I’m formulating my list of favorite summer songs and I’ll be asking you for yours. Stay tuned, kids.

After talking with a friend and a Fernsehturm commenter this week about how we have changed our tastes in music over the years, I thought it would be a good topic for a blog post.

Famous musicians are always asked in interviews about the first album they owned was who were their musical influences. I’m no musician but I would consider music my main hobby since I was kid through listening, reading or talking about it.

Many times I’ve thought about how I got to the place I am now with musical tastes. I started listening, REALLY listening, to music starting with what my parents had on in the car or the stereo at home. I didn’t have a choice in the matter so I can’t help but have those experiences as square one in my musical tastes.

After writing down some of those memories, I’m not as embarrassed as I thought I might be in some of those musical steps.

Additionally, after taking some time to list the bands and albums in the order by which I was exposed to them or chose them (see below), the progression seems to make sense. At least to me. There is a nearly constant stream of rock or rock-influenced music over the years.

I still actually have a lot of the early parental music in my collection if not only for the sake of nostalgia but some of it is still damn good.

Without further ado, in rough chronological order!

My parents’ music (1970s into early 1980s)
Seals and Croft
The Eagles – “Best of My Love” has got to be the first song I remember that reminds me of a specific place and time, Bloomington, MN in the summer of 1975)
Waylon Jennings
Willie Nelson
Simon and Garfunkel
Neil Diamond
Beatles
Chicago

My older sister’s music (early to mid 80s)
Several K-Tel records (“SuperSonic, “Powerplay” and “Rainbow”)
Prince (who in the Twin Cities didn’t have “Purple Rain”? The guitar solo from “Let’s Go Crazy” was something I just liked to listen to over and over. My musical tastes would return to that kind of stuff over and over through the years)
A-ha
Duran Duran
Limited Warranty (Twin Cities 30 and 40-somethings know this band)
Tears for Fears
U2, “Under A Blood Red Sky”
Hall and Oates (“Rock and Soul, Part 1”)

My music (mid to late 80s)
Michael Jackson (required listening when it came out and “Beat It” and “Billie Jean” still hold up really well)
Styx (“Kilroy Was Here”, my first album)
Rush (“Tom Sawyer” was the theme song of my favorite professional wrestler at the time. At the time I had heard them but not give them much consideration. This led me to buy “Exit…Stage Left” and buy a used “Grace Under Pressure” from a junior high friend, and, the rest is history)
Boston
Journey
Dokken
Van Halen
Ratt
Def Leppard
Europe
Bon Jovi
Cinderella
Whitesnake
Tesla
Joe Satriani
Pink Floyd
Metallica
Living Colour
Midnight Oil
The Smithereens

Early to mid 90s (College years)
The Police
The Steve Miller Band
R.E.M.
The Cult
U2
Pearl Jam
Eagles
Foreigner
INXS
Eric Clapton (Solo)
Black Crowes
John Mellencamp
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Smashing Pumpkins

Mid-late 90s
Led Zeppelin
Foo Fighters
Weezer
Nirvana
Bruce Cockburn
At this point I gave up on radio stations and have yet to find many new bands or sounds that I can rally around.

What is your musical timeline? Have you looped back to the old stuff? Have you never looked back at those early influences? Please share!

Thanks for all of the comments on my previous post about your perfect albums. I will have to give a first listen to some of them!

Now, on the same theme of the bemoaning the death of the album, I want to talk about a type of album that’s not necessarily the opposite of the perfection but close.

First, I want to think of artists/bands that you like and have followed throughout their career. Their career should be long enough that they have a few (more than 3) albums under their belt.

Now that you have them in mind, is one of those albums something that was a departure from their musical direction or momentum? This album doesn’t have to suck but when you heard it you did not like it or really wanted it to be more like the “sound” they had established. Did they add synthesizers? Back up singers? Horns? Maybe you can give them a little credit for exploring their artistic side but you wonder “why did they have to let it out of the recording studio?”

Yes, I’m thinking of “Pop” by U2 and “Load” by Metallica,  “Van Halen III”, and the disco album from Kiss. What I’m talking about is the album that you couldn’t wait for its supporting tour to be over with so they can get in the studio to make the “comeback” album. I’m thinking of just one album but maybe the artist/band musically jumped the shark and haven’t come back.

Know what I’m talking about?

Share yours and why!

