August 1, 1997 My mom, Dave and I set off for another visit to my Aunt Charlotte's in Cleveland, Georgia. However, Dave and I made a stop along the way in Atlanta, where we stayed with Lisa for a couple of days to attend the first Lilith Fair. I mean, how could I possibly resist when 80% of my musical love is for girls with guitars? On that day, we saw Fiona Apple, Susanna Hoffs, Joan Osborne (who sang an amazing version of her song "Ladder"), Jewel and Sarah McLachlan. Emmylou Harris was there as well, but at this point I wasn't much of a fan and I think we used that time to visit the food stands. It was the first time I got to see Sarah live and the only time I've ever seen Fiona Apple play.
Whenever a track from Joan's album Relish plays on my ipod, I remember how much I liked it. I also really liked some of the songs from her second disc, Righteous Love even better.
next time: if someone like you found someone like me then suddenly nothing would ever be the same
"If you ever get lonely, just go to the record store and visit your friends." That quote from Cameron Crowe's most perfect film, Almost Famous, is one of the best ways to describe the way that I feel about music. One of the whole points of The Songs That Made Me is that there are some songs, some music that just feels like home. For me, just listening to the Indigo Girls or Bic Runga or Aimee Mann is enough to settle my nerves, to help me find peace. It's the next best thing to getting a hug from someone i love or a delicious home-cooked meal.
One band that always makes me feel that way is Travis. I'll only tell you a bit about it, as I plan to cover them a couple times in future blogs, but I didn't know, when I received a copy of The Man Who for Christmas nine years ago, that these four Scots would ever mean so much to me. Their music has held me up and allowed me to let go for almost a decade now. I saw them for the first time at Irving Plaza here in New York a couple of years ago. When I came to NYC I told myself that if given the chance I would not miss Travis, Bic Runga or Kylie Minogue - artists who would never play in Miami. (I did get to see Bic, but missed Kylie when she played here last month. But Florence + the Machine made up for it!) So seeing Travis was a big deal for me.
My friend & co-worker, Lesley, was a huge fan of the band and when I ran into her after the Irving Plaza show, she made a point to introduce me to Andy, Fran and Neil. My first Travis show couldn't have been any better. Last year, Fran played a solo benefit at Housing Works, in which he played songs from the Travis catalog in chronological order, much like he and Andy were doing with this tour. (Tonight, I mentioned that I had seen that show & he said it was sort of the inspiration.) I also saw the band play at Webster Hall this spring. As much as I love seeing the Indigo Girls play and as much as I stand by my statement that Florence + the Machine was the most amazing concert I've ever seen, Travis is my favorite band to watch live. They love what they do- you can see it as they play. They love what they're doing, the fans love hearing them and there is an amazing energy created by all of this positivity that is unlike anything you can imagine.
Tonight was my fourth Travis show (or... my 2.75th?) and once again, my nervousness about crowded places and anxiety about being out in general disappeared as soon as Fran took the stage and played "20." The comfort, the bright feeling that everything is going to be okay took over and the rest of the night was just a non-stop high. Fran & Andy went through the Travis discography, telling stories about the songs (Who knew that "Cheers" and the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down inspired songs like "Driftwood" and "Falling down"?) and playing their rock n roll hearts out. My favorite moment was Fran's story about the French DJ asking if "Why does it always rain on me?" was written because "it is raining in your soul??"
(OK my favorite moment was the sexy Jake Gyllenhaal photos in the slideshow, but that's not really musically relevant. Another favorite moment was Fran schooling the douchebags who stood next to me for most of the set TALKING the entire time. Why?) I also loved what Fran said about "Slideshow" and about the way that music is so important, how something like Joni Mitchell's "Blue" is priceless... worth more than a million dollars. It's what I write this blog to try to express.
