I wish I had a deep, intriguing reason for writing about “Fools Fall In Love” (not to be confused with “Why Do Fools Fall In Love?”), but I don’t. A couple days ago I was thinking about how movies and books about long, tumultuous romances almost always end badly, and for whatever reason, this song popped into my head, and I’ve been listening to it since.

Smokey Joe’s Cafe: “Fools Fall In Love” (download)

The first time I heard this song, it was when I went to see the musical Smokey Joe’s Cafe, which isn’t so much of a musical as it is a revue of the songs of Lieber & Stoller. The woman who sings this version is B.J. Crosby, who also sings gospel (which comes as no surprise if you’ve heard her version of “Saved”). For this number, she would come out in this sparkling, royal blue dress, and they would just hold the spotlight on her. When it came to the last line, “shake the hand of a brand new fool,” she would raise her hand up. That image always stuck in my mind. Every time I hear this song, I feel like it’s being rushed a bit, and that it would be better served at more of a slow, ballad-like pace, but the quicker one still works.

Winston Francis: “Fools Fall In Love” (download)

I’m not really much of a reggae person, but I stumbled across this version of the song recently, and I rather enjoy it. The reggae characteristics are played down but, to me, they actually make the quicker pace of the song go over much better. The recording isn’t so stellar, but it makes for an interesting comparison to the other version.

Things in History that happened on August 28th (from Wikipedia):
475 – The Roman general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital of Ravenna and appoints his own son Romulus Augustus in his place.
1565 – St. Augustine, Florida, established. It is the oldest surviving settlement in the European United States.
1845 – Scientific American magazine publishes its first issue.
1850 – Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin premieres in Weimar, Germany.
1884 – First known photograph of a tornado is made.
1898 – Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink “Pepsi-Cola”.
1907 – UPS is founded by James E. Casey in Seattle, Washington.
1917 – Ten suffragists are arrested when picketing the White House.
1963 – During a 200,000-person civil rights rally in at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his famous I have a dream speech.
1964 – The Beatles met Bob Dylan for the first time.
1965 – Bob Dylan was booed off the stage at Forest Hills Stadium in New York for playing an electric guitar.
1984 – Taylor was born!
Yes, friends, today I turn 22. To celebrate, I’m posting 22 songs that I a) really like, b) consider to be a kind of theme song, c) feel a strong connection to, or d) all of the above. Without further ado, here they are, in no particular order. Onward!

1: Beastie Boys: “She’s Crafty” (download)
My freshman year of high school, I had a huge crush on a guy who liked the Beastie Boys, which is how I started listening to them. Shortly thereafter I decided this should be my theme song (“the girl is crafty like ice is cold / the girl is crafty / she knew all the moves / I started playin’ records / and she knew all the grooves.”) Later I realized that the girl in the song was “a bum” who slept with one of the guys and stole his stuff. After that I thought it might be kind of weird to have it as a theme song.

2: Bruce Springsteen: “Red Headed Woman (Live)” (download)
When I was younger, I was always upset because girls’ clothing stores would make cutesy t-shirts with slogans about blondes and brunettes on them, but never about redheads. Now that’s ok, because I’d rather have a Springsteen song about how hot redheads are than a t-shirt. (Later Urban Outfitters had this shirt and yes, I did buy it — but if forced to choose, it’d obviously be the song.)

3: Bruce Springsteen: “Secret Garden” (download)
I’ve always been (and most likely always will be) a “heart on my sleeve” kind of person. To me, anything else just wastes time, and being the busy-body that I am, wasting time is something I avoid as often as possible. That said, even though I’m usually pretty open and honest, and I don’t hesitate as often as I possibly should to let people into my life, like with anyone else, there are still parts of me that very few see or know about (and I often consider those the best parts of myself). This song is about exactly that.

4: Billy Joel: “Stiletto” (download)
As you’ll quickly come to find out, there are a handful of songs that I connect to, not because I feel that they repesent me exactly, but because they represent a kind of person I want(ed) to be, or because they represent what I consider(ed) an idealized version of me. Most of these songs come from high school, a period of vast insecurities – except this one. Yes, this song is incredibly misogynistic, and thus on a superficial level, an incredibly weird song for me to feel any kind of connection to. I came across this song at a time in my life where I felt that I was being treated really badly by the opposite sex. I immediately latched onto this song, because I liked the idea of a woman who did to men what I felt they were doing to me. I still listen to it whenever some jerk is getting me down.

