Relearn, Relaunch

I guess this is my first official post of Phase II of this blog. I will spew lots of useless facts about Rock,my first love... I will most likely offend or enlighten people along the way.I will berate other genres of music..not all of 'em, just the ones that make the world a cheaper,dirtier place to be. I will talk about my life...what's good and what or who is missing from it. I will frequently talk about my sister whom I miss very much and will need to tell her why....I'll probably talk about movies, Franken Berry, Hot Wheel Cars, useless celebrities, Wacky Packages, great web sites,writers and artists I like and all of the ones I dont. There may be poetry, snippets of songs I wrote....potluck, mishmashes hodgepodges of anything and everything....it will be here. Sarcasm is king in my life....laughter is essential right now more than ever.....it is why I feel like writing again.....My sister is my inspiration...

Help for Dum Dums like me

I have been wanting to expand the flow of my creative juices since I did my daily e-mail blast of Seano's Top 40 at 40. I had not been writing on a daily basis for a long time and had no clue on how to expand my blog to make it more appealing to others and conducive to my creativity. I had a lot of questions and concerns. I found these links to help me, and believe me(as one who has neither the patience or web smarts) these links are helping my learning process truck along at a pretty good pace. Here I will list them http://bloggerfordummies.blogspot.com...great stuff here for everyone from total non techies like myself......easily laid out in terminology that a 4th grader could handle. Visit http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com as well...so much info for those with blogging dreams...and tips on how to make your site easier to manage and cooler to look at.

Finally I would have to include http://dummies-guide-to-google-blogger.blogspot.com. For those who use Blogger.com as your hub for blogging(as I do) you cannot go wrong for any how- to you may have piling up like reams of paper in your pretty little cerebrum.

This is no advertisement....if you stumble on my site and like what you see or want to trade some good sarcastic wit with me...fine.....and if you are inspired to set up your own page to compete playfully with mine...awesome.....but start with these links if you are completelly clueless when it comes to web pages and how to have one.

How I Miss You

Meaghan, You were a warm embrace in the world on a tundra of a day.
You were the smile that made the band stop the ballad and rock out instead.
You were the biggest little warrior that parted a sea of stoic giants.
You were the perfect listener who peeled my problem away and stood me up again.
You were the mom of moms even in these last months through your pain, you provided.

You were the steady ground beneath my unsafe thoughts.
You are the connector...and you always will be.
You are love.
You are here, always.

Top 40 at 40 #1

#1 The Beatles Something 1969

Well....here we are.....the very top of the list....with my very favorite song from my 40 years on this Earth. A love song.....a song about discovering the wondrous beauty that unfolds when you love someone..for 50 years or at first sight..if you cannot figure out why or if you know from the inside out...the emotion that is LOVE...is all, is everything. It really is all you need. And something as enormous or microscopic as Love is easily forgotten, tossed aside for fame, fortunes, gossip pages, road rages , corporate greed, dirty deeds, heartless discrimination, aimless retaliation, settling scores and winning wars.......we forget so easily sometimes...how much simpler life would be with just a little more love in it.

George Harrison was the quiet Beatle with the biggest heart....and this song speaks to us all......it gives me the innermost joy every time I hear it...even if the tone is slightly melancholy..about a man questioning the choices he's made and wondering about his ability to give Love back...to pass it on.

I had one of those life defining moments during an exceptional evening in Las Vegas August 2006, while attending the show called "LOVE" , a work of the finest I've ever seen by Cirque Du Soleil, that chronicled and celebrated the works of the Beatles in a way only Cirque Du Soleil can. It had been such an emotional year to that point...the beginning of two journeys that were built on Love...my son's birth on June 10 and my sister's diagnosis a week and one half earlier.....the balance between two very different paths celebrating the wonders of life and the triumph of living and giving Love.....anyway.....sitting in that theatre in the round watching the trapeze artist float and spin to the sounds of "Something"...it felt like ....like a guardian angel had presented herself to me...reminding me to give love, to teach love to the best of my ability.......it was a moment I will never forget....it is the foundation of my being.....this love thing.

To my wife and son......I love you with all of my heart.........I will continue to learn how to live, love and give to the best of my ability from the core of my being. So much to know...so far to go.....

To my father and my mother.........You too have made me whom I am...with love...your challenges have always had a purpose...I know that now. You have shown me the true meaning of Love more than this #1 song ever could.

To my Brother Kevin.....I have known for so long how much you have to give...I'm so proud of you for letting us peak in and have a look around.....You have wisdom and experience that only enhances your ability to distribute your love.

