Happy 16th Birthday Victoria Amanda Miller

Well, please grant me a moments inulgence here.....on the 9th day of December, 1995, my wife and I were anxiously awaiting the birth of our first child, a girl, Victoria Amanda Miller......this was ater several years of frustrating and expensive fertility treatments, so we, of course, were overjoyed...the pregnancy had gone well. On that Saturday morning, it was as normal as could be, pouring down rain, but other than that...nothing special. We had a birthing class that morning, as we had on every Saturday morning. My favorite NFL team, the Minnesota Vikings, were taking on the Cleveland Browns that day, and, as we are in Ohio, many of the other expectant fathers in the class were Browns fans, and we did the normal back and forth trash-talking that guys that age are noted for. During the class my wife began "feeling funny".....the lady birthing instructor hinted that this may be our last class, that it looked to her that perhaps our little girl would be coming early.....we were at eight months and there had been no complications, so an early arrival of a month would be no big thing, especially. We left and went and picked up a Christmas tree. We took it home and set it up, we did not decorate it as I wished to watch the Vikings game. My wife Carla continued to say she felt strange, she went to lie down, and later in the day, we decided that we should call her OBGYN. He was away and we were referred to a replacement, who instructed us to go to the ER, just to be safe. Upon our arrival they hooked up the ultrasound machine to check on the baby. When they did, there was no heartbeat........

Our baby girl Victoria Amanda had become detatched from the placenta and was stillborn later that night. There is no way to explain to anyone who has not experienced this how painful this is, suffice to say that a bit of me died on that day as well....I look at that day, 16 years ago, as a "dividing line" between "then" and "now", nothing has been the same since......

Since that time, we have had a son, Grant, who is now 14 years old, and is the light of our lives. Had we not lost Victoria, we never would have had Grant, so, for reasons that I am unable to fathom, perhaps it DID all work out the way that it should have.....doesn't make it any less painful, however. I DO beleive that things happen for a reason, sometimes, we just aren't able to understand the reason.

On this day each year, I use several webites to say a "Happy Birthday" to my daughter Victoria Amanda Miller......someday your Mom, Dad, and Brother will be reunited with you. I wish it wasn't the way that it is, but there is nothing I can do about it. We all love you.Anyone who has read this far do me a favor and hug your kids, and understand how valuable they are and how fortunate we are to have them. I wish for all of you the most joyous of holiday seasons.

As this is the first December 9 of this blog, I opt to post the self-titled album by Temple of the Dog.....while it is nothing rare, nothing anyone could not get anywhere, I have always been reminded of my daughter by the song "Say Hello 2 Heaven"......for myself, it is Victoria's theme. To my daughter on this day, I once again dedicate "Say Hello 2 Heaven"........download if you like, comment if you wish, but mostly, hug your kids for me today......they are what is important.

God bless you all, and I'll be back in a day or three with some of my ususal more obscure postings, if this blog survives to future years of December 9's, I will always save that day for "Say Hello 2 Heaven" though (the album is quite good, also containing the very good "Hunger Strike")

Link in comments section

TEMPLE OF THE DOG 01 Say Hello to Heaven/02 Reach Down/03 Hunger Strike/04 Pushin Forward Back/05 Call Me a Dog/06 Times of Trouble/07 Wooden Jesus/08 Your Saviour/09 Four Walled World/10 All Night Thing

High in the Middle and Round on the Ends.....

So, this is a great day in Ohio...two days after the crushing at the poll given to the worst attack on working men and women ever proposed.....AND as a State Employee, I'm sitting here enjoying a paid day off for Veterans Day (and I am not a Vet....so, to all of you, thank you for your service to our country)....but this is about thanking the voters of OHIO, and I thought I'd do so with some good tunes from the great Buckeye State. Problem#1: There really hasn't been a lot of good stuff once you think about it. I've already put up he best Afghan Whigs album ("Gentlemen") so what to do? Think this would be a good spot for Cleveland's Dead Boy.....honestly, fairly awful on record, this live set shows how ferocious they could be onstage.....this set highlights ALL their best tracks and is levels above their studio work:

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD BOYS-01 Detention Home/02 3rd Generation Nation/03 All this and More/04 Caught With the Meat In Your Mouth/05 Tell Me/06 Catholic Boy/07 Won't Look Back/08 Ain't It Fun/09 What Love Is/10 Ain't Nothin' To Do/11 I Need Lunch/12 Son of Sam/13 Sonic Reducer

