Jared W. Smith

the girl Riot asked over Twitter: “[W]hat songs -move- you?” Needless to say, I’m a sucker for “moving” music, and 140 characters can’t do my list justice, so here we go (with last.fm links to listen if possible):

• Am I Ever Gonna Change? by Extreme. Yes, I fully realize this is the “More Than Words” band. However, this song defined the second half of high school for me. I identified perfectly with its introspective and at times turbulent tone of a person struggling with themselves. The emotion in the song overtook singer Gary Cherone so much that he sang a different lyric at the end of the song. The song is altogether calm, haunting, and jarring at the same time — truly one of Extreme’s best works, and goes far beyond what anybody in “hair metal” (lousy term) was doing at that point. (The entire III Sides to Every Story album is just incredible.)
• All Systems Go - The Launch from James Horner’s Apollo 13 score. I love instrumentals, and I especially love it when an instrumental can tell a story, and do so in dramatic fashion. Horner nails it here, with the hopeful buildup to the triumphant climax — the launch — and the intense moments during the launch sequence (including when one of the engines failed in the second stage of the Saturn V). It’s an epic at 10 minutes, but it’s so, so worth it. The entire Apollo 13 score gives me goosebumps.
• Would? by Alice in Chains. This was the defining song of my summer before college. The treatment of Layne Staley’s voice here in the chorus is incredible as he implores the listener to “try and see it once my way”, and Jerry Cantrell’s guitar work is solid and haunting.
• Gravity of Love by Enigma. Enigma’s mixing in of Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna,” a sultry and powerful drum arrangement, and Sandra Cretu’s vocals make for a song that turns me into a conductor toward the end. I always find myself cranking the volume louder and louder as the song builds to its crescendo at the end. This song particularly inspires creativity and gets plenty of plays.
• Event Horizon (Live Acoustic) by Blue Stone. The regular electronic version of this song is moving in its own right, but to hear it pulled out to the bare minimums with just the vocalist and piano accompaniment? Powerful. I tend to enjoy the acoustic version more than the electronic version, actually.
• See What I’m Sayin’? by Boney James. This one moves me literally — I’ve been known to bounce around in the car to this upbeat, uptempo jazz arrangement. If I’m in a bad mood, I can play this once and instantly turn it around. (Yes, this song was once on The Weather Channel.)
• If Only by Ryan Farish. Yes, another Weather Channel song. There’s something about the piano in the song’s chorus that just riles me up. The song does dramatic pretty much perfectly. Sure, it may not be the most technically challenging song in the world — I can play most of it on the piano and I suck at piano — but it’s still an intense song that gets me focused.

There’s plenty more where that came from, too — but there’s something to be said for brevity, after all. Now, I turn the question to you — what songs move you?

Back in July I put together a little list of “stuff I like.” It’s been a few months, so I think I’ll do another round.

• FriendFeed Real-time. It’s friggin’ amazing is what it is. This launched a few weeks ago and it has helped increase my FriendFeed usage substantially. It partially fills the void that losing Twitter IM has created. I like to take the mini-window and stick it in my Firefox sidebar (a trick I picked up from Scobleizer at ConvergeSouth). Try it, it’s fun!
• Qik on BlackBerry. I nearly cheated on my BlackBerry last week with an iPhone because of iPhone’s Qik capability (despite the fact that you still have to jailbreak it), but BlackBerry reeled me back in with its superior e-mail management, and Qik’s announcement of BlackBerry compatibility sealed the deal for me. The BlackBerry Bold is out on AT&T on the 4th — and my equipment discount eligibility begins the same day. It’s as if they timed it just for me. Qik is another one of those technologies I became quasi-obsessed with after seeing it in action at ConvergeSouth.
• Pandora Radio. Being without my music library at work for a couple weeks has turned me back on to this service, and it’s utterly amazing how effective it is at picking what I like and finding similar music that I really dig. The record companies and broadcast industry are crazy for trying to kill this off, because I’m primed to buy a whole lot more music now than I ever would have if not for Pandora.
• Tantric’s new single “Fall Down.” The song was originally recorded for the shelved Tantric III album; the III version contained a cameo by Nappy Roots, and I was lucky enough to grab an MP3 before the III stuff was scrapped. Tantric re-recorded the song with the new band, and I must say that it is a lot tighter now. I’m still a bit cool on the remake of “The One,” another Tantric III song that was recut for The End Begins, but “Fall Down” nails it. (I am REALLY BUMMED that I didn’t get to see Tantric when they were in Goose Creek last week.)
• Internet Explorer 8. I am extremely impressed with the rendering work Microsoft is doing in the new IE. There are still some bugs and things that need improvement (and I’m bummed that MS is squandering an opportunity to push forward with CSS3 here), but IE 8’s new standards compliance mode brings IE’s rendering fidelity right on par with Firefox, Opera, and Safari moreso than at any point in IE’s history. Kudos to the IE team for the good work they’re doing.

