Author: justthislifetime

Influential Album Challenge Day 4 – Night Ranger Midnight Madness

This was the album that started it all for me.

Before Night Ranger’s Midnight Madness you could say I was a casual consumer of music. I listened to the radio, mostly Pop/Top 40. I bought 45s of songs I liked and a few albums from popular artists like Micheal Jackson, Quiet Riot and Cyndi Lauper. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I really was unaware of all that was out there.

I do remember hearing Sister Christian on the radio often though I can’t say I was a fan of the song and honestly I can not say I am now. Because of that Night Ranger was not on my radar. If my friend from Junior High had not invited me over to her house they might never have registered. As usual Shelia put on some records to listen to while we played board games. Midnight Madness was one that she put on. The first track (You Can Still) Rock in America was a solid rock tune but it was the second track Rumors in the Air that caught my ear and would not let go. I had Shelia play that song over and over again until she was good and sick of it. The rest of the album was pretty solid with great storytelling in the lyrics from Jack Blades and Kelly Keagy and two lead guitarists with vastly different styles that surprisingly gel from Brad Gillis and Jeff Watson.

At that point on I became one of the biggest Night Ranger fans on the planet and proceeded to develop a massive schoolgirl crush on the lead singer/bassist Jack Blades.From Night Ranger I started exploring hard rock/heavy metal groups; Ratt, Dokken, any music that was not given airplay on my Mom’s car radio. My family gotten Mtv not too long after my experience at Shiela’s and that really opened up another avenue for me to explore music (Headbanger’s Ball, and 120 Minutes).

As young as I was when I discovered Night Ranger (13/14) I did not get a chance to see them live during their prime but i did get to see and meet them during some reunion tours. Generally I’m pretty chill when I meet musicians that I admire because they are just people too. I will admit that I totally lost my shit each time I met Jack Blades…at least internally. I trust that I didn’t act like a complete moron. I’ll chalk it up to the gigantic schoolgirl crush thing.

I may not listen to Night Ranger as much as I did as when I was a youngster but they always will reserve a top spot in my favorite bands because without them I might not have discovered my deep love of music.

Influential Album Challenge Day 3 – Led Zeppelin III

Honestly, I could have chosen any one of Led Zeppelin’s albums. They are that good. I selected III because it contains some some great straightforward hard rock tunes (Immigrant Song) that Zeppelin is well known for as well as more acoustic folk-type songs (Bron-Y-Aur Stomp and Tangerine). I think this albums shows how versatile they could be.

I was an infant/young child during most of the time Led Zeppelin was making music. In fact, this album was released a few months before I was born. As a result I was not aware of the band until I developed an interest in hard rock/heavy metal music as a teenager. From my many hours reading Metal Edge and Hit Parader I gathered that pretty much every band was influenced by Led Zeppelin to some extent.

By the time I bought my first Led Zeppelin album, which I’m pretty sure was IV (you know, the one with Stairway to Heaven on it), I had heard many of their songs in the art room.In short order I had all of their albums on cassette tape and listening to them just as frequently as I did any other favorite band of mine. I loved their references to Tolkien and I didn’t think there was a soul alive that could deny that Jimmy Page was a true guitar god. John Bonham and John Paul Jones pounded out a solid, heavy beat.

For me at least, I feel that Led Zeppelin just might have been the greatest rock band to have ever graced this planet. Their music has been around for half a century and it’s yet to sound tired or dated.

Influential Albums Challenge Day 2 – Liz Phair Exile in Guyville

For today’s challenge I’m choosing Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville. The album had a major impact on my life. While I’m not selecting albums in any particular order this particular LIz Phair album in all likelihood would be in my top 3.

Exile in Guyville was released in 1993 though I didn’t pick it up until a year later. Many consider it a landmark album because of the brutally honest way she sings about the real things that were on many girls minds: boys, sex, dependance and independence, being taken for granted or advantage of, friendship, breakups, and not being taken seriously. Definitely not the perfect-forever-love, puppies and butterfly crap that pop music pushed down our throats. Pardon the phrase, but Liz Phair was real. Her songs might have been raunchy and shocking (for the time), but man, was it was the freakin’ uncensored truth! The music was lo-fi, gritty and raw.

When I picked up the cd I was 24, in college again, working on another undergraduate degree. I was navigating a lot of new relationships, both romantic and purely plutonic, and I was also trying to find my way to independence. Exile in Guyville was my truth, my holy book back then.

Influential Album Challenge Day 1 – Johnny Flynn Been Listening

A few months ago I was challenged to posting my top 10 favorite/most influential albums of all time. A truly daunting task if you ask me. I posted each day without giving any substantial thought to it. Jump forward, and its still going around and other friends are participating and I got tagged again. I thought why not go full-throttle into this thing. I’ll post my pick each day and add my reasons behind my picks here on this here bloggity-blog-blog.

