Both The Porn Librarian and Miss Behaving are on vacation today and Venus isn’t feeling well, which means I am the lone HMFH’er on this beautiful October Friday. It also means I have total free reign of the mixtape rewind today!!! Well, in reality we always have total control of what we pick, but let’s just pretend that this is something special because I am all alone. It will distract me from now lonely I am… Anyway, let’s get to it!
This week’s mixtape rewind is all about the ladies of hip-hop/R&B that I lurve. I was only gonna post one video, but I decided to go a little crazy and post a few. Wooah, totally drunk with power.
First up is Keisha Cole’s “Let It Go.” It’s not as much that I’m a huge Keisha Cole fan as it is that this song is pretty much running through my head all the time. It’s my girlfriend’s alarm on her cell phone and aside from it waking me up every morning, we hit snooze on it a million times, burning it into my brain every 10 minutes. While I hate it at 8 am, I do actually really like the song. And Missy Elliott is in it, so really, how could I not?
You know those months when you’ve already planned every weekend and booked all your time before the month even begins? That’s what I’ve done this month and I am already tired thinking about what I have on the agenda until November. Sure all the days I have planned are full of really fun activities, like apple picking, pumpkin carving, Halloween parties and concerts, but it’s just a little overwhelming to think about the bigger picture. Why am I bringing this up, you ask? I’m not really sure, but I wanted to have an easy segue into what I’m doing tonight, which is going to see Tegan and Sara, who are my mixtape rewind for the week.
I don’t know whether it’s their charming Canadian accents, asymmetrical mullety hairdos, or thoughtful pop lyrics, but I’ve been a fan of these twin hipster queer Canucks since the early 2000s, when I worked at the now defunct Tower Records and we played their album ”If It Was You” over and over throughout the store sound system. Sigh, I miss having musical power like that. Anyway, this week’s MTR (or Mixtape Rewind, for all the acronym haters out there) is from their latest CD, “The Con,” which is pretty awesome and totally stuck-in-your-head worthy. Listen and love it. And check out their super cuteness too! What!? I can’t help it, I’ve got eyes!
and as an added bonus, I decided to include a video of my favorite Tegan and Sara cover too. Who doesn’t love Springsteen? Maybe it’s just my proximity to Jersey, but I definitely have a weakness for The Boss.
About 360 days of the year I can’t handle NYC - it’s too hot or cold or dirty or whatever. However, today is one of those days when I’d love to be walking through the city on my way to the Strand or MoMA. Today’s mixtape rewind is the classic Tribe Called Quest song “Electric Relaxation.” Besides being one of my favorite hip hop songs of all time, it also features NYC prominently.
You can be my Momma and I’ll be your boi, -the porn librarian
I am a total sucker for a cute song. Always have been, always will be. You talk about holding hands or making out at the malt shop, I am hooked. Not very porny, I know, but those sweet songs just make me grin all day long. The hot n’ heavy sexy songs do it for me too, but in a totally different, yet totally needed way. The two just don’t usually mesh so well.
But every once and a while you find a super cute song right on the edge of sexy that could teeter into a really hot make out song if it comes on at just the right time. You know the time - when you are on the dance floor, looking at each other and biting your own lip, willing the next song to be hot but not lame. You’re pretty much looking for this song. It’s Peter, Bjorn & John’s Young Folks. Not since ABBA has someone named Bjorn made music so good.
You’ll want this song on your next make out mix. Trust me, I know a good make out mix.
Plus the video is awesome. So really, it’s win win.
I lost my virginity my freshman year of college to a boy named Josh. A week before the deflowering took place, Josh drank a bit too much and my nurturing instincts kicked in. Sitting outside of my dorm bathroom, I wiped his sweaty head and he looked at me and said, “Thanks Mom” with a laugh. I was horrified. Looking back, I think that was the turning point in our blossoming relationship.
I read an article this week that said that often, we look for partners who resemble our parents. After grossing everyone out in the office with this little tidbit, I thought about my own life. My dad and I aren’t really close and the only time we ever really spent together, I was only six and I remember his pierced ears were the first I had ever seen on a man. If my memory (and golden undertones in my hair) serves me right, I think he had slightly auburn hair color with brown eyes - both qualities I never look for in a man. I can deal with pierced ears, but only if both ears are done. I prefer fatherly qualities to fatherly appearances - you know, someone who is older, wiser, protective and resents his life choices.
Anyway, my mixtape rewind is Chromeo’s “Momma’s Boy.” It makes me dance while I work on my profile at MarriedandLonelyPeople.com.
