3.

Thnks Fr Th Mmrs

A couple of caveats to my next couple of musical blog posts that I will be doing over the next week or so:

A. They are inspired by friends of ours (Crystal and Jason) who have got me thinking more about what it is about music that I love lately then I have in quite a while.

B. The entire list below doesn't necessarily represent my favorite music in all cases.  It is simply stating who I have seen in concert.  Some concerts I attended because I was able to get into them for free (like Shania Twain with Mess) and some are on here because the band opened for another band that I really wanted to see, etc.
C. The last concert I attended was sadly way back in 2005 when Gina and I saw Ben Lee and Rufus Wainwright outdoors in Chicago but had to leave before Ben Folds took the stage because Natalie was with us and was only two months old.
D. This list will grow over time.  It is simply a one time brain dump and I know it is not a comprehensive list.  If you can think of a concert you attended with me that I did not include, please let me know.

Solo artists/bands that I have seen in concert (with times seen in parentheses):
Brenda Weiler (~8), Mason Jennings (~5), Soul Coughing (~5), Mike Doughty (~5), No Doubt (3), Bush (2), Counting Crows (2), Dan Wilson (2), Ellis (2), Goo Goo Dolls (2), Tenacious D (2), Rage Against the Machine (2), Tonic (2), Goldfinger (2), Pearl Jam, Astronaut Wife, Beck, Ben Lee, Better Then Ezra, Cowboy Mouth, Semisonic, Jack Johnson, Kid Dakota, Sting, Tracy Chapman, Matchbox 20, The Verve Pipe, Old 97s, Our Lady Peace, Rhett Miller, Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Indigo Girls, Sponge, Collective Soul, Shania Twain, Gravity Kills, Tripmaster Monkey, The Suburbs, Material Issue, Henry Rollins Band, Bloodhound Gang, Wallflowers, Live, The Ramones, Republica, Rufus Wainwright, Prince, Sounds of Urchin, Frank Black, Unified Theory, G Love and Special Sauce, Reverend Horton Heat, Gavin Rossdale, Five For Fighting, Spearhead, Linda Perry, Martin Zellar's Neil Diamond show, The Violent Femmes, The Jayhawks, Polara, Flipp, Boys Against Girls, Stanford Prison Experiment, Garbage, Poe, Pyscho Billy Cadillac, Contraband and Korn

Top ten solo artists/bands I'd still like to see sometime in the future (in no particular order):
The All-American Rejects, Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, Get Up Kids, Modest Mouse, Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes, The Killers, Jason Mraz and Fall Out Boy

It sure took a while

Radio songs and I usually don't get along very well.  However, I got to give it to Jason Mraz.  I'm Yours is too dang good to pretend that I don't love it. 

Music, for that matter, has finally been fun to get back into again.

I've had conversations with Rory about so many of the songs in my collection (and his collection) that it's impossible to hear anything anymore without thinking of him.  Even songs he will never hear in the classic sense, like I'm Yours for example, I can still picture the conversation that we'd probably have about it. 

I've given up. 

I honestly believe I'm never going to be able to seperate Rory from music, especially when I am listening to it on my own. 

Based on that, my choices are to stop listening to music or to accept the situation and embrace it as best I can. 

I'm not going to stop listening so I really only have one choice.  It just took longer to be OK with then I had thought it would.  I'm now even able to listen to the CD I made for him without too much trouble.

Thanks for letting me borrow the iPod Mo, I'm loving it.

Something to write home about

These days I am not nearly as plugged into the music scene as I once was in my single years.  While it's is something I have freely accepted based on all of the other wonderful things in my life these days, I do get sad about it on occasion. 

While I was home from work with Macie I was thinking about the music I spent so much of my life listening to.  It's hard for me to remember specific time periods of music (other than college) but I wanted to do what I could to document my musical path for my own historical reference, if nothing else.

I've always listened to a wide variety of music, but I have also had a couple of artists that I have spent large chunks of time with at given stages of my life.

Here is the list of artists I focused on at the different stages (with albums of focus during that time period as well).  The first one listed is the one I spent the most time with, etc. 

Someday, I may dig deeper into each of these time frames.

Early high school - Pearl Jam and Nirvana

Late high school - Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine

 

 

College (Freshmen) - The Doors and Pearl Jam

 

 

College (Sophmore) - Counting Crows and Bush

 

 

College (Junior) - Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor

 

 

College (Senior #1) - Soul Coughing and Led Zeppelin

 

 

College (Senior #2) - Built to Spill and the Get Up Kids

 

 

Pre-Gina (2000 - 2001) - Mike Doughty and Tenacious D

 

 

Pre-wedding (2001-2003) - Jack Johnson and Mason Jennings

 

 

Pre-Natalie (2003-2005) - Mason Jennings and Old 97s

 

 

Post-Natalie (2005 - present) - Mike Doughty and All-American Rejects