I not only finished “G” but I also got through “H,” which only had one entry: Hole.
This is not to say that I do not have any other music by performers starting with “H,” merely that if I do, I only have one track by them, so they are in my catch-all, miscellaneous directory.
“I” is next and has a handful of entries, of which only INXS is something to which I listen to with any frequency.
Back to “G” — today was Goran Bregovic and Guns ‘n’ Roses mostly, with a few songs by Green Day thrown in for good measure.
I come from a dialect region where it is often pronounced “may-zsure,” not necessarily “meh-” … and for this several normatively-inclined colleagues have poked fun at me. Too fucking bad.
Back to Goran Bregovic — unless you like the movies of Emir Kusturica (which you should!) you are unlikely to know this guy’s music, though it is worth mentioning that he has done a lot of other work than just Kusturica-projects. However, if you haven’t heard the hauntingly beautiful “Ederlezi” from Time of the Gypsies or the raucous “Kalashnikov” and similar works (see the movie Underground for inspiration) then you are missing out.
In the middle of listening to music today I felt the need to go shopping for a bit and pick up some nutmeg because I planned on making banana bread. I often use nutmeg when I bake it, even though my recipe does not call for it.
I put together two large loaves and their heavenly banana aroma wafted through my apartment.
Even though I did not need the nutmeg I needed the “Purely Decadent” brand soy-based ice cream substitute even less, but the the flavor, “Peanut Butter Zig Zag,” just screamed out Eat Me! … sort of a cross between Alice’s adventures in Wonderland and being told in Little Shop of Horrors “Feed me, Seymore!”
As for Guns ‘n’ Roses, part of me thinks they are underappreciated, despite what an immature ass Axl Rose is, even at this stage of life. Let’s put it this way: when you listen to Appetite for Destruction, GNr Lies, and Use Your Illusion I & II … there is hardly a bad song to be found. On Appetite for Destruction no such song exists — nearly 2 decades later it is a superb album, a first-major-release that is almost all “greatest hits.”
I received the two Use Your Illusion CDs as birthday gifts when I was an exchange student in Germany, and I took the blue one (II) with me to Halle when I went with Herr G, a German girl, and a slightly older Australian exchangee who was finishing up her year. We saw the Handel Haus, we went to Leipzig and Auerbachs Keller, and even a few more formal affairs. Having recently turned 17 it was my first experience with a group of people, adults and those a bit older than I, of mixed-gender who had few modesty issues changing in front of each other. An American prudery quickly gotten over. I took the 2nd Use Your Illusion CD not as CD but as a cassette copy of the CD with me and listened to it one afternoon in the van we were driving while Herr G was inside; I showed it to my two traveling companions and tried to show them what a great album it was, beginning with some of the more ballad-like tracks so as not to offend their sensibilities.
It was only a few years later when I actually got Appetite for Destruction on CD; instead, I was only familiar with the main songs from radio play, and I recall one event, when, as a teen, my family was driving from Meridian to Nampa and beyond on the freeway and GnR was on the radio. My parents turned up the volume so I could hear it, but 1) shifted the speakers completely to the back and 2) turned down the treble so that they could hear very little of it up front. This is, of course, quite understandable, especially in retrospect. What struck me, however, was that from the bit of the music I could hear — and none of the lyrics — I could not exactly identify the song. Two songs of the album, it seems, have either the same underlying music or something quite close, which is to say, GnR reused music on the album.
This is not unheard of. As many are aware, on Aerosmith’s rather popular album Pump two songs, Janie’s Got a Gun and The Other Side share many basic musical motifs, and are companion pieces in a way — and are back-to-back on the album.
Time to take the loaves from the pans — perhaps one goes to the department tomorrow.