Today I tried to whittle down my list to 10 albums only. Couldn’t do it. So expect some honorable mentions at the end of these 10 days. Also, these albums are in no particular order, really. It was hard enough selecting only 10. To put them in some sort of meaningful order would be akin to shoving ice picks under my toenails — or something like that.

Here’s a little secret about me; I like folk music. I didn’t broadcast that back in my 20s because it just wasn’t cook to admit that you liked the twang on a banjo just as much as the scream of a guitar. With that being said, first on the list is Johnny Flynn’s Been Listening.  Johnny Flynn might possibly have it all. Not only is he a very talented singer and musician (he plays guitar, violin, trumpet, mandolin, piano, banjo and God knows what else) he also is a trained Shakespearian actor who has starred in London’s West End as well as various movies and tv productions. I bet he probably paints and draws too. Yep, he’s got it all, and you almost want to hate him for it. But not quite, because he’s as humble as they come, as evident in his interviews and clips on posted on YouTube of his shows.

I stumbled upon Johnny Flynn on a movie (Song One) I put on one night I couldn’t sleep. The songs weren’t his, but the performance was. The next day I was checking his music out online and I was pretty much hooked immediately. Here’s a little secret about me. I’ve always liked folksy, old-timey, music and that’s what Johnny Flynn plays, but with a modern twist. His lyrics are downright spiritual, deep and very personal. Currently, his lyrics speak to me at the place I am right now in my life. I could have chosen his Country Mile album just as well as Been Listening but there is just something about this album in particular. There are traces of the Blues on Howl that mix perfectly with his modern folk sound. There is also a duet with Laura Marling (Holy Cats she is amazing) on The Water. Beautiful harmony and some thoughtful lyrics. Barnacled Warship is currently my favorite song.

While Johnny Flynn is a fairly new discovery to me, he’s been around for quite some time. I know that I will be listening to his music for years to come. I’ll leave you with a link to a video of he and his band playing in Germany. I dig the energy in this song.https://youtu.be/o7LjABo2CcE

It’s Who I Am

Last night I found an old article from my high school newspaper where I was interviewed for being Artist of the Month and it got me thinking a bit about my path to becoming an art teacher. It’s more than a job to me. Being an art teacher is a part of my identity

The decision to be an artist was easy. I have a clear memory of myself, age 8, writing a letter to my Grandma that I was going to be an artist when I grew up. While school on the whole was difficult for me I excelled at drawing and all things art related. It was the one thing I was better at than nearly everyone else. More importantly, I loved it. Without question I was going to do something with art, but the “what” didn’t become clear until much later.

Sometime during my senior year in high school the yearbook handed out these questionnaires concerning post graduation plans. I was sitting in Ms. Goddard’s class, my absolute favorite place to be in high school, trying to fill it out. I was drawing a blank about what to put as my major for college. I looked up at Ms. Goddard and thought, “Huh, I wouldn’t mind doing that.” Art Education it was.

I like to think I have the best job in the world, if you take away all the political bullcrap that pollutes education. What other job do you get paid to play around with art supplies and watch kids grow to their potential? The first several years of my career was spent teaching elementary aged students. I loved their energy and unhindered creativity. However, the bulk of my career has been spent teaching Middle and High school age students. I really like this age group and I feel that its where I was meant to be. A lot of fun is to be had in my art room as well as learning (Don’t tell the kids that!). Making art happen and getting to share that newly discovered joy in one of my students is great but the best part of my job is being able to build relationships with my students. Making connections. They know that I am and that my room is a safe place. After 23 years (I think?) of doing this I feel that I’ve reached my stride and that I’m pretty awesome at what I do.

It hasn’t always been so. It is a fairly common practice, though I didn’t know it at the time, that some school districts would hire a teacher for a year or two and no matter how good of a job they did they’d lay the teacher off and hire someone else fresh out of college. It’s a way to keep the salaries low, a bit ethically questionable but it does keep the costs down. This was done to me, at least 4 times in the first 7 years of teaching. It was heartbreaking having to leave the group of students I’d grown to care for time and time again. The worst was when I was cut after teaching for 4 years in the same district. I really was contemplating finding something else to do. It was too much heartbreak and it just seemed wrong to me that a job at Walmart seemed to be more stable than a teaching career.

One night after I had been given my pink slip I went out to a little dive bar with some friends that I didn’t get to see often. It was a lighthearted night for the most part with lots of laughter and easy conversation. My friend, (I’ll call him Matt for the sake of anonymity) asked how’d I been since we last saw each other. Though my intent had been to forget work and the stress of my situation, it all came pouring out about how I really thought I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Matt, possibly the most zen person I’ve ever known, in his infinite wisdom said something to me that I will stick with me till my end of days.

