Year 7, Day 17

Morning! Today's song is All The Way by Jacksepticeye and Schmoyoho.

So this one is kind of a weird one compared to other songs, but I love it and it gets stuck in my head all the time so we're featuring it today. Jacksepticeye is Sean McLoughlin who is an Irish Youtuber based in England whose been active since 2012. He's a beacon of positivity and has led to over 4 million donations to charities through charity live streams. He's also just started a coffee company, so check that out if you're a coffee drinker. Schmoyoho is also a YouTube channel, and is run by The Gregory Brothers. That group has been active since 2007 and is made up of Michael Gregory, Andrew Rose Gregory, Evan Gregory, and Sarah Fullen Gregory. They've been doing a thing where they team up with popular Youtubers to make a song for/with them. This is the one for Jack. He loves it, especially since they hit the mark on making it uplifting, so I hope you check it out. 

Peace.

Year 7, Day 16

Morning! Today's song is The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats.

So these guys are a Canadian band from Montreal, active on and off since 1977 and currently made up of Ivan Doroschuk, Lou Dawson, Rachel Ashmore, and Sho Murray. They started as a punk rock group, but became the synth group we know in 1980. They released an EP that year, then they had a bit of a member shuffle, then released their debut album in 1982. This song started getting popular in 1983 then went international as a hit. They released an album in 1984, then an EP in 1985. They had another member shuffle before releasing an album in 1987, which had a song go big in Canada and Austria, then became the biggest selling single in South Africa in 1988 after being featured in a film. Their next album came out in 1989, followed by another in 1991. The group disbanded in 1993 since they couldn't attract an American label, but came back after ten years with a new album in 2003 before splitting again in 2004. The band was reformed in 2010 by Ivan Doroschuk, touring in 2011 and releasing an album in 2012. They've done some more touring in 2013 and 2016, and have teased pictures of the studio this year so I think an album may be forthcoming, but I guess we'll wait and see.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 15

Morning! Today's song is You Might Think by The Cars.

I can't hear this song without thinking about space bugs. Thank you Braindead for doing that because I secretly love it since I've been conditioned to laugh at this song always now. So these guys are an American rock band active from 1976 to 1988, then came back briefly in 2010-2011, and then again in 2018. Members include Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Robinson. The group had many iterations before settling on a name and line up, then releasing their first demo in 1977. They got signed and released their debut album in 1978, with multiple songs topping the charts, before releasing another album the next year. They released an album in 1980, bought a studio, then released another album. They took a break in 1982 so the members could do some solo work, reuniting as a band in 1984. They released an album that year, which is where this song comes from. They ended up getting super popular after, and once that wave was ridden they took another break for solo projects. They came back with the release of an album in 1987, which didn't chart as well as others, and eventually the band broke up in 1988. Since then there have been some greatest hits releases, and members have pursued their solo projects. In 2010, the surviving members decided on a reunion, releasing a new album and touring for it. They disappeared again after that tour until they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, where they all gathered again for a one time show. Since then another member has died, but the songs and their popularity lives on thanks to things like Braindead.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 14

Morning! Today's song is Open Your Heart by Madonna.

Photo by: Chris Weger

So I've been watching a lot of the Among Us playthroughs and it's kind of hilarious. I started with Jacksepticeye because I watch him play games frequently, but have since switched to ZeRoyalViking because Ze is really good at it. He gives me so much anxiety when he murders, but as far as strategy, he's so good. I'm kind of obsessed with this game because is equal parts childlike ease and murderous rage which is an odd combination. I wont play it on my own, mostly because the draw is playing with friends and I honestly don't know that many people who would be interested, but watching all these gamers call each other out and then giggle later because it was secretly them is bringing me so much joy. If you're interested, you should go watch some of them. It's pretty popular right now so there should be lots. Also the memes that are starting to come up are superb. 

Peace.

Year 7, Day 13

Morning! Today's song is I Ran (So Far) by Flock Of Seagulls.

