I go to a birthday party and ramble on about obscure music that no one cares about anymore!

I just got home from attending a birthday party for a long time friend on mine. I can't believe I have known him for 20 some years. I can't believe 20 odd years have gone by so fast.
We became friends through the course of an interview. I was dispatched by the newspaper to interview him about his high school drag race team as they were a thorn in the side of the sports department.
I made an appointment to interview him one evening. When I arrived he told me his friend had just been killed when the asphalt tank we was working on exploded and he really didn't feel like talking about car racing but he would appreciate it if I stayed and had a couple Henry's with him. Somewhere I wrote down the interesting stories he told me that evening that did not have anything to do with the high school drag race team. I don't know where that little notebook went.
It was different back then. I thought that life kind of opened up ahead of you and you followed what came next. With that strange sort of beatnik idea in my head I quit my job and went to Costa Rica with him the next year, but did NOT take the internship offered me by Hot Rod Magazine but rather decided to help out of the farm for a summer.
It was interesting to sit around with those people from 20 some years ago and look where they went and where I am.
I met my friend's girl friend who is quite nice and her daughter who is a year younger than mine. She can wiggle her nose very nicely and she hid a piece of peanut butter cake for her dog. I did not tell on her.
I had a nice chat with my friend's daughter (who is also my friend) and who I have not seen for quite a few years.
I also discovered that I can no longer pick individual voices out of a crowded room and so I suppose I'm going to go deaf sooner than later. I smiled and nodded a lot.
I was going to spend the night if invited, and had an overnight bag packed but decided to go home. The whole thing kind of set me back a bit.
My brother loaned me a flash drive full of music. I listened to it on the hour and a half drive to the coast. It had what I think is a recent release from Maria McKee of Lone Justice.
There probably won't be links in this post as I'm having some internet problems and I'm just going to sign on and post and attempt to do any searches and I may get some details wrong.
Anyway, Maria McKee was critically acclaimed in 1984? with her one big album and the sort of hit "Ways to be Wicked" and "Don't toss us Away." Ways to be Wicked," was written for her by Tom Petty. She was an aspiring singer song writer at age 19 and was supposed to be the next best thing.
I have a big of a weakness for sweet and sad country songs sung by waif-like girls and I remember saving my money to but the album. Actually waiting for it to come out. I can't remember if I bought it from Discus records in McMinnville or if I couldn't afford the $7.50 and I borrowed someone else's copy and later ordered the album from Roundup Records.
I was quite captivated by her photo on the album cover, that toss of her hair when she belted out a lyric and the MTV video of her on a skateboard, a gingham dress, and a letterman jacket. Somehow I figured she would ditch that loser who was mean to her and find me. But, she never did and I never really grasped the concept that you need to be somewhat indifferent and perhaps just a touch cruel to the girls you want and that Way's to Be Wicked was song from the point of view of the manipulated one and might actually have some good advice. I mean, she was coming back for more.
But, I digress...
Lone Justice, Rank and File, and Steve Earle put me onto the Alternative Country genre and really got me listening to Country Music. From there I found Dwight Yoakam and George Jones and on to traditional country music. Little did I know that Lefty wrote "Life's Like Poetry," and "Waltz of the Angels" as well as the play-to-death "Long Back Veil." Or that Merle had other songs than "The Fightin' Side of Me."
I have a warm and a little bit fuzzy memory of snuggling on the couch in my apartment during college and watching an MTV video of Lone Justice singing what I thought was Don't Toss Us Away and standing next to a fire. The problem with this memory is that my wife swears it was not her with me at the time.
I also remember another cold evening and watching the rain listening to "You Are the Light" but i can't go into that one either as my wife also noted that it was not her. Since we got together and apart a few times over the course of a decade I thought it best to not mention any more memories involving Lone Justice music.
I saw a People Magazine with Taylor Swift and her record company appointed boyfriend who starred in "Brokeback Mountian." The memory of Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger making out and gay wrestling makes me laugh whenever I see Jake with a girl. Heath OD'd due to the embarrassment in starring in such a really bad movie and Jake seems to be over compensating for his gayness. Reminds me of the joke in which the punchline is, "....and just one goat" it is about a guy in a bar who wants to be remembered for building a street but isn't.
But I digress,
So in America, you have Maria McKee who is a very talented singer song writer, with a good vocal range and powerful voice and she was for years a one-hit wonder. I saw a video of her belting out "Fortunate Son," and it was kind of amazing! Talk about giving it your all. I wish I would have seen her live in a small club. I bet the energy would have been amazing.
Then you have Taylor Swift who is a total packaged act and she goes up the charts. Maria McKee's biggest successes came in Europe! But of course, the European's like actual country music and Americans like Billy Ray Cyrus.
Lone Justice had the misfortune of opening for U2 which probably doomed the band. There is one really bad song on the Maria McKee CD and it was her rendition of "Sweet Jane," and Bono sings and make reference to himself. What a pretentious ass. It should have been U2 opening for Lone Justice as that band could actually play their instruments.