“You know, J., if quitting and finding something else to do is really what you want to do, that’s cool. But you can’t quit being you, because being a teacher, a mentor, that’s what you are. No matter what what job you end up with you are always going to be that person people look too. You’ve got a gift. So if you want to keep with it, that’s cool too.”

And Matt was right. While I didn’t exactly make the decision to keep plugging away at the teaching gig that night, that little nugget of advice ear-wormed its way though my brain. I did eventually apply and I found another position easily. It lasted a year before I was recalled back the previous district. I’ve been in my current district for about 20 years now. The days I feel like giving up are few and far between, but when they do crop up I remember Matt’s advice and realize I’m right where I need to be.

Dream On

I spent this past weekend reflecting on a friend I known long ago. He left this world 22 years ago and though our time knowing each other was brief, I’ve never forgotten him or the light he brought to this world.

I ought to share a bit of personal background first. In high school I was such an introverted and shy person I rarely spoke to anyone but my friends. I suppose it came from moving a lot as a kid. I, the new kid, was always being being made fun of. My best friend, Maria, had moved out to California right after graduation with her mom and brother. I missed her something fierce, so I saved up, bought a plane ticket and went to visit her the summer after we graduated.

Upon arriving in San Diego Maria introduced me to Sam, her boyfriend. I’m not exactly how, but Sam made me feel at ease soon after meeting each other. I could see why Maria loved him. He was one of those rare people who were really truly beautiful, inside and out. Maria, Sammy and I spent two wonderfully crazy weeks running around southern California, sometimes with Carlos, Dusty or Terry. We even forayed into Mexico for a day. We waded in the ocean. Sam even taught me how to play part of Areosmith’s Dream On on his guitar. To this day, every time I hear that song, I think of him and smile.

This trip was the first step of me coming out of my shell, of not being afraid of showing the world who I was and that I really was worth knowing. Yes, this still is a struggle for me and quite possibly always will be. However, this trip out to California visiting Maria and Sam I began to allow myself to trust others. It was a start I am forever grateful.

Love and light to you Sammy. You were a light to all those who loved you and we were lucky to have had you in our lives, no matter how brief.

A Funny Thing Happened in February 1992

Have you ever had a weird run in with someone you admire?  Someone famous? Since I shared my Chris Cornell painting yesterday I thought it might be fun to share with you the time I could have met Chris Cornell.

I was just a senior in high school when Louder than Love came out.  The first time I saw Hands all Over on Headbanger’s Ball I thought the message in the lyrics was daring for that time and “genre” and just how different their sound was from anything else I had heard.  I bought the cassette (I am that old) and listened to it frequently. I got chills everytime that moment came in Loud Love when Chris Cornell’s voice melted perfectly into Kim Thayll’s guitar, when you couldn’t quite tell where one started and the other ended.  Badmotorfinger came out when I was in college and I thought it was just brilliant. I wore that stupid cassette out.

I was only lucky enough to see Soundgarden play once. I was It seems so long time ago so I can’t remember the specifics anymore of how and why I decided to go decided to go.  I was a Junior in college in a Minnesota college town, too small to host concerts. If you wanted to see anything good it generally involved a road trip to the Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul).  I guess I had been talking with some of my old high school friends and they told me about a Skid Row concert that had Soundgarden opening. I thought Skid Row was alright for the kind of band they were but I was really hyped to see Soundgarden.  (Louder than Love was highest on my “What I listen to when I paint” playlist. Yeah, I had one before they were even a thing). I convinced two college friends to go. Shelly was my best college bud and Audrey, well, she had the car.

I remember it being an obnoxiously cold and gray day in February, even for Minnesota.   I left my leather coat in the car because I didn’t want to take it in the arena and have it smell like “concert”.  Admittingly not a very smart move on my part but I was young and had questionable judgment sometimes. Crystal and Linda, my friends from High School, had arranged to meet us near a parking garage that just happened to be at the rear of the arena.  The girls had a tall, blond “rock star” looking guy tagging along with them. I guess he was from a local band that they knew and they had run into each other on the way to meet us. He was a talker, quite animated and very pleasant to look at. The girls gathered around him, like bees to honey.  I having foolishly left my coat behind and was rapidly turning into an icicle, could have cared less. I was daydreaming of fire and hot chocolate and anything else to keep my mind off the fact I might be dying of frostbite that very moment.

Lost in my thoughts I don’t remember if the bus pulled up or if it was already there.  The door opens and I recognized Kim Thayll, lead guitarist of Soundgarden. He briefly looked over at our group and continued walking.  Mr. Rock Star and my friends kept chattering away, ignoring each one of the Soundgarden band members as they got off the bus. Chris Cornell, the lead singer, was the last off.  