To my sister Meaghan......you are the cornerstone.....the soul provider...the teacher we all long to be.....your lessons pump the blood through my heart on my weakest days..your love for others and the way you live your life is my guideline..my manual..my reminder of how important it is to live, love and fight every day for the things you believe in...and to take a deep breath and learn from mistakes and always....always...pass it on.

To my friends who have been so much a part of my life for 25 or more years....it is a celebration that I have every time I hear from you...you have always supported me and taken me for who I am with absolutely no reservations.....you are the stops on this journey that make the trip less tiresome, more enjoyable to know that our fairly small group know each other so well and accept the choices each other has made with love and support....thank you so much for travelling with me this far........................The next 40 will be slower...but the movement will be smoother......

I have no words...no history lesson or odd fact that could ever enhance this excerpt into 40 years of loving music when it comes to the Beatles.......I have the music that traverses infinite worlds for generations that have been and that will come.... I have songs that mean so much to me that they will never depreciate.....they partially define who I am and pollenate my seeds for life and how to love it.......

I suppose if I were to do a top 10 it would be anti climactic....but let it be known that Rain, The Fool on the Hill, The Mustard Medley that ends Abbey Road, Within You Without You, Norwegian Wood, Sexy Sadie, Mother Natures Son, The entire Revolver album, Dear Prudence, Cry Baby Cry, In My Life, Across the Universe, Michelle, I Am the Walrus, Hello Goodbye, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away and of course......Hey Jude are not just pure genius....they are life forces....atoms, cells, heartbeats that make us human to begin with.......

In the interest of a few good men and a few great ladies...I will lay out #41- #50 for you....excluding groups/members of groups that have been included in Top Fives already

#41) Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters- Elton John
#42) Fearless- Pink Floyd
#43) Evil- Cactus
#44) Flight of Icarus- Iron Maiden
#45) Thirteen-Big Star
#46) Red House- Jimi Hendrix
#47) End Of The Day- Beck
#48) Summertime Rolls- Jane's Addiction
#49) Everybody Here Wants You- Jeff Buckley
#50) Sitting Still- R.E.M.

H.M.s Perfect Day- Lou Reed, Since You're Gone-The Cars, My Michelle-GnR, Stay With Me-The Faces, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry-Cowboy Junkies, Eyes of the World-Grateful Dead, Silver, Blue and Gold-Bad Co., Haitian Divorce-Steely Dan, Don't Worry Bout A Thing-Stevie Wonder, Do You Feel(Like We Do)- Peter Frampton, Dissident-Pearl Jam


Thanks everyone for playing along...It has been great having you participate in the shadows or on the front lines........This has been an awesome 40 mornings.................................Now...WHO'S NEXT?

02 Something.mp3 3579K Play Download

Top 40 at 40 #2

#2 Led Zeppelin Since I've Been Loving You 1970

The Bluuueeeeessss baby. Music plucked from negro spirituals and replanted in Mississippi, New Orleans, Chicago....the foundation for Rock and Roll.....and nobody stole it better than Led Zeppelin. You wanna get low down and dirty and wriggle out of that snakeskin into a room full of blues? Let my high and mighty friends in the lead balloon escort you to the moon with this tune.
This song makes me beg, sweat, curse, forgive and forget all at the same time. It is my LONGTIME love affair with the mighty Zep and their album Led Zeppelin III that forces me to include this stellar track and place it all the way up at #2.
Zeppelin III? You say Physical Graffiti, I say Zeppelin III......You show me a group who can go from the Viking wail riff stomp of the Immigrant Song to the spooky raga of Friends to the ballsy banshee wails of Since I've Been Loving You to the Folky sing along ballad That's The Way ON THE SAME ALBUM...in 1970!!! and make them all rock and roll diamonds and pearls. You can't..... Lest we forget Gallow's Pole and Out On the Tiles? Got 'em right here!
Led Zeppelin Had it all.......3 gentlemen who were MASTERS of their chosen instruments...and the one and only Golden God Robert Plant out front parting the rock sea, summoning the valkyries, chanting memories of laughter and longing and letting us know that ...Upon us all...just a little rain must fall.....
This song has served me well. I learned to "scream" well as a singer with repeated listens to this very song. And when I say scream...I mean singing very high and loud and in tune with Presence and clarity...Thank you Robert..Screaming does NOT mean sounding like Cookie Monster after pulling an all-nighter you metal wannabes!..Robert was feeling the pain, working all day long to find his woman with a back door man...bulging with heartbreak and he let out a wail...and it just screws you to the floor...just totally rivets you to the thoughts you may have of running all the way to Mississippi to seek out the old bluesman pouring out his soul on a backwoods porch somewhere...to an audience of no-one. Just to watch the sweat drip from his forehead and splash the neck of his old axe. Robert is my vocal hero...my religion...

