I'm sippy a cocktail and getting ready to get into a fly girl party dress and head off to a party at the boyfriend's friend's house.
Wow this isn't where I thought I'd be 365 days ago when I was sitting at Sushiya with Kristin and Kenny and Amber. I wasn't sure what 2010 was going to bring.
It brought a lot of changes. A new job. New love. New house. New city. New friends.
Man who knew?
I didn't.
Last year I wrote a blog on New Years Eve called "Just say F@#k it" because life had just been too hard for too long and I decided to take up the motto "F#@k it." It sort of served me pretty well this year. I did things I never thought I would. Had great experiences. Moved forward (but not completely on, y'all back home are still in my heart big time, always.) and just hoped for things to get better.
You're gonna get two blogs from me today, but let's start with the easiest one, the rest of the music I loved in 2010...
Heard this the first morning I was in Chico as a resident. I was watching MTV every morning while I got ready for work and man, sucker punch.
One of the songs I heard ALOT of when I visited SLO back in September. Such a great trip and I got to see everyone I wanted to.
I loved playing this on Wild because hey, I knew some stuff about Travie McCoy, for once I wasn't a total moron!
This song was the soundtrack to moving. Seriously La Roux get straight up out of my head.
I don't get the video at all but Gaga, I love you. And this song.
OMG epic. Like painfully epic cool. "Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger!"
Gaga you're a freakin' space alien but let's be BFF's, you like Betsey Johnson right?
The Texas Hippie Coalition feels like my personal rock radio discovery this year. I gotta give mad love to Matty Martino over at Landshark Promotions for always turning me on the good stuff. This band is channeling Pantera in a huge way. My listeners have been going NUTS for this one for a long time. And Big Rich gives great interviews. So epic.
Red Line Chemistry is another Matt Martino special, along with my friend Ken Pittman, both of them worked this record to me. As someone who grew up in the 90's my ears do perk up a little at anything that sounds sort of Seattle. RLC came by my station and did a little in studio with us and it was hella fun. Nice guys, I hope they make it!
This Janus song we were already playing when I got here but I'm not gonna lie, I liked it. I think it's mostly the song structure, since it reminds me of a lot of stuff I'd listen to on my own. I know next to nothing about this band but this was one of the songs that stuck out a little more in the waves of active rock I had thrown my way this year.
Yes I realize Shakira makes some of you want to put your fingers in your ears in search of your ear drums to puncture them, but if that's the case, mute it and just watch the video. :)
I tried really hard not to like this song. It goes against all of my beliefs (she says after posting a Ke$ha song like a week ago) but damn if it didn't get me...
Speaking of Ke$ha....
Jojo gave me a copy of the Ke$ha CD while I worked at Wild. Show prep and all that. On FIRST listen I said "Animal" is a single. The next one even. I wasn't wrong... This may not have been as big as "Your Love is My Drug" or "Tik Tok," (please skeezy, learn to spell you're so maddening!) but I think this is actually a better song. That's because I love me some bass. And I'm pretty sure I saw Ke$ha downtown last night in Chico. Who else would make out with four dudes in a row on the street and fall on her head on the concrete in front of Duffy's at 2am? Oh right, half of Chico State.
Pretty sure this one was unavoidable this year too. I go back and forth with Eminem and if I like him or not. I liked a few things off this latest record but I still kind of want to punch him in the face sometimes. I'm sure he's used to that tho, so Marshall let's call it a draw and move on.
But Riri, man I LOVE Rhianna. LOVE HER. Can't understand a word she says in interviews sometimes but who cares? She's freakin' amazing. LOVE HER.
I just put that one in there for my friend Nicole. We used to listen to this at the Black Sheep. Super good times.
I'm sure I forgot some, but whatever... What did you love in 2010?
Late in 2009 I got into this show Ghetto House Radio that we played on Wild when I was working there. Every week I'd grab a couple of the mixes and listen to them while I ran the trails in Avila before work in the mornings or while I was driving to and from San Luis. Ghetto House Radio is pretty much in constant rotation still in my life, as a lot of my friends drop mixes for them every week and one of my other friends does the imaging for the show.
This song was on a mix earlier this year. Probably at the height of my "what the hell is going on," period. And it does pretty much sum up how I felt almost all the time back then. Also the album "Strobelight Seduction," is one of my favorite whole albums of 2010.
I got this album sent to me right after I met Ben.
We were still just friends then. We were just friends for awhile after I moved up here. I had no intention of having a relationship with anyone really. But Ben is really endearing and adorable. He gives these fully body hugs that just feel like someone is putting a little protective bubble around you. And he gives them (at least to me) with reckless abandon. He's never been shy about being affectionate towards me, even when we were just friends who ate dinner together or went to the Old Man Bars together because I really didn't know anyone here but him and Sarah.
