Discoveries

This will be a really short and sweet post.
I had new discoveries which i hope you all have at some point in time. I rediscovered Laura Veirs which I should never forget how wonderful she is....then I listened to Midnight Oil again which will always remind me of highschool and my  brother.  My brother and his friend, John, recorded a version of Midnight Oil that will forever stay in my heart. :}  

As i thought about Midnight Oil, I remembered that there were many songs that I actually loved about that band. I listened to the cd that I had and enjoyed it like I was back in the day....

The final discovery was my first Ipod which had my first playlist, artist, influences, etc. It's interesting to listen to what you had back in the day. I recommend it to those who can...
It takes you back to what you were feeling and maybe the experience that you were going thru....

I have more to say about this topic but will let it be simple at this point.

Enjoy ur first love of music. Seriously.

BANNED!

Before I talk about the topic of the day, I wanted to mention that I recently got the latest album from ELBOW (my lil obsession) - Build A Rocket Boys!. I was somewhat nervous about whether I would like it or not because to me it's rare for a band to have enjoyable consecutive albums. I shouldn't have doubted though because once again, they have created an album that is sticks with their style while at the same time expresses how they have evolved. The entire album has made my ears happy & I definitely recommend it!

Ok, so a while back I was talking with a friend and the question came up that if you had to pick a song or artist that you feel should never be played on the radio or in general again, you could live a happy life.

Yes, that is pretty harsh but at some point there are songs which in my opinion are done. I'm pretty tolerant of most music and will even suffer through listening to something I don't really care for sometimes. I do have times that I can't even handle the first few notes of the song. You know when you are flipping around the radio (for those of you who still listen to the radio) and a song comes on, and after a few seconds you recognize it then change it immediately. It can almost ruin your day if you hear even one minute of the song.

I asked around and came up with a list of my own as well as some suggestions that friends made....

SONGS THAT SHOULD BE BANNED FOR LIFE:

My list

* They Paved Paradise & Put Up A Parking Lot (I never really liked this song to begin with but it's gotta go)
* Heard It Through The Grape Vine (I know it's a classic but even oldies need a rest-- although there is a cool cover of this song on the second season of East Bound & Down)
* I've Had The Time Of My Life  (actually many songs from Dirty Dancing could make this list)
* Aerosmith (Sorry to those who are big fans but I feel their time is up!)
* How You Remind Me by Nickleback (go to the bathroom already?!)
* Who Let The Dogs Out (duh)

* If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher (wish I could turn back time and erase this song)
* How Do You Talk To An Angel by Jamie Walters (his voice is just annoying)
* Cotton Eyed Joe (don't even get me started)
* Friday by Rebecca Black ( I was recently introduced to this horrific song by my friend Jamie. It scared me)
     If you haven't seen the video of FRIDAY, please watch is HERE  and I will go ahead and apologize for putting something so awful in your head. ;)  A redeeming video can be found  HERE of some reviews- pretty smart kids!

Friends list

* Brickhouse
* Any song from Greece
* Most Christmas songs
* Most Country songs
* Informer by Snow
* I'm A Girl, Not Yet A Woman by Britney Spears
* Hot, Hot, Hot by Buster Poindexter
* Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin
* Everybody Have Fun Tonight by Wang Chung
* Macarena by Los Del Rios


I'm sure I could add many more to these lists so maybe we will have a second edition to this post in the future.
So do you have any songs you could stand to live without??

A Little Reminder

This post almost didn't happen. I've been extremely under the weather the past few days and wasn't sure if I was up for writing anything. Then by late yesterday afternoon, I finally felt like I was gonna make it so I decided to go get one of my favorite sickness -make me feel better- remedies, an immune builder smoothie from Smoothie King.

When I got in the car to go to Smoothie King, the song that was playing on the radio was You Keep Me Hangin' On by Diana Ross &The Supremes.  I haven't heard that song in a long time so it hit me with a couple of different thoughts.....

First, I thought about how appropriate those lyrics apply to certain times in my life.

     "Why don't you be a man about it
      And set me free
      Now you don't care a thing about me
      You're just using me
      Go on, get out, get out of my life
      And let me sleep at night
      'Cause you don't really love me
      You just keep me hangin' on....."