After the show, Fran & Andy were signing stuff and meeting people. I waited in line nervously- there's always something that makes me feel awkward about meeting people I admire so much. But I got to shake their hands and THANK them for giving us all this music, for helping us get through everything... A month ago I thought that I was going to be able to move back home, that I'd be with my family for Thanksgiving, my birthday, my mom's birthday, Christmas... Finding out that it wasn't happening was a heartbreaking thing. I spend a lot of the time trying to distract myself with music, books or movies. I try to be patient and know that if anything, I'm going to make it happen in the spring. In the meantime, I have moments where my need to be home, my need for comfort is almost overwhelming. Tonight despite the crowds, despite the idiots talking nearby, despite everything, I heard the music and my breaking heart was soothed. The only way I know how to put it in words is that tonight, I felt at home. Thank you Fran & Andy.
PS thanks to Fran for getting this shot with my crap phone camera!
March 28, 1997. For some reason, we didn't think that there would be an opening act at the Paula Cole show because it hadn't been mentioned anywhere that I could find. However, a singer/songwriter called Holly Palmer had opened for Paula in Atlanta the week before. I confess that when we walked into the Carefree Theatre and I saw a poster advertising Holly as the opening act, I went "ugh" simply because I was all about Paula. Sometimes opening acts can just seem like an unwelcome detour. However, when Holly took the stage (accompanied only by guitar player Robin Macatangay), she won me over utterly and completely. Her performance was fantastic, powerful... explosive. Literally. While she was covering an Aretha Franklin song, one of the lights to the left of the stage blew, scaring the hell out of everybody with a sound like a gunshot followed by shattering glass. Robin wasn't fazed- I swear he didn't miss a lick. Holly paused for a moment, said, "excuse me..." and kept right on singing. Between sets, I hurried to the back to buy a copy of her self-titled debut. En route, I got a bit lost and eventually realized that I was in the line for the ladies room. (I didn't expect it to be going so far back!) Once I got my bearings, I approached the counter and found Holly there! I congratulated her on such a great show and asked her to be careful of exploding lights. It was the first of many awkward post-show conversations with Holly, just because I tend to be awkward when I'm around people I'm a fan of... and with this show, I certainly became a fan. To this day, Holly is one of my all-time favorites and a favorite live performer. She signed my CD, "To Rick, Thanks for asking!"
Here's a clip of Holly singing "Carmen" with Paula Cole, much like they did at the encore of our show:
I could not stop listening to my copy of Holly Palmer. I remember taping it so that I could listen to it at work and singing along with "Wide open spaces" and "Come lie with me" while I unpacked boxes and stocked video games and crushed on Orlyn M. I kept my ears open for more Holly... but nothing came. In 1999, her song "A rose (by any other name)" appeared on the soundtrack for Forces of Nature and she was on tour with David Bowie. Her next album was to be called Tender Hooks. But it wasn't released.
Four years later, she showed up dueting with Michael Bublé on the theme song for Down with Love and a single called "Just so you know" was released from a forthcoming album called I Confess... but that album never came out either.
It wasn't until 2004 that Holly released both I Confess and the unreleased 2000 album, Tender Hooks through CD Baby and her own Bombshell Records. It was jarring to hear "Just so you know" after listening to Holly Palmer for years- more so to hear I Confess, which featured collaborations with Dr. Dre and Motown legend Lamont Dozier.
Once I heard the cool and dizzying Tender Hooks I could really see how Holly went from point A to B and as amazing as both of those albums are, I surprised myself by falling hard for I Confess and appreciating it as the smart pop gem that it is. Despite big label troubles, Holly released two fantastic albums to go along with her lovely debut. I not only became a dedicated fan, but learned that sometimes the opening act isn't a detour, but the destination; I had become a much bigger fan of Holly's than the singer she opened for! Years later, when I moved to New York, Holly released her fourth album, Songs for Tuesday and I got to see her play several more times. But that's another story...
In the meantime, visit Holly's website and give her music a try!
next time: and those who need adventure, they can sail the seven seas • and those who search for treasure, they must live on grander dreams...
