This year I decided to expand my music horizons. I have a CD collection, but it is dominated by late 80's and early 90's bands. For a long time I didn't buy any new CD's and just listened to the radio. Earlier in the year I asked some friends to loan me a few of their favorite CD's. Not music they thought I would like - I wanted music they liked.
Eric gave me Circle of Dust, Cranes, Gus Gus, Psykosonik, Massive Attack, and Sister Machine Gun. I was excited because honestly, I had never heard of any of these groups before.
Krisanne gave me Jude, Morphine, Neil Finn, Sinéad Lohan, and Ryan Adams. At least I had heard of Morphine and Neil Finn!
Ben loaned me Leonard Cohen, Matthew Sweet, and some Radiohead. I also know he and his wife Jenny like Weezer. Of these, I had only heard of Radiohead and Weezer.
Gail sent me some Sam Roberts and Nina Simone, neither of which I had heard of.
So far this is working out great - I am getting suggestions of music I've mostly never even heard of! I've bought some new music as a result - Thievery Corporation, Crystal Method, Massive Attack, Visqueen, Weezer, Radiohead. I went to see Crystal Method and Jude in concert, and enjoyed both.
My latest friends to give me some music to try is Noelani and her husband Dustin. They are fans of "non-mainstream" bands such as NOFX, Dead Milkmen, Ugly Casanova, and DK [EDIT: now I know that DK stands for the Dead Kennedys]. All these groups were new to me except for the Dead Kennedys, and I'm pretty sure I haven't heard any of their music. I haven't had a chance to listen to it all yet - so far just the NOFX. It's catchy, some songs use other styles (reggae, 50's) and override that with a fast punk twist. Can you imagine that? Interesting lyrics also.
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Dustin here (too lazy to sign up for an account).
I just wanted to point out that the DK there was Dead Kennedys. These guys were making awesome political music while I was still potty training. They were my favorite band during high school, though they'd already dissolved.
Recently, though, Noelani went to the Punk Voter tour in Santa Cruz, mainly to see NOFX who was headlining and Jello Biafra - former lead signer and songwriter from the Dead Kennedys. I'm not sure if Jello Biafra actually makes music anymore, but he was there to provide motivational speeches to the kids to encourage them to get more involved in local politics.
I was completely shocked when NOFX started playing a Dead Kennedys song and Jello Biafra came out and sang it. It was, ``Too Drunk to Fuck.'' Not exactly my favorite song, but it was like the auditorium turned into a time machine that took me back to see a part of history I thought had long passed. On the floor, someone had one of those blow-up punching bag things with the likeness of George W Bush and started throwing it around the mosh pit. Jello asked for it in the middle of the song and started dry humping (and otehrwise molesting) it on stage.
I think it brough a little tear to my eye. *sob*
Except for being excessively loud, the show was great, though. NOFX opened (I believe) with ``Murder the Governement,'' with a slightly modified beginning:
``I wanna see Dick Cheney have a heart attack
I wanna see my buddy come home from Iraq
I wanna see the President giving head.''
Thanks to Jello Biafra and the punching doll, he got at least one of his wishes that night.
Uh, the end.
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