Appetite - Prefab Sprout

[link] One of my favorite bands.  The Thomas Dolby production is a clear connection to my tastes.  The vocals are great.  Some of their stuff is a bit too on the jazzy side for me, and they have a tendency to sacrifice pop structure for composition and concept (and concept albums), but they have some brilliant songs.  This is one.

Rhythm of the Night - Corona

Staying with this vein - this song is also total candy.  The verse is a very nice cascading vocal.  The chorus is the main hook, of course.  The bouncing synth line as a counterpoint to the chorus vocal is another nice touch.  It's totally understandable why songs like this are so accessible to people on dance floor.  Hooks rule.  It's kind of what this blog has always been about.

Be My Lover - La Bouche

[link] There is something to be said for this pure candy dance music from the 90s.  It has my chord progression throughout.  And is pretty good with the atmosphere.  I can do without the rap part.  But the rest of it is pretty damn good...

Down in the Park - Gary Numan

[link] No one sounded like Numan.  It's a pure embrace of the future, of techno/synth sounds.  His voice becomes another synthetic thing, willingly.  It's not an optimistic vision, but it is a total atmosphere.  It's there for escape.

Silver Rainbow - Genesis

[link] I always liked the trippiness of the opening of this song.  It then becomes a more conventional rock song.  One of the less noticed songs on probably the last quality album from Genesis.  Takes me right back to 1983.

Straight Into Darkness - Tom Petty

Great great song.

Small Talk - Scritti Politti

From 1985. One of the staples from my early college days.

Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione

[link] Growing up in school bands in the Rochester, NY area meant that you idolized Chuck Mangione. My older brother was a trumpet player at the time, so we had Chuck's popular albums of that era and played them quite a bit. I only now realized looking at his Wikipedia page that Chuck is about the same age as my parents. I always imagined him as younger than that.

Adult Education - Hall & Oates

[link] From 1984. One of my favorites of theirs.  The rhythm section groove makes it; love the strumming guitar.  The cadence of the lyrics is perfect.  Really just one three chord progression through the whole song.  I don't really get the video.  It doesn't seem to fit the lyrics (which I think a lot of people actually got).

Comic Book Men

Have been enjoying this reality series on Netflix.  I used to hang out with dudes like these guys back home.

Emotion in Motion - Naked Eyes

[link] A sweeping synth pop song.  Majestic.  The descending vocal line in the verse catches me and holds me through the whole thing...

Middlemarch

Started reading it (free from iBooks) on recommendation from Atrios. Haven't read Victorian fiction before but I've enjoyed a couple of Edwardian (I think they're called) movie versions ( A Room With a View and Howard's End), which are later but seem to have some similar themes. Commenters on Eschaton seem to think MM is difficult compared with say Pride and Prejudice, which I've seen parts of carious movie versions of . We'll see.

couple of themes I've been jamming on lately

Theme 1

Theme 2

Played through my Roland micro Cube with some pretty good on board distortion (using an amp model), flange, and chorus.

Flying North - Thomas Dolby

[link] One of my favorites.  From "The Golden Age of Wireless", his first and I still think, his best, album.  Trenchant.

I Wanna Be a Flinstone - Screaming Blue Messiahs

[link] Just silly fun.  This band has some really good songs.  This is sort of one of them.

double chin genetics

This might be an interesting topic of study (provided cases of benign double chins could be distinguished from cases of goiter).  I appear to be homozygous for double-chin promoting alleles at many double chin QTL loci.  Men in both sides of my family have had this trait.

Sabotage - Beastie Boys

Really great video.  Which vastly helps the song, which is also great, sink in.

Money 80s songs

I used to (very amateurly) DJ parties with iTunes on my computer and a small PA setup.  I actually did a wedding reception once.  There are several songs from the 80s (and some 70s) that always got people out dancing.  Here are some of the ones that I can remember:

Rock Me Amadeus - Falco
99 Luftballoons - Nena Hagen
Dancing Queen - Abba
One Night in Bangkok - Murray Head
Whip It - Devo
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Don't You Love Me - Human League
Rock Lobster - the B52s
Love Shack - the B52s
Sabotage - Beastie Boys
Word Up - Cameo
I Feel For You - Chaka Khan
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners
Brick House - The Commodores

this will have to be Volume I; I'll get back to this list in a later post...