Paula Cole, who I had seen open for Melissa Etheridge, had a new album out. The first single was "Where have all the cowboys gone?" I liked it. But I had no idea what to expect from the album, This Fire. It was leaps and bounds better than her debut, Harbinger and remains her finest work. "Cowboys" and the other well-known single/Dawson's Creek theme, "I don't want to wait" aren't the best bits. The best stuff are the darker, soul-baring songs like "Tiger" or "Throwing stones." I remember singing along with "Throwing stones" one day at home by myself and surprising myself at the strength of my voice and how much I felt that song. And awkward once I realized that the men who mowed the lawns in our neighborhood were right outside as I was belting out "call me a bitch in heat and i'll call you a motherfucker and we'll throw stones until we're dead!" The highlight of the album for me is called "Me." It's something I identified with completely, one of those songs that is so close to who I am that it's almost as though I could have written it myself. Here's a video of Paula performing the song earlier this year:
it's me who is my enemy me who beats me up me who makes the monsters me who strips my confidence and it's me who's too weak and it's me who's too shy to ask for the thing i love
Story of my life. To this day This Fire is an album that feels like home to me. I had been lucky enough to see Paula play at a free festival in Miami during January. My mom and I went to Coconut Grove on a cold (for Miami) day. We found out that Paula would be playing much later on and went to see Portrait of a Lady with Christian Bale. We came back and saw some of Duncan Sheik's set, then Paula played, freezing her ass off on the stage. I remember being distinctly annoyed with the people standing near me who talked through the entire set, only to be quiet when she played "Cowboys." Then we went to Denny's and had mozzarella sticks & chicken fingers. It's one of my favorite days ever.
Paula came back to Florida for a proper show at the Carefree Theatre in West Palm Beach, where I had seen Tori Amos and E a few years earlier. Lisa came down to see the show with me on March 28, 1997. Walking from the parking lot to the theatre, I saw Paula walking down the sidewalk, her headphones on and people oblivious to the fact that it was her. I attempted a wave and a "Hi Paula!" but she was in a zone. The next track will share the story of Paula's opening act, but here's an excerpt of an e-mail I wrote after the show with details of Paula's set:
When Paula took the stage it was her and Jay [Bellerose, the fantastic drummer who has also played with Holly Palmer and countless others], they played "Happy home" together and then the band came out for "Throwing stones." I have to say that I think it was a really different experience seeing Paula with a band. They rocked, of course, but what always amazes me about Paula is that seeing her on the piano, with only Jay accompanying her doesn't rock any less- you know what I mean? And while there are a few songs that I prefer without a band (tiger, i am so ordinary, hitler's brothers) it was amazing nonetheless. Paula introduced "I don't wanna wait" as the "next smash single" from the album and did the mask thing on "Where have all the cowboys gone?" [She had this masquerade mask that she'd perform with] She used the finger-cymbals on "Road to dead" which was cool. That's probably my least favorite Paula song, but I was mesmerized by the fact that she could handle singing AND those finger-cymbals- It was pretty good! "Carmen" was one of the songs she did in the encore. She played guitar and Holly Palmer joined her to sing along. Very cool- I think that's the first time I've seen Paula play guitar, and Lisa, who saw Paula last week in Atlanta, said that she didn't play it then. It was the best "Jolene" I've ever heard, and Paula urged us all up to our feet for it so we could uh, "shake our booties together" or something."
I saw Paula perform one more time, at Midtown Music in Atlanta a year later. Her follow up album was called Amen and while it had a couple of songs that I liked, I never found myself as entranced as I was with This Fire.
next time: wide open spaces, i'm falling • you think i'm crazy, i'm not
Tonight I saw Florence + the Machine's first ever North American show and it was the most mesmerizing, glorious experience I've ever had at a concert. It was at times a theatrical extravaganza, a revival meeting and a rave. I can't even put into words how incredible it was - I can only say that seeing that lovely silent-movie star looking slip of an English lass one would never expect that when she opened her mouth there was such glory to be found. She sings from the tip of her toes, with every follicle of hair, a voice that is bigger than anything. I was honored and lucky to be able to see her play.
