Dignity Is Valuable, But Our Lives' Are Valuable Too

I have not been feeling very inspired lately, I wonder if it has anything to do with the weather. I go through phases where I get sick of listening to music. When this happens I tend to only listen to reggae, Bowie, and The Dead. I have been listening to the Trojan Calypso, Dancehall, and Ganja box sets constantly the last 2 weeks. I think that reggae is the perfect music. Also, I am a huge sucker for bass and reggae has some of the best lines. Some of my favorite reggae artists are Max Romeo, Gregory Isaacs, John Holt, Big Youth, Congos, Black Uhuru,Burning Spear and more that I can't think of right now. My mind always goes blank when talking about music.

I could probably write a book on how much I love Bowie. My sister's friend Jay made it his mission to get me into him when I was either 11 or 12. For this, I am eternally grateful. His music has followed me through middle school, high school, and even helped me through my misery during a brief stint in college. I love all of his albums up until Scary Monster, which I think is his last great one. I really don't have much interest in anything after that. Anyhow, Lodger and Station to Station have been on heavy rotation lately. I was watching a VH1 special on the making of Duran Duran's "Rio"(which is another album I love, "The Chauffeur" and "Last Chance on the Stairway" ahhh so good). So before I go off topic Nick Rhodes was saying how he wanted the beginning of "Rio" to sound like those weird chords in the beginning of "Station to Station," I thought that was really great.

My oldest sister was and is a deadhead (she is 15 years older than me. She used to follow the them all over the US in a huge white van with a Grateful Dead mural painted on it (total hippies).I always hated them because I was forced to listen to them as a child.Her and her boyfriend would pick me up from school in this huge hippie mobile, I would be mortified. As I got older and started to understand them I understood how great they really were. Unlike most "deadheads" I prefer their studio albums to their live stuff. Terrapin Station, Blues for Allah, Steal Your Face, Aoxomoxoa, Reckoning, Shakedown street are all great ones. I was very lucky as a kid to have 3 older sisters who were all into different music. Erika was a thrash metalhead, Bianca was into old school rap, and Kristin was into everything from The Dead to Judas Priest to Maiden. I really lucked out and believe that is what shaped my tastes.

When I worked in a record store as a teen I once heard a guy say "I'm into everything from Cannibal Corpse to Kylie Minogue." I thought that was great because thats exactly how I felt and still feel (though I am not a huge fan of Cannibal Corpse).