Crunchy ‘Nanas

I haven’t run with music in a while. Even when I was running much more than I am now, I wouldn’t always take music, and had gotten to the point where I rarely took music. Sometimes I just like to focus on me: my breathing, my thoughts, how I am feeling physically and psychologically. I also don’t like to be completely plugged in when I am outside so that I can hear my surroundings – safety first! (If I’m completely plugged in to music, I’m gone, in my own little world. It’s a fantastic world to be in, as long as you don’t have to worry about cars, tractors, dogs or crazy people.) Even when I want music, my set up is not ideal. My iPod tends to do funny things like skip, stop and refuse to play when it gets jostled. (I don’t have a Nano and, though carrying the weight of the video doesn’t bother me, the frustration at not being able to listen to music when I have  set out to does.)

So, when I was contacted to take the new Sony Walkman W series mp3 player for a spin in return for setting out a power playlist that would improve my performance, it didn’t take long to decide to accept the challenge. I’ve been in a funny place running-wise lately but ultimately I like running, I like music, I sometimes like running with music (it’s essential on the treadmill), and I love to try out new gadgets. So, here goes.

Songs that make good running tunes for me do two things: they let me lose myself a bit and they make me dance. Mostly they are upbeat, positive or remind me of something inspirational. The playlist’s a bit long (!!!) for my distance right now, but maybe it will be what I need to get me back in training for longer distances again. I’ll be back to tell you how it goes with the player. I have a sneaking suspicion I will not actually be able to put the songs on the player in this order, or at least not easily, without having to rename them. We shall see.

Prelude – Getting ready, dancing a bit, singing a little, lacing up the shoes

1. Almudo – Daby Touré and Skip McDonald
2. Late In the Evening – Paul Simon
3. Sledgehammer – Peter Gabriel (any live version with a long intro with the crowd humming – the music kicks in and I’m out the door and jogging up or cruising down the hill)

I’m Off, I Rockin’ Out

4. Elevation – U2
5. Legs – ZZ Top
6. Rockin’ Me – Steve Miller Band
7. Green River – Creedence Clearwater Revival
8. Dancin’ Til Dawn – Lenny Kravitz
9. Girls & Boys – Blur
10. Fashion – David Bowie
11. Electric Feel – MGMT

I Have Indeed Hit the Fields and Marshes, I’m Pep Talking My Legs

12. Don’t Break This Rhythm – Peter Gabriel
13. Not A Robot, But A Ghost – Andrew Bird
14. Music (Groove Armada 12″ Mix) – Madonna
15. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) – David Byrne (Live from Austin, Tx)

I’ve Probably Started to Daydream and Lag and Need To Refocus for the Push Home

16. Work (Freemasons Radio Edit) – Kelly Rowland
17. Can’t Stop – Ozomatli
18. Tounka – Rokia Traoré
19. A Sense of Home – Peter Gabriel
20. Learning to Fly – Pink Floyd
21. Good Things – BoDeans

Cool Down, Stretch, Reflect

22. All That We Let In – Indigo Girls
23. There is A Light – Great Lake Swimmers
24. Simple Gifts – Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss
25. With My Own Two Hands – Ben Harper and Jack Johnson
26. Supposed to Be – Jack Johnson

It’s not Monday, but it’s a mix.

Everywhere you look, it’s a roundup of the best of 2008. So last week, Crunchy husband and I cranked out a CD of good sounds from the year. It was slapped together so it would be done before Christmas. I think we are both surprised how it came out. There’s a lot of clapping involved, which is never a bad thing.  To us, anyway. Not sure how the neighbors appreciate it, but they always call us the quiet ones in the corner, so…

This mix will no doubt evolve over the next couple days with all the music we’d waited ever so patiently for Santa to bring. Most of which he didn’t bring because he and Mrs Claus each forgot to check the Amazon wish lists, so we wowed the (obviously very cool and knowledgeable) HMV guy with our stack of “I didn’t get this for Christmas but I really wanted it, so here I am and it’s on sale hooray! and you haven’t had the Fleet Foxes on your shelf for weeks, can it be that you really don’t stock it??”s yesterday. His accolades at our impressive taste in music wavered at Dido, but he obviously didn’t hold it against us too much because he produced a Fleet Foxes cd for us, out of thin air it must have been, I’d looked everywhere, multiple times. [I thought we were going to have to leave without Bon Iver too (yes I know, where HAVE I been?) when the one cd located in the 'Bon Iver' section was actually Michael Bolton's "Greatest Hits" (good god. Imagine my surprise. I should have been staring at the visual depiction of the emotions of a man who holed himself up in a cabin with only his laptop, grief, and his liquid voice through a cold Wisconsin winter to tend to a broken heart and got, well, Michael Bolton's mullet staring up at me, proclaiming he has greatest hits. The cd almost flew across the store), but I found For Emma, Forever Ago elsewhere. It took some, uh bending but I got it.]