I mean to be fare, I'm sure some guys would say the same thing about me in that I was the one dragging them along or that I tried to have my cake and eat it too.  Still, we should all pay attention, learn from lessons past and respectfully let someone move on with his/her life. I admit, it's extremely difficult for me to put this into practice since I really don't like hurting anyone or making someone feel unloved.  Also maybe holding out hope and wanting to make things work keeps ya hanging on.  I'm glad I have a fun little ditty to remind me of the better way to go about these relationship situations. Yeah, let the music teach ya how to live. HA!

Sometimes it's shocking to me that somehow the lyrics of a song can sum up a situation much better than I could ever try to explain to someone. Maybe I should just start sending lyrics to explain myself when I need to let someone know what's going on?! Would people be ok with that?  I would dig it. Seriously, I would. It puts somewhat of a fun spin on it at least.

Second, I thought the song was appropriate with how I'm currently feeling about being ill. I'm ready for the sickness to set me free!!  I was so over it when the first symptom showed up. So, then I was inspired to write a post. Crazy how something that is not even five minutes of your day can change things. NICE.

D is for Damn Good Songs

It's time to discuss the letter D songs on my ipod - even though I'm already listening to a few letters past D, I remember enjoying the majority of songs associated with D.  I feel like I could go back and use these songs on a playlist or for a good background party play....hmmm, it might happen?!

Let's get down to business though shall we - STATS:

Total number of songs for Letter D = 215

Some top words that were used the most:

   * Day (9)

   * Devil (5) - this makes me interested to see how many songs I have with Angel

   * Dreams (5) - I feel like I should have more songs with this word since it's one of my favorite things to do. 

DO vs. DON'T: 

   * Songs with the word Do = 13

   * Songs with the word Don't = 30!!  Wow, I guess there are a lot of things that we shouldn't be doing. 

Shortest Song:

Do You Think It's Alright by The Who (24 seconds)

Special Treat:

Dead Heart by Midnight Oil - I actually had to listen to this one over again, I had forgotten about it and how much I enjoyed it.

Well that does it for D.  I'm really enjoying music again now that I'm officially back in my condo!  Good Tunes & Good Times. :)

Travelin' Tunes

Since I'm out of town this week, I'm going to keep it short n sweet for this weeks post.

As I've been traveling, I've thought about the many playlists that I've created over the years for road trips, flights and even a little sailing.  For me, some music is best when enjoyed while in route to an exciting destination. Especially on a road trip! Sometimes I can't wait to blair a new favorite artist or song as I'm driving along the highway. (even better when it's a beautiful sunny day) You know when you get into the groove and start singing (or shouting) along with the lyrics. It's a fabulous feeling like all is well in the world.

I didn't have much time before I left to create a compilation of tunes for my trip out West so I've been enjoying my Shower Door mix as well as continuing the song challenge on my ipod. (I'm currently in the middle of letter G) I will be updating on letter D next week hopefully.

As I sit here in the airport waiting on a flight, I get to enjoy the enchanting sounds of an older man playing piano & keyboard in the middle of the concourse. NICE! It kind of sounds like a mix between a game show theme song and something played on a Charlie Brown cartoon. Hmmmm, I wonder what it's like to play at an airport?!  It reminds me of an SNL skit where Bill Murray was in an airport lounge singing "Star Wars" - too funny!
Bill Murray SNL Character    You tube of song

Ok, gotta go now but hope everyone is having a great week! I think I'll tip the piano player a lil sumptin before I take off.....gotta support all the variations of music in the world. :)

On A Personal Note -

Ok, so just to let you in on what's been going on in my world lately ---- Way back in early February the condo unit above me had a water heater bust & overflow. I was awakened around 5:30 or 6am by a knock on my door.  I was pretty confused b/c no one EVER knocks on my door in the morning. It was my neighbor down the hall telling me he thinks there is a problem because water is dripping from the ceiling outside my door.  I was still waking up so it took me a minute to process what was going on....

I looked into my bathroom and saw water everywhere with multiple places dripping  from the ceiling. It was not the best way to wake up on a Monday!! I immediately got bowls and buckets to catch what water I could, got towels for the floor, and moved anything I could to the bedroom.  Then I made calls to the building management & the owner above me.

Things got cleaned up for the most part but there was definitely some damage. The owner before me had put these aluminum looking sheets over the entire ceiling so once the contractor pulled that off, I discovered mildew and water stains covering most of my ceiling. Not pretty.

Anyway, I decided that if I was going to have to replace the ceiling that I might as well make some changes in the entire bathroom. (which I had wanted to do for a while now) It made sense to do everything at once - Yet, if I had known what was to come, I might have thought about it twice before doing anything.