Check out the fantastic Florence Daily site, which is where the picture comes from!
(My favorite song of the night was Howl, seen here from her performance in Glastonbury)
There is another brief review of the show and tons of gorgeous photos at the brooklynvegan site!
I saw Anna Ternheim last night at Bowery Ballroom. She was the first of three acts, but she was the reason I went, along with my friend Ayana. First off, I think I gasped when she took the stage because she's absolutely beautiful. Her set list:
Better be (Anna on guitar & with pianist) (with band from Loney Dear) -Let it rain -Black Sunday -To be gone -What have I done -No I don’t remember I’ll follow you tonight (again only Anna & pianist)
I was so happy that the one song I was hoping she'd play was the first and Ayana's favorite was the one she played last. She also played the two songs that mean the most to me, "To be gone" (which is actually my ringtone) and "What have I done" (which is the first song of hers I heard, back in the spring.) She announced that she would be signing her CDs after the set, but I hadn't brought any with me to be signed- never expecting that she would be doing that. However, we went to the merch table & since there were no t-shirts (I love the designs for her latest album) I bought a tote bag and a trio of badges, which you can also purchase from her website. This is the t-shirt I was hoping to find, but the tote has the same great design:
We waited a few minutes and soon she came down the stairs. She saw me & said "Oh, you bought a bag! I must sign it!" I went "really?" and thanked her for coming to play. Then Ayana said "It's his birthday, can you give him a hug? He speaks Swedish!" to which I replied, "no, no... no..." But I did tell her that her music has really helped get me through the last year, to which she seemed thankful. Ayana spoke to her about a town in Sweden where she'd spent a summer and was thrilled that Anna spoke a little Swedish when she replied. Also, she is as tall as me, which was surprising. So lovely! Anyway, we walked back up to Union Square to catch our trains, only then did I unfold the tote bag to see the autograph, which reads: "Happy Birthday! Anna Ternheim." It's actually incredibly awesome, as Ayana randomly bought me a pair of black Converse last year as a birthday gift - in October. And since I probably wouldn't have stayed to wait if it had just been me (to avoid saying something as open and raw as "your music has really gotten me through the last year") I wouldn't have gotten my bag signed without her.
It was the summer of 1992, my hair was dyed black and one of my favorite musicians, Tori Amos, was playing a shoe at the Carefree Theatre in West Palm Beach for her Little Earthquakes tour on August 16. It would be a while before Tori would be playing at giant arenas. I wanted desperately to see her play and my Mom and Dave agreed to go with me since, quite frankly, I didn't have any friends. Or at least any who'd be interested in going. Actually, no, no friends. No job, either. I went in for an interview some place and ended up spending two days canvassing Homestead with a group of environmental activists campaigning to save the Everglades. I had very little idea what I was doing with them and it was obvious after the second day when they said, "maybe not." Anyway, we decided to make a weekend out of it, driving up, seeing the show, staying in a hotel and heading back the next day. It was a huge bonus for me because it meant a weekend away from home and the stepfather.
Once there, we find the theatre, which is a small place, about the size of my high school's auditorium. Maybe a bit larger, but not much. Inside, there are a couple of guys passing out cassettes, samplers of the opening act. It wasn't until the opening act took the stage that I realized that the guys at the door were up there: A man with the unlikely name of Parthenon Huxley and a man called E.
