The Music Man

So, no, unfortunately, I did not get cast in a touring production of The Music Man. This has absolutely nothing to do with The Music Man. This is all about music, as in music one listens to on the radio.
Music has always been a huge part of my life, even in my couple of disgruntled years as a vocal performance major at the University of Illinois.
My love of music all started when my parents used to sing to me when I was very young. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember always liking when they would sing Camptown Races. The imagery of those horses was mindblowing at the age of 2!
As I got older, I got a hold of some cassette tapes of Raffi, Ella Jenkins, Tom Chapin (the brother of Harry Chapin of Cats in the Cradle fame). My whole life I never have known lyrics to songs, even my favorite ones. i just don't pay close enough attention. However, I can still sing you bits of songs by these artists 20 some years later.
At around the age of 7 or so, I got a hold of my dad's old records (yes, that's right...records. We actually had two record players at the time. 1 nice once with great surround sound speakers, and a kids fisher price one, which i got to use!) and instantly fell in love with The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, along with some other random surf bands. My first experience of rock music. And probably my influence in always being a wannabe surfer (despite my terribly huge dislike of swimming). The songs were catchy, fun, and beautiful. Dead Man's Curve scared me to death, which I loved. And Sloop John B is still a personal favorite today. There has never been a song with better falsetto harmonizing.
This discovery led me to the oldies stations where I fell in love with a wider range of music. From folk...The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, Simon and Garfunkel, Peter Paul and Mary - to psychadelic...Jefferson Airplane, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Iron Butterfly - to faux psychadelic...The Lemon Pipers, some of the Monkees stuff. But it was those crazy brits that really got me...Crispin St. Peters, Herman's Hermits, and most importantly The Beatles. Every song I heard by the Beatles completely opened my ears. When I first heard the song Yesterday, i had an immediate cathartic meltdown. Instantly learned the lyrics and would not stop singing the song, with a bad British accent. My oldies phase started when I was around 7 and still goes strong today.
I hit a rough period when I hit my teens. I was actually a happy teenager, it wasn't rough in that way. Musically I hit a bit of a bad spell where I had no idea what type of music I liked. This is exemplified by the fact that my first two CDs ever purchased were Public Enemy's The Muse Sick In Our Mess Age, and The Lion King soundtrack. Whoa! Other band's I'm proud to say I enjoyed at the time were 4 Non Blondes, Right Said Fred, The Proclaimers, Expose, Tony Toni Tone, Paperboy, The Real McCoy, Erasure, Snoop and Dre, Garth Brooks, John Michael Montgomery. We have a little of everything folks, and most of it is not that good!
Thank God Weezer came around when I was in 7th grade and got me on the right track.
Finally, my senior year of high school i was listening to the top 25 indie songs of the year on a little local radio station at New Years time. And around number 8 on that list was a song I now consider my favorite song ever. Cathedrals by Jump Little Children. The most beautiful song ever written. The lead singers voice is a better sounding, less dramatic Rufus Wainwright, and the instrumentation is complex and harmonious. I followed that band for 6 years liking nearly every single song they wrote. Unfortunately at the end of 2006 they sadly broke up...for now. If you haven't listened to Jump Little Children find them and listen to them now!!!
I immediately had to start to look for a new band. In the past year, I found some whole new styles of music that I never knew existed. Bands that are playing with crazy rhythms and harmonies and time signatures and layering. Some favorites are Battles, Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros, Cloud Cult, Josh Ritter. Priscilla Ahn, is my new favorite singer songwriter. She records her voice live, then harmoniezes with her just recorded voice then layers that, and harmonizes again, and keeps layering, but she does it all live. Crazy!!! I just found the band Mates of State which I can not get out of my head. A fun husband and wife team. The wife playing the organ, the husband playing the drums. Their tunes are catchy, super fun, with tight harmonizing. And just by listening you can hear their loving chemistry. My new current favorite band (nobody will ever beat Jump Little Children) is a group called Menomena. I first listened to them, and just didn't get it. It sounded kinda awful. The music is so complex and weird, that I think my ears didn't know what hit them. They never heard anything like it, so it just sounded bad. Just like a tritone sounded bad (dubbed: the devil's interval) when it first started to be used. Anyways, as my ears got used to Menomena I just can't stop listening to them. They are that good.
I have no idea why I just wrote all of that for you all to read. There was really no point. Maybe you can check out some of this music and be inspired by them as much as I am!