Blog A Go-Go

In which I have a guilty pleasure

"Nashville Star". There, I said it. I haven't watched it before, I but I admit to being completely sucked in this year. I love when Jewel and Rich throw down at the judges' table, and I love the gasp that goes through the crowd when somebody has the face to cover one of the sacred cow songs like "Ring of Fire". The side effect of all this "Nashville Star" is that I have been listening to a LOT more country music lately. This used to be an ongoing source of dissension in my otherwise happy marriage. Let's just say my darling husband does NOT appreciate the steel guitar and leave it at that. But even he admits that my newest find is entirely worth listening to. Carter's Chord is a trio of sisters I found on itunes, and I have played their self-titled album so many times already the dog is almost tired of it. Almost. They are fun and interesting and they have some insanely tight harmonies, as Jeffrey Steele would say. Go check them out for yourself and see what I'm talking about. http://www.carterschord.com/index.php?page=home 

Note: I actually wrote this entry before I left for Houston on Monday. I just saw that Carter's Chord was a featured download on itunes this week, so you can have them for free!

In which I have binged

I realized recently that I tend to shop the way frat boys drink--a lot all at once with long periods of abstinence in between. Lately, my tipple of choice has been music. I hadn't bought anything since Christmas, then in the space of a week I brought home The Raveonettes, Cheryl Wheeler, Eliza Gilkyson, Alison Moorer, Vampire Weekend, Miranda Lambert, and the torchy compilation, Sirens of Song. (If you're looking for any sort of cohesion in that list, you won't find it.)

Usually, I write to music, although none of those will serve. For background music I need instrumentals, film soundtracks most often. When I start a new project, I compile a new playlist for my ipod titled after the book. I listen to it over and over again until it's become so familiar, I don't actually hear it when I write. It's simply mood-appropriate white noise. For the last Julia Grey book, Silent on the Moor, I wrote to the Sleepy Hollow soundtrack, with bits of Bach and Saint-Saens thrown in. I will need something even grimmer and spookier for the next project, something to conjure ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. (Not that I'm actually writing about those things, you understand, but the atmosphere is everything.) As a side note, The Last of the Mohicans and The Piano are, not surprisingly, superb soundtracks to write to. So is Amelie. So is Marie Antoinette. So is The Red Violin.

The CDs I've bought recently make no sense on paper. There's country and pop and jazz and folk in there, with hints at R&B and ska. But when I move through my day--sometimes contemplatively domestic, sometimes buoyant, often contented, once in a great while incandescently enraged--they make perfect sense as MY soundtrack. I often see people wandering around in public insulated from the world by their ipods, and I long to know what they're listening to. Because if they're experiencing a world that is scored with hip-hop while mine is bayou blues, are we experiencing the same world?

On a barely related note (no musical pun intended), did anyone else happen to see the arrival of Madame Sarkozy at Heathrow yesterday? BBCAmerica was covering it live, and yes, I know it was actually the arrival of the French President, but HONESTLY. You cannot marry a woman as striking as that and expect anyone to pay attention to you ever again. I don't get political here at the Blog A Go-Go, so forgive me for not commenting upon his politics--or hers for that matter. But I will say that she looked utterly gorgeous and perfectly chic in a deep gray dress with a clever little hat perched on the back of her head. And I really, really love the fact that although she's representing France on a state visit to the UK and having a very nice time with the Queen (I imagine), she is still the same Carla Bruni whose "Quelqu'un M'a Dit" is probably the most-played track on my ipod. Vive la France!

In which I love Jesca Hoop

A couple of months ago I downloaded Jesca Hoop's album Kismet from itunes. It's like nothing else I've ever heard. It's quirky and fun and has a truly unique storytelling vibe. There is a hint of CocoRosie about her, but she's much more accessible and I am completely smitten with her stuff. (She cites Tom Waits and Kate Bush as influences, which isn't surprising since she nannied for Tom Waits' children for awhile.) Anyway, don't take my word for it. Go here to her official site and see for yourself. It's worth a trip for the site itself--it's like a storybook and is completely enchanting and not necessarily for children. (There aren't "explicit" tags on her stuff at itunes, but you might want to listen before you play it with the kids in the car. It doesn't bother me, but then I pretty much let my daughter juggle knives. Just kidding!) Enjoy.

And for a bit of randomness: Thursday was my husband's company's casino night, and I discovered something: going all-in at Texas Hold 'Em when you have two pair, aces high, and everybody thinks you're bluffing is just SWEET. The only distracting part was when I was certain I could hear my grandmother spinning in her grave when I drank beer out of a bottle. If she wasn't already dead, I'm pretty sure I'd be out of the will for that one. I also had a fairly good run at the craps table, but my heart will always be true to blackjack. (I left the blackjack table with five times the chips I had when I got there.) I had forgotten how much fun gambling is, and now I am green-eyed and bitter that my husband is going to Vegas in March. It's probably best that I'm not going with him. He'll be in meetings all day long and somebody has to pry my hands off of the cards.

In which I defy you to be cranky

There are few things that can get me out of a snarky mood faster than some good music, and nothing surpasses rockabilly for sheer joie de vivre. There is simply no way to stay sulky when you're listening to rockabilly. It is fun and sassy and makes me want to put on a very full polka-dot skirt with a dozen starched petticoats underneath. The go-to song on my ipod for instant mood elevation is Ronnie Dawson's "Good at Being Bad". I couldn't find a clip on YouTube, so I will offer you a Tribute to the Blond Bomber instead. It will do in a pinch, but you MUST go and download "Good at Being Bad" for yourself. See if it doesn't make you feel 61% happier instantly.

In which I am nostalgic

Okay, not really, because I don't do sentimental. But I've been listening to a part of my ipod I rarely venture into--the 80s. That was my most formative decade--I began it in elementary school and ended it as a junior in college. If it had been a film, it would have been scored with Styx, Van Halen, Queen, U2, Pat Benatar, and a little B-52s.

There was some country in there--I saw Garth in person when he couldn't even get decent billing at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo yet and I remember long drives in my cousin Lisa's pick-up with George Strait and the Bellamy Brothers cranked so loud it spooked the horses. I remember Blondie rapping for the first time and thinking, "Oh, that will NEVER catch on." And I remember dancing to A-Ha and The Romantics with David, a friend of mine who was so cute he made my heart catch in my throat and I never told him. I remember the summer road trip to Nebraska with my friend Kim during which we listened to the vinyl of the Go-Go's debut album so much I think we wore holes in it. I remember stretching for three months to perfect my splits to the "Footloose" soundtrack in the locker room when I was on the pep squad. I remember putting on the cutest pair of red board shorts to dance in the sand around a bonfire while the Mo-Dels covered the Romantics. And I remember Vanessa stomping so hard on my ankle at a dance club during "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" that it still swells sometimes. I remember hearing Pachelbel's Canon for the first time during my senior homecoming coronation, and I knew one day I would walk down the aisle to that melody. And I remember a friend's mother crooning "Like a Virgin" to her husband when she thought none of us were listening.

Over the years, I had lost track of all of those people, although thanks to the ubiquitous Google, several of them have found me and I was delighted to hear from all of them. But I have never lost the music. I don't have any vinyl, although I could still probably quote from the liner notes of "Beauty and the Beat", and my beloved "Diver Down" is long since lost. But my ipod and I remember, and most of all I remember a girl who smelled of Sea Breeze and Lauren and wore red board shorts and an armful of black rubber bracelets and who said, "All I ever want to do is write books." Funny how life turns out.