Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

If you know me at all, you know I’m a long-time, HUGE Throwing Muses fan. Kristin Hersh is the lead singer of that band. Her half-sister, Tonya Donnelly, was in the original lineup and went on to be in Belly and in the Breeders for a bit. For years, Kristin has done both Throwing Muses albums and solo albums, and recently, she created a new band called 50 Foot Wave, and their EP is DIVINE! The last time I saw her live was a solo gig in Bloomington, Indiana, and it wasn’t her best (although Andrew Bird performed that night, and he was wonderful. There was another forgettable guy, but I always forget his name. He was forgettable.) Before that gig, I last saw TM in London. I went alone and had a completely wonderful time. There are always friends to be made amongst rabid fans of a particular artist if you walk way up front and keep your ears open.

Anyway, 50 Foot Wave will be releasing their first full-length album within days, and I just can’t wait! To get you all excited about it, I’m sharing with you a very enjoyable article. It’s an interview with TM’s bass player, whose day job is in a bike shop. It’s called INTERVIEW WITH MY CO-WORKER, THE ROCK STAR.

To get yourself REALLY pumped up for the new release, go watch this video for "Clara Bow."

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There’s a rumor she’s going to do a cover of the Pixie’s "Wave of Mutilation" on another upcoming compilation album. Shhh! Keep it on the DL.

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I never said why “Case of You” was important to me. Joni Michell’s Blue came out when I was about 2 years old, and my dad had a copy of it. I lived in England until I was just under 5 years old, and I remember this always being my dad’s favorite (along with Cream’s Wheels of Fire, Beatles, Rubber Soul, and Don McLeans’s American Pie). Over time, I have worn through my dad’s tape copies of Blue, a few vinyl copies, a few more cassettes, and a couple of CDs (the one I have now is on its way out). Coincidentally, I was born a pretty high soprano, and if I sing without the training in my voice, it’s quite similar to Joni Mitchell (you know, before the decades of chain-smoking). I used Blue to warm up in the car on the way to voice auditions, and I’ve had relationships with each of the songs on it. “Case of You” stands out to me because of the beauty and the naiveté of the main lyric:

Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh, I would still be on my feet

The first time these words meant more to me than just that album I liked to sing along to was the first time I fell in love. I fell hard, and I thought that noone had ever loved more than me… not ever. And after a few years, that relationship became less than healthy, but I guess I didn’t notice the slide down the slippery slope. Why? I was drunk on a case of him, I guess.

Now, I still love the song, because it fits right into my voice, and because it reminds me of me – at every age. It’s always been with me, and it probably always will be.

Joni Mitchell’s Blue

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Today was a pretty exhausting day. Spent about 4 hours over at a school dealing with a case… the case an administrator keeps referring to as "trial by fire" for a little intern like me! It was a trying morning, then on the way home in the car, I got a call saying I have an interview for a post-doc applied for recently. So that’s really good news! Happy me! Then later on, two cancellations that I was secretly kind of happy about. A couple of hours ago I reread the description of the job, and it’s a little different than I had first thought. Just like when I use a recipe, I always miss a detail or two. I’m still qualified, but I’m not as over-the-top excited as I was earlier. Still… a potential job. A way to move. It’s what I want, so I am happy.

Tonight, I thought I’d kick back and relax. Saw "21 Grams" sitting on the coffee table from my free Blockbuster trial membership. I put it in my queue because I heard it was filmed at my apartment complex. I tried skimming it, but it kept hooking me in. I probably watched about 40% of the whole movie, but man, it was wonderful. It was desperate. It was heartbreaking. I probably don’t need anything that heavy given my day job, but I think I may have to go back and watch the whole thing properly. I didn’t see my apartment building, but I saw lots of other things I recognized.

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Oh, and I won’t keep you hanging on why I love "Happiness is a Warm Gun" so much. It ain’t no thing. I have had many Beatles phases in my life, starting with my dad’s copy of Rubber Soul back when I was little bitty. This had another strong resurgence around the 5th grade when I asked for "The Beatles Box" for my birthday. By the time I reached college, I had gotten pretty far in their discography, but I never really GOT the white album… not until I met Annie. Annie turned me on to The Beatles I had always thought was "weird." Now, I can’t even imagine thinking the white album is weird in the least. Another thing about it is that it is singable in my rock ‘n’ roll voice, and it was one of the first things I could sing very well that way. Somehow all the classical training always ends up coming through. I think it probably still does, but "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was my first success in that arena.

