a stolen meme

Thanks Dale!

1. What's your favorite band?
3-way tie between Nine Inch Nails, Death Cab For Cutie, and Nick Drake (can we count solo artists as a band? Fuck it, I'm counting Nick.)

2. Do you play an instrument?
Haven't for many moons but I used to play the hell out of the piano, percussion (bells, chimes, bass drum, xylophone, and timpani), and French Horn.

3. Sing?
Not in tune, but I do sing. A lot. Endlessly. I get that from my mom. She wanders around the house humming "The Old Rugged Cross" and doesn't even know she's doing it.

4. Write lyrics?
I have tried, but writing lyrics generally means you need to have a tune to go with it and I can't write music to save my life. I write a lot of "poetic prose," if you will.

5. Have you ever slept with a drummer?
Not yet… ;)

6. What's the coolest concert you've ever attended?
The most rip-roaring fun I ever had at a concert was My Chemical Romance at San Jose State University a few years back (before "The Black Parade" came out). I was easily the oldest person there besides parents (and I was only 23 at the time). I was the only non-emo audience member. And I was one of the few who knew the lyrics to the songs off their first album. It was basically 3 hours of moshing and getting crushed and beat up by drug-addled teenagers. They had to turn the house lights up 4 or 5 times and make everyone move backwards because the people in the front row were getting crushed and passing out. Maybe they should've turned the AC back on…

7. Who's the most skilled guitarist of all time?
I define skill in a lot of ways. I'm gonna have to side with Dale and say Jack White, but I'm also gonna lump in Hendrix and Nick Drake.

8. Name a song that just makes you want to break stuff.
"Thank You For The Venom" by My Chemical Romance and "Into The Void" by Nine Inch Nails

9. Name three musicians who died of drug overdoses.
Way more than should've. Why do Hendrix and Nick Drake and Janis have to leave us while Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty are still cracking along? Fucking unfair is what it is.

10. What's the best lyric ever written?
I have to go with the whole song, "Place To Be" by Nick Drake:

When I was younger, younger than before
I never saw the truth hanging from the door
And now I'm older see it face to face
And now I'm older gotta get up clean the place.

And I was green, greener than the hill
Where the flowers grew and the sun shone still
Now I'm darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be.

And I was strong, strong in the sun
I thought I'd see when day is done
Now I'm weaker than the palest blue
Oh, so weak in this need for you.

11. If you could experience one band/artist perform live at any point in history, who?
Hate to sound like a broken record here but it'd be hands down Nick Drake.

12. If you could master any instrument, which would it be?
Drums. Always wanted to be a crazy drummer in an indie-punk band. I'd have rockin' blue hair and tattoos all over the place and a totally hot snakebite. Yeah, I'd be fuckin' cool.

13. If you had the power to rid the world of one genre of music, what would be gone?
As much as I hate country and hip-hop (lumping R&B and rap and whatever the hell it is that Kanye West does into that), I would erase them. I'm an anthropologist; I can't pass judgment on that sorta stuff because of the subcultures that are entrenched in and bolstered by the music itself.

But I really hate country and hip-hop.

14. What song do you have playing right now?
"Tomorrow" by Death Cab For Cutie. I finally made it past Narrow Stairs, but not by much...

15. Greatest album in the history of time?
For me that's gotta be Pink Moon by Nick Drake. It's the perfect album in every way, not a single missed note, and it's a record that can both inspire me with a high-flying sense of hope and crush me with an agonizing depression in the space of 2 notes. But The Photo Album and Narrow Stairs by Death Cab and The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails are close behind.

16. Is Elvis still The King?
What, you mean that white guy who stole music from black people? I frankly couldn't care less about Elvis. Whatever.

17. What's your favourite musical?
I'm sorta iffy on musicals. Are you talking theatre or film? I do have a guilty pleasure for "Phantom Of The Opera" (the play, not the dreadful film). And film-wise, currently probably "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

18. When you hear the phrase "Rock 'N' Roll" what comes to mind?
Click the little red play button and find out :)

19. Ever wanted to be a DJ?
Not really. DJs always seem so depressing to me. I would hate for my life's blood to be tied to providing background noise for high school proms and having to openly support adults doing the funky chicken at weddings.

20. If you could sleep with any famous musician, who would it be?
Going with my first impulse and I'll say Trent Reznor.