We spent the night working on a puzzle and listening to our new cds, so stayed tuned for an updated version. I have a feeling there might very well be chiggers involved.

Our Picks from 2008, Part I, Let’s Clap and Dance and Stuff:

1. Amerykahn Promise- Erykah Badu
2. Strange Overtones- David Byrne and Brian Eno
3. One (Blake’s Got a New Face)- Vampire Weekend
4. Breaking It Up- Lykke Li
5. Surprise- Gnarls Barkley
6. Exit Through You- Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel/Big Blue Ball
7. Dishwasher- Fujiya & Miyagi
8. Integratron- Dengue Fever
9. Radio Retaliation- Thievery Corporation
10. Tazeb Kush- Dub Colossus
11. Shadow- Papa Wemba/Big Blue Ball
12. Sing for You- Tracy Chapman
13. Sleep Through the Static- Jack Johnson
14. Mykonos- Fleet Foxes
15. 6am Corner- Kathryn Williams & Neill MacColl
16. I Keep Faith- Billy Bragg
17. More News from Nowhere- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
18. Mr E’s Beautiful Blues (Live from Town Hall)- Eels

I was never a cover girl, especially if it was of a song I liked. But then there was Luka Bloom’s cover of “Bad”. And I heard David Byrne sing Whitney Houston at the Warfield. And dear god, if anyone knows where I can find a recording of Tim Reynolds playing “In Your Eyes,” please email me.

So, I’m willing to admit– there are some good ones. And covers, or talk of covers, seem to be cropping up in lots of places lately. So, how about here? Why the heck not? Here’s a list of goodies. There’s even a couple I like better than the real thing. But, I’ll not say which.

1. Video Killed the Radio Star- The Feeling (But don’t even get me started on their cover of “Don’t Give Up”.)
2. California Stars- Billy Bragg and Wilco
3. In Your Eyes- Tim Reynolds
4. True Colors- Eva Cassidy
5. Sexual Healing- Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
6. Midnight Train to Georgia- Indigo Girls
7. Gloomy Sunday- Sarah McLachlan
8. Go Down Easy- David Gray
9. Bad- Luka Bloom
10. Human Behavior- The Decemberists
11. I Wanna Dance With Somebody- David Byrne

(Monday Mixtape? It’s either late or early. You choose.)

On our way back to San Jose from Monterey a few weeks ago (yes, I know the race report is still outstanding), the front seat, or more specifically, the driver requested my iPod. Now, I love, love, love having 30 GBs of storage. But, it makes it difficult to just press play, turn on shuffle and go. Not for me, necessarily (though I have to admit sometimes it’s hard to go from Vivaldi to Color Me Badd to Depeche Mode to George Winston to Jack Johnson to Usher to Buena Vista Social Club and back again). But, not everyone appreciates the range of music I have on this thing.

So, before handing it up, I slipped it onto my training mix, which I thought offered a better concentration of what the front seat might be looking for. Silly me.

“Don’t you like any women musicians?”

Um, yeah! And yet, no front women were popping up. iPod, why do you fail me now? (Note to self: training mix is in great need of an update.) Maddie stepped up at one point, but I got the impression she wasn’t really what they were looking for.

Slightly related to this incident, this weekend, while up at 2 am– too awake to sleep, not coherent enough to do anything useful– and scanning my music bookmarks websites, I caught this little tidbit on Tony Levin’s list of recent played on credits: “Paula Cole: Courage”.

Paula Cole, what?

Yippee! Paula Cole’s got a new album. I do like me some Paula Cole. How did I not know this? It might even be close enough to Christmas to put it on my list and wait. Maybe. I’m not sure. We’ll have to see if I can put up with just listening on MySpace until then.

Did I just say that?

Wow, in one post I’ve managed to divulge I have Color Me Badd on my iPod and a MySpace page. (No, Tom is NOT my friend.) World, I have nothing left to hide! In a quick attempt to salvage any faith you might have in my style and good taste, might I say that on the aforementioned MySpace page, I’ve posted a strange and quirky video to Andrew Bird’s “Imitosis”. (Hint to lurking Santas: another album on the Christmas list.) Not only does the song make me dance (another point the front seat would differ on), but someone in the video’s got stripey socks. Kind of makes me wish I hadn’t given up the violin in my pre-teen years. Except well, I wasn’t good.

