Just a quick post before heading out for the evening. The title for today's song was the inspiration for Bryan Lee O'Malley's amazing comic, Scott Pilgrim VS. The World. The song itself is pretty darn simple, but that is what I like so much about it. Plus, it deals with a situation we have all been in at least once in our lives, being interested in someone who doesn't feel the same way.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Today's song is more about the music video than it is the song. Don't get me wrong, the song is great, but this video cracks me up.

Here is a song for election day. Hope everyone went out and voted.

I watched a very interesting documentary last night. It was called "Give Me The Banjo" and it gave the history of, you guessed it, the banjo. I haven't always been a fan of the banjo, but I can tell you the exact moment I did. I was at a Dave Matthews concert when I was in highschool and the opener was Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. I had no idea who they were when they came out on stage, but when they started playing, I was blown away. One song that sticks out in my memory was "Hoe-down," a bluegrass version of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man." Amazing does not even begin to describe it. This was a turning point in my appreciation for the banjo. Before it was just another instrument, but hearing Bela Fleck play, made it come alive.

If you have watched Aqua Teen Hunger Force, you have heard of MC Chris. One of his songs, "Hoodie Ninja,"  is also featured on a Honda commercial. I have been listening through his discography and I have to say, his music is pretty freaking awesome. Here is one of my favorites.

Happy Halloween!

I took German in high school instead of Spanish or French. Mainly because very few other people took it, but also because I am of German ancestry. Also, since English is a germanic language, I thought it would be easier. One great way for learning a language is to watch movies/television and listen to music in the language. The problem is, there are no German language TV stations in East Texas, and the internet wasn't nearly as widespread as it is today, so finding German movies (apart from Run, Lola, Run and The Princess and the Warrior) was difficult. The same could be said of German music. The only bands I knew about were Rammstein, who I didn't like and a pretty lame band mentioned in my German textbook, Pilos Puntos. Fortunately I have an awesome big sister who found out about a German techno band and got me one of their CDs for Christmas. That band was Kraftwerk, one of the most influential bands in the Krautrock movement in the 70's, as well as a major pioneer in the techno genre. A few weeks ago I was spending quite a lot of time in front of my computer, brushing up on my AutoCAD skills when i rediscovered Kraftwerk's Computer World. It is amazing what a group can do with such a minimalist sound.

Happy birthday Mr. Bob Ross.

I love sharing music, that is one of the reasons I started this blog. I feel that you shouldn't keep your favorite music to yourself, but should go out of your way to introduce others to it. No matter how weird or obscure or even mainstream it is. Your taste in music is one of the things that defines you as a person. This is one of the problems I have with hipsters. They feel music is their sole domain and if you don't already have an encyclopedic knowledge of music, talking to you is a waste of time. I tend to get incredibly frustrated whenever I ask a person what their favorite band is or what they are listening to and they respond with "It is really obscure, you probably haven't heard of them." It is a very selfish, condescending view point to have. First of all, that person has no idea if I have ever heard of whatever band they are talking about, or what type of music I listen to. Secondly, if I haven't heard of them, you should be psyched to introduce someone to your favorite band and add to their musical education. I was talking about concerts I have been to with a friend at work and when I mentioned Flogging Molly. She said she hadn't heard of them, and instead of ridiculing her, and discouraging her from talking to me about music, I immediately started telling her about them and which songs she should check out. Introducing someone to my favorite bands one of my favorite things in life. So the next time someone asks you what you are listening to, tell them. And if they have never heard of the band, educate them.

I was at work the other day and was completely surprised to hear this song playing. The Psychedelic Furs are a British post-punk/New Wave band that formed in 1977.

This is a music video I honestly can't stop watching.

I tend to pick up my apartment on my days off, and this is a song I love to start off whatever quick playlist I throw together.

I've pretty much stopped drinking soft drinks, so I now rely on coffee for my caffeine intake.

Today's song is by a band I have seen several times live. I was introduced to them by a friend my freshman year in college and have been a fan ever since. I have so many memories associated with their songs I don't know where to begin. This is my absolute favorite of Matt Biven's songs.

