January 19, 2006

blogging doldrums

The semester has begun, so my energy level is a bit stretched. I have this tendency to blog the negatives--like a recent discussion with someone (on another blog) over the Pledge of Allegiance. As if God really cares if barely awake school children utter a mindless "under God" or not. My God doesn't care. I don't know about your's.

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Back to more interesting and fun music. SOF and I rented the DVD of Steve Earle's ACL performance from the 80s (1986, I think). What fun! Hilarious to see one of my favorite artists in completely different form. Thin, long-flowing hair, and a very twangy voice. After watching it, we pulled out the DVD for Transcendental Blues. Very different and older Steve Earle. Both very good and both worth watching.

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Guilty pleasure confession. One of my Colorado friends has an entire playlist she calls "guilty pleasures." Recently, while scanning my Itunes, she noted that I didn't seem to have any. Well, as SOF took great glee in noticing, I recently was caught playing Kelly Clarkson's "Since u been gone." Yeah, it is true. American Idol is ridiculous and annoying, but Kelly can sing "her ass off," and that song, while poppy and light, is a good one.

Bucky the Badger bailed me out by pointing me to a cover by Ted Leo (of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists) that is not only a good cover, but also kind of funny. It may not be as great of a cover as the Gourds doing Snoop Dog's "Gin and Juice" (which is amazing and hilarious all at once), but it is a good one.

Hah. I am sure I am not the only one with some guilty pleasures in my list. To paraphrase an annoying commercial, "So what's in your Itunes?"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, music snob that I am, I am still a sucker for poppin' fresh novelty tunes. The Dead Milkmen and They Might Be Giants are serious artistes, so they don't count as guilty pleasures.

Mine are in a playlist discretely labeled 'B-sides' and includes such gems as Snow's Informer, Neneh Cherry's Buffalo Stance, Lou Bega's Mambo No. 5, Kelis' Milkshake, Chumbawumba's tubthumping, OMD's How Bizarre, White Town's Your Woman (you know, the one where the guy sings 'I could never be your woman' over the theme from Empire Strikes Back), 99 Red Balloons, the Bloodhound Gang's Firewater Burn, Urban Dance Squad's Deeper Shade of Soul, Lucas with the Lid Off, Manu Chao's King of Bongo, Ini Kamooze's Hot Stepper, and Biz Markie's Just a Friend.

Now, how many of you are going to be blasting this in your car? Show of hands. LIARS ALL!

Bootleg Blogger said...

Hey Streak
Something dawned on me the other day as I was deleting one of those annoying forwarded emails calling for signatures to reinstate the pledge of allegiance. I think the 2000th person was supposed to forward it to the White House. I was tempted to reply and let them know that I wasn’t aware that the pledge needed reinstatement but that if it had been banned I must admit my satisfaction with its absence. Anyway, the “dawning” part was that most of the people, by no means all, that are such pledge and “Under God” fans with whom I come into contact are Baptists. As a Baptist myself I came to the realization a while back that “pledging” to any flag or civil authority with hand over heart is about as un-Baptist as I can get. Pledging fealty to any earthly authority, “under God” or not, strikes me as about as creedal as you can be. I would expect Baptists to actually be more active in maing a point of restraining from using the pledge. Anyway, let us know where we can read your pledge discussion.

As far as music goes, here’s a couple I’d suggest off the top of my head. For me they qualify as guilty because they aren’t necessarily ones I’d like to hear my kids singing at the dinner table or they are from genres at which I'd normally turn up my nose (pop), but they are pleasures because there’s just something about them that either hits that mojo button down in the sub-gut or just brings a guilty smile to the face. Here goes: “Run to the Hills” by Iron Maiden (crank this one to 11), “Fat Bottom Girls” and “Tie Your Mother Down” both by Queen (if the guitar intros don’t get you out of your seat then check for a pulse), "Forever Texas" by Robbie Williams, (pure pop), "Cowboy" by Kid Rock.
FWIW
BB