My Thermos

Today's Mission: Top 5 songs with really long titles

Fun topic this week with a ton of possible answers. I avoided using anything parenthetical which cut out a lot of things.

Don't Think About Her When You're Trying To Drive - Little Village

Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict - Pink Floyd

René and Georgette Magritte with their Dog after the War - Paul Simon

I May Not Have Had Enough of Me But I've Had Enough of You - Robert Fripp

Sigmund Freud's Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America - Randy Newman

What did I miss?

(via Music Memoirs)

Word associations this week: Tell us the first, song, band/artist, album or anything music related that comes to mind when you see these words:

Space: Space Station #5 - Montrose
Party: (Ain't Nothing But A) House Party - J. Geils Band
Darkness: Beware of Darkness - George Harrison
Reading: Why Johnny Can't Read - Frank Zappa
Touch: I Have The Touch - Peter Gabriel
New: New Song - The Who
Gone: Long Time Gone - Crosby, Stills & Nash
Jazz: Jazz is Dead
Song: Slow Song - Joe Jackson
Bag: Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - James Brown

Hard this week, but fun

SB

Today marks the 60th birthday of Mr. Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad fame. Here's a fave of mine, "Closer to Home" from their historic 1971 Shea Stadium concert.

How these guys can not be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is beyond me, just shows how much of a meaningless joke the hall has become.



Enjoy!

SB

Back in April I wrote about joining a Fantasy Baseball league. If you recall, I'm not much of a sports guy but my nephews were setting it up and I thought it might be a way of doing something fun with them.

It was overwhelming but with a lot of research I prepared for the draft and assembled my team. Oh - who am I kidding. Stan from Razzball pointed me to his rankings which I used verbatim to assemble my team.

Every morning I would look over my team and make sure that my lineups were maximized for the day. When folks got hurt I moved them to the DL and tried to find a replacement. If I saw someone who was really struggling I would look to a Free Agent who might perform better.

I started a bit slow but within a couple of weeks I started to understood the mechanics of how things worked and was moving up the ranks.

So here we are 5 long months later, the season just ended and lo and behold I woke up this morning to see this on my home page:



So in my rookie season, after a very close championship series that ran down to the wire, I prevailed and proudly claim my 2008 League Champion trophy.

Thanks to my nephews and Stan from Razzball. Big thanks also to Prince Fielder, Derrek Lee, Mike Jacobs and the rest of the My Thermos team for their performance throughout the season. I guess my prize for winning is that I get the first round draft pick next year. Does that mean I have to do it again next year?

SB

The fine folks over at WilcoWorld are offering you up a goodie in exchange for your pledge to vote in the 2008 election.

Hopefully you were planning on voting anyway, but you might as well enjoy the free music.

Just fill out a simple form and get a link vie email to download a mighty nice version of "I Shall Be Released" by Wilco w/ Fleet Foxes recorded just a couple weeks back in Bend, Oregon.

If you're not already registered, head on over to HeadCount and they can help you out.

SB

Today's Mission: Summer is officially over so let's do a recap.

Tell us your summer musical memories, whether they are a concert, an album you bought, a song that became special or a new artist you discovered.

OK - here goes.

Concerts - Only a couple this summer but they were good ones. Lyle Lovett at Ravinia and Gov't Mule at Navy Pier, which I now realize I never gave the full review treatment. Great show available on the cheap directly from the band though.

This will go down as the first summer in probably 14 years that we didn't make it to the Allman Brothers local appearance. Was a double bill with Bobby Weir though so a shortened set show, I guess if we had to miss one...

New Albums - Nothing new purchased recently actually. Because I do spend so much time in front of my PC I have long been a fan of the streaming music services. Between Yahoo Unlimited (or now Rhapsody), Launchcast, Last.fm, Slacker and Pandora I find I have access to as much music as I could possibly absorb.

Songs from the summer - I'm really digging the new Pretenders single "Boots of Chinese Plastic" which is really the standout track for the summer for me. It's raw and dirty sounding - classic Pretenders.

New Artists - Hmm. Not a new artist for sure but I'm really on a Tom Waits kick these last couple of months. And Jackie Greene seems to be getting an inordinate amount of my listening time.

It may seem that music didn't play a big part of my summer but just the opposite is true. It's been like spending time with a close friend, one that doesn't have to impress me with new jokes or stories, just having it around is enough. It brings with it a comfort and familiarity and is a constant that helps keep things in check when other things around are demanding my attention. It's been there when I needed it, even if I didn't always realize just how much.

SB

Image courtesy of Johntex via Wikimedia

Today's Mission: Top 5 Songs That Come To Mind When You See The Word "Dreamy"

So there are a couple of different ways to approach this. Obviously we could run with songs with Dream in the title, but I also think of teen idols and teenage girls talking about the latest "Dreamy" phenom. Then there are those songs that just have that dreamy feel to them, those that you just get lost in.

The possibilities are endless, here is what I came up with: Continue reading "Top 5 On Friday - Week 192" »