Image by Cody Bralts There’s a meme going around Facebook right now about posting one’s 15 (25, 32, whatever) Most Influential Albums.



This is IMPOSSIBLE! I hate exercises like this.



In no particular order:



1. Doobie Brothers, Toulouse Street - I was a wee thing when this record came out in 1972, but I probably didn’t pay much attention until a couple years later, when my dad was in a band when we lived in Maine and there were records just laying around all the time. The music’s great (”Listen to the Music”, “Rocking Down the Highway”, etc), but I was FASCINATED and SCANDALIZED by the naked women in the gatefold sleeve.



2. Led Zeppelin, II - I was eensy when this record was released in 1969. It was kind of this subtle backdrop to my childhood in that “Ramble On” was always on the radio or coming out of someone’s speakers, but I didn’t really arrive at Zeppelin until I was in college. I have some extremely fond memories of summers home, hanging with my friend Jenny until the sun came up, bleary and rumply, smoking, smoking, smoking.



3. Tears For Fears, The Hurting - This record is completely perfect in every way and has aged gorgeously. I liked it when the video for “Change” was on MTV in 1982 (heady stuff for Chaska, MN! British bands! Weird clothes! Hand jiving!), but I fully EMBRACED and BECAME ONE with this record when I was a sophomore in college in 1987.



4. Soul Asylum, Made to be Broken - Speaking of college… and post college… oh, Soul Asylum. “Hey/Ain’t it strange/how some things never change?/Ain’t it strange how nothing stays the same?”



5. New Order, Power, Corruption, and Lies - Imagine being 14 and you’ve just heard two shows on a radio station found by accident: a local music show that has told you the truth about what was happening literally down the road, and a Maximum Rock n Roll radio show that has shredded your brain. Then imagine someone else comes on and plays stuff like the Smiths, and then Simple Minds, and then “Your Silent Face” by New Order. No homework gets done and the direction if your life has completely changed.



6. Big Black, Racer X - See above. Then imagine going to SEE them at the 7th Street Entry after school a few months later. With Naked Raygun headlining!



7. Primal Scream, Screamadelica - So, after I had Cody in 1992, I was feeling quite out of shape and not like myself. Some well-meaning person (my dad?) gave me Cindy Crawford’s workout video. The workout was only OK, but it had “Higher than the Sun” and “Movin’ On Up” and “Slip Inside This House” playing in the background. I did my kicks and lunges dutifully. It turns out the workout is bad for knees and backs, but I was young then!



8. The Replacements, Let It Be - The first song I ever heard by them was on a local radio show the night in #5. The song? “Gary’s Got a Boner”.



9. Steve Winwood, Arc of a Diver - Laugh if you want, but this is a hell of a record. Love, love, love “Spanish Dancer”.



10. U2, War - I am fairly at peace with old U2, for the most part, but I do not understand their new single. “Two Hearts Beat As One”, “Surrender”, “Drowning Man”. It’s really a work of genius that made me feel feelings and still sounds marvelous. I have a thing for things that age well (see #3) and this is one of them.



More later.

photo by Cody Bralts



THINGS I DID ***NOT*** DO ON MY WINTER VACATION TO FLORIDA, ALL OF WHICH I HAVE DONE ON VACATION BEFORE:



check work email obsessively write frequently in a journal solely because I “had time” make to-do lists for my return to IL collect shells like there were never going to be shells again, ever dread going home (well, “dread” is a v strong word) get a sunburn over my entire body (just my face, unfortunately. Oh, and my shins.) drive the car stay fully caught up with the news take photos with a real camera (used the iPhone instead, with decent results) go for a walk on our last morning (I regret this) enter the Gulf of Mexico past my ankles watch TV (apart from a couple basketball games) worry excessively about the house, the cats, etc* explore any farmers’ market or natural food stores/co-ops wear socks or shoes most of the time



THINGS I ACTUALLY DID WHILE AT THE BEACH:



fly a kite shoot occasional lo-fi video catch a cold drink caffeinated coffee (I usually drink decaf due to anxiety, but miraculously, etc etc) eat berries and citrus and lots of other stuff used the iPhone for just about everything sit on the beach for long periods of time pretending to read but actually just listening to the water and sniffing the very salty air see bald eagles and their babies pet a beach cat named Peepster** sleep walk Twitter the whole thing from beginning to end so I wouldn’t forget anything, on account of the not writing anything down



We also spent time with some of my relatives (Dad, Uncle Sacha, and my Oma, who was very Oma this time around) and some of Jim’s relatives (actually, a lot of Jim’s relatives, including my in-laws, whom I adore), and it was excellent.



