Music I Really Have on Vinyl, the Winter Edition

LYRIC O’ THE DAY:
Once I had a love and it was divine
Soon I found out I was losing my mind
--Heart of Glass, Blondie

I feel the need to apologize.  I fell off the face of the earth a couple weeks ago; holed myself up into a sweet vacuum of internet silence.  I have missed out on so many wonderful things you all have had to say and I will never catch up.

I could claim it was a planned break.  I had to cook turkey for 85 guests.  I was wrapping presents for homeless Weimaraners.  I briefly joined the Holiday Rockettes as a roadie.  There was an unfortunate kale incident, but the incision is healing nicely.  When the Solstice came, I went home for a while to my own galaxy. 


Alas, the truth is I have no good excuse other than feeling a bit overwhelmed and underinspired.  I just haven't felt right.  Or write, as the pun may be.

I'm anxious, which is typical for year's end.  The process of reflection tends to poke me where it hurts, and sometimes the idea of a new year is more daunting than refreshing.  So I felt a need to disconnect from bright and shiny things for a while.  I guess for Christmas I gave myself a little present . . . taking the time to be really present.

A while back I discussed my love of vinyl.  Records that is.  Although I have a fantastic pair of pleather pants that make me look just like a Nebraska mom version of Dominatrix Barbie.
 *shudders*
Anyway, when I feel low or unfocused, I have always found music brings me through.  It soothes the savage gypsy, so to speak.

So here’s another look into my album collection.  In no particular order of obsession, mind you.

Brian Setzer remains one of my faves.

Peter Steele was at times crude and definitely not PC, but the raw emotion in his songs has always hit a nerve with me.  He died just when it seemed he had championed over his demons. 

Electropop before we knew what it was.  Alison Moyet has a great angsty voice.

You likely don't know this guy, but he is Swedish guitar goodness.  The name might have held him back from commercial success.  Americans do better with Justins.

This is the only Christmas song that I truly love.  My mother would play this over and over for me when I was a kid.

Just watched this with the kids the other night.  Still better than most of the scifi movies out there now.  Same guy scored Close Encounters of the Third Kind, too.

Love this musical.  And according to some, 2012 is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

The album's title reflects revolution--and a handgun.  Interesting to wonder if it was meant that way.

Had the hugest crush on Joe Elliot, and the hugest amount of respect for Rick Allen, the band's drummer who returned to the scene despite losing his left arm in a motor vehicle accident.

Their remake of Sweet Jane is pretty amazing.

I desperately wanted Deborah Harry's hair.  And her cool.

This was the hair I got instead of Blondie's, courtesy of Aqua Net.

Only the Dead can mesh the birth of Venus and a skeleton into a cohesive album cover.

One of the first metal albums I listened to.  Probably inspired my love of platforms.

In the garden of Eden,  baby.  Lexiconfusion at its best.

Great Society was Grace's band before Jefferson Airplane, and she sings White Rabbit on this.  We will not speak of Starship.  Remember what the Dormouse said.

Pre-dread locked Axl.  I think all that torque on his scalp did something to his brain.  Should have stayed with the ratted hair, could have saved the band.

A recent purchase given my burgeoning Blues fetish.

This movie/book disturbs me.  Especially the giant padded codpieces.

Listening to this is the only thing I remember from kindergarten music.  And I just shared it with my son, who thought it was pretty cool, too.

I hope you all had a beautiful holiday and have great things planned for the new year.  I leave you with a neat little thing a friend sent me on the origins of dance music. 

http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-map/index.html

Poetry Schmoetry Blogfest

LYRIC O' THE DAY:

When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low

And resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow

And we're changing our ways, taking different roads

Love, love will tear us apart, again

--Love Will Tear Us Apart, Joy Division

I do not write poetry.  I love to read it, but the closest I’ve been to actually writing the stuff was a blatant rip-off of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” in my holiday letters from 2005.  I blame my high school English class; they voted to read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People in lieu of dissecting the works of Walt Whitman.  I never recovered, and I forgot all those ways to make people like me anyway.

When I saw the Poetry Schmoetry blogfest via Summer Ross's blog, I realized that this was my chance for redemption. The power of rhyme compelled me.

The hardest part was settling on a subject.  I’ve been a little discombobulated about life lately--at a crossroads some would say.  So I chose to write about the anxiety that plagues me at times and trying to defeat it.  I’m not sure if it made me a poet, but the process did force some raw introspection, which might be the point.  Plus, it was pretty darn fun.  So here you have it, my white wedding to poetry.  

Feeding the fear

She is here, with her taste of metal and brackish stink.

My heart strains against sinewy confines but it won’t escape.  

This I know, I studied the book and the white coats say it’s impossible.

Yet still I wonder.

Her touch not real, a product of my overloaded brain trying to organize, compartmentalize.

Rationalize.

Some days my swagger is impaired, the facade of calm ragged and I worry she will notice, she will finally claim me.

She taunts me.  Hunts this poor white trash that got an education; drinks my claustrophobia in that coat decorated with serpent’s staff. 

And she bloats larger.

Gorging on doubt and hot shame of failure to fulfill my different gypsy destiny.

The rush of blood in my neck drowns my stuttering pulse, the waves fill my throat to cease empty bartering for time wasted.

But I am of the air.

I rip myself from her sodden arms and suck the sweet taste of a blue sky.  With caustic eye/I push her down, crush her larynx to silence her siren’s calls. 

Mistress panic, you will go hungry today.