"Zip-Lock" by Lit
Oh man, this was lifetimes ago. A friend and I were talking about bands like Lit, Third Eye Blind, Everclear and others, when she told me her first ever concert was Eve 6. Her mom worked nights so it was easy to sneak out, but she had a pager, and unless she got calls from her kids every so often she knew something was wrong. This meant that my friend had to keep going to a pay phone to page her mom and keep from her from getting suspicious. Picture it: Eve 6, payphones, and beepers. It was a different time.
As I said before, my first concert was Strung Out, but I had the full consent of my parents and my fourteen-year-older brother at my side. Not so rebellious.
Anyway, I got a this Lit album from one of my friends back in Jr. High, and we thought it was so cool. Everyone around us in our Christian school was listening to stuff like DC Talk, Newsboys, and this song by a band called Raze (I about lost my mind watching that music video just now. What the hell is going on there?). In an interesting parallel to my own life, I'm pretty sure she got this album from her brother, and allowed me to borrow it for a few weeks before burning me a copy. However, the copy had that weird shattery noise in the background that some bad copies get so I ended up having to buy my own.
The friend who introduced me to Lit was one of my first real friends ever. Up until that point I had been involved with kids who weren't very nice to me. I was tall for my age and kind of chubby, so I basically looked like a giant until I was thirteen compared to my classmates (in my eyes, anyway). Plus I was very shy and had a hard time making friends. I was never teased very much, but other kids could tell I would do whatever they said in order to be considered their friend. This meant I got pushed around a fair amount until around Jr. High.
Between the ages of thirteen and fourteen a lot of things happened: a lost a little bit of weight, and what weight I had shifted into more appealing places. The other kids got bigger, too, so I blended in more, and our class size increased, so I had people to talk to who didn't know me as the plus-sized pushover. This is when I met the first people I considered real friends, nice ones who didn't threaten to withdraw their friendship every time I disagreed with them or spoke my own opinion. It was pretty awesome.
I've since lost touch with some of these people, the one who gave me the Lit album being one of them, but a couple of them are still in my life today. Ten years later. In any case, I'm glad I had all of them when I did, otherwise I don't know when I would have started trusting people again.
Wow, so this really isn't about Lit much at all, sorry. But give me a break. It's the last day.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Y is for...
"You're the Inspiration" by Chicago
So, when I was an undergrad this boy I liked who liked my roommate gave me a mix CD with this song on it. I said something about wanting to find some new music, and he felt the same, so we ended up trading a couple CDs with things we liked. Mine were mostly punk and ska, and his were indie acoustic such-and-such mixed with older songs like this.
When I went home for winter break, I played his CDs in my car to get to know what was on them. One night my friends and I hung out I had picked everyone up, and when it came time to drop one of them off, he cautioned the rest of us to be very quiet because his mother would otherwise get annoyed. Of course, all that did was make us louder.
This song came on right as he was getting out of the car, and as he approached his door, the chorus was playing. So I did what any good friend would do: I rolled down my windows and cranked that chorus for all it was worth. I belted out "YOU'RE THE INSPIRATION!" like the total jerk I am. Then I rolled up my windows and pulled away as quickly as possible.
Later on he said that his mother didn't hear us, either, so really, everybody won.
So, when I was an undergrad this boy I liked who liked my roommate gave me a mix CD with this song on it. I said something about wanting to find some new music, and he felt the same, so we ended up trading a couple CDs with things we liked. Mine were mostly punk and ska, and his were indie acoustic such-and-such mixed with older songs like this.
When I went home for winter break, I played his CDs in my car to get to know what was on them. One night my friends and I hung out I had picked everyone up, and when it came time to drop one of them off, he cautioned the rest of us to be very quiet because his mother would otherwise get annoyed. Of course, all that did was make us louder.
This song came on right as he was getting out of the car, and as he approached his door, the chorus was playing. So I did what any good friend would do: I rolled down my windows and cranked that chorus for all it was worth. I belted out "YOU'RE THE INSPIRATION!" like the total jerk I am. Then I rolled up my windows and pulled away as quickly as possible.
Later on he said that his mother didn't hear us, either, so really, everybody won.
Friday, April 27, 2012
X is for...
"X Girlfriend" by Zola
If you don't know what he's saying, no worries, because neither do I. Zola is a South African Kwaito artist, and I guess he's speaking some combination of Zulu and tsotsi slang? I really don't know. I just like it.
I first heard about Zola from the movie Tsotsi. If you haven't seen it, you should, it's pretty good. You know, Academy Award-winning. Whatever. Anyway, Zola plays a role in Tsotsi (the gang leader, for those who have seen it). He also performs a great deal of the music in the film. Throughout the whole movie I just kept thinking "I hope there's a soundtrack I can get my hands on." And there was. Once I had the soundtrack and knew who I was listening to, I wanted to have more.