Little Fluffy Clouds - Orb

Hard to fathom this song is 23 years old.  This was a core ambient house song in the high time of raves. It's incredibly atmospheric and the use of the audio sample (Ricki Lee Jones from an interview) is mesmerizing.  The adding and subtracting of tracks, a staple of house, is really effective in adding to the ambiance and narrative quality.  The most trenchant passages are when the tracks are reduced down two one or a few rhythm tracks.

One Night in Bangkok - Murray Head

[link] Never saw the musical but I've always loved this iconic 80s song.  Right into the mid 80s, pop had a lot of different types of music in it (although still probably not as diverse as the late 70s, when country was regularly in the top 40), including what were essentially novelty songs like this.

Kiss You (When It's Dangerous) - Eight Seconds

Another gem from the 80s (1986) found on Flashback Alternatives.  The rhythm section sets up a very nice tempo and guitar rhythm.  Then the big title hook is the chorus.  The verse and bridge parts are just OK.  This is one of the only Fixx-sounding bands that I've ever come across.  These guys are from Canada and this song was produced by Rupert Hine in the UK.  Hine recorded With One Look with Cy Curnin of the Fixx, the ending title song of the 1985 movie Better Off Dead (great flick), so the connection is there. Hine produced the Fixx as well.  So the sound similarity makes sense.

Review of The Hobbit

From io9.  This is a very positive review that I mostly agree with.  I enjoyed the movie a lot, especially the concentration on the backstory of the dwarves.  I always played dwarf characters in D&D because I was inspired by the Hobbit and Gimli in LOTR (although the dwarf portrayals in the Rankin Bass cartoon version of The Hobbit, which also massively influenced me, were rather weak and hapless).

Young and Proud - Ace of Bass

I loved the early stuff from this band.  More the less well known tracks than the ones that were played incessantly on the radio. Good dance pop.  This is one of my favorites from the first album.  The anime stills are cute.  Also into anime a bit these days.  Perhaps more on that in the future...

Images of Heaven - Peter Godwin

From 1982. Have heard this song quite a bit on Flashback Alternatives.  It's all about the chord progression and the Bryan Ferry-inspired (weren't all those turn of the decade post-punk bands) vocal. I love the 60s fashion video clip that were put with the song in this youtube video.
Godwin was in the band Metro and wrote the song "Criminal World", which Bowie covered on his Let's Dance album (a favorite of mine, indicating to true Bowie fans that I am not one of them). Here is Metro's version of "Criminal World."

Ship of Fools - Erasure

From 1988. These guys were huge on college radio, dance club scene, and a little bit into the US mainstream invthe late 80s. I've always liked this song and learned it the other day. I have to sing it an octave down but the soaring vocal above the slower changing chord hooks is the key to the song.

Strange Fruit - Catherine Wheel

[link] I think I blogged about this song in the early days of onsongs.  Doesn't matter.  This song always pays going back to.  It moves.  It entrances.  It penetrates.  A miasmic syringe of trenchant-ness.

Weakness - Inspiral Carpets

[link] These guys have been around since the 80s and were part of the college/alt rock scene that I didn't have a chance to explore.  Heard this song today in the lab on Flashback Alternatives internet radio.  Chord progression driven.  Can certainly here the punk roots, also ska.  Powerful vocal.

Something For You - Dillon Fence

These guys were beginning to be huge in the Triangle when I was in Durham but I never caught them live.  They are apparently still going.  Good to see.  Their first album, of which this is the only track I can find online, was 100% sweet, bouncy pop songs.

Him - Rupert Holmes

From 1980. One of those somewhat odd little pop songs characteristic of that diverse musical time. Got played a lot on the radio that year then seemingly vanished.

Pitch the Baby - Cocteau Twins

[link] Don't know what the title means and haven't tried to decipher the lyrics, but it doesn't much matter. This is yet another hugely formative slice of the 90s for me.  I listened to Heaven or Las Vegas a lot on drives between Durham and Raleigh (over to NC State for a class); great driving music.  Some of the most beautiful pop in history was made by CT.  The atmospherics are perfect.  Their sound helped spawn the genre of Shoegaze.

