the heidi chronicles

I am obsessed with music. One might say unnaturally so. Pressed to choose between them, food would fall fast to the wayside over the Jeff Buckley collection Case has taken such care to procure for me.

A truly beautiful song will make me cry. You should see me when the Beatles? ?Something? is on the radio. George is a master at welling me up. I adopt dance anthems and happy songs. I spend more money on concert tickets than perhaps anything else? the list I mentioned a couple of post back is currently at 121 and counting. Music Midtown can really make that list pretty tricky.

I am also one of those obnoxious folks who go berzerk when a song/band they love surface on commercial or ? gasp! ? top 40 radio. Not to sit in denial, I readily confess that part of it is that feeling that I no longer possess some special information that the rest of the world is not privy to ? I no longer get to be one who introduces people to the wonders of Snow Patrol or whomever?. But the truest of truths is that I know that the heavier the rotation Dave FM or 99x or whoever puts that song in, the faster I will find myself sneering at the sound of the first few chords when I catch whilst channel flipping as I drive home from work each day.

My favorite song on the latest Snow Patrol album has recently surfaced so. I am not pleased. Now the world knows about my Gary Lightbody and I will have to fight even more 14-year-old girls for a place on the venue floor from which my short ass can actually see. That?s more purses, more talking through the show, more of my rules violated and less I can enjoy them. Snow Patrol them. Wow?. And I accuse some of you guys of being over-analytical?.

Anyway?. Though it is not necessarily a directly related tangent, I begin today?s list post. Inspired by my most recent concert experience with my much beloved roommate - Hot Hot Heat on Sunday night ? and my utter distaste for what I thought might be a pretty good opening band? wait. Separate tangent for a moment?.

So, have I ever mentioned that for most of my adolescent/young adult life my dream was to be a rock journalist? Yep. Me and Cameron Crowe. Same dream. Only he had Lester bangs and I had Geri Hall. I coulda had Lester Bangs, but then, I wasn?t really born yet. So that fucked that all up for me. Well, what?ll ya do? So in the spirit of that dream, I continue my briefly abandoned point.

It?s a kinda exciting time for the rock and roll children such as myself. The past decade or so has had it gems, but most have proven to fairly stamina-less, sadly. Can I tell you how much August and Everything After shaped my late teens? Can I tell you how much those guys SUCK lately? Sure, Radiohead are still around and still never cease to dazzle the hell out of me?. Elliott and Jeff, but we can only now glean the greatness they?d be giving us now. And they are all of them exceptions rather than rules.

But now?. Now there is really a pretty decent surplus of pretty decent and even phenomenal music being offered up. Ben Gibbard is an absolute poet. Everything the man puts his hand in is magnificence to me. My North Irish husband, Mr. Lightbody. Hot Hot Heat. Friggin? Interpol!!!!!

And with the good come the impostors. The bands who are hyped and get SPIN cover stories and I think to myself, ?You must be kidding!?

So, finally ? here?s my list of hype I just don?t get. Conner Oberst fans, please don?t come after me in lynch mobs.

1. JET. Thanks, but Oasis are still making albums. The world does not need you yet. Even the Gallagher brothers waited 25 years for the Beatles to break up first.

2. THE KILLERS ? Are you fucking kidding me? I wrote better lyrics when I was 13 and wanted to be Joan Jett.

3. VELVET REVOLVER ? Such potential. An example of the syndrome I mentioned before that ran rampant in the late 90?s.

4. BRIGHT EYES ? That sounding like I am gonna burst into tears at any moment thing is cool on one song or 3. But albums-worth of it? I can?t bear it.

5. LOUIS THE XIV ? Wow. They are just a bad live band.


And to balance it all out?. 5 bands who give me hope for the future of rock and roll.

1. THE DECEMBERISTS ? Hooray. I love a story. By the way, I have a funny russian boy story about these guys I will have to share soon.

2. HOT HOT HEAT ? More fun than you can shake your and all your friends? asses at.

3. INTERPOL ? Sex incarnate x 4. I daresay x 8 when they are on a stage 50 feet in front of you.

4. SNOW PATROL ? Have I mentioned how this blog was on its way to becoming the unofficial ?I heart Gary Lightbody? site? That damn voice. Makes my knees buckle.

