Wednesday July 5th - Afternoon

Day 13, Session 11:
Location: On the way home from work still the day after a long weekend (these days are still the worst.)
First song: All Things In Life by Toad The Wet Sprocket
Last full song: Alternateen by Wally Pleasant
Progress: 163-172 of 3975

Ended the stretch of 27 consecutive songs that started with the word "All." Toad the Wet Sprocket was one of my favorite groups from the end of high school through the middle of college. Me and the whole 'grunge' scene didn't really get along very well (although I did/do like dressing in a grungy manner.) Toad was what I listened to while everyone else was listening to Nirvana scream Rape Me. Not adult contemporary enough for the parents (at least not mine,) not gloomy/angry chic enough for the standard college crowd... fit me pretty well actually.

Alternateen is actually not the title of the song that played when the iPod displayed that title. Instead a different Wally Pleasant song, Denny's at 4 a.m., played instead. Turns out not only does the cd label have the songs in the wrong order, but the data tags are also wrong. I've actually been to Denny's at 4 a.m. I remember telling the story about the time a cat bit my knee. The extra drunk girl at the table next to us started laughing hysterically. Between gasps of laughter she pointed at me and screamed, "The cat bit your pee!!"

Wednesday July 5th - Morning

Day 13, Session 10:
Location: On the way home to work the day after a long weekend (these mornings are the worst.)
First song: All Posibilities by Badly Drawn Boy
Last full song: All The Right Reasons (Alternate Mix) by The Jayhawks
Progress: 153-162 of 3975

Took a couple of days off (there's more of that coming) to head to Michigan with the wife to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Congratulations western Michigan, you're not a bad place to get away to for a few days.

9 more songs starting with the All including All Singing, All Dancing (Medley) from a Simpsons clip show. Funniest part of the clip show is that it starts when Homer rents the Lee Marvin/Clint Eastwood movie "Paint Your Wagon." When I first saw the show, I thought "Paint Your Wagon" was just one more hilarious Simpsons joke. Um, nope. It's a real movie, one that I have now seen more than once. It is absolutely ridiculous and I definitely recommend it if you've never seen it and have 4 hours to kill (almost 3 for the movie and another hour to let your mind fully wrap around what you've just watched.)

Friday June 30th - Morning

Day 8, Session 9:
Location: On the way to and at work the morning before a long weekend.
First song: Alice Childress by Ben Folds Five
Last full song: All Over You by Live
Progress: 135-152 of 3975

Starting and ending on the same title is not all that surpising. With music I like, I tend to pursue all releases, so I end up with 2 or 3 versions of the same tune... live versions, demo versions, illegally recorded internet distributed versions. All that good stuff. There were only 2 versions of Alice Childress. Eventually I'm sure I'll come across the same song 3 or 4 times.

The last 14 songs I heard today started with the word All.

Thursday June 29th - Afternoon

Day 7, Session 8:
Location: Between work and practice with Last Minute Rock Show
First song: Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie
Last full song: Alice Childress by Ben Folds Five
Progress: 133-134 of 3975

So yeah... Alice's Restaurant. The version I have is a live recording from some time much later than the original release date. 22:26 long. Pretty sure that's the longest single track I've got.

Thursday June 29th - Morning

Day 7, Session 7:
Location: The trip to work, and some of the morning work day.
First song: Agnus Dei by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Last full song: Alice by Various Artists
Progress: 117-132 of 3975

Nothing like walking out the door first thing in the morning rocking out to a little Mozart.

AJ and Lisa Lo Cicero by Moxy Fruvous is the first of about 40 songs in the library that were recorded by Fruvous for fans who had attended a certain number of shows (18 maybe?) over the course of a certain amount of time. (18 months?) As if Fruvous weren't great enough, what other group out there has recorded 40 different songs about their fans? Seriously, if someone else has done this let me know. I'd probably like them. Unfortunately I didn't see enough shows to have a song recorded about me, but things ended up working out ok for me. We'll get to that in about 1800 songs.

If you'd like to hear any of the Fruvous awesomeness, I encourage you to visit Fruhead.com.

