Giving You the Best that I've Got...

I guess I'll keep the mood all-like fall-like and gush about my theory on autumnal playlists. Livin' in Ohio and experiencing each change of season I've found the fall a time when listening habits become much like the year before or before that. For some reason there are certain albums that just resonate better this time in the calendar. Albums or songs that evoke memories much stronger than others. Granted I've locked myself in the basement to master Guitar Hero III, but there's a reason I keep trying to conquer "One" by Metallica. Metallica just sounds better when the trees are slowly becoming bare and ominous. Right? Or Urge Overkill. Anything by the Misfits. The Posies - Frosting on the Beater. Megadeth. Geto Boys. Tammy and the Amps.

Sure there's plenty of new things to listen to that fit the mood:

A Mountain of One - perfect for a pre-sun commute, in morning silence, to one of Columubus' many fine public schools.

Tiffany Evans - "Promise Ring" -- my deep attraction to light-hearted quiet storm fare never falters.

Brittany -- Yes. Blackout is as neon-coated and darkly pop as the critics allow.

Psychedelic Horseshit and TNV's (new one) shitpop -- for the anxiety that precedes the anxiety of the holidays.

And that Black Swans record Change keeps me up late on the screened in porch through colder and colder smoke breaks.



But for me two songs have won out. The first from Anita Baker's landmark album
Rapture. Listening to "Sweet Love" is being 10 years old again and in Tae Kwon Do. For some reason the sensei was a huge slow jams man, and his clock radio would always have the Dayton classic R&B station on stealth-like in the back office. No matter what we were doing you could hear it's soft whisper from beyond. It was most prevalent when we had our final meditation. Whenever I want I can hear Anita's voice in this rousing song and transport myself to a time when meditation was in a white cotton uniform on a bamboo floor, the only time to actually think and revel in a young boy's life. For a 10 yr. old, that was some peaceful shit. It was in that moment that I would dream off and find myself in the foreign locales I've been lucky enough to see. I owe it all to Anita.



Then there was Sepultura and "Dead Embryonic Cells." I was 14 and sitting shotgun with Big Tim Dafner in the Cutlass Supreme. I suppose like any half-way rebellious teen we were searching for dirt weed, cheap cigarettes and the supreme evil in heavy metal music. Back then it seemed like we had found it with Danzig, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, and our secret weapon, Pungent Stench. Sepultura was up there with the top three (Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth), but it wasn't until now that I know how potent and influential they really were. Seeing movies now re: the strife in modern day Brazil, the guys in Sepultura were speaking from the ultimate pit of humanity. Not Africa, but somewhere where opportunity is shoved in your face but yanked away at an instant. Belo Horizonte, where they originated in this late 80's/early 90's turmoil was the real deal for the type of apocalyptic imagery Sepultura conjured both musically and stylistically. It's only now that I've realized how devastating Arise truly is. I'd love to go on a little field trip through the creepiness of the Miami Valley we journeyed; be it tracing the ghost of Polecat Rd., the satanic ritual sites outside of Huber Heights, the head-shop in New Carlisle, or various gravel pits where underage kids could get high. Sepultura as a constant would have made all the difference, at least it does now.