Long Live Rock, Rock is Dead--An Aggregatibacter Video Mixtape

It's been a while since I did one of these Mixtapes. I've been listening to The Who all morning and want to start this with "Eminence Front." It's a risky way to start and this has the potential to become very corny, very fast. Let's just see where it goes...

The Who--Quadrophenia

Something I've always historically done staying up late nights on holiday weekends was to sit in my parent's living room with my big clunky headphones listening to my father's copy of Quadrophenia. It was one of his favorite albums, by his favorite band. I can still see him walking around our house in his Maximum R&B T-shirt and his tighty whiteys coming downstairs after a night's rest as I'm sliding his Quadrophenia records back into their sleeves and preparing to finally go to sleep. I always wished I would have stayed up another hour or two and listened to the record one more time with him. I was a stupid teenager though and somehow, even though I was listening to his record and he was wearing a Who shirt for pajamas I never did, at the time, think of him as cool enough to hang out with. Have you ever seen that Louie episode where Louis CK rocks out to "Who are You?" in the car with his kids? Well, I've had that exact experience with my dad about a thousand times. I thought he was such a nerd. Now I'd give anything to rock out with him like that to "The Rock," or "The Real Me," or "I've Had Enough," or "Love, Reign O'er Me." Or to just sit and talk to him at dawn about which of Jimmy's four split personalities he liked best or what it was like to hear those waves rolling in for the first time on "I Am the Sea," or about the significance of water as a symbol in the greatest rock opera of all time. This one's for my dad.

"On a dry and dusty road/The nights we spent apart, alone/I need to get back home/ To cool, cool rain...I can't sleep and I lay and I think/The night is hot and black as ink/Oh god, I need a drink/Of cool, cool rain."

Try Disc 1.

Try Disc 2.

Buy.

Pearl Jam--PJ20 OST

I've been so busy with school that I haven't even thought about posting here in a while. I've got some time off for Thanksgiving though and am wide awake at 2 in the morning. I spent the day napping and the night watching Netflix. Over the last few weeks, my only entertainment has been reading Everybody Loves Our Town: The Oral History of Grunge on the bus back and forth from school/work. I should start by saying I've never been a fan of grunge. I love Nirvana, but I think they transcend that Seattle scene that happened to spring up around them and never personally related them with grunge, as erroneous as that may be. To me, it's like saying the Beatles are rock and roll. The Beatles are The Beatles and Nirvana are Nirvana. The Who is The Who. You can't put bands like those into categories. So anyway, I bought the Oral History more as a tourist than a fan. It was basically research. And I downloaded a lot of records to listen to while reading on the bus--again, more research. I pretty much stuck to my guns though, and as much as I've enjoyed reading the book, I haven't come much closer to loving this music. I have happened upon an appreciation for the more Stooges-esque Mudhoney stuff, the heavy drone of The Melvins, and developed sort of a fascination with Mark Lanegan. But I still can't really say I like any of this music. As for Pearl Jam, I have never taken them seriously and even after reading the book, I still didn't think too highly of them. I have to say the book, kind of unfairly, paints them in a bit of a negative light. And I bought into it, cause I never really liked their music anyway. Tonight, though, I'm up late and I can't sleep and I just watched Cameron Crowe's Pearl Jam 20 on Netflix. I have to admit I was kind of blown away. There aren't many bands with their level of integrity and work ethic that are also, yes I will finally admit it, kind of awesome. Say what you will about me, but I am a convert. I like Pearl Jam. Warts and all. Pearl Jam's not Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam is grunge, but they're OK. First U2, now Pearl Jam. What next, Lady Gaga?

Try Disc 1.

Try Disc 2.

Buy.