Drunken Owls and Other Delights

So! Did 2008 live up to my theory of years ending in 8's having awesome music? Well, er...not as such. Lots of good stuff, but as I'd said in the last TN:AO post, it seems that around 2007 I'd started backing away from music again and focusing on other things in my life. I suppose that's a good thing in certain ways--it certainly means I'm no longer so obsessive about music as I once was. Lots of things going on this year, personally and politically which took up a lot of my time. On the other hand, after putting this list together, there were a lot of good songs that popped up...perhaps, like 1988 for me, it'll become a great year for music in retrospect. ;)

With that, 2008's cool music below the cut. Surprisingly, I was able to embed most of them this time out!

( Look outside at the raincoats coming, say Oh )

Coming up tomorrow...best of 2009! :)

Yipes! I only have a few weeks left to catch up on these...

Hmm. 2006. Kind of an off year, really, in terms of music I was listening to. I spent most of this year working on Love Like Blood, getting acclimated to my new surroundings in San Francisco, and working at my new job. There was also a bit of a change in the sound of indie at this point, with a lot of bands getting little to no radio play but were the biggest thing on the internets. It took me awhile to get used to some of these songs, and eventually I gave up actively looking out for them, leading me to realize that I'd finally outgrown my music obsession to some degree. I still listen to a lot of stuff, and still try out new things, but I'm definitely no longer the five-cds-a-week, listening-24/7 fan that I once was. *sigh* The price of growing up, I suppose. ;)

( Cause I'm a Punk Rocker, yes I am )

Ah, 2004. The year I started this LJ.

Also a big year of change, this one.

I was actually ahead in my finances and figured I could afford to rent my friend Bruce's old apartment (which fell through, but gave me the impetus to keep looking). I'd decided to cut down on some of the cd buying after a few years of spending at least $70 a week on cds. And after a good six or seven years of collecting comics, Showcase Comics closed nearly without warning. This gave me reason to stop collecting so many comics and other things. I even started ripping CDs onto my hard drive and getting rid of a lot of them for extra money.

Writingwise, I'd stalled on The Process of Belief, and while stepping away from that one for awhile, I started writing a vampire novel based on a weird dream I'd had, which would eventually become Love Like Blood. By this time my 7-days-a-week/2-hours-a-day writing habit had been dropped, partly due to exhaustion and partly due to frustration. I still wrote, but not quite as often as I'd had.

Workwise, things were getting even more frustrating at Yankee Candle. We'd lost a few long-standing coworkers either due to quitting or getting fired. Temps were few and far between. It had become your usual understaffed/underpaid/overworked situation, and Bruce and I had gotten rather pissed about it by then. It wasn't much fun working there anymore. The only actual part that was sort of fun was when I volunteered again to do the mail run between YC's buildings (some of which were a good few miles apart), something I'd done in the summer of 2003 as well.

As for life?

Well...after commenting on each other's LJs (and after head58 emailed me with a "ya know...just sayin'..." hint), I went to 2004's Worldcon in Boston, where I met emmalyon for the first second time. We met up frequently during the con, chatted a lot, attended a lot of the same con panels, and had a lot of fun together. A little later at one of head58's parties, he and lynxreign hinted shamelessly that I offer to drive emmalyon to her next destination, which happened to be Newport RI for a business meeting. Our first official dates, I suppose...by winter of 2004, I was making weekend trips down to New Jersey to visit her, and by March of 2005 I had quit my YC job and moved in. And the rest, they say, is history. :)

SO! Musically? A lot of interesting stuff, most of it heard on Launchcast...nothing that was absolutely brilliant that floored me, but it at least kept me entertained and provided more writing soundtracks. :)

Oh--and it was also the year of the mashup, apparently. I have a LOT of mashups from this period.

Videos below...
( I got soul but I'm not a soldier )

So all in all, 2004 may have been frustrating at times, but it ended on a very good and positive high note!

Another weekend, another music post!

I consider 2002 a great year, both music and writing-wise. I was working down in the Belfry two hours a day, seven days a week, almost without fail, by this point. I'd finished A Division of Souls and started in on The Persistence of Memories, and Bruce and Eric and I were jamming as jeb! by this point. And there was a LOT of really good stuff that came out this year. Lots of buying of cds at Newbury. Lots of books read as well...after not reading all that much, I'd started buying a LOT more books by then, along with the comic books. Workwise, all was good--by fourth quarter Bruce and I had created a great team that I gave the unofficial name of "Bald Jeb" (Brian, Adam, Leslie, Dominic, Jon, Eric, Bruce) and by the beginning of next year our department had won Yankee's MVP award for kicking butt during the Bed Bath & Beyond rollout.

So yeah...2002 ended up being a really good year for me. :)

( It's one of the blunders of the world and no one cares enough )

Hope you enjoy! :)