This week’s Mixtape Rewind is a little more twangy than usual, but if you’re going to love me, you have to love my obsession with the banjo. This is the Del McCoury version of 1952 Vincent Black Lightening - the best bad ass country murder ballad of all time! I haven’t heard it in a while, but heard from a friend last night, who must have been in mind when the line “Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme” was written, and tracked it down this morning.
As far as I can tell, this song was originally written by Richard Thompson - but this version is about 800 times better than his, in my fiddle loving opinion.
Anyways, Banjo + Fiddle = Summer. So go read in a park while you still can!
Oh hai Friday! You snuck up on me this week! Not that I am complaining or anything. Friday means mixtape rewind! And because The Porn Librarian has taken the day off, I get to rewind in her place. I was gonna do a song that reminds me of her (I don’t know if you can tell by the mixtapes, by the PL has amazing music taste), but I couldn’t find anything with a good video, so I scrapped that idea. Bummer.
I lied! Last minute I remembered a song I really liked that The Porn Librarian introduced me to! Way back in April, when we went to Dinah Shore, The PL made us a mix cd for the trip. Holy Amazing! Not only did the mix become the soundtrack to an unforgettable work trip, but is still in heavy rotation on my iPod. Certain songs have even transcended onto other mixes I’ve made, Including the first one for my girlfriend, which I see as a big damn deal. Anyway, thanks for having incredible music taste, Porn Librarian! And for taking today off so I could rewind - I know that’s why you did it.
I bring you the Arctic Monkey’s Fluorescent Adolescent. While I find clowns creepy and generally think this video is a little on the bo-ring side, I like the song enough to posty posty. Hope you like it too! If not, don’t blame me, blame PL.
I have spent the past week glued to the Olympics. Every summer Olympic year, the power of the games takes over me and I am unable to discuss anything else. I even grew up in a town named after one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time - Jim Thorpe. In 1992, I was obsessed with Kim Zmeskal and thought she could take Shannon Miller out. I tumbled around my parents’ living room on mats made out of sofa cushions waiting for Bela Karolyi to recruit me for Atlanta. I used to participate in academic competitions in junior high, and one time, there was an entire round devoted to Olympic questions and I took the gold. That’s about as close as I’ve come to being an actual Olympian.
In 1996, Celine Dion (don’t lose me here) performed the theme of the Closing Ceremonies in Atlanta, “The Power of the Dream.” I was obsessed with this song straight through Labor Day 1996. I played it everywhere we went in the car, I sang it at the top of my lungs, I made up my own rhythmic gymnastics routines in the street in front of my house to it. Remember when Kerri Strug performed that vault on a broken ankle and the American women took home the gold? Remember when all of the nations recognized by the IOC banded together after the Centennial Park Bombing? Remember when the U.S. Women won the first women’s soccer gold and Brandi Chastain took her shirt off? Remember when reading my blog entries was more about laughing with me and not at me?
I’m not going to get into all the hairy details, but I am having a bad week. Little seems to be going right and I am longing for the weekend to be able to hide under my blankets and just ignore the world. But instead of being a total killjoy, I figured I’d rock a mixtape rewind that’s a little more inspirational and a little less Debbie Downer. And no, it’s not Enya.
I bring you Petra Haden and The Sellouts covering the ultimate inspirational ditty. Starting off as part of the 90’s pop punk band “That Dog” (which I was obsessed with in high school), Petra now performs a-cappella, using only her voice to produce the sounds of each instrument. Yeah, it sounds a little strange I know, but seriously, check out this video. I promise that it’s all the cool and none of the annoying of that guy from the Police Academy movies (and no, I don’t mean The Goot).
Enjoy. I might have already watched it on repeat a few times to make me feel better. Ok, fine, ten times. Whatever, it’s working.
This song by the Lisps seems appropriate today, because time is kind of dragging. I’m headed to Philly this weekend to see my girls for the big HotMovies 100 Grand Gala, which seems like a lot more fun than database work right now.
Anyways, this song is totally rad and so are they. And if you don’t trust me, listen to what they have to say about themselves!
The Lisps are a New York-based assemblage of 21st century indie-rock vaudevillians. They write songs about science and love, space and pain, babies and documents. Their performances have been known to involve bloody tambourines, wrestling, lipstick smeared melodicas, tap shoes, old kitchen cabinets and dinosaurs. The Lisps are the public/performative version of all the relationships you’re struggling with.
