from Island In The Sun to Istanbul

Day 959, Session 154:
When/Where: Tuesday February 10th - At home after a nice long walk.
First song: Island In The Sun by Weezer
Last full song: Istanbul by They Might Be Giants
Progress: 2777-2781 of 6850
Total Songs Heard: 2000

Song 1996:
Island In The Sun - Weezer
This was the final song on the cd that played during our wedding dinner. I suppose it would have been more appropriate if we had been honeymooning on an actual island in the sun, instead of going to San Francisco like we did. We did go to Alcatraz, which is an island, while in San Fran but it was cloudy that day. I really like the song because of the awesome Spike Jonze video that goes with it. There are baby animals and chimps for goodness sake.

Weezer - Island In The Sun
by UniversalMusicGroup

Song 1997:
Isle Thing - "Weird Al" Yankovic
I love Weird Al. I enjoy Gilligan's Island. I did not enjoy Weird Al's parody of Tone Loc's Wild Thing that retells the story of Gilligan's Island. I feel like every Weird Al cd has two tracks that I just don't like, this is one of them from UHF.

Song 1998:
Isolation - Sponge
I've owned the John Lennon tribute cd "Working Class Hero" since it came out in 1995 and I can honestly say this is the first time I ever remember hearing this song.

Song 1999:
Istanbul (Not Constantinople) - They Might Be Giants
The song that introduced me to They Might Be Giants and I fell for them immediately. My favorite part of the song is actually the violin. Flood was in constant rotation in the cars of all of my high school friends and this was one of the songs on that made us all sing along at full volume. Added goodness includes the history lesson contained within. I'm pretty sure I got test questions about the original names of New York and Istanbul correct by singing this song in my head. And then of course there was this:


Song 2000:
Istanbul (Not Constantinople) - They Might Be Giants
The live version from "Severe Tire Damage." Somewhat disappointing due to the lack of violin. The yodeling "OH" section is more impressive live.

And well... that was kind of anticlimactic... what with only needing to listen to 5 songs and 2 of them being the same and me not even liking 2 others. Well, them's the breaks sometimes. The important thing is, I said I was going to do this today and I did. Now I'm going to reward myself with a night of trivia and beer.

from How Sweet It Is to Human

Day 689, Session 127:
When/Where: Friday May 9th - At the house, trying to work down the playoff nerves.
First song: How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) by James Taylor
Last full song: Human by Josh Joplin Group
Progress: 2041-2048 of 5916 (one skipped podcast)
Total Songs Heard: 1626

How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) - James Taylor: Would anyone ever actually be wooed by this song? I mean besides Mena Suvari in American Pie? Listen, there's a lot of James Taylor I do like but this song is so saccharine that I can feel lab mice getting cancer while I'm listening to it.

(skipped Podcast)

How To Fight Lonliness - Wilco: The best advice Wilco has to give? Smile all the time. BTW, Lonliness is officially how the cd database that iTunes referenced spelled the word. I've been lonely a lot over the course of my 32 years, but luckily for all of us, live blogging doesn't give me too much time to go into all of it.


Howard Is A Drag - The Rake's Progress: At the store on Tuesday I saw the worst looking trannie I've ever seen. Long curly hair appeared real, but the low cut blouse revealed a crop of chest hair and the make-up was doing nothing to conceal the 5-o'clock shadow. It took a lot of effort not to laugh. I know that's rude, but c'mon! If you're going to go through the trouble of cross-dressing, you can at least put a little effort into it!


Huge On The Luge - Moxy Früvous: Perhaps the last original song they released. If you go to their official website, it's still posted on the home page as being new despite the fact that it's been over 6 years. Man I miss those guys.


Hulkster's In The House - Hulk Hogan and The Wrestling Boot Band: The less here the better. The only idea that could possibly be worst than Hulk Hogan having a band would be Hulk Hogan starring in a reality series where he tried to turn D-List celebrities into professional wrestlers. What's that you say? Oh shit. (And yes, there's a good chance I'll watch it.)

Hullabaloo - Various Artists: Apparently Hullabaloo was a TV show. I know absolutely nothing about it.

