My Mom's Cookie Recipe

Choc-chip cookies 1 cup butter or margarine -- I melt this in the microwave for 30 seconds-- 1 cup sugar 1 cup brown sugar Cream together Add 2 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla Mix together Add 3 cups + a little flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda Mix together Add 2 cups choc-chips--- that would be 1 package Stir together Put on cookies sheet and bake for 10- 12 minutes....depends on oven and how you like them---at 350 degrees. Eat

The "Importance" of Music Videos

I rarely watch music videos. And when I do, I rarely take them seriously.

But I thought I should speak out m opinion because people are making big deal about the new Beyonce "Formation" video. People, it's a music video. People will dress like members of the Black Panther party. People will get naked. People will eat raw animals. Whatever. The purpose of music videos is to entertain. If not that, then to commercially promote your music beyond using your actual music. In either event: Music Videos are FAR from important.

I kinda shrug my shoulders when I see videos making big bold statements. Not like they're bad, but they're usually super long and have high-quality directing. There's nothing wrong with that. I just never watch things for longer than 5 minutes. My favorite music videos are stupid. Because the artist making this video realizes the same thing I do: It's a music video. And music videos are stupid. 

Now, I'm about to share My 15 Favorite Music Videos Ever! Yes, it basically is an altar for 90s worship. But it will fill your heart with the spirit of America. Feel free to turn back now.

15 Archers of Loaf- Web in Front
Recipe for winning my music video heart:
-1 FFA jacket
-1 midget who kinda looks like me
-Add whatever the heck is going on in the picture below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnIBBbWFJ38

14 Animal Collective- Who Could Win a Rabbit 
The tortoise and the hare will never be the same. (By the way, this is a perfect music video band! I also recommend the videos for "Peacebone" and "Brothersport.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTbd0Ncsyus

13 Beck- Loser
Beck was given a $300 shooting budget to make this video. In case that wasn't obvious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

12 Oneohtrix Point Never- Replica

D  R  U  G  Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiwi7d0f91Y

11 Pavement- Painted Soldiers
Sometimes your band gets fired and replaced by attractive cool kids, which disappoints a random family. Sometimes your Lambo gets pulled over by an ambulance. Sometimes you lose a horse-racing bet. Sometimes you wear a yellow t-shirt over a blue long-sleeve shirt. Sometimes every other person in your friggin video is smoking a cigarette (or cigar). It happens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT9JxkiLImU

10 St. Vincent- Cruel
Being a mom is hard. Suffering from paranoia is also hard. Being a mom who's afraid that her family is out to kill her is a bad combo. You give your entire life's work to these people and it will never be good enough for them. So how does it end? You invite them to bury you alive. They'll then shrug their shoulders and agree like it's no big deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itt0rALeHE8

9 Avalanches- Since I Left You
That one time when you were mining in an old-timey, sepia-toned world and you magically appear in a modern, high-class dance audition. "I never saw Arthur again. But I bet wherever he's gone, he's having a damn good time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpqm-05R2Jk

8 Bob Dylan- Subterranean Homesick Blues
Confession time: I don't know a darn thing about the origins of music videos. But I do know Bob Dylan made this in the 60s and it's freaking genius.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0

7 Hot Chip- I Feel Better
The story of the neuro-vomiting killer of boy bands! And everybody dies in the end! (By the way, this is a perfect music video band! I also recommend the videos for "Boy At School" and "Ready for the Floor.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GOZjlwIwfk

6 Dinosaur Jr.- Over It 
I love Dinosaur Jr. They are the best at what they do. This includes both shredding on guitar and shredding on your skateboard. Still the best... after all these years. (By the way, this is a perfect music video band! I also recommend the videos for "Feel the Pain," 'Watch the Corners," "The Wagon," and "Just Like Heaven.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgTJtdn6VjM

5 Pulp- Bad Cover Version
So it's bad cover version of celebrity musicians recording a bad cover version of a song titled "Bad Cover Version." Got it. Clever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR5xGHPUEew