Jimmy Page hits all of the right notes and I'm spent and crying after the first 5.......raging and driving blind through the blues. Guitarist...Producer...it was HE who is responsible for getting Bonzo's drums to sound like that!...genius ! and great uniforms! I would give my left one to step into that Black Dragon-covered velvet Jumpsuit! Wouldn't you? Would you sacrifice you second child to hold the violin bow?????? Allright, now Seano...take a deep breath...let's only get partially crazy....

John Paul Jones on the bass pedals and spooky church organ....yessir I have been served...I must confess somewhere fast...get cleansed.....THE SECRET weapon of the band and one of the top 5 bass players OOT!
Oh to hold the multi necked mandolin he posesses...if only for 5 seconds while putting it back in his case for him...

BONZO- The king of all rock drummers.....driving home the pain and remorse with thunderous rolls, cymbals that crash like angels making their way through a thundercloud.....and a squeaky bass pedal.....take me where you are John Bonham!!!!!! Why????? WHYYY 40 shots of vodka and a ham roll for breakfast!!!!!!!!

Depending on my own personal cloud cover, so to speak or me losing count of my adult beverage consumption, OD-ing on nostalgic basement viewing memories of The Song Remains the Same in Ken's Basement(rewind that drum solo AGAIN, SLIX!) or maybe its Tuesday....WHO NEEDS A REASON...this could easily switch places with number ONE.

I imagine myself in Island Studios, somewhere in London 1970, a floor sweeper, a go-fer....Just running into the studio during a break to give Robert a cup of tea.....Jimmy wants to oil Bonham's kick pedal but John's not having it...and Jonesy is in the corner quietly tuning to precision, dutch boy hair over his eyes while he does a funky roll on the Fender Jazz..The sky opens, an angel taps me on the shoulder..and Jimmy turns to me and says hey Seano....have you seen the bridge? Where's that confounded bridge?!! Is that what he said.........? pinch me!!

I had a dream....crazy dream.............Led Zeppelin, me and infinity.....I will never have my fill of this song. Ever.

And here's the 10 I cannot do without.........the first 10 not the only ten,mind you
1) Since I've Been Loving You
2) Misty Mountain Hop- Hey Boy, Do you wanna SCORREEE!
3) Bring It On Home-
4) Hey Hey What Can I Do----I got a girl wanna BALL ALL DAY!
5) In My Time Of Dying- JIMMY CONQUERS THE SLIDE.....Gabriel! Let me blow your horn!
6) Nobody's Fault But Mine- Got a Big Monkey on my BACK BACK BACK!
7) 10 Years Gone- "Though the course may change sometimes, rivers always reach the sea!"
8) Out on the Tiles-
9) No Quarter
10)Friends

Honorables: Everything else recorded by Led Zeppelin from the fall of 1968 to September 24, 1980

04 Since I've been Loving You.mp3 8661K Play Download

Top 40 at 40 #3

#3 Radiohead No Surprises 1997

"A Heart that's full up like a landfill, a job that slowly kills you, bruises that won't heal".......That to me is the most crushing opening line of any song I've ever heard......it has echoed my sentiment for a large bulk of the time since my first listen...soon after I bought the OK Computer album in 1997. It doesn't matter where I am....wedding...comedy show....walking in anonymous crowds....kicking back with my best friends................this song will stop me in my tracks, it will often bring me to tears..it is an unstoppable force.
I may sound like I'm complaining here....but my life since I left for college the first time...has not been so easy. I have had so much joy.... great friends, family and laughter,living in so many cities, marriage and a son....in many ways I could not have asked for more. But the choices I've made to be the artistic, nomadic, inquisitive person coupled with the losses and the fears and the heartache I've experienced for most of my adult life have made me a guarded, angry, depressed, frozen in time, unrealistic person with unfinished business and scattered dreams and a loss of identity..... I have all of this knowledge, and some would say talent....and I don't know what to do with it. It seems to be endless...though I know that I'm the only one who can change it...........but sometimes the damage done shoves me in a corner and forces me to stay there....still.

