Wow

The husband and I finally had a date night two weeks ago.

What did we do? We went to see Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra and it was one of the best live shows I have ever had the fortune of experiencing.

An evening Out

So I'm still sans computer and because I've got me a sorry sad case of Mommy Brain keeping track of passwords is not my strong suit at the moment which means that I have a big rig-a-ma-roll to go through in order to sign in and upload a post here which is my long winded run on sentence way of letting you know that I'm still breathing and why it's been almost a month since my last post.

So anyway, Sunday night was my very first night out( that wasn't school related) since the Bean made her momentous debut last January. I went out for Dinner with one of my best friends and then out to An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. It was awesome. Sitting in the packed theater it felt as though all of us in the audience had been invited into home, the effect heightened by the random false starts and stumbles made during songs, it was as if we were a group of friends all there to celebrate with song some dance stories and laughter. As a couple they are charming and the affection that is between them is damned near romance personified, the kind that allows for wisecracks, silliness, liberal use of the F-bomb and love poems.

Before last night's outing I had not been very well acquainted with Amanda's music but the moment she opened her mouth before the festivities began and then to sing the duet Makin' Whoopee with her husband I knew that I'd found my new girl crush. If you need to know why just take moment to watch this youtube video of one of the songs performed while I escaped for an evening (warning: the song below does make use of questionable language, if you don't approve of the f-word I'd love you to go and find Amanda's version of Radiohead's Creep"



And once my evening was over I was sent back to mommy land where the Peanut had been busy puking all over the place in my absence and the Bean who had been sleeping soundly since 7 had woken promptly at 11 to have to fight for attention from Daddy who was awash in sick Peanut (and the laundry that comes with a sick peanut) so she began to scream/cry herself back to sleep until I managed to get home at 1am.

It is Tuesday and the Peanut is still home with a delicate stomach and the Bean is out of sorts because the time change and I've managed to steal a few minutes to write about my amazing night and all that followed behind it... I'm hoping to steal more time here and there to post again soon but until then how have you been? I've missed keeping in touch you know.

It's not that I'm trying

I just keep tripping over new songs. Last time I blamed it on the husband this time blame falls squarely on Nissan's shoulders. Their new commercial with the super giant bubble blowing out from behind their latest model really hooked me. The artist's name is Jasmine Ash and the song is called Lulls and the melody combined with her ethereal voice was enough for me to go alooking for her.

Now, tell me this song doesn't do something for you?

Find more artists like jasmine ash at Myspace Music

Touch Faith

The husband forced me to watch this

well not really; he insisted and I'm hooked

A Song I Hate

I dislike to use the word hate, although I'm sure that I probably do use it (and often) when I'm not paying attention.

The thing about this list I'm working through is that it asks for my choices in music that it asks me to share music that I hate, used to love but now hate, consider a guilty pleasure from a band I don't like and so on. My husband is a musician, he plays all manner of musical genres and both of our music tastes range from on end of the spectrum to another. For the most part I can't say that I hate any one song or band or artist because on a certain level I can look at the music and see what it is that others see in it, them, him or her.

That is with the exception of this song:



I'll be honest here, I despise this song. I have never liked this song and I go out of my way to steer the Peanut (and now the Bean) from crossing paths with the big purple dinosaur so that I won't have to listen to it or be forced to watch the big purple dinosaur over and over and over.

Thankfully there are a few artists out there that make their music pleasing to both adult and toddler/kid audiences. Bobs & Lolo leaps to mind as does They Might Be Giants. There are also some fantastic compilations of kids songs out there done by rock and pop artists that are like a nice thick milk shake on a summer day. Mary Had a Little Amp jumps to mind as does the benefit album Do Fun Stuff put together by the uber talented photographer and blogger Ryan of Pacing in the Panic Room. These albums are ones I can listen to on repeat for a good chunk of time which; if you are a parent you'll know this, is generally what happens to a song or album when someone under the age of 5 or so (and sometimes those of us older than that) becomes obsessed with it.

Your turn: Is your hated song sung by an animated Doodle Bop? or is it an overplayed pop ditty? Write about a song you don't like and leave a comment here with a link to your blog post and I'll do my best to get to your blog and leave a comment.

