This NY Life

I’ve been playing around a little bit with adding a gallery of pictures to the site. You can have a look here, some tweaks still need to happen and I’m still sourcing out some other gallery apps, the thought being the simpler the better. I really like Joe’s NYC, where there’s just one image alone, but I suppose I could do that right in the blog then “archive” them in a gallery.

Have I mentioned that Ian McShane is the best actor on TV? No? I think I may have.

The words above are from one of the stand out songs on, Say It Ain’t So on Weezer’s first album. A friend reminded me recently, in a round about way, that among all the music blog darlings like Bloc Party, She Wants Revenge, Sufjan Stevens, etc. that the back catalog of our collective memory is really what matters. While I think Weezer has certainly fallen off from their original sound, every time I start up the first Weezer album, it really takes me back to the first time I played it.

With standouts like In the Garage and Buddy Holly (the commercial hit), that crunchy guitar, Rivers Cuomo’s lyrics, it just makes for such good early 90s rock who kind of set themselves apart at the time. From the opening note of My Name Is Jonas, I remember thinking that is was definitely something different and it rocked in a different way than some other releases of 1994. If you don’t have “The Blue Album”, I recommend it.

Just a sample of some lyrics from Jamie, a B-side found on DCG Rarities #1, or the re-release of “The Blue Album”:

When I was down, you came to me
And promised youd always be
By my side, now youre gone
And Im waiting patiently

Fucking heartbreaking and beautiful (even though it’s about a lawyer).

Subsequent releases are good, Pinkerton notably, but it seems like they kind of got lumped into a “emo” thing, which is kind of lame. Don’t get me going on the song Beverly Hills, though there is definitely some humor based in that song. I HAVE to believe that there is or I couldn’t still listen to their older stuff.

As with much music and the way it recalls a specific time period, or something going on in my life, this album does none of that for me, just the way I felt when I heard it. I honestly can’t remember specifically where I was the first time I heard it but I still feel the same way today when I put it on. Sometimes it’s just about the moment and that’s OK with me.