Texas Country Straight Outta Jersey

An album I've been listening to... a.k.a. the Music I Ran To This Monday Afternoon...

	Clint Black Killin' Time 1989
Download Killin' Time @ 320 kbps	Straight From The Factory A Better Man Nobody's Home Walkin' Away You're Gonna Leave Me Again I'll Be Gone Nothing's News Winding Down Killin' Time Live and Learn

If the beautiful state of New Jersey claims Clint Black as their own, that would be a little silly... but he was born there, in Long Branch down by (on?) the Jersey Shore. (Wasn't there always a killer Haunted House in Long Branch every Halloween-time?) Someone born in Jersey can still become a Texan and that happened to Clint Black. His family (or at least his dad) was from Texas and soon enough young Clint was back in the Lone Star State leaving Jersey far behind. (But I wonder if bein' born in NJ is something he's proud of. That'd be cool.)

Anyway, apparently this debut album of his made quite an impression and had quite an impact on the country music scene at the time. He went on to become one of the most successful country artists in the 1990's. A pretty darn fine career launched right here with the record.

The music on this album is really well done with well-written lyrics throughout. There's a beautiful country sound on every song. So much country music from this new millennium can't hold a candle to the sound here. How and why some artists strayed so far I have no idea. What a shame but thankfully artists like Clint Black kept it pure.

free mp3 rapidshare download 320 kbps

Clint's first single which went to Number 1...

I am (not really) a good ol' country boy

I am a good ol' country boy... at heart... sometimes. Who'm I kidding, I'm from Jersey... north Jersey, practically NYC... I was born in New Hampshire, I'm a New Englander! So how'd I ever get into liking music like this?! There are a few factors such as moving to Utah after high school and meeting and becoming friends with some country music-loving people who lived quite different lives from those of me and my friends back in Bergen County, NJ. And my willingness to be open-minded helps. Well, that's what allows me to listen without a biased mind, without thinking it'll suck and I'll hate it. Since I don't have that obstacle it's then up to me to decide whether I really like it or not. And when it comes to music I'm easy, definitely not picky, there's no reason to be. So something like this, while it ain't by any means my favorite music in the world (not even close,) it's really not bad. I'd most likely never ever press play on something like this if I didn't run... but that's why I listen to a fairly significant amount of stuff like this, because I run and because I've become accustomed to using music like this to help me along. And often I'm surprised at something I pick 'cause it sometimes is something I'd never've listened to... like this.

the Music I Ran To This Tuesday Morning...

	Jason Aldean self-titled debut 2005
Hicktown Amarillo Sky Why Even If I Wanted To Lonesome USA Asphalt Cowboy I'm Just A Man You're The Love I Wanna Be In Good To Go I Believe In Ghosts She Loved Me

Good ol' boy from Macon makes it big in Nashville. Yeah, this is Nashville made-for-radio country but it's not bad. You've gotta give credit to someone when they go out and chase their dreams, right? So many try, so few make it. Here's a guy who did. One of the tunes from this debut album of his made it to #1 on the country music charts and another one or two cracked the Top 10. Hey, that ain't bad. When it comes down to it, I'd probably rather listen to an independent country music artist, one who's not in the corporate radio machine... although I'm not sure this guy's record label is exactly fitting the corporate mold of so many. It's kinda small but his music screams that it wants to be #1 on the charts... and while that's fine for him and others, I'd rather listen to someone who just plays music for the sake of playing music. Then again, maybe that's what Jason Aldean does... just that he's controlled by suits who want to make as much money off him as possible. Eh, whatever, it's still good music even if it was made with the prospect of winning a country music award... which he did win one of, for Top New Male Vocalist in 2005 for this album.

find a download of Jason Aldean's debut @ Just Country
free mp3 rapidshare download 320 kbps

"Hicktown" - music video
Girls in denim skirts, big trucks, gotta love it!

