Today is my birthday.  Yeah, entering my mid-twenties, such a bitch…my Goal of the Day (heretofore referred to as “G.O.D.”) is to not listen to one bad song all day.  Let’s see how it goes:

7:39AM    turn on the TV and see a commercial for “Dirty Dancing: The Musical”.  Hear the first few bars of the chorus to “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life”.  I immediately hit mute and request a mulligan on my goal, along with a corollary- commercial jingles, TV themes etc may be exempt to this musical exploration; however if I have the opportunity to turn them off or change the station I will do so.  Another corollary is that the traditional song “Happy Birthday” is also exempt.
8:20AM    listen to the second half of Bruce Springsteen’s Working On A Dream album, my G.O.D. is intact here.  A few thoughts on Bruce:

1. My prediction of Bruce’s setlist at the Super Bowl halftime show: “My Lucky Day”, “Prove It All Night”, “Glory Days”, “Working On A Dream”, “Born To Run”.
2. This new album is really good.  Rolling Stone gave it 5 stars which seems excessive.  I reserve the 5 star rating for maybe 3 albums a decade, and by giving this one 5 stars you’re putting it on par with Born To Run, Darkness and Born In The USA…come on.  That being said, the man is still reinventing himself and expanding the boundaries of his musical legacy.  Among his peers I can only also put Bob Dylan and Neil Young in that category, and Bruce continues to do it with much more consistency.
3. It is incomprehensible that “The Wrestler” wasn’t nominated for the best song Oscar.  I don’t recall them ever having only three nominees for the award, and you’re telling me that two songs from Slumdog and a Peter Gabriel track from WallE are better than this understated masterpiece!?  I can only think that the head of the academy is peeved because Bruce turned down the offer to perform at his kid’s bar mitzvah or something.
4. As I’m driving to work on my birthday morning, I hear the track “Surprise Surprise” off the new album, containing the following lyric that I shall use in my defense to get my restraining order from Bruce lifted: “Well today is your birthday, we traveled so far we two.  So let’s blow out the candles on your cake and we’ll raise a glass or two”.  Your honor, you don’t understand!  Mr Springsteen invited me over for cake and cocktails!!!  That is why I was on his lawn at 2AM screaming the lyrics to “Rosalita”!!

8:58AM  get to the office.  In order to avoid any crappy songs, I need to construct a playlist o’ the day, label it 01.28.09 and fill it with only the top quality material on my hard drive.  Don’t kid yourself, even in my own music collection there are hundreds of songs that would violate my G.O.D.  Start off with “Hell In A Bucket (Live @ The Knick)” by the Grateful Dead, seems appropriate.  May be going to hell in a bucket, baby, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.

TIME/SONG/LENGTH/ARTIST/ALBUM
9:33 AM  Hell In A Bucket (Live) 6:59  Grateful Dead Dozin’ At The Knick (Live) (Disc 1)
9:35 AM  Rise  2:36    Eddie Vedder    Into the Wild
9:44 AM  Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Pt. 2   8:12    My Morning Jacket    Evil Urges
9:49 AM  Ulysses   3:11    Franz Ferdinand    Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

9:49AM  I receive an ecard.  Funny how ecards are so old fashioned now.  I’ve received a bunch of birthday shout outs on my facebook page, some from people who actually called me on my birthday in years past, some from people who I haven’t spoken to in years.  Both are fine gestures.  The ecard is throwing my G.O.D. for a loop, however- how can I be sure it doesn’t stray away from the “Happy Birthday” song and uses “We Built This City” or “Love Shack” as it’s soundtrack?  I’m going to assume that music beyond fair use licensing is outside the business model of Blue Mountain but regardless I don’t click “play” on it just yet.

Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle        4:10    Nirvana    In Utero    1/28/09 9:53 AM
Losing Myself        4:30    Brazilian Girls    New York City    1/28/09 10:03 AM

10:12AM via Facebook: Steve simultaneously thanks y’all for your kind birthday wishes and wonders if he needs hip replacement surgery.

10:16 AM  The Next Messiah        8:45    Jenny Lewis    Acid Tongue
10:21 AM  Weird Fishes/Arpeggi        5:18    Radiohead    In Rainbows
10:23 AM  And Your Bird Can Sing        2:02    The Beatles    Revolver
10:29 AM  Tombstone Blues        6:01    Bob Dylan    Highway 61 Revisited
What other songwriter can get away with the following lyric:
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, “Death to all those who would whimper and cry”
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saving, “The sun’s not yellow it’s chicken”

10:32 AM  Each Year        3:16    Ra Ra Riot    The Rhumb Line
10:35 AM  Modern Guilt        3:15    Beck    Modern Guilt
10:38 AM  Who’s Gonna Save My Soul        3:15    Gnarls Barkley    The Odd Couple
10:44 AM  Please Read The Letter        5:55    Robert Plant & Alison Krauss    Raising Sand
10:49 AM  My Body Is A Cage        4:47    The Arcade Fire    Neon Bible
Did you see the Benjamin Button trailer that used this song?  So cool and effective, I thought that trailer would do for this song what Pineapple Express did for Paper Planes but I guess the song is too intense/dark.

10:52 AM  Paper Planes        3:25    M.I.A.    Kala
10:56 AM  Until The Day Is Done        4:09    R.E.M.    Accelerate
11:02 AM  W.M.A.        5:59    Pearl Jam    Vs.
11:07 AM  Things Aint Like They Used To Be        4:36    The Black Keys    Attack & Release
11:10 AM  Keep Your Head        3:24    The Ting Tings    We Started Nothing

My horoscope, sweet.  Not that I really believe in this stuff: Today’s birthday (Jan. 28): There is no one like you, and this year you realize how rare your gifts really are. With your self-esteem on the rise you attract new friends, and people in your life treat you with more respect. The travel you do early in the year shows that you can shine wherever you are. There’s a windfall in April. Capricorn and Sagittarius adore you. Your lucky numbers are 7, 14, 43, 31 and 5.