Next up some long forgotten Devo, their classic debut "Are We Not Men?". Delightfully dated today, you probably haven't listened to it in 20 years.....Way Cool "New Wave" stuff, and I threw some bonus tracks on just cause I'm such a cool guy

ARE WE NOT MEN? WE ARE DEVO-01 Uncontrollable Urge/02 Satisfaction (Can't Get No)/03 Praying Hands /04 Space Junk/05 Mongoloid/06 Jocko Homo/07 Too Much Paranoias/08 Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy/09 Come Back Jonee/10 Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin')/11 Shrivel Up/BONUS TRACKS 12/Uncontrollable Urge (Live)/13 Whip it/14 Are You Experienced?/15 Head Like a Hole/16 Whip It (DJ 7UP Remix)

Now I venture back to my High School days, for this VERY cool radio broadcast of Rick Derringer at the Whiskey A Go Go.....Can't recall where I found this one, but it's Rick on a very good night, a total high-energy raved-up set....enjoy

RICK DERRINGER WHISKEY A GO GO 1977-01 Radio Intro/02 Still Alive and Well/03 Let Me In/04 Teenage Love Affair/05 Sittin' By The Pool/06 One Eyed Jack/07 Sailor/08 Beyond the Universe/09 Rock N Roll Hoochie Koo/10 Roll With Me/11 Rebel Rebel/12 Keep On Makin' Love/13 Let's Make It/14 Radio Outro

LINKS IN COMMENTS SECTION ....Again, THANKS to my fellow Buckeyes for keeping OHIO as a state in which the voices of hard-working men and women mean something and can and did affect the future of our state. IN SOLIDARITY!

Thanks to my fellow hard working Ohioans

As alluded to yesterday,thank to all who showed the initiative and knowledge to defeat the short-sighted abominaton that WAS Ohio Issue 2/Senate Bill 5.....The woking men and women of my state united and showed the strengh we have in numbers by squashing that ridiculous

piece of legislation. Our work is not over, it is now up to us to vote out ANY of our Reps and Senaors who supported that nonsensical attempt to balance the State's budget on the backs of hard working Public Emloyees. In Solidarity! IN the nex few days some music for the working class....perhaps TheClash, or Rage Against the Machine, Le Tigre even.....I'll think of something as a reward to my fellow Buckeyes who were determine to DO THE RIGHT THING

All you can do is watch the shells......

Life, as they say, is what you make of it...to so many of us, being successful in the music business would be the ultimate. Of course, we know that many a great artist is "tortured", rarely is it, in my case at least, that the art of someone who never suffered a moment of their life is something that is going to have a real lasting effect upon me.....but of course, there are those among us, and we ALL know them, for whom life is just TOO difficult.....just to inventory the names that I have known for whom life was too difficult and too sad would take me quite a few minutes. Most memorable among them was a friend fo mine named Jon....he was a classmate of mine, Class of 1979. I ran into Jon in 1980 at a used record store, locally, called "Warehouse Records" (a local legend of a vinyl smorgasbord that was with us for far, far too short a time), we were both regulars there who would get our pay, and go in and stock up on a stack of one or two dollar LP's....Jon was a rock n roller like myself, maybe a little more mainstream, I remember on that evening in 1980 one of the albums he was buying was a Kiss album, something I never would have been doing.....likely I gave him a "shot" about it, likely he retalliated about some Buzzcocks or something that I was buying and we shared a laugh......our final one...because two or three days later, I read Jon's obituary in the local paper....it was a suicide, he did the "car in the garage" thing, left a note telling his parents and his girlfriend that he just couldn't go on.......I've never forgotten that last meeting of ours, and I always think about WHY was he buying records days before he planned to end his life? Maybe he didn't "plan" it, he was after all, one of those guys, "the last guy in the WORLD you'd ever expect to take his own life"....anyway, I still think about Jon often, we were NOT especially "close", but we had rock n roll that bonded us, and we taunted each others' tastes the way only teenage boys can do, when the "better" between Kiss and the Buzzcocks seems as important as an economic crisis or an impending alien invasion....so this post is for Jon....no Kiss, I'm afraid, but I'd like to pay tribute to three individuals who, like Jon, just found life too difficult a task.....I hope that all of them (especially Jon) are at peace with whatever demons they couldn't overcome. Life is so sad for those of us who remain here, it must be unbearable for those who feel they must check out early.....

