Friday, December 3, 2010

We Interrupt this Regularly Scheduled Blogging for a Musical Interlude

The view from the Trainer. This ain't no Golden Triangle.
But the bike's got class.... "Loud", like his owner.
Meet Mr. Trek Madone aka "Kermit" (Because it ain't easy being green)
When I write those really cerebral posts as I did a couple back, I'm always left a little worn out and ragged -like I just came off a rebellious teenage bender or something. So I have to spend a few posts writing small fluffy little pieces.

When I wrote my first book, I used to kill many an anxious hour in the kitchen taking care of life listening to tunes that were speaking to me at the time while I waited for the hours to tick on by till the kids went to bed and I could write.

My kids are older now, so I can write while they destroy the living room right under my nose. Which is what it sounds like they are doing right now, by the way.

Then in the last months of my marriage while we still lived together but were essentially already separated, I used to escape the tension by going out to see my friend's husband's cover band (7 Days). They had what was considered, at the time, a pretty break-through set list that burst through some standards in the cover band industry (if such a thing exists), meaning they played some hard rock tunes while rebelling against the traditional sappy pop covers.

The last couple of years I haven't listened to as much  music. The cover band split their various ways about 3 years ago but it was good news for some of the members of the group. The drummer now plays with Theory of a Deadman (I believe still does) and the singer currently tours with Ian Thornley.

We all knew that cover band was too good to last.

So as I was sitting on the dastardly trainer for the fourth time this week listening to tunes I'd just plugged into a playlist specifically for this purpose, while pushing myself through some painful intervals and I thought I might share a little of what I plug into my ears while I ramp my heart rate up.

And if it doesn't have loud guitar, don't even put it on.

So here are a sampling of 5 of mine, in no particular order. What are yours?

Uncle Johnny -- The Killers --  One of my young writing friends put this on a CD for me once when I asked her to expose me to what was considered "Alternative" now.... because in MY DAY, alternative was nothing like this:



Go Let it Out -- Oasis -- I always and forever will have the hots for bad boy Liam Gallagher.





Psycho -- Puddle of Mudd -- probably related to my state of mind. Is that really Kid Rock and Pamela Lee in this video?





Superstition -- Stevie Wonder - the "band" used to play this and then they stopped. It was the first song I ever heard them play.





Paper Thin -- John Hiatt -- Another song that showed up on a made-for-me CD by a different friend. The song is pretty damn good.


7 comments:

CycleChick said...

Cool tunes. I worked for Ian Thornley's dad Scott when I lived in Toronto. Ian was just a blushing kid then. Adorable. Now I love listening to his music, especially on the trainer. Always makes me smile.

Kim said...

Ian Thornley's hot too.

Thornley, Big Wreck, and Theory are also on the playlist but I had to limit myself to 5.

Carly said...

I LOVE OASIS.
If it weren't for a misguided afternoon wherein I sold all of my Oasis tapes to a second hand music store I would still be listening to them on my tape deck.
sigh...

Puddle of Mud has some other really great songs I've used for Spinning, also who doesn't love superstition??

Other stuff I love that I've used to death in my spin classes:
-Prodigy- Breathe
-Smells like teen spirit
-Green Day- Minority/When I come around
-I really like Linkin Park (oddly enough)- the Numb/Encore mashup with Jay Z is good, Somewhere I belong, Breaking the Habit, What I've DOne and Bleed it out if you want to be really hard core.
-Uninvited- Alanis Morisette
-Pretender- Foo Fighters
-Take me Higher- Creed
-This one may sound strange but Incantation from one of the Cirque de Soleil soundtracks is incredible. I love it! (no vocals though...)
-My go to time trial song is Master of Puppets- it's like 9mins long and has an awesome tempo
Let me know what you think!

Kim said...

You wouldn't be listening to tapes.... for all misguided music selling days there is always iTunes. I love everything Oasis. And I have a few other Puddle of Mud Songs -- most notably She F$%ing hates me, and Blurry which is awesome but too slow for anything but warm down.

Those are all good selections. Some I had to look up because as always I recognize the artist but I can't think what the tune is.

The Prodigy -- I forgot about that one. I have that somewhere. And anything Metallica would be genius for the time trial.

The Dark Lord said...

John Hiatt's show at Le Rendezvous was one of the best shows I have ever seen.

Kim said...

Ah Le Rendezvous..... Sigh..... I had many a coming-of-age moment in that building.

John Hiatt was here about 4 years ago now, I think, but that's not likely the show you are talking about as I believe Le Rendezvous was already closed by then... I could be wrong. I seem to remember the one you refer to as "The Old Man" saying he was going to that show. That would have been amazing!

BTW, Dark Lord, re: he Who is known as "The Old Man"-- that is just as valuable a piece knowledge to me, as the whole "Wayne" thing is to you.... I will lay that card down as my Ace at some appropriate moment in the future. ;-)

The Dark Lord said...

I'm talking much, much earlier. Bring the Family tour. With the Goners. Sonny Landreth on slide guitar. 1988 or 89. Good times.