Random number of the day: 6 - The number of songs that started with the word Ain't.

Wednesday June 28 - Afternoon

Day 6, Session 6:
Location: The afternoon at work and the train ride home.
First song: Adrian by Jewel
Last full song: Aftertaste by Ben Lee
Progress: 106-115 of 3962

Ugh. Ok, so Jewel is on my iPod. So? I happen to like folky sounding power pop-ish songs. Jewel happens to have recorded several of them. And... she has a really nice body. Why should that influence my music selection? I don't know... but it's probably not the first time I did something because someone had a nice body. Plus, in college, I thought having some Jewel in my music collection would make me appear more sensitive to the ladies... and ladies love the sensitive guys right? Of course I realize now that this isn't particularly true.

Joey and I had a radio show in college. One of my earliest memories of the show involved the playing of the Jewel song I'm Sensitive ("so am I! and you have a nice body, so let’s mess around!") The first time we played it we were horrified by the whiny little girl voice that we had suddenly put over the airwaves. The song Adrian is about 10000x worse... clawing at your ears bad. I will not be deleting it though. As long as the rest of the cd is on the iPod, I have to keep this song to maintain album integrity. I forced myself to listen to the whole thing as punishment for having it in the first place and felt really bad afterward.

A couple of songs later I felt good again when Afternoons and Coffeespoons by Crash Test Dummies played. This particular tune was always the closing song of the aforementioned radio show. Why? I don't know. I think it had something to do with the line about wearing pajamas in the daytime. Our show was from 5-8am, so most times the afternoon after the show was spent trying to catch up on sleep. The fact that we were usually exhausted by the time the show was ending is the excuse I use to explain the fact that I thought there was a line in the song that said, "Someday, I'll have a disappearing headlight."

Ummm, it's hairline, not headlight. You know, like going bald, not like driving around with one headlight out. (Although perhaps this misheard lyric would later inspire Jacob Dylan.) Mishearing the lyric wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't spend 3 months using it as my e-mail signature.

Wednesday June 28th - Morning

Day 6, Session 5:
Location: The morning commute... walk and train.
First song: Action by Clem Snide
Last full song: Adlib 2 by Barenaked Ladies
Progress: 96-105 of 3962

Clem Snide is one of those groups that I most probably never would have discovered were it not for someone else saying, "Hey, this sounds like something you would like." In this case thanks are due to my sister Kate. In 11 days I'll be in New York City for Kate's wedding. It'll be a little strange because I'm not part of the wedding party as brothers and sisters usually are (both of my sisters were part of the bridal party.) Nope, instead of being part of the wedding party, I'll actually be performing the ceremony. I quickly learned that "performing the ceremony" is the best wording for what I'll be doing. Telling people that "I'm marrying my sister and her fiance" made my family sound like we should be on some new HBO drama.

During parties back in college I was known to perform an occasional drunken wedding in the basement of the BOX. I liked using the line "By the power vested in me by the state of intoxication, I now pronounce you..." (A line stolen from an episode of M*A*S*H.) I won't be acting under the power of intoxication next Friday, at least not until the reception. I just hope I don't accidentally perform several additional ceremonies while trying to relive the college fun.

BTW, you should take a listen to some Clem Snide (they're on iTunes,) I think you'd like it.

Tuesday June 27th

Day 5, Session 4:
Location: On the way to, and through some of the morning at work.
First song: About An Hour Ago by O.A.R.
Last full song: Act Nice And Gentle by The Black Keys
Progress: 85-95 of 3962

Contained the nice back to back of About Me (They Might Be Giants) and About You (Teenage Fanclub.)

When I was in Pittsburgh quite a few years back visiting a friend we randomly wandered into a bar and saw a group from West Virginia called the Argument. They were one of my favorite musical finds. Included in this set was their song Act My Age, an anthem to not wanting to do grown up things like have day jobs and buy houses and the like. Pretty well reflects how I feel about such things.

the Argument decided about a month ago that after 9 years as a pretty successful indie band that it was time to move on to other things. It sounded alarmingly like they decided it was time for growing up. I am not pleased.