I just came back from Tom Morello’s Justice Tour show at the Croc in Seattle. Guests included Wayne Kramer from MC5, Steve Earle, and 3/4 of Soundgarden: Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepard.

I wouldn’t say that Rage is my cup of tea but love Audioslave. Tom has some great charisma on stage! He is also a big fan of the musicians that played with him tonight. So fun to see him enjoying himself on stage off stage standing in the crowd.

Kramer and the local Blue Scholars seemed out of their element at the show. Us bunch of young to middle-age white guys didn’t seem to get it. BUT, that is part of the beauty of a jam session-oriented show like the Justice tour, eh? You can get exposed to music you wouldn’t otherwise. Maybe the Seattle crowds act a little too cool for their own room. Possibly a topic for another day.

Glad I got a chance to see Earle again. Last time was at the Woodland Park Zoo with a thousand kids in attendance. A dark club seemed more fitting to his music.

I suppose an almost Soundgarden reunion that includes a run-through of “Spoonman” in a Seattle club is all anyone should hope for and it was fun to see them together. How often does Thayil come out of hiding, anyways? Definitely surreal to see Tom, Kim, Ben and Matt on stage together.

Thanks C-flo for the invite. I always love to see live music especially when it’s played those obviously love their art. Glad I came and glad to know it benefitted a great cause. Even more poignat for me that I used to work in the homeless community in Seattle. I do get THAT!

Perfection is a state of being so hard to come by in any form. But, with music you can find it especially if you make your own rules about what musical perfection is.

Since the record album’s demise as a legitimate unit of music has been long talked about or simply declared dead because of the rise of iTunes and digital music,  I thought it would be a good time to reflect. In other words, since we’ll not likely see another surge in album popularity, it’s time to take stock in what we had.

Do you have a “perfect” album? What makes it a perfect album? If you have to think about it, doesn’t that mean it’s not perfect?

The topic of a perfect album has been done before on the blogosphere.  But, in this instance, this hip hop oriented blogger didn’t really flesh out what makes an album perfect. Even a corporate media blogger at the The Chicago Trib took a turn at it, too, and there are some good examples left by the commenters.

Here’s my take.

An old friend from high school days texted me last week, “I’m playing ‘Moving Pictures’ by Rush over and over and I’m not getting sick of it.” My response: “Because it’s a perfect album”.  I didn’t really think about it before I responded because I just knew it.  It’s not an opinion born out of competitive musical tastes but just a gut feeling I have for that album and several others.

Why is it a perfect album? Here are the rules that I just made up today with the help of my co-worker but also because all of the “perfect albums” I could think of in the last few hours share the same traits. It wasn’t hard.

My rules are:

1.  The album is an original collection of songs. No “greatest hits” of songs from other albums or live albums .
2.  You’ve never become sick of the album.
3.  The songs on the album fit together like a puzzle. But, it doesn’t have to literally be a concept album. Each song complements one another. For example, one song could be a lot less creative than the others but this in turn makes the other songs that much stronger.
4.  There could be a relatively stinky song on the album but, like point #4, it doesn’t stink enough to bring the album out of perfection.
5.  It doesn’t have to be an album by the same artists,  i.e. it can be a soundtrack.
6.  Nor does it have to an album of original material, i.e. it can be cover tunes.
7.  Most importantly… when you hear only one song off the album on the radio or on your MP3 player, you have a strong desire to hear the entire album because it just doesn’t feel right without doing so.

The point is that the songs feel right together, in the order by which they were decided by the artist or producer. It can capture a time your life, be technically groundbreaking or just shred but you think of the music as not just a couple good songs and the rest but rather as a whole unit.

Here’s my list of perfect albums so far, alpha by artist:

Boston, “Boston”
Bruce Cockburn, “Charity of Night”
Soundtrack, “Rush” (mostly Eric Clapton)
Foo Fighters, “The Color and The Shape”
Living Colour, “Vivid”
Metallica, “Master of Puppets”
Metallica, “…and Justice for All”
Prince, “Purple Rain”
R.E.M., “Green”
Rush, “Moving Pictures”
Rush, “Permanent Waves”
Tesla, “Mechanical Resonance” (added 4/5)
U2, “The Unforgettable Fire” (added 3/14)
Van Halen, “5150″
Van Halen, “Van Halen I”
Weezer, The “Blue” Album

What are YOUR “perfect albums”? What rules do you use to determine their perfection? Are they just perfect with no need for explanation?

