Classic Timeless - I want you to want me

While camping  a few weekends ago, my friend Terry Lee suggested that my next blog, instead of doing a band or album, to just do a song that is timeless and great. Oh, the many to choose from. My brain racked through a list of Elvis, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, etc. So many to choose from, but where to go with this? Then it occurred to me, my all time favorite song is a perfect one.

Cheap Trick - I want you to want me.

The lyrics are so simple, the music so upbeat. I am sure it is the most realistic romantic song ever written. We all want to have someone sing those words to us and mean it. We all wanted to sing those words to someone else because we know we mean it too. How can you go wrong? Even Diet Coke years ago had the best commercial for this song. It says everything I am trying to say here. Odd that a commercial is where I go with this, but check it out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DUM_8Xpw44

I get all giddy and happy everytime I see that commercial. I guess cause it makes sense. 

The song was on Cheap Trick's second album "In Color" that came out a year before I was born. The most famous version,  and easiest to find is the live version on "Cheap Trick at Budokan". Both great. It is amazing how many covers exists as well.  Some are great like Chris Issak's, and some are absolutely horrible like Lindsey Lohan's (seriously, really?). But they are not the only ones, you have Dwight Yoakam right there rocking the song while NOFX does the same thing.

It will never get old. Period. 

The Born Ruffians

http://www.bornruffians.com/new/

http://www.myspace.com/bornruffians 

Let me start this off by saying…KEXP is my b.f.f, my lifeline and my sanity. I thank my lucky stars the day iTunes came out and I can listen to my Seattle station deep in the plastic of Orange County, CA. Check it out!

www.kexp.org

So that is my intro. That is where I found these guys originally. Another note on my "to-do" list.

Yet the album showed up in my iTunes with no explanation, but I think we all have that now and again where you don’t remember where you got it, but it is there. Maybe my brother Mr. CNOTE, hooked me up on his last visit. Again, I’m not sure.

I never listened to the entire album consecutively until recently. It is one of those albums that my shuffle is obsessed with. I like that though, especially early in the morning when I am in route to work. It is something to start my blood pushing through my veins to wake my sleepy head up (at least until I can get to Starbucks).

They are a touch different than most of the stuff I am stuck on, but that is not saying much. The only thing I can compare them to is if Vampire Weekend had a love child with the band The View. Again, not entirely the best comparison, but I believe it holds some truth.

Their album – Red, Yellow and Blue is one that works well if you need a pick-me-up, or definitely great if you are with a ton of people jumping around enjoying life. Kind of reminds me of “Pain in the Grass” days where we all would go to the Seattle Center every Friday night during the summer for a free concert under the Space Needle. Same vibe. (Seana B – where are you my dancing friend!?!)

I like that even the mellower songs are still up beat in some sort of way. For example, the song I love is “Little Garçon” which starts out with that lovely feel to it, and slowly picks up tempo, but cute.

Should I refer to a song as “cute”?

Oh heck, so be it. That is the best way to describe the song, including the one that keeps getting stuck in my head called “Hedonistic Me” but then again, I’m a firm believer in Hedonistic thinking. That may be why?

Back to the music - getting side tracked.

I will be honest, I really have to be in the mood for this sort of fast, higher funky type of music. It isn’t a sound I usually seek out when I am not sure what I want to listen to. I normally like my mellow guitar singer/song writers, or for the fast - old school punk (variety).

Maybe I wouldn’t be as grumpy if I did listen to more of this sort of music though? Food for thought?

With that being said, I don’t think I have ever hit “skip” when this album pops up in a shuffle. The songs stay with me too. That takes something. I find myself walking the shop at work, humming “I need a life” with a little bounce to my step. That can’t be a bad thing, right?

So with this being a sound I don’t normally revolve around, or seek – I have to blame my brother. Chris is my music guru. I love his passion in music, sometime I agree head over heels with his suggestions, sometime all I can say is "Really?”. But that boy has become very into the faster “perky” music and I think it is wearing off on me.

So I’m finishing this while listening to “Kurt Vonnegut” and having a hard time completing it, since I keep pausing and either tapping on the desk, or forgetting what I was doing. Again, not a bad thing.