I needed the OK Computer album to get through 1998, and then again in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002.......2006 and on and on. Years I would love to blot out..some partially, from my mosaic.
It is something I feel the need to say about this album and certain albums...they become a part of you for different reasons...Like Badmotorfinger, The Unforgettable Fire, Led Zeppelin III, Exile on main Street before it..They are your second skin, your "exo-skeletons", your pacifiers, your happy pills...in music form.....The album is not a pick- me- up so to speak...but it makes me feel real, a human with faults, dreams, desires and bruises that won't heal. The blood coursing though my veins may be cold..black..slow...but I'm real....I live and breathe.Thom Yorke...the lead singer and nucleus of Radiohead......his voice, his delivery and lyrics...they cut through me like Ginsu, like laser...so many questions, scientific challenges, tainted life experiences, ice ages, broken people,, investigating your memories, looking forward with defenses flaring......
And I know some of you will scratch your heads with this choice...but you just don't have a personal relationship with Radiohead and I do. Thats all I can tell you....this album has sucked the morale out of my recovery and at the same time filled it with glee.....it rebuilt my bones..cut my vision in half......and this is a song that BEGS for No Alarms...No Surprises....you retreat to the simplicity of a safe and secure life in the country or suburban sprawl...where you cannot be straight-jacketed by your fears....you escape the extraneous, hurling debris and shrapnel of heartache exploding.
"I'll take a quiet life with a handshake and carbon monoxide"........super heavy.
It is my mantra...in a defense mechanistic, melodic way.......No Alarms and No Surprises............

Top 10 Radiohead Songs
1) No Surprises
2) Pyramid Song(Amnesiac)
3)Morning Bell(Kid A)
4)Subterranean Homesick Alien (OK Computer)
5)How to Dissappear Completely(Kid A)
6) Let Down(OK Computer)
7) Knives Out(Amnesiac)
8) Optimistic(Kid A)
9) True Love Waits.....look for it
10) Lucky (OK Computer)

10 No Surprises.m4a 3615K Download

Top 40 at 40 #4

# 4 Queen Killer Queen 1974

"She keeps a Mooey Shandow, in a pretty cabinet" tops my list of misinterpreted lyrics...starting when I first heard this song as a seventh grade dweeb, wearing floods and flannels. I wondered what the hell a Mooey Shandow could be, not for very long, maybe 5 minutes or so. I was instead put in a trace by the melodies and harmonies, especially the harmonies.....aren't the Beatles the only group that does that? I thought to myself? And that was where my fascination with this band called Queen began.

Could this band really have a better song than We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions? my little 7th grade brain thought while strolling to the library on a 10 minute pass.

So this question stuck and instead of hitting the books after school like Mr. Becker wanted me to, I hit the liner notes of my worn out Queens Greatest Hits cassette for info and answers. Soon after, I saw my first video(a "Closet Classic" on early MTV) of this great group Queen. Their enigmatic frontman had tight yellow spandex on and a moustache much more well groomed than my Dad's. He was prancing around the stage and was so energetic that he must have pulled the top half of the mic stand from its base, but it didn't seem to bother him as he held it like that for the rest of the video. That moustache was hiding a weird set of chompers, that prancing looked like a cross between Xmas elves in Santa's workshop and ballet....it didn't seem masculine at all. But that voice.....that voice made all of my questions and gender confusion go bye bye.
His notes, journeying from a smooth vibrato flow to a fury, made my idol Robert Plant's vox prowess sound like a smokers cough sung through a 3 day old sock......COMPLETE CONTROLLLLLLL!
Wow. Blown away on a 1981 summer day. I set my sights on digging deeper....Sheer Heart Attack(the album this comes from), A Night at the Opera, The Game, Queen II.....but I always came to Killer Queen. I still get goosebumps when I hear the opening finger snaps. I could not believe that a band could do so much emotional coverage in 3 minutes.......Finger Snaps, 3 part harmonies, a top 5 air guitar worthy guitar solo by Brian May and those wacky lyrics by the man himself Freddy Mercury...who was the Killer Queen? Was she dynamite with a laser beam....was she guaranteed to blow your mind?

Years later I learned that "MOET CHANDON" is a fancy French Champagne...a Queen is a persnickety gay man and Freddy was wearing those moose knuckle laden yellow spandex for specific reasons. It Mattered Not. The love for Freddy remains the same. My all time favorite vocalist along side Percy Plant......he is so missed.

