Another Horsedreamer's Blues

With the windows down and the music up loud, I drove south out of the N.C. mountains today on Highway 441. On a whim, I brought along Recovering the Satellites, the Counting Crows album that came out my senior year of high school and turned me into a die-hard fan. I can't remember the last time I listened to it in its entirety. But today, I did.

I had forgotten about the song "Another Horsedreamer's Blues" even though it was one of my favorites on the album. I was reminded of the passage I used to listen to, rewind and listen to again and again...

"Margery's wingspan's all feathers and Coke cans and TV dinners and letters she won't send. And every race night is shot through with sunlight. Trying to hit the big one one last time tonight for drunken fathers and stupid mothers and boys who can't tell one girl from another. So she takes her pills - careful and round - one of these days she's gonna throw the whole bottle down but she's trying to be a good girl and give them what they want."

Granted, I didn't have a drunken father or a stupid mother, but I did mostly think the boys in high school couldn't tell one girl from another. It was the part about trying to be a good girl and give them what they want - there was something about the way it was sung, so angry and defiant. Searching for what it was they wanted.

And at times - even at 31 - I still feel like that 17-year-old girl with clipped wings trying so hard to fly right. Trying so hard to live up to expectations. And sometimes, in a moment, rolling down the asphalt at 65 mph with my red hair whipping in the wind, I realize that I'm a stranger to myself in the mold and so familiar to myself instead with the early spring sun turning my hair to fire.

Wisecracking & Wisdom from an Evening with T.

T.: "Yes. I have a man bag."

***

T.: "Nietzsche had it half right. What doesn't kill us doesn't make us stronger. What doesn't kill us makes us afraid."

***

T.: "I always feel like people with tattoos are judging me."

***

T.: "So the question is, what do you want?"
Me: "From life or for dessert?"

***

T: "We're Cancers. We have our shells and our claws, but all we really want is to get rid of them."

***

T.: Have you ever noticed that Adam Duritz's mouth looks like a vagina in the "Round Here" video?

***

Sent by T.: Post-outing photo sent of church sign reading "Now is the time."

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

The Good
*David Gray is likely to have a new album out before the end of the year and he claims it is more like his early work. I am breathless with anticipation.

* Summer hours start at work next week. Hello, 9-to-4 on Fridays!

* Counting Crows are kicking off the Summer in the Park series on Good Morning America on Friday.

* Braves game on Thursday - my first trip to The Ted in almost a decade!

* Getting more and more certain that Dillon's going to be left-handed.

The Bad
* May be in love with a country musician.

* Missed House season finale last night because I am programmed for it to be on Tuesday but, as if the writers' strike wasn't enough, they moved House after it returned. Egads.

* Must work on Friday night. Blech.

* ABC canceled Women's Murder Club. Booooooo!

The Ugly
* My lower back just north of where the good Lord split me, sunburned to the nth degree after weekend yard work. Guess there was a gap between my tank and my shorts.

* My room, scattered with clothes worn over the past three weeks and littered with half-unpacked bags.

* My brain...not a great string of days here in the last 8 to 10

* Envy...the Rockstar heads to Ireland and Spain tomorrow.

* I'm grumpy as hell.

The End

Pack up stuff - check under the beds for lost shoes and misplaced books * Retrace steps...back to the BART, back to the airport * Take Dramamine again * Listen to music as appropriate (Counting Crows as a tribute to Berkeley/SF? David Gray for wistfulness?) * Worry over whether to sleep or stay awake to combat jet lag * Experience total place and time confusion over leaving at noon and arriving at nearly nine o'clock * Collect baggage * Find Mom * Head home

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Happy Birthday to Jenn! Happy Birthday to Jenn! * Planning brunch with unlimited mimosas * Trip to Golden Gate Park * Possibly tour the deYoung Museum * See HAT! - first time in four years * Consult advice from Lauren, Daisy, and Mendacious on where to go and what to do - and most importantly, where to shop * Let Jenn choose dinner - something delicious and vegetarian, possibly something ethnic * Make it to Chinatown, Mission, Haight * See the painted ladies * Run into Adam Duritz?

Confession: I Am In Love, Part 2

Today, I am in love with Adam Duritz. That is all.

