DCNokes Essentials V

I lived with the same person three of the four years I was in college, including studying abroad in Ireland. I was usually the one who was in charge of music for when we were hanging out with not much to do.

Once we graduated I kept making playlists as if we were still in college and started burning them.  Most of them had a theme. One was Beatles covers. One was songs that had at least one name in common in the title of the song. I think the theme of this one was "Songs that are good but would be used in Zach Braff's next terrible movie."

1. As Tall As Lions - Circles

2. She & Him - Lingering Still

3. Neil Young - Harvest Moon

4. Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind (Part II)

5. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Like Yesterday

6. Simon & Garfunkel - America

7. David Gray - Jackdaw

8.The Swell Season - Low Rising

9. Ray Lamontagne - Crazy

10. Sam Cooke - Summertime

11. Incubus - Aqueous Transmission 

12. Dave Matthews Band - Lying in the Hands of God

13. Guster - Sunday Afternoon

14. Iron & Wine - Naked As We Came

15. Blue Merle - Stay

16. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Friends

17. Jack Johnson - Home

18. She & Him - If You Can't Sleep

Song of the Mix

Blue Merle - Stay

Blue Merle is a band that was only around for 3 years, only had one full length album and a few good songs. Not sure what happened to them but I'm glad I found them.

Untitled Jam Session

THIS is the reason I started this website. To rediscover some of the great songs that I have completely forgotten about and wouldn't necessarily be able to find. After hard drive crashes, change of computers - this is what I wanted to find with this project.

I had to look up most of these songs and even now I still don't know who sang them. I've put these all online in case anyone knows the names of these songs or just wants some unknown songs to add to their collection. I uploaded any song that I did not know on YouTube so that you all could give them a listen.*

1. Inquire With Delight? - Live
2. Dan Darrah - Through My Eyes
3. Dave Matthews Band - Crush - Full Band Acoustic - Philly Performance?
4. Hoping And Holding Onto You
5. Salsa Floyd I
6. Salsa Floyd II
7. Like Domino's I Drop You - Sounds like OAR but it is not?
8. Seen A Little Bit of the World?
9. Do I leave And Go Straight?
10. Phish - Limb By Limb
11. Pink Floyd - Have A Cigar
12. ???
13. String Cheese Incident - Wake Up
14. The Who - Babba O'Reilly
15. Pete Yorn - Life on a Chain

I want to say this was sophomore of high school. The moment we switch from dial up to DSL I started downloading more.

This was also the time that I started reading the message board Nancies.org. It was a Dave Matthews Band fan message board that I used to frequent and I remember they had a great thread including new bands/songs to check out. I'm 90% sure this is where this album came from. It must have been some thread about good songs for drumming similar to Carter Beauford as many of these songs remind me of his style of play.

Songs that made me yell out their made up title when it came on for the first time: Salsa Floyd I & II. These are titled for a simple reason - they remind me of Pink Floyd and used to remind me of a salsa type of beat. salsa type beats at other times. These were the titles I gave to them back when I discovered them and it is still fresh in my head.

Other Standouts:

String Cheese Incident - Wake Up: I remember listening to this on the couch in my drum room over and over again for at least an hour.

Phish - Limb by Limb: Not my favorite Phish song by any means, but this and Waste were the first Phish songs that I was fully exposed to and the groove drive to Limb by Limb gets me going every single time.

Do I Leave And Go Straight?: No idea who or what this song is, but it reminds me of an unsuccessful Jason Mraz if he had a drummer instead of a percussionist when he started. Everything reminds me of that except this guy's voice. I can't stand it. Maybe that's why Mraz became famous and this guy is a footnote in this blog.

* Since the publishing of this blog, YouTube has identified the artist of song #2 as Dan Darrah

Back Seat Star Gazer II

The first thing I thought about when pulling out this CD was "man, I wish I knew where Back Seat Star Gazer I was." The first edition contained the best flow of songs that I've put together. At least, from what I remember. The second thing I thought was I wow, I was a really dumb teenager with this sappy ass title.

1. Pearl Jam - Nothing Man

2. Simon & Garfunkel - America

3. Nora Jones - The Long Day Is Over

4. Counting Crows - Colorblind

5. Piano Cover - #41 (Dave Matthews Band)

6. Joseph Arthur - Honey and the Moon

7. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Road Trippin'

8. Matt Nathanson - Little Victories

9. Stephen Kellogg - See You Later, See You Soon

10. Damien Rice - Delicate

11. Ben Harper - Forever

12. Billy Joel - She's Got A Way (Live)

13. Coldplay - Warning Sign

14. David Gray - This Year's Love

15. Bruce Springsteen - Secret Garden

16. Guster - Mona Lisa

17. Van Morrison - Into The Mystic

18. Led Zeppelin - Rain Song

19. Elliott Smith - Miss Misery

I used to take my mom's Seabring convertible out and drive around on the spring and summer nights of my high school years. It could have been by myself, it could have been with friends. Either way I made these CD's (I & II) specifically for these drives.