Top 5 Queen Songs
1) Killer Queen
2) Somebody To Love
3) Fat Bottomed Girls
4) Play The Game
5)Stone Cold Crazy

Honorables: Your My Best Friend, Dragon Attack, Get Down, Make Love, Save Me(awesome)

03 Killer Queen.m4a 2896K Download

Top 40 at 40 #5

#5 The Rolling Stones Can't You Hear Me Knocking 1971

Let's face it. The Stones never pulled a punch, and this song is a Knockout blow 15 seconds into the first round. A seminal cut from Sticky Fingers, Can't You Hear Me Knocking has everything...raw cut open and bled out blues riffs, cocaine eyes and speed freak jive, a freak-out rhythmic jam smattered with a sax solo.....its the driving force of a hundred rock songs packed into one 7 minute opus.....and I cannot think of one other Stones song that stumbles into a jam...The Stones as a jam band? Who knew?

And we boogied down didn't we, my love beaded brethren...because if this cut didn't put your bell bottoms in a swirl, nothing did.
What a great story as well...Guy(presumably Mick or Keef) falls for some piece of ass with nasty boots and a stash of narcotic loot. Guy gets hooked...he loses himself and then disappears. Guy gets needy. Shows up and starts singing, ringing banging on her door...looking for more toot or more tail..the double entendres prevail...she ain't answering and the song ensues.
Brilliant dirty drug stained rock mined from the source of those dubious, dusted up Glimmer Twins....taking me along as some shady Aquarian wingman as we traverse from wrong door to wrong door looking to score...what it is we're hoping to score doesn't really matter....Baby please throw us down the keys and lets party....We'll worry about kicking later.

The Rolling Stones from 1969 to 1974 could not be stopped.....From Let It Bleed(which made fun of the title Let It Be), to Sticky Fingers to Exile On Main Street to Goats Head Soup to Its Only Rock and Roll.......WOW.. what a run .....don't know if we'll ever see a run like that again....definitely know that we'll never hear a song like this again.........

I've seen the Stones live 4 times for a grand total of about 700 dollars....Steel Wheels('88), Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon and Bigger Bang(2006)....they look like Crypt-keepers up there now but still rock fantastically for 3 hrs straight.

Top 5 Rolling Stones Songs
1) Can't You Hear Me Knocking
2) Loving Cup(Exile)
3) Can't You Hear the Music(Goats Head Soup)
4) Moonlight Mile (Sticky Fingers)
5) Star Star(Goats Head Soup)

Honorables: Monkey Man, Rocks Off, Coming Down Again, Let it Loose, Live With Me, You Got the Silver, Shattered, Torn and Frayed, Parachute Woman, All Down the Line, Shine A Light......and on and on and on.....

04 Can't You Hear Me Knocking.mp3 8512K Play Download

Top 40 at 40 #6

#6 Boston Hitch a Ride 1976


More than any other band, Boston reminds me of High School. Although my love for le rock du classique had its roots in exploring Dad's torn and frayed records as I have said before...it really wasn't cemented until around the age of 15 1/2 or so...smack dab in my sophomore year of high school. I have to say that this band was a huge part of it.....when people who wear glasses and stay out of the sun and write about music without ever having playing a note of it...Criticize classic rock....Boston always comes up along with maybe Bad Company, Journey, Aerosmith, Bachman Turner Overdrive and a long list of others...who got lumped into a much despised genre called Arena Rock. Oh no..they filled arenas! Everyone had a good time and tickets were like $7.00 a piece and their songs are still being sung 30 years later. They must really suck!

Close your eyes and try to picture anything by Vampire Weekend or Wolf Parade or Hot Chip sticking in your head 30 years from now.......yeah, I thought so.
Strangely enough, We didn't call it "Classic Rock" in the 80s. Most of everything we rocked out to in the basement bars...in the backs of cars...in the barns and the woods, blaring from ALPINE Car Stereos and Fisher Components was...merely 10 to 15 old at the time, practically New!
First Tier: Zep, Beatles, Stones, Who, Bruce ,Eagles,Fleetwood Mac, Allmans,Doors and even Genesis
Second Tier: Boston, Aerosmith, Bad Company,Police, Talking Heads, Journey, Rush, Steve Miller Band, Frampton,Deep Purple, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty
Third Tier: Foreigner, Triumph,Head East, Duke Jupiter, Kim Mitchell, Ted Nugent, The Friday Song on WCMF, Aldo Nova, The Babys.
Forth Tier: any band in Rochester, NY that covered those bands like Buxx, Reporter, Cheater and The Park Ave. band.