I am honestly jealous of kids like my nephew that get to grow up watching Yo Gabba Gabba. The show is amazing. Not only is one of the creators MC Batcomander of the Aquabats, but their guests are phenomenal musicians. And the songs are educational without being annoying. Here is one song in particular I like.

I absolutely love Led Zeppelin, and this song is fast becoming my favorite.

I have a list of things I want to do/buy when I get a real job that changes constantly, but one of the things that is always on it is buy/learn to play bass. I even have it picked out. Probably one of my favorite bass players is Les Claypool. Don't get me wrong, Victor Wooten and Flea are both beasts and I love to listen to them play, but I personally love Les Claypool's style. For those of you who don't know who he is, Les is in Primus and Les Claypool's Flying Frog Brigade. Both amazing. This is one of my favorite Primus songs.

I've been watching The Young Ones recently, and their musical guests are pretty awesome. Madness makes two separate appearances as well as Motorhead, The Damned and Nine Below Zero. My favorite song however is Dexy's Midnight Runners version of Jackie Wilson Said, originally by Van Morrison.

Today's song is by a British trip-hop group I found out about when I was in high school. A friend of mine introduced me to Morcheeba's Fragments of Freedom and I instantly fell in love with them. Not only is the music amazing, but Skye Edwards, the singer, has a beautiful voice.

I've mentioned before that Barenaked Ladies are a completely underrated band. This song is one I hear at work occasionally and it always makes me happy.

I absolutely love The New Pornographers and that might or might not be related to my love for Neko Case. One song that i particularly love is from the soundtrack to FUBAR. Now, I have never seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack, but I stumbled across this song a while ago and loved it.

In honor of National Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I really don't have much to say about this song, other than I really like it.

One of my favorite things is rediscovering bands I haven't listened to in a while. This happened at work the other night when I was closing, I was scrolling through my music and decided to listen to Gatsby's American Dream, a band I haven't listened to in years.

IT'S THE WEEKEND!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!! EVERYONE GET PUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was seeing a girl a couple of years ago, and honestly the best thing to come out of the whole deal was that I was introduced to Mumford & Sons. Not only are they talented musicians and excellent song writers, but they wrote an entire song using lines from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing which is my second favorite play. This is my favorite song off of their album Sigh No More.

This is one of my absolute favorite Frank Turner songs.

In continuing with the previous posts theme of getting psyched up, there are very few bands that get me as pumped up as Andrew W. K. And this song in particular is pretty freaking awesome. The guitar intro is solid and the whole song holds up pretty well. Hope you enjoy.

So I know this song is way overplayed, especially since it was put on Guitar Hero 3 as the final song, and the lyrics are incredibly cheesy, but I can't help liking it. It is fast and gets me pumped up. I also really like the guitar duo/duel between Herman Li and Sam Totman, and the music video does a great job of showcasing it.

Gonna go see the Old 97's tonight! Should be awesome.

I've been listening to quite a bit of Jimmy Eat World lately, and this has to be one of my favorite songs.

When I was in high school, my sister was home from college for the weekend and she brought home a sampler cd from Drive Thru records. The one song that stood out for me was If U C Jordan by Something Corporate. It isn't very often that you see the singer of a pop punk band playing piano.

Holy crap, I went to one of the most amazing shows I have ever been to last night. I saw Urizen open for The Protomen at Prophet bar in Deep Ellum and I am still a little pumped up from it. First of all, Urizen put on one heck of a performance and showcased one of their new songs. And as always, their set culminated in a fight between a one eyed monstrosity and a cardboard box robot. So freaking cool. Here is their new song, Boxmakers.

The headliner for the show was The Protomen. A couple of years ago, they did a Queen cover show in Nashville and this summer they released a cd of the performance. So along with songs from their MegaMan rock opera, they performed some pretty amazing Queen covers. Here is the cd version of Don't Stop Me Now, which they performed last night.

Like I said, amazing.

