Your Mom Likes Songs

Here's a playlist for all the mamas, be they a little bit country or a little bit gansta rap.


Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys, Willie Nelson

Rag Mama Rag, The Band

 

Take Your Mama Out All Night, Scissor Sisters

 

Mama Said Knock You Out, LL Cool J

Mama Told Me Not to Come, Three Dog Night

Mommy's Little Monster, Social Distortion

Mama Tried, Merle Haggard (The Grateful Dead do a good version of this too)

Dear Mama, Tupac

Mother, Danzig

 

Hey Me Hey Mama, Ray Lamontagne

 

Tell Me Mama, Jackie Greene

Happy Mother's Day, ya'll!

As Cool as a Cucumber in a Bowl of Hot Sauce

public service announcement:

with a little refining (using the thumbs up and down), the beastie boys spotify radio station might be the best thing to ever happen to your morning and afternoon commutes.

also, i'll be a little sad for the rest of my life that MCA died so young and unexpectedly. i give him a bittersweet mental fist bump every time his verse begins in a song.

That Time Nels Cline Acknowledged My Presence

weekend highlights:

cooler weather (rain even!) and nels cline of wilco!

a couple weeks ago my dad told me that he read in the newspaper (thank god someone is still reading physical newspapers or else i'd totally have missed this) that the guitarist from wilco would be coming to sacramento with a group called unfold ordinary mind. it's comprised of a contra alto carinet player, a couple tenor saxophonists, a drummer and nels cline on the guitar. 

the venue is called antiquite, a place in sacramento that i'd driven by a million times without giving it a second thought. i overheard some guy there saying that the place used to house a stained glass repair shop, and is now purposed as an antique dealer/winery? i don't know. visit the web site.

anyways, the place was really cool for an intimate show. the vibe was really different - they only served wine and water and the median age of attendees was probably 50. lots of arty sophisticated older people were in attendance. not arty hippie boho types, but arty upper middle class college professor types. herringbone blazers and white ponytails. we were two of about seventy in attendance.

we went because we are wilco fans and love nels cline. when sky blue sky came out my friends and i were buzzing about impossible germany and it's guitar solo for weeks. literally. (check it out below, if you like. it starts at about 2:45)

it was cool to see him in this unique kind of hometown setting, without his tables full of guitar pedals in front of an audience of thousands and thousands. he was wearing thick functional eyeglasses and reading sheet music! hah! all the musicians were incredible. and the drummer is originally from sacramento! he was ridiculous. crazy good.

we milled around for a few minutes after their set because tony likes to meet people. i am notoriously horrified by meeting people i admire for fear that they will be mean and dismissive or act put out, causing me to be sad for the rest of my life. as the show ended, we watched nels buy a glass of red wine and head back to the little stage to break down his gear. he breaks down his own gear - just like a normal person! it was so weird. anyways, tony said hello and complimented him on his show. he was super, super, super sweet. he thanked us for coming and for complimenting him. he waved at me and smiled and wanted to know if the levels sounded right from where we were sitting. we told him it was great, and he told us to have a good weekend. it was rad. 

Jukebox Songs

I love being at a semi-empty bar with friends and having access to the jukebox. i'll even pay the extra however many cents to for the extra special songs (you know - on the digital touch screen new jukeboxes. there are no old school ones left in my town, I don't think. :( )

I am a really good jukebox song picker. I like to select my tunes, sit back and watch people react. I find the songs that people forgot they love.

I heard some old rod stewart on my way to work this morning and it reminded me of what a good song selector I am. here are some of my favorites.

STAY WITH ME is an awesome choice. I freaking love old Rod. don't even get me started on how boring he is now. it hurts me to think about it.

 

 

FAST AS YOU by Dwight Yoakam is such a cool, simple song. you don't have to be a cowboy or have tiny pencil legs to enjoy this one. that organ? get out of here. so good.

 



CAN I KICK IT by a tribe called quest. for all the people who can quest like a tribe does.

