Tell me what to write in my next column

[koganbot]

I am in Connecticut for Thanksgiving hence have only library access to a computer hence no listening to or downloading music on it and also all my music is in Denver obviously and I have no idea what to write for the column that's due next week? So you people should tell me what to write about. Please suggest many things. Perhaps I will write about all of them. Or maybe we could do this as Ask Frank Kogan, which was a pretty good thread on ilX once because people kept asking me about things I knew nothing about, and I would answer.

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Just because *your* music is in Denver doesn't mean there isn't music in Connecticut! What's playing in the shops right now? Or in the pub down the road? Are they constantly repeating old Christmas tunes already like in London? What about music on adverts (or music BEING advertised), or music in lifts, or music the dude infront of you on the bus is humming to himself? What are people *actually* listening to, in contrast to what telly/shops/dudes on the bus are inflicting on them?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

*Trying* to inflict on them, I mean.

Miranda Lambert song title contained within this post

[koganbot]

There isn't a pub down the road. There's barely a road. OK, that's an exaggeration, there's a major university just down the road (up the road, actually, and that's where I am right now), but I have no idea where or if there are any bars. This was a DRY TOWN when I was growing up here, the theory being that the students would be happy and healthy if they had to drive to Coventry or Willimantic and drink there and drive back drunk. The town then voted to become damp rather than dry which means you could be a bar but only if you were a restaurant as well, but the town made rules preventing bars and package stores - which is what Connecticut is willing to call liquor stores - from locating within several thousand feet of any place that might actually have people such as schools and churches. Not sure what the laws are now, but if I were to go bar hopping I wouldn't have a clue where to hop to.

But you're right, I can hear what's being pushed on the adverts - Get Your Collection Of The 50 Greatest Country Songs Ever About Being Stuck In A Dry Town! - or for that matter I can listen to the soundtrack music that is used to accompany "The World's Fastest Police Chases" (I chose not to have a TV in my Denver apartment on the theory that without a TV I might actually get some remunerative writing done, so TV background music has, sadly, been all but ignored in the Frank Kogan contemporary musical commentary oeuvre; so this week in my parents' house provides me with the means to make up for this lack, now that I am staying in a house with a TV (with Court TV being practically the only non-local station in my parents' basic cable package).

Re: Miranda Lambert song title contained within this post

[koganbot]

within several thousand feet of any place that might actually have people such as schools and churches

Actually, most schools and churches are not, in fact, people, no matter how I like to anthropomorphize them. I should have written, "within several thousand feet of any place, such as a church or a school, that might actually have people.

Re: Miranda Lambert song title contained within this post

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Sour. My hometown now has 4 pubs, not counting the golf club bar that would serve you alcopops without asking for ID.

I think a column about 'not listening to music' would be interesting. What soundtrack is playing in your head when nothing is coming through your ears?

Re: Miranda Lambert song title contained within this post

[koganbot]

Last night I watched "Hot Pursuit" and then "Investigations" and then a bit of "Cops" on Court TV. "Cops" was a relief because there was no music except for "Bad Boys" as the Theme Song and a few interstitial guitar chords. Everything else - shows, commercials - had continually low-volume music in the background, felt like static, mildly irritating. "Hot Pursuit" is a terrible show, bunch of chases clipped together with a narrator making remarks about the stupidity of criminals who think they can outrun the police. A lot of synth drums, w/ blues-boogie guitars for emphasis, or metal chords.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

omg i heard xmas tunes in boots the other day and got SO ANGRY.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I put the Girls Aloud Xmas CD on the other day and felt a warm glow :) It was mostly the warm glow of smugness for finishing my Christmas shopping 6 weeks in advance!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I haven't even thought about starting AGH

[koganbot]

I downloaded last year's Aly & A.J. Christmas album several weeks ago; I'd heard it streamed when it came out. Kinda well sung but so what on most of the carols, though they get something genuinely movingly sad out of the not-all-that-sad "I'll Be Home For Christmas." And then of course we've been gushing about the two originals on that album for the last fourteen months, "Not This Year" being one of the greats.

Xhuxk really likes the Taylor Swift Christmas album, while Jimmy Draper likes it too but with less enthusiasm. I'm looking forward to Miranda Lambert's rendition of "I Put A Scorpion In Your Stocking."