Take Me Back - Single Gun Theory

This song in fact does take me back.  Again to my grad school days.  Really like the sample from "Splendor in the Grass" (because I love Natalie Wood).  It's a really cool mid-tempo song.  Love the vocal.  This band has more recent stuff that I have not explored at all.

The Hobbit

Saw the new movie today (part I of a trilogy).  It was well made and entertaining.  Some stuff was embellished and the story was supplemented with important background stuff from Lost Tales and/or The Silmarillion (have not fully read either).  I ended up really liking the Radagast part.  My Tralfaz persona owes a bit to that sort of character, in addition to Gandalf.
I've always like the dwarves and always played dwarves in D&D. I grew up on the Rankin Bass cartoon version, which is simplified and kid friendly.  But I think that version captured some of the real essences of the story, including Bilbo, Gandalf (the John Huston voice was excellent), and Gollum.

Reptile - The Church

Another one from the soundtrack of my grad school days.  One of their best (and most up tempo).  They are masters of desolate atmosphere.  I drank a lot of Rolling Rock to this album.  1989-1990.  It was a brooding time.

Surreal Reebok commercial

I remember this ad from the 90s.  The song is "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen. The ad is one of the weirder things I saw in that decade (didn't watch much TV so there was probably a lot weirder stuff that I didn't see).

SCMF news

Our local Chinese take out place, The Great Wall, in Sound Beach, is making some very excellent Singapore rice noodles these days.

Chihuahua - The Sugarcubes

[link] Great percussion (again).  A bouncy fun song.  Bjork's vocals, which I can only describe here as juicy, also make this song.  This is almost an instrumental.  A jam on a riff.  Amazing...

Deus - The Sugarcubes

Love this song too.  Nice mid tempo groove - their drummer is truly excellent.  The B part really rallies the song - great chord progression.  Another perfect song from a perfect band.  Definitely on the soundtrack of my graduate school years.

Motorcrash - The Sugarcubes

Bjork's best work was with the Sugarcubes.  Nobody sounded like this band.  Nobody looks like Bjork or sings like her.  And this was one of several songs of theirs that was just perfect.  They don't make bands or music like this anymore.

One of Our Submarines - Thomas Dolby

[link]  This is Dolby's essence.  Retro, tech, gloomy, atmospheric, yet weaving a huge and vibrant emotional tapestry.  This was one of the most played songs on The Golden Age of Wireless (1982), one of the first albums that became part of the core of my musical being.

Epistasis III

In many ways, the two different definitions of epistasis in the previous posts are a bit like blind men describing different parts of an elephant.  Statistical epistasis at the population genetic level can be caused by genes whose products directly interact, as in biochemical genetic epistasis, but it can also be cause by indirect interactions between gene products (i.e. one or more intervening molecules in a developmental or metabolic network).  Many traits, including human disease states, are affected by epistasis among multiple genes.  These types of higher order interactions are difficult to characterize and understand.
There are other complications.  From a population genetic standpoint, many compensatory epistatic situations, such as the parallel pathway example given in the previous post, many not "read" as epistasis statistically.  Genes can be viewed as adding pluses (+) and minuses (-) to an overall trait value, which can be obtained by adding up the sum of the + and - alleles. A mutation that turns a + into a - can be compensated for by a second mutation that changes a - to a +.  If their effects simply add to a sum, then this is not considered statistical epistasis, it is simply "additivity". Additive gene actions formed the original basis for the field of quantitative genetics, and such additive effects are still believed to provide the basis of most adaptive evolution and responses to artificial selection (as in agricultural and domestic animal and plant breeding).  However, quantitative genetic experiments have uncovered a great deal of statistical epistasis in the "genetic architecture" of trait differences between different strains of the same species and between different species.  It now appears that epistatic gene action is just as important as additive gene action in these architectures.  Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying these gene interactions is a large task that still mostly lies ahead.

