Looking
ahead to the year 2015 has had me thinking about what music I will be listening
to throughout the year. I know that when my boys allow me to commandeer
the stereo, my personal favorites will permeate the playlist at home:
City & Colour; Bruce Hornsby; Rage Against the Machine to name a few, but I
also want to be able to throw the spotlight on artists that are catching my
attention (as well as my family’s) in my adopted city.
One band
that I am thinking of formed in my old stomping grounds of Foggy Bottom,
Washington DC. The name of the band is Jukebox the Ghost and they are heading back out on tour next week for a 33-date tour that will
take them all over the United States. One of the stops on tour is
Pittsburgh, on Saturday, February 14 at Mr. Smalls. There is also The
Lone Bellow who adventure to The Club at Stage AE on Saturday, February
28. Allen Stone also returns to the Steel City on Sunday, March 1 at the
Altar Bar and then a couple of weeks later at the same venue, my two boys’
favorite singer of the moment Andy Grammer takes the stage.
Songwriter
of the platinum hit single, “Keep Your Head Up”, Andy Grammer has been toeing
the line between Top 40 regular and Adult Contemporary staple, so he is not
completely off the radar, but outside of our place, not a household name.
But you read the last sentence of the previous paragraph correctly, with the
release of Mr. Grammer’s album ‘Magazines Or Novels’, he has had captured the
attention of my elementary-school aged children. And as much as I have
tried to influence and shape my sons’ taste in music, they at a young age are
confidently determining their own path. This certainly makes for
interesting car-rides, but I am getting on-board.
It makes the small victories of listening as a family to The Barr Brothers’ song ‘Half Crazy’ that much sweeter. But listening to music as a family has also introduced me to music I might not have otherwise heard. I know deep down that my boys fascination with American Top 40 With Ryan Seacrest rivals the one I had with Casey Kasem in the early 1980s. And just as that loyal listening led me to hearing Dexy’s Midnight Runners follow-up to “Come On Eileen” ("Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", which led to my discovery of Van Morrison and Jackie Wilson - for those keeping score at home), this year it has already led me to find another song by Hozier. Taking me to school, not to church.
Thanks
for reading.
