To Help Me Get By

I remember a long time ago hearing a Garrison Keillor story that he told about his mother. The story was set during his childhood when she was the mother of several small children during which his father was often absent (I don’t remember why). What I remembered from the story was that he said that, every afternoon, his mother would take an air rifle and go behind the barn and shoot targets. After this activity she would return to the house with a sense of calm and purpose. Something about doing this activity just really helped her get by with the young children and the absent husband and just the natural relentless nature of that season of life.

Well, I don’t have a barn.

I don’t have targets or an air rifle — yet.

But I do have something to help me get by. Actually, there are several things. What I’m talking about today, though, is free mp3s. To be specific, free mp3s from hearya.com. This is a music blog that features live recordings and free mp3s from Indie musicians