Epistasis II

Cell and developmental biologists have a different working definition of what epistasis is from what I described in the previous post.  In these fields, multigene pathways whose normal function is required for a particular phenotype are studied. Two genes show epistasis if the double mutant phenotype is either (a) the same or not much worse than either single mutant phenotype, (b) similar to or the same as wild type (a compensatory interaction), or (c) worse than the sum of the single mutant effects.
(a) can occur in a linear molecular pathway [e.g. compound a is converted by enzyme A to compound b, which is then converted by enzyme B to compound c, which is then converted by enzyme C to compound d].  In an individual with a mutation in the gene enconding enzyme B, there is not much production of compound d.  Likewise, an individual with a mutation in the gene encoding enzyme C also does not product much of the compound d.  In an individual with both mutations, there is again very little production of compound d.  Thus the presence of one of the mutants masks the effects of the other mutant in the same genetic background.  Biochemical methods that quantify the amounts of all of the compounds in the pathway (a,b,c, and d) can be used to identify which steps(genes) are effected in each mutant.  This type of biochemical genetic work in bacteria and fungi greatly helped to initially characterize most of the pathways of basic cellular metabolism in the middle part of the 20th century.

Two pathways may act in parallel, such that when one is knocked out by a mutation, the other is able to mostly or completely compensate.  In this situation, the first mutation may be nearly or completely undetectable, or it may cause only a modest decrease in the function of its pathway and hence a mildly deleterious phenotype.  The second mutation would knock out  the parallel "backup" pathway, resulting in a great or completely loss of the product of the two pathways, and hence a severe phenotype or lethality (a dead organism).  This is the basis of many "enhancer suppressor screens" in model organisms (predominantly Drosophila and Caenorhabditis in animals) that have been used with high effectiveness to characterize developmental and cellular signaling pathways.

The parallel pathway situation can also be the basis of compensatory epistasis..  If pathway 1 and pathway 2 both contribute to the production of compound A and a certain amount or concentration of A is needed (i.e. not too much and not too little), then a mutation that increases the production of compound A from pathway 1 can be compensated by a second mutation that decreases the production of A from pathway 2.  Of course, many parallel pathways likely have this type of compensatory action built into them.  A could act to inhibit gene expression or protein/enzyme activity in either or both of the pathway, such that an excess of A acts to turn down its own production until its level falls below a certain threshold.

Epistasis

Now for some science.  Epistasis, something my lab group has been interested in for a number of years, is interaction of alleles (the versions of genes that diploid individuals in sexually reproducing species have two of, one from each parent) such that the effects of two (or more) alleles do not equal the sum of the individual effects of each allele.  For example, at two gene loci a and b if there are wild type alleles (a+ and b+) that each contribute 1 unit to a phenotype and two mutant alleles a1 and b1 that each contribute 3 units by themselves (thus the diploid genotypes a+a1 b+b+ and a+a+ b+b1 both have values of 1+3+1+1=6), if there were no epistasis then the genotype a+a1 b+b1 would be expected to have a phenotypic value of 1+3+1+3=8.  However, it is often found in real biology that the effects of two mutant alleles (or two alternative wild type alleles) do not precisely add up to the sum of their individual effects, such that a+a1 b+b1 might have a genotype of 10 (synergistic epistasis) or 6 (masking epistasis; there are other terms for this that are escaping me at the moment).
If this seems complicated now, it gets a lot more complicated, especially when more than two loci are involved. Population genetics theory has been done on positive and negative epistasis for deleterious alleles.  Positive epistasis occurs when as deleterious mutations accumulate, they have their worst effects when there are few of them in a genotype, with decreasing magnitudes of effect as more are added (this resembles the masking case above).  Negative epistasis occurs when the effect of adding another deleterious mutation gets worse and worse as more are added (this resembles the synergistic case above).  There turns out to be little empirical evidence of the latter in nature (or at least when genetic experiments have looked for it).  However, in theory negative epistasis is required for sexual reproduction to evolve in an ancestrally asexual species (i.e. for sexual reproduction to confer an evolutionary advantage greater than its costs).  This latter point is something I read about today (Peck JR, Waxman D, Welch JJ. 2012 Hidden epistastic interactions can favour the evolution of sex and recombination. PLoS One 7:e48382) and am still trying to wrap my mind around.
In general, epistasis determines the effect of a mutation. This depends on the "genetic background" (the genotypes at all of the other loci in the genome). In a population, there is typically a near- infinite number of potential genetic backgrounds, and some very much smaller number of predominant types that are largely determined by the major genes that interact at the molecular level with the gene of interest (either at the DNA, RNA, or protein level).  This becomes very important when trying to find and decipher the effects of disease genes in humans.