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I’ve been sitting on this one for a few days. I got the invite from Laura, over at Cucina Testa Rossa. I have to be nice to her, in case I ever go to Paris and need a place to stay! 😛

The part about this that’s slowing me down is the picking of the 5 songs and the writing about their meaning (so many songs, so little time), so I’m just going to go for the obvious ones and write the meaning part later! Oh, and I’m excluding the choral, classical, etc, because that’s not what this is about… but know if I didn’t exclude, Brahms’ Requiem would be in here!

What is the total amount of music files on your computer?

26.5 GB, 7,612 files. Eek!

The CD you last bought?

Jazz ‘Round Midnight by Ella Fitzgerald. This is one of my very favorite Ella collections, and I only ever had it on tape! I’ve been looking for a copy of it for a while, and I finally found it on iTunes of all places!

What was the last song you listened to before reading this message?

I haven’t had any music on today. It was some Bessie Smith in the car, or it was when I was listening to the album Bring it On by Gomez, or it was “Sweet Thing” by Rufus and Chaka Khan on my iTunes!

Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you. [I’m going with the mean a lot to me thing.]

1. “Case of You” by Joni Mitchell
2. “With a Song in my Heart” as sung by Ella Fitzgerald
3. “Wolves, Lower” by R.E.M.
4. “Pearl” by Throwing Muses
5. “Happiness is a Warm Gun” by The Beatles

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

1. Aaron, because he needs to blog more.
2. E.J., who I don’t know that well, but who seems to have really good musical taste.
3. Adam, because I know he’ll write something really funny.

Meanings coming soon. I promise!

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Update: It’s kind of amazing to me that in my list of 5, there is no Gomez, no Saw Doctors, and no Billy Bragg. With them, it’s more likely whole albums. I have probably seen those three more live in recent years than any others on the list (besides Kristin Hersh/Throwing Muses).

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I’m here at Otherlands Coffee Shop to drink coffee and use the WiFi, as my new speedy Road Runner cable modem is, sadly, down. It was a very busy morning testing one kid at one school and doing therapy with another across town. Ah, the exciting nomadic life of an almost-School Psychologist!

I’m going to sit here until I get a spectacular cover letter written for another job possibility in Boston. I can’t believe how busy I’ve been this week. I seem to work 15 hours a day. When I do new things (like write Psych reports using new LD criteria, for example), I tend to take forever the first few times, until I’m really confident I’m doing a damn good job. I want it done correctly! Working in the schools might frustrate me if I do it long-term for a few reasons, one being that I like to do really thorough assessments, and in the schools, they want quick and dirty testing, and reports that aren’t too long. I prefer the opposite, but I will say that having to do it their way is probably really good for me. Damn perfectionism!

They have Sirius radio on. You know, the station that got Howard Stern. Anyway, it’s this 80s alt-pop hits, and I of course know every word. "Noone Is to Blame" by Howard Jones (the Howard post!). So I say that I love this song, and Aaron says, "Isn’t it ironic?" His point is that "Noone Is to Blame" and "Isn’t It Ironic?" by Alanis Morisette have similarly bizarre lyrics… Which reminds me of the worst lyrics ever written in pop song lyrics… And the winner is…

"It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife."

I mean… WHAT?! Alanis is an idiot. I’m sorry. The only reason that "You Oughtta Know" was good was Flea and Dave Navarro. The rest of her career has just been a sad fluke.

So anyway, what I was going to say about that Howard Jones song is that in high school, I have the most vivid memory of driving my boyfriend Tristan crazy with that song in the back of Algebra II class. My friend Malcolm and I were both bored out of our minds with the work our "teacher" had given us, so we were singing and living it up, and Tristan was so focused! I recall really pissing him off with it that day. Wonder how they’re both doing. Last I heard, Tristan was expecting his second child and working in a corporate law firm and Malcolm was some bigwig at JP Morgan. Go them!

OK, I’m clearly on a ramble-fest. If you read all of this. If you get even half of it, then good on ya!

Off to chart my future from the local coffee shop…

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