I think his band consisted of him (on a keyboard, looking on at Tori's piano with envy), Parthenon and maybe one other guy. He played a set of melodic pop that was both funny and heartbreaking all at once. A lot like my life. Audience members shouted out requests at one point, one of them being "Have you never been mellow?" E was great, though and my mom & Dave liked him a lot more than Tori. The next day, on our way out of town, we stop at a Peaches record store and pick up the cassette of A Man Called E, which becomes one of my favorite albums ever.
hello cruel world so this is you a broken heart but with a view i'm looking out to face another day the angry mob the happy mass this birthday cake may be the last i'm looking out to find another way Norman Rockwell colors fade all my favorite things have changed but what the hell hello cruel world
It was love at first taste and I completely identified with E's outlook, "Fitting in the with the misfits," "Are you and me gonna happen" and "You'll be the scarecrow" are constants in my ipod. I even wrote him a fan letter and in it wrote something like "thank you for NOT playing 'Have you never been mellow'!" He responded with an autographed photo that said "Rick- Have U never been mellow? -E." which to this day is taped to my wall at home.
One week after the show, Hurricane Andrew was on its way to Miami. Everyone was hunkering down for the worst. I remember the last thing I did before the storm hit was shave my head. My hair was down to my shoulders, which made the awful heat worse than it was already, and like I said, dyed black. When I tried to re-color it red, I ended up with red roots and... black hair. Tried to bleach it and got this insane rainbow effect. Shaving my head was the only solution. Then August 24th Andrew hits Miami. Luckily, our house was fine. Our neighborhood is powerless for a few days, trees are down but nothing too awful. My stepfather's cousins, who lived in Homestead, where the storm hit the hardest, completely lost their house. We take them in and all live together for a few months.
When E's second album, Broken Toy Shop came out, I picked it up immediately, stupidly on cassette. If anyone out there wants to drop $100 for a copy from amazon, I'll send you my mailing address! Then he disappears for a while, only to resurface in 1996 as the leader of a band called The Eels, singing "Novocaine for the soul" on MTV. I get their debut, Beautiful Freak and don't like it much. I like Electro-Shock Blues somewhat more and keep compulsively buying their music for years despite never really loving it. Until I'm in my 30s, living in New York and my flatmate gives me a promo of their best of collection, Meet the Eels and the rarities album, Useless Trinkets. Maybe listening to the music with an older, more experienced pair of ears allowed me to really understand it, to connect more. But it connected deeply and I've rediscovered a lot of the older Eels songs since.
Reading E's (ok Mark Oliver Everett's) book, Things the Grandchildren Should Know this year really made me an eternal fan. Once again, his ability to combine humor and sadness is something I admire and even identify with. I connected to that book in a way that in turn allowed me to make an even deeper connection with the music. I had always wondered how E had gone from A Man Called E to "Novocaine for the soul." I think get it now. Ha.
In the fall of 1991, my mom, Dave and I went to the Miami Seaquarium for a music festival. "Snake" of Skid Row would be there, signing autographs, and Julian Lennon would be there, too. Unfortunately, it wasn't made clear that Julian wasn't performing and there were some pretty pissed off people literally heckling him as he signed.
I don't remember anything much about the musicians who actually played, other than this guy who got up on stage and sang these bluesy rock songs, Chris Whitley.. He was this insanely skinny guy, singing these gorgeous, sort of mournful almost country-ish songs up on stage and I was totally transifxed. I even talked to him after his set and asked to get a picture with him. Dork.
A few months later, for Christmas, I received a copy of his album, Living with the Law. My Favorite song off of the album was "Big sky country." I also loved "Kick the stones" and "Poison girl." His music was more new territory for me. I had never heard of his most likely precursor, Stevie Ray Vaughn, or anything blues related before. My singer/songwriter tastes tended more towards female singers, and it would be another year or so before Jeff Buckley would appear with "Last goodbye" to sweep me off of my feet. Living with the Law is definitely another one of the albums I appreciate more as I grow older. Oddly enough, I never listened to any of his other albums, despite the fact that he continued recording and to great critical acclaim.
