Monday (ok, Tuesday) Morning Shuffle: La Guardia Shared Music Edition

Ok, here’s the deal. I’m sitting in La Guardia Airport in NYC after a terrific four days in the cold and exhausting, yet absolutely amazing and exhilarating city of New York. Most of my time was spent with my friend Courtney who, with her girlfriend Sonia, has one of the biggest CD collections I’ve ever seen. I spent a considerable portion of time (and disk space) loading music on my computer that I needed or otherwise didn’t have. I could have really done some damage if I had more time but all in all I loaded over 500 new songs and I’m pretty stoked on it.
Also, I’m sitting at the gate and there are a few other people on their laptops with iTunes open and broadcasting. If you aren’t familiar with this process, you can broadcast your iTunes so that other people with wireless connections can see and listen to your library. They can’t take it from your computer, although I’m sure there’s a way, and I might have to look into that.

So in order to mix things up a bit, I’m borrowing the Monday Morning Shuffle (it is Monday afternoon but I won’t have internet until 1 am Phoenix time, or in about 12 hours, and by then it will be Tuesday)….anyway, I’m borrowing the shuffle from the library of John Hein. I’ve looked through his music and given him a back story and decided that it will make for an interesting shuffle. So here we go.

1. Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind – Yo La Tengo, off of I’m Not Afraid of You, And I Will Kick Your Ass
I don’t have this CD and I’ve never heard this song before, but that’s what is going to make this fun. This song checks in at over 10 minute so I hope our boy John doesn’t get up and go anywhere or turn his computer off. (I wonder if he’s listening to my music too? Weird.) So anyway this song starts off with a super catchy little riff and a nice little guitar section in the beginning and I’m really liking it. I finally fixed my Bose headphones (thanks duct tape!) and everything just sounds so amazing through these. I know they’re expensive but if you like music and you travel or use headphones a lot I highly suggest these. If you turn in some miles you can easily redeem them. They are so choice.
Aww…damn. No sooner did I say I hope John doesn’t turn his computer off then he disappears. Oh well. We’ll start over using my library.

1. The Best Deceptions – Dashboard Confessional
Remember a few weeks ago when I was talking about John Mayer (here) and I said how I was a fan when it was just him and his guitar? Well it’s pretty much the same with Chris Carraba and Dashboard. I just liked them better when it was just him. Throw in the full band and backup singers and it just loses some of its pain and bite and significance.
I liked this song when I was a freshman in college and angry but now…eh.

2. Clean – Incubus, off of Make Yourself
Wow, this must be the freshman in college mix or something. Anyway, I really developed a love for Incubus over my freshman year of college driving back and forth from Boulder to Breckenridge every weekend. I thought Brandon Boyd’s lyrics were terrific (i.e. I need a map of your head/translated into English/so I can learn to not make you frown/I’d feel better if you’d vent/put your frustrations into 4-letter words/and let them all out on mine, the most weathered ears in town.) and I thought the combination of a DJ spinning and rock guitars were really interesting and novel. Then rap-rock came to power and completely blew the originality of that whole sound and Incubus jumped the shark. And that’s all she wrote for me.

3. Castles Made of Sand – Jimi Hendrix, off of The Ultimate Experience
Back in 7th grade when I developed my fascination for classic rock, Jimi was one of my first loves, and how can you not? I mean seriously, what could I possibly say about Hendrix that hasn’t been said. Nothing.
But that won’t stop me from saying that what I remember most about this song is listening to it on the patio of this restaurant in Northern Arizona. We were up near the Grand Canyon doing some fishing below the damn. I was really young and I was hanging out with my uncles and dad who at the time were all infinitely cooler than me and I just thought it was awesome that I got to hang out and listen to Jimi Hendrix with people who could have legitimately seen him in concert.
Well there’s not a ton to do at night in that part of the country so they sat around and drank beers (I had a soda) and we bet on how many cars would pass during a span of time. Someone would call out something like 7 cars over the next 15 minutes, everyone would synchronize watches, throw a few bucks on the under or the over and we’d sit and count. The best fun is the kind you make yourself.

4. The Boy Who Destroyed the World – A.F.I., off of All Hallows E.P.
Random that this song came on because Ron, Nole and I were just talking about it the other day at breakfast in Vegas. I’m not sure how it came up, I think Nole was talking about music he was getting back into and mentioned this EP. Then I mentioned that playing Tony Hawk my sophomore year of college completely ruined this song for me because it just got played over and over. That lead to a discussion of the other music that was on the Tony Hawk 3 soundtrack and a general discussion of great video game music altogether. Then we went and found an awesome $5 single-deck table and won a bunch of money and went to the trade show late. An enjoyable morning all around. Later that night, some of us met Karim Campbell, the pro skater, outside of a strip club near the Hard Rock (we had walked over there to catch a cab instead of waiting in line at the Hard Rock. Promise.) Karim had his own character on the game, and that’s about as intertwined as a day can get.

5. The Watcher – Dr. Dre, off of Chronic 2001
Man I LOVED this CD my senior year of high school. Danny and I used to blast this when we had to pick our little brothers up from marching band practice. I think we just liked the shock value and boy did we have it. As the band kids were coming into the parking lot we were soon surrounded by Ron, Nole, Jack, etc who proceeded to jump on the running boards of my suburban and rock the shit out of it with Danny and me inside. We were ghost riding the whip way before it was cool (wait, is it even cool now???). Anyway, this album reinvented and revitalized Dre, led to the rise and fall of Eminem and will eventually lead either The Game or 50 Cent being killed in a rap feud. Good times!
And in other news, after the Mos Def concert the other night we were feeling really inspired and traveled back into Manhattan to go to a great Jazz club called Garage. We had been there that morning for jazz brunch, which was extremely cool. Mimosas, Bloody Marys, good food and great music. Well anyway, we went back that night to see the Jonathon Batiste Trio (there were 5 of them, go figure). Batiste is a 19-year-old Julliard student from New Orleans who is maybe the best pianist I’ve ever seen. I mean, words can describe it. I love jazz, but I’m not the most skilled listener of it. I really don’t know what to pay attention to and I usually use it more for background music that anything. So I’m sitting there talking to my friends, having some wine and casually listening when I just feel the vibrations in my feet, and then notice as they move up my legs, twist up my spine and shut my mouth. After about 30 minutes, the entire table was silent as we listened to Batiste absolutely rock the piano and his group just slide through solo after solo. He has some albums out and I think I heard that he will be coming out with some more very soon. Keep an eye out for his stuff, and also, support your local jazz club and musicians. Look around your city; there’s gotta be at least one.

Oh yeah, and this dude just sound next to me listening to a tape on a WalkMan….old school brother, old school.