This is a List

"This is a list of the things I should've been but I'm not. This is a list of the things I should've seen but I'm not seeing...So won't you please look at me?" --Adam Duritz, "Cowboys"

Should've Been
* More forgiving

* Willing to say the words that were on the tip of my tongue when I wondered if I should say them

* Able to cross a room, smile charmingly at a perfect stranger

* An author

* Comfortable with the unknown

* British

Should've Seen
* Hyde Park

* Last full moon

* Threads coming together, woven from the past forward to the present

* How different love is for different people

* David Gray live in concert

* Me for me

I Have Seen You Lately

When I heard the news that the Counting Crows were dropping a new album this spring, I was hesitantly hopeful that I would find some classic Crows melodies on the new disc. With all that's been going on, I'd almost forgotten it. Then I heard Adam Duritz talking about the new album on VH1 one morning while I was getting ready for work. I dashed into the other room to see the new video for "You Can't Count on Me." And Duritz looked good - no longer sporting the bizarre long dreads in a topknot and having slimmed down from an alarmingly bloated version of himself. Then I read several interviews about the new album in which Duritz talked about his spiral into despair as he struggled with mental illness, finally getting diagnosed with dissociative disorder. Being that I so recently went through a bout with my own mental health, I decided that for old time's sake and to support the newly-recovered Duritz, I'd pick up the new album.

I'm delighted to report that the boys are back. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is their most cohesive, most well-concepted and richest album since This Desert Life - possibly even since their sophomore smash, Recovering the Satellites. Recorded in two different sessions, the first half, dubbed Saturday Nights, was recorded in New York and is filled with lyrics of gritty dissolution and sharp-edged sound. Sunday Mornings, the disc's latter half, was recorded in Berkley and explores the restorative nature of piecing life back together.

Throughout the album, the songs are like wonderful, poignant echoes of the Crows' previous work. In the lyrics and sometimes the melodies, threads of former themes slide through the new songs. It feels like they were very intentional about brining back their own work in thoughtful ways. "Insignificant" sounds like a sister song to "Have You Seen Me Lately?" - one of my all time favorite Crows' songs. The opening lines "Can you see me/up on the building/from down on the pavement/or out in the crowd?" hearken back to that idea of invisibility in a crowd. "Cowboys" has an intro reminiscent of "Rain King" and "When I Dream of Michaelangelo" clearly connects to "Angels of the Silences" with an acoustic call-back. Something about "Washington Square" is reminiscent of "Omaha" - maybe in its wandering lyrics.

And "On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago" is close to edging out "Colorblind" as the prettiest song the Crows have ever recorded. "Hanging Tree" is a really great song, too, with a 70s rock drive and great harmonies. "Come Around" appropriately closes the disc on a high note, apropos of "St. Robinson and His Cadillac Dream".

The disc is balanced between ballad and rock anthems, blending the alt-country and guitar-driven rock that marked August & Everything After and Recovering the Satellites. Duritz shows more control of his voice, keeping his trademark plaintive wailing (which I happen to love) to a few well-placed whines. And Charlie's piano and Dan's guitars sound better than ever. It feels like Counting Crows at their best - their voices mixing beautiful, their playing ripe with energy. And it's just complex and layered and yet effortless. The album feels good.

I'm a big fan - and somehow, this album makes me feel weirdly hopeful, like in recovering the Counting Crows, I'm recovering a little piece of myself.

Saturday Nights &...
1. 1492
2. Hanging Tree
3. Los Angeles
4. Sundays
5. Insignificant
6. Cowboys

Sunday Mornings
7. Washington Square
8. On Almost Any Sunday Morning
9. When I Dream of Michaelangelo
10. Anyone But You
11. You Can't Count on Me
12. Le Ballet d'Or
13. On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago
14. Come Around

99aXed

It's the end of an era. As of January 25, 99x will no longer be on air. The 99.7 FM frequency is being given to what is now Q100, a top-40 rock format. The X will transition to 100.5, sans its morning show, marking the end of Leslie Fram's 15-plus-year run on the station's Morning X show.

For those of you who grew up in Georgia, listening to the Morning X was akin to watch SNL on Saturday night. It's just what you did. You tuned in to the legendary Barnes, Leslie and Jimmy morning show so that you could catch a few stellar lines and maybe hear the first spin of "Jeremy."