Turns out it's kind of hard to get a hold of South African music, because I couldn't find it anywhere. I ended up getting a couple albums from this kind of shady looking website, but it turns out they were legit, and went out of their way to make sure I ended up with the product. It came all the way from South Africa, and I kept the envelope because it had some cool stamps on it, but that was back when I lived in my own place, and now that I'm back home it's buried in a box somewhere so I can't put up a picture.
Anyway, Zola is an interesting person. On one hand, he's a Kwaito superstar and humanitarian, but on the other hand, there's all these allegations swirling around that he abused some of his former girlfriends. Since it's all so far away, I don't really have my own frame of reference. All I can do is Google him and let the Internet barf up what it can. I hope he's an ok guy, because he has some of my money.
And that's it, really. X was a hard letter to pick a song for.
If you don't know what he's saying, no worries, because neither do I. Zola is a South African Kwaito artist, and I guess he's speaking some combination of Zulu and tsotsi slang? I really don't know. I just like it.
I first heard about Zola from the movie Tsotsi. If you haven't seen it, you should, it's pretty good. You know, Academy Award-winning. Whatever. Anyway, Zola plays a role in Tsotsi (the gang leader, for those who have seen it). He also performs a great deal of the music in the film. Throughout the whole movie I just kept thinking "I hope there's a soundtrack I can get my hands on." And there was. Once I had the soundtrack and knew who I was listening to, I wanted to have more.
Turns out it's kind of hard to get a hold of South African music, because I couldn't find it anywhere. I ended up getting a couple albums from this kind of shady looking website, but it turns out they were legit, and went out of their way to make sure I ended up with the product. It came all the way from South Africa, and I kept the envelope because it had some cool stamps on it, but that was back when I lived in my own place, and now that I'm back home it's buried in a box somewhere so I can't put up a picture.
Anyway, Zola is an interesting person. On one hand, he's a Kwaito superstar and humanitarian, but on the other hand, there's all these allegations swirling around that he abused some of his former girlfriends. Since it's all so far away, I don't really have my own frame of reference. All I can do is Google him and let the Internet barf up what it can. I hope he's an ok guy, because he has some of my money.
And that's it, really. X was a hard letter to pick a song for.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
W is for...
"Wrong Side of the Tracks" by Strung Out
I'm not trying to be dramatic here, but this song pretty much changed my life. My brother (the Mr. Miyagi of my musical world, as shown through these blog posts) let me borrow the Strung Out album Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues one weekend he was visiting from his place in Pittsburgh. I don't remember exactly how old I was when this happened, but up until that point I only had my family's country music and my school's "contemporary" Christian fare to listen to. Then my brother just randomly asked if I might like this sort of thing instead. And I did.
Seriously, I listened to this album over, and over, and over until he had to take it back and go home. Within two weeks I had my own copy. From there I got into Bad Religion, Against Me!, and lots of other bands on this list. This album started the whole thing. It was perfect, really. What summarizes the feelings of an angry kid growing up in the Rust Belt better than the phrase Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues?
"Wrong Side of the Tracks" is the last track on the album, and by far my favorite. I didn't understand some of the content at first, but that idea of "I can do better, I can pick myself up and try again" was something I clung to then. It's something I still cling to now. This song is definitely one of my all-time favorites.
Strung Out was also my first concert. I went with, you guessed it, my brother. There were belligerent drunks and mosh pits and girls making out for the big screen and man, I wasn't in JesusLand anymore. My brother bought me a t-shirt that was way too big, but it's awesome and I'm wearing it right now. Don't believe me? Here's the laziest proof ever:
I'm not trying to be dramatic here, but this song pretty much changed my life. My brother (the Mr. Miyagi of my musical world, as shown through these blog posts) let me borrow the Strung Out album Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues one weekend he was visiting from his place in Pittsburgh. I don't remember exactly how old I was when this happened, but up until that point I only had my family's country music and my school's "contemporary" Christian fare to listen to. Then my brother just randomly asked if I might like this sort of thing instead. And I did.
Seriously, I listened to this album over, and over, and over until he had to take it back and go home. Within two weeks I had my own copy. From there I got into Bad Religion, Against Me!, and lots of other bands on this list. This album started the whole thing. It was perfect, really. What summarizes the feelings of an angry kid growing up in the Rust Belt better than the phrase Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues?