4 The Replacements- Bastards of the Young
To me, this is the greatest music video idea of all time came in 1985: The Anti-Video. With their first major label album, Warner Bros forced The Replacements to replace a lead single with a promo video. So they sped up the album's best song one half-step and raised it a pitch (which kinda ruins it). As for the video? Well... let's just say it's extremely uneventful. PUNK ROCK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl9KQ1Mub6Q

3 Destroyer- Kaputt
I watched this video the week I got from my mission and it changed my life. The song did as well. The ultimate artistic representation of hopelessness. The old man dying in the desert, the anti-social young boy with bad internet habits, the whale who needs a balloon to fly... Watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puu3IvKnSb4

2 Pavement- Gold Soundz
Pavement is my favorite music video band. Heck, they might just be my favorite band period. I mean, every corny band out there needs to look they're friendly and unified in their music videos. Pavement does this here by all dressing up like Santa Claus and bow-hunting frozen turkeys around Irvine, CA. (By the way, this is a perfect music video band! I also recommend the videos for "Cut Your Hair," "Stereo," "Shady Lane," "Carrot Rope," and "Rattled by the Rush.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPvhKV3Yg2k

1 Yo La Tengo- Sugarcube
First off, shout out to my former co-worker Dillon for introducing me to this song in the Redfish Lake Lodge kitchen. I thought it was Sonic Youth. But I digress...
Limozeen, the fake classic rock band from Homestar Runner, makes fun of alternative rock bands. "Their bassist is a girl!" "Their drummer has short hair!" "The lead singer wears glasses!"  This describes all 3 members of Yo La Tengo.
Now despite both sounding and looking like an anti-classic-rock band, YLT has paid ode to the genre in their lyrics and videos multiple times. The "Sugarcube" video is what my brother Keith has deemed "The Original School of Rock." Within 4 minutes, we learn what rock 'n' roll is truly all about. It's about getting chewed out by your manager and going to school. Once your band has read Rush lyrics like a children's bedtime story, released a live double-album, and found songwriting inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkein, you are ready to make "your first number one video!" (By the way, this is a perfect music video band! I also recommend the videos for "Ohm" and "I'll Be Around.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgpQBaziy0

Overlong Honorable Mention List:
Outkast- Hey Ya!
Nirvana- Heart-Shaped Box
Grizzly Bear- Knife
Superchunk- Digging for Something
Avalanches- Frontier Psychiatrist
Fatboy Slim- Weapon of Choice
Every OK Computer music video
Anything from Aphex Twin

3rd Annual Valentine's Day Playlist... Awwww Yeah!

I've been doing this every year since I started working for The Utah Statesman. I don't do that gig anymore, but this love song thing has stuck with me as an annual tradition. I originally claimed that this was to "impress your significant other by showing some unique taste in music while showing your corny emotions at the same time." I suppose I really just make these to humor myself. My audience mattereth no longer.
Here are links to my previous 2 playlists:

2014 http://bluenotesusu.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-valentines-day-playlist.html
2015  http://blogoscottys.blogspot.com/2015/02/love-songs-2015-ed.html

2014 had 10 songs. 2015 had 11 songs. This year has 101/2 songs. You'll see.
Here's this year's playlist:

'I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY' -Whitney Houston
I had just gotten back from a run while working at Redfish Lake Lodge last summer. I was covered in sweat and in my running clothes. Someone was having a wedding reception at the lodge that evening, where I could hear this song cranked up. I wanted to bash the wedding and make a scene by going totally bananas on the dance floor among grown men in tuxedos. I ran to the entryway, ready to look the biggest fool in the room. However, my Jamaican co-worker Marlon Taylor had beaten me to this title. Ah well. But I promise you-- if you play this song around me, I will dance like a madman.

From its epic music video.