Flock of Seagulls is an English band active from 1979 to 1986, then again since 1988. Currently the group is made up of Mike Score, Pando, Kevin Rankin, and Gord Deppe. They have also had a lot of previous members including Frank Maudsley, Ali Score, Willie Woo, Mark Edmondson, Paul Reynolds, Chris Mars Chryssaphes, Gary Steadman, Ed Berner, Dave Maerz, Kaya Pryor, Mike Radcliffe, Mike Railton, Jonte Wilkins, Mike Marquart, Shavin Duffy, A.J. Mazzetti, Dean Pichette, Joe Rodriguez, Lucio Rubino, John Walker, Darryl Sons, Rob Wright, Robbie Hanson, Albert Cruz, and Michael Brahm. The name for the band comes from a song by the Stranglers and a book by Jonathan Seagull. Over the course of their career, the band has released six albums. The first was from 1982 with the most recent album from 2018. They had disband in 1986 when their 1985 album failed to chart, but they did reform two years later to give it another go. The lineup of this group has changed so many times that I'm not even going to try to identify who was in when, but this song is a classic so props to whichever musicians listed were a part of that and give it a listen. 

Peace.

Year 7, Day 12

Morning! Today's song is Major Tom (Coming Home) by Peter Schilling.

Photo by: DLR German Aerospace Centre's Photostream

Peter Schilling is a German musician active since 1976. He's released 20 albums over his career, original and compilations, and apparently has another planned for next year. Of all of those, this song is the only international hit to come. It was released in 1983 on the Error in the System album, and is a play off a David Bowie song. Schilling formed a band in the 2000's and has been playing concerts around Europe since. There's surprisingly not much for me to write about on him despite having a long career, but I'll chalk that up to him remaining mostly on one continent rather than going international for his whole career. Regardless this song broke the barrier and is one that I think most everybody knows so enjoy. 

Peace.

Year 7, Day 11

Morning! Today's song is I Melt With You by Modern English.

Modern English is an English band, unsurprisingly, and made up of Robbie Grey, Gary McDowell, Michael Conroy, Stephen Walker, and Roy Martin. Previous members also include Richard Brown, Aaron Davidson, Steven Walker, Matthew Shipley, and Ric Chandler. The band has been around since 1979 and actually started as The Lepers before switching to this name as the group expanded. They started with their own label first before signing with a different label to released their debut album. This song is from their next album in 1982 and received some awesome reviews. They switched labels then released their next album in 1986 before the band split up. It was reformed in 1989, releasing an album in 1990, rerecording this song as well, before splitting again in 1991 because of contractual issues. Instead, Robbie Grey formed a group called Engine, which morphed into Modern English again after the issue got settled in 1995. They released an album in 1996, then toured up until 2002. In 2010, the original lineup got back together to tour and released an album in 2016. After the contractual issues the group never officially disbanded again, so this band is still technically active, although I'm not sure what exactly is going on there. But I guess we'll just have to keep an eye out.  

Peace.

Year 7, Day 10

Morning! Today's song is Follow Me by Uncle Kracker.

Photo by: Lunchbox LP

Uncle Kracker is the stage name for Matthew Shafer, whose been active since 1987. His brother has entered a turntables competition, going up against a then-unkown Kid Rock who Shafer then became friends with. Kid Rock asked him to be a turntableist in his band Twisted Down Tucker in 1994, which Schefer had no idea how to do at the time, but said yes anyway. He ended up learning from his brother. He did live performances with the group, then got featured as a vocalist on Kid Rock's album released in 1996. After that while still playing with the group, he started working on a solo album. That got released in 2000. Since then he's released four more albums, with the most recent from 2012. The friendship with Kid Rock has obviously lasted because they toured together in 2013, and he is still around because he released a song in 2018. This is one that I remember from my childhood because my mom was kind of all country all the time, and it's now a genre I rarely listen to one my own, but when I do, it always reminds me of simpler times. So I hope you enjoy it. 

Peace.

Year 7, Day 9

Morning! Today's song is Pink Houses by John Mellencamp.

Photo by: Martin Overstrom

I've mentioned to you guys before that I don't really listen to much country anymore after being bombarded with it when I was a kid, but some of those artist still hold a special place in my heart for nostalgic reasons. One of those people is John Mellencamp. He's been active in the industry since 1976, and has gone by a couple different names, such as John Cougar and John Cougar Mellencamp. He's released 23 albums during his career, the first in 1976 and the most recent in 2017. He's also dipped his toes into acting, musical theatre, and film production; as well as being very engaged and vocal about political situations and presidential candidates in his country. I'm glossing over that because with this election I'm all filled up on my quota of American politics, but if you want to know where he stands, trust me he makes it perfectly clear. I look to these people though for music and not much else, so as long as he's rocking some good hits, I'm happy with that. 