And then there was 99x Resurrection Sunday, which played chic rock and folk rock and folk infusion and was the first place I heard "Silent All These Years" by Tori Amos. I remember leaving Jenn's house and driving down a lonely stretch of road with Tori's voice reverberating through the old '92 Taurus and thinking, "Yeah."

99x sponsored the Counting Crows concert at Chastain Park Amphitheatre where I met Adam Duritz - who gave me his autograph while denying me me a hug. Somewhere, I still have photo of Niki, Tempe, Heather and me with the 99x poster we absconded with.

The X hosted the Jingle Jam that Sarah McLachlan headlined at the Gwinnett Civic Center where we had fifth-row seats.

And there was also Live X, which produced some amazing acoustic sets over the years.

99x has apparently fallen on hard times while I've been away. With the rise of satellite radio and the faltering popularity of alt rock against top-40 pop coupled with the departure of Barnes and Jimmy from the Morning X and difficulty finding a successful replacement combo, it looks like it's finally jumped the shark. Goodbye, 99x. Thanks for the memories.

* For you OC kids, I couldn't find the old logo - the bright yellow 99x on the black background. You know what I'm talkin' about!

Still Counting on the Crows

After years of silence - 5 1/2 to be exact - Counting Crows is making some noise. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is dropping March 25.

The band's last effort, Hard Candy, debuted back in July 2002, back when I was still in grad school, and I remember walking across the sizzling hot Best Buy parking lot to get the album after work. It was uneven, fluffy and poppy in all the wrong places. A couple of gems emerged like "Holiday in Spain" and "Goodnight L.A." but others like "New Frontier" were utter disaster. The band had brought Immy (Dave Immergluck) on and Ben Mize, the band's second drummer was clearly on the way out - he departed the band shortly after the Candy tour. I saw the Crows on their swing to promote this album, and the show was just as uneven and disappointing as the album.

When Dreams About Ghosts came out, I snapped it up in hopes that the two new tracks amidst the greatest hits would be worth it. But they were lukewarm at best, and I hardly ever pick up that album.

The new album's cover is reminiscent of Live Across the Wire, which is such a great mash up of their work in acoustic and rock format. And the two songs being previewed are as different as the red disc/blue disc of LATW. "1492" is all guitars and drums layered and clanging against one another - and has a Recovering the Satellites feel. And "When I Dream of Michaelangelo" is obviously a sequel to "Angels of the Silences" (from which the title comes) but it hearkens to the acoustic version.

I liked both songs first listen, but I have to say the Crows have let me down a little with their last couple of offerings. But maybe I'm just feeling slightly miffed after recounting to The Rockstar that Adam Duritz wouldn't hug me when I met him at 17. The Rockstar found this unacceptable.

I'll still pick up Saturday...& Sunday... - for old time's sake. And in the hopes that the threads of "Rain King" and "Omaha" that were in the undertones of "Michaelangelo" will be elsewhere on the album...and I can pretend to be 14 again and feel like he's singing to just me.

August & Everything After Goes Dee-Luxe

Believe it or not, it's been 15 years since the Counting Crows released their debut album, August & Everything After. It was one of the first CDs I ever owned, and I played it over and over again. "Time and Time Again" on repeat. I remember that being one of the first songs that I really connected with the lyrics, felt like it was a song about me. I still love the lines: "I wanted so badly somebody other than me staring back at me, but you were gone, gone, gone. I wanted to see you walking backwards and get the sensation of you coming home. I wanted to see you walking away from me without the sensation you're leaving me alone." Now the band is releasing a deluxe edition of the debut album, a double-disc set that includes demo tracks and a live concert from the A&EA tour.

I've been a huge fan of the Crows, through the brilliant sophomore effort Recovering the Satellites and the moments of clarity on This Desert Life to the shellacked popness of Hard Candy that at least gave us the fantastic "Holiday in Spain." Back in the day, I was pretty hardcore - I actually met Adam Duritz during the Recovering tour at Chastain Park Amphitheatre through sheer determination and acquired his signature. And in college, I almost made a guy get out of my car for dogging the band. (Seriously. I stopped the car.) And my friend Jenny Ray nearly got into a fight at The Tabernacle because this kid and his girlfriend were trying to shove me out of the way. (In her defense, she had a fever.)