5: The Candy Butchers: “Dogmatic” (download)
Most of my connection to this song comes in the first couple lines: “you’ve got to just get to know her / she’s not so bad / maybe in time / she’ll feel like one of yours.” Ok, so that part is a bit sad, perhaps, but I’ve always considered myself a kind of acquired taste. I’ve never really been the kind of person who makes friends (or lovers, hah!) instantly (thought that’s changing somewhat over the years), so I’ve always thought that if people were willing to give me more of a chance, things would turn out great for me. That first line is then followed by: “what I can do / she does better,” which I also like, for obvious reasons.

6: Cat Stevens: “Hard Headed Woman” (download)
When I first heard this song, I felt that I was the kind of woman he was singing about. In a lot of ways, I still do.

7: Chicago: “When You’re Good To Mama (Queen Latifah Version)” (download)
My senior year at Hofstra, I occasionally took on a somewhat self-serving attitude. Not because I’m so self-centered, but because I felt like I had spent three years of college doing things that other people wanted me to. Like a lot of people in their last year of college, I’m sure, I decided that I was going to really enjoy my last year, and in that vein, I decided I wasn’t going to put up with anything that had little to no forseeable benefits. I still listen to this whenever I’m feeling like I’m hot shit.

8: Death Cab For Cutie: “Title Track” (download)
I remember exactly where I was when I heard this song for the first time. It was in 2000, during Seattle’s annual Labor Day spectacular, Bumbershoot!. I had just left a Tower Records CD display where I had debated between buying the new Polecat album and Death Cab’s We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes (I chose the Polecat album). My mother and I went to the EMP, where they had a listening section of bands from the Pacific Northwest, and We Have The Facts… was one of the albums you could listen to. I put on the headphones, listened to “Title Track,” and bought the album immediately afterwards. It was all I needed to hear to know that I would love this band, this album. For the longest time, I had in my mind an idea of what I thought the perfect band would sound like. We Have The Facts (especially “Title Track”) was that sound. It was the first Death Cab song I ever heard, and for these reasons, still my number one favorite song of theirs (and probably ever, really).

9: Don Henley: “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” (download)
A lot of my music taste comes from my mother. My mother plays this song fairly often, and whenever she does, we usually run about singing and/or dancing. This summer, while in Europe, I somehow cultivated a reputation on both of my tours for being the girl willing to go out and dance at any time, and because of this, was usually chosen to be first on the dance floor. So one could say this song is still very apt.

10: The Doors: “You’re Lost Little Girl” (download)
What’s funny about my feeling connected to this song is the fact that anyone who knows me really well knows that I absolutely despise being called “kid” (particularly by anyone whose age is close to mine). I know, I know, it’s usually used as a term of endearment, but to me it will always sound condescending. For that reason, I also hate being called “baby,” “babe” or anything denoting extreme youth. This is also because these terms tend to imply a certain amount of naïveness or unawareness. What makes it okay to me when Jim Morrisson does it is that he acknowledges that the woman he is singing about knows what she has to do to make things right for her, she’s just not doing it, or admitting it to herself – which is much more my style. Similarly, the only person I know who ever calls me “kid” in a way that I don’t mind is my friend Andy, who’s always known that about me.

11: Fleetwood Mac: “Rhiannon” (download)
I’ve always considered myself a pretty independent, free-spirited person, and this represents that. It also vouches for the fact that I’ve always wanted to have a bit of mystery to me but, alas – instead I write an MP3 blog and put it all out there like the “heart on my sleeve” person that I actually am.

12: Hall & Oates: “You Make My Dreams” (download)
For a long time now, I’ve insisted that there are two types of cheesy: good cheesy and bad cheesy. Hall & Oates are good cheesy. Very good cheesy. For some reason, whenever I hear this song, I picture myself jumping around in cute underwear and singing this to the as of yet faceless ideal man in my life. That’s right, men, see what awaits you if you scoop me up?

13: Jimmy Buffett: “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor” (download)
When I was younger, I had a weird love for men with mustaches. Looking back now, I know it’s probably because in almost every picture of my father I’ve seen, he has one. Many things/people I liked when I was young were marked by this Freudian love of mustaches: Randy Johnson & the Seattle Mariners, James Hetfield & Metallica, Tom Selleck & the movie Three Men and a Baby, and Jimmy Buffett. Don’t get the wrong impression, though – I didn’t like any of these things solely because of a mustache presence, there were other reasons, too. Jimmy Buffett is loved by pretty much everyone in my family. And why not? Beaches, drinks, cheeseburgers, love, sailors, pirates: what’s not to like?! With this song, it’s the first couple verses that really do it for me (because the second half makes much less sense).

