“She Sends Me” – moe.
From No Doy

It was at a Furthur Festival that I had first heard of moe. There were all these neo-hippies with bumper stickers plastered over all sorts of things with the band name. It was always like that too, all lower cases with the period in the back. It’s a goofy little thing, but definitely stands out and makes you wonder what they are all about. I don’t really remember their performance that day. I remember I liked it, but out of the half-dozen bands I saw it’s hard to recall much about this one when I didn’t know any of their songs

Eventually, I bought an album, No Doy, and it has become an album I really enjoy, but rarely listen to. “She Sends Me” is pretty typical fare for the band, or at least the album. It has a little funky, warbly bass line that moves the song along, at least until the final rave-up when the guitar takes over into a quickly-paced free-for-all. The lyrics are completely goofy and fun.

There are a good little band, one that I love for their ability to continue putting out fine music and creating a profitable scene while remaining almost completely obscured from mainstream media. A band that plays for the music, man, and not MTV credibility.

“Must’ve Had Your Reasons” – Yonder Mountain String Band
From Town by Town

A few summers back I saw the Yonder Mountain String Band in Indianapolis during a festival dubbed “Jamgrass” which was supposed to be this crazy fusion of jam bands and bluegrass players. It was a great, long day filled with the likes of Sam Bush, Tony Rice with Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Dark Star Orchestra, and the aforementioned String Band. That’s a big collection of tried and true pickers to compete with but Yonder Mountain held their own. They did so by making bluegrass fun again. They have combined traditional bluegrass styles with popular music. It is similar to what Sam Bush did ten years ago when creating New Grass, except where Bush now carries a drummer, Yonder Mountain still keeps it with traditional instruments. They did a great version of “Suspicious Minds” for Elvis’ birthday, and if you haven’t heard Elvis done bluegrass style well, you just haven’t lived. At least not anywhere near Kentucky.

Unfortunately, most of the albums I’ve bought since that fateful performance have not lived up to the sheer joy of that evening. I don’t know what it is – the original songs, the lack of energy that only comes from a live performance, or something else – but the studio recordings have never done much for me.

Town by Town seems to be a lot more of what I remember from that evening, and this song is just about perfect. It feels lighter, and more energetic than the others I’ve listened to. You know how often studio tracks are performed with each musician playing their tracks separately, in a box, and you can hear that? Well, this one feels like the band is back on the road, playing live and in the spirit. I’m glad to hear them pull it off on the album, and keep checking my local listings to see them coming back to my town.

“Tiny Dancer” – Elton John
From Madman Across the Water

I can’t not hear this song and think of that scene in Almost Famous where the band finds common ground in it while lip-synching along It’s a great movie moment, and a nearly perfect song. My relationship with Elton is a sordid one. My first memory of the man is not of his music but of a radio news announcer discussing that Elton was auctioning off much of his stage props and costumes. There was much ballyhoo over Elton’s elaborate stage get-ups and many a comparison to the late Liberace. An odd memory I know, but yet there it is.

Certainly, I loved songs like “Candle in the Wind” when I was young and have great fond memories of hearing Elton sing during the 800-mile drive from college in Alabama to home in Oklahoma. My friend had a mix tape full of Elton John and I would borrow it for the long journey.

We had a bit of a falling out, me and Elton, during his Lion King years full of schmaltzy dreck, but I have recently rediscovered (for the first time) his output from the 1970s that brought him success in the first place. Albums like Madman, Honky Chateau, and Tumbleweed Connection are full of marvelous songcraft. “Tiny Dancer” always takes me there, too, and I remember what a great thing a song can be.

“Linger” – the Cranberries
From Unplugged

The early 1990s were when I first truly discovered music. I was a teenager and had begun to feel things in the only way teenagers can – fully and as if it was the only thing that mattered. So I have a great deal of nostalgia for the music that came out during this era. It’s funny because there is so much nostalgia these days over all things 1980’s and while I’ve rode that boat and loved it, a great deal of that decade I don’t really remember. So say on songs like “Hungry Like the Wolf” I can’t really remember loving the song when it first came out, but I know the song, and realize it is from my childhood and so I create a sort of nostalgia for it and celebrate what a great freaking song it is, as if it was my own.

But the 90s created a real nostalgia for me, from true memories, and not ones I pretend I remember for the sake of nostalgia. The Cranberries are right there in the thick of things, and this song always places me in a specific time. This particular version is from MTV’s Unplugged series, a series that likewise lives in my nostalgic memory case. It’s a lovely little thing with Dolores O’Riordan’s voice as haunting as ever.

“Dr. Feelgood” – Mötley Crüe
From Dr. Feelgood

Alright so after that admission I have to disclose my absolute secret love for all things hair metal. I know it is musically tepid and I know that half the bands had hits off of sentimental, sappy power ballads, but I love them just the same. You could probably argue that I can’t claim to not remember the 80s and hold fond memories of hair bands, but time is kind of a sliding scale, isn’t it?

I mean take this album, it feels like totally 80’s and technically it is, but with a release date of September 1989, it could really go either way. And I guess that’s what I really mean. I turned 14 in 1990 so my real musical awareness began in the late 80’s and blossomed in the early 90s and while I do have a dear fondness for many of the songs that came out say in 1987 the real heart of 80s nostalgia goes a lot further back. But enough about that, we’ve got to talk about the Crüe.

I guess you could call it a small teenage rebellion that I listened to hair metal. I was from a small town in Oklahoma and there weren’t cool folks to turn me onto real metal bands or punk rock, so I took the generic stuff with enough loud guitars and satanic emblems to tick off my parents. It was safe enough not to get me into real trouble, and dangerous enough to kick my young hormones into action. And that was enough for the time.