Now I’m back. I took today off to regroup and catch up with things like work and mail and cat hair and seed-starting and extracurricular activities. I better get to it.



* this was interesting to me. When we’re away, I typically worry myself about what’s going on at home to the point where enjoyment of any vacation-related proceedings gets to be difficult… and nothing ever happens while we’re gone, of course. This time, however, we found out a couple of days before leaving FL that our furnace had stopped working and it was 48 degrees in the house. Which, you know, is not exactly freezing (cats were fine), but some v cold air was on the way and we were wondering about pipes freezing, and we thought, you know, it’d be nice to come home to a house that was a bit warmer than 48 degrees, etc… but, surprising everyone (including myself), I didn’t worry too much about it or get hysterical or tense or unhappy. I was, instead, philosophical. After all, what could we do other than enlist the help of our totally awesome friends and neighbors? For some reason, it did not interfere in any way with my enjoyment of sunset or food or the beach (last year it would have been too much) nor did it make me extra-crabby on the way home. Thanks to Ed with the Breakaway Head and Neighbor Dave for troubleshooting and fixing the “Cadillac of Furnaces”.



** Peepster, who lives next door to where we stayed and who, quite possibly, has the best life of any cat:

I have kind of a big day tomorrow. So big, it was worth asking Jim to do my roots. As always, he obliged:







Beyond that, I got nothin’. Tomorrow, maybe.

My husband, who is always good to me, has been especially good lately. My needs during this terrible winter (while I appreciate the bracing cold as much as the next Minnesotan, I’d like it with some sun, which has been in short supply) have turned to the musical, and Jim has not disappointed.



My pile for this weekend includes new releases by Headlights, Joe Pug, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (My god! Slumberland is still releasing records, and once again they sound like the records they were releasing 15 years ago! Can a new issue of Chickfactor be far behind? I hope not!), Slipstream, and a recently-mastered-not-out-for-awhile Horse’s Ha release, featuring the many talents of one Janet Beveridge Bean, whose acquaintance I made one August 1991 day in Chicago at Empire Records. She was quite pregnant, with her feet up on the counter, and I was new to town. Man, we were kids, though she had a couple years on me and had recorded several records already with her band and the growing up, at least for me, had not even started (though I thought I had Been Through A Lot).



However, today’s musical surprise was the new Olson & Louris record, Waiting For the Flood. There’s some backstory here (isn’t there always?) but the short version is that I was around when the Jayhawks were around back in the Minneapolis Day and, well, I’ve kept some tabs. I knew Mark (Olson) and Gary (Louris) were back together after years of not writing songs together and were planning a tour, but I had somehow missed that the resulting record was out already. I asked Jim very nicely to order me one and he went ahead and did so, but then showed up at my office with a copy at 3 PM. My guy! It was excellent to have it in the player.



While my preference is to be so bowled over by music that I’m laying on the ground weeping after the first listen, that doesn’t seem to happen very often these days… and did not happen with this record. However, most of the way through I suddenly heard myself singing along to one of the tracks and realized it’s one they used to perform live almost 20 years ago. I had taped a performance and listened to it so many times that all the songs were committed to memory. Most of them have already been released on other records. Oh! It was good to hear it again.







My baby is taking photos at rock shows now. He was assigned the Jeff Tweedy show last weekend and got some excellent snaps. The irony here is that Uncle Tupelo were, I think, the first band I ever interviewed - in 1990. Gary and Marc from Jayhawks were on the assist. Oh, life is funny.



Photo above by Cody. You can see more of his work here.