“You don’t know about Facebook?”

This was the refrain from my classmates in my first graduate level communications class in the fall of 2005. It’s true, I had heard of MySpace but Facebook had yet to make its way to to me. At the time it was a social networking site for only students or those with an” .edu” address. I joined immediately and found only my cousin in Texas was on Facebook from my address book. Four years and 150 friends later, it’s an everyday event for me. Besides the normal crowd of local friends I have found a bunch of high school classmates that I haven’t talked to in 15-20 years. Most of these people I barely knew then and I’ve exchanged FB messages with only a few of them who I actually want to stay in touch with. The others just seem interested in increasing their friend numbers. I’m guilty of it, too. I just wanted to get “inside” some of their facebook pages to find out if they still lived in the hometown or got divorced or some other gossipy detail. Recently, I dumped about 20 of them. Only a coupole actually figured it out and requested to become friends again but I ignored them. I feel pretty good aobut it. I only so much time and energy.

I give you Bacon Explosion.

Bacon is the man’s chocolate.

I live in the 46th legislative district in the state of Washington and we have a total crackpot for a senator. Senator Ken Jacobsen just announced a bill that would allow humans to be buried with their animals. Check the Seattle Times article here.

For the record, I have an 11 year old Black lab mutt named R.I.C.O. and I will miss him dearly when he dies. I’ve joked with friends that I’ll likely have to be on suicide watch because he’s been with me through thick and thin since 1997. With that said, I will give him a proper sendoff when the inevitable happens. I don’t want to be interned with him.

Also, in this year of economic downturn, Senator Jacobsen says this bill will not cost any money since it is a law that will affect private behavior. Except, of course, for all of the hours wasted in committees and so forth to consider such a dumb bill.

How about in this year of economic challenges, why don’t you not introduce bills that make you look like a jackass and make your constituents like me cringe.

My wife is encouraging me to run for the senate in my district to get this kook out of Olympia. My slogan could be “The Ken Who Isn’t a Krackpot” or something else appropriately stupid.

Hey kids-

Just thought I would direct y’all to a blog created by my sister and her masters program classmates. My sister is getting her Masters in Marketing Communications from the University of Kansas.  I’m awful proud of her.

This semester she is taking a seminar called “Communicating Environmental Initiatives”. The class uses a WordPress blog to post entries related to the practice of relating environmental issues to numerous stakeholders. It’s something I also find interesting as a public affairs professional for the federal government.  I did something similar for the “Media, Blogging and Politics” course I took at the University of Washington as part of my Masters in Public Administration.

The blog is a great way to share your writings not only with an instructor but also gets you in the right frame of mind to write for an audience if you haven’t done it before. You can find my posts in the categories labeled COM 460.

“Beerack Obama” born in Seattle

SEATTLE – In a stunning twist, bubbles starting to form on the top of a large glass container in the dining area of a North Seattle resident this morning. The process, know by names such as “fermentation” or “alcholinization”, started without the knowledge of said resident, Ken LeBlond. In fact, the process started while he, his wife and small child slept in the next room.

LeBlond, 37, awoke on the morning of October 19 to the sound of a glurp….glurp…glurp…Walking into the dining area of his palatial estate located in the neighborhood next to the neighborhood on the lake where Bill Gates lives, he followed the sound until determining its source. The glass “carboy”, into which he and Phinney Ridge resident Heather Dowey, had combined water, malt, hops and their hopes the day before was the site of a frothy creation.

“It’s an amazing turn of events,” said LeBlond. “When I went to sleep the night before it was just a mess of ingredients with no activity whatsoever. Now it’s a beautiful mess of yeastie beasties doin’ their thang,” LeBlond continued, “I would like to publicly announce that I will name this concoction ‘Beerack Obama’ because it just sounds cool.”

When asked if he is concerned that the beer would not survive since it is so early in the process and many things could prevent the concoction from realizing its full potential, LeBlond stridently responded, “You may have other values, but I believe beer starts at conception. Beer is precious and wanted in my household no matter what stage it is in. I’m disappointed but not shocked that the liberal media would work from a presumption that beer is only beer when you poor it into a glass with bubbles and alcohol and stuff.”

Ms. Dowey was unavailable for comment. The McCain/Palin campaign did not respond to repeated requests for interviews.

Click on the video below for EXCLUSIVE footage of the early stages of “Beerack Obama”.