Chris stepped down off the bus and he gave my friends, who were salivating all over the big blond guy, a glance.  I was standing off to the side slightly, obviously part of the group, but not involved. (I may or may not have been turning blue at this point)  Chris then made eye contact with me. We maintained eye contact long past what was considered normal for a person walking away, as he was. Even as he and the rest of the band walked towards the arena we continued staring at each other like we were gunslingers on opposite sides of the OK Corral shootout.  It was oddly tense. Finally he turned and and entered the building. My friend Shelly shoved my shoulder afterwards and whispered “What was the fuck was that?”

To this day I can’t explain exactly what that was.  In retrospect I wish I had said something to them, or to Chris.  I have heard that Chris Cornell was always very gracious and kind to his fans, perhaps reserved, but never a dick.

Audrey, Shelly and I had seats in the very back of the arena, like the very last row.  Roy Wilkins Auditorium is a pretty small arena compared to the newer Xcel Energy Center that is just down the street now.  Soundgarden’s set was incredible, but way too short. The set list was a good mixture of older stuff with the majority of the songs from Badmotorfinger.  The crowd was very receptive and to be expected, the roar was deafening when Chris sang one of his greatest lyrics, you know the one “I’m looking California but feeling Minnesota”.  It really was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. I was hoarse before the end of their set. Afterwards, we loaded ourselves up back into the car and drove home. We got back to Winona at some ungodly hour.  

I wish I could have seen them again but I never really kept track of tour dates very well, so unless a band had a show within a short drive from where I was living, I didn’t know about it.  Plus, arena shows started getting too expensive and I hated spending that kind of money. I enjoyed clubs where it was smaller and I could enjoy the show more. Unfortunately I never heard of of Soundgarden, Audioslave or any of Chris’ solo shows coming around where I lived until last year.  Soundgarden was playing in Somerset, WI. I really wanted to go, but things just weren’t going to work out. Being a grown up sometimes stinks. So I didn’t go. They played there 3 days before Chris died. I can’t even tell you how much I regret not figuring something out and just going.

No One Sings Like You Anymore

[Note: Originally posted on December 2, 2018 on Facebook]


I’ve been sitting on this for a few weeks now and I think it’s finished. It is a deeply personal painting for me, at least the journey in creating it was. This is my little tribute to Chris Cornell. It’s hard for me to explain how important a musician I’d never met was to me (staring contests don’t count, right?) From the first time I saw the video Hands All Over on Headbanger’s Ball in Cathy’s parent’s basement Chris Cornell and his various projects (Audioslave, Soundgarden, soundtracks and his solo career) have made an enormous impact on my life. He was an absolutely brilliant lyricist and made music that was profound that spoke to me and many others. (Do yourself a favor and listen to Just Like Suicide and dig up the story behind it). Yes, he was The Voice of a Generation, a leader of the Grunge Movement out of Seattle, but for those of us who’ve followed his career know just what a versatile artist he was.

And oh, the memories. I can hear a certain song and it brings back friends long gone, or just a moment of my life. His music has even helped me through some tough times in my life. Chris was a captivating frontman as well. I only got to see Soundgarden once, but that show still beats out almost all other bands I’ve seen.

I woke up early on May 18th to my friend Shelly’s text about his passing. It was a gut punch that I just couldn’t deal with at the time. (Some of you know that we’ve been going through some very difficult times, and continue to cope with. I will tell you I was in a pretty dark place last Spring). I was crying and breaking down over, well, everything. I’m sure if I even heard Big Dumb Sex I’d be sobbing.

It’s taken me awhile, but earlier this fall at a workday at school I decided that I actually wanted to listen to some Soundgarden. I put on this mix on YouTube and proceeded to clean out all those old books and magazines left in my art room from the previous teacher. I was actually bopping around, singing and overall enjoying myself, until one of Chris’ solo songs came on. It was When I’m Down, recorded live at the Troubadour, and just Chris and a piano. I just sat there and listened and lost it. It must have been quite the sight, me sitting on the floor surrounded by garbage, sobbing. I cried for Chris, for his kids, all the people who must have loved him. I cried for my family and most of all I cried for me. It was after that that this idea came to me, that I would do something.

Since starting this painting I’ve begun sketching again, for myself. (Sadly most of the art I have been doing the past few years has all been school related). It’s like the floodgates have been opened. I’ve got ideas for half a dozen paintings now. I’ve also been listening to music I enjoy, not just the the Pop music my daughter wants. I’ve even gone looking for new music. Needless to say this painting has brought on a healing process for me. Thank you Chris.