David and Return of the Jedi

Only three people have ever beaten me at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit: my brother Matt, of course, my friend Joby, and most recently, David here. Though in my defense, when I played David a few weeks ago it was an extremely close game: he won only after I answered my final question incorrectly, and had I gone with my gut feeling I would've got that question right (life lesson here?). In the end though, David is the kind of guy I don't mind losing to.

Notes:
Whoa, what would Star Wars be like without John Williams' masterful score? I don't even want to think about it. Return of the Jedi includes some of my favorite Star Wars compositions, like "Luke and Leia" and "The Death of Darth Vader". John Williams has set the gold standard for fantasy and adventure movie soundtracks -- something he did well before Return of the Jedi.

Brian and IV

To be honest, it'd be a bit of a stretch to say that Brian and I have bonded over this album. No, our friendship was forged from a different fire, a literal fire, one that launched model rockets hundreds of feet into the air. A fire that could have gotten us in trouble with the law. Yes, I'm making vague, confusing allusions to the time that we launched model rockets at the local high school baseball field late at night (read all about it here, fourth paragraph in).

In addition to a penchant for model rocketry, Brian and I also share similar professions. We're both accountants, although our respective functions as such differ greatly.

Notes:
I think IV by Led Zeppelin was the first classic rock album I owned on CD (I didn't pick it up on vinyl until 2008). It was a sort of chicken-egg scenario: I either bought that album because I was learning how to play "Stairway to Heaven" (as apparently every budding guitarist should), or I was learning "Stairway to Heaven" because I bought the album. I was 15 or 16 at the time so I don't recall the exact circumstances.

It quickly became one of my favorite classic rock albums and remains one to this day.

Kiana and Teaser and the Firecat

While it's not a surprising thing to like Cat Stevens (because what's not to like?), I wasn't aware of Kiana's affinity for the guy until she grabbed this record off my shelf for this photo. The fact that I didn't know this about her is quite indicative of her personality -- not because she's an overly private person, not because she's too shy to talk about herself, but because she is always so interested in others, perhaps at the expense of sharing things about herself. Some people are always talking about themselves; Kiana is always asking people about themselves.

This trait will certainly come in handy as Kiana leaves on her LDS mission to Michigan next week. She will be sorely missed for a year and a half.

Notes and Miscellanea:
Teaser is on par for best Cat Stevens album, right up there with its predecessor, Tea for the Tillerman. While Teaser has some of the more heavy-hitting songs of Stevens' career -- like "Moonshadow" and "Peace Train" -- Tillerman is more understated.

I'll make this a bit easier: Teaser is like Splash Mountain at Disneyland -- dramatic ups and downs -- while Tillerman resembles the Lazy River at Sunsplash -- a consistent stream of lower impact, though still poignant, folk hits.

you've got my song

After moving to Rexburg, Idaho, for school, it took me a couple semesters before I settled in with a group of friends who had interests similar to my own. You know, the type of people who liked going to shows and shopping at thrift stores and listening to records. For people with such great taste, I was surprised that many of these new friends hadn't spent their junior high and high school years listening to Weezer like my Arizona friends and I had (although a couple of them had). I set out to correct this supposed wrong and made them all a Weezer mix to download.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I already included this photo in a previous post. I guess this album, for better or worse, is that important to me. And try as I might, I can't seem to get past my current writer's block unless I blog about this album. Again.

I don't know why expect so many people to have the same childhood I did; it used to be so unfathomable that people my age could grow up without having seen Star Wars (OK, to be fair, I still have a hard time with that). When you connect with someone I guess you assume that you have common passions and that you care deeply about the same things. While there might be so truth to that assumption, you'll never have everything in common with anyone. Intrinsically, that's a pretty common-sense statement, but for whatever reason there are things like this that I have to learn by experience. That's a lesson Weezer helped teach me.

Notes and Miscellanea:
Pinkerton includes some of my favorite Weezer songs ("El Scorcho," "The Good Life"), as well as some of my favorite songs of all time. And I dare you to find an album with better b-sides -- see "You Gave Your Love to Me Softly" and "Waiting On You" as examples. (The b-sides are now conveniently included in the deluxe edition released last year.)

If you didn't grow up as a millennial listening to this album it might behoove you to check it out now. In 15 years or so it's destined to attain the status those classic rock albums from the '70s now enjoy.

Ben and Tap Root Manuscript

As I mentioned earlier this month, I've been somewhat inspired by my friends Tyson and Jeremy: they both have been counting down their 50 favorite albums. I love this idea but if I were to try it, two problems would arise: my tastes change too often to be happy with a list; and such a structured blogging regimen would bore me after two weeks (these are reasons why I admire Tyson and Jeremy for undertaking their respective projects).

So, in an effort to document my record collection, I'll be doing something that's a little more me. Over the coming weeks, months -- perhaps years? -- I'll post sporadic photos of a friend or family member posing with a record that means something to them. And I'll talk about what that record, the individual, and myself have in common.

Unfortunately, many of my friends I'd like to include in this project live far away. So if you're living in or visiting the Phoenix area, I hope you'll stop by and peruse my record collection and let me take a picture of you (and for the next six months (maybe longer?) I'll have this awesome brick wall that makes a perfect background).

In addition to being an all around great friend, Ben has been a huge inspiration to me as a runner -- earlier this year he ran a couple half marathons (one of which we dominated together) and in April, he ran his first full marathon. Running with Ben always pushes me to go a little farther than I thought possible.

Another thing Ben and I share is a love for the venerable Neil Diamond. One night, it must've been last January, Ben and I were finishing a long run in my old neighborhood. I was tired and nearly out of breath when Ben began singing "Cracklin' Rosie" by Neil Diamond, which is the first track on Tap Root Manuscript, the album Ben is holding here. Despite my heavy breathing I joined in, and in seconds we were shouting it at the top of our depleted lungs, the lines of song punctuated by desperate gasps for air.

Notes and Miscellanea:
The second half of this record is very experimental: it's Neil's attempt to dig up the roots of music, which he believed to be buried in Africa.

I picked this up for 50 cents in January 2008 at Rasputin Music in Newark, CA (though it might have been Fremont, CA, since the store was on the border of the two cities. I tried to verify it online but apparently the store no longer exists. But what if the store never existed in the first place and my owning this record was the result of some inter-dimensional, Twilight Zone-esque adventure that has been since repressed from my brain by some clandestine government entity, and the Rasputin Music location in Newark/Fremont is a memory implanted by said government entity? That'd be awesome).