Road Trip

Music makes a road trip (especially if I'm alone, on a 6 1/2 hour road trip through the Midwest). Here are the best songs to get you through that awful, lonely experience.

1. Play Rogue Wave when you first get on the road to set the pace of your trip and get your mind off the hours you have ahead of you. (Even the police realize that driving 65 mph through the entire state of Illinois is cruel and unusual punishment).

Watch: Rogue Wave -- Permalight (They come to Columbia April 20 -- I hope they let us up on stage like this...)

2. Listen to TV on the Radio when a jerk cuts you off and then drives slower than the speed limit you were at instead of ramming him off the road giving him the finger.

Download: TV on the Radio -- DLZ

3. Have a dance party with Bloc Party to keep yourself awake when you get tired by the third hour of your trip.

Watch: Bloc Party -- Hunting for Witches (one of my favorites, but really any Bloc Party will do).

4. The coffee (a venti iced coffee, maybe?) you got at the crappy gas station a half hour ago is setting in, and you may or may not be contemplating your life (or what I'm going to do once I get back home). Rilo Kiley might be depressing at times, but Jenny Lewis has quite a few important things to say.

Download: Rilo Kiley -- The Good That Won't Come Out

5. Listen to Bon Iver while you're crossing the inevitable bridge (or 4, which is the amount I pass from Chicago to Columbia). This is a fear for most (aka my biggest fear. Except today I learned a new fear. A tire flew off a truck directly in front of me. The tire literally flew through the air and hit the windshield of my car.  The smell of burning rubber lasted for miles after that). Justin Vernon's voice is so soothing, it'll calm your nerves even over big bodies of water (the Mississippi River. Or the canyon between St. Louis and Columbia that I drive over for a mere five minutes, but one swift jerk of the steering wheel, and I'd fall hundreds of feet to my death).

Watch: Bon Iver -- Skinny Love (the song that got me, and the rest of the world, obsessed with this band. I would post a free download, but seeing them play is just something else. Youtube the crap outta them, for real. And, he's just sooo hot...)

6. Do a pee dance to some Radiohead to ignore and suppress that venti coffee that is pressing on your bladder. You're about a half hour from home, so there's no point in adding ten minutes to your travel time (might not be the smartest idea, but that's where the pee dance comes into play).

Watch: Radiohead -- 15 Step (and see a very entertaining messed-up Thom Yorke thrash around on stage. He even forgets a few of the lyrics).

Hope you enjoyed my road trip play list!

Fun fact of the day: There is a Paul Simon Freeway in Illinois outside of St. Louis. Maybe it's because I'm not the biggest fan of Paul Simon, but whaaaat?

Hello World.

I have decided to make a music blog. Really, because it's required it one of my journalism classes, but don't get me wrong, I do really love music.

It's not going to be formal, because I have a hard time maintaining any types of formality. Hopefully at least one person out there enjoys my completely eclectic taste in music, because not only do I love music friends but I'm pretty sure the analytics of this thing are part of my grade..

I've been listening to quite a bit of new music lately. I've gotten more into Vampire Weekend's newest album, Contra, but the band I'm currently obsessed with is Portugal. The Man. This is partly because I interviewed the bassist, Zachary Carothers, who is the most down-to-earth person I've ever met, but they're really just an amazing band. All of their youtube videos are them just jamming, having a good time, and Carothers spoke to me for 45 minutes about his tour, his back injury and his life. Their newest album, American Ghetto, came out on March 2, but Satanic Satanist is still my favorite (probably because I have yet to completely get into the new one yet). They're coming to Columbia on the 24, and I'm stoked (also because I'm secretly hoping to meet Carothers and the entire band... He told me to introduce myself...)

Download (bottom of the page): Portugal. The Man: The Sun

I also just purchased Rogue Wave's Permalight and am having a hard time saying bad things about it. Pitchfork didn't look too kindly on the album, because they said it was too cheery and lost their edge, but Rogue Wave is a happy band. You can't make an album with Zach Rogue singing that isn't somewhat optimistic. Pitchfork is blaming it on Zach Rogue's brush with death after two discs slipped in his neck, but you try making a depressing album after you've just found out that you're not in fact going to be paralyzed for the rest of your life.

Download (bottom of the page): Rogue Wave: Right With You