I was out with friends the other night when a popular song came on, I can't remember what song it was but it was one that is played on the radio constantly. Now I don't typically listen to the radio when I am in my car, and when I do it is NPR, so my ear drums are not constantly inundated what ever song happens to be at the top of the charts. This has two advantages. One, I don't have to listen to music I don't like, and two, I don't get tired of the songs I do like because I get to choose when I listen to them. As much as I might like a song, hearing it when I am not in the mood is not a good thing. I understand why radio stations tend to play the same 40 to 50 songs over and over again, to get more people to listen to their station and sell more advertising and make more money, but I don't think that should be the purpose of a radio station. In a perfect world, radio stations would play a whole spectrum of songs and would delve into the deep tracks from an album instead of only playing singles. But it isn't a perfect world, and I will continue to listen to CDs in my car.

I go on walks at night and I have started putting my mp3 player on shuffle. This can be pretty awesome but it can also be pretty scary because I have about 70 gigs of music on it, ranging from country to rock to classical to metal to punk and on and on and on. One of the benefits is I have rediscovered several bands I had forgotten about. One of them is We Are Scientists. Here is my favorite song by these guys, The Great Escape.

For those of you who live under rocks, tonight was the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London. One part that I found interesting was a brief look at the evolution of British music from the 60s to the present. Of course they included The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and David Bowie, but their selection for the punk movement surprised me. I was expecting something by The Clash like London Calling or maybe Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols, or something by The Damned, but they went with A Message to Rudy by The Specials. I find this particularly interesting because The Specials were part of the second wave of ska, also known as the two tone movement which blended danceable ska with punks energy and attitude. They were also very influential in easing racial tension in London in the late seventies. So here it is in it's entirety, A Message to Rudy by The Specials.

This year marks the 15 year anniversary of the Old 97s album Too Far To Care, and they are doing an amazing tour to celebrate it. Their set will consist of Rhett Miller opening as a solo act, another opening band (Those Darlins, I believe, at least at the show I am going to), Old 97s performing Too Far To Care in it's entirety and then another full set on top of that. I am so freaking excited, especially since I will be going to the second show of the tour and the band will still be energetic and excited about the show, 'cause man, that is an awful lot of playing every night. Here is my favorite song off of Too Far To Care, "Barrier Reef."

Today's song is by and interesting mix of some of my favorite bands. Homie is made up of Rivers Cuomo and Matt Sharp from Weezer, Greg Brown from Cake, and Yuval Gabay from Soul Coughing. Homie only recorded one song, but they managed to blend the best bits of each band to create an amazing song. Here is "American Girls"

Going for a walk tonight since the weather is great.

Happy birthday, America!

Home sweet home

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, my life has been a little hectic these past couple of weeks. But you don't read this blog to hear about my personal life. I am visiting my parents for the weekend for a much needed break and while I am not really a fan of Motley Crue, this song is appropriate.

So I am not really a fan of any of the bands that make this song, but this one song is pretty freaking awesome.

The man responsible for my love of science fiction died today. I read Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles when I was in elementary school and fell in love with it. Today's song is a tribute to one of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time.

(just a warning, this video has some pretty strong language. totally nsfw)

Ray Bradbury's reaction to watching the above video.

I was watching music videos on youtube the other night when today's song popped up on the related videos side bar. This is another underrated 80's song that I absolutely love. Murray Head's "One Night In Bangkok" is about a chess master in Bangkok, and his lack of appreciation of the night life there. I wish I could find a higher quality video.

Tonight's song is another of my favorites by BT. It also features an artist I have mentioned before. Never Gonna Come Back Down features M. Doughty from Soul Coughing, which is probably one of the main reasons I love this song. Hope you enjoy.

Several nights ago, a friend told me I should check out Gotye. Today I did and I enjoyed his work. The first song I listened to was Somebody That I Used to Know, and I found myself comparing it to The Postal Services's Nothing Better. Both songs are about guys whose girlfriends have left them and they don't understand why. The ex-girlfriends then make an appearance and explain exactly why they left. I am not saying Gotye is simply copying The Postal Service, his sound is drastically different and while the subject matter is the same, that is about where the similarities end. Here are both songs, I'll let you form your own opinions.

Today's song is by an amazing techno artist. BT created a technique known as stutter editing. In fact, this editing technique put him in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest number of vocal editings for the song Somnambulist, probably one of my favorite songs by BT. So here you go, the Guinness Book of World's records song, Somnambulist.

Happy Mother's Day everyone! And since no one loves their mother like country singers, here is a great country song by Merle Haggard.