14: Jennifer Lopez: “My Love Don’t Cost A Thing” (download)
I put this song on a mix CD that I took with me on a trip to France my junior year of High School. I quickly became known for singing to it, and thus one of my nicknames was born: Tay-Lo. During Spring Break this year, I revisited this with a karaoke performance at a gay bar in Seattle. By the end of the song, they were chanting my name. Really. I have witnesses.

15: Jason Robert Brown: “I Can Do Better Than That” (download)
My cousin introduced me to this, so it’s a bit of a family anthem. Because we can (and will) do better than that (whatever “that” happens to be).

16: Les Miserables: “In My Life” (download)
Before this was Joey Potter’s song, this was my song. When I was younger, it was my favorite song from my favorite musical. I mastered it on the piano, and I would listen to and sing it whenever my fragile young heart was broken, and even when it wasn’t. Then Joey Potter & “Dawson’s Creek” stole it. Bitch. [edit: ok, so I messed up, I meant to post "On My Own," but I wrote this at 4am, so I posted "In My Life" instead. Oops.]

17: The Long Winters: “It’ll Be A Breeze” (download)
The first part of my sophomore year of college was one of the most difficult times in my life that I can remember. I was having potentially friendship-ending fights with three of my best friends (over really stupid things, which made it worse), I started dating a guy who I had liked for most of the year — and then he dumped me after two weeks, I didn’t like most of my classes and was starting to question whether or not I should be in journalism, and all the while in the background, we were headed into fall and winter, my least favorite seasons. I’m still not completely sure how I got through that time without antidepressants.

18: Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz: “Deja Vu” (download)
I don’t care what you have to say about this song, because this is one of my favorite rap songs of all time. Can you picture an 8th grade girl in Seattle running around, rapping to a song about New York? I can’t explain why I liked it then, but I know why I love it now. Perhaps I knew where I was going long before I really knew.

19: Smokey Joe’s Cafe: “Trouble” (download)
Not only do my cousin and I both like this song, making it another family anthem of sorts, but we used to put on shows and sing it together. Seriously. I imagine it was pretty adorable. Did I mention that I’m one tough broad?

20: Peter Parker: “Fade Without” (download)
As I’ve mentioned previously, Peter Parker is the reason why I’m not still listening to mainstream alternative rock a la Linkin Park and Staind. This is the last song on their darkly brilliant sophomore album, Semiautobiographical. I honestly can’t explain what it was in this song that I connected to during my senior year of high school, but I listened to it almost every day, and absolutely considered it my theme song. At one of their shows, the band dedicated it to me, and that was probably the happiest day of my high school years (not counting graduation). I don’t listen to it nearly as often now, though it’s much more appropriate for the current me than the high school me, which is kind of frightening.

21: White Stripes: “Ball And Biscuit” (download)
Going back to that whole “if people gave me more of a chance, things would be great for me” idea, I love the lines “right now you could care less about me / but soon enough you will care, by the time I’m done,” and how Jack White says them with such certainty and cockiness. This is another song I listen to when I’m feeling like I’m hot shit, or when I need to pump myself up for something.

22: Two Gallants: “Steady Rollin’” (download)
I tried not to repost anything that’s been on here before (which is why Harvey Danger isn’t on here), but this bears repeating. A fitting closer, because it’s the most current theme song on this list, the closest you’ll get to knowing the current version of me in a song.

BUT IT’S NOT OVER YET!…

The Beatles: “Birthday” (download)
Whenever my mother calls someone on their birthday, she starts the call with playing this song and singing along to it. With it, I wish a Happy Birthday to the other people who I share August 28th with (also from Wikipedia):
1749 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and scientist (d. 1832)
1828 – Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer (d. 1910)
1925 – Donald O’Connor, American singer, dancer, and actor (d. 2003)
1942 – Sterling Morrison, American guitarist (The Velvet Underground) (d. 1995)
1952 – Rita Dove, former U.S. poet laureate
1957 – Daniel Stern, American actor
1958 – Scott Hamilton, American figure skater
1968 – Billy Boyd, Scottish actor
1969 – Jason Priestley, Canadian actor
1969 – Jack Black, American actor and musician
1971 – Todd Eldredge, American figure skater
1971 – Janet Evans, American swimmer
1943 – Lou Piniella, baseball manager

The Kingsmen: “Louie, Louie” (download)
In that vien, I’d like to take a moment to wish a Happy Birthday to former Mariners Manager, Lou Pinella. A scrappy man who isn’t afraid to get angry and throw bases, kick hats and/or cover homeplate in dirt. Only a select few have seen me get that angry (and it usually involves me throwing and kicking my purse), but, yeah, I’d say there’s a connection.

