toddsift: Middle C

I am a lover of music. I think that this is a direct reflection of the household that I grew up in. Were my parents great musicians? No, my father couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and while my mother sang in her church choir when younger, no prima donna of the opera was she. How then did I gain such a deep appreciation of the melodic arts? Like the blind man who hears the slightest noise on a quiet night, my love of music was born out of the lack of quality sensory imput. My father’s entire record collection consisted of a greatest country-western ballads compellation. A LP that I accidently dropped from its jacket and broke, simultaneously ending the possibility of reveling in Johnny Cash’s Ghost Riders in the Sky and beginning a 15 minute lecture on the care and consideration for other people’s property. My mother, on the other hand, had a vast array of 45s, as well as a decent selection of contemporary music for the 1980’s white suburbanite house wife. The problem remained however, that when she would play music she would turn the bass all the way down, and the treble all the way up reducing it to a scratchy AM sound quality. This was not quite as irritating as fact that when we were in the car, inevitably my mother would turn on the radio, to something as stimulating as WNIC, and my father, not wanting to be distracted, would turn the volume down to a sub-human hearing level. So not only were we subjected to the hits of Neil Sedaka, but they were the hissy hits of Neil Sedaka at an ear-straining whisper quiet volume. Calendar Girl was never meant to inspire frustration, but for me it certainly did. I cannot say that my parents were the only problem with my childhood music experience. I was born in 1975, the heyday of all things that rock. Unfortunately, by the time I hit that age where one typically starts developing a musical taste, it was the early 80’s, or the dark ages of American music as I like to call it. Every 80’s hair band had at least one extraordinary musician, and four other shit heads that thought the big hair and women’s makeup would get them by. If fascinates me still to this day, that on all the where is so and so now style programs, these “musicians” are still dumbfounded on why no one wants to hear their style any more. Well mister mascara, the only reason people thought your schlock was tolerable the first time around was because they were high on quality Columbian blow, and wearing dock shoes with no socks. So as I have said, it was from this bleak wasteland that my true appreciation of music was born. I can honestly say that while I don’t understand why people listen to half of the crap they listen to, I can understand why, because it speaks to them.

Here are some of the songs that spoke to me today as I searched the dark corners of the internets.

Wilford Brimley, a personal enemy of mine, has had a lovely run on the internets, especially his Liberty Medical commercials. Evedently there is a Japanese Anime called Monster that stars a character that bares a striking resemblance to Mr. Brimley, hence this Die-a-beetus Remix Mash-up.

via videosift.com

Techno has that drug like mesmerizing quality that makes people want to dance. Apparently in Australia, techno plus a chicken has that drug like mesmerizing quality that makes people want to order Domino’s Pizza. I don’t get it either, but then again, I don’t live upside down.

via videosift.com

I can only imagine what the casting call for this video must have been like: Wanted: 18 individuals with mediocre dance skills who must be into split personalities, furries, and confined spaces.