YOU'RE SO VAIN is the best because carly simon. who doesn't sing along with this one? vain assholes, probably. that think the song is about them. this song is the best. carly simon is the best.

selecting FAMILY TRADITION by hank Williams jr. inside the west house bar one sunday evening is one of my favorite jukebox memories. drunkards love hank Williams jr and any song that justifies alcoholism and drug abuse.

SLEDGEHAMMER by Peter Gabriel is just 5 minutes of eclectic layered dopeness.

NIGHT TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME goes out to all The Cosby Show nerds in the house. and the Ray Charles fans of course. who doesn't love either or both? if you don't like Ray Charles or The Cosby Show, you pretty much have no business around me.

La La How The Life Goes On: Outside Lands (with a toddler!)

tony, van and I went to the outside lands music festival in SF a couple weekends ago. tony and I had been twice before, but this was our first major festival style outing since having van and we knew it was going to be kind nuts of us. but we did it anyways. all three days!

I thought to myself as I bought the tickets that while I didn't remember seeing many (if any) kids during previous years that there must have been a bunch there. what do music loving people do when they have kids? they bring them, right? well, I guess not because van was one of about six littles I saw all weekend long.

we had such a good time, our little family of three. van was a really, really good boy. he ate his snacks and listened to the tunes. he let us hold him through all the sets, and we took him to run around in between bands. he made tons of friends. TONS. people thought it was awesome that there was a baby at a music festival. he high-fived and low-fived people all over the place. festival goers asked if they could take pictures of him. vendors have him little treats and buttons and stickers every time he passed a booth (see his anchor tattoo in the watermelon pic below). we heard "oh my god, look at that baby!" about 500 times over the three days that we were there.

the first day we saw band of horses, the national (with bob weir!) and paul mccartney! this was my third time seeing paul, tony's second and vanny's first. he was badass as ever. the three hour set just flew by. we made friends with this really funny, older gay couple and danced and sang all night. van took a little snooze toward the end, but woke back up in time to see the fireworks go off during live and let die. while I will go to any paul show within a 500 mile radius and love every second of it, I must say that I was pretty annoyed with his commentary. his stories and banter in between songs have literally been word for word the same since 2003. I think that's pretty absurd. tells us some new stuff, man! he's gotta have some other stories!

van and paul!

the second day was mostly spent meandering around and checking out the vendors and art and food. there weren't a ton of bands we absolutely needed to see that day, which was nice because we weren't rushing to walk miles from stage to stage all day long. we ended up checking out the mother hips (we are such hips loyalists!) and grizzly bear. I would have loved to also see the yeah yeah yeahs, but they played at the same time as grizzly bear and I didn't want to pull myself away from their set. they are incredible.
                      

          

we arrived early on day three - right after a sweet breakfast at a little café in Berkeley where we were staying. ( we stayed in the cutest little one bedroom apartment we found on air bnb, by the way. it was adorable and I would stay there again in a second.) we ate some eggrolls and got our last lemonade of the weekend. this one tent sold the most delicious lemonade I've ever had in my life. word. they made it right in front of you with these big lemons that they squeeze right into your cup. you can taste the little sugar granules when you drink it. or maybe the little crystals are really meth, because it was THAT good.  we drank a cup every day we were there, which means we spent about $20 on lemonade over the three days. whatever. it was vacation.

         

van loved fishbone! while he really took in all the bands we saw, i'd say fishbone was the only one that really moved him to his feet and got him super excited. it was pretty funny. we also checked out trombone shorty, hall and oates, vampire weekend and the red hot chili peppers on our last day.

               

hall and oates were so much fun. I didn't ever expect that they'd be a band i'd ever see live, so it was so cool getting to sing along to all their songs. there is so much greatness behind their stuff - so on point and soulful and melodic, but there is something else so cheesy and kinda funny about them too. I freaking love them. we'd seen vampire weekend before and wanted to check out willie nelson instead (he played at the same time) but van fell asleep during hall and oates so we were stuck at the main stage for the vampire weekend set, which wasn't bad at all. they sounded better than I remember them. the chili peppers were pretty magical for me - and probably most people my age who probably remember them as one of their first favorite bands. they kick so much ass and have so much energy. the only point during the weekend where I almost wished I didn't have a toddler to look after was when their set started. the tween inside me wanted very badly to just run up to the stage and whoop and dance through the encore!