Anyway I think the first time I ever had an inkling that I really liked Ben for more than his dinner conversations was driving around one day this summer listening to this song. It may have been while he was on the East Coast with his family and I realized that I missed him. I think we talked on the phone more in those couple of weeks than we ever have now. (He lives five minutes away from me, the phone is just to tell me to unlock the door of the apartment.) He listened to all my gripes about being lonely here and assured me that I wouldn't die up here and the cat wouldn't eat my face or any of that. He made me laugh.
So not only does this song remind me of the latter half of 2010, it reminds me of Ben and hearing him laugh over the phone from 3000 miles away when I was still sleeping on the floor and spending every night sitting next to my pool listening to music wondering what the hell I'd done by moving here.
Everyone knows that the very epic "The Fame Monster" came out in 2009. The story of how I got a copy of the record is one of my favorites from my old job... just having my boss walk in and start rummaging through my purse after we bickered on Facebook about the record. And there it was, in my purse all of a sudden. Viola, surprise here's the CD you've been nagging me for, for like ever.
The whole album is a banger. It's amazing. This song though, popped out at me when we started playing it as a single early in the year.
I've definitely danced to this one a few times in 2010.
Songs of 2010... Man there are so many more. This is the first one though that will remind me of Chico.
A little backstory, I LOVE the Deftones. Like LOVE them. Back in the Deadsy days they were known in my house as "friends of the Family," because they were. The Deftones are cool dudes who helped out some friends of mine.
They put out the first single "Diamond Eyes" before I moved to Chico. It might have even been during my interview process to come up here. I don't remember. But when I got here the record was out and I snagged a copy and sat around listening to it a lot. People kept telling me that it was all about "Rocket Skates" and it may still be, but for me it was always about "You've Seen the Butcher," which is slowly and steadily climbing the active rock charts while you and I sit here.
I remember listening to this song the first time I was getting ready to go out with Ben (although at the time it wasn't just Ben I was going out with, etc, group outing with friends blah blah blah...) I didn't know why I was nervous and just was pacing around the apartment after I'd gotten dressed and waiting for my ride, listening to this song on my computer LOUD since the apartment below me was empty at that time. The doorbell rang and the song ended...
Let me be straight with you, when I first heard this song I was like WTF? I was on the freeway going up to SLO for work and it came on our station and I was like "This makes no sense." Except this song is universal if you've ever been in love with someone you shouldn't be and let's face it everyone has at some point. And the middle of the night (especially after a pint or two) is the loneliest time of the night when you feel like this.
Or they wouldn't have ways to block people from making phone calls after a certain time of night, right?
I could tell you all the things this song reminds me of. I won't though.
This is one of those songs that will always catch my throat a little and remind me of something so strange I'm starting to think I imagined the whole thing.
I heard this song for the first time driving to work to pick up my time card some time back in March.
Sometime back in March... ha ha I know exactly when I heard it. The words slapped me in the face and I remember getting the phone out to Shazaam it and looking it up when I got to the office. There wasn't any one else there, it was a Saturday after all and I listened to it again while I filled out my unemployment stuff. Maybe twice more.
I remember just sitting there wondering how it was that someone had snuck into my head and stole all the thoughts I'd been having that week out of my head and put them to music. I remember really being sick of that happening at the time. (I later found out that Pink co-wrote this song and it made even more sense, homegirl reads my mind. I sleep in a tin foil hat to prevent it.)
It was kind of a chilly day and I left the station and went to the post office and then because like a lot of the time in the Spring of that year I didn't want to go home, because home made me sad and frustrated, I walked around downtown SLO and ended up in the Black Sheep probably talking to Rachel and maybe Nicole after that. You never know how long you can nurse a cocktail or a glass of iced tea until you absolutely do not want to go home.
Back to the song, this song is beautiful and I think we've all felt this way some time or another. And sue me I like Adam Lambert, a lot more than I thought I would when the American Idol buzz was going on (I still have yet to watch an entire episode of that show. Or well any of it. I know how it works exclusively from the internet.) Anyway this is yet another song that was part of the sound track of 2010.
There is no way I can hear this song and not think of 2010.
This song came out around the time I was interviewing for my job up here. I probably heard it on the radio about 9098908 times on the drive up. It will never not remind me of that very uncertain time in my life when I wasn't sure what Chico was going to hold and if walking away from the friendships and the decent (but far from perfect) life I had back home.
I admit it, I love Hardnox. Even more so because they were responsible for my first visit to my old station's club night. They played at one of our Wednesday nights and I finally got over being too shy to go and went. I had a blast and it was really neat to be around my friends from work in a more social setting. This song is still on my list of stuff I listen to when I'm getting ready to hit the town.
