misfitS pOLITICS
We talk. We write. We entertain. Or so we think.
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I like listening to music. A lot. I guess because I’m all cultured and shit. Actually, I grew up with music in my life to a greater extent than perhaps a lot of people did. I’ve said it many times, but I’ll repeat it again: My parents led a popular and successful local / regional event band. Losing sleep on school nights because of rehearsals was a pretty common occurrence, though the folks did try to keep it to a minimum. Everyone in the band had kids, so they spread rehearsals around amongst all the members. Well, most of them; no one wants to go to a drummer’s house.
The other day as I was jamming some tunes (which I do a ridiculous amount of), I noticed I had dedicated songs to a couple @MisfitsPolitics friends and decided to pick a song to play for each of them. It started organically, but then I just focused on tweeting one song for each of them. And now, for better or worse (likely worse), I will aggregate them all here so you can be subjected to all of it in one place. In case you missed it, as it were. I will enter these in the order in which I tweeted them (which order itself has no particular significance - it’s just the song that came to me in the moment). All Misfits are equal, though I did save the two boss lady types (Founder Jenn and Editor-in-Chief Anne) for last. First up is an old favorite from perhaps the most famous Southern rock band ever, those boys who recorded the most famous rock tune about Alabama ever (and a band which included zero members from Alabama): Jacksonville’s own Lynyrd Skynyrd with “Things Goin’ On:”
I dedicated this one to @cdpayne79 because I don’t know anyone who hates government more than he does (with the possible exceptions of myself and Johnny Rotten).
We Misfits are a fairly tight crew, but that doesn’t mean we know everything about each other. For example, as mentioned in this tweet, I don’t know what music @Patriot_Musket listens to. Probably boy bands and the “Frozen” soundtrack. But I do know his college football team is the Texas Tech Red Raiders. And since I didn’t come up with Paul Revere and the Raiders (and they were not red in any case), I chose Red Rider’s only hit that I know for him:
Also of note on this one: My former Twitter handle, @LunaticRex, came into existence one afternoon in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, when a woman riding in my car was singing along to it on the radio. She misheard the title lyric as “Lunatic Rex.’ The powers that be at Twitter decided that account was too awesome for the platform and summarily ended it in early October 2017. No one knows why.
The next Misfit I tweeted a track to was @2009superglide, our other resident military veteran (along with yours truly). He was an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter maintainer and he has seen some shit, man. Literally. And when he saw it, he burned it. Gringo collected his DD-214 and then got motivated and started going to college to finish his degree. Since I also do not know his particular musical tastes (he’s currently a Texan, getting there as fast as he could by way of south Jersey and Philly and Iraq and…, so he’s all over the map), I chose an appropriately themed song for him: Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out:”
Next I chose our only left-coast denizen (but one of four who live in ‘enemy territory’ - blue states), PNW-based @VixenRogue. Kayla is a young mother and again, I have no idea what music she enjoys (though I’d guess it is far different from anything I tend to favor), I went with the only grunge song that ever made any sense to me: Todd Snider’s “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues:”
If grunge never blew your skirt up, this tune should be sure to crank your boat (or float your tractor). You see, I also am not a fan of grunge, and I think I’m fairly safe to guess Mr. Snider does not care for it either (though he was born in Portlandia, so that he penned and performed this tune makes sense).
The next Misfit I searched the gray matter database for was @SeanTheProducr. Since Sean is our resident AV production expert (Hey! Don’t forget ‘formerly somewhat semi-famous!’ - Sean), I went with the first video MTV ever broadcast (on 1 Aug 1981, back when the “M” stood for ‘music’): The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star:”
This next one was really pretty fun. I enjoy Toby Keith’s music but had never known about this ditty or video before. There is a joke involved here, but that’s between @marcannem96 and the Misfits crew. “Shitty Golfer:”
There was a time Marc was in golfist business, and he is still a big fan of carrying funny-looking sticks in his trunk. These days he still makes his money helping people, but not with chasing little balls around well-manicured lawns with lots of holes in them.