"Wrong Side of the Tracks" is the last track on the album, and by far my favorite. I didn't understand some of the content at first, but that idea of "I can do better, I can pick myself up and try again" was something I clung to then. It's something I still cling to now. This song is definitely one of my all-time favorites.
Strung Out was also my first concert. I went with, you guessed it, my brother. There were belligerent drunks and mosh pits and girls making out for the big screen and man, I wasn't in JesusLand anymore. My brother bought me a t-shirt that was way too big, but it's awesome and I'm wearing it right now. Don't believe me? Here's the laziest proof ever:
My webcam added the date in cheesy font. I don't know why.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
V is for...
"The Veggie Tales Theme Song" by... whoever made it
Yes, more flashbacks from my days as a Christian. Also, I had hardly any songs on my iPod that started with V, and I'm trying to pick songs that hold memories, not just songs I happen to like.
If you don't know what Veggie Tales is, you can read this, but there's not much to the concept. It was a show that used vegetables to tell Bible stories and teach Christian principles, and I loved it a whole bunch when I was a kid. To this day I still have a Junior Asparagus (the little one with the sideways hat) eraser that's never been used I bought at one of my school's book fairs way back when.
From what I recall it was a good show for kids, the kind that didn't forget there were adults watching as well. It wasn't particularly edgy, obviously, but they had enough sarcastic side comments and pop culture references to keep everyone entertained. Even so, anyone who saw this stuff growing up will tell you the best part of any episode was the silly song. Silly Songs with Larry was a segment in the middle of each episode where Larry (the cucumber), and occasionally one of the other regular characters, would sing an absurd song completely unrelated to the subject at hand. They ranged from songs about Water Buffalo, Cheeseburgers, an obsession with one's own lips, lost hairbrushes, and my personal favorite, a soap opera involving a manatee named Barbara.
It's weird watching shows as an adult that you loved as a kid. On one hand you still love it (don't think I don't still know all the words to those silly songs), but there's also a touch of embarrassment that you used to like it so much, and maybe even a little confusion over just what it was you enjoyed about it in the first place. Ah well. I guess it's still pretty cute.
Also, my elementary school math teacher (who was also my Jr. High and high school math teacher, because I went to such a small school) could do a pretty spot on impression of Archibald Asparagus, the one with the monocle that narrates everything, and I recall my whole class enjoying that.
Yes, more flashbacks from my days as a Christian. Also, I had hardly any songs on my iPod that started with V, and I'm trying to pick songs that hold memories, not just songs I happen to like.
If you don't know what Veggie Tales is, you can read this, but there's not much to the concept. It was a show that used vegetables to tell Bible stories and teach Christian principles, and I loved it a whole bunch when I was a kid. To this day I still have a Junior Asparagus (the little one with the sideways hat) eraser that's never been used I bought at one of my school's book fairs way back when.
From what I recall it was a good show for kids, the kind that didn't forget there were adults watching as well. It wasn't particularly edgy, obviously, but they had enough sarcastic side comments and pop culture references to keep everyone entertained. Even so, anyone who saw this stuff growing up will tell you the best part of any episode was the silly song. Silly Songs with Larry was a segment in the middle of each episode where Larry (the cucumber), and occasionally one of the other regular characters, would sing an absurd song completely unrelated to the subject at hand. They ranged from songs about Water Buffalo, Cheeseburgers, an obsession with one's own lips, lost hairbrushes, and my personal favorite, a soap opera involving a manatee named Barbara.
It's weird watching shows as an adult that you loved as a kid. On one hand you still love it (don't think I don't still know all the words to those silly songs), but there's also a touch of embarrassment that you used to like it so much, and maybe even a little confusion over just what it was you enjoyed about it in the first place. Ah well. I guess it's still pretty cute.
Also, my elementary school math teacher (who was also my Jr. High and high school math teacher, because I went to such a small school) could do a pretty spot on impression of Archibald Asparagus, the one with the monocle that narrates everything, and I recall my whole class enjoying that.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
U is for...
"U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer
Really quick story here: if you had the chance to play an American song for someone from another country, to give them a little piece of our culture, what would you pick? Would it be "U Can't Touch This"? It would be if you were me and my friends in Jr. High. We had an exchange student from Korea in our class one year, a very nice, quiet, sweet girl who sadly believed pretty anything people told her. More than one kid had some fun with that, but by the end of the year most of our class was genuinely sad to see her go.
Me and my friends had a study hall with her in the computer lab, and while the network control settings were pretty high, we still found ways to get where we wanted. Remember that "I'm Feeling Lucky!" button Google used to have? That was our best friend. If the network was blocking a website, you could put the address in Google, hit "I'm Feeling Lucky!", which would take you right to the address you entered, but since it was going through Google it went under the network control's radar.