Hitch a Ride was a deep cut off Boston's debut which sold around 15 million or so. I kept coming back to this song because it really does take me on a ride. A rocky ride through the winding neighborhoods of my suburbia, Alpine in CB Schottland's Pontiac STE BLARING.... looking for the next party or our friend with the fake ID. It has a smooth acoustic start, a soaring vocal, then the organ picked you up and you round the turn.....you notice a cop behind you, a short solo, the chorus....can you shake him....yes, hes gone.......you pull into a church parking lot to celebrate and the solo hits you.......YEAH. The guitar solo in Hitch a Ride is one of my top 5 favorite solos....and for good reason. I will be shot out of a hungover Sunday easy chair to assume my AIR GUITAR position EVERY TIME I hear it. For the folks at home...try it with headphones....and listen for the handclaps! GOOSEBUMP RAWK! It takes you to the end of the song....and drops you off safe at home, but sneak in through the back door so you don't set off the motion lights....

I have a picture of me circa 1984 in a bad sweater and my long locks frosted with a broom handle in my hand as I mimic the solo in HITCH A RIDE. I can still do it today but I might hurt my back with the right headbang.

Let me also give vocalist Brad Delp his props. Sadly we lost Brad last year and he never got the respect he deserved.. to be put up there with Fred, Robert and Steve in the classic rock eschelon where he belongs. You will never forget a Boston song because of his God like pipes and harmonies. Strangely, Boston main man Tom Scholz got all of the glory because he made the album in his basement and had a big organ.

Enjoy Hitch a Ride....its now on to the TOP 5!

but first the Top 5 Boston Songs
1) Hitch a Ride
2) Let Me Take You Home Tonight
3) Smokin'
4) Party
5) Foreplay/Long Time

Boston - Hitch a Ride.mp3 3930K Play Download

Top 40 at 40 #7

#7 SOUNDGARDEN THE DAY I TRIED TO LIVE 1994


So many times I have felt kicked in the head and too tired to fight my way out...tattooed to so many memories where I whittled away the hours scribbling manic prose into a notebook in a suburban bedroom or musty basement...with a furrowed brow and a low attitude........This song sat there with me.....behind love and laughter -a substitute for anything real I was able to feel in 1994.


This song, from Superunknown('94) is a wake up call to its own author Chris Cornell. He slowly crawls his way out of a murky disposition, the rhythm builds up to a scream...."seize the day, pull the trigger, drop the blade and watch the rolling heads"....reminding us how close chaos truly is...it is there within every pregnant pause, every 30 second commercial, at every stop light.....Expect it, fight it or get lost in it..........get some, go again .

One more time around might do it
One more time around might make it

There are louder faster harder Soundgarden songs, much more anthemic for the distant, rabid flannel massed armies of suburbia, but none as lyrically indelible for me back then.

Some may never understand the need for "downer" lyrics for so many people. But when you're down, they can be the only thing that may resonate in the dark. Fast cars and tight baseball caps and Hi-fiving your bros are out of the reach of the downtrodden. There were groups of these people everywhere molding in corners and stinking up the room....I avoided the reek anytime I could....I was proudly downtrodden, flamboyantly alienated.... I was NOT one of them and Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden were like those guys at your first keg party who were older, wiser and put you at ease while you huddled around the tap. Chris had his arm around me spewing out war stories throughout the 90s and saying to me Yeah it sucks, but take two verses, a chorus and a solo of this, it will make you feel better......and it always did. Downer songs are also fighting songs in many ways.

Chris got off of the drugs and booze and went soft like so many heroes do when they have made peace with their pasts.....but he was there when I needed him.......I saw him in SF last year and he blew us away....his voice is back in shape and he did everything from Temple of the Dog to that crappy song from the last James Bond Movie......I hear his next album will be presented by Timbaland....so a different apocalypse is approaching.....no longer dark, but soft in the middle and spoonfed to the lowest common denominator.....Ugh.....thats allright....I still have Superunknown, Badmotorfinger and Louder Than Love .

The Top 5 Soundgarden Songs
1) The Day I Tried To Live
2) Slaves and Bulldozers(Badmotorfinger '91) The most crushing song of all time.
3) Spoonman(Superunknown)
4) Burden in My Hand(Down on the Upside '96)
5) Zero Chance( Down on the Upside) ..an absolutely beautiful song....means alot to me

Homorable mentions: Jesus Christ Pose,Drawing Flies, Kyle Petty, Son of Richard and Into the Void(Sabbath Cover)

10 The Day I Tried To Live.m4a 5064K Download