Where is my mind?

Once upon a long long time ago I could listen to the first few bars of any song on the radio and tell you who was playing and what song it was. Somewhere over the last few years or so I lost that ability.

Sure, I could say that now-a-days all the songs on the radio sound the same or is it that all the bands on the radio sound the same.... but I know that that depends on which station is being played.

Some how I've lost touch with what's being played on the radio and who it is playing that song that's been stuck in my head all day long. Fortunately; I'm slowly gaining that long lost ability back. It's good to see that I'm gaining my mind back again. That new song by Glasvegas really rocks!

Driving music

Once upon a time when I was young and impetuous I left the dance club with a good friend (also a boy whom I had a huge crush on at the time but he was also a friend first so that's not really the point) at 2 in the morning and drove from Red Deer to the Edmonton Airport to pick up some luggage for a hotel guest. My friend was working as a hotel bell boy at the time and had promised to get the luggage for the guests in hopes of a big tip. Only problem was he didn't drive and didn't have a car. Enter me with both car and license.

My friend was great conversationalist and had the same taste in music as I did (we were both big Depeche Mode fans) and the 1.5 hour trip was pleasant as was the two hours spent in the temporary parking lot waiting for the airline desk to open. One of the discussions we had while driving on the moonlit highway was what songs were good for driving to. I happened to have Martin Gore's Solo EP in the car at the time which kicked the conversation off as we agreed that the whole EP was an excellent soundtrack for a road trip; it has a kind of dreamy quality to it that seems to go well with the broken lines of the highway flashing past as you move forward.

Over the years my road trip music has varied a little but there are always a few good standards that we always end up playing. It's been a few years since we've been in a car for any length of time but we'll be bringing the I pod and car adapter for our listening pleasure. With the Peanut on board we'll have to include some of her favourites; Weezer's Pork and Beans and Depeche Mode's Wrong as well as a good sprinkling of Joy Division and Talking Heads are on her play list.

What's your favourite driving song?

I know I'm not alone in this

I really don't like kids music. OK for the most part I hate it H. A. T. E. It. There is one, maybe two exceptions to this and I'm not going to go into what they are right now. What I do want to talk about is all the non-children's music my daughter likes to listen to.

1 Weezer-Pork & Beans. This is her number one all time favourite song. If it comes on the radio she sings along, if it comes on the TV she stops what she's doing from 5 rooms away and listens. At least once a week (if not more) she requests it. Once it's been played she asks for it again and again and again.

2 Snow Patrol- just about all of their discography. Her daddy plays bass in a group that covers a few of their songs and she likes to dance to them.

3 Muse- Starlight. She wiggles in her seat and bops her head to this song whenever it gets played.

4 The Clash-London Calling and Train in Vain. We were once listening to this band and she spontaneously started running around and stopping to bounce to the beat. It's especially cute when she nods her head to the music too.

5 Fear Factory- my baby likes it heavy

6 Talking Heads- Psycho Killer. We changed the words to Psycho Kitty meow meow meow hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss

7 Depeche Mode- all of it. I could be biased here but she was in the womb at the last live show I went to see with her. I distinctly felt her moving in there during the opening riffs of John the Revelator. and she likes to sing along to Dave Gahan when he chants "Wrong" in the new single. Also she seems to know most of the words already and when I play the video she runs into the room and gets mad when I take the video off the screen to listen to the song (it's a little to graphic for her to watch).

8 Cold Play-The Scientist. Again in the womb, it was the only song that she would stop kicking me when it was played.

She's also been seen bopping her head to Tool and Keane.

I have to admit that it's a little gratifying to see her enjoying music that goes a little further than Raffi and Sharon Lois and Bram

I've got this song stuck in my head...

Well, actually it's a bunch of songs off of two albums by one artist, that have been seeping into all aspects of my days for the last few weeks.

