i've been listening to an inordinate amount of the old 97's lately.

pretty much anybody that's heard them knows that that's not necessarily a bad thing, not at all, they're a great band, i don't think i've met a single person who's ever really listened to them and held a negative opinion. in fact having found them a few years back was a pretty significant emotional coup. people who know me and are familiar with my musical tastes likely know that i've got a lot of happy music, a lot of what i guess could be described as music for the rage prone, a smattering of what's known as pop, and a mishmash of some older country; willie nelson, johnny cash, merle haggard, guys like that, who wrote country music when country music was good.

what i didn't have was music for those melancholy moods that come every so often, and make no mistake, even with my sickeningly sunny disposition, they come. part of the reason is that so much of that kinda music absolutely sucks and is relegated to the hipster crap that people my age who fancy themselves urbane seem to think is really cool. what i'm saying is that i can generally tolerate music like that for a few minutes before i start making decisions with long term implications to solve a short term problem, for example, throwing my stereo out the window in order to get it to stop.

in any case, all of that is fine, mostly because i can only stomach myself for so long when i'm in a mood like that. so anyways, back to music, like i was saying, finding stuff that's at least tolerable for moods somewhere in between happy and homicidal (not that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive) is tough, for a while all i had that fit the bill was mike ness' first solo CD, which is some great music and really versatile as far as moods go, but almost too much so for what i was looking for. so i really hate advertising my own likes and dislikes here, at least as far as evaluating things for public consumption in a sort of "review-ish" style, in fact if you can find an example of me doing that, i'll buy you lunch sometime; but anyways, the old 97's have found a niche for the moods that caedmon's call or even mike ness wasn't quite right for.

if only there was a strecth of road out here that corresponded.

feeling: oddly fulfilled
thinking of: oak cliff
music: "weightless" old 97's