Chris Whitley passed away quite unexpectedly in 2005 and I remember finding out when I went to Academy Records on 18th street in Manhattan. They had an article taped to their front door about Chris passing away (and another for someone else who'd recently died). It was hard to believe he could have died- he was only 45 years old. Here's a video of him performing "Big sky country" in 2002:
And then there is this, which is just uncomfortable from start to finish... In 1991, Chris appeared on Arsenio Hall's show to sing the song and was introduced by Sinbad. The introduction is so awkward and Chris looks a bit bewildered to be there at all.
I graduated high school in 1991. After graduation, a group of my family and friends went to Bennigan's for some lunch. I had also had a graduation party at home one day. My mom gave me a word processor as a graduation gift. I had been writing stories since junior high school, taken creative writing classes and planned to major in English. At this point in time, I thought of myself as a poet. Some of my poems had been published in our school's literary magazine, the name of which escapes me. There are two that I remember particularly: One was about civil rights and incorporated lines from Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. The other was inspired by Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics, which I had recently started to get into, despite having bought the first issue when it came out 3 or 4 years earlier and not liking it. (I was expecting a book about Hector Hall, the character who went from being Silver Scarab to Sandman in Infinity, Inc.) Eventually something I wrote inspired by his Mad Hattie character would actually get published in the letters section of Sandman. My word processor inspired a flurry of activity, short stories and poems by the dozen. Whether or not they were any good remains to be seen. (I just found a bunch. I'll tell you later.) Mostly, I think they would be decent song lyrics, especially since later my writing was influenced by music more than anything. From Hole to Natalie Merchant's lyrics for 10,000 Maniacs and even later to singer/songwriter Dan Bern, I tended to copy the style of others. I tried to find these two poems, but they aren't on my computer. Lots of later stuff about unrequited love and broken hearts, though. The funny thing is that I think I was always writing song lyrics and not poetry. I don't even like poetry!
Anyway, my other graduation gift was a ticket to see Don Henley and more importantly (for me), Susanna Hoffs. She had just released her first solo album, When You're a Boy. Having been a fan of the Bangles, although a casual sort of "I have their greatest hits and A Different Light" kind of fan, I was excited to hear her solo stuff, and in fact liked When You're a Boy better than either of my Bangles albums. For years, I only had the album on cassette, until last Christmas, when my brother tracked down a copy on CD for me. He had actually loved it just as much as I did, and already had it on disc. When I played it, I couldn't believe that I still knew it by heart after all this time. Don Henley was touring for his excellent album The End of the Innocence, which had been a pretty big hit for him at the time. For me it's another one of those albums that I knew was good at the time, but only really understand how fantastic it is as I grow older. It was such an odd pairing, but I guess they were both members of popular bands who had gone solo. And possibly had the same album cover designers?
There were four tickets and I was taking my brother, David, my friend Diana and her sister, Alex. Then on the day after my graduation, I cut open the back of my ankle. With a door. The door to our house was heavy and metal. When you opened it, you took a step up. I had gone outside on a rainy and very windy day. While my right foot was up on the step and my left foot was still on the ground, a gust of wind tried to slam the door shut and succeeded in slicing the back of my ankle open. We called my stepfather's mom, Wilma, who took me to the ER, where I got stitched up.
So on June 20, 1991, when we went to the Miami Arena, with it's insane amount of stairs- stairs to get in to the building and stairs to get to our seats in the stands - I was on crutches. I think my mom must have made a call to the stadium to find out what to do and when we got there, Dave & I were separated from Diana & Alex and went through the handicapped entrance. We then got to sit in the special area full of older guys in wheelchairs. I don't know why, but I always imagined they were Vietnam vets, but more likely, old hippies who loved The Eagles. One guy in a wheelchair next to us was smoking pot and I'm pretty sure he offered some to David. Who was like 12 at the time. The bright side was that we had an excellent view of the show.