Peace.

Year 7, Day 8

Morning! Today's song is The Weight by The Band.

Photo by: Elliott Landy

So The Band is a Canadian-American group active from 1968 to 1977 then again from 1983 until 1999. Members include Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Jim Weider, Stan Szelest, Randy Ciarlante, and Richard Bell. They started off as the Hawks, a backing band for Ronnie Hawkins. They split from him in 1963 because he turned out to be kind of a dick, and became known as Levon Helm Sextet, then Levon and the Hawks, then the Canadian Squires. The released some singles under the last two names, before touring with Bob Dylan in 1966, billed as Bob Dylan and the Band. They settled on this name because most frontmen only ever knew and referred to them as the band and it kind of stuck. They've released 11 albums, the first in 1968 and the last from 1998; along with 3 albums with Bob Dylan in 1974 and 1975. It was with the deaths of members that the band disbanded each time. In 2012 Jim Weider created the Weith Band, which performed covers of their songs, so the spirit of the group lived on. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 7

Morning! Today's song is One Of Us by Joan Osborne.

Photo by: Kurt Huot

Joan Osborne is a singer active since 1989. She started out singing weekly at an open mic night in New York, then formed a band and performed in nightclubs there. In 1991 she started her own label and released her debut album on it. She then got signed to a big label, releasing her next album in 1995, which is where this song is from. She was one of the main performers at Lilith Fair, a music festival, in 1997 but got blacklisted afterwards for openly campaigning for Planned Parenthood on stage after being told not to by arena owners. Then in 2001 she produced a record for the Holmes Brothers and appeared on the music program Austin City Limits. She got featured in a documentary in 2002, toured with the Dixie Chicks in 2003, and joined a group called The Dead. She's also been part of Phil Fresh and Friends, sang on a couple different people's albums, and performed at the Grand Ole Opry in 2007. She has released twelve albums over the course of her career, the first in 1995 and the most recent from this year. She's also been nominated for a couple Grammy's and won the Woman of Achievement Award from Women's Project Theatre, a non-profit dedicated to promoting female-created works. I can't say I'm overly religious, but I've always liked this song so I'm hoping you will too. Enjoy.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 6

Morning! Today's song is I Will by Citizen Way.

Photo by: Jdbutler88

Citizen Way is an American band active since 2004. Currently there is only one band member named Ben Calhoun, and previous members include Ben Blascoe, Josh Calhoun, David Blascoe, and Daniel Olsson. The band was started by the brothers, and originally was called The Least of These. Their first single came out in 2012, and they continued to release songs consistently before releasing their debut album in 2013. One member left the band in 2015, then the rest relocated to Nashville in 2016. They released another album in 2016 before another member left the group, then the third album came out in 2019. That same year, two more members left the group so now it's just Ben Calhoun left. So I guess we'll see what happens now.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 5

Morning! Today's song is The Stable Song by Gregory Alan Isakov.

Photo by: Trevor Bolliger

Gregory Alan Isakov is a South African singer/songwriter and has been involved with music since 1995. He and his family immigrated to the Stated in 1986 during Apartheid, settling in Philadelphia where he joined a band. He moved to Colorado for university, and was doing music on the side while working a normal job. He played some gigs, and then really got into the industry after touring with Kelly Joe Phelps. His first album came out in 2003, followed quickly by another in 2005, one in 2007, and another in 2009. He made his own label in 2013, then released an album in 2016 that featured his songs with a full orchestra. He released another album in 2018 on his label, this one earning a Grammy nomination in 2019. I'm really curious about the orchestra album and am going to go check that one out for myself. I hope you guys do too.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 4

Morning! Today's song is Let It Be by The Beatles.