Resolutions

New Years resolutions are interesting experiments in will power, although most of the ones I make are pretty trivial.  One of last year's (2012) was to not buy any shoes this year.  I was successful in that and am thinking about extending that for 2013 (although my main pair of sneakers is getting ragged on the inside).  One of the ones from 2011 was to stop putting sugar in my coffee.  That was successful and is now permanent.  I recently switched to decaf and am making some pretty good decaf espresso at home these days.  It is pretty good without cream.  So I'm thinking for 2013 to drop cream from my coffee.  Another one for 2013 is going to be to take more family pictures.  All of the stuff since 2010 has made this pretty hard.  But I'll try.

Fat Chance Hotel - Public Image Limited

Not sure I've blogged about this song before.  Great low tempo underneath-hook, with Lydon's nearly monotone looming over all.  The build from the verse to the chorus here is tremendous.  I also love the background dissolution into some kind of discussion and then the very end mandolin and echo.  A gem of a song.

We Close Our Eyes - Oingo Boingo

[link] Not an expert on their stuff but I really like this song.  The sweeping vocal chorus does it.  Basically a one hook song.  Seems to map somewhere between Style Council and General Public.

Another commercial I loved.

Lite Brite.  We never had this and I have never played with one.

Another classic 70s Christmas commercial

The Norelco Santa commercial.

Carol of the Bells

The Andre commercial from the 70s really helped solidify this song for me as a, essential Christmas song.

Running to You - the Cars

One of my favorite tracks off their vastly under-rated (popularly, although critics usually praise it) 1980 Panorama album.  I've always loved the Cars' abstract blend of keyboards and guitars.  They lyrics are never much but the guitar and keyboard figures and constructions are quite sophisticated.  The production is very well done as well.  Altogether I get a complete atmosphere from them about the ambivalent turn of the decade aesthetics.  A lot was going on and a lot of different sounds were being broadcast.  The Cars' sounds have aged very well since then.

Girlfriend is Better - Talking Heads

[link] Few did it better than the Talking Heads, in terms of original sounds, grooves, and deep commentary on things.  For many of us who perform rock on stage, when we think of the absolute maximum of what we can effect up there, it's this.

We Stand a Chance - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

[link] One of the many great songs on the 1982 Long After Dark album.  One of my favorite all time albums.  Great chord progression.  Terrific integration of guitars and keyboards, like a lot of their early stuff.

Chiquitita - ABBA

ABBA gets unfairly stuck with a cliche label.  Most people know "Dancing Queen" (a great but way overplayed song in its time and after) and not much else.  This song had huge airplay when it came out in 1979. There are few pop songs with more power. I love the harmonies and the old world, cabaret-like, feel of the song.  There are a lot of qualities in this song that never appeared again in anything heard in America.

Desperate But Not Serious - Adam Ant

[link] Despite all the flamboyance, Adam Ant was full of good musical ideas and had a very successful, if unconventional, pop instinct.  I love the brass in the intro and choruses here.  The chord progression is gothic, and as such seems part of the first wave of goth sounds into pop.

Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses

[link] From 1981. A great modern holiday song. I love the sort of laconicness of the lead vocal (Patty Donahue), which may derive a bit from Debbie Harry.  The song and band are classified as "new wave", which was a pretty diverse phenomenon.  This song has brass and sax, which quite a few 80s acts featured. There weren't nearly as many rules than as the later decades.

Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison

From 1996. Another one that hit me at a certain time in a certain mindset.  Can't really explain it.  It is hooky.  Love the mid-tempo groove.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Bob and Doug McKenzie

Another fun take on this song. Got into these guys a bit late because I never stayed up late to watch SNL and SCTV like everybody else in high school did.  But the stuff is still pretty funny.

Going Down to Liverpool (live) - The Bangles

[link] Playing drums and singing lead vocal is hard. I did it a bit in the bands I played in in Madison. Debbi Peterson does an excellent job here. This is a great song. The video is a really nice example of the pure talent The Bangles had.

Find Another Fool - Quarterflash

From 1981. Always overshadowed by the aesthetically similar Pat Benatar, I've long appreciated Quarterflash.  The songs are simple, with hooky chord progressions.  Rindy Ross's voice goes to some good high places (and she plays a pretty good sax as well).  Takes me back...

Christmas song list

For today's Dept. holiday party.

1. The 12 Days of Christmas

2. Jingle Bells

3. Silent Night

4. Deck the Halls

5. Frosty the Snowman

6. Santa Claus is Coming to Town

7. Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer

8. Silver and Gold

9. Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

10. Up on the Rooftop

11. Good King Wenceslas

12. Silver Bells

13. We Wish You a Merry Christmas

14. Blue Christmas

15. Holly Jolly Christmas

16. I Saw Three Ships

17. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

18. We Three Kings

19. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

20. Let it Snow!

21. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting...)

22. O Christmas Tree

23. Walking in a Winter Wonderland

24. White Christmas

25 What Child is This (Greensleeves)

26. I'll Be Home For Christmas

27. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

28. Here Comes Santa Claus

29. Here We Come A-Wassailing

30. Do You Hear What I Hear

31. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

32. Feliz Navidad

33. Ding Dong Merrily on High

34. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley

My version is pretty different. But his is interesting.  More like a jam in this video.

Crybaby - Utopia

Great rock song (from 1984).  Never really understood the tight, almost overwrought production, especially apparent in the vocal and drums tracks.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Allan Sherman

I've always loved this.  A funny slice of the 60s.  And I would love to find a statue of a woman with a clock where her stomach ought to be (the one in the video is kind of lame, although the video itself is pretty fun).

Outside - The Fixx

[link] A couple of my high school friends got me into the Fixx and it stuck with me.  This song is one of their more obscure earlier songs.  Long and atmospheric.  (the only thing sort of strange about this live video is how the drummer is sort of over the top getting into this rather slow and cerebral song)
I used to take naps listening to tapes in those days and the Fixx were very frequent in my playlist.  There is a point where one starts to wake up from a nap and has sort of an altered consciousness.  This is one of the songs that would typically be playing during those moments.  Another Fixx song that tended to occur then was the song Camphor.

Stardom in Acton - Pete Townshend

From 1983.  This song was played a lot on rock radio.  Warmed up to it pretty quickly and I've always enjoyed it since then.  Complex dynamics, behind a pretty simple chord structure.

Yule Log

I remember this on WPIX from my youth.  We never watched it because we always had other sources of music.  I guess people did and now it's a kitchy nostalgic thing.  And of course it's on Youtube like everything else.  It's also a really safe outlet for viewers who are pyros.

Just Another Night - Mick Jagger

[link]  I've always liked this song, and actually most of Jagger's first solo album in 1985.  Great hooky chord progression.  Really that's all there is to it. Probably also hit me at a really formative time.

Christmas songs groupings

I've always mentally formed the following groups of songs:

Up On the Rooftop, Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

Jingle Bells, Sleigh Ride

Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow

I Saw Three Ships, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

There are more.  And higher level nesting.  I'll continuing putting this together...

Another Christmas music thing I have

The Nutcracker. Especially Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. Completely atmospheric. This music is winter for me. Probably just early conditioning, but still...

Snow, Snow! Beautiful Snow!

A lot could be written on this topic. This song is a pretty obscure song sung by school choruses in the early 80s (and I don't know how much longer before that).  I wasn't in the chorus in high school but my older brother Tom was and I remember seeing this song sung by them at least a couple of times.  It made a huge impression.  It became part of that feeling that I described in the last post.  So I have a lot of nostaligia for this piece.
The lyrics can be found here.  I can't find a date or author on this song.

