If you know me even a little bit you know that I'm a huge music fan (and by huge I don't mean my physical size although I am a member of the Big Man club. I love cake and will not apologize for that fact. And by cake I mean the baked dessert and not the band Cake even though they are also one of my favorite bands and if I said that I loved them it would be a true statement.) My current musical man-crush is Will Sheff of Okkervil River. I've been listening to their latest release, The Stand Ins almost non stop for the past couple of months. It's a great record full of really interesting characters struggling with life and love and failure. It is definitely my favorite album of 2008.
So I was listening to this record again the other day and I started thinking about the first time I heard certain records and how much they have meant to me over the years. I think every music lover has at least one record or cd that changed the way you thought about music. For me, it was Weezer's Blue album. It was a Saturday afternoon in 1994. I was at Musicland in the Towne East mall in Wichita. I walked past one of the listening stations and I saw this blue cover with 4 of the geekiest looking kids I had ever seen. I remember thinking that I just had to hear what these guys sounded like. When the electric guitars kicked in after the first few acoustic bars of My Name is Jonas, I was hooked. By the time Rivers Quomo's voice half cracked/half rasped "my name is Wakefield" at the start of the 2nd verse there was no turning back. I had never heard anything like them before and at that moment I didn't want to ever hear anything else ever again. Only Weezer forever. Some days I still feel that way.
What record did that for you?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
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Well I just HAVE to chime in. Mine has been a slow progression of my nearly 30 years, once of course I realized 'the rock music's' weren't from the devil of course. I'd have to say Johnny was my early influence. I would say more than a defining moment, I remember 'chunks' of time. Like when Johnny and I were into Tom Petty, I loved his music back then.
Cake was the highlight of my senior year and I think ever since then I knew (although I do still listen to the pop music once in awhile) I wasn't your average 'dumb' listener. In fact I was thinking about that just yesterday, how I appreciate music for the more 'sophisticated' ear and can say I have felt that way since college, with a few years of lapse in judgment here and there. I could go on forever in this comment but I won't. I'll just say right now The Postal Service and Greg Laswell were my top two albums of 2008. I do love me some Okkervil, with ya there!
Heyo! Are you on Pandora?
I am indeed. I use it mostly on my iPhone. I likes it a bunch
We can share playlists you know. Mmmmm iPhone. Ed has one but I'm choosing a shiny new camera over an iPhone for my birthday, I'm starting to wonder if that is the right choice...
The iPhone is only going to get cheaper and better. At this point, I would wait for the next gen hardware/firmware/feature set. So that just happened...I went into full nerd mode and didn't even realize it. I think I blacked out for a minute.
Anyway, that's cool about Pandora. Send me your username and I'll look you up!
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