I have been listening to Elliott to get ready for their upcoming show and fell into listening to the whole lot of Emo from my youth. I stumbled onto Braid’s album Frame and Canvas and man, I forgot how solid it is. It was hard to pick just one song!

My Dad passed away 3 years ago today and while he transitioned we set his phone list to continuously play. He really loved bluegrass, blues, Americana and folk and enjoyed seeing live local music when he lived in TN. He used to sing this song constantly, even before he got sick, and even got to see Old Crow Medicine Show live at a festival. This song even mentions the town my parents called home while living in TN- Johnson City. I also learned that they cowrote this song with Bob Dylan and that they inspired the later band, Mumford and Sons. Late last week I was out at the store and it came on. I just knew it was him saying Hi! I’ve really come to love this song too.

What’s a guilty pleasure song?

I have a lot of guilty pleasure songs, mainly along the lines of dance music (Charlie XCX, Empire of the Sun, MGMT). I especially love Tame Impala (Kevin Parker) and was excited to hear that he was actually coming to the U.S. to do some stadium shows to support his new album. He rarely tours and I will actually be near Brooklyn for those groups of shows….🤔

The full album comes out Oct. 17th but early reviews describe it as leaning more into Australian rave/EDM, which has me a little worried. I really love the dreamy, psychedelic moodiness of his previous albums and they are usually in constant rotation for me. There are two singles out now and I actually really like End of Summer, which is definitely more dancey. I’m excited to hear the rest of the album.

What’s your favorite collaboration between artists?

I have a lot of song collaborations that I love but this collaboration between Dijon and Mk.gee has such a raw, infectious and catchy energy, I had to give it its due. The video is even better!

Share a song that tells a great story.

My son, Milo, is just starting his college journey and it’s bringing back all the memories. The song I picked played such a pivotal role in my college journey and has now come full circle.

In 1995, I went away to college at 17 and didn’t know anyone at my new school, 5 hours from home and honestly didn’t care to make friends. I was in a super competitive pre-med program and I didn’t talk to anyone for about 3 weeks. I decided I’d just keep my head down, study my ass off, plow through 4 years, get out, move far away from NY and start over in a new place with a new life. I didn’t want to adjust and I didn’t want to go home. College was just a means to an end- getting as far away from home as possible. So, needless to say, I had a really hard time adjusting. I’m pretty stubborn and that lasted about 5 months.

Over winter break, I got into a bad car accident, my long distance relationship at the time (leftover from HS) wasn’t working out and when I went back to college after winter break, I decided I had to try to move forward because there really wasn’t anything left to lose. I always listened to lots of music on my own but I missed talking about it and discovering new bands so much that I started secretly following sounds of music I liked playing in the dorms to see what kinds of other kids were listening in a search for others that at least liked the same music as me.

I must have walked miles around the dorms and one day I heard Root Down by the Beastie Boys blasting from a room on a sunny corner of a hallway, one of my favorite bands and favorite songs. As I came up to the room I took a chance and I shouted, I love this band! A blonde, quick witted girl named Sam jumped out and was like “Hey! Who are you? Want to be our roommate?” I quickly became friends with Sam and her roommate, Margie. A month later, we arranged for me to move into their room and their roommate to move into my old room. A few months later I met a few other girls, including our friend Eve, who also loved the same music. We all went to shows together, chased boys together and continued to widen our circle of friends through music in Buffalo. I even met my best friend, JD, (who I’d eventually marry) a few months later and we made it official at a Descendents show. The rest is history.

All these years later, we’ve rode the ups and downs of life together and I feel so lucky to still talk to Sam and Margie every single day. Margie crossed the country 2x with me and was my maid of honor. Sam’s oldest, Teagan, also went to college this fall (which has helped me with Milo going to college) and sings for Sostre, a new band in the same Buffalo scene where I met all my best friends through. All the most important moments of my life involve my favorite music and my favorite people.

On the way to her bass lesson last week, our daughter, Stella, who heads off to college a year from now, climbed in the car and said, I want to listen to this band I love and my favorite song by them. To my surprise, she put on Root Down by the Beastie Boys.

Waiting on a little breakfast at a local cafe with my husband and this song came on. It is a quiet sunshiny day and it made one of those perfect timing moments.

What was the first album you ever bought? Pick your favorite song off that album.

I’m not sure of my exact first album but it was either The Sugarcubes, PJ Harvey, REM or Lush. I chose one of the most memorable songs from my first PJ Harvey album, Rid of Me. As a teen, I loved her unapologetic and big energy.

When we moved our son into college this weekend, I saw that his roommates had put on the same record I listened to on repeat in high school and college with my friends: Surfer Rosa by the Pixies. It made a perfect full circle connection.

What's your favorite song to sing in the car?

All of them! One of my favorite car singing bands is probably Phoenix, though. Do I know the exact words ? No. Not at all. Do I still sing loudly? Absolutely.

Share a song that represents rebellion or freedom to you.

There are so many musicians that have created important songs of resistance: Guthrie, Dylan, Baez, Seeger, Simone, Billie Holiday, to name a few. One of the first exposures I had to rebellion and the struggle for rights in our country was my undergraduate environmental law class and when I first heard an album made by Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco, Fellow Workers, around the same time. Utah Phillips was labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller and poet. His songs include poetic interludes and clever lyrics that spill out the history of labor unions and a call to direct action, and cover a lot of other human rights and environmental issues too. His songs and words are still a fundamentally important listening to anyone involved in labor organizing. I started out an environmentalist, became a public school teacher and then fell in love with labor organizing about 2 years ago but the seed for a lot of it was planted decades ago with exposure to Utah Phillips. It’s all connected. Workers rights are environmental rights are human rights.

I chose an important song about Mother Jones, an Irish-born American labor organizer, schoolteacher, union organizer who’s work was fundamental in several mining strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World trade Union.