Triptown: Music Artist Stream-of-Consciousness

Dave Matthews Band was implanted as my first musical icon by my sister, reinforced by my Dad, established some time in early elementary school.

Counting Crows weren't far off, my sister had a crush on a guy from upstate NY who liked them as well. I eventually saw them while at college some 12 or 15 years later, and I was disappointed that the dreadlocked lead singer didn't even try to speak to the crowd or even really sing to us; he was in his own world.

I often consider Moby in his own world, as we were when we took a trip one time and listened to Play on looping repeat for some 63:11(13?) minutes and seconds.

I used to shuffle in and out songs from my blossoming downloaded music library from burn-to-CD queues to try and fit as close to 80 minutes as I could manage; I had themed mix CDs, the more modern, miscellaneous songs labeled as Imported 1, Imported 2,... etc., the classic rock as Classic 1, Classic 2,... etc., some more specialized like Electric Feel for more dance, techno, electric type music, List 1, List 2,... etc. for instrumental songs, and various other groupings; I scribbled their artist names all over the CDs in weird fonts and styles, all for the pleasure of my own weird head; only a couple artists managed to get their own CDs, Led Zeppelin being one.

Greg and Edward were responsible for Zeppelin's entrance into my life, along with a steady stream of artists notching their songs on someone's Top 100 Guitar Solos of all time list - Possibly my favorite of those songs: "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd

I threw "Comfortably Numb" into Jake and my 2nd movie for our English class project about "figuring out what we were going to do in life" or some shit; we made the teacher and certain girls in the class cry.

The movie also contained the song, "Where is My Mind" by The Pixies, that I used while pretending to faint giving a speech; I of course was infatuated with the song ever since I'd watched the credits of Fight Club on the little TV with a built-in VCR set in front of our treadmill, which I sat on, contemplating the strangeness of the modern man. The movie (and probably to a small extent, the song) would become the torch carried by all the scrappy, scraggily boys of our generation wanting a reason to feel both noble and animalistic in our confused teenage endeavors as modern boys.

"Modern Man" is a song from the most recent album by Arcade Fire, The Suburbs. I like it a lot.

Arcade Fire is an absurdly large band led by a icy white, fish-skinned, Tim Burton character looking guy with hair that is usually wetted down in some strange way, and it all makes you wonder where the hell he came from and how.

I got into Arcade Fire freshman year when I discovered that the dorms had a program called "MyTunes" available to share and steal other students' music from those also living in the building. Funeral looped constantly in my earphones as I cursed Chemistry, banging my head into the book while games of Super Smash Bros. looped constantly beside me in our room with the friendly, foul-mouthed nerds from our side of the hallway.

The owner of Super Smash Bros. (and, creepily, every Mario sports game ever made for the Game Cube - you'd be surprised how many there actually are) was really, really into techno remixes of random shit, that often got played at Six Flags the Chicago White Sox stadium and/or in DDR, notably "Listen to Your Heart" by DJ Inphinity.

I'm pretty sure Joe was obsessed with that song (and probably all of Cannon for that matter - for those who don't know, they were a youth soccer team, very into themselves and Kelly Clarkson, I spent a year with them, and despite feeling like a cult when talking with others outside of the team, it was a shit ton of fun), as he often got obsessed with one song never ever ever ever stopped playing it.

Some of these I can recall include "Gangster's Paradise", "Bartender (Sittin' At A Bar)", and "Wagon Wheel", although I know there were hundreds of others, which were also adopted by Sam Elliot, the Wences, and T. Dooley - 80s hair metal, cheesy ballads, and prolifically pro-Uncle Sam/anti-terrorist/anti-minority/pro-large American made truck country music.

"Canyonero", a song for the fictional vehicle of the same name on the Simpsons is probably the best parody of this niche I've ever seen.

The Simpsons have some of the funniest and best songs I've ever heard, period. And that will end this random rant on music.