My Parents

I am very into the Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Louis Armstrong, and others, but my parents are really my biggest influence, both musically and otherwise. In this season of Thanksgiving, I am grateful for my parents' influence in many ways. To give you a flavor for the music side of this, recall the song "Your Mama Don't Dance (and Your Daddy Don't Rock 'n Roll)," originally recorded in 1972 by duo Loggins and Messina, and then covered by Poison in the 1980s. Well, my parents turn that one one its head; both my parents dance, and they both rock 'n roll!! They dance really well and they got my brother and I interested in ballroom dancing and piano lessons. My dad taught me guitar when I was 13. Plus, they introduced me to the Beatles, Dylan, Joan Baez, Queen, and others. For having cool parents, I am grateful.

To resume next week

This week I will take a break because I don't want to compete with the impending release of the new Guns 'n Roses album, "Chinese Democracy." Just kidding. I will be back with a new post one week from today, and then there will be a post every 2 weeks rather than every week. So, I hope you can defer your curiosity until next week.

Wrong Way in the Rain (aka Freshman Disorientation)

Here is the second installment of my hiking trilogy from "In the Studio." As part of freshman orientation in college, I went on a hiking trip with some classmates and our trip leader. We started out in jolly spirit trudging through the New Hampshire wilderness, but soon it started to rain and we realized that we had set out in the wrong direction Despite this setback, we recuperated and the trip was a lot of fun.

Here it is:
http://amiestreet.com/artist/88281

Cactus

In the summer before college, I was dating a girl I had met while working at Walmart. I was in the shoe department (cue Al Bundy jokes) and she was a cashier. This song is a stream-of-consciousness narrative based on a hike we took in the Sandia mountains.

It is part I of my "hiking trilogy" from "In the Studio":
http://amiestreet.com/music/lee-istrail/in-the-studio/.