Rejection

So I got an email today I have been waiting on for over a month, but it didn't say what I hoped it would say. I applied to a job in Houston a few months ago, and they thought so much about a resume I sent in, that they were willing to pay for me to come down for an interview. Sadly, however, they didn't hire me. This is the first interview I have had since I graduated and it really got my hopes up. I thought my life was finally getting on track and that I was moving out of this purgatory I have been living in for over a year. This also made me think about rejections. We all go through them, either the small, every day rejections such as not finding what you want at the grocery store, or the big ones like the girl you met over the weekend not calling you back. Anyone who claims to have never been rejected is a dirty liar. I am going somewhere musically with this so bear with me. It seems that a majority of songs are about heartache or rejection of some kind. One that really sticks out to me is Rejected by Rancid. Not only is it a great punk song, but Matt Freeman is a beast on the bass. So here is your daily dose of rejection.

I am sure everybody has heard by now, but Adam Yauch aka MCA of the Beastie Boys died today. A friend of mine texted me the news this morning and it bummed me out all day. I could talk about the great music he helped create or the movies and videos he directed, but I am sure everyone is at least aware of most of it. So instead I will say this, MCA was part of something amazing that managed to be many things to many people. He will be missed.

I have a thing for redheads. I also find musical talent to be incredibly attractive. Knowing that, is anyone surprised that I am in love with Neko Case? I was fortunate enough to see The New Pornographers a few years ago when both Daniel Bejar and Neko Case were with them, and let me tell you it was amazing. I was 10 feet from the stage all through the show. The opening acts were Imaad Wasif and Dodos, both of which I became a fan of after seeing them live. The most amazing part was when they asked the audience what they wanted to hear and I yelled out "FABLES!" and they played it! What a great night. So here it is, These Are the Fables by The New Pornographers.

I just got finished watching Hanna for the first time and holy cow that movie was awesome. The Devil is in the Details by the Chemical Brothers is featured prominently throughout the movie, and is a pretty amazing song on its own.

During my brief foray into Dubstep, I rediscovered my love for Big Beat techno. I used to listen to Big Beat all the time in high school, and one of my favorite groups was The Propeller Heads. These guys were awesome, but sadly they only put out one album. My absolute favorite song was one they did with De La Soul called 360.

I have been watching TED talks since I got home from work a couple of hours ago, and I just finished watching one by Ze Frank. Ze has a blog where he puts together projects for people to do all over the world as a way of bringing people together. A little while ago, a reader asked him to write a song for her to listen to when she got overwhelmed by life. This is the story behind the song. When I heard the song, I was amazed at what a short song can do to effect your mood. Music for me is a form of catharsis, an emotional purging. I've mentioned that I have playlists for what ever mood I am in, and this is definitely going on my bad mood playlist, probably at the very beginning. Here it is, Chillout by Ze Frank.

I had an old man moment the other day. I keep hearing people talk about how amazing dubstep is, but I haven't really enjoyed anything I have heard so far. The other day, someone posted a metal cover of a Skrillex song and I really liked it. I mean, it blew my mind how awesome it was.

Like I said, awesome. So I decided to give dubstep one more chance. I listened to the original version, and I just don't get it. I am very open minded about music, and tend to at least appreciate anything as long as it is done well, but I just don't understand dubstep. I love techno, especially Big Beat like Apollo 440 and The Crystal Method. But I just don't like dubstep. Maybe I am getting old. Or maybe it just sucks.

I was a nerd back in high school. I am still a nerd, but I was one in high school too. This isn't to say I got beat up all the time, or people picked on me, I actually got along with the popular kids (not close friends or anything, but the occasional passing hello in the halls). I call myself a nerd because I was intelligent and actually enjoyed going to school. I would help people with their homework, but never actually did someone the work for them. High school wasn't particularly hard for me either academically or socially, but if I had known about the Descendents when I was there, this song would have been my anthem. Not necessarily the parts about getting beat up or picked on, but the part about proving my worth through my grades. Here it is for your listening pleasure, Mass Nerder.