To be honest though, I am struggling with this one to share. I am all over the board on why I like this album, when it isn’t really my “type” of album. I guess you will just have to check it out yourself. If you like sunshine, friends, and popsicles, you may definitely like this (again, who knows what that means, but seems to make perfect sense when I am listening). 

Tap your toes!

Leslie and the Badgers

http://www.myspace.com/leslieandthebadgers

http://buzzbands.la/2009/06/29/leslie-the-badgers-mark-their-smokin-new-release/

http://cdbaby.com/cd/lesliebadgers

http://www.laweekly.com/events/leslie-and-the-badgers-the-chapin-sisters-olin-and-the-moon-eagle-winged-palace-616696/

 

So this is how I came to find Leslie and the Badgers…well, let me start with this… My obsession with 140 characters to tell the world what I am doing. Period.

davepal @robiart Check out Leslie and the Badgers on iTunes. They have an EP there. New full-length comes out today. I think you'd really like 'em!

Now @davepal rarely steers me wrong, so I filed this for a few days in the back of my “to do” list.  I feel I owe some explanation, I rarely get to my “to do” list, so some things get neglected easily. But for some cosmic reason yet to be determined…this one moved up towards the top one morning.

My other vice/obsession (Starbucks – shhh I know its bad), has me venturing into the coffee shop that sees me every morning like I’m a character from Cheers and goes “Morning Jenny - iced nonfat chai latte with a pump of sugar free hazelnut?” This morning took a bit longer than usual, so I take out my iPhone and open the app twitterfon and see @davepal’s message again. What the heck! $4.95 later I am the proud owner of the Leslie and the Badger’s EP.

That night, on my hell commute home (which is where I mainly get lost in music), I turn the new tunes on.

I start out with the song “Old Timers”. She definitely has a great voice, but I get a little grumpy at first…sounded like I was listening to a new Jenny Lewis album. Now don’t get me wrong, NOTHING wrong with hearing a Jenny Lewis Rabbit Fur Coat - like band, but I was hoping for a bit of something NEW. But I didn’t stop the album (thankfully). By the end of the song, the lyrics have grabbed me.  Screw first impressions!

Now, again, with fairness, I am a sucker for lost love type songs. But there is a sweet yet sadness to the line “we'll be together 'til they call us old timers”

Where to move on from here? Tracks keep coming…Shoulder to cry on up next.

Then I get to the blues-ish (is that even a word?)  sounding song “torture” and keep moving, getting more and more involved. All my prejudices of sound-a-likes and such are now out the window. I love when I find a cd or band, where the musical genre is preserved in each song, but each song has it’s own “flavor”. I found the perfect example with this EP.

With my parents originally from Pikeville, KY, I have always had a love for country music. When I was little, I may have been the only 5 years old that knew all the lyrics to Dolly Parton’s Jolene (disturbing, yes, but I wear it with pride like a badge on my chest). So with that being said, I am a very critical judge of what some call “modern country”.

Here is how I judge this new twang called Modern County... Does it have heart? Does it have soul? Can I tap my toes? Can it make me remember hot humid summers in the Cumberland Mountains of the Appalachians? And more importantly, can it make me feel like I am anywhere but Los Angeles (simply, can it take me away)?

Success!

The proof came when I got to the song “That’d be fine”. I listened to this song probably 6 times in a row and all those key elements feel into place. Now again, let me remind everyone that everyone finds love in music for various random reasons, these are just mine in this one particular genre. But BAM it was a hit.

LAWeekly stated it best…” Leslie & the Badgers are quietly turning into one of the city’s best quiet bands.”

I find that this album is on repeat a lot over the past few weeks while stuck on the 405 dreaming of where the song can take me way to. The voice meets music mix has that heart I was looking for. I find myself (although I am horrible keeping tempo) tapping my fingers on my steering wheel and pretending my voice can actually hit the notes she hits. My head continues to rock…then I see the man next to me watching me from his beat up Toyota like I had just escaped from the looney bin, so I give him a wink. Drums and bass take over, a little guitar, and the voice takes hold again.

“and if you can not sing, then I will, and if you can not sing, then I will…if you can not sing your final dieing song…I promised you baby that I will”

Yep. Best $5 I have spent in awhile. And now I am hooked.

Thanks @davepal for the suggestion. I’m off to get the full length on the 7^th when it hits iTunes.