As you can tell

I have a thing for Christmas songs.  I grew up with Christmas music.  When I was a kid there was a real "Christmas Feeling" I used to feel when hearing a lot of these songs (certain versions, certain records my parents had, e.g. Fred Waring holiday records).  It was mixed in with the excitement of getting gifts, but I like to think it was a distinct, special kind of feeling.  I don't feel it so much any more when the holidays come around, but I still really really enjoy playing the music of the holiday season.

New Christmas Learns

Feliz Navidad
Ding Dong Merrily on High
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Do You Year What I Hear?
Here We Come A-Wassailing
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Here Comes Santa Claus
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Let it Snow

I Still Do - The Cranberries

One of the only bands of the 90s era that I got into.  This is one of my favorites of theirs.  A sublime song.  They have a lot of really good ones.  Breathy high female vocals will get me every time.

Warp Drive

I love stuff like this:

How NASA might build its very first warp drive

The comments are even wilder than the article.

2 possible Christmas sing-a-long gigs coming up

The departmental Christmas party and Ru-Jun's day care room (which I did last year).  For this I don't memorize lyrics.  I have them printed in a binder (and I want to make a few extra copies of the binder for the participants to use).
Here is my song list so far:
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Frosty the Snowman
I Saw Three Ships
Holly Jolly Christmas
Blue Christmas
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Jingle Bells
The 12 Days of Christmas
Silent Night
Deck the Halls
Rudolph, the Red Nose Reindeer
Silver and Gold
Silver Bells
Good King Wenceslas
Up on the Rooftop
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

Save it For Later - The Beat (The English Beat)

From 1983. One of my first introductions to British alt pop.  I always loved this song.  It actually got some play on pop radio in the US (or else I would have missed it until college).  These guys were one of the rulers of college radio in the 80s.  And a great example (although not so much in this song) of ska merging with rock.
The jangling guitar riff and the raspy vocal.  Perfect.

Behind the Wheel - Depeche Mode

Another one of my favorites of theirs.  The video really got my attention.  The atmospherics and aesthetics.  Minimal.  Retro. Timeless in a lot of ways.

Stripped - Depeche Mode

[link] Listened to the 1986 album Black Celebration a lot during my early grad school years.  A great soundtrack to the isolation I was experiencing at the time.  This song is definitely the highlight.  It does a great job of building intensity and then sort of disassembles nicely at the end as well. Totally abstract. Total atmosphere.  Two keys to my personal aesthetics.

Girl Can't Help It - Journey

The musunderstanding and underappreciation of Journey, mostly by non-musicians, has led to them being widely considered merely an historical cliche. This song, from 1986, is one of the many examples of why they are great. Every part of the song is a hook, and the end part introduces yet another hook on top of it all. Steve Perry's towering vocals are masterful throughout, and perfectly complemented by the harmonies. These guys can play their instruments with the best in the business and the production, which takes hard rock and transforms it into accessible pop, is unparalleled.

We Ride Tonight - The Sherbs

[link] Rock radio in the late 70s and early 80s was really diverse.  A lot of really small-following bands had hits and got played.  A lot of these bands were great.  The Sherbs were one of these.

Talking in Your Sleep - The Romantics

From 1983. My first concert was these guys with Red Rider in 1984. I really like their tight, rhythm section driven pop/rock formula. This song has aged well.

Two current things

A. Dust Bowl - I like it a lot.  (I like most of the Ken Burns stuff, even though there are lots of cliches about his style by now).  I learned So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh, last night.  Woody Guthrie was a really interesting guy.

B. PSY - Gangnam Style; like it, especially the original video.  Good beat; musically it's OK.  It seems fresh.  And it's about a very specific part of Seoul, which is interesting.  There are places in Taipei that something like this could happen with.  Extreme local culture, especially from East Asia, fascinates me...

Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants

From 1988.  I haven't fully embraced TMBG.  Their raw brilliance and genius, in all its prolific display, is undeniable.  Their music is sort of a world unto itself.  A world their devotees would seem to be able to lose themselves in.  One of the former members of Megachild knew all their music and gave me mp3s of most of it.  I've been sort of afraid to go through all of it, actually.  Kind of like how I fear getting into chess.  In order to truly get into it, one must really study it.  Or else it's not doing it right.  Or really unsatisfactory.  Or both.  Or something.