While I never listened to much of Don Henley's other stuff, I remember getting Susanna's second solo album, Susanna Hoffs. It didn't grab me as much as her first, but one of the tracks, "Beekeepers blues" is one of my all-time favorite songs; the kind I will play and play again and again and again until I realize that I've been listening to the same song for half an hour. Now she and Matthew Sweet have begun making cover albums of songs from the 60s and 70s. Here are some good CDs. Also check out some of the MP3s, especially Susanna's cover of Cyndi Lauper's "Unconditional love" - a very underrated song!
Heart first showed up on my radar when I was about 11 or 12 and they released their big 1985 album, simply titled Heart. I had the 45s of the singles "What about love" and "These dreams." I remember that a few years later, my Mom's boyfriend's brother, Terry, had a poster of the Heart cover on his wall. I coveted it!
When their follow-up, Bad Animals came out in 1987, Mom got the cassette and we would listen to it on the ride to work at the swimming pool when I wasn't listening to Debbie Gibson or Martika. My favorite song was "Alone" but I also really loved "Who will you run to?" I think it may be one of the first cases of my mom and I really loving the same music. I'm not sure how crazy she was about all the hair metal and bubblegum pop. During the 80s, she listened to a lot of Kenny Rogers & Lionel Richie and stuff I liked, but wasn't in love with. But we both loved Heart a lot.
So much so that when Brigade came out we listened to it all the time, too. I still think that one of my all-time favorite Heart songs is "Stranded." When the band toured for Brigade, Mom and I went to see them play at the Miami Arena. Well, we sort of saw them- our seats were up in the top section and our view was obscured by some kind of column or something. Whatever, Heart rocked, even if at the time I didn't know that this band had such an amazing history behind them, that they had been recording for more than a decade before I had even heard them. I had no clue that these fierce women had rocked since the 70s. "Barracuda"? "Magic Man"? "Crazy on you"?? These were all lost on me at the time, because I only knew the 80s Heart. And I'm sure it's not cool to admit, but the truth is... I still like their 80s stuff better.
More proof that I didn't spring out of the womb fully formed and listening to thoughtful singer/songwriters. I loved Tiffany. Not as much as I loved Debbie Gibson or Martika. But I did sing along to "I think we're alone now" and swooned to the beautiful and almost country ballad, "Could've been." I don't remember much about what the rest of her album Tiffany sounded like. I'm not sure it would hold up today, but those two songs are keepers.
Tiffany sounded a bit like a teenage Stevie Nicks, vocally. Back then I never would've thought twice about a 15 year old singing the words "It could've been so beautiful/could've been so right/could've been my lover/every day of my life" but now of course I'd roll my eyes at the idea. It reminds me of when I was selling music in Miami and my boss played one of those damn Kids Bop albums. Listening to a group of children sing Dido's song "White Flag" - "I will go down with this ship/I won't put my hands up and surrender/there will be no white flag across my door/I'm in love and always will be" -was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
But at the time I was 13 and singing along with all my heart. Tiffany famously did a tour of malls around the country. I got to see her in Miami at Bayside mall. I was thrilled. After the show she was signing autographs at the Sam Goody music store. The entire audience trooped from the performance space to the store and waiting on line along the banister of the second floor of the mall. I stood in line as she walked towards us. I readied my camera. I was so nervous about making sure that I got the picture. I clicked a moment too soon. I ended up with a photo of my reflection in a window and Tiffany's arm peeking in from the edge of the shot. Inside, she autographed my Tiffany poster. I'm sure that I mumbled some words of thanks or vow of love or something.
The next year, I went with my dad and some of our family to Bayside to see the New Year's Eve fireworks. I took the opportunity to go back to that same Sam Goody shop and buy her second album, Hold an Old Friend's Hand. After that, Tiffany and I went our separate ways.
A few years ago, I decided that I would make an autobiographical mixtape of songs. I love music more than just about anything in the world (except for maybe movies), so many of my memories are connected to songs. Now in the age of itunes, I've turned these songs into the mother of all playlists and thought it might be fun to blog about the songs and the memories that go along with them.