Of course, this is just a short list of a lot of things. I like a lot of things on a regular basis, and you can keep an eye on my individual “likes” on FriendFeed.

What have you liked? Sound off in comments!

I’ve been taking a closer look at my last.fm statistics, and it’s been interesting watching the trends evolve. Most notably, there is definitely evidence of my trending away from a smooth jazz/newage/Weather Channel phase back to a more mainstream hard rock selection of music again. read more »

I’m dusting off the cobwebs here in my WordPress administration panel…been a few days. These are busy times — and they’ve been largely chronicled on Twitter.

Last night was our regularly scheduled blogger/tweeter meetup at Gene’s Haufbrau just west of the Ashley. Great times as always. Eugene and I kicked some butt in pool, and he did all the work at shuffleboard last night. Was great seeing the lot of the gang out once again. I’m hoping to make that next floating meetup. I think it’s pretty rockin’ that we have TWO monthly meetups now.

The weekend is, as usual, packed — I’m going to a baseball game Sunday for my sportswriting class. Going to watch baseball for class is pretty friggin’ cool. It’ll get me into the swing of things this spring; I’ve caught maybe an inning and a half of baseball so far this year, and need to improve upon that.

Again this year, I will be a Bad Young South Carolinian and will miss Carolina Cup. A friend photoshopped me into last year’s Cup festivities (and set it to Tarzan Boy by Baltimora) but locating that photograph and associated song will be left as an exercise to the reader. I was somewhat hoping to bring a decent video camera of some type and do some sort of video production, but not this time — I’m not sure when I’d get to it, and quite frankly, I could see myself being brutally assaulted by armies of pastel and plaid for some of the inevitable comedic twists that I would capture on tape.

On a closing, musical note — Angels & Devils, Fuel’s fourth album and first without Brett Scallions, has really started to grow on me. I’ve listened to it non-stop all week. Clearly, I’ve lost it.

Here’s the rundown of what made Monday…well, Monday.

• A-Rod pulled off the ultimate double play Sunday night — he thought himself above receiving an award from Hank Aaron, for God’s sake, and then his agent went on, during the middle of World Series Game 4, and announced he was leaving the Yankees. Ridiculous, classless, and just putrid. I would say it was clearly all about the money for him, but something tells me he won’t get the kind of money he wants but in a few select places outside of New York, and I’m willing to bet Boston is not going to be one of those places. A-Rod may be a great player, but I’ve lost a lot of respect for him.
• Frank Wren’s first trade as GM of the Braves was a smart one: Edgar Renteria to the Tigers for starting pitcher Jair Jurrjens (try typing THAT three times fast!) and a minor leaguer. The Braves may miss Renteria’s bat in the short term, but Yunel Escobar is more than capable of getting things going for the Braves, and is a stellar defensive player to boot; the fact that they got a starting pitcher and were able to unload salary really sweetens the deal.
• One more baseball thing, and I’m leaving it alone: I like the choice of Joe Girardi for the Yankees. He’s a proven manager that got improbable results from a team that should have, on paper, lost 100 games. I just hope the Steinbrenners back off him and let him run the team — Joe Girardi’s style is not to be a yes man. He’s a baseball man, with great baseball sense. (And if Joba Chamberlain is starting next year instead of setting up for Mariano Rivera, we’ll know who has the true control in the Bronx.)
• Damn shame what happened in North Carolina. It bothers the heck out of me to see seven people lose their lives, period.
• According to last.fm, I listened to Journey 138 times last week. Slowly, but surely, I am becoming Steve Perry.
• My Facebook requests are just out of control. Exhibit A:
  
• No, I’m not sure when I’ll get to culling through those. Because I’m sure by the time I do, I’ll have some request to install another spammy app. I think Facebook needs to find a way to clamp down a bit.
• Less than a month to Thanksgiving break. I can hardly contain my excitement…I need it.
• If there was any doubt that it’s fall, I’m sure your doubt was put to rest this morning when you went outside to upper 40s temperatures and a stiff northeast wind dipping windchills into the 30s. On a side note, I’d love to have filmed a bunch of the people who, as usual, did not wear anything remotely close to appropriate for the weather, and superimpose an old Weather Channel logo over their suffering with the “You Need Us, The Weather Channel, For Everything You Do” theme from 1986 playing in the background. I would laugh for hours. I’m not sure about you, but I sure would.

To bed with me…

October has finally arrived, 11 days into the calendar month. It actually feels like October now. Apparently it’s going to feel even cooler than that, with temperatures expected to plunge into the lower to mid 50s. That’s quite a downshift from the mid-70s lows we had just a few days ago. The first part of October was definitely insane, temperature-wise. I don’t know how anybody took it.

