Music in the air...

I grew up with music constantly in my life. There was only one musician, a trumpet player, in our family which was abandoned upon entering too-cool high school. But the radio was always on, vinyl always spinning. My brothers and I would play pool with the radio on in the background, my father explaining the meaning behind each phrase of American Pie or talking about the greatness of Vietnam era songs or late Beatles, CCR, or Led Zeppelin. My younger brother and I arguing whose turn it was to have the Graceland tape that we listened to in the car. Granted it was my parents' music but it was always around.

Seattle has been a wonderful music buffet. I was given Siris Satellite radio just before heading west so that I would have company for those long stretches over South Dakota and Wyoming. A couple of stations become my favorites: one of the was the Outlaw Station which played every type of country music: indie, classic, modern, radical, all kinds and the other was Alt Nation (alternative - one I kept coming back to. It introduced to all of these musicians who captured my complete undivided (when there were no cows to look at) attention: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers (ok, I knew them), Deathcab for Cutie, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, and Yellowflag just to get started. It was a smorgasbord of sounds I loved.

I arrive in Seattle and there is KEXP - this incredible music station with listeners all around the world. It's on all the time for the kitty friends but it has become my own urban meph. Mondays is African music night, where my friend Annika balances water bottles on her head and dances around. Tuesday is world music and always features a local band. Thursdays is Twang. The mornings will make you late for your bus. There is the Alternative weekends which just reinforces what I listen to on Alt Nation (The DJ Madison is great). There are 75 wonderful Beachland Ballrooms-type venues where you can hear this great music for relatively cheap: The Tractor Tavern (in my neighborhood); Sunset Tavern (right down the street from The Tractor), Crocodile, ChopSuey, Neumos, Nectar Lounge, Sound Box just scratching the surface; not to mention the local record stores that have mini concerts and promotions which are free like Sonic Boom and Easy Street Music.

It's been a musical reawakening for me in a city, like Cleveland, that prides itself on its contribution to the movement of course there is Kirk Cobain and Nirvana and Alice in Chains, but also Jimmy Hendricks came from Seattle and now groups like Deathcab for Cutie. It's a reawakening - a musical "spring" - kind of lidaffodilsffadils that I saw in bloom for the first time today and the trees with yellow and pink flowers timidly seeking out the sun. It's going to be a great spring.