Went Running with Utah Girls

Yes, outside of the GD, I'll listen to almost anything. I need to run, it's my only significant exercise... and I HATE running so music helps that along every time. But I need a beat and I need beat progression from one three to five minute song to the next... or beat digression to slow me down over a stretch. Live GD just can't do that for me. Typical studio albums can. Songs like that are something for me to focus on and it helps me achieve 25 to 30 minutes of straight running. When I feel like quitting I can focus on the beat and step in time. I'm not picky about what the music is so long as it helps me. Sometimes what I pick, because I'm trying it out, sucks monkey butt. Occasionally I set up a Play List with an album I really love. Since my selections are soooo varied, usually it's something like today, something I'm just fine with but with a few really good songs that really help me along.

An Album I Listening To Today, a.k.a. What I Ran To This Wednesday Morning...

	SHeDAISY Knock On The Sky 2002
Mine All Mine I'm Lit Man Goin' Down Get Over Yourself Rush I Wish I Were The Rain Repent Everybody Wants You Now All Over You The First To Let Go Turn Me On Keep Me Down Knock On The Sky	Knock On The Sky - Part 1 320 kbps Shedaisy - Part 2

This is the second studio album from this mostly country trio from outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. I say mostly country because, well, they are based out of Nashville and they are considered country, but sometimes their sound strays to pop-ish. This isn't my favorite music on Earth but for running it really gets me going. Their writing isn't bad, either. Definitely not for everyone and I think once this is back on my shelf, it'll stay there for a few years before I give it a spin again. While I dig some of the tunes on here a whole lot, I prefer country that's closer to more traditional and this ain't that. But it is always nice to listen to a trio of beautiful female voices!

"Mine All Mine"
from the Reese Witherspoon movie "Sweet Home Alabama"

Morning Mood & Music

I am in a strange mood this A.M. ... before dawn I began listening, on a random shuffle loop, to the album that I ran to this morning and it's had me dreaming of getting the heck out of South Carolina. A southerner I most certainly am not. It's disgusting here. Spring is over. No, it's not, not until June 21st, right? HAA!! It's over here. It lasted like 3 or 4 weeks. Whoop-di-freakin'-do. Blah. I don't like that and I know I won't be here forever so I can take some comfort in that fact. Usually my mind wanders back to the northeast where I'm from, where I was born and grew up... but country music sets me in a mood that takes my focus away from New England and New Jersey, makes me think about a roadtrip across this great land -- west. I want to just get in my VW bus, loaded with a ton of great music, and just go. I'll camp everywhere I go, I'll not take a single Interstate highway -- lazy backroads only, windows rolled down, good music on, beautiful scenery... New Mexico, I think, that's where I want to go, to New Mexico's mountains and National Forests, to hike and climb and see bear. That's what just the right country music does to me, makes me want to just go.... on a roadtrip west with no specific destination in mind. Anywhere... so long as I can have my elbow out the window listening to music like that which has me absolutely mesmerized this morning...

Music I'm Listening To, And What I Ran To This Monday Morning...

	Taylor Swift self-titled debut 2006 (2007 deluxe edition)
Tim McGraw Pictures To Burn Teardrops On My Guitar A Place In This World Cold As You The Outside Tied Together With A Smile Stay Beautiful Should've Said No Mary's Song (Oh My My My) Our Song I'm Only Me When I'm With You Invisible A Perfectly Good Heart Taylor's First Phone Call With Tim McGraw

I'm absolutely amazed at the music from this young woman. She recorded this when she was 16 years old, shortly before her 17th birthday. And she doesn't just have an amazing voice, she actually wrote or co-wrote most of the songs on the album. Isn't that a rarity on Nashville? Her songs lean very much towards being love stories but her sound really makes me think Tennessee all the way, a Nashville, radio-friendly, female country artist sound that I really like. Her producers crafted these songs well -- just enough fiddle and banjo and mandolin in a place or two to make sure it's not another pop-sounding country album. Listening to her, to these songs, it's hard to believe that she's from southeast Pennsyl-freakin'-vania. Is she a Philadelphia Phillies fan? For shaaammmmme. Ah well, she sure can sing. She's mature beyond her years and there's no way I'd ever think teenager if I didn't know. One thing I don't like is I almost feel dirty watching her/looking at her album cover. When you have a hit album at 17 are you no longer a kid? It seems at 17 she ceased being a kid and became not just an adult but a sex symbol. That's sick in a way. But that's Nashville, for ya. Supposedly here follow-up album, according to many people, is even better so I'm lookin' forward to it!