It should be driving me around the bend but I'm actually enjoying it (so far). The songs are catchy and the melodies are pretty and I'm happy to walk around singing snippets out loud in public. I think it's because they just complex enough that my psyche just wants to explore them a little bit more, to take it's time solving them before I can move on. (Again with the Nick Hornby reference to pop music theory)

After 3 years of going earphone-less I've rediscovered the joy of hearing a song encased in a pocket of air around your ear. It's a fuller sound and I'm a little sad that my listening time with headphones is limited due to the need to keep track of what the toddler is doing. Listening to the above mentioned songs last week on my husbands practice headphones I was re-introduced to these joys.

It was also a big nostalgia moment. I was reminded of listening to my music on headphones as a teenager, as an art student in my first printmaking class, and in the darkroom at Emily Carr. Up until the arrival of the little bundle that we call Miranda I was plugged in to my personal play list every spare moment I could be. A part of me misses the soundtrack that made up the background of my little life movie. This is probably a good explanation as to why I've been humming, singing and do do doing to myself these last few days.

There is a positive side to the banishment of the full time soundtrack, I hear bird song, the sound of children playing, my daughter telling me items of the utmost importance (the play by play of the Kipper or Nemo movies for instance) and of course random bits of other peoples conversations. I am nothing if not a little eavesdropper

The Rule of 3

Awhile back I posted about reading about Nick Hornby's theory on the need to solve a song in order to get past it and move on to another song. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it; You hear a song, it sticks, you have a burning desire to hear it over and over. You hum it as you walk down the street, you sing snippets to yourself when you're waiting for the lights to change, for the timer to go off, while putting a load of laundry in the dryer or snuggling your toddler after nap time.

Maybe it's just me, but I become addicted to certain songs and play them over and over until the husband asks "Hey can we listen to something else?" It's a little embarrassing to admit that when I let him play an alternate song that my ears are itching to hear my most recent addiction.

my recent over-plays?
Well, there's Keane's latest album Perfect Symmetry. And not just a single song, the whole album has been on permanent rotation.

There's A-ha's songs Forever not Yours and Did Anyone Approach you from the Lifelines album, plus the title song is pretty good with a wicked cool video (Do the kids still say wicked cool?)

and then in the spirit of the holidays
Raveonettes' Christmas Song.

I have a rule about buying music that I stick to very faithfully. I call it the Rule of 3 and it's never let me down. I will not buy an album unless I've heard three songs and liked them. I could be incredibly enthralled by a single, so much so that my whole life takes it on as a sound track. If I can't hear two more songs I may buy the single song or hit replay on Youtube and listen to it until it's run its course, but I will not buy the whole album. 3 is my limit. If I like two and there isn't a third song that gets me I can guarantee that if I buy the album I will lose interest quickly and the purchase will have been a waste of money. I've done this a few times and the albums are still collecting dust on the shelf.

The last album Canadian band Odds put out before becoming The New Odds is a perfect example. I loved Odds, I saw them live 4 times. My whole relationship with my husband is built around Odds, Monty Python and a mutual love of Pepsi. The last album came out and we bought it because it was Odds. I'm going to be honest here. I don't think I've ever actually listened to the whole thing all the way through.

If I like three songs on an album and the others do nothing for me, I know that with time, more songs will click and I'll end up loving the whole album. The A-Ha is a great example I heard one song and listened to it on Youtube hitting replay more than once, I listened to another and liked it not so much. Listened to another and was a little iffy leaning toward liking, fourth song was "Eh" fifth song I couldn't get enough of it. I got the album and have played the whole album at least once a week for the last 8 months.

I love Itunes and Youtube are perfect rule of three helpers, because they let me sample an album or song snippets risk free. if I love a song or artist enough I'll make a purchase.

I have one exception to the rule of three and that's Depeche Mode. I'll buy them sound unheard based on my adoration of the music and the history of the bands music over the last 28 years. For me they are that good. I can't wait for the new album to come out so I can drive everyone nuts with the repeat all feature in Itunes.

So why am I telling you this?

Really it's to help purge these songs out of my system and make way for the next batch that I know are coming down the pipes. Depeche Mode's as yet untitled album for instance. I'd like to hear about what you've been listening to as well. Any songs that are circling round your head? On auto replay? I've told you mine....