Tour Genius

During my weekly (biweekly, whenever-I-think-of-it) internet search (by the way, I search for them in real record stores too, but my chances of finding them there are even less) for a couple obscure cassettes that I'm becoming more and more convinced I'll never find, I came across the Stop Pop and Roll website.  From this website, I learned that Betty Goo broke up in 1999...so this means that we will soon be due for a 15 year reunion tour!!  However, because I'm impatient, I think the tour should be in 2013 which would be 15 years from the last full year they were together (and, incidentally, will also be the summer we celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary).  So it all makes total sense, right?

Then I had a total epiphany a few minutes ago while I was lounging in my giant bathtub (totally unrelated, I promise).  They should come over here - "over here" being the eastern half of the country - and do their 15th anniversary reunion tour as a co-headlining tour with The Paula Kelley Orchestra!!

AND, they can have Ryan Schmidt open for them! 

How fucking perfect is this plan??  How blown would my mind be by the end of that show?  Totally, that's how much.

Where's the Good Shit?

I have heard it said that the first song on a record is always the best one.  To defend this argument, The Black Keys' Rubber Factory and El Camino were sited.  In fact, one might go so far as to say that the first half of a record is always the best half.  Personally, I have to respectfully disagree.  IF I'm going to prefer one part of a record over the other (this used to be referred to as the A Side and B Side, but in this age of CDs and digital music, those terms have all but lost their meaning), I will almost always favor the second half.  In fact, back in the day when I bought singles on cassette, I invariably ended up liking the B Side better than the song I had originally intended to purchase.  I'm just funny that way I guess. 

To prove my point, I scrolled through (so sad...) my music collection and pulled out a few examples.  The first one I came across could actually be used for either argument, so I'll offer it up first, just to be diplomatic or whatever.

AC/DC - The Razor's Edge - I love the shit out of this album and have forever it seems - I've listened to it so many times over the years that when I hear a song from it on the radio, I expect the next song on the album to come up next.  The first song is "Thunderstruck" which could possibly be called the best AC/DC song of all.  I mean, it is really great, but the second half of this album is loaded with some of my personal favorite AC/DC songs: "Are You Ready", "Got You By the Balls" and "Let's Make It" so of course I prefer it.

Matchbox Twenty - Yourself or Someone Like You - although "Long Day", my all-time favorite of their songs is the second one in line on this album, the last part is far and away better with "Damn", "Argue", "Kody", "Busted", "Shame" and "Hang" all in a row.  What a killer lineup of tunes.

Nirvana - Nevermind - Obviously a classic album from my youth (although not at good as the Unplugged album, if you ask me), but the songs at the end, the ones nobody every talked about like "Drain You", "Lounge Act" and "On a Plain" are definitely some of the best songs they did. 

Rob Thomas - Cradlesong - I love this album.  My sister gave it to me and I had it for a long time before I really came to appreciate it.  I couldn't tell you why that is, but whatever.  Anyway, when I finally got to really listening to it, I played the absolute shit out of it and have come to really adore the last 5 or 6 songs on it.

Anna Nalick - Wreck of the Day - another album that came from my sister that I had for a really long time before it grew on me.  I liked the radio hit off of it, but that was all, I wasn't in love.  Until I finally got around to listening to songs like "Bleed", "Catalyst" and my personal favorite of hers "Consider This" - all on the "B side".

My point is, don't give up on an album until you've listened to the whole thing at least once.  Sometimes the diamonds in the rough are hiding at the end of the record.  Because of my nature, this leads me to wonder even more about how albums are arranged - you know, how they decide what order to put the songs in.  Maybe someday I'll get around to asking someone who would actually know.

A Whole New Level of Rambling

The social media that's available today has put me in a position that I never expected to be in which is having the ability to actually converse with the artists that I'm actively listening to.  I have to say, for someone who came of age well before the internet was anywhere near what it is now and listening mostly to dead people, it is kind of bizarre. I'm used to them being very far away and untouchable.  Is it possible that the guy typing back is really the one coming out of my speakers right now?  No freaking way.  Especially when it's someone whose work has really gotten in, it's so surreal.

I'm just not accustomed to musicians being actual people.  I mean sure, I grew up with guys who were "in bands", but they weren't artists.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.  So it's strange for me to tread the line between fan girl and normal human.  Obviously I'm a wacko when it comes to really good music and musicians who create it (hence, this blog) but I don't tend to be of the hide-in-your-bushes-outside-your-house wacko variety.  I just really love what they do (when I love it, of course) and therefore I'm inclined to mention it...every 5 minutes.  Which probably makes them hate social media as much as I love it.

I really try to keep it under control and not freak people out.  But I can't help but wonder about all the weirdos in the world.  For instance, I once saw a guy offer Matt Nathanson his "middle nut" if he would follow him on Twitter.  No doubt, I would shit my pants if Matt Nathanson followed me on Twitter (or otherwise became aware of my existence) but I'm certainly not going to offer him a fictious - and disturbing - body part to convince him.  People just say all kinds of off the wall shit to famous people.  I don't get it.  Have they forgotten that these people, extraordinary as they might be, are still people?

I think that this is what would make me an awful journalist.  My editor and my subjects would almost certainly hate my guts.  I'm sure I would never ask the questions you're supposed to ask in an interview.  I would just want to know what they were thinking when the wrote certain songs (I mean, did that girl end up giving Micah "Time"? Or is she the same one "Where You Used to Lay" is about??) and what they're really thinking about when they're on stage (Matt Nathanson can't possibly be as caught up in it as we are, can he?  Then again, if he's up there thinking about laundry, maybe I don't want to know).

And then I'd want to learn about the structure of the songs.  How do they come to be?  Lyrics first? Music first?  How does a person even begin to write a song?  I wouldn't have the first clue where to start.  Seriously, if I was in a room with Ryan Schmidt, I would want him to listen to Black Sheep, Run with me a hundred times so I could pick apart the intricate arrangments and be all "What instrument is that making that sound?  I fucking love that!"  I'm sure it would be thrill of his life (not).  And how does Aaron Tap decide who he's going to work with?  Does he have a crystal ball?  Or just an uncanny ear for things I'm going to like (I'm certain that, "Will Stephanie like this?" is an integral part of his decision making process.)

Of course, THEN we'd get into the "what are you listening to now" conversation.  Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I would have a hell of a good time interviewing musicians for a living...you know for that week that I'd keep my job before I got fired.