This concludes our celebration. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Still, I did hear an interesting item while transcribing the other day – someone brought up a question about a cover photo featuring Steve Jones & Johnny Rotten that may or may not have been axed after the Sex Pistols told the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame (which RS is involved with) to piss off. It was apparently supposed to be the cover for the current issue, which instead features Heath Ledger (who lost – ouch) – or so this person had heard. However, the story that the two were in wasn’t in that issue, so maybe it just got pushed back? Hard to say…

I also transcribed a really fascinating interview with a man putting together footage from a concert/series of concerts from ‘69 (the same year as Woodstock). This series was apparently given no coverage, and most people haven’t heard of it, even though it had names like Sly & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, BB King and Nina Simone, and a speech from Jesse Jackson. It’s African-American performers in-front of an African-American audience in Harlem – which brings up the question of whether or not the lack of attention was unintentional (or intentional) racism. Supposedly the police didn’t want to be involved with the event, so the Black Panthers were called in as security. Fascinating stuff. I don’t know the name of the concert series, but the film is supposedly going to be in Sundance next January – so look for it (I’ll remind you, provided I can keep this running that long).

Lots of improvements are being made around the office – we interns who know very little of the office goings-on are assuming it’s because of the upcoming MTV television show. Of course, it could just be that the office needs the improvements and we’re just bitter.

Speaking of which, we’ve (we being me and the current team of RS interns) been brainstorming fun tasks for the RS interns/contestants to do – who can transcribe a Pete Wentz interview the fastest (and correctly)? who can assemble the news packet the quickest, with the best stories, in the right order? who can pick up someone’s lunch the quickest? Of course, the contestants on the show will probably get to do things like go to shows and get free swag/CDs (neither of which we get (to do)), but it’s fun to think they’ll be doing the same menial tasks we face every week.

I’d like to give you more than this after my extended absence (last semester senior year can really be a bitch, huh?), but I’m afraid I’m coming up short. I was originally going to do a cover-themed post, but instead I’m working on a themed post that will be much more interesting for all parties involved (basically themed around mixes that I’ve received from friends within the past six months or so). Ideally it’ll be up this weekend, but I’m interning more than usual this week (it’s spring break for some of the other interns), so it may take a little longer. Still, I’ll hopefully have another Internial on Thursday, and for now I’ve got a little something to whet your hungry ears–

As I mentioned in the history of my music life, I started out on musicals. This love was also held by my mother, and we eventually spread that love to my cousin, Kelly, who grew to love them more than anyone I know. In her good taste, she introduced me to Jason Robert Brown.

He’s really quite amazing – his music conveys emotion in really unique, unusual ways. He makes use of strange chords and dissonance. Anyone who’s taken a few 20th Century Music courses will probably really appreciate that aspect of some of his songs — but more than that, anyone who has been looking for musicals with modern significance (beyond “RENT”), or who just likes musicals in general will probably enjoy his work.

He posted a new song, “In This Room” (download), on his website. On his blog, he writes that he wrote it for his wedding: “I wrote it for my wedding, where it was performed by two magnificent singers who happen to my two of my closest friends, Lauren Kennedy and Rozz Morehead, accompanied by my favorite string quartet, Ethel.”

It’s a gorgeous, very moving song, and actually reminds me a bit of my favorite song from his Off-Broadway work, “The Last Five Years,” which is “Goodbye Until Tomorrow / I Could Never Rescue You” (download). The whole work is pretty incredible (though I admit I’ve only heard 3/4 of it), and I’ve been assured that “Songs For A New World” is equally amazing, but I’ve only heard two songs from that. He also has a non-musical collection of songs that I’m really curious about but know nothing of (if you have it, hook a sister up)…

In my mission statement, I said that I would often post MP3s based around a theme/mood. For the most part, they’ll be pretty unique – perhaps even out of left field, so to speak. While today’s theme isn’t unique or original in itself, the songs I will provide you with below will be.

