So you grab your girls and you grab a couple more...

I am manager of three State Beauty Supply showrooms... one of my jobs is to choose the music (within reason) that plays in said showrooms. We have iPods in all three and my charge was to make it 'thumpin'... you know like in a club. Well, I did that (thanks to Jesse's brother's huge selection of gay club music) and it was fine... but I found myself bored with it relatively quickly and the people that work in said showrooms found it to be the same... ahem, exact quote 'This SHIT has got to go!' Well, you know me, not one to upset the apple cart - ahahahahaha, sorry - I decided to keep that music, but to try to add a little more 'culture' to it. I sat down with Jesse's iTunes (primarily because she was the only one to take the time to rip all the shit that she, her brother, and myself had to her computer) and started making a playlist. I have often considered myself having a wide pallette for music. I didn't realize how VAST it really was. As I sit here, I have heard Justin Timberlake, Dave Matthews, Dar Williams, Tracy Chapman, RuPaul, T.I. (featuring Justin Timberlake), Poison, the Dixie Chicks, and Big Maybelle.

Now playing, Melissa Ethridge.

I read Jen's blog the other day asking for music and things came to my mind so quickly that they clogged the thoroughfares so tightly that I then couldn't think of anything.

Now playing, Steve Miller.

And it occurs to me to think about how in god's name I could have come to find so many different types of music fascinating... and the answer came as simply as this... influence. It really began when I was 5 years old. I remember listening to 'The Tide is High' on the radio on the way to the lake with my parents. My feet started tapping and my head started bobbing... you know the way. Added to that you have my parents who, when I was 8 years old, got the family's first CD player... it was on. I could hear Percy Sledge, followed by Alabama, and then by Steppenwolf. The path was set early.
Then, there was the radio. There were three main stations that I could listen to on any given day when I was a child/teenager. There was WOKI out of Knoxville. They played some classic rock (or as it was known then, just rock). Then there was WCTT in Corbin. They had the Adult Contemporary/Soft Hits of the day. And then there was 103.9 The River (my apologies for not remembering the call letters). They had the country.

Now Playing, Fleming and John (you know, the Ugly Girl song)

Anyway, back to the story, there was harmony in the valley with the three radio stations until one fateful October day during my Sophomore year in high school when I turned on WOKI (in the mood for some rock that day) and I heard Garth Brooks... wtf??? It had happened, my harmony had been disrupted... I had to find a different way to find new music... no more real radio... only Garth Brooks and Taylor Dayne... not that I found them offensive to my ears, but I got to hear them all f**king day long... I wanted, nay, I needed something new. That's when I discovered the music section at Audio Nation. It was this little electronics store in London and they had 'everything'... of course you know when I say everything, I mean, everything that I could imagine and then some. Cut me some slack, I was 16.

Now Playing, Love Inc.

There I discovered 10,000 Maniacs, the Cure, and countless others that I shall never forget.

Then the time came to move to Lexington. I went through a musical dead period for the first couple of years. I was stuck with what I had and that was no money, roommates who thought Alan Jackson was the second coming, and too much to do. Then, after a while, when I moved out of the dorm and got a job, I started rediscovering music again. I met some new people and I got to hear things I'd never heard before... Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Belle and Sebastian, Ani Difranco, Johnny Socko... dear god, I was in music heaven.

Now Playing, The Smiths

I soon learned or realized that I was associating all of the new music with the new people and every time I'd hear those songs, I'd think about those people and it would make me smile... or cry, depending on the song, the person, or the mood.

Nowadays, I can't hardly hear a song (other than newer ones that I haven't gotten to experience yet) without thinking about where I was and who I was with the first time the song made an impact on me.

So, thank you Blondie, Morrisey, Ani, Dar, Melissa, Kurt, Jim, Lisa and Beth, Billy and all the others too many to mention for making the soundtrack to my life. It wouldn't have been the same without you.