Bush- Machine Head

What do I think of when I hear Bush's Machine Head? Hockey, Bowling Green hockey to be specific. Most of my college winters were spent at the Bowling Green Ice Arena watching the mighty Falcons. Of course, this was the start of the Falcon down falls for a few years and still to this day the hockey team is not what it was. So why does Bush Machine head remind me of BGSU hockey? They use to skate onto the ice to it. I still remember waiting outside the arena for an hour just to get close to the ice. The routine and chants we'd toss towards the visiting teams. It was a great time in my life and as I can still smell the ice. Oh Ice Arena, many an hour did I spend at you.

Third Eye Blind- Semi Charmed Life

This song has one of my favorite lyrics, "Those little red panties they pass the test." I don't know why I like that part but it makes me smile. Third Eye Blind was one of those groups in college that started out in heavy rotation at the college radio station I worked at then was yanked a few months later because it was "too mainstream." That describes a lot of my college music experience. I would like a band till they hit the mainstream and then turned my back because the sorority girls now liked it. Stupid, yes, but that was the way things went.

Third Eye Blind was a little bit of an exception, my friend Collins loved Steven Jenkins and would listen to a rotation of U2, Peter Gabriel, Barenaked Ladies and Third Eye Blind. She kind of kept me grounded a bit musically, then for some reason Third Eye Blind, Sugar Ray and Smashmouth were playing together at Ohio Northern, a small college in the middle of nowhere. The Collins/Hartman apartment went crazy and I was able to join them. It was strange to see these bands who were charting at a small college. The place was packed and there were more people outside trying to get in. Overall the concert was pretty good and it was strange to see the reactions of the women to Steven Jenkins. On one song he climbed a mountain of speakers and started dry humping them and the women went insane. I even think the stuffed polar bear in the gym made a noise.

Toad The Wet Sprocket- Fall Down

Toad the Wet Sprocket is the band nobody remembers but everyone knows. You say the name and people usually chuckle and say they have never heard of them. Mention All I Want or Walk on the Ocean and they usually respond "I love that song." I've had a 5 year span where Toad was weaved within my life.

I First heard Fall Down in high school and loved the song, but never bought the album or anything like that. I'd hope MTV or the local radio would play something by Toad but it very rarely happened. I get to college and I some how get involved in a secret society. It's nothing like the Skull and Cross Bones at Yale, but the organization is over 60 years old and has less than 200 members. We were the secret spirit crew of Bowling Green called SICSIC I know members hate this comparison but we were like mascots on crack. We wore coveralls and mask our mission was to spread spirit through out Bowling Green. BGSU was a pretty apathetic university when the group started and still is today. It's tough when you are in the middle of corn fields and are so close to Ohio State and Michigan. It was tough but we did and they still do their best and I think BG would be a worse place without SICSIC.

Why did I give you all that background? My first year the male senior Brian was the big DJ at the campus radio station and he loved Toad. This helped bring them back into my life. They just released a collection of songs from other albums or were released on soundtracks. They had a song called All in All and it became the anthem for SICSIC. Why, I am not for sure but we'd play this song all the time.

Toad will always be the band I could never figure out why they never "hit it big." They had a sound everyone could like, but they just didn't want the exposure.

Snow- Informer

This is a guilty pleasure, how can it not be. It's a white Canadian guy that is trying to rap like he's from Jamaica. The big twist with this song in my life is shortly after it's release my home town was hit by a giant snow storm in March. I remember spending spring break shoveling snow while listening to Snow in my walkman. I even kept saying to friends that I blame Snow for this little blizzard we had.

Yet like most guilty pleasures this song keeps getting played and for some reason people like myself keep listening to it. If youd did not know this, next year this freaking song will be 20 years old. How can a song this bad, yet so catchy still be around? We need to stop this song, yet I can not take it off my iPod. DAMN YOU SNOW!

Prodigy- Breathe

The 90s were a strange time musically, think about it we started out with hair metal, went to grunge, rap hit it big, swing music, and the raise of boy bands. Prodigy was in the middle of it all, it was electronic, but it was hard like metal and most males 18-25 bought this album.

I have no idea what this song is about, but if you are in a bad mood it's a great song. Shorty and I would rock out this song in the "Tremobile" a 1988 Cutlass Cruiser Stationwagon with a tape deck, you know it! On Friday or Saturday nights we leave the apartment throw in a mix tape and head over to the "Collins/Hartman" apartment. Oh the hours spent over there and usually ended with us walking back the next day to retrieve the Tremobile.

Moby- South Side

2001 was a strange time I was working in Toledo and had been there for two years. I was starting to get the itch and wanted out and little did I know I still had a full year to go. The Detroit/Canadian rock station was playing this song in heavy rotation and I would pop around the Toledo market singing South Side. I bought the single on a trip to Bowling Green, I was working with a reporter by the name of Dewayne Walker and created a method of reporter that had the story finished in under an hour. That left us about three hours in the wind and the station couldn't touch us "we were working on our story." We ended up at Finders listening to music. I found the single for South Side.

As we were wrapping up our purchases we finally get a call, there is "flooding" and we needed to find it. I had the only car in our fleet with a CD player and we listened to new music as we kept looking for this flooding. Oddly enough the flooding was on the South Side.

The Black Keys- 10AM Automatic

I'm not big on the blues front, at best I can listen to Robert Johnson and I can not stand Stevie Ray Vaugh. Then you have Akron Ohio's own The Black Keys. A friend and former coworker who shall be called DJL is very musically open and has a knack of finding good music that no one has ever heard. CD101, Columbus' alternative station, was having a special $5 dollar show and The Black Keys where headlining. For $5 I'll go see about anyone and I'm glad I did. My new favorite band Ash performed as well as The Bravery and a few other good acts. So already the show is worth $5.

The Black Keys came on and it's only two guys. I know The White Strips are the starting point for most people when it comes to this kind of line up, The Black Keys are different. First of all the drummer, Patrick Carney, can actually play. As they progress through the set Dan Auerbach goes insane. I am not comparing him to Jimi Hendrick but for me it was probably the closest I will ever get to hearing and seeing Hendrix. He just made the guitar make sounds I have never heard and it was jaw dropping awesome. Once the song ended DJL leaned over and said "That alone was worth the $5." All I could do was nod.