I will mention on a brief personal note that I did go through a break-up recently – but, as I wrote in my musical history, I’ve loved weepy break-up songs since my youth. I actually have a tendency to listen to them more when I’m happy in a relationship than when things are a bit rocky.

That said, here are 10 break-up songs (in no particular order) that I think should join the list of greats like “Since U Been Gone,” “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

Andrew Lloyd Webber: “Tell Me On A Sunday”

Who knew that such an odd looking man could write such incredible musicals? “Tell Me On A Sunday” (download) is probably one of my favorite songs of his. At first, the woman’s ideas seem childish and silly, but the more you listen to it, the more reasonable they sound. That sentence doesn’t make much sense now, but listen to the song and it will.

Ben Gibbard, “St. Swithin’s Day (Live)”

Yes, this song is not originally by Ben Gibbard – it’s by Billy Bragg. But I’ve long adored Benny Gib, and he has always been very adept at choosing covers that fit his aesthetics. This live cover of “St. Swithin’s Day” (download) is no different.

Bill Withers: “Hope She’ll Be Happier”

Have I mentioned how much I love jefitoblog? Because I do. Awhile ago, he posted this song by Bill Withers, and I’ve been addicted to it since. “Hope She’ll Be Happier” (download) is gorgeous and heart-breaking all at once, like all good break up songs should be.

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band: “Tryin’ To Live My Life Without You (Live)”

There’s something about Bob Seger I’ve always liked. He’s got a tough (albeit often cheesy) edge, but he’s not afraid of being sentimental. I’m not sure if “Tryin’ To Live My Life Without You” (download) is originally his or not (he says it’s “an old memphis song,” and I haven’t seen in anywhere but on his Nine Tonight live album), but he does it really, really well.

The Dismemberment Plan: “Following Through”

Oh, Travis Morrison. You used to be in a fantastically amazing band called The Dismemberment Plan, and then you threw it all away to write the most horrible album I’ve ever heard. “Following Through” (download) has been something of a fight song or a theme song for me, one I go back to whenever things have fallen apart, particularly relationship-wise. Now it seems like the perfect homage to the greatness that was The Dismemberment Plan.

Huey Lewis & The News: “I Never Think About You”

I love Huey Lewis – without any trace of sarcasm or irony. This past summer, I was moving on from an extended fling, and listened to “I Never Think About You” (download) almost every day. For the longest time, I thought he was singing “I’m as happy as I’ve ever been / without pretending I am.” One day I looked up the lyrics, and they were written as “I’m as happy as I’ve ever been / well I’m pretending I am.” In a way, that kind of disappointed me, because I had liked the bit of triumph in that line, but I still love this song.

Joseph Arthur: “Tattoo”

As you can probably assume by the presence of this blog (or the fact that I’ve said it before), I get a bit of a rush from recommending music to people that they like. I can get just as excited, though, when someone recommends a song to me. My roommate from sophomore year, Randi, suggested I listen to “Tattoo” (download), and I was floored. You know I’m really affected by a song when I say it “destroys me,” and this song does just that.

So Many Dynamos: “Seriously, Now”

Good bands in the mid-west? Really? When you listen to So Many Dynamos, the answer is a hearty yes. Their music bounces back between spastic and calm, and the lyrics are rich with imagery, metaphor/simile and all those good literary devices. Their spastic tracks tend to get more attention, but it’s the ones somewhere in-between, like “Seriously, Now” (download) that I prefer.

Sonia Dada: “You Don’t Treat Me No Good”

Without a doubt, my love for this song is my mother’s doing. But maybe more than that, it’s the fact that “You Don’t Treat Me No Good” (download) is so ridiculously catchy and strangely uplifting that it’s nearly impossible to dislike. It may start off as a “guilty pleasure,” but believe me, the guilt melts away, leaving pure, sweet pleasure.

Todd Rundgren: “Can We Still Be Friends?”

Over break, I spent an almost embarassing amount of time watching Seasons 1 & 2 of “Nip/Tuck.” The show has an uncanny nack for picking songs that are not only incredible, but putting them in at the perfect moment. I can’t really explain what scene “Can We Still Be Friends?” (download) is in, but I can tell you that this song is basically flawless. Listen to it now.

And, though Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name” (download) certainly gets enough love, I am posting it today in honor of my friend Amanda’s 20th birthday.