The Hardnox boys are down to Earth and cool as hell. It was really neat to see them on the Giants victory parade and getting all that love during the play offs and World Series. (The Giants picked up their song "Fist Pump" for something in the park.)
I think we were all embarrassed when we fell in love with this song. I know I was embarrassed that this stupid song put into words something I was going through earlier this year. This dorky assed song could say words I didn't know how to make? Failure, thy name is Stephanie.
A million times in our life we think we meet someone who completes us or makes us whatever. I met someone who is me. And I'm one of their biggest fans. And I know that they are one of mine.
I will be nine hundred and eleven years old and still be grateful for knowing someone like that. Being just what I needed even though I probably drove them crazy. (It's okay they drove me nuts too. You try hanging out with yourself all the time, it's absurdly endearing and annoying at the same time.) This song is always, no matter what going to remind me of that and of this weird year when everything I knew changed so completely drastically and hopefully for the better.
"Hey, Soul Sister" - Train
Heeey heeeey heeeeey
Your lipstick stains on the front lobe of my left side brains I knew I wouldn't forget you And so I went and let you blow my mind Your sweet moonbeam The smell of you in every single dream I dream I knew when we collided you're the one I have decided Who's one of my kind
Hey soul sister, ain't that mister mister on the radio, stereo The way you move ain't fair you know Hey soul sister, I don't wanna miss a single thing you do tonight
Heeey heeeey heeeey
Just in time, I'm so glad you have a one track mind like me You gave my life direction A game show love connection, we can't deny I'm so obsessed My heart is bound to beat right out my untrimmed chest I believe in you, like a virgin, you're Madonna And I'm always gonna wanna blow your mind
Hey soul sister, ain't that mister mister on the radio, stereo The way you move ain't fair you know Hey soul sister, I don't wanna miss a single thing you do tonight
The way you can cut a rug Watching you is the only drug I need So gangster, I'm so thug You're the only one I'm dreaming of You see I can be myself now finally In fact there's nothing I can't be I want the world to see you'll be with me
Hey soul sister, ain't that mister mister on the radio, stereo The way you move ain't fair you know Hey soul sister, I don't wanna miss a single thing you do tonight Hey soul sister, I don't wanna miss a single thing you do tonight Heeey heeeey heeeeey (tonight) Heeey heeeey heeeeey (tonight)
p.s. this post was brought to you by my unhealthy relationship with "Glee."
I was sick of Ke$ha "Tik Tok" the minute I started my job. Bitch be annoying... so I thought. Then one morning I was sitting on South Higuera and heard this song.
And I don't know... maybe I heard something that was already going on in my head in it. Maybe I was in a good mood that day. Maybe I was dressed cute. I don't know but this weird, kinda awful song crept into my heart. I will always associate it with a ridiculous inside joke between me and a friend, dancing my ass off, 4 dollar Long Beach Iced Teas the size of a Big Gulp and the feeling that man, I found my home, if even for a little while and found my family, forever.
It's the end of the year almost, which is when the "end of the year top whatevers" lists come out.
I'm not going to do that here. What I am going to do is recount some of the songs that define 2010 for me. I may not post every day, but this was quite a year for me and I have a lot of memories centered around music.
Back in January of this year I was quite aware that my life was completely different than it had been in years previous. My taste in music changed in part because of where I worked, where I hung out, who I hung out with and in part because rock music was kind of dead to me at that time last year. Nothing spoke to me.
I was also kind of sad and for some reason hearing this bad ass bad girl anthem from a girl who had gone through a really rough time in the public eye, I don't know it was inspiring and fun and for awhile this song was my theme song. I know I must have spun it on the air a million times, but I listened to it in my car, or on my iPod when I was running. It was the beat, it was the lyrics, it was the toughness, it was Rihanna who I love... Anyway I will always think of the early part of 2010 when I hear this song, driving home from the radio station in the dark, wondering if anything was ever going to change.
A few weeks ago I posted about trying to do Project 365 this year, a project where you take a picture each day of the year and post them either once a day or once a week. With the holiday weekend being so full of party, etc, I was afraid I'd already blown it, but the truth is, its just in my nature to take a picture daily. I have actually taken at least one every day this year (save for today) so I'm going to try to keep it going. In the mean time, here's what I shot so far this year.
January 1st: DJ Sol at Mo/Tav. Funny thing about this picture? It was at about 11am.
January 2nd: My BFF Megan in the basement of Creekside, wearing a friend's hat and being truly thug life.
January 3rd: At Mr. Rick's after watching the Seahawks lose at football. This is Big Dave, my neighbor, and Justin, one of the guys who works at Rick's, who I adore, downing Pacificos on a Sunday afternoon.