11:14 AM  Night Flight        3:37    Led Zeppelin    Physical Graffiti (Disc 2)
11:16 AM  Mansford Roof        2:08    Vampire Weekend    Vampire Weekend
11:21 AM  One Fine Day        4:54    Brian Eno & David Byrne    Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
11:23 AM  Off Broadway        2:33    Ryan Adams    Easy Tiger
11:27 AM  Emergency 72        4:05    Turin Brakes    The Optimist LP
11:30 AM  Sex On Fire        3:26    Kings Of Leon    Only By The Night

11:31 AM  need to take a musical break.  Listen to yesterday’s Bill Simmons ESPN podcast.  I think the Cardinals have a legit shot on Sunday but for their benefit I will not be betting any cabbage on them.

12:31 PM  What Difference Does It Make [Peel Sessions Version]        3:14    The Smiths    The Sound Of The Smiths
12:42 PM  The ‘59 Sound (acoustic on AP)        4:17    The Gaslight Anthem    AP Acoustic Session

12:45 PM Viewed the ecard.  It started off with a blast of generic music and exclaimed “STEVE!”.  For the terms of the G.O.D. I had to close the tab immediately.

Another challenge with the G.O.D. is I spend a fair amount of my time during the day listening to bands that have been submitted to me to consider for coverage on VIMBY.  In all due respect to the industry folk who reach out to me, I would say their batting average of quality submissions is right around a hall of fame baseball player, that is to say maybe 1 in 3 are worth consideration.  The first one I listened to today was Iglu & Hartly http://www.myspace.com/igluandhartly.  I dig these guys.  Kind of has that MGMT vibe, albeit a bit poppier.  At the very least they don’t violate the G.O.D.

2:11 PM  back from lunch.  Reviewing a couple VIMBY-related items, the segment we recently produced at the Roxy with Idle Warship http://www.myspace.com/idlewarship, the new band created by Talib Kweli, Res and Graph Nobel.  Not violating the G.O.D. at all- these guys bring the goods, this is going to be a great addition to our Roxy series.  Then I checked out some music from the Gabriella Cilmi segment we are in the midst of working on.  17 year old honey from Australia who has already blown up huge down under and in the UK, she’s about to conquer the US…with the help of VIMBY.  Her track “Sweet About Me” is one of those perfect pop songs that gets into your head and won’t come out, like my dog Rigby when she gets her paws on a bone from Lawry’s and runs under the bed.

2:18 PM  Sweet About Me        3:51    Gabriella Cilmi    Vimby.com Session

2:30 PM  We were graced with the lovely and mucho talented Miranda Lee Richards http://www.myspace.com/mirandaleerichards here at the VIMBY HQ for the backyard sessions series we are putting together.  It was nice to get serenaded by her in such a serene setting, felt like we were transported back into the Laurel Canyon scene of the seventies but here we are in Sherman Oaks in the 00s.

3:52 PM  Catapult        3:57    R.E.M.    Murmur    1/28/09 3:52 PM

3:55 PM   Watched a rough cut of the Semi Precious Weapons video segment one of our preditors in Austin produced for us.  If Miranda Lee Richards felt like a return to the singer songwriter tradition of Joni Mitchell et all, watching SPW is like being a Stooges gig in 1969 with a dude wearing leather pants pissing on your leg.  Pure lunacy.

3:55 PM  Sweet And Dandy        3:00    The Maytals    The Harder They Come
3:58 PM  Up The Junction        3:08    Squeeze    Singles 45’s And Under
4:02 PM  Meg White        4:17    Ray LaMontagne    Gossip In The Grain
4:07 PM  Given To Fly        4:20    Pearl Jam    The Forum Los Angeles, CA 09July06
4:10 PM  Boogie With Stu        3:53    Led Zeppelin    Physical Graffiti (Disc 2)
4:13 PM  Dancing Choose        2:56    TV On The Radio    Dear Science

4:17 PM Took a break from my playlist briefly to make a dinner reservation.  Their hold music played Bowie’s “The Prettiest Star” and Elvis Costello’s version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” while I was waiting.  If they’re gonna waste my precious time by putting me on terminal hold at least they gave me some good tunes.

4:18 PM  Making Flippy Floppy        4:36    Talking Heads    Speaking in Tongues
4:23 PM  The Prettiest Star        3:31    David Bowie    Aladdin Sane
4:26 PM  Explain It To Me        3:12    Liz Phair    Exile in Guyville
4:29 PM  Creator        3:33    Santogold    Santogold
4:35 PM  Thorn In My Pride        6:04    The Black Crowes    The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion
4:41 PM  Summertime Rolls        6:20    Jane’s Addiction    Nothing’s Shocking
4:45 PM  Car Thief        3:40    The Beastie Boys    Paul’s Boutique
4:50 PM  Lively Up Yourself        5:11    Bob Marley & The Wailers    Natty Dread
4:55 PM  You Are My Face        4:39    Wilco    Sky Blue Sky
4:58 PM  Wrong ‘Em Boyo        3:13    The Clash    London Calling
5:02 PM  The Wanton Song        4:10    Led Zeppelin    Physical Graffiti (Disc 2)

5:05 PM  Campus        2:56    Vampire Weekend    Vampire Weekend
5:07 PM  When I’m Sixty-Four        2:38    The Beatles    Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Gotta roll.  Here’s to hoping I don’t hear any Starship or B52’s on the way home.

Rock on!
_S