5. ok. I can?t narrow this down. Let me make a short sub list: Death Cab, Pinback, Franz, VHS or Beta, oh my god it could go on forever??

posted by trixievw @ 4:36 PM 0 comments

clearly i have an affliction.

said affliction dictates that all my blog posts must be in list form for the duration of the month of march.

you have been warned.

without further ado... or is it adieu? (this is why my degree is in communications and not english.)

a list of really amazing things that have happened to a rock and roll child in her 27 and one half years:

1. i met david j! he hugged me! he tried to explain to me who ray davies is! in casey's car!

2. i saw the band travis in their hometown. that's GLASGOW, SCOTLAND.

3. i saw some unheard of band called keane open for travis in said GLASGOW setting. i then told them about it like a big dork 3 months later.

4. kevn kinney (of atlanta fame, who you may not know if i haven't been shoving him down your throat for the last 10 years) made fun of me. sort of. in a nice way, though. he ultimately made fun of himself in the same breath, though not necessarily intentionally.

me: i have waited 12 years to actually speak to you and now i don't know what to say. i guess "thank you" will have to do it.
kevn: you could say "hey! my dad took me to see you once!"
me: well, ok. that i can.

hee hee!

5. the biggest rock star crush of my life, mr. jeff sullivan (again of local fame - and WHO LIVES IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD)... i reiterate THE BIGGEST ROCK STAR CRUSH OF MY LIFE- LIKE SINCE I WAS 13...

amanda: you wanna go get jeff's autograph?
me: nah - i don't wanna bother him.
amanda: well, here he comes.
jeff sullivan (to heidi!): hey, i saw you! you knew EVERY word. thanks for coming.

me, later to amanda: i am so gonna marry him!

6. i went to liverpool. twice. i drank at the cavern club. i walked along abbey road. i walked through a house that paul mccartney lived in. i walked through the house that john effing lennon grew up in. and i stood on the doorstep of george's childhood home.

7. i took my father. i also took him to abbbey road his first day in london. i have seen my father cry, but only at funerals. this was the first time i had seen him cry out of sheer elation. this is by far the greatest of any of these. we also saw the queen musical too, but that isn't nearly as cool when juxtaposed.

8. the "heidi and justin rock and roll tour of england": brighton (or Quadrophenia land), swindon (the land of xtc- the band - and a great cause of laughter to every brit i meet who hears i went there on holiday), through oxford, and of course the aforementioned liverpool. and london. let's not forget that place.

9. i know you're all tired of this one, but have i mentioned that michael stipe apologized to me once? for almost running me down at a tori amos show. i'd have known that bald head anywhere.

10. i had to carry on a conversation with bob mould because for the only time i have seen it in my five years of sharing an existence with him, justin was what appered to be starstruck.

and ok. they aren't rock stars, but...


i saw a) ian mckellan and b) jim broadbent on west end stages. and pete postlewaite (or mr. kubyashi to you) in a tiny little blackbox in my dream home of salisbury.

so the next time i complain that my life is dull. SLAP ME and direct me to this post.

next - reasons i have the greatest friends ever.

and no njg, that guy in that band on your mix cd that i slept with does not count as a great moment in heidi's rock and roll history. stop that snickering.

posted by trixievw @ 9:45 PM 0 comments

for all of those who know i work too much, here are a few things my most recent undertaking has required of me. maybe this explains some things...

1. searching every garen ridge/home depot/etc. to find a statue of woman with her breast exposed

2. commissioning a custom-made wooden olisbo. we now refer to these as dildos.

3. forcing my beloved to watch soft-core lesbian porn (well, if the BBC will allow me to refer to it as such) in order to establish exactly what i need for item 2.

ahhh, the theatre. how i love the theatre.

the insanity that is referred to in theatre circles as "tech hell" has descended upon me. ilya is now seeing me at my worst, albeit not that much as i am more often in rehearsal or shopping for it than i am sitting at his desk being bitchy at him. nevertheless, i do love what i do.

on a completely different note, i have gone into list-making/reminisce mode. njg will remember when i attempted this once before.... i now endeavor to list every rock show i have attended throughout my existence. if i saw a show with you/saw you at a show... please remind me. i know i am missing a zillion.

posted by trixievw @ 3:24 PM 0 comments