With love…

This all sounds very serious for an MP3 blog, I’m sure, but I am a print journalist at heart. So, for your reading and listening pleasure, I’ve documented a musical timeline of sorts for my life. “Indie cred”-wise, it’s probably more embarrassing than impressive, but I like it that way, and I think you will, too.

The Music Man

Our story begins around 1988/89, when I was four or five years old. I can’t recall exactly how the infatuation began, but I spent endless hours watching the musical The Music Man. It could’ve partly been Robert Preston’s smile and charm (something I’m admittedly still a sucker for in any guy), but really, it was the music.
Unfortunately, this is the one portion of this musical history that I don’t have MP3s for – but anyone who’s seen the film surely remembers songs like “Ya Got Trouble” (“trouble with a capital T / and that rhymes with P / and that stands for pool!”) or “76 Trombones.”
It all seems a bit hokey and deceiving now (I don’t think I realized that Prof. Harold Hill really was a con artist when I was younger… and a town that protests a pool hall? Wow, those people would have to be really bored), but it’s an overall enjoyable film with memorable musical scenes. It certainly paved the way for an art form I still love to this day; a few years later, I would discover Les Miserables and Phantom Of The Opera, and my development into a musical lover was pretty much complete.

Alan Jackson

I don’t remember exactly when my country roots started to grow, but it was some time after Music Man began my appreciation for music, and some time before I turned 10 years old—which puts this chapter between 1990-94.
When I was in fifth-grade, Alan Jackson was the first concert I went to. I went with Anne, my only other country music loving friend (today I’m surprised I even had one), my mother and two of her friends. That’s right, folks. I didn’t grow up listening to Madonna, Michael Jackson, New Kids On The Block or Nirvana (even though I’m from Seattle – shame, shame). I grew up listening to a guy in his thirties or forties sing about heartbreak, ghosts and down-home country living.
My mother had been listening to Alan Jackson, and it didn’t take long to grow on me. But I didn’t just like Alan Jackson—I was obsessed. My father’s death when I was around four years old notwithstanding, I can’t say that I had a particularly sad or rough childhood. For the most part, I remember being a largely happy kid. Still, there was something about all those twangy songs about lost love that struck a chord with me somehow. I listened to almost every song and album of his non-stop, but I remember listening to “Wanted” (download) and “Don’t Rock The Jukebox” (download) the most, as well as “Midnight In Montgomery” (download), a song about Hank Williams’ ghost (which is quite possibly one of the eeriest tribute songs ever).
Before posting this, I hadn’t listened to Alan Jackson in years, but I still have a soft spot for old, sob-story country tunes.

Metallica

Between sixth and seventh grade, my favorite country music radio station, K106.1, went out of business. Unsure of how to find new music (I refused to listen to the other country music station because it didn’t play as much traditional country, which I grew to favor), I turned to my friends. By this point, Nirvana and grunge had left its mark on Seattle, and it seemed like everyone was listening to “Alternative Rock.” I watched a few videos on MTV and the radio, but few artists were really standing out to me.
One day, while shopping with my mother at an antique/thrift store, a tape of Metallica’s Load fell into my hands. I had remembered hearing their name, so I paid a measly $1 and put it in my portable tape-player, where it stayed for weeks, maybe even months. This was unlike anything I’d heard before—it was fast, it was heavy, and they swore. Can you imagine a little redheaded sixth grader’s reaction to “Ain’t My Bitch” (download)? I thought it was hilarious (and thanks to James Hetfield’s amusing pronunciation of “bitch”—“biiiiitch-ah!”—I still do).
I saved up my allowance and bought myself a ticket to see them (I even saved enough $$ to pay for my mother’s ticket) at the Key Arena on their Load tour. I will never forget my mother telling me that what I was smelling was marijuana, the people next to me who gave me a Metallica guitar pick from one of their other shows, or how beautiful I thought it looked when everyone held up their lighters during “Hero Of The Day” (download).
As I bought more Metallica albums, I realized that Load wasn’t their best album by any means (though I still think “Until It Sleeps” (download), about Hetfield’s father’s battle with cancer, is one of their best songs), but it’s always held a spot in my heart. (Let’s hope they don’t find this during the week that I’m hosting these files and sue me.)