Human - Josh Joplin Group: And this is where the wife got home and the live blog ends for the day. Go Flyers.

from Hero In Me to Hey Now Everybody

Day 646, Session 118:
When/Where: Thursday March 27th - Sitting around the house after an afternoon spent at Crate & Barrel (where we purchased neither a crate nor a barrel.)
First song: Hero In Me by Jeffrey Gaines
Last full song: Hey Now Everybody by They Might Be Giants
Progress: 1869-1880 of 5803
Total Songs Heard: 1516

Live blogging the way through some of the H's.

Hero In Me by Jeffrey Gaines is a remnant from high school. I found the cd during the process of moving into this house. There's nothing wrong with it, and I'm not going to delete it, but at the same time I probably would never have noticed if I hadn't found it.

Hero Of Canton (The Ballad of Jayne) by Adam Baldwin - My friend Ryno was the first one to tell me how awesome Firefly was. For some reason I didn't immediately run out and watch all I could. Before Firefly I would have considered myself a moderate Joss Whedon nerd. The Wife and I had watched Buffy, but never bothered to watch Angel. After Firefly, consuming more things Whedon has become more important. Angel is on the Netflix list... right after we finish Battlestar Galactica. Hero Of Canton is probably my favorite scene from all of Firefly.



Hesitating Beauty by Billy Bragg & Wilco - I gotta be honest, this song kinda washed over me without really gaining my attention. I do fully support the Mermaid Avenue releases.

Hey Everybody by Jonathan Coulton - Hey JoCo!

Hey Georgie by Wally Pleasant - I agree with pretty much all of the views expressed in this song. Unfortunately, the one-term president part didn't work out.

Hey Girl by O.A.R. - I used to like O.A.R., then I found out they all went to Ohio State. Now they can sit and spin as far as I'm concerned. I really dislike Ohio State. This causes some issues with The Wife because she grew up in C-bus cheering for OSU. In fact, she claims her dad graduated from there (although I'm not sure I believe her.) Columbus, Ohio is a nice enough town that is unfortunate in that the entire city's priorities are totally out of whack. If the president were to be shot during football season, there's a 98% chance the top story on the local news in Columbus that night would be about the battle for 3rd string quarterback, while the presidential shooting would be reduced to a footnote story they sneak in between the weather report and the going-to-commercial banter. To make matters worse, last night my beloved Dayton Flyers lost to the team from C-bus. That only makes me hate them more.

Hey Hey What Can I Do by Hootie & The Blowfish - Confession time... I like Hootie & The Blowfish. I know their first cd got overplayed to death, but with the distance of 10+ years I have to say I'm always pleased when they come up on the ole iPod.

Hey Jude by The Beatles - A few years ago my parents took us all to Vegas to see Paul McCartney play. I remember being absolutely amazed by the energy in the building and the energy he brought to the stage (he is over 60 after all. By the time I get to 60 I'll be lucky if I'm not using a rascal to get to the kitchen from the living room.) When I was in 3rd grade I bought one of the Truly Tasteless Jokes books... I think it was volume 3. I don't remember many of the 'jokes' but I remember this one:
Q: What will it take for The Beatles to reunite?
A: Another 3 bullets.
Truly tasteless indeed (not to mention out of date now.)

Hey Kind Friend by Indigo Girls - My friend Margaret saw the Indigo Girls walking around New Orleans once. She's right, you can tell it's them, even from the back.

Hey Ladies Night by djBC - Who doesn't like a well constructed mash-up? Actually I suppose plenty of people don't, but I'm not one of them.

Hey Man (Now You're Really Living) by Eels - Just Eels? Should I still call them the Eels even though the isn't part of the name? This song was on the soundtrack to some Judd Apatow project right? Also, am I the only one who in his head envisions Judd Apatow as looking just like Paul Rudd?

Hey Now Everybody by They Might Be Giants - A 5 second song's a good way to end the day.

from Heaven to Hello City

Day 624, Session 115:
When/Where: Wednesday March 5th - "Liveblogging" through some afternoon chores
First song: Heaven (Live) by The Swimmers
Last full song: Hello City (Live) by Barenaked Ladies
Progress: 1857-1867 of 5831
Total Songs Heard: 1480

Back after a few days of recovering from my totally whack-a-do Saturday night. I'm efforting to live blog my way through today's tunes... so until the Last Full Song section above is filled in, feel free to check back to see what I can write with less than the space of a song to think about it.

