Don’t ask me why I obsessively look to rock ’n’ roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess it’s just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.
- Lester Bangs
Today's pick is the Long Island,NY band As Tall As Lions. I am sharing a couple of songs, the first one is off of their 2006 self-titled record, and one is a Counting Crows cover they did that I stumbled across. Enjoy.
Counting Crows 'August And Everything After' is STILL my go to rainy day album...14yrs after hearing it for the first time. Elliot Smith, anything by Elliot Smith, is a close second...but A&EA is still the one! Counting Crows - 'Anna Begins' MP3
The year was 1993 I believe, and I was somewhat obsessed at the time with all things Adam Duritz. It was bad. I listened to 'August And Everything After' so many times, that I am sure I ruined the Counting Crows for most of my friends and family. I would walk around reciting random lyrics off of the record, annoying and confusing anyone within earshot. I spent obscene amounts of money on horribly produced bootlegs. Recordings that sounded like they were taped in a cheap cassette player in some guy's pocket who was standing at the bar watching show.
Via my obsession, I stumbled across this band Sordid Humor, also from the Bay Area. I always loved this track, and Adam Duritz has the perfect voice for backing vocals. It's funny, when I play this tune I am transported back immediately to the summer and fall after I graduated high school. Ah, the power of music.
I wanted to love this movie. I really, really did...but alas, it just isn't a great film.
Matthew Broderick plays a television writer and a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, who is now clinging to his one last vice - gambling. Maura Tierny plays his wife, who is obviously exhausted from spending years married to an addict. When the couple finds out that their 20yr old niece, played by Brittany Snow has moved to Las Vegas and has taken 'work' as a prostitute, Broderick's character sees this as a last ditch effort to prove to his wife that he is not as selfish as she thinks he is. He embarks on an impromptu road trip to Vegas with the intention of bringing his niece back to a Malibu Rehab center.
If you just thought to yourself, 'Maybe Vegas ISN'T the best place for a gambling addict to be going'...you'd be right. Misadventure ensues. The premise here is so great. One broken person attempting to come to the rescue of another broken person...in the capital of broken people, Las Vegas. But the movie can't seem to decide on what it want's to be, and in the end it just seemed a bit muddled. Not horrible by any sense, just dissapointing. Final verdict? Wait for video.
...or my email is anyway! Hey, it's me Blair...the Certain Songs staff of one. I just do this for the love of the music and am in no way trying to rip anybody off, so if you are an artist or a record label and you are not happy that I am promoting your music, or you want me to take a song down, just shoot me an email and I will most definitely oblige.
And please support the artists I post here in whatever way you can if you do download a song...go to a show, buy some merch, buy an album...these songs are the soundtrack to my life and I just love to share them. But I can only do that if the insanely talented artist responsible for said songs are able to eat.
I also love hearing new stuff...so any submissions can also be sent to my email, I will try my bestest to listen to everything and get back to you all...peace,love,rock n' roll.
csmusicblog@gmail.com
Monthly Mix Tape
Mission Statement
I guess you're old enough to know. Kids out on the east coast. Roughly twenty years old. Got coaxed out by a certain perfect ratio. Of warm beer to the summer smoke. And the meat loaf to the billy joel. Certain songs they get so scratched into our souls.
She goes low on the seats when she gets high in her car. She looks shallow but shes neck deep in the steamy dreams of the guys along the harbor bars. She's pulling out her shirttails and jacking up her socks. Stern and stoned and confident, coming up towards the jukebox. Born into the only songs that everybody finally sings along. B-1 is for the good girls. It's only the good die young. C-9 is for the making eyes. It's paradise by the dashboard light. D4 is for the lovers. B12 is for the speeders. And the hard drugs are for the bartenders and the kitchen workers and the bartender's friends. And they're playing it again. Ellen Foley gives us hope. Certain songs they get scratched into our souls.
I guess you're old enough to know. Kids out on the west coast are taking off their clothes. Screwing in the surf and going out to shows. They get high and ride around in gtos. I guess you're old enough to know. CERTAIN SONGS THEY GET SCRATCHED INTO OUR SOULS. - The Hold Steady