If I were making this CD again, I would definitely include 2, 3, 7, 13, 17, 18. I would definitely include David Gray, maybe just not this song. I think a more appropriate song would have been Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

I'm not sure exactly when this album was created, but my best guess was senior year of high school (2003) or not that far after that. It may have been college though. Stephen Kellogg played at our school during my sophomore year, but I knew of him before hand.

Either way, it's not a bad little mix of songs. Except for Damien Rice - I can't stand him. I'm not even sure why he was on this CD. It was probably for a girl.

Greatest Hits

It's a weird way to start, but the first CD pulled from the collection is labeled Miller's Greatest Hits. I am Miller. Apparently these are my greatest hits.

1. Pearl Jam - Corduroy

2. Coldplay - Shiver

3. Dave Matthews Band - #41 (Live - Listener's Supported)

4. Guster - Happier (Live)

5. Jason Mraz - Sleeping To Dream (Live)

6. Ben Folds Five - Selfless, Cold and Composed

7. Ben Harper - Burn One Down

8. Nirvana - Lithium

9. Phish - 46 Days

10. Led Zeppelin - Dazed & Confused

11. Counting Crows - Mr. Jones

12. Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone

13. Paul Simon - Me And Julio Down By The School Yard

14. Peter Gabriel - Solisbury Hill

15. Billy Joel - Piano Man

My best guess is was this was put together during my senior year of college - 2007.  As far as any changes I would make to a greatest hits in 2016 - artists 1-6 would remain on it. I'm not sure if some of those songs would but PJ, Coldplay, DMB, Guster, Jason Mraz and Ben Folds would definitely make the cut. Same goes for Zeppelin, Phish.

There is only one song that I can definitively say will forever stay on any greatest hits I ever make. I will surely bring this up in another post, but I could spend hours listening to this version of #41 for hours on end. This should not come as a surprise for those of you who know me. And for those of you who do not....well...I'm positive my thoughts on the Dave Matthews Band will be a reoccurring theme throughout this website. So sit tight.

The lyric that encompasses my thoughts listening to this mix roughly nine years after it was made is from the first track Corduroy - "Everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed."

Since the original creation of the CD, I've gone on to get my Master's degree, started a career, got married, bought a house and moved to a region of the country that I vowed never to own property in - North Jersey.

My friends and I went from wondering what time we would tee off for the day's round of frisbee golf  to planning months in advance when we will see each other again. I had more hair, less weight and more time on my hands. Gone are the times that I used to sit and play my djembe and in are the times of using my djembe as an end table in my basement.

But my musical tastes have not veered too much from this list. Sure there are a ton of great bands not represented on this list, but this list is a great representation of who I am and what I listen to. I've learned to broaden my horizons but continued to keep my hatred towards country. And that right there will never change.

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Song I Completely Forgot About And Giggled Like A School Girl When It Came On And Played Imaginary Drums For 6 Minutes: Phish - 46 Days

What is this all about?

The year was 1999. I was in 8th grade and my brother came home from college and told me to download this great program that allow me download music. There were tons of songs to search for and it was completely free. This is when I learned about the glory of Napster.

Next came the fancy new addition to our computer hardware - a CD burner. Kids would white down playlists and give them to me leaving class and I would set the songs to download immediately when I came home. Since I was the only burning game in town, I turned this scheme into quite the little business and was bringing in $10 a pop.

This was a time when I also learned of some of the songs that would stick with me throughout my life - even though I didn't know it at the time. The one that bothered me the most was an 8+ minute track that was not only taking too long to download, but was slowing down all my other downloads. I said to myself I will always hate Stairway to Heaven and would never again download a Led Zeppelin song ever again. What a dumb 8th grader I was.

17 years later and I still have the majority of the CD's I've ever burned. Whether they were concert downloads or mixes I made to pop into the car on a drive down the shore. Many of them are sitting in my basement, collecting dust.

Not anymore. Throughout the year I clean these personal albums up and load them onto my computer. They will be loaded onto a playlist with no track names or information. After I'm done listening to a CD, I will post onto this website. Some post will simply be track listings and a few notes about some of the songs. Some posts may take an in-depth look at where I was at the time in my life that I made a certain mix. And some may be me rambling about one artist or song that I feel passionate about.

Either way I hope you enjoy some of the songs that have provided me the soundtrack to my life.

So join me on this journey. Maybe you'll learn a little about some new music. And maybe you'll rediscover some that you haven't listen to in a long time. Either way, I promised my wife I'd have these out of the basement by the end of the year. So lets do this.