Taylor Swift's debut: 320 kbps download @ Zona Musical

free mp3 rapidshare

Taylor's music video for "Tim McGraw"
...watching this almost makes me feel dirty... She's barely 17 years old!

Running to San Angelo

Oi. Back on the 13th, on the day after the plane crash near Buffalo, New York, I said about another crash happening -- "somewhere in the world there'll be another within another week or two."

Well, it's been less than two weeks and it happened again, this time in The Netherlands. Eerie.

Also eerie is the fact that stock market goes down nearly every single day. Last night the President addressed a joint session of Congress and it was supposed to reassure Americans that we're gonna be okay. Are we really?

Less than 24 hours later: the Dow Jones closed 80 points down.

I realize the new President was not in office during the last 3 months of 2008, but he was the President-elect for essentially 2 of those months and during that 4th quarter of the year, I lost 10 (more) percent of the money that I have tied up in Wall Street. That's on top of the 10% lost during the 3rd quarter and 10% lost during the 2nd quarter.

When is it going to turn around? Why is the new President not instilling any confidence in Wall Street investors? Saying "Let's give him time" is a load of crap. I've said this before and here it is again -- the success of Wall Street weighs so heavily on the decisions that are made NOW by the President and those minions under his command. So far NOTHING positive has been done to give people any confidence in the President's ability to turn America's economy around... and the stock market continues to flounder and regular workers continue to lose money that they worked very hard to earn, money that they will be relying on for retirement. Even if this doesn't affect you because you don't have money tied up in Wall Street, if we have compassion for our neighbors then this should really concern everyone. The president is failing miserably to deliver on promises to revitalize this nation. For the first quarter of 2009, I will almost certainly be down yet another 10%. Is that what I'm supposed to look forward to every 3 months? Another loss?! The EXACT OPPOSITE is supposed to be happening. The EXACT DAMN OPPOSITE. Or, at this point, I don't care about making money back, screw earning a single cent back, I just don't want to lose what I have left. Unfortunately, the only feeling I get is it is all slowly dwindling away.

Hooray.

By the time we can elect someone else who can attempt to fix what's only being made worse by the day, it'll be too late. Damn this miserable gloom and doom. It's pathetic and it's making me sick. Electing the President that Americans now have to put up with -- what a mistake. What a damn mistake.

At least there's good music to listen to.

I was hoping to get some deliciously sweet Dead tunes up this afternoon (7/21/90 Tinley Park... here's the 1st Set for ya's) but I had a choice to make -- get a needed run in or post a show. Sorry, kids, I had to exercise; that's always got to be the top priority. But stay tuned, the whole show will get posted within a day, plus something from '77, and more early '70's comin' soon. Always more great music on the horizon!

Wednesday Afternoon Run: 25 min 28 sec

+16 seconds

.
Days Since My Last Run: almost 1½
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4:5 pm - 61° - sunny

Good run. I wasn't especially looking forward to it as I've been feeling rushed to accomplish three runs in the last 4 days of the month. That's not my ideal. Not at all. But I was able to change my clothes and start walking to the trail and get it done. Weather's a little warmer than I like but it didn't play negatively into my finishing almost 25½ minutes. Again I didn't add too much time from my last run time but I added some so that's indeed good. I did have some thoughts of wanting to quit well before I approached my End Cue but I pushed those thoughts away and made it to the time I set out to reach today.