First up, I wish to touch on Elliott Smith.....now, Smith was NOT, to my way of understanding, anyway, NOT a typical "you'd never guess HE would do it"-type.....I remember a poll once, "What is the Saddest Song You Know?", and what was bizarre were the volume of DIFFERENT Elliott Smith songs that made the list. Just a small sampling of his work and I think you'd know that this man was tortured and depressed. I post here, for your enjoyment, the very fine "From a Basement on the Hill", his final work, which for me, served as a suicide note, every bit as much as the one that Jon left in the car in the garage that night. The album ends with a song entitled "A Distorted Reallity is Now a Necessity To Be Free", seemingly a fitting ending statement, but I prefer to focus on two other tortured tracks, "Pretty (Ugly Before)", and, especially, "King's Crossing".....it's not something I plan to do, in general, printing entire lyrics to the stuff I post here, but in this case I feel it is appropriate. Without further ado, then, Elliott Smith's "Kings Crossing":

"The king's crossing was the main attraction/Dominoes falling in a chain reaction/A scraping subject ruled by fear/Told me whiskey works better than beer..../The judge is on vinyl decisions are final/And nobody gets a reprieve..And every wave is tidal - if you hang around ,You're going to get wet

I can't prepare for death any more than I already have....All you can do now is watch the shells/The game looks easy, that's why it sellsFrustrated fireworks inside your head/Are going to stand and deliver talk instead/The method acting that pays my bills/Keeps a fat man feeding in Beverly Hills/I got a heavy metal mouth that hurls obscenity/And I get my check in from the trash treasury

Because I took my own insides out....It don't matter 'cos I have no sex life/And all I want to do now is inject my ex-wife/I've seen the movie and I know what happens

It's Christmas time, and the needles on the tree/A skinny Santa is bringing something to me/His voice is overwhelming, but his speech is slurred/And I only understand every other word/Open your parachute and grab your gun/Fall down like an omen, a setting sun/Read the part and return at five/It's a hell of a role if you can keep it alive

But I don't care if I fuck up/I'm going on a date with a rich white lady/Ain't life great?

Give me one good reason not to do it..(Because I love you) So do it

This is the place where time reverses/Dead men talk to all the pretty nurses/Instruments shine on a silver tray/Don't let me get carried away/Don't let me get carried awayDon't let me get carried away "

Not exactly "Rock n roll all night and party every day", eh?

Elliott Smith passed away from, so they say, a SELF INFLICTED STAB WOUND on 10/21/03....I cannot think, at this moment of a more physically painful method of termination.

TRACK LISTING (Link in Comments section)

01 Coast to Coast/02 Let's Get Lost/03 Pretty (Ugly Before)/04 Don't Go Down/05 Strung Out Again/06 Fond Farewell/ 07 King's Crossing/08 Ostriches & Chirpping/09 Twilight/10 A Passing Feeling/11 Last Hour/12 Shooting Star/13 Memory Lane/14 Little One/15 A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity To Be Free

Now, making Elliott Smith look like Jerry Lewis, we have Ian Curtis....if you were familiar with Joy Division at their peak, you'd likely question how Mr. Curtis, so obviously miserable and tortured, had not ended it as of then.....it would be frightening indeed to wander too much into the pained mind behind this music, I will offer up "Closer".....guys, for the uninitiated, this is NOT "good time party music"....."Atrocities Exhibition" is the one that always did it for me, but pretty much any track here can take that smile off of your face and out of your soul. Rather than participate in Joy Division's scheduled tour in 1980, Curtis opted to hang himself prior to its onset....health problems (epilepsy) and marital troubles combined with the pressures of the first Joy Division tour of the USA seemingly were more than he could take. His tragic life ended May 18, 1980.

TRACK LISTING (Link In Comment Section)

01 Atrocity Exhibition/02 Isolation/03 Passover/04 Colony/05 A Means to an End/06 Heart and Soul/07 Twenty Four Hours/08 The Eternal/09 Decades

Our third suicide was not such an "obvious", although of course she was just as tortured....Wendy O Williams never SEEMED too depressed while blowing up cars and taking chainsaws to instruments while fronting the Plasmatics. I loved her and thought of her as a taboo sex Goddess, it was with incredible shock that I would read of her termination of life years after her performing career had ended (1998)....of course the Plasmatics cartoonish punk-metal was not all that great at the time AND has aged badly, but nonetheless I offer up "New Hope For the Wretched" as a tribute to Wendy.....It saddens me that her life was as unhappy as it must have been, and I hope that, wherever she may be, it might put a small smile on her face to know that she really did add to the joy of living, for a few brief minutes at least, of one Ohio coming of age "adult".