           

 

all in all it was a surprisingly successful and memorable weekend. i'm glad we were able to enjoy it together. honestly, it's not my natural instinct to say, "hey! let's take our year and a half old to a huge and crazy music festival for three days." really, it isn't. i knew it would be logistically difficult and we'd be experiencing the festival differently than we'd had in past years. we had to find quieter areas to sit, further away from the stage. we had to pack healthy snacks. we didn't drink beer after beer all day or get to enjoy the huge Wine Lands area they have. there wasn't a ton of lounging on our part since we had a crazy on the move toddler we had to chase around. our MO has been modified, and we have a new kind of fun now. ob la di, ob la da.

These Two...

i don't know what just compelled me to search for this video, but i'm so glad i did. i hadn't seen it in years.

that hair! those sideburns! those lashes! their clothes!

these two kill me.

Badass. So so so badass.

seriously. does anyone even come close to tina turner?

i was going to list all the cool elements of this video until i realized every freaking thing about it is amazing.

The Very Best

it's a sad, sad day.

i really feel like i have so much to thank him for. his music is part of my soundtrack. his voice is so ingrained in my mind and so tied up into all these experiences i've had throughout my life; singing along to the weight and cripple creek during impromptu acoustic living room jams as a young child, inheriting my parent's vinyl collection and listening to the last waltz on my first record player in my room as a teenager, seeing the levon helm band perform at the outside lands music festival in san francisco a few summers ago...

thanks for everything, levon.

Easy, Ready, Willing

so so so so cool. these are some friends of friends of ours and their awesome cover of hall + oates' "i can't go for that" has pretty much gone viral!

woohoo!

good times!

our little family had such a nice little saturday yesterday. we woke up, got ready and headed to our friend roman's first birthday party. here's baby v and i wearing a party favor:

we got coffee on the way home and just laid around. despite ingesting 16 ounces of an iced vanilla latte with almond milk, i could hardly keep my eyes open at 5 pm. i took van and had a little catnap until around 6. van woke up in a fit of rage after his pacifier dropped out of his mouth and was too worked up to fall back asleep. i, on the other hand, was still feeling beat. tony took van to play some tunes in his nursery while i fell back asleep until almost 8. yessss!

i woke up starving, and tony immediately offered to pick up some mikuni for us. woohoo! right before he left, i went on facebook and saw that our friends, the golden cadillacs, were going to be playing shady lady from 9 to midnight. the combination of feeling refreshed by my long nap and wearing my favorite new sweater had me really wanting to get out of the house. plus somehow, by the grace of god, my bangs and eyelashes weren't all crimped by my nap...a sign that we should definitely hit up the show.

so we called gramma to come watch van and headed out for fancy cocktails and some modern, california-inspired honky tonk. so spontaneous of us.

birthdays + coffee + mustaches + naps + sushi + last minute babysitting grammas + cool sweaters + GOOD live music + gin cocktails = good times.

Weekend is Coming Soon...

it's been a rough week. i'll be celebrating it's end by working from home tomorrow and relaxing to some of these sweet tunes. 


nothing too heavy...


van morrison. sweet thing.
fiona apple. waltz (better than fine).
bill withers. lovely day.
jackie greene. shaky ground. 
sam cooke. having a party. 
dr. dog. weekend.
gillian welch. pass you by.
los lobos. the valley.
joni mitchell. california.
ben harper. burn one down.

My Sweet George...

the quiet beatle would have turned 69 years old yesterday. he's a very transcendent lyricist, which is comforting given that cancer took him far too soon. his death makes so many of his songs, especially from his solo career, even more meaningful.

happy birthday, george.