There's Only One Way to Rock - Sammy Hagar

[link] Sammy Hagar had some decent, if mindless (like the genre), in his solo career.  Don't hear much revisitation of this era of rock too much these days.  But it had lots of good moments.  Some of it ages pretty good.

ZZ Top - My Head's In Mississippi

It's hard not to like Zztop.  They're originals, have been doing it for a long time, and represent a direct line to a blues sound that gave birth to and has always underlain rock.  All of this ameliorates the Southern, back country patriarchal, misogynistic urges that their raw sound is also steeped in.
This song is one of their later hits and one of my favorites, although they do tend to repeat themselves in songwriting, playing, production, soloing, etc.

Alsatian Cousin - Morrissey

One of my favorites.  Very simple construction.  Really like what they did with it live.  This song cuts and drives.  Acid in a love=hate wound.

This Charming Man - The Smiths

Really one of the best pop songs of the 80s.  I could listen to Marr's guitar all day.  And for some reason, Morrissey's lilt never wears out on me either.

Red River Valley

My cover of the classic cowboy and folk song.  You can also see here why I'm not able to make a lot of recordings these days.

Getting Jiggy With It - Will Smith

[link] These were probably more or less throw away songs for Smith, but I like this one, Miami as well. I like him on screen as well. Smart, funny, just kind of the whole package.

I Can't Find My Baby - Lisa Stansfield

From 1989.  Another one of those pop songs that I have a thing for. 

Evolution in Pokemon

is actually metamphosis.  Ru-Jun is really really really into Pokemon for a while.  Which is cool; Shian-Ren and I liked to watch the early episodes when we were in grad school.  I'm not worried about the show's use of the term evolution right now.  Ru-Jun will learn the real meaning of evolution soon enough.  Right now we're having a lot of fun with Pokemon.

I'll Drink To You - Duke Jupiter

[link] Were big locally in Rochester in the 80s.  Fun song.  Chorus is a great hook. Co-genric with Huey Lewis, I would say.

King For A Day - Planet P Project

From 1983.  I really liked this song, which briefly got airplay on album rock stations.  It's all about the chord progression (gets quite repetitive though).

Don't Pay the Ferryman - Chris De Burgh

From 1983. This was played incessantly on rock (and maybe pop) radio. My friend Scott was obsessed with the song. Seems to have aged OK, not great.

Her Head's Revolving - The Three O'Clock

[link] One of my all time favorite bands.  No one sounded quite like them.  The high male vocal, the instrumentation, the songwriting.  Hooky and bright.  Takes me away to around 1990.  Another one of the bands my friend Dave K in Durham (and later in Madison) introduced me to.
This song has power.  Hard guitar work.  Interlaced keyboards.  Nice breaks.

Neal and Jack and Me - King Crimson

[link] In the late 80s, early 90s I was somewhat into the album Beat by King Crimson. Late stuff from them. I never really got around to investigating their earlier, apparently more influential material.

New established songs

Please Come To Boston
A Girl Like Jesus
Stickleback
Blue-footed Booby Blues

What to do with my music

If not for dad and husband responsibilities, I would have been out with my uke this past year singing folk songs with the OWS people.  In the future I'll have some more time.  I think I'm going to have to get out and start singing for the Earth.  Might be just me in a lawn chair along the state highway somewhere with a sign and my banjo.  But it's gotta be done.

Banjo set so far

Camptown Races
Country Roads
Walking the Floor Over You
On the Road Again
Frankie and Johnnie

Jolson

Weirdly fascinating. And the blackface thing. Apalling but has a huge long history of nuance, appropriation and counter-appopriation. Culture is complex.

Mandinka - Sinead O'Connor

[link] This whole album was a huge breath of fresh air in alternative rock when it came out in 1987-1988. Her voice, the rhythm tracks, the production on these songs were just amazing. Big influence on me in my college years, when I was starting to write songs.