'I LOVE YOU, HONEYBEAR' -Father John Misty
(sigh) This song always takes me to another place. It's an instrumentally gorgeous piece of music and the lyrics fly everywhere-- love, marriage, sex, smoked chicken, Cadillacs,  schizophrenia-- it's all fair game. 34 yr-old Josh Tillman is madly in love with his wife. His entire universe and imagination is wrapped around the fact that he got to marry her. Oh, honeybear, honeybear... whether or not I'm ever in love, this song will force me to feel that way anyway.

'MORE STARS THAN THERE ARE IN HEAVEN' -Yo La Tengo
+/- 90% of all Yo La Tengo's songs are love songs. I could have picked any of them. This is a personal favorite of mine. Nearly 10 minutes of hearing the same, chugged-out couple of chords while the lines "We'll walk hand in hand" slowly get repeated. And if the shoegaze guitars aren't enough for you to fall in love, listen for Georgia's vox vocal effect in the background.

'LOVE ON TOP' -Beyonce
I remember my sister introducing me to this song shortly after my mission. I didn't get it. It's like Beyonce was purposely trying to rip off Mary J. Blige and Whitney Houston. Maybe she is. But even if that's the case, who better to succeed at this imitation? This is serious high-quality studio music. A beat you won't forget. Shiny keyboards. Shiny (fake) horns section. And Bey's unstoppable vocals on top. This song's my JAM. I only cringe a tiny bit knowing this is a song about Jay-Z.

'SMALL PLANE' -Bill Callahan
Bill Callahan's voice sounds like a narrator for a documentary. This isn't so much a love song as it is a puzzle of lines that hint at a love song. I mean, it could be about his dad. Or some close friend who taught him how to fly planes. It's all possible. But his wedding following this album's release kind of narrows it down. Hearing the aging 90s songwriter crisply pronounce "I really am a lucky man" is a pure moment of zen for fans and new-comers alike.

'REALLY LOVE' -D'Angelo
This song has a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year! R&B homeboy D'Angelo getting his just rewards! Anyways... D'Angelo is too old to be the sex god he used to be, so on his new album he resorts to sincere, age-old sentimentalism. Here, with a simple snap-driven beat, string quartet and Spanish guitar, he nails it. I also love his '98 Lauryn Hill duet "Nothing Even Matters" (forced music reference for a friend of mine, whom probably won't read this).

'HEROES' -David Bowie
Had to put a pitch in honour of Bowie this year. As brilliantly weird as the recording technique for this song is, "Heroes" is a love song on the most epic scale. She is a temperamental queen, he is an alcoholic king. Nothing will keep them together. The couple kisses by the Berlin Wall in hopes that they won't get shot and their love will be sealed forever. Now nothing can tear them away. With production and songwriting help from Brian Eno, Bowie made what was possibly The Greatest Song of the 1970s.

'INTO MY ARMS' -Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
First line of the song: "I don't believe in an interventionist god."
Trust me, this eventually becomes a love song. Just keep listening.

'BEST OF MY LOVE' -The Emotions &/or 'BEST OF MY LOVE' -The Eagles
DID YOU KNOW THAT...
Both of these songs are #1 US hits from the 70s with and have the same title. Also, both songs were written by people who have passed away in the last month.
The Eagles' country twanged soft rock ballad "Best of My Love" was co-written by the band's co-founder Glenn Frey. The Emotions' R&B wedding reception classic "Best of My Love" was written by Earth, Wind & Fire's Maurice White.
NOW YOU KNOW!

'THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (NAIVE MELODY)' -Talking Heads
I used to think the production in this song was cheesy, but that's just me being picky. Because we know what ambitious things the Talking Heads can do and this song is beyond an exception. It's a lyrical grab-bag of instant classic one-liners. Hearing David Byrne sing about love in his own beautifully neurotic way pulls me heart-strings every time. Wedding Songs for the Anxious 101. And oh yeah-- reggaeton!

Byrne singing this song to a lamp.