2:16 - Heaven (Live) by The Swimmers - "Heaven is the town we grew up, all our friends around..." A great little tune from The Swimmers who coincidentally are from the town where I grew up, Philadelphia. I think a lot of people would be disappointed if heaven ended up being the town where they grew up. Not me. I like where I grew up, and liked that period of my life. I wouldn't mind trying it again with some of the wisdom I've gained since leaving. The Swimmers first full length cd came out yesterday. I'll be taking a listen at some point.

2:20 - Heaven Alive by Oceansize - The last of the short run of heaven related songs. Unfortunately it's at the bottom of the list which would go like this: 1. Heaven by The Swimmers 2. Heaven by Warrant (still a surprisingly good song) 3. Heaven by Better Than Ezra 4. Heaven Alive.

2:26 - Heavy Metal Drummer (Live) by Wilco - Chicago's Wilco recently completed a 5 night "residence" at the Riviera Theater here in town. The cool thing about being in Chicago is that Wilco will come here and play 5 nights in a row. The not cool thing is that everyone in Chicago LOVES Wilco, which makes it practically impossible to get tickets, even if they're here for 5 straight nights. Luckily, Heather over at Fuel Friends had it covered with a link to a live recording of night 5. I suggest you get over there soon and check it out before it disappears.

2:33 - Heavy Metal Drummer by Wilco - The album version, also awesome.

2:37 - Heist by Ben Folds - From the soundtrack to the movie "Over The Hedge" which was a passable film on its own merits that was pushed into the enjoyable realm for me due the fact that Ben Folds was heavily featured on the soundtrack. It's currently in rotation on HBO and the animation looks pretty sweet in HD. Don't go out of your way to watch it or anything, but if it happens to be on and you can't get to the remote you shouldn't have to poke your eyes out.

2:40 - Helicopters by Barenaked Ladies - Back in my radio days we were invited to a special preview of the Dayton Air Show (which is a really big deal around Dayton.) My two morning show co-hosts and I were each given a ride in one of three stunt helicopters that would be flying during the show. Just being in a helicopter was quite an experience. Then they started doing their formation flying. Weaving in and out of the other two copters was quite an exhilarating experience. I watched the scariest stunt from the safety of my copter, one of the other guys went way up in the air then killed the engine and free fell. During the fall the engine restarted and the copter started hovering safely again after falling about 90% of the way to the ground. It probably would have taken me 20 minutes to locate my stomach after a trick like that. I'm pretty sure the pilots did it 10 times that day.

2:45 - Hell by Squirrel Nut Zippers - I took too long typing that helicopter story and now don't have time to say anything about this song. Except to say that for such opposite concepts, the words Heaven and Hell are pretty close to each other alphabetically.

2:49 - Hell Is Chrome by Wilco - Figures... right after writing about how much everyone in Chicago loves Wilco, I immediately come to another Wilco song. Actually, to be honest, I didn't love this cd (A Ghost Is Born) nearly as much as I loved Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I've owned A Ghost Is Born since it first came out and this is probably only the 3rd or 4th time I've heard this song.

2:54 - Hello by Oasis - I very much enjoyed Oasis when What's The Story Morning Glory came out. I realize they were criticized for sounding too much like The Beatles, but... well... what's so bad about that? The Beatles were awesome, but the only thing time they're getting back together is for a heavenly reunion tour once Paul dies. Of course, unlike The Beatles, Oasis has done very little for me outside of one cd.

2:58 - Hello City by Barenaked Ladies - Track one of Barenaked Ladies first cd Gordon. I was hooked immediately. Apparently Hello City refers to Halifax, Nova Scotia. My favorite line: "Hello City, you've found an enemy in me." I don't think I have any enemy cities. I mean sure, I hate all the sports teams from New York, but now that my sister lives there I can't exactly hate the city.

3:01 - Hello City (Live) by Barenaked Ladies - Same song live from the Rock Spectacle cd.

Ok, got to wrap it up here for now as I've got another project I need to start working on.