more jams

I prefer certain musical genres over others, as I imagine most people do, but I haven't found a particular type of music in which I can't find some band I like. Today being library day, we have a few new cd's to which we'll shake our booties for a couple of weeks. I am generally willing to give the boys a chance to pick music from the library. Big Brother often does, though The Boy usually doesn't.

This time he did. He doesn't read yet, and he has no noticeable musical leanings other than Thomas the Tank Engine music which is kid's music that I willingly make allowances for. Usually he just gets the first thing his hand happens to land on. Today he grabbed Vic Damone. I feel pretty certain that I've heard of but can't place Vic. I just put the cd in, and I'm willing to listen for a bit before refusing to let the cd end. According to the case, the songs include both Tonight and Maria from West Side Story. That's not a bad sign.

The selections I made that I'm most looking forward to are James Galway and the Chieftains album In Ireland as well as a best of cd of George Jones. I love George Jones, but I don't actually own any of his music, so we'll have it now. The Chieftains are a band I've recently gotten into. Having listened to The Thistle and Shamrock, a celtic music show on NPR, I was sure I'd like them. My mistake the first time I picked up one of their albums was getting the album on which they team up with various country musicians to play uninspired versions of country songs. I have listened to other Chieftains albums since and know that I'll be likely to enjoy the one I picked up today.

I also picked up Danger Doom, The Mouse and the Mask. I know very little about this group other than that they are hip-hop. I seem to remember some song of theirs that I liked. I haven't listened to it yet, at least not past the first song. I put it in leaving the library and decided I just wasn't in a hip-hop mood at the time. It didn't help that there were bits from Cartoon Network characters, which I hope does not occur throughout the album. Even good music can be tainted with crap to the point that it's rendered suckfull.

Finally, I grabbed some David Bowie, a cd titled Early On. It replaced Danger Doom in the car and is not what I expected from Bowie. I'm not saying I didn't or don't or won't like it as I need to give it more of a chance, but it isn't what anyone would expect who is used to the more typical David Bowie. We were listening to Ziggy Stardust in the car going to the library, so that was certainly on my mind when Early On began. As the name implies, it's early Bowie. It has a sort of early-mid '60's garage sound, and it isn't bad. I'll just have to listen to it again without the preconceived notion thing happening.

Having basically finished this post, I've also listened to just over half of the Vic Damone, and I don't exactly hate it. He is/was a good singer, but he kind of sounds like a cut rate Frank Sinatra. That's not the worst way to be, and if it pays the bills then have at it. He sounds like grandmothers swoon over him in small southern towns that trick the law by digging moats that they fill with technically floating riverboat casinos. Suffice it to say, it's worth listening to because he picks good songs to sing mostly okay.

bottle cap school?

I'm enjoying a bottle of Honest Tea Assam Black Tea. It's really delightful stuff and could easily turn me into a tea geek were it not for coffee and beer. Honest Tea always prints something in the cap of the bottles, often some informative tidbit. This time it's even interesting, so I'll type it exactly as it is on the cap.

Tea was introduced to Europe in the mid-1600's. By the 1700's, it had replaced beer as the beverage of choice at breakfast.

When your best water is likely to make you sick, beer, because it's been boiled and sanitized, is a much better option. Tea, and then coffee, both because they've also been cooked and due to the stimulant caffeine, brought us an end to day long drunkenness and the beginning of the enlightenment. I imagine that they also helped us learn to quit pissing and shitting in our water supply, or maybe with the various scientific advances, we figured out that certain things leave our bodies for a good reason and should therefore not be reingested. Some days however, beer for breakfast isn't the worst idea I can imagine, though it made a lot more sense before having children.