Since '92, the band lost its drummer from A&EA, gained and lost a second, and lost original bassist Matt Malley so he could pursue his love of Eastern music. Ummm. Yeah. They've been quiet of late except for pulling the classic greatest-hits-with-two-new-tracks trick a couple of years ago with Films About Ghosts and now the rereleased A&EA. I don't know where the Crows are going, but I sure know where they've been, and I must say I'll plunk down the cash on September 18 to add the new version of the old classic to my collection. After all this time, they're still my band.

Disc 1
1. Round Here
2. Omaha
3. Mr. Jones
4. Perfect Blue Buildings
5. Anna Begins
6. Time and Time Again
7. Rain King
8. Sullivan Street
9. Ghost Train
10. Raining in Baltimore
11. Murder of One
12. Shallow Day s (Acoustic Demo)
13. Mean Jumper Blues (Acoustic Demo)
14. Love and Addiction (Demo)
15. Omaha (Demo)
16. Shallow Days (Demo)
17. This Land is Your Land (Demo)

Disc 2 (Live from Paris, the last show of the A&AE tour)
1. Anna Begins
2. Omaha
3. Jumping Jesus
4. Margery Dreams of Horses
5. Perfect Blue Buildings
6. Round Here
7. Rain King
8. Time and Time Again
9. Ghost Train
10. Children in Bloom
11. Murder of One
12. Sullivan Street
13. Ghost in You

RuMANations

A girlie-girl prone to crushes since, oh, I don't know, birth, I've always had some celebrity that I secretly pined for - or not so secretly wrote on every notebook I carried. According to the same journal that charted my musical tastes, I've had crushes on the following celebrities:

Dean Cain (of Lois & Clark fame) * Chipper Jones (of the Atlanta Braves) * Adam Duritz (of Counting Crows) * Harrison Ford * Colin Firth * Michael Schoeffling (from Sixteen Candles, although my crush had more to do with the little-known Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken) * Hugh Jackman * Joshua Jackson * John Mayer...and I'm sure there were many, many more whose names I was smart enough to not catalog for future embarrassment.

But far more embarrassing than any of my past crushes is that, I must confess, I still get celebrity crushes. And they seem to come in threes. My current list of crushes includes:

*James Purefoy - British and delicious. If you missed HBO's Rome, you missed his incredibly witty and sexy portrayal of Mark Antony, you missed out. He's just rugged. And wicked. Great voice, too. A guy's never looked so hot shoving a sword into his gullet.

*Christian Bale - I know he was popular among my friends (a.k.a. NIKI!) when he was in Swing Kids. I thought he was cute then, but now? He's smoldering. He's got that mysterious quality. Best Bruce Wayne ever (and with the worst script of all of them).

*Mr. Armani - I tried to find out this guy's name, and the best I can do is find one site that names him Andrew Cooper. But I don't think that's right. So we'll just call him Mr. Armani. He's spearheading the spring campaign for the label, and well, let's just say I'm glad we get GQ in the office so that I could tear the ads out and pin them to my billboard. Plus the latest issue has Christian Bale on the cover - bonus!

Once a crusher, always a crusher.

Music Evolution

I've kept a journal since I was about six. No really. Six. I started in a little pink journal with My Melody on the front. Around age 9, I decided I needed a new journal with a lock (to deter snooping brothers), and so for my birthday, I received a purple ice-cream cone adorned locked diary. It never quite had the right feel to me, and I never journaled in it consistently. Instead, I kept a catalogue of lists that I updated with some irregularity over the years - favorite colors and who my friends were and what my favorite songs were.

I came across the journal one of these last times I was at home, and I couldn't help getting a chuckle over the development of my music taste over the years. And so, for your amusement, I give you the following favorites songs and bands of yours truly:

*July 1989, Age 10 - New Kids on the Block, Richard Marx and Paula Abdul

*February 1992, Age 12 - While I am pleased to report that I scrawled "I Hate NKOTB" in the margin, I also listed my favorite song as "That's What Love is For" by Amy Grant

*December 1995, Age 15 - "No Rain" by Blind Melon and "Ice Cream" by Sarah McLachlan. An improvement in musical taste, but my favorite TV show was "Lois & Clark."

