Music as I choose it...

Eric here. I’ve been sent a “meme” by FAB . In her post, FAB spoke well of my music taste/knowlege. Which made me feel nice. The "meme" was sorta a bunch of answers I wrote to questions concerning music I listened to and was a lot of fun to fill out. I’m going to post it quickly and make some changes later. For now, I hope you enjoy it...

1. What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
22.64 gigabytes, once I add the old songs from my laptop onto my new laptop.

2. What is the last CD you bought?
The Talking Heads’ “More Songs About Buildings And Food”. “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” has always been a favorite song of mine (based on the version in “Stop Making Sense” and its accompanying soundtrack. It’s a little goofy but completely sure of itself. I still prefer the “Stop Making Sense” version. The song is fun. Buy some Talking Heads, put the song on your ipod (If I wasn’t ipodless, I’d do this) and go dance in public. Sometimes when I have headphones on and something rocking in my discman, I get nervous that I’m rocking out too hard and look like an idiot/schizophrenic. Conversely, I sorta hope there was a way that the world around me was all listening to the song I was. Unfortunately, most of America is listening to music I don’t particularly like. Who are these people who buy Hoobastank records? Are they filler people? You know, the people you ride in a bus with and never see again and wonder whether they really live complete lives (friends, family, work and leisure) or just exist when you’re on the bus. Anyway, I’ve never owned a record by Hoobastank, Fuel, Train, Korn, Incubus, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Papa Roach or Puddle of Mudd. But a lot of other people have. America, just start reading Pitchfork. Follow the number ratings and you’ll be fine.


3. What was the last song you listened to before reading this message?
“Leslie Anne Levine” by the Decemberists. I don’t love The Decemberists but sometimes the singer’s words fills the void when I need something like Neutral Milk Hotel. Speaking of Neutral Milk Hotel, go download “My Dream Girl Don’t Exist” if you can find it. It’s a song about the idea that you’re true love died as a child and now you’re alone in the world, with no perfect love to find out there. Does Jeff Magnum, lead singer and Wizard behind the screen for Neutral Milk Hotel really believe that everyone has only one soul mate out there or is he making fun of that idea? I have no idea. I don’t understand his songs, but this one is pretty great.

Write down five songs you often listen to, or that mean a lot to you.
Uno. Don McClean, “American Pie”
“But the levee was dry”. I hear you, Don. Totally. When you sing, “This will be the day that I die”, do you mean, “This is about the day a few musicians died on an airplane”. I don’t really listen to this song anymore, ‘cause it brings up tears. It brings up a lot of memories about a girl I went on one date with who I met on the internet. She loved America. And she also loved pie. In retrospect, why’d we only go on one date. Maybe because when at the end of the night, as we stood on the dock leading to her houseboat, and she asked me if I really thought she was pretty, I answered, “For a lobsterhanded Cyclops, you’re okay looking.” The date ended with a hand/clawshake. Never end a date with a handshake. Always seal the deal. With a hug. A long hug, where you tap morse code into your date’s back to tell her what you really feel. Um, anyway, Monocle Maureen and her houseboat have since sailed on to another harbor. Man, that girl loved pie. And levees.

Enough silliness. More heart.

Dos. The Shins , “Girl On The Wing”
Yes, The Shins are on too many soundtracks. But there’s something about their first album “Oh, Inverted World” that is really fucking great. This CD has been one of the 6 discs in my Car stereo rotation since I got a car. Alex and Alex’s brother introduced me to this album in 2001. It’s been a favorite since. As for “Girl On The Wing”, I listen to it and enjoy it. Does it worry me that Garden State is how a lot of people were introduced to The Shins? Not really. As many people as possible should be listening to good music. And I like that music supervisors & film directors are using bands off of indie and quasi-indie labels. Yeah, Sub Pop is quasi-indie. Time Warner has a stake, I remember hearing. Anyway, "In Good Company" also had The Shins on the Soundtrack. As did Spongebob's first cinematic debut (outing, some would say). Anyway, "Girl On The Wing" is straight-forward wonderful.

Tres. Beck , “One of These Days”. For Mutations,Beck sort of released Cold Brains as as a single/ep and Nobody’s Fault But My Own as a Japansese-Only single. Both CD’s had “One Of These Days” and “Diamond in the Sleaze” on them. Both tracks are very good. “One Of These Days” has Beck singing against superslow guitar strumming with Nigel Godrich blips and spaceage sounds lending some atmosphere. It’s all so simple, and even though it seems similar to VU’s “Candy Says”, it’s pretty great on its own. It’s a Beck song less about reflection, and more about moving forward, although not yet decided about falling in love or giving up. Read lyrics at Whiskeyclone
There’s something I really love about how simple the song is.

Catorce. Vashti Bunyan, “Love Song”. Vashti Bunyan is a british musician from the ‘70’s. With the popularity of Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, journalists started namedropping Vashti Bunyan, who a lot of people didn’t hear of until this year, as someone who was doing similar sort of music to these two. “Love Song” is available on itunes. Buy it. Her voice isn’t perfect for the song, but you buy the emotion 100%. It’s about being loved and not being loved back. Don’t smirk. It’s great stuff.

Johnny (as in Johnny 5). Dead Milkmen , “Silly Dreams”/ They Might Be Giants, “Twisting”. “Soul Rotation” is not the most popular Dead Milkmen album, but it was my first. “Silly Dreams” is about dreaming about an ex-girlfriend who comes back, but only in a dream. As for They Might Be Giants, do you remember the first time you heard “Flood”? My dad played it for me and said, isn’t this great? I told him it wasn’t, put my headphones on and kept listening to my George Michael cassette. Dad doesn’t read the blog, but he should know, sometimes his musical taste is really great. I gave “Flood” a 2nd chance pretty soon thereafter, and it helped me impress a pretty girl from Washington D.C. at sleepaway camp. (Her favorite band was EMF! In a word, she was “unbelievable”.) (My sleepaway camp should be a post of its own. Run by the people who run Nature’s Classroom, Life Tech Ventures (yes that’s the name of the sleepaway camp I went to) was half-science camp, half-performing arts camp. The coolest kid in the camp was called “Puffy” but really didn’t like how he earned his nickname. A story for another time.) Both of these songs are great silly songs about ex-girlfriends. Fun way to listen to songs about heartbreak.

Lyrics to “Silly Dreams”:
“I had a dream you came back to my house
You changed your mind
I had a dream you came back to my house
To spend some time
You said you'd only stay a week
You brought two cats for me to keep
And told me not to feed them tuna or they'd throw up
I fed them tuna and they threw up for hours and hours

I was amazed at all the stuff that came from those little bodies of theirs
It was puffy like a sponge
The color of the sidewalk
And it smelled like the dirty rags beneath the sink

I had a dream you came back to my house
And robbed me blind
You took my stereo, CD's, cassettes and books
You left nothing behind
I woke up you were next to me
And I knew it was just a dream
I woke up again and you were a thousand miles away”


6. Who are you going to pass this stick to (three persons) and why?
Nobody. I’m a killer of chain letters, I guess. Anyway, this was a lot of fun. Thanks to FAB for sending it my way, Eric