What I had completely forgotten about and wasn't aware of when I was running is that this run pushed me over 3 hours and allowed me to achieve My Best Month of Running since September! Hell yeah!! I almost feel like I can quit now (for the remainder of the month.) Not gonna. I set a goal for 4 hours for the month. Two more similar runs are what I need for that. Two more in 3 days. That'll mean 3 in 4 days and I'm not used to that. Ugh. We'll see.
X ·Feb :: +47 sec· X

Feb - 8 runs: 3 hours 15 min JANUARY 2009 2 hours 54 min December '08 2 hours 42 min November: 2 hours 31 min October: 2 hours 10 min **SEPTEMBER** 3 Hours 25 min

Wednesday's Running Playlist included most of this album...
	Aaron Watson San Angelo 2006
Heyday Tonight Good Thing Going In Harm's Way 3rd Gear & 17 Unbelievably Beautiful Haunted House I'm A Memory San Angelo Except For Jessie Blame It On Me All American Country Girl True Love Ways Nobody's Crying But The Baby

I have somehow spun (square danced?) my way into a country music frame of mind lately, past few days at least. In wanting to get that great feeling I can sometimes get from a particular way a certain country music song sounds, I decided to give this guy a listen. I had never even heard of him before. I think he's a non-mainstream, independent Texas artist. That's pretty cool... but I've got to wonder: did he dream of Nashville and have aspirations to be Garth or George Strait or Alan Jackson with plenty of radio play? If he did, I couldn't blame him. If it never happened that way then I hope he's happy in the musical life he has being popular primarily only in Texas. In a way that's much more admirable than selling out to Pukeweiser and having grand style summer tours and shooting new music videos for every album.

This here collection of songs almost has the feeling of all three of those artists plus maybe some Jimmy Buffett for good measure. There are ballads and rockers alike, along with a lazy beach-feeling number, all having a mostly traditional country feel to them, at least traditional since 1990 or so but stopping way short of lots of confusing 21st century electric geetar. When you approach a sound that causes you to stop and wonder what genre it is, that's not good. This doesn't go that far and so I really dig it for that reason. The writing isn't the best but what are ya gonna do? Who hits one out of the park every time with an album where every song is just amazing? Not many can dot that. This is pretty good, it's nice, and I think I'd dig hearing more Aaron Watson in the future.

find a download @ Just Country

320 mp3 download

Untitled Country Music Running Post

Who wants a Dead show?

Maybe tomorrow

All I've got for today is my run and yeah, me likes me some Nashville radio-friendly country every so often.

I always get a kick out of people when they talk complain about country music bein' all about cryin' in your beer 'cause your woman run over your dog when she stole your pickup as she was leaving you.

Not quite.

Monday Afternoon Run: 23 minutes 10 seconds

-3 min 4 sec

4:50 pm - 44° - totally overcast with misting light rain

My first run in WAY too long. In my defense, I was sick for about a week. When I go this long, I feel so horrible about myself. I begin to feel like I'm not really caring about my health at all. No exercise at all? You've GOT to be kidding me... I mean, I've got to be kidding myself. Had I let another day go by... and then another, so easily I could've slipped into a normal American slug state of being. Why run? Why exercise? It's a pain in the ass. I could be doing other things. I dunno... I ran and I feel good but I'm so down on myself for going 9 or 10 days between runs. Pathetic.

Because of the length of time since I was last on the trail, I wasn't sure about how long I'd want to attempt. Unfortunately I didn't feel confident in at least matching my last run time of 26 minutes and something seconds . . . didn't feel confident at all and so I chopped off about 3 minutes. CRAP!!!!!! This means I've gotta work my way back up AGAIN. CRAP!!!!!! Damn the human body. Why can't we just eat and drink whatever we want all the time and never gain a pound?!?!?

I'm tellin' ya, Babe -- today, this run, was so important because I was this close to never running again. I don't want go up to 200. I should be working down to 180.

