life in the garden of eden.

I absolutely love the soundtrack for Lord of the Rings Online. It’s tied with Yasunori Mitsuda’s music for Xenogears for my all-time favorite music to listen to.  The songs are wonderfully evocative.  I get this misty-eyed sense of longing to be in Middle-earth whenever I listen to these songs. It’s almost a Pavlovian response.
Yes, it [...]

Def Leppard with Styx and REO Speedwagon
Cricket Wireless Amphitheater - Chula Vista, California
April 26, 2008
In the last three years I’ve seen Def Leppard five times*. They put on an impressive live show that never fails to leave me grinning so much my face hurts. The last concert I saw, in Chula Vista, was no different.
About [...]

You Are Classical Music

You are a somewhat serious person who enjoys studying subjects deeply.
Art of all kinds interests you, and a good piece of art can really effect you emotionally.
You are inspired by human achievement, and you appreciate work that takes years to accomplish.
For you, the finer things in life are not about snobbery - [...]

The house I grew up in had a piano. Starting when we were four years old, a very patient and rather elderly gentleman came once a week to teach my twin and I how to play that piano. We took lessons for several years. Lil lasted longer than I did.  I quit at the first [...]

Def Leppard’s Songs from the Sparkle Lounge won’t be out for another five weeks, but Rockline previewed the album Wednesday night. I didn’t get home until 9:30 p.m., so I missed the first hour of it.
Caught a few questions, all of which seemed very predictable. A rather nervous Chelsey (Chelsea?) from Hawaii did have a [...]

I was thinking some more about the ideas behind Song and emotion, and I realized music is an absolute source of comfort to me.
That’s kind of a duh statement. But it’s apparently not that way for everyone.
I can elaborate a little bit. For me, music is like a familiar blanket, where your [...]

All music evokes emotion in me. I associate different songs (and entire albums) with emotional experiences and different phases of my life.
For instance, the Chrono Cross soundtrack by Yasunori Mitsuda is entirely evocative of nursing Aya. For those six weeks after Aya was born, I’d drive Lil to work, drop Brian off at college, [...]