Our House, In the Middle of the Street

Oh House, I have not been so kind to you in the past.  

 

 

I have berated your appearance, underpowered and faulty electrical -(which we had to fix before anything else)- your substandard plumbing, your creaky stairs, slightly tilted floors (fun with marbles and rolling trucks though!), leaky windows and cold spots.  

I have long bemoaned your less than open floor plan and that we cannot seem to keep it clean and the kids seem to think every room is a place to store toys and I have publicly declared you the worst mistake I ever made.   

Today I apologize for these derogatory comments for I am in awe of what a tough ole bird you are. House, while the buildings all around us lost siding, roof tiles and parts of the chimney you stood tall.   I thought for sure on Monday night as the worst of Hurricane Sandy came and laid a heavy hammer down on us that your 15 year old roof would decide that this was the moment to take leave of its foundation.

Yet you held fast in all your 1901 craftsmanship glory.  

 

House, we still have a lot of issues to get through and we are working on it.  we are in this for the long haul.  Thank you.

Kidz Bopping

Oddly, it does seem that many things come in waves.  I rarely speak music with anyone outside a small group of friends because I am so very excitable about the topic and will talk at length about the musical influence of falsetto dance hall singers of the 1930’s and Joe Meek on post punk compositions.  I find it invigorating but I am also vividly aware how mind numbing the conversation can be to those who do not revel in the grand scale of minuta.  

Knowing this I was asked thrice, (yes, thrice) to give my opinion on music related topics this week.  I know you will be shocked to hear that I had quite a bit to say - being the humble quiet type that I am.

First Chris Neto of AV Shout asked me to comment on the Music I bring to secretly test out finished home theater installs when left all alone. Not the ‘best disc’ to verify nor the penultimate SACD from Home Theater magazines hot 100 and especially not the disc or content provided by the manufacturer.   You can read my light commentary here.  

Next the fine folks At AV Nation had me on AV Week Episode 61 and I somehow pontificated on relativity of musical references with the Backyardigans and my kids as exhibit A.

Today I recieved a private message from a long time friend asking me if I let  Rooster and Gonzo -(my nicknames for the boys) listen to all the music I have (or forced them to listen to my collection of 1950’s Hawaiian inspired 78’s).   While the the boys do not have their own MP3 players yet they do have Nintendo DS units which happily play files from an SD card.  So to alleviate my friends concern below is the latest playlist the boys have.  It may not be everyone's cup o’ tea but they helped pick out the songs and happily spend time listening, just listening - remember when you did not do a thousand other things while the music was playing?

• Bad Romance - Lady Gaga 


• Break your heart - Taio Cruz 


• Burning Up- Jonas Brothers 


• Can’t Take another Day - Dennis Brown 


• Dog Days are over - Florence and the Machine


• Dream within a Dream - Propaganda 


• Fire Burning - Sean Kingston 


• Lonely Boy - The Black Keys 


• The News - Carbon Silicon 


• The Addiction - Alkaline Trio


• Tubthumping - Chumbawamba 


• Waiting room - Fugazi 


• We Are Young - Fun 


• Bull in the Heather - Sonic Youth 


• Cannonball - The Breeders 


• Forget You - Cee Lo Green 


• Hold On - Jonas Brothers 


• I Gotta a feeling - Kidz Bop Kids 


• Life in a Northern Town 


• Pumped up kicks - Foster the people 


• Ready to start - Arcade Fire 


• Rudie Can’t Fail - The Clash 


• Space Age Love Song - Flock of Seagulls 


• The Cave - Mumford and Son 


• This Charming man - The Smiths 


• In a Big Country - Big Country 


• People Everyday - Arrested Development 


• Ray of Light - Madonna 


• Still haven’t found - U2 


• Under Pressure - David Bowie and Queen 


• Zombie - The Cranberries 


• 1979 - Smashing Pumpkins 


• Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz 


• Empire State of Mind - Jay Z 


• Kids - MGMT


• Knocks you down - Kidz Bop 


• Girls & Boys (pet shop boys) - Blur


• Nothingman - Pearl Jam


• Say Something - James 


• Battlefield - Kidz Bop 


• Mercy - Duffy 


• Re-Ignition - Bad Brains 


• Sometime around Midnight - Airborne Toxic Event


• Summer of 79 - The Ataris 


• King of Fools - Social Distortion 


• Mysterious Ways - Snow Patrol 


• There She Goes - Chris Isaak 


• It is Love - TRex


• Pudding Time - Primus 


• Purple Rain- Prince 


• Try to throw your arms around the world - The Fray


• A little respect - erasure 


• Biko - Peter Gabriel 


• When I come around - Green Day 


• Boombastic - Shaggy


• El matador - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs


• My Little Underground - the Jesus and Mary Chain 


• Paper Planes - M.I.A


• In the Midnight Hour - the commitments 


• As Long as I’m singing - the Brian Setzer Orchestra 


• My Favorite Revolution - Eugene Edwards 


• Shoplifters of the World - The Smiths 


• Tusk - Fleetwood Mac


• 7 - Prince 


• Red Ballons - Nena 


• At last - Etta James 


• Blues for Dixie - The Brain Cloud 


• British Sea Power - 


• Ghost Town - the specials 


• Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies 


• Lazy Eye Silversum pickup 


• Strange Condition - Pete Yorn 


• Waitress in the Sky - the replacements 


• Creep - Radiohead


• Pressure drop - The specials 


• Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash


• Sister Christian - Night Ranger 


• So Long, Farewell - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy 


• Spoonful - Etta James 

 

I will wait a year or two before introducing them to Diamanda Galas, Rasputina or Lauire Anderson .  I do have high hopes as this is one of their favorite vidoes