Seemingly she struggled for years with her decision, her suicide note read, in part, "I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time"......

An odd coincidence: One of Wendy's best known recordings was a duet with Motorhead's Lemmy on the Tammy Wynette country standard "Stand By Your Man" (I can't find it right now, maybe I'll post it if I find it and there is interest).....anyway, Wendy's life ended from a self-inflicted gunshot on April 6, 1998....Tammy Wynette's own death (from natural causes) occurred on the same day, April 6, 1998.

TRACK LISTING (Link in comment section)

01 Tight Black Pants/02 Monkey Suit/03 Living Dead/04 Test Tube Babies/05 Won't You/06 Concrete Shoes/07 Squirm (Live)/08 Want You Baby/09 Dream Lover/10 Sometimes /11 Corruption 12/Butcher Baby

MOMMY AND DADDY-Duel at Dawn

And so, I guess, for my very first musical posting I opt for Mommy & Daddy's great "Duel at Dawn" from way back in that golden year of 2006.....this was my personal favorite release of that particular year, discovering them when they performed on WOXY's lamented "Lounge Acts". No guitars, no drums.....and what is great is how HARD this rocks. Fuzzed out bass, spaced out keyboards and trippy vocals shared by both "Mommy" and "Daddy", I believe they also traded off on the intruments as well. I do have a feeling that very few will be "neutral" on this, it's unique sound is an open invitation to "love it or hate it" type responses. But, if you are open to this kind of thing you may find it to be quite rewarding.....my favorite tracks would be the chaotic "Pretty Loser" and "Way West Way", but there are other gems to be found here ("Cops", "The Streets Have Come Alive").....I know that they had at least one other disc ("Fighting Style Killer Panda"), but since this one I really have no idea as to what has become of them.....perhaps a split, I have no clue. To me this was a VERY enjoyable album, see what you think and let me know.

Link in comments section, leave a thought of your own?

01 Pretty Loser/02 Good Deal/03 Cops/04 Way West Way/05 Lost the Plot/06 Top Down/

07 The Streets Have Come Alive/08 Franconia Road/09 Already Warm/10 Full/11 So Far So Good

In the beginning there was a roomfull of cd's and vinyl

Well, I've thought about trying this for a while....I've loved so many of the music sharing blogs and taken advantage of the things they have offered that I think it's time that I try to pay back a fraction of that enjoyment.....please always feel free to offer up your comments, likes, dislikes, pictures of your teenage neighbor girl, and anything else of interest. I have a stash of over 10000 cd's, maybe half of them transferred from the original glorious VINYL, with that wonderful static and all that we children of the 70's still enjoy.....as for myself, other than my tastes in music, you'd probably call me the most boring guy alive (and, maybe even WHEN my musical likes are factored in).....49 years old, married to the lovely and wonderful Carla for almost 25 years, father of a fantastic 14 year old (Grant), worked on the same job for nearly 29 years.....not a lot of "change", not a lot of "excitement", but I have always enjoyed the sounds of rock n roll.....I introduced most of my high school to the Sex Pistols, Dead Boys, etal, which I'm sure they "appreciated", and I've tried to raise my son up on some of the more obscure sounds of the past 50 or so years (lots of balnk looks).....always loved the fuzzy punk and trippy psych of the 1960's, the heavy metal and hard glam rock of the early 70's, the punk/new wave sounds of later in that decade.....but all the time still trying to find new things.....the alt revolution of the 1990's, the current "stoner" revival (what a time for THAT!)......basically whatever sounds good to ME is what I like, and what I am about sharing....I know zero about blogging, have a bit of patience with me, and if you have any requests, don't hesitate to ask, who knows, maybe I can help you out...and PLEASE share your opinions of anything you may find here....even I know that such comments are the life blood of blogs such as these......I truly hope that you might find something here that will bring a few seconds of enjoyment to your life, if so, it will be mission accomplished........


Talk to you all soon
BigScott62