from Gold Dust Woman to Goodnight Rose

Day 584, Session 107:
When/Where: Friday January 25th - In the living room, conquering the Freezeflame galaxy.
First song: Gold Dust Woman by Sister Hazel
Last full song: Goodnight Rose by Ryan Adams
Progress: 1639-1671 of 5676 (one skipped repeat)
Total Songs Heard: 1331

First of all, Well Hello to everyone visiting the blog for the first time as a result of the recent blurb this blog received in Time Out Chicago. If you didn't see it and are wondering what the heck I'm talking about, check here.

If you're new here, I recommend the links over on the left for a taste of what it's usually like around here (which is to say light and mostly nonsensical.) The last post's sap is certainly not normal and this one is a bit mopey even for me.

We used to go to the (cleverly named) campus pub, The Pub, to see the few bands that would come to UD. The Pub really wasn't much of a student hang out. That might have had something to do with the fact that it was connected directly to the largest cafeteria on campus. It's hard to enjoy spending a lot of time in a place where the smell of Pier 17 baked cod hangs in the air. On the plus side The Pub was a decent place to get some underage drinking done. When there was live music, the lights would go down and it would be much harder to see the big black X on the back of your hand indicating that you shouldn't be drinking.

It was during one of these 3-beer drunk (I was a lightweight) nights that Hello Dave first came to town. They seemed to be the classic college band; perfectly happy playing small college 'bars,' going to parties afterward, and then packing the van and driving 5 hours to the next place. There's a part of me that would love that life. The whole getting to perform for a living thing, getting paid to entertain people, seeing different parts of the country. It just seems like it would be a fun and completely different from the 'corporate' life I've been a part of for the last 8 years.

On the other hand, that life is hard. Hello Dave is still together and over the next 2 months play a total of 11 gigs. They're playing in such exotic locations as Island Lake, Downers Grove (both Illinois,) and Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This isn't to put them down... they've been together at least 13 years. That's a successful run! But working at something for 13 years and to still be playing bars and clubs... wouldn't that eventually get old? Not to mention how hard it would be to potentially raise a family in a city like Chicago on musician money. I'm reasonably sure musician is not your only job at that point, and if you're working multiple jobs to make ends meet, then how fun can all that traveling be when you can't go to the after show party because you have to be up to work in the morning?

I guess what I'm saying is... I don't know what to do with my life. I love the idea of entertaining/performing for a living. But just getting to the point of being good enough at something to be able to do that is almost impossible since the spots are few and the people looking for those spots are endless. Then, even if you get your chance, that life is so hard... and I am so weak.

Anywho, that shouldn't take away from the fact that Hello Dave's song Golden is pretty great. In fact, it's a nice tonic for the mope-fest that I just spit out.

Golden - Hello Dave (song coming soon)

It's not often that I find a song so lousy that I feel no choice but to delete it, however, today I am willing to make an exception. So say goodnight Goodnight L.A. you've been erased. (See, performing is hard! You're Strangeways and you've recorded this song and it was good enough to be included in a Metal Ballads compilation and then years later this jerk with a blog says the song sucks so much that he had to delete it!)

Finally, we passed 1300 songs, so lets do some math:
1331 songs in 584 days = 2.28 songs per day (so slow...)
5676-1671 = 4005 tracks to go
Of 1671 tracks so far, 340 (1671-1331) have been skipped/podcasts/added later/whatever = 20.3% skipped
4005-(4005*20.3%) = approximately 3192 songs to go accounting for skipped tracks
3192 songs/2.28 songs a day = 1400 days to go (3.8 years)
Estimated date of project completion = October 2011

So yeah, looks like there's work to be done. The good news is after the prolonged slow period that was 2007, I think things will pick up significantly in 2008 and that estimated completion date will start to go down in the next 100 songs or so. It will also be hard for me to add many more songs seeing as how the Ipod is now approximately 97% full.