This is how we watched videos on YouTube. We had to search the video on Google, find the exact address for it, put it in "I'm Feeling Lucky!" and boom! Video. Now, I'm not sure if our exchange student asked us to show her some American music, or if we just took it upon ourselves for some reason, but we ended up showing her "U Can't Touch This". She thought it was pretty funny, so we felt good with our decision.
I couldn't find the exact video we showed her. It wasn't the official video, it was some weird thing with different colored stick figures dancing with a boom box, and I'm not sure if that was better or worse for her to see than the eighties girls and Hammer Pants. Oh well.
Really quick story here: if you had the chance to play an American song for someone from another country, to give them a little piece of our culture, what would you pick? Would it be "U Can't Touch This"? It would be if you were me and my friends in Jr. High. We had an exchange student from Korea in our class one year, a very nice, quiet, sweet girl who sadly believed pretty anything people told her. More than one kid had some fun with that, but by the end of the year most of our class was genuinely sad to see her go.
Me and my friends had a study hall with her in the computer lab, and while the network control settings were pretty high, we still found ways to get where we wanted. Remember that "I'm Feeling Lucky!" button Google used to have? That was our best friend. If the network was blocking a website, you could put the address in Google, hit "I'm Feeling Lucky!", which would take you right to the address you entered, but since it was going through Google it went under the network control's radar.
This is how we watched videos on YouTube. We had to search the video on Google, find the exact address for it, put it in "I'm Feeling Lucky!" and boom! Video. Now, I'm not sure if our exchange student asked us to show her some American music, or if we just took it upon ourselves for some reason, but we ended up showing her "U Can't Touch This". She thought it was pretty funny, so we felt good with our decision.
I couldn't find the exact video we showed her. It wasn't the official video, it was some weird thing with different colored stick figures dancing with a boom box, and I'm not sure if that was better or worse for her to see than the eighties girls and Hammer Pants. Oh well.
Monday, April 23, 2012
T is for...
"Take the Reigns" by Tsunami Bomb
The first female-fronted band on the list. It takes some effort to find female voices in punk rock, and I wasn't always terribly interested in going out of my way to seek them out. This group in particular no longer exists, though Emily Whitehurst (the lead singer) heads another project called The Action Design. There's TAT, Dance Hall Crashers, Save Ferris, and HorrorPops, but Tsunami Bomb was the first lady voice I heard in the genre I liked most.
This song serves as a reminder about how not awesome being an adult is, and how wrong I was to think things would somehow work out into a magically fully-functioning grown up life. There's no Certificate of Adulthood that arrives one day and then you're good to go, you just suddenly have to deal with more and more crap while still feeling like that dorky kid who struggled through Jr. High math. "No fair!" I want to cry out, but to who? There aren't any counselors or recess monitors anymore. If someone shoves me into the dirt, I have to get up on my own.
No fun.
Back to Tsunami Bomb. This band seems to have always been hands on with their fans and their merchandise. I couldn't find any of their albums in our local record stores, so I ordered one off their website back when they were still a band in 2004 or so. When the package showed up, it was hand-addressed in a manila envelope, meaning that someone had taken to the post office themselves. It also came with one of those Fortune Teller Fish, and a letter thanking me for buying the CD. I still have that fish today. It felt like the band really cared that I liked their music, and I appreciated their appreciation.
The first female-fronted band on the list. It takes some effort to find female voices in punk rock, and I wasn't always terribly interested in going out of my way to seek them out. This group in particular no longer exists, though Emily Whitehurst (the lead singer) heads another project called The Action Design. There's TAT, Dance Hall Crashers, Save Ferris, and HorrorPops, but Tsunami Bomb was the first lady voice I heard in the genre I liked most.
This song serves as a reminder about how not awesome being an adult is, and how wrong I was to think things would somehow work out into a magically fully-functioning grown up life. There's no Certificate of Adulthood that arrives one day and then you're good to go, you just suddenly have to deal with more and more crap while still feeling like that dorky kid who struggled through Jr. High math. "No fair!" I want to cry out, but to who? There aren't any counselors or recess monitors anymore. If someone shoves me into the dirt, I have to get up on my own.
No fun.
Back to Tsunami Bomb. This band seems to have always been hands on with their fans and their merchandise. I couldn't find any of their albums in our local record stores, so I ordered one off their website back when they were still a band in 2004 or so. When the package showed up, it was hand-addressed in a manila envelope, meaning that someone had taken to the post office themselves. It also came with one of those Fortune Teller Fish, and a letter thanking me for buying the CD. I still have that fish today. It felt like the band really cared that I liked their music, and I appreciated their appreciation.
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