But, back to the women!

1. Hooray for Love- Ella Fitzgerald
2. Peace Tonight- Indigo Girls
3. Hard to Make a Stand- Sheryl Crow
4. I Feel it All- Feist
5. Taxi Ride- Tori Amos
6. Kissing the Day- Mandalay
7. In Our Lifetime- Texas
8. Music (Groove Armada 12″ Mix)- Madonna
9. Dirty Little Secret (Thievery Corporation Mix)- Sarah McLachlan
10. Here with Me (Chillin’ with the Family Mix)- Dido
11. My Head is Only House Unless It Rains- Everything But The Girl
12. I Am So Ordinary- Paula Cole
13. Devotion- Tracy Chapman
14. The Song of Solomon- Kate Bush
15. The Magdalene Laundries- The Chieftains with Joni Mitchell
16. At This Point in My Life- Tracy Chapman
17. All That We Let In- Indigo Girls
18. True Colors- Eva Cassidy
19. Perfect Girl (Live)- Sarah McLachlan
20. Me- Paula Cole

“So am I. But, I can do the merengue.”

“They’re not playing the merengue.”

“They will.”

I wasn’t allowed to watch “Dirty Dancing” when it was first released. And when I finally remembered to watch it when I was an adult, I was kind of like, um yeah, okay whatever. I haven’t seen it since. However, I’ve probably seen “My Blue Heaven” 1,564 times. Just a guess. It was on the other night, and I am proud to say I’ve still got it. All the lines. Memorized. Right here. I can’t remember my age half the time. But, yes. I’ve still got “I don’t know, the pressure of Halloween. You never know what to go as!” all right here. Hot!

Tonight was taco salad night. We love taco salad night. And burrito night. We have a lot of those too. We buy Corona that was brewed in Belgium, probably (better than food miles from Mexico, right?) and avocados. I love avocados. And then we turn up the music really loud. Probably none of which is technically merengue, but well, we do it anyway. (And truth be told, what we do is not strictly merengue, but a mish-mash of latin freestyling with some shimmies, kicks, and a few strums on the air guitar thrown in because they’re fun. We feel it works. But, we don’t do it in public either. And when I say we, I actually think it’s just me.)

And then I yell at Crunchy husband for the thousandth time, “Ozomatli might very well shop at Safeway, but that’s NOT WHAT THEY’RE SAYING!!”

1. Chango- Ozomatli
2. La Sonidera- Los de Abajo
3. Lola, Lola- Ricky Martin (oh come on, when you’re getting down in the kitchen, everyone loves Ricky)
4. Tímido- Ozomatli
5. Oye Mamacita- Los Lonely Boys
6. Mi Candela- Los de Abajo
7. Miss America- David Byrne
8. 3 Cool Cats- Ry Cooder
9. I Will Be Free- Nil Lara
10. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For- Coco Freeman featuring U2

Yeah, I know it’s not Monday here yet. But it’s Monday in Australia. So that’s my story.

And I promise the next post I submit will not start with a quote. Or a series of quotes.

[For Crunchy husband. I promise not to go to see Peter Gabriel at the Eden Project without you. I can wait for Hyde Park. You just might want to take the car keys and all means of getting money to work with you on Wednesday. Just to be safe.]

1. The Feeling Begins
2. I Have the Touch (Mix from “Phenomenon” soundtrack)
3. Burn You Up, Burn You Down
4. Down The Dolce Vita
5. Growing Up
6. Steam (Oh, Oh Let Off Steam mix 12″)
7. Exposure
8. Running to the Rain
9. Secret World
10. In Your Eyes (Live, for you, with Paula Cole backing)

New(ish) music I really (and really, really) like

[For Moose, who spends way too much of her paltry salary catapulting cookies through space, but cookies that are very much appreciated and gobbled down all the same!]

1. After Party- Ozomatli
2. Salala- Angélique Kidjo
3. Bibou- Daby Touré
4. La Temperatura- Ozomatli
5. Dancing Shoes- Arctic Monkeys & Buena Vista Social Club
6. Raise the Roof- Tracey Thorn
7. Dirty Little Secret (Thievery Corporation Mix)- Sarah McLachlan
8. Collarbone- Fujiya & Miyagi
9. See You on the Moon!- Great Lake Swimmers
10. Bouncing Off Clouds- Tori Amos