San Diego Serenade

Usually my vacations end up having a song that is readily identifiable with the experience of the trip. Sometimes it's because of chance, like the trip to New Orleans in 2003 when In Da Club was as inescapable as Golddigger was last year, sometimes it's because of wilfull repetition, like the trip to New Orleans in 2000 when I forced everyone to come into a UNC dorm room at 2 AM to download and listen to Kid Rock's "Only God Knows Why" for the tenth time on the trip. This trip had a more natural flow to the soundtracking progress, with a decent mix of old favorites and songs that I didn't realize how awesome they were until they came on at just the right moment. Without further ado:

Click to check out my shirt

1. Bob Dylan - She's No Good : I needed to make a costume for this trip for the concert I would be playing in. I thought that writing a song lyrics on a plain white t-shirt would be a good idea; the trick was picking the right song. My first thought was Dylan's "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," then i considered the Hold Steady's "How A Resurrection Really Feels," but while I was worrying that these two songs might not be perfect, the first song on Dylan's first album came on. A half hour and a sore hand later, I had my t-shirt.

2. Wynn Walent - The Well Is Always Dry : This was the third song I considered, but didn't know if Wynn would want his music used in such a fashion. Despite the concerns that he may or may not have had, it was intended as nothing other than a heartfelt tribute to my favorite song of his.

3. Grateful Dead - Brokedown Palace : Long trips are ideal spots for getting a chance to listen to all the new music I get, but I find it tough lately to listen to anything other than the Grateful Dead while travelling. I listened to this 1972 Dick's Picks Vol 11 version of Brokedown Palace several times on the flight out and on the flight back, and the fact that I didn't get into a vicious argument with someone who might have disputed it's status as the best song of all time (at least for this week) is a miracle.

4. Brian Eno - 1/1 : When the Dead proved unable to lull me to sleep on my comfortable airplane seat tray, I turned to this song, which is really cool and reminds me of song 2 on Kid A.

5. Blue Oyster Cult - Career of Evil : Evidently my band subconsciously ripped off the riff from this BOC song for our song "Mr. Brown", but I think it is slightly different enough that it just makes both songs even cooler.

6. The Beatles - I've Just Seen A Face : After driving through the wasteland that was Route 1 and the NJ turnpike, we waited in a line 45 minutes long to go through the Lincoln Tunnel. This song playing as we finally got to drive through made the whole experience slightly worth it.

7. The Ramones - Rockaway Beach : I flew into JFK which is evidently right by Rockaway Beach. We listened to this as we cruised up the West Side Highway on the way to our gig. One of my favorite things about going to NYC the first few times I did were seeing all the places that people like the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang rapped about. I would have preferred that the squalor of Rockaway Beach had remained forever obscured by this glorifying song.

8. Re-Ree - Let's Get Radical : So Re-Ree is my band, (It's a joke), and this is a song that we rehearsed but didn't get to perform at the concert we played. I tried to get the singer to do onstage push ups during an instrumental break of this song, like Yellowman did when we saw him in concert one time like five years ago

9. The Faces - Ooh La La - This came on someones stereo the last night we were in town. I was going to call my brother and just let the song play (for no real reason) but I learned then that I didn't have his phone number.

10. David Shultz - The Flaws : The next day, (feeling wonderful after the kind of night where I have ideas like calling my brother and playing a Faces song), I went over to my friends and tried to finally get him to listen to the Hold Steady, which I had evidently been talking about all damn weekend to whomever would listen. He refused to borrow the roomates computer until the CD by David Shultz finished playing. Normally that would make me hate whatever artist was on, but as it turns out, I really, really like this guy and downloaded his CD from eMusic yesterday.

11. The Hold Steady : How A Resurrection Really Feels : Then I finally got a chance to play this and of course it was an awesome way to cap off an awesome weekend.

Links:

David Shultz, Wynn Walent, Re-Ree, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Brian Eno, Blue Oyster Cult, Beatles, Ramones, Faces, Hold Steady