Category: memories

Saturday’s Theme Music

As many people who I’ve met that loooove the Grateful Dead, I’ve met an equal amount who said, “I just don’t get them.”

It’s like food, movies, sex, and literature, innit? One person’s favorite does nothing for someone else.

I’m a fan of them, and saw them twice in concert before Jerry Garcia passed away. Both concerts featured long jam sessions, and one concert featured a couple having sex on the floor in the back of the hall.

This song, “Touch of Grey”, was released in 1987, and was part of the concert I saw in Germany. The song was okay to me back then, but as grown in my appreciation as I’ve aged and acquired a touch of grey. I will get by, I will survive is a good refrain to sing to yourself when shit happens.

I enjoy this video. I thought it a perfect Grateful Dead vehicle.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Slipstreaming through the streaming flow that sometimes seem to be my thoughts (and other times seem to belong to others), I come across a cache of STP, shorthand for Stone Temple Pilots (and not Scientifically Tested Petroleum or something else).

There are several jewels in the cache. Demonstrating its own affinity, my mind goes with “Interstate Love Song”. Released in the music-rich environment of the SF Bay Area, the song quickly became a favorite commuting tune. Coming out in 1994, it saw through retirement from the Air Force into the transition to being a civilian and finding a job in 1995.

Enjoy.

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Chubbasaurus Orange

Chubbasaurus Orange (catfinition) – breed of hefty orange cats who enjoy eating and hunting but are very sweet.

In use: “They weighed twenty and twenty-one pounds, but the chubbasaurus orange cats demonstrated amazing leaping abilities, with one jumping as high as a man’s shoulder when the cat went after a robin taking flight.”

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Pogo (left) and Schectker, chubbasaurus orange.
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The Car Colors

Walking today, I passed a red car. My thoughts were drifting, and seeing the red car, I thought, I’ve never owned a red car.

Dad had owned a red Thunderbird. That began a stream of recollections about Dad’s cars. He’d owned a turquoise Thunderbird (with matching interior), a maroon Monte Carlo (also with matching interior), beige Corvette and a blue Corvette (guess what color their interiors were?), and a white Chevy Impala, along with a white Thunderbird. Both of the white cars had red interiors.

I thought, what an eclectic mix. But then I reviewed some of my car colors. I’d had a copper Camaro (black interior) and brown Firebird (with a tan interior), a green Mercedes (with matching interior), a white BMW (blue interior), silver Audi (gray interior), orange Porsche (brown and black interior), a silver RX-7 with a red interior, a blue RX-7 with a brown interior, and a black RX-7 with a black interior.

In each case, I’d not consciously decided on a color. It was more of a decision, this is the car for me.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s song, “Going Down/Love In An Elevator,” came out in 1989. I was stationed in Germany with the USAF when it was released. It immediately became a unit favorite.

The album, Pump, was a damn good Aerosmith album, equal to the task for rocking old rockers and stimulating some new ones to join the ranks.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Jeff Healey was another performer who died too young. Forty-one when he passed away from cancer, he started playing guitar when he was very young, and achieved fame, recognition, and commercial success for his skills.

I came across two of his albums in my CD collection the other day. From that, I started streaming Healey’s cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as I walked through the smoky heat. The original song, as recorded by the Beatles (with Eric Clapton) is a favorite song of mine. Prince’s performance of the solo at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies still mesmerizes me.

So, pick any of those, or any of the many other covers of the song, as today’s theme music. I’m staying with Healey for today.

 

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I worked with an officer while stationed at Shaw AFB, SC. He was a navigator who graduated college with a degree in Literature, and he wrote poetry on the side.

Music of the era set him off. He thought the lyrics were shallow and the liberties taken with grammar annoyed him. People used to sing in full, coherent sentences, telling a story, he would say, and the songs were often very poetic. He was my age, and it amused me that this upset him, because that’s not what popular music is about. It’s a reflection of the times and how language is used. It’s dynamic. Those were exactly some of the things that he mourned as going wrong.

I remember once we were getting ready to deploy to Egypt. Killing time as we had to do in those situations, we talked music, and he singled out this song, which had been released a few years before, as one that he particularly disliked – his exact words. His diatribe made me laugh.

Here is Eddy Grant with “Electric Avenue” from 1982.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today’s music selection became streaming in my head the other day.

“Man On the Corner” by Genesis was released in 1981. I started thinking about it this week because of the purple guy.

That’s the name I’ve given him. He’s short, about five three would be my guess, and balding, with a large dark brown mustache. Wearing blue jeans in this ninety degree (F) heat every day, he wears a purple shirt, purple fanny pack, and purple shoes, and carries a purple bag.

You might have an idea of why I call him the purple man.

I usually encounter him several times a week. When I do, I say hello, and he replies…nothing. He doesn’t smile, but looks down.

When I saw him this week, he was standing on a corner by the town Safeway, and the song began streaming.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Once again, it’s time for Dirty Cello to perform at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show.

Once again, it’s in danger of being canceled due to unhealthy air from wildfire smoke. If it’s cancelled, this will be year three.

I’ve previously posted Dirty Cello playing “Rock You Like A Hurricane” and “Sweet Child of Mine”. Needing a fix, I dialed up a few songs and selected “Purple Haze” to share on this Thursday.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Although I’m generally a rocker who likes the blues and drifts toward radio music, I’ve been streaming “Ladies’ Night” in my head this week. The impact came from its inclusion in GLOW. 

Released in 1979 by Kool and the Gang, I think of “Ladies’ Night” as a disco era staple. More, I thought it captured the essence of that times’ club partying sensibilities. Ladies’ Night was a promotional event to draw in more women by giving them special deals. With more women, more men would be attracted to the club, right? Sure, it’s like honey for bees.

“Ladies’ Night” played to all of that, calling out romantic lady, single baby,  and sophisticated mama.  These were the people at the disco, right? Come on out, ladies, it’s your night. I regret the song didn’t also address the weary student and hard worker. They were the true partiers.

Besides all of that, I always like the lines, “If you hear any noise, it ain’t the boys, it’s ladies’ night.” Always makes me smile.

 

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