Song of the Day

My 'Song of the Day' is a sporadic feature at best. Other Rhapsody bloggers can more than take up the slack, I'm sure. On to the death, which seems to be the running theme of RiB lately...not sure why.

On Tuesday, the author Saul Bellow passed away. Wikipedia has this to say: "Saul Bellow was an acclaimed Canadian-born American Jewish writer, who won the Nobel prize in literature in 1976 and is best known for writing novels that investigate isolation, spiritual dissociation, and the possibilities of human awakening. While on a Guggenheim fellowship in Paris, he wrote most of his best-known novel, The Adventures of Augie March."

Another of his novels was Henderson the Rain King, which was the inspiration for Counting Crows' song "Rain King."

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04.05.94

Today marks the 11th anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain.

The day the news broke, an old friend from high school called me in the afternoon. "Kurt Cobain shot himself!" he shouted into the phone. "Is he dead?" was my gut response, it seems like a moronic thing to say now, but you definitely don't want to believe something like that when you first hear it. In turn, I called several other friends to commiserrate and share memories. Later that evening, I had to take my little brother out and I still remember running a red light, not even paying attention to my surroundings.

I wanted to make a great Nirvana sampler, or maybe a collection of Nirvana covers. After looking at Rhapsody's current collection, this proved to be a challenge. Instead, this playlist includes bands that were either influences on Kurt's music, bands that helped them along in the Seattle scene, or ones that he admired. My source material was several interviews with the band culled from NIRVANA! (an unofficial site). The playlist concludes with Nirvana's cover of "Love Buzz" by Shocking Blue, the song that convinced Sub Pop records to sign them.

Kurt Cobain's Influences

10 Years Ago?

I can't believe it, but Del Amtri released their album Twisted ten years ago. It seems like only yesterday that "Roll to Me" was getting crazy airplay. I keep coming back to this album for reasons unknown. Maybe the earnest vocals, honest lyrics, and straightforward musicianship are compelling enough to keep me listening. If they were still releasing records, I'd be buying them, that's for sure.