[as high as you want to go]
LiveJournal, I know I don't talk to you enough these days. I'm sorry! I'm just really busy. Running around after bands, mostly, but then also sleeping in huge chunks when the huge amounts of time spent running around after bands are finished. I will update you more often. Or at least I'll think about it.
- I'm working on an interview project, finalizing a series of generic questions that will then be furthered tailored to each interviewee, and I could use some help brainstorming things I'd like to ask these people. So first; If you could ask any musician any question about baseball, what would it be? (I realized that my niche market is the intersection of music and baseball, and I'm trying to capitalize on that.) And second: musicians or music bloggers who are also vocal baseball fans. I have a pretty nice start to a list, but I could use more, if you can think of any. Yes, Craig Finn is on my list. Yes, if I land an interview with Craig Finn, I will fall over briefly before regaining my composure.
Got a great question? Got a great musician suggestion? Leave 'em in the comments. I'll give you credit if it comes to fruition, this project. (Especially good if you have contact info. Like, if you have Brian Fallon's email address, leave it here, please.)
- The last time I asked you guys for recommendations of books about music/music history, you were awesome. Time to play that game again! Books about music (specific bands, memoirs, whatever) or music history (genres, scenes, etc) that you'd recommend.
Recently and not so recently I have read and loved: Our Band Could Be Your Life; Please Kill Me (well, I'm still in the middle of that; I carry it in my camera bag for solo shows); Love Is A Mix Tape; Dixie Lullaby; Across The Great Divide: the Band and America; Just Kids; Miss O'Dell: My Life With The Beatles etc; Positively 4th Street. Girls Like Us is on my to-read list.
I'm not really picky about subject material as long as the writing's good, though I'm also not really interested in anything re: metal. ALRIGHT GO.
I will trade you those recommendations for this list of the 10 Best Music Documentaries of the past decade. :D? :D?
- I think that the Truckers' two-night stand at the Lincoln still tops my list of shows for the year, but the Two Cow Garage show at Kings three Sundays ago was also phenomenal, for me at least, and this is one of my favorite photos I've taken this year. The National at Memorial Auditorium a few weeks ago is also handily in the top five. Probably my top five shows of the year are as follows: Truckers' two-night stand at the Lincoln, 02/2010; Brian Fallon & Dave Hause at the Black Cat, 01/2010; the National at Memorial, 10/2010; Superchunk at the Cradle, 05/2010; Two Cow at Kings, 10/2010. Ha Ha Tonka this past Tuesday would come in at 6.
But ask me again next week, it might change.
- I am also working on my year end top 25 albums list. It is harder than I expected it to be; the top ten was pretty easy, both objectively and subjectively, but after that, it gets murky. I shall have a lot of re-listening to do in the next two months. Nobody else release anything good, I can't cope.
But also: hey, what's YOUR favorite album of 2010? I don't promise to listen to it, but I do promise to not judge.
- Two Thursdays ago I pitched a million publicists, and then when I was done, I still had to do my day job. It was simultaneously exciting and depressing. I love my day job, but sometimes it is just not what I want to, you know, do every day. Then I got ignored by publicists and it made me cranky.
- College football teams I am invested in this season: Auburn, and everything Cam Newton has thrown out of windows; Iowa, and their fine-lookin' Proud American Patriot Quarterback Ricky Stanzi, even if his hair is bad; Oregon and their Offensive Death Machine of Death; Boise State, because Boise State.
Everyone else can go hang. LSU was interesting until they lost. I am mad at Butch Davis. Even the Beam and VaTech are boring this year. Oregon, though. Man. That offense. I don't even know.
- I wrote this post like 10 days ago and keep not posting it. Um. The only other things that have happened have been a) having a total meltdown at work two Mondays ago (I'm fine now), and b) Frank Turner is ruining my life. My Christmas mix was SO CLOSE to being done and then he released a new single and it was REALLY GOOD but I already had one of his songs in the mix, have for months, and I don't put two songs from one artist on the mix, so now I have to decide if I want to replace the song that was already there or save the new single and build the 2011 mix around it. Also ruining my life because he's not my boyfriend, but that one is less solvable. ALAS. FRANK TURNER, I LOVE YOU, BE MY BOYFRIEND.