I am a huge fan of the Scott Pilgrim franchise (comics, movies, video game, etc.). I was particularly impressed with the movie soundtrack. It was filled with awesome bands like T. Rex, Broken Social Scene and Frank Black (former front man of the Pixies). My absolute favorite song on the entire soundtrack is Black Sheep by Metric. I loved how it was "performed" by The Clash at Demonhead. Here is Metric performing at ComicCon as part of the publicity for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

So a while ago I was introduced to a band called Roper. Roper is a Christian pop-punk band lead by singer Reese Roper, formerly of Five Iron Frenzy. I am not typically a fan of Christian music, but these guys do it right. Granted, several songs are secular and, truth be told, I prefer these songs to the Christian ones. One of my favorites off of their album Brace Yourself for the Mediocre is You're With Stupid. It is about a guy who sees a girl walk into a bar with her asshole boyfriend and he wants to go up and tell her that she is "with stupid." That her boyfriend should count his blessings that he gets to be with such an amazing girl.

So today I have decided to share another mix I put together for a friend. This friend requested a mix that she could listen to in the car and dance around to. I called it Dance Like No One Is Watching. Hope you have as much dancing around to it as she did.
1. Violent Femmes - Dance Motherfu**er Dance
2. Gogol Bordello - Not A Crime
3. Against Me! - Stop
4. Eagles of Death Metal - I Only Want You
5. Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
6. Bloc Party - Helicopter
7. Of Montreal - Gronlandic Edit
8. OK Go - Do What You Want
9. Daft Punk - Around The World/Harder Better Faster Stronger (live)
10. Kenna - Out of Control (State of Emotion)
11. Basement Jaxx - Do Your Thing
12. Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies
13. Deastro - Light Powered

I talk about playlists I have made a lot, but I realized I haven't shared any of them. So here is a play list I made at the request of a friend of mine. She and I would talk music at work and would share bands whenever possible. She asked me to make a mix of love songs, and so I made one that told the story of a couple meeting, falling in love and eventually getting married.

1. The Diggs - Recovery Forever "You're always on my mind, it's what I mean to say when I say hi."
2. She & Him - I Was Made For You "When I saw you smile I saw a dream come true So I asked you, maybe Baby whatcha gonna do?"
3. Weezer - My Best Friend "You're my best friend and I love you"
4.Bela Fleck & The Flecktones - Let Me Be The One "I could be the one to care for you, a thousand dreams would all come true, if you'd let me be the one."
5.The Damned - Love Song "Just for you here's a love song"
6. Descendents - Nothing With You "I'm not lazy, I'm in love"

7. They Might Be Giants - Yeh Yeh "My baby loves me, she gets me feelin so fine And when she loves me, she lets me know that she's mine And when she kisses, i feel the fire get hot She never misses, she gives it all that she's got"

8. Dexter Freebish - Twilight "She's my private paradise"

9. Gym Class Heroes - Cupid's Chokehold "call it dumb, call it luck, call it love or whatever you call it but
everywhere i go i keep her picture in my wallet like here"

10. Styx - Lady '95 - I'm not going to lie, the only reason I put this song on the list is because of that scene in Freaks and Geeks when Nick professes his love to Lindsay by singing this song.

11. The Beach Boys - God Only Knows "I may not always love you, but long as there are stars above you you never need to doubt it"

12. Massive Attack - Teardrop "Love love is a verb, love is a giving word"

13. Pixies - La La Love You "All I'm sayin' pretty baby, la la love ya don't mean maybe"

14. Eels - P.S. You Rock My World "I was at a funeral the day I realized I wanted to spend my life with you"

15. The Old 97s - The Question "Baby tonight, I've got a question for you"

16. Jump, Little Children - By The Way They Dance "'Cause everyone knows they're in love by the way they dance"

A couple of years ago, an interesting documentary popped up on my Netflix suggestions. The documentary was about the "Godfather of Nerdcore" on his first tour. I decided to give it a try and I was not disappointed. MC Frontalot combines incredibly intelligent lyrics about growing up as a nerd with some of the most awkward yet at the same time amazing beats. Here is the title track off of the documentary.

One of my favorite things (other than music) is zombie movies. I freaking loved Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead; not to mention Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's love letter to zombie movies, Shaun of the Dead. Phantom Planet managed to combine these two great things into one AMAZING music video. Here it is, Big Brat.

