God Save Us All, except Trump. Seriously, Fuck Trump...
On the eve of the Election 2016, or as it's better known (insert your favorite John Oliver alternate election name joke here, my favorite being "America's Shit Salad Fuckstravaganza 2016"), I wanted to live it up a little and let loose. After all, it may literally be my last chance to listen to music and drink as an American. Let's allow music to take our minds off of the Green Bay Packers' second consecutive loss and our possible pending doom come the morrow. Enjoy!
The Cardigans - "My Favourite Game"
Jennifer Lopez - "Waiting for Tonight"
Starting this shit off with a two-fer. Speaking of two-fers, any Gran Turismo 2 fans out there? One of the most ridiculous things my buddy and I used to do, for hours and hours on end, was firing up the old Playstation, putting GT2 on in head to head mode and playing "tag" with the cars we would choose. We would stay up all night, racing around the track trying to elude whichever one of us was "it." We had some epic battles. Seriously epic fucking battles to the death. Sort of, but more like stay up all night rocking Jennifer Lopez's "On the 6" on repeat until one of us literally passed out from exhaustion. "Waiting for Tonight" is the perfect song for three in morning driving, video-game style. It really gets you in the zone. One of my favorite things about my then best friend, was the fact that we could, unabashedly, enjoy silly pop music like Jennifer Lopez or Britney Spears or Mandy Moore with no judgement. Definitely not something I shared with anyone else, being a twelve year old in rural Wisconsin. For men, listening to Jennifer Lopez was generally frowned upon, to put it nicely. We enjoyed just being fucking goofy and listening to goofy things. Lots of great times...
Beach Slang - "Bad Art and Weirdo Ideas"
I know, right? Fucking left turn immediately but this song kills me. There just aren't many songwriters who can actually fucking write lyrics worth a damn anymore. This muthafucker can. I don't know his name because I hate googling things like that. Fucking great and smart Rock N' Roll, Punk, or whatever you want to call it. But whatever you call it, just be sure to also call it awesome. He focuses a lot on the sense of being "alive," which hits me right where I need to be hit sometimes. This album, masterfully entitled "The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us," warms the deepest parts of the cockles of my heart and makes me want to find a couple dudes or chicks to start a more hard-rocking version of Bradley Wik and the Charlatans. I fall in love, rough, with records that inspire me, and this one definitely does.
The War on Drugs - "Red Eyes"
Well... This song has everything I hate about hipster music, but, for some reason, I can't help but listen to it. They do the stupid "douse everything in reverb" nonsense, I can't understand a goddamn word this fucker is singing, the bridge sucks, the song feels loosely structured and not crafted into its' best possible version, but, despite all of that, I still rock out to it. Go figure. Fuck...
Paul Simon - "Kodachrome"
Let's cleanse the palette with this one. Paul Simon might've been a huge asshole by all accounts, but, fuck, could he write a tune. I love it when he says "my lack of education hasn't hurt me none." That's my life. In this day and age, people look at a (relatively) young man who says he intentionally skipped college quite strangely. Most people don't understand what I got was so much more valuable. I spent my college years, the amazing/terrible/hopeful/hope-killing years, traveling this great country across and back playing music. Believe you me, I've seen more shit than I would've wasting my time learning shit I learned on my own for free anyways. Maybe I would've banged a few more chicks, but, then again, maybe not. I'm a relationship type of guy. Asperger's and depression make it hard for me to be alone for any significant amount of time. I almost found out the limit of that once, and I don't want to do it again...
Mos Def - "Hip Hop"
Early on in my getting-to-know-hip-hop-music days, my good buddy gave me this record, "Black on Both Sides," along with Talib/Reflection Eternal's "Train of Thought" and Aesop Rock's "Labor Days." Holy muthafucking shit is that an education on some great hip hop. I can't thank him enough for introducing me to so many great artists. Listening back to "Black on Both Sides" makes me sad, though, as all of the issues he poses are still quite prevalent, and getting worse (thanks Trump, you cunt). You can go back into hip hop further and hear the same things. After all these years, it's depressing to see we haven't moved forward hardly at all. It's fucked up. There's a world full of people who don't look exactly like white Americans and somehow that's hard to accept for some people, and Trump is playing on that ignorance/fear. Goddamnit. Please people, don't let him become president...
Stevie Nicks (feat. Don Henley) - "Leather and Lace"
Stevie and Don Henley? Uh, yes please. Do I really have to say more? If I had to pick one song to describe my relationship with my girlfriend, this would definitely be it. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but, well, it's true...
Pearl Jam - "Given to Fly"
For all of those who watch "Touring Band 2000" religiously, as I do, you'll get this one. This is easily one of the highlights. Fuck, it's just beauty incarnate. Truly. That's all I have to say about this one.
Neil Young - "Albuquerque"
This album, "Tonight's the Night," is one of the main influences on my new album. I love the rawness of the songs and the recordings, which fits the songs fucking perfectly. Sometimes, the best way to display the stories is to scale back the production. This song sounds like I want all my songs to sound like. I know this record was initially rejected by Reprise Records, but goddamn, did they fuck up. Labels rarely understand. Wilco made a movie about it...
Roy Orbison - "It's Over"
Someday, I might be able to listen to this song without tearing up, but not tonight. I wish that when I grow up I can write songs like this. Obviously, I'll never be able to sing one note in my life as beautiful as Roy, but I wish to God I could. I really do. This song is so beautiful and magnificent. That fucking vibrato, those sad notes. Roy was truly a once in a lifetime talent. Johnny Cash spoke very highly of him, and given his "Black and Night" concert, Roy was clearly respected by his peers. Well, I use "peers" loosely as not many could touch his level of talent and songwriting. As far as male singers go, Roy's in a rare class with Otis Redding and Jeff Buckley. Nobody tops Otis, ever, and I mean FUCKING EVER, but Roy comes close. These are the kind of artists that make me feel so vastly unable to convey the same level of emotion, pain, hope, love, despair, happiness and longing. At least I know where the bar is set...
Wu-Tang Clan - "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'"
Nine year old Bradley couldn't fucking comprehend this shit. All I knew was that I loved it. I heard "Protect Ya Neck" first on MTV and fell in love. I ran to the library (yes, the library) to check out this CD and revel in it for a couple weeks. I had friends who liked Biggie and Tupac, but even so, it was hard to convince rural, white Wisconsinites that "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" was brilliant music. Needless to say, I listened to this a lot by myself. The music I couldn't listen to around others was usually relegated to the Walkman while cutting grass. No one could hear what I was playing and it was probably better that way. I could listen to anything I wanted away from my judgmental friends. Or, I guess, "friends," as I would find out later. Maybe I'll tell you the full story sometime, but for now let's just say I ended up punching one of my best friends in the face because he stood behind my (former) friends when they were verbally abusing the only black kid in our high school. Shit kicked off and punches were thrown and he came to the defense of his lifelong buddy (which is hard to blame him for on that front, but it's obviously not acceptable given the circumstances) and I had to defend myself, and basic human decency, and hit him before he hit anyone else. It was a strange, confusing time for me and I ended up without friends for a while. But high school kids don't make great friends anyways and I found out the older kids had better weed. So, I guess it was a win-win for me. I won morally and in smokin' that shit while watching WWF on Mondays. Life is weird but Karma is for real. For real...
Speaking of Karma, I can't imagine what will happen to all of you who vote Trump tomorrow... How about we don't find out... May God have mercy on us all...
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