OK,  here’s the situation (my parents went away on a weeks vacation…Will Smith) Ha ha, I have no idea how that just happened, but it really did, please tell me I’m not the only old person who actually remembers when that song came out.

Actually the real situation is that I am kind of a slacker and haven’t blogged in a wee bit, partly because we moved to the Seattle area this month.  Issaquah to be exact.  The whole moving thing is never fun, but we are starting to get back in our normal life groove and I actually had time to blog.

I am happy to be writing again. 

Our new house

I wrote about Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears 2 years ago, or so (if you followed that link I just made I hope you are listening to “The Zero Light” right now, what a fabulous song!).  Since then they have made another album called “The Flight of the Knife.”  I never wrote anything about it because I had just blogged about them, but we have been listening to that album at least once every day for weeks now.

Our house essentially turns into the stage for a musical when they are playing; singing, dancing and overall cheerfulness.  I don’t think I want to try and describe the music, you can figure it out yourself, and I hope you do because it has several of the best characteristics of different types and ages of music all in one, however it DEMANDS and DESERVES a second listen.

The kids favorite song is “Purple Rocket” because 1) its so awesome 2) we are reading a book called “Georges Cosmic Treasure Hunt” by Stephen Hawkings and his daughter Lucy, that is all about space and rockets n’ stuff.  This book has “blasted” Bryan Scary into our daily music fun.  I very much recommend this book and the one before it to any parent looking for something to read their kids this summer.

I somewhat obsessively check Bryan Scary’s concert dates hoping so very badly to see them live someday, so far they seem to stick to the east coast, but I’m comforted by the fact that Seattle offers me a much better chance than Boise ever did.

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Our 4 yr old Seth is a lover of the music. He is constantly amusing us with his requests for certain bands when we are driving or at home. He really likes Muse and Seve Vs Evan, so you can see how most of the time its not hard to fill his wants. One of the only things he likes possibly more than music is his Grandpa. They are totally best friends.

My dad is a big fan of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys (so am I actually, which is hard to comprehend if you know me and how much I dislike all country music… except for Bob Wills). So naturally when I finally got some of my Dad’s Bob Wills on my ipod and played it for Seth last month it started some kind of explosion in Seth’s brain causing him to beg for it constantly when he and I are alone in the car (which is a lot since the other kids are in school and he and I run lots of errands and go places together).

(a little clip you might like, even though the quality isn’t perfect)

Seth is actually going to spend over a week next month with my parents while I go to Puerto Rico, and he is most excited about jamming with my Dad every day. My Dad is very musical and he has an area in the loft with a drum set, keyboard, guitars, microphones, and harmonica. They play together often. Seth likes to bring his blue ukulele.

So that is my big music scoop for last month, perhaps not so “gen x” as usual, but I like Bob Wills because it is incredibly entertaining, and I love the quaint undiluted sound of the guitar, violin, piano and who knows what else. Mr Wills talks while they are playing, to the band itself and commentary on the song in general and it is so funny. He also makes crazy noises. They went through several band members, and I like some better than others, but one of our favorites is the piano player Kelso. We are naming our next dog Kelso, and that is the name Seth uses now when he pretends to be a dog.

My Dad has a huge box set, but for the average listener I think the best album to start with is Bob Wills the Country Music Hall of Fame. (check out the listening samples there on the album, you might surprise yourself and like it too)

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Our 7 yr old son created some new additions for our 10 yr old daughters Christmas village. I love it, she didn’t so much. click on the picture to make it larger if you want.

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My husband Tac posted something kinda sweet in his blog the other day, so for anyone who is a music/web 2.0 guru or just wants to see a cute picture of Tac and our youngest son, see here.

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The other morning my 3 yr. old son was eating his cheerios with peanut butter (cause thats what he eats every morning), when I heard him singing something. I sat down next to him to hear better and I heard his angelic little voice singing “despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage,” over and over again.

I am still deciding whether it was more cute or disturbing.

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Yesterday I was trying to get the house cleaned up, the kids had friends over and they were being really loud, and I was starting to feel very frazzled.

Then…Cherry by The Smashing Pumpkins started playing on our stereo and it was like magic. I just tuned out everything around me and floated away to Billy’s voice and the oh so poignant guitar notes.

Ahhhh. All better. For a quick defraz of your own, listen here.

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Hi, I’m Emma, Jen’s daughter. For a school assignment I have to do something I’ve never done, I’ve never written in a blog before.

since my mom is always blogging about her favorite songs I wanted to do it too. My absolute favorite songs are:

1. Jungle book, Bear Necessities
2. Marry Poppins, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
3. Mary Poppins, Chim Chim a nee
4. Charlie Brown theme song on the piano
5. Nacho Libre, Move Move Move
6. Jack Johnson Curious Geoge soundtrack, Upside Down
7. Spirit soundtrack Bryan Adams, Get off my back
8. The Smashing Pumpkins, Doomsday Clock from Transformers movie
9. Aristocats soundtrack, Everybody wants to be a cat
10. Hellogoodbye, Touchdown Turnaround
11. Postal Service, Sleeping In
12. Muse, Starlight
13. Muse, Knights of Cydonia

I hope you enjoyed this blog, I listen to music everyday especially at night while I’m reading in bed and to help me get to sleep. Oh and by the way Mrs. Duerksen please leave me a comment.

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Today I listened to The Ex-Boyfriends, Film School, Mew, Umbrellas and Silly Songs with Larry from Veggie Tales (very entertaining cartoons based on Bible stories). Yes Silly Songs with Larry is totally on my ipod, my kids love it.

What’s your favorite Silly Song? Mine is “His Cheeseburger” sung by Mr Lunt; that is one rockin gourd. Following closely behind in second place is
“The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps.”

Here’s some great You Tube fun: A delightful clip from tv show “The Office” (love that show) to the song “His Cheeseburger.” It’s really quite an insightful interpretation.

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My three year old requested Christmas music in the car the other day, totally unprompted and out of the blue. I didn’t know he even knew what Christmas music was.

I explained to him that mommy didn’t have any of those cd’s in the car, and that Christmas music was not on my ipod, so we couldn’t listen to it at that moment. However, next time we went somewhere I was ready.

Sure enough: “I want to listen to Christmas music.” So I took Zeitgeist out of the cd player and put in my homemade holiday mix which of course features The Smashing Pumpkins “Christmas Time” as the first song. I was so enjoying the skepticism on all three of their faces (watch the road!!) as Billy Corgan started to sing.

Them: “isn’t this Billy Corgan?”
me: “yep” pause
Billy: (singing) “Christmas time is here”
Them: “it is Christmas music, YEAH!!”

Then my three year old asked me (he’s totally my favorite now ) “are we having a Billy Christmas?”

I don’t know exactly what that is, but I sure hope so. Anyways, I figure if Hipsters United can declare Thanksgiving Day 2007 as “Gish day” then I can probably have a Billy Christmas.

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Musically, nothing blogworthy happened to me at all last week. I did however manage to read a wonderful Victorian novel called North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell. Breathe a huge sigh of relief that my sister Jennette has already listened to me rave about this book (she’s read it also), thus sparing any of you, who otherwise would have received an eye full.

This morning when my three year old sat down to eat his raisin bran, he informed me he wanted to listen to music. ( We usually have music playing in the morning, but no one had turned any on yet) I asked him what he wanted, thinking it would be Phantom. “I want Death Cab To Cutie” he said. So we listened to “Transatlanticism” this morning while we ate breakfast together.

He is too cute(ie) and he has great taste in music.

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