What should have taken MAYBE 3 weeks at the most, has now gone into the 9th week!! I kept being told, "one more week & it will be finished"....um, yeah right! I should have known after the first delay that more was to come. It's all a long story which I will spare you from the details but let's just say, it hasn't made my life easy the past few months.

I have a small place and with no bathroom/stuff everywhere/dust/etc - I had to stay with my parents during most of this time. Now, I truly love my parents - they are amazing and have helped me tremendously throughout the entire ordeal BUT for me, I was NOT meant to live with my parents again at this point in my life. They were fine, I just missed my space/privacy/schedule/location and many of the little things we don't consider when living on your own.  Especially when I think it will only be a couple of weeks!

The entire experience made me think of the movie, The Money Pit with Tom Hanks. Have you seen it? If so, you know what I'm talking about. The good thing is that it has taught me lots of patience & made me appreciate my condo way more than I ever thought I would. I'm not saying I didn't shed some tears but I've done my best to stay hopeful and happy.  ;)

Ok, you are probably asking yourself "What does any of this have to do with MUSIC?" Well, yesterday when I went by to check on the progress (since it's actually really close to being finished) I noticed that the shower doors had finally been installed. In my mind, the shower doors represented a milestone b/c that meant all that was left was clean-up. I can't tell you how excited those SHOWER DOORS made me at that moment!! I literally jumped up and down. Yep, I did.

So, I hung out for a lil bit and decided to listen to some music. Then I started making a playlist of how I had felt over the past few weeks and what all it took to get to the end. I also wanted something to listen to when I finally get to move back in....

It's pretty funny & actually a good playlist. I wanted to find songs with themes or words about what I had experienced with the re-model. I surprisingly found quite a few that fit but then got off on a random tangent of the most played song on any given album.

Here is the playlist which may be added to in the coming days:
1. The Mall & Misery - Broken Bells (lots of trips to home depot or in this song "the mall" & it was misery)
2. Over The Edge - The Go Find (many times I said to myself that I'm on "the edge" or have reached my limit of patience)
3. Things Go Wrong - Chris Issak (this is an understatement - everything went wrong)
4. Better Be Home Soon - Crowded House (you get the picture of how I felt)
5. Ode To My Family - The Cranberries (because I might not have made it thru without my parents)
6. Where Will I Be - Emmylou Harris (after a while, I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere & didn't know If I would ever be back in my place)

The rest are where I started to go off on my 'most played' songs tangent even though I still tried to keep with the theme but it's harder to explain the connection so I will just list it....
7. The Limit To Your Love - Feist
8. D******d - Kate Nash
9. Wherever You Are - Madi Diaz
10. Exit Does Not Exist - Sun Kil Moon
11. This Must Be The Place - Talking Heads
12. Harder On Me - Via Audio
13. Like A Tattoo - Sade
14. Poor Leno - Royksopp

I've listened to it while I've been writing this post and I must say that I'm very happy with the way it's turned out. ;)

If your a friend of mine on facebook, stay tuned for some before & after pictures of the re-model in a few days. I will also try to post a few up on here for those who might be interested in home improvement.

I know most of us make playlists for road trips & such but do you ever make one for a random experience that you've gone thru? I say try it and see how it comes out -

Show Surprises -

Happy Wednesday folks! I hope all those in Nashville are outside enjoying the beautiful weather.

I wanted to mention that I went to see Jessica Lea Mayfield at Mercy Lounge a couple of weeks ago. I had only first listened to some of her music a day or two before the show. I liked what I heard so I was looking forward to hearing her live. Well, let me just tell you that getting to see her guitar player, Ritchie Kirkpatrick, was alone worth the price of admission...My friend Shelly said he was a local from Murfreesboro so I'm pretty sure he had some support/fans in the crowd. He put on a show all on his on - the moves & faces he was making were quite entertaining! It reminded me of something that would come out of Spinal Tap. He was a definite fun surprise to the show. Not only was he a fun addition to watch but he actually is a very good guitar player. I did enjoy Jessica as well - It was actually hard to believe that she wrote some of her songs and she is only 21yrs old. Always amazes me when young artists seem to have old souls.

So I encourage you to go hear some music that you may not have even heard of or know very well. You just never know what kind of surprises might pop up or what you might end up seeing! :)

Below are some links with more information about Jessica & Richie. You can also watch a video of them playing on The David Letterman Show but Kirkpatrick is a lot more tame than he was in Nashville.

JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD

RICHIE KIRKPATRICK