Photo by: Vara

So The Beatles was a British band made up of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The group only lasted ten years, from 1960 until 1970, but they all did solo stuff as well. Two of them are gone now, but the other two are still active. In the early formation of the band there were other members that didn't last, and those people are Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe, Chas Newby, Norman Chapman, and Tommy Moore; plus one touring drummer named Jimmie Nicol. The Beatles led the British Invasion (of music). The British invasion basically means that in America suddenly British culture was becoming popular. The same thing happened a few years ago when suddenly the American music market was flooded with Raggaeton music from artists popular in Latin America. The British Invasion though was huge and unheard of at the time. Over the decade, the Beatles released 13 albums and one compilation album, and most of those songs are still popular today. They are the best-selling band in history and basically set every possible record there is. Only recently have people been surpassing them in some of those, which is kind of insane. So today is a day for some more of the Beatles, with one of my personal favorites from them.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 3

Morning! Today's song is Piano Man by Billy Joel.

Photo by: Deedar70

Since I have more Billy Joel for later on and you all probably know him, we're going to catch up today. So, hello everybody. It's been awhile, but not as long as I was planning, so I guess that's a good thing. First let's start with some worldish updates. Yes it's a dumpster fire. The year sucks, the world is on fire, covid is running rampant, everyone is dying, animals are disappearing, food shortages abound ...basically the four horsemen of the apocalypse are out and running wild. The joke is that the Mayan's were dyslexic and meant end of the world comes in 2021, not 2012. Personally I'm saying this is our comeuppance for no one listening to the fact that global warming has been real and now the impact is bad enough that people have to notice. Of course there is also the discourse of absolute stupid world leaders literally all over the globe so that's not helping either. As far as my world goes, my grandpa has been home and getting betterish. He's been on fentanyl since being is the hospital for a shit ton of crap, and he's been doing well enough that his doctors want to ween him off it (which shouldn't be hard since he's on the lowest dosage) and take him off palliative care. I'm getting a little freaked out though because the last couple days it's like the wires in his brain are getting crossed and he's acting odd. I think the blood clot in his neck might have moved up, but there isn't anything to be done. So the family is in a wait and watch pattern. My sister is back to work and back out in BC, so she's moderately happy. I hope I'm not jinxing it, but no one in my family has gotten sick. We straight up sequestered ourselves and barely see each other even though the province is pretty much back to status quo. Since I am relegated to grandparent duty, and they are the most at risk I've only actually left the house about five times since the pandemic started. As an introvert, I'm totally okay with this. I've been working on projects that I'll tell you about later since this is already getting kind of long. So anyway, here's a hey, hi, and hello from me, hope you're staying safe, and enjoy the music.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 2

Morning! Today's song is Speed Of Sound by Communist Daughter.

Photo by: Justin Higuchi

These guys are an indie band active since 2009, and currently made up of Johnny Solomon, Adam Switlick, Molly Moore, Al Weiers, Dillon Marchus, and Steven Yasgar. Past members also include Jonathan Blaseg, Christopher McGuire, Lee VanLith, Ian Prince, and Dan DeMuth. The band name is inspired by a Neutral Milk Hotel song, and is the second band Johnny Solomon was part of. They were signed and released their debut album in 2010, this song being from that. They played a couple shows but after a flair up of addiction and mental health issues, Solomon checked into rehab, effectively putting the group on hiatus. They came back in 2011 with an EP release, then after a change in the lineup, released an album. They spent a couple years touring, before releasing a Christmas EP in 2015. In 2016 they released their next album, and Solomon became a spokesperson of sorts speaking out about the issues he's had. They toured again in 2017 before disappearing for a bit, but popped back up earlier this year after dealing with family obligations. They group-funded their next album, with came out in May, so you can go check that out if you're curious.

Peace.

Year 7, Day 1

Morning! Today's song is Hallelujah by Oh Wonder.

Photo by: Justin Higuchi

Oh Wonder are an English duo made up of Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West, and has been active since 2014. They both were in the industry before: Josephine as a solo artist under her own name and the pseudonym LAYLA, and Anthony in bands called Tonight is Goodbye, Futures, and We The Wild. They both had seen each others' shows, and decided to team up. Throughout 2014 they released a single every month, which would eventually all become their debut album out in 2015. They toured all over the world in 2016, then released their next album in 2017 before touring again.

 

Peace.