Beastie Boys

In 8th grade I switched from private school to public school and discovered that everyone wasn’t listening to rock, they were listening to rap. For all of that year, I listened to nothing but rap/r&b, but didn’t walk away with any one particular artist I enjoyed, just certain songs. In 9th grade, I found myself turning back to the driving guitars of rock, but, thanks to a crush, I also discovered the first rap artist that I enjoyed through and through.
I had overheard my crush talking about Hello Nasty, and I had heard and liked “Intergalactic,” so on a bit of a whim, I picked it up. Openers “Super Disco Breakin” (download) and “The Move” (download) drew me in, and soon enough, it became something of a soundtrack for my high school years from there on out – something I would always throw in my portable CD player or my car when I needed a mood lifter. Later, of course, I picked up License To Ill, and made “She’s Crafty” (download) my unofficial theme song.
I don’t listen to them as often anymore, but they opened the door to all of the rap and hip-hop I enjoy today. And if you want to witness a truly hilarious sight, put on Hello Nasty when I’m around—I can still rap the lyrics to at least half the songs.

Peter Parker

My sophomore year of high school (well, all four years, really) was hell. To this day, I don’t recall a time when I’ve been more miserable than I was then. All the pressures from schoolwork and social life were too much for a very naïve girl with only two years in public school. The one highlight was Peter Parker—a band I discovered through yet another crush.
While getting ready for school in the morning, I became a faithful listener to Andy Savage’s morning show on The End 107.7. Mr. Savage’s co-host was “Steve the Producer,” who was the subject of my schoolgirl infatuation. Through the radio station’s website, I found out that Steve was the drummer for a band called Peter Parker, so I bought their debut, Migliore!, on Amazon.com.
I put the CD on in the background one night when my friend Erica was over, and when front-man Matthew “Parker” screamed “and it’s H-E double hockey sticks / this little piggy made his house out of bricks” on “Meet The Beatles” (download), we stopped everything. We started the CD over again, this time listening more intently, and fell in love with songs like “Eliot” (download)—we fell in love with a whole new world.
Peter Parker became the subject of years of obsession, and the band I have seen live more than any other (I believe the number of shows I got to before they disbanded was just under 30). I listened to their sophomore effort, Semiautobiographical, so much that I wore out my first copy and had to buy another. The bitterness, cynicism and numbness expressed in songs like “Fade Without” (download), “Where I’m Calling From” (download) and their destructive cover of Damien Jurado’s “Paxil” (download) were not only fitting to my attitude throughout high school, but were expressed in ways I had never heard.
Going to their shows exposed me to indie culture, something I’m still very much a part of and still connect with today. Because of Peter Parker, I found other bands, like Death Cab For Cutie (who I have a whole different special relationship with that I will surely explain here at some point), Harvey Danger, Pedro The Lion—whose shows, in turn, introduced me to other bands, and so on. They are, undoubtedly, the band that influenced me more than any other.

—Interlude—
My first week of college, I joined the campus newspaper and re-discovered “classic rock.” Artists like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were the only artists that all of us could agree on, so the classic rock station was always on in the office, and being the young, motivated freshman that I was, I was in the office all the time.
While I was growing up, my mother listened to a lot of artists that more or less fit into this category (Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones). I had always liked listening to “Dancing In The Dark” (download) or “Start Me Up” (download), but it was during college that I turned back to those artists and really explored them. There wasn’t any one particular artist whose work motivated me to do so, though Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine” (download) was easily the song that did.
The reason this bit is here is because since then, I spend as much time (if not more) listening to music from the ‘60s, ‘70s and even ‘80s, as I do the more recent indie stuff, and I’m constantly finding new songs and artists from those time periods that I love, a lot of which I will be posting here.

Miles Davis

Last semester, to fulfill my last class for my music minor, I decided to take a jazz history course. I’d always known a little bit of jazz—mostly vocal—but it was a genre that intrigued me, one that I really wanted to know more about.
On the first day of class (or maybe the second, I forget), our professor played a handful of different versions of the Porgy & Bess song, “Summertime,” to illustrate just how different the many subgenres of jazz are. I loved every version, because I love the song, but Miles Davis’ version (download) absolutely floored me. That night, I got Kind Of Blue and Birth Of The Cool, and the smooth tones of songs like “Moon Dreams” (download) and “So What” (download) made me feel the most excited about an artist/genre since I had been in the early days of my indie rock discovery.
The entire course was absolutely outstanding, and jazz has become a new infatuation for me that I am hoping to explore even further (give me your recommendations!).

That pretty much brings us up to date. This was much longer than I expected, but hopefully you’ve enjoyed it.