Picking a song to represent @VerumVulnero1 was a little tricky. You see, I know Alex loves Taylor Swift but I don’t. I mean, I don’t know many of her songs, of course. I’d never say I don’t like Tay-Tay, at least not to Alex; I don’t want any songs or blog posts written about how mean I am or that I’m a hater. Not sure I could shake it off. So, since Alex was born in Chicago and now lives in Boston, I figured I’d be safe and sound if I chose a band named for one of those cities. And as pre-Cetera Chicago made more than just the one song, I chose them and the great tune “Saturday in the Park:”
When I started thinking about a tune to capture my idea of @_CCHayes, one of favorite artists came to mind immediately because I have this romantic notion of CC living in wide-open spaces with few annoying humans about bothering her all the time like we unfortunates who live nearer civilization. I have no idea if this is an accurate idea of her living circumstance, but I thought of Chris LeDoux and “You Just Can’t See Him from the Road:”
Now this next one was even trickier than the others where I had to make guesses. @molratty is from Wisconsin and still visits there often, but she lives in Chicago now. Since I don’t know any popular music acts from Wisconsin or songs about cheese off the top of my head, I chose Warren Zevon. And since Mo is also an attorney, I figured “Lawyers, Guns and Money” would do nicely:
Here’s yet another Misfit whose musical tastes are a mystery to me. And I also don’t know of any bands from (or songs about) Connecticut. Fortunately for me and giving me an admittedly easy out to grab a representative song, his name is @danieltobin. And since we both also know a person who loves old Top 40 radio garbage as much (or more) than I do (thanks Anne!), this was an easy call. England Dan and John Ford Coley - “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight:”
And though ‘New England Dan’ would certainly have fit better, both Dan Bailey and John Coley were born in Texas. So I’m calling this one a win.
My penultimate song to a Misfit went out to @JHolmsted, aka ‘Boss.’ Like me, Jenn also grew up in a talented family and has been around the business her whole life. Unlike me, she can dance and actually makes her living in the entertainment industry. And since she lives in Austin and knows essentially everyone who's anyone, I was spoiled for choice when it came to picking a song for her. But it took me about one second to choose one of my favorite artists, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Stevie wasn’t a native of Austin (he was from Dallas), but his is a name I always immediately associate with the capital city. Probably because that is where he started in the music spotlight. Or possibly because his famous “Don’t Mess with Texas” television ad came out when I was in basic training (in San Antonio) and played very frequently when I was assigned to the erstwhile Bergstrom Air Force base (now Austin-Bergstrom International Airport) right after tech school in summer 1986. And one of my favorite songs of his is ‘Texas Flood,” so this one was for the Boss:
And finally, last but absolutely the furthest thing from least, is my fellow fan of crappy ‘70s radio hits, my good friend and our primary editor, @annealexander70. As with Jenn above, I had a veritable plethora of choices I could have gone with. I’ve even written recently about our shared love of this music no one admits they like (but they know all the words anyway). In the end, I chose The Carpenters “Close To you” for Anne. No particular reason; I just wanted to listen to that song at that moment:
As it happens, I just discovered Karen and Richard Carpenter were born in Connecticut. Go figure. In fact, I have learned quite a lot while writing this piece. For example, while I knew SRV was a Dallas native, I had no idea England Dan and John Ford Coley were also from the Lone Star state.
Oh, one more thing: I noticed as I was writing that I actually know very little about the musical tastes of the Misfits. But I bet at least most of them know the bridge of “Close To You.” This was a fun piece to write. If you enjoyed reading it half as much as I liked writing it, I reckon you’re having a pretty good day. Thank you as always for your attention. Rock on, Rex
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MisfitsJust a gaggle of people from all over who have similar interests and loud opinions mixed with a dose of humor. We met on Twitter. Archives
January 2024
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