Via Annaliese, who did hers according to David Bowie (on Facebook). Instructions: “Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people and include me. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Repost as ‘my life according to (band name)'” (I’m not doing the 15 people thing; do it if you want!)

Pick your Artist:

Thelonious Monk

Are you a male or female:

Lover Man

Describe yourself:

Nutty

How do you feel:

Off Minor

Describe where you currently live:

Brilliant Corners

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?

San Francisco Holiday

Your favorite form of transportation:

Locomotive

Your best friend is:

Just a Gigolo

You and your best friends are:

Rhythm-A-Ning

What’s the weather like:

April in Paris

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:

I Should Care

What is life to you:

Who Knows?

Your relationship:

Sweet and Lovely

Your fear:

Hackensack or Suburban Eyes

What is the best advice you have to give:

Introspection

Thought for the Day:

Nice Work If You Can Get it

How I would like to die:

Meet me Tonight in Dreamland

My soul’s present condition:

In Orbit

My motto:

Straight, no Chaser

Dime Caridad

Poncho Sanchez at Montreux, 2004

I eat lunch most every day at an Indian grocery near my office. Since they’ve got B4U Music on the big screen, I can’t help but associate Bollywood and cholle.

And let me tell you, nothing tastes better than some good Indian food after a vigorous game of pick-up hockey. (What… you think that’s weird?)

I love the Latin-rock influence in this one. And Sneha Ullal is kinda cute, too. Okay, pulled Lucky Lips; was told it was eh, maybe not appropriate. How about some Tenu Leke from Salaam-E-Ishq (2007), a movie I had the pleasure of viewing while hopped up Percocet after a wisdom tooth extraction:

Per Terry’s request, more harmony (Lion Song by Jay Harden):

As for “more bass”, maybe it’s your computer speakers. The recording engineer thought we mixed the bass too high!

Just before I moved to Oregon from the broad American prairie, I was playing bass in a band called Totem Soul. We earned enough money playing in college bars to pay for three days in a professional recording studio (this was before the age of serious DIY recording, so it was a big deal), and recorded an LP’s worth of material.

Here’s Lear’s Shadow, by one of our three singer song-writers, Jay Harden:
[audio:Totem_Soul-Lears_Shadow-Shaking_Roots_at_the_Moon-track04.mp3]

Then we took the rest of our money, loaded all our gear into the back of my 1963 Chevy Stepvan (a.k.a. “the pig”), and headed west. The Chevy made it, but the band didn’t last. We worked a little in Eugene and Portland, then broke up a few months later, frustrated by the lack of venues for our peculiar sound and the intricacies of running a four-piece band with three frontmen. Our LP was never pressed, and the recordings sat in the can for nearly two decades before POD Web publishing made it generally available.

So, why the sappy nostalgia? Because I just figured out how to embed audio on my blog.

And after two decades in Oregon, it seems like an interesting time to look back. Portland looked a lot different in 1989. I was “creative class” when that meant a struggling musician could rent a room for $150 bucks in a big shared house in inner Southeast, bike commuting meant riding a one-speed to part-time, low-wage employment at a natural food store, and livability meant you could sleep in your van down by the Sunflower recycling yard when you were between houses.

The Pearl was a derelict rail yard (the title sequence of Drugstore Cowboy, released that year, was filmed there), MAX ran only from Gresham to downtown, and there was a temporary ice rink on Pioneer Court House Square between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Old town was awash in cheap heroin and prostitutes, and timber was still the dominant industry in Oregon. TriMet was still running buses built in the 70s, and the night club scene was dominated by white blues.

Northwest 23rd Ave. was already long gone by then, but Hawthorne was still lined with junk shops and dive bars, and the Bagdad Theater was a second-run house, with a porn screen in back. Who remembers the Ol’ Milwauke or the Tu-Be?

Okay, enough of that shit. Fast forward twenty years. It’s been quite a ride.

Fellow Iowa boy Toby Huss nails it:

(Toby and I were both theatre students at the University of Iowa back in the mid eighties. He’s obviously managed to do something with his larnin’. As if that weren’t a tenuous enough connection, he played Cotton Hill on King of the Hill, a character whose diction bears a startling resemblance to my grandmother-in-law.)

They don’t make ’em like they used to. I offer you Eartha Kit in apology for my use of the Stan Freberg version in my time lapse ship video earlier this week.

Si bon, si bon!

…who evidently thinks I should allow commenters to embed youtube videos. (No friggin’ way, hoser!) Stompin’ Tom Connors — The Hockey Song