With the cooler weather settling in, I’ve noticed my fall/winter playlist is starting to emerge. Heavy doses of 2000-2001 era Ryan Farish and a sizable helping of Trammell Starks are becoming the order of the day. BTW, The Weather Channel released a compilation of smooth jazz tunes used over the years during the Local Forecasts. I don’t know how I feel about the song selection. I sure can’t remember “Holding Hands” by Ryan Farish ever being used on the channel (then again, I barely watch it anymore). Kudos to them for including some 3rd Force from 1994, but I would have liked to see a few more oldschool classics. What about Carmel by Joe Sample? Valley in the Clouds by David Arkenstone? Those tunes helped define TWC in “the good ol’ days.”

While I’m on this bizarre Weather Channel tangent, expect a new look for the Local Forecast next Tuesday. TWC is beta-testing a new look for the IntelliStar local forecast insertion machines in about three locations this week, with nationwide release slated for next week. Beyond the look, which does a respectable job of finally putting to bed the six-year-old design for the titlebars, little has changed to the system itself, aside from one thing. Somehow, they’ve found a way to make the IntelliStar even more annoying — in the text forecast area, where the robot voice (Allan Jackson, NOT the country artist) narrates the forecast, they now have sound effects to indicate rainy weather if that’s what’s forecasted. While the graphic that comes with the text forecast is useful for illustration purposes, the sound effect is completely distracting and has to go. Everyone I’ve shown it to seems to hate it. Let’s hope they eliminate it and don’t add more sound where is necessary.

Wow, I haven’t blogged since Monday. Maddening, indeed. It’s just been a maddening week in general. Where do I begin?

• Monday was somewhat stressful. I got a haircut and throughout the day I was fairly nervous for…
• Tuesday. Tuesday, I slipped on a suit and interviewed for the second Webmaster vacancy at the College. I felt good about the interview afterwards, and I’m approaching the wait with cautious optimism.
• Wednesday brought along a lot of work to do and a lot of craziness. I got home promptly at 5:37, changed, and by 5:40 I was in the backyard working on tweaking my mechanics to get my velocity up a bit. (LOL.) About 75 pitches later, I go inside and text my friend Sarah, who is, naturally, going to a Riverdogs game and invites me along. Three innings later, I cram into an already overloaded two-door Civic and manage to make it to the ballgame sans breakdown or traffic citation. It was epic. We enter the game in the fourth with the Riverdogs holding a 2-0 lead and Sgt. Slaughter, the ’80s and early ’90s WWE and later G.I. Joe icon signing autographs. Naturally, I blew it bigtime and didn’t get an autograph from him. I do, however, manage to reach 60 on the radar gun. Not only that, the ‘Dogs pulled out a 5-2 win over the Rome Braves. Sweet. I then have some post-game beers at Sarah’s and call it a night around 1:30.
• Thursday was one giant ball of madness. The morning was somewhat reasonable, but the afternoon…yikes. My dad signed my car over to me, so I decided that yesterday would be the day I got the re-registration of the car in order. I go to the DMV on Lockwood with all the stuff I need…except a tax receipt, which meant a trip to The Four Corners of Law to pay the Charleston County Treasurer a visit. I got that straightened out (though they absolutely butchered my name on my tax bill — who the [EXPLETIVE] is Jerad?) and rolled back up to the DMV. I will say this much — I don’t know whether it’s because I went at 4:30 or what, but the DMV seems to have really improved over the years. Getting the registration was actually a pretty painless process and went well. They even had screwdrivers for me to pull my old tags off and put the new ones on. Very cool. However, it’s what happened between drives, with the assault of phone calls from work and from a very persistent telemarketer who was on the voice equivalent of getting on his knees in order to get a sale (he eventually hung up on me, lol) — that’s what made it really stressful. That, and the whole driving downtown in the rain with people who don’t know what they’re doing thing — that also bothers me a bit. But that’s all squared away now. I get home at 5:15 and promptly kick off my shoes and begin working in Photoshop…and that brings us to…

FRIDAY. Thank God. One more day of work and I’ll be free. Tonight I’m seeing an old friend from high school and the plan is to catch a movie and stuff, but I’m kind of hoping she might be persuaded by a ballgame, but we’ll see. Hehe. She’s moving soon, which completely blows, but oh well. Gotta make the best of the time she’s got here.

I’m listening to the symphonic version of Bleeding Me by Metallica now. I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff like that lately — Mark Mancina’s Twister score is fantastic, particularly the track entitled “Cow.” It’s intense, and I always love when a composer mixes in a symphonic arrangement with wailing guitars, and Mancina did that perfectly. I do wish, though, that the portion of the score that segued to “Humans Being” by Van Halen was on this album. That was probably my favorite part of the movie. Twister really is great — I mean, Van Halen and tornadoes, swirled together. Jared bliss, in a nutshell. I should pop in the Twister DVD and watch the end credits before I go to bed, with the clouds in motion and such.

There’s a lot going on. Summer thus far has been quite a wild ride. Don’t think I’d have it any other way.