My Favorite Music

I often struggle when asked, often casually at a conference for work or when trapped on some shared mode of movement like an elevator, "Hey, what is your favorite music?" Or "What kind of music do you like?"

And its because I don't dive deep on music like say I would a book or a game. Or keeping fish tanks. I just listen to the stuff I liked when I was a kid. I fortunate those bands still play albeit the sound has changed to the point where "Well, its not for me." Then anything I have picked up because I heard it on a show or on the radio. One time, while stuck in the sleepy hills of the Firelands region of Ohio, I stumbled on what I assume was a Christian rock station. And there was an honest to God song that sounded damn good and went...."The Beast is coming. So you better start running. But we don't need arms to fight! We believe in Christ!"

It kicked ass! I then googled it up and found 1) I totally misheard the lyrics and 2)Its Mirrors by Archers Rise and yes I do listen to it at the gym.



Maybe I feel awkward because everyone else seems so hyper aware of what they like. People issue things on vinyl and secret album drops. This is my Spotify mix. Meanwhile I am slumming it listening to music on free YouTube.

Part of it is that music and sounds fire off distinct day dreams for me. A song I really like is Disintegration by Jimmy Eat World. Its very much so a song about addiction (I think?) and distrust and relationships broken by it. I have no experience with this but there is an incredible instrumental piece in it where guitar strings build towards a crescendo while a drum beats in a come hither tone. Then Jim Adkins starts crooning "Stay on my side tonight" And its supposed to be painful but what I imagine is...



***The video should begin at that part. If not its around 4 minutes in***


An armor clad heroine, on a hanging parapet on Cleveland's Terminal Tower (Or imagine any tall building in a city), coming up from a half crouch. Below here is Public Square. Its early winter. Sometime before Christmas but right around Thanksgiving. And while Cleveland has a sleepy downtown its busy because its the holidays and people are skating in the square and ducking into the casino.
She checks her gear one more time and rocks in her hand a collapsible baton that splits apart and weaves out a length of braided high impact cabling. Its like Daredevil's billy club. Ok, it is. Because he is awesome.
And a car comes into frame coming off the Detroit-Superior bridge. It has the mark. And the car knows it is hunted. It cuts someone off and almost hits a construction barrel as it ducks between two buses. And it stays between them as it plods along the street thinking the random innocents will reduce their chance of being caught. And then the car makes the left turn around the square so it comes right in front of the tower. And 82 something stories over the heroine jumps off an dives towards the car which is idling and enveloped in the white haze of chilled car exhaust. And up in the air, the cold wind cuts at the heroine's face. She closes her eyes partially out of comfort but also to focus because she has telekinetic powers (Did I mention that) and she is snapping window panes behind her. The mark in the car can't hear over the idle of engines and the sheer height but she is trailing the cabling and a cloud of shimmering shards behind her. She thinks of the property damage but if this is successful she will get away. And if not then she will be dead so why does it matter. And the song hits that crescendo at the end and she loops the cabling over a lower parapets and begins to bow her swing so she is right over the car. She lets go and sends the shards flying so it eviscerates the tires of cars around the mark. They won't be able to zip away or even try to rattle away on rims because the whole intersection is snarled and angry. Then she breathes in a sharp, short breath and focuses to cushion her landing onto the car roof. The mark whelps in the car and reaches for a gun but he is panicked at it snags on the seat belt. She draws her weapon by spooling back the cabling with the simple flick of a button and then....

The daydream/memory stops there as the song tapers off into its lulling end.

So I have a lot of those. And they are not always so adventurous. I envision myself doing stacks and stacks of paperwork to the Bassnectar Remix of Ellie Goulding's Lights. There is another Jimmy Eat World called Authority Song that when I hear I actually imagine a musical number in the tiny coffee shops I worked in after college. They mention a jukebox in it and I think of someone twirling a partner towards the stereo so she taps it and fires up. I push a lot of paper and pay a lot of bills at my job and I will fore myself up playing Kanye's Feedback which is anything but a song about clerking and running POs. But he says "Wake up baby, wake up! Time to get the paper!"

And, to close, I adore video game soundtracks, chill wave, movie scores, even the music from the old stool Toonami intros. The 08th MS Team intro is pure fire! Its the descending violins for sure. But because its all adventuring music!



Maybe the only song I can take in as a pure thing is Pursuit of Happiness by Kid Cudi. Which is funny since I am super straight edge, never been in a gun fight, am quite fussy and cantankerous, but do roll with the Midwest and do often scream out "Fuck That"