*June 1996, Age 16 - "Time and Time Again" by Counting Crows. Here I wrote "Pie in the Hood" in the margin. I have no idea what this means.

*February 1997, Age 17 - "Elsewhere" by Sarah McLachlan and "Lovefool" by The Cardigans

*August 1997, Age 18 - Les Mis. Everything Les Mis. Enter the freakish obsession with musical theatre.

*January 1998, Age 18 - "Brick" by Ben Folds Five

*May 1998, Age 18 - "Wish" by Pearl Jam. I had just bought tickets for Lilith Fair.

*March 1999, Age 19 - "Northern Lad" by Tori Amos and "You've Got the Music in You" by New Radicals. It had one hit wonder written all over it.

*May 2000, Age 20 - "Dancing Virginia" by Jump, Little Children and "Anybody Home" by Our Lady Peace

*June 2001, Age 21 - "Space Between" by Dave Matthews Band and "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John. Ironically, this was before grad school, and I have no recollection of why I might have noted that song...musical clairvoyance perhaps?

At least this list shows improvement. But I confess that I thought of it because my brother and I were talking at The Grill about the first tapes we remember getting as kids. His? The Ghostbusters Soundtrack and Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. Mine? Lionel Richie's Dancing on the Ceiling. There was nowhere to go from there but up - no pun intended.

On a Musical Note

I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ... I get most joy in life out of music. - Albert Einstein

I go through phases in life where I'm more or less attached to music. Sometimes I listen to the radio with general indifference, but then I enter a phase - like now - where I have to have music on every second of every day or the silence is deafening.

I remember when I was little, my dad used to play his guitar sometimes at night. He usually played old country tunes like "Tennessee Waltz" or "Frankie & Johnnie." He was completely self-taught on a guitar he bought at a pawn shop, and I have always wished I'd inherited even a trace of his musical ear. As I got older there was my sister, six years older than me, who shaped my early music tastes with the tapes she'd let me listen to while she was at school - Madonna, Wham! and Michael Jackson.

And when I first got my CD player, I only had 5 CDs that I listened to endlessly including Counting Crows' August & Everything After, Dave Matthews Band's Under the Table & Dreaming and Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. And from there, the collection grew and expanded. Tastes changed. Friends introduced new songs, new bands. And now I've amassed a fair collection of music. Most of which has profound meaning to me, whether in its lyrics or its connection to the past.

I love how some songs are irrevocably tied to moments in my life, and no matter when I hear them, I am transported back to that moment. "Africa" by Toto makes me think of going to the park, eating bologna and cheese sandwiches and listening to WRFC 960 AM in my mom's gray Oldsmobile with the plushy red seats. Other songs simply give me a certain feeling when I hear them - Tori Amos' "Putting the Damage On" can make me cry at the drop of a hat and David Gray's "Twilight" makes me want to go downtown and sit in a dark bar. And then there are songs that I only want to listen to under certain conditions. Like "One" by U2 and "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House are best listened to when it's raining at the change of season and cold like the beginning of winter or spring.

I was telling Kim today that I wanted to make an autumn mix, with songs from This Desert Life (an inherently fallish album) and "As I'm Leaving" by David Gray. And we talked about how the songs that came out our first year of grad school make us think of fall - like "Clint Eastwood" by the Gorillaz and "Start the Commotion" by The Wiseguys. Which led me into thinking about songs that make me think of the grad school years like "Tiny Dancer" and "Sex Machine" - two songs played so relentlessly on the juke box at Cedars, I'm surprised I still like them. And "Teenage Wasteland" - (which Kim & I decided is a spring song) makes both of us feel like we're going somewhere important. Like Krispy Kreme.

I'm fond, too, in my solitude, of thinking, "If my life were a movie, what song would be playing right now?" When Kim was in town, we were all sitting at the bar, and "Here Comes the Sun" started playing and it seemed like the end of the movie when the camera is panning out from the characters and the credits start to roll and you know everything's going to work out just fine.

Ah, music. How you move me.