In any case, I feel pretty good but any significant strain won't show itself until tomorrow so we'll see. But I feel good.

Oh, and a wet run it was. The rain was just ever so lightly falling but I was cold -- needed long-sleeve shirt and a light fleece pullover. Still had my shorts!!!
X ·Jan :: +16 sec· X

JANUARY '09 2 hours & 7 min DECEMBER 2 hours 42 min November: 2 hours 31 min October: 2 hours 10 min SEPTEMBER 3 Hours 25 min August: 2 hours 39 min July: 2 hours 11 min

Monday's Running Playlist included most of this album...
	Alan Jackson 16 Biggest Hits 2007
Chattahoochee Gone Country It Must Be Love Midnight In Montgomery Chasin' That Neon Rainbow Don't Rock The Jukebox Mercury Blues Here In The Real World Pop A Top That'd Be Alight I Don't Even Know Your Name Gone Crazy I'll Go On Loving You Little Man Who's Cheatin' Who Summertime Blues

Not an officially released Alan Jackson hits collection but a great bunch of songs none-the-less.

320 kbps download @ Technology Freaks

mp3 download

"I'll Go On Loving You"

Christmas Makes Me Puke

Had a nice hike yesterday... listened to some Phil Lesh & Friends but there was this, too (the music below.) Been way too long since I've posted a Christmas album. And now we're getting into the Christmas season. According to many retailers' commercials on television, WE'RE ALREADY IN THE CHRISTMAS SEASON. Morons. I love Hallmark and Hershey's, I go to Lowe's and Home Depot, but because they've been rollin' their Christmas commercials for about a week now (or more,) they don't deserve my business until January. It's no wonder I get sick of the season BEFORE Thanksgiving. Hmmm... maybe if I didn't watch TV, then I wouldn't see the commercials. Ahhh, yeah, well, it would still get to me somehow... radar waves maybe... oh: Wifi signals carrying subliminal messages saying: "Go buy Christmas crap now. What are you waiting for? Go. Make the Christmas season 3 whole months long. Why are you still sitting there? GO!" Dillholes. Screw Christmas.

But... can't screw Christmas music. Unfortunately, soon it'll be time to make sure I don't play any until about February or maybe late January. I just can't stomach the stuff, ironically, in the month of December! For about 10½ months of the year I like it just fine. I played a Sinatra Christmas album the other night -- some of the best Yuletide tunes I've evah hoid. Listening a month from now -- I'd want to vomit.

So, without further ado...

Thursday's Hiking Tunes, Part 2...

	Bill Engvall Here's Your Christmas Album 1999 (2005 Re-issue)
256 kbps Bill Engvall Here's Your Christmas Album

if you want, you can click to listen and/or dload @ 128 kbps
	Introduction
	I'm Getting Sued By Santa Claus
	Christmas In The Country Holiday
	Rudolph Got a DUI
	The Christmas Sign
	A Gift That She Don't Want
	Gift Emergency
	Fruitcake Makes Me Puke
	That's What's Wrong With Christmas
	Here's Your Sign Christmas
	The Bike
	Fruitcake Makes Me Puke (rock version)

I really had no freakin' clue what I was getting with this album. What it is is country music with introductions on each song by Bill Engvall. On most of the songs (or all of them?) he does a little stand-up over-the-top of the music. Who is singing is not him, though. One song sounds like Alan Jackson and another sounds like Billy Ray Cyrus and others still might sound very close to other popular Nashville country music recording artists... but it's not them, at least I don't think so. Nope, the singers are just people who sing who might happen to sound like someone famous. It ain't bad singin' and it ain't bad music, it's good country, albeit a little corny. Interestingly some of the songs hold a lot of truth to them... like how Christmas wants to start in September! It does, the retailers want it to, right alongside Halloween crap. Oi!

Anyway, I'm glad I got this. It's not the same old, same old, round and round again. Nope, this is kinda fun stuff and different. Definitely worth it!