Today's song is by an underrated band. Yeah, they were big in the late 90s and early 00s, but how many people really listened to anything they did other than their big hit "One Week"? I loved the entire album Stunt and would be hard pressed to name one bad song off of it. That is quite an accomplishment for a band to produce an album without one bad song or even a mediocre one. Today's song is my favorite off of Stunt. 

Here is a little April Fools Day music for you. I honestly can't get enough Rufus Wainwright.

More kids music

My sister and my nephew are visiting my parents and I was able to come in this weekend which means, you guessed it, more kids music. Today's song is off the album Schoolhouse Rock Rocks! which was released in '96. It features some big bands at the time covering old Schoolhouse Rock songs. Bands like Moby, Biz Markie and Ween. My absolute favorite song on the album is Blind Melon's cover of Three is a Magic Number.

Sorry I haven't been updating very often lately but my work schedule has been incredibly crazy. Today was day 6 of an 8 day stretch so I haven't really had much down time. To make it up to you, here are my top five songs to listen to when I close at work. One of the good things about closing (lets face it, the only good thing about closing) is that I have 2 hours in the store without customers around so I get to listen to music. So here we go, in no particular order.

1. Dethklok - The Gears

2. Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Blank Generation

3. Leftover Crack - Clear Channel (F**k Off)

4. Metallica - Battery

5. Green Day - Platypus (I Hate You)

No song tonight, just some friendly advice for the next time you attend a concert. I don't care if you aren't interested in the opening band, talking during their set is incredibly bad form, not to mention annoying to those of us who are trying to listen to them. I got to see fun. tonight and it was a fantastic show. They are just as good if not better live than they are on their albums. I also got to play a 3 on 3 basketball game with them this afternoon before the show. All three were incredibly nice and I had a great time. They destroyed us the first game by about 50000 points. The second game we switched up the teams and it was much closer. I also got them to sign the game ball. At the concert there was a group of people who had won tickets to the show and were bragging about it and in the back of my head I kept thinking "Yeah, you won tickets, but I got to play basketball with them." The only downside is that now I am sore as hell. I am an active person but I don't usually run around for an hour and a half straight, and then stand in one spot for almost three hours later that night. But it is totally worth it. Instead of a song, here is a comic I love about music.

Today's song is by a band called Steel Train out of New Jersey. When I listen to this song I get the image of walking down a crowded city street on a sunny afternoon with people smiling everywhere.

In honor of St. Patrick's day, here is a great song by the Irish punk band, The Pogues.

Anytime I have to create a user name for something, be it xbox live or twitter or something, I typically use a variation on Blue Eyed Devil. I got this from the Soul Coughing song by the same name. Soul Coughing is one of those bands that people either love or don't get. Mike Doughty's lyrics are like listening to a Dada poem where the rhythm and sound of the word is more important than the meaning itself.

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted anything, but this week has been busy. The past couple of times I closed at work, I listened to Outkast, specifically Aquimini. One of the things I like so much is the intelligent word play Big Boi and Andre use. That and their beats are incredibly catchy without getting annoying after a couple of minutes.

Has anyone seen my face? I seem to have misplaced it after it got rocked off last night at the Flogging Molly show. All three bands were fantastic. The first opener, Sean and Zander were a great bluesy folk band. Sean, the singer,

looks like the love child between Tom Waits

 and Lyle Lovett.

 The Devil Makes Three were as awesome live as I hoped they would be. My favorite song of their set was Aces and Twos.

Plus they have a cute bass player, ask any of my friends and they will tell you that is one of my weaknesses. Flogging Molly opened with Drunken Lullabies and then proceeded to play several songs off of Speed of Darkness. They even dedicated The Powers Out to a fan who was at the Houston show the night before and drove up to Dallas for the show last night and brought a 12 year old bottle of Jameson for the band, even though he was out of a job. As long as Flogging Molly keeps touring, I will continue to go to their shows whenever possible.

I get to see Flogging Molly tonight! This will be the fourth time I have gone to their concert and I have had a blast at each one. Well, except for the time I nearly got in a fight with a drunk asshole. Of all of the concerts I have gone to, Flogging Molly puts on a show so full of energy and passion that none of the others come close to. Not even the Protomen and that is saying something. I typically have a list of songs I hope to hear whenever I go to a concert and tonight is no exception. The one song I really hope to hear tonight is Us of Lesser Gods, probably my favorite song.

Happy Texas Independence Day everyone! Today's song is by the king of the Austin sound, Willie Nelson. For those of you who aren't fortunate enough to have seen Willie Nelson live, you are missing out. The two times I have seen him, he opened with this song and when he did, a giant Texas flag unfurled from the rafters behind the band. It is quite a sight.

I'm going out to the bar with some friends tonight so here is another song off of my drinking playlist. It is on the CD Ghostly Swim which features all of the music used on the bumpers on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network.

I'm sure everyone has heard by now, Davy Jones died today. I grew up watching reruns of The Monkees mostly because my mom was a huge fan, but also because the music was good. They are probably the reason I have such a soft spot for pop punk love songs. Both styles are very simple and almost innocent. While it might have been bubblegum pop, it is still leaps and bounds beyond what is considered pop today. Justin Bieber could take a few lessons from these guys. One of the things I respect about The Monkees is that even though they started out as a creation for a show, they fought for musical supervision of everything put out under the bands name rather than just blindly doing what others told them to do. One of my favorite songs by The Monkees is Daydream Believer.

As I have mentioned a few times already, I get to see Flogging Molly in March for the fourth time and I am super excited. One thing I try to do before a concert is check out the opening acts. I've already posted about one of the openers, Devil Makes Three, and here is one of the other bands that will be opening, but sadly not for the show I am going to. Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears are a great funk/blues band out of Austin, TX and are heavily influenced by James Brown. This song in particular cracked me up the first time I listened to it.

So some of you might be visiting my blog after reading my post on Forever Young Adult. Welcome! I recently read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and absolutely loved it. After reading the first couple of pages, I began to think how awesome it would be if when you opened the book, or booted it up on you e-reader for the first time this song started playing. Today's song is by Anamanaguchi, an amazing chip tunes band out of NYC. I saw them a couple of years ago and it was a blast. Hope you enjoy.

Tomorrow is my friend's birthday and we are going to have an awesome party tonight. So in honor of this special day, here is an awesome birthday song.

On the drive to and from my parent's house I had a chance to listen all the way through Fun.'s new album Some Nights in one sitting. It is good, not great, I definitely prefer Aim & Ignite. Still it is a good album. One thing I noticed was in the song All Alone

It sounds like a combination of beats from a Lilly Allen song and Jude's Everything I Own

But then again I could be wrong and I just hear what I want to hear.

I'm visiting my parents for a couple of days of rest after a brutal two weeks at work. I love being here because it is quiet and I don't have to worry about much. All in all it is very relaxing. So to celebrate my relaxation here is a mellow relaxing song for you.

flashback

I went out with some friends after work for a couple of drinks and while at the bar, a song came on that I hadn't listened to in several years. In college (my first time) I went through an emo phase. Not so much in the dressing in black and crying about every little thing, but I did listen to a lot of the music. This song brought that time back in full force.

I was talking with a friend of mine about guilty pleasure bands and I got to thinking about some of mine. One in particular is the Spin Doctors. Of course I have only listened to Pocket Full of Kryptonite, so I can't really say anything about their other works, but I really do love the album. Jimmy Olsen's blues was probably the first song I heard by the Spin Doctors and I immediately loved it. Granted I have been made fun of pretty much constantly for liking this band, but I guess that is why it is called a guilty pleasure.

Interesting night

Tonight was interesting. A friend turned 21 today so several of us went out to celebrate in the traditional way, with a bar crawl. There are some bars in town that I really like, and then there are some I don't. My least favorite bar happens to be at the end of most people's crawl and usually people go in, get their shot, and leave as soon as possible. This place attempts to be a club (which I'm not a huge fan of anyway) and is full of obnoxiously drunk people dancing to loud, bad music and crowding around the bar. Of course tonight, my friend wanted to stay there for the rest of the night and since I was her designated driver, I stuck around too. The entire time I had Terminal Preppie by Dead Kennedys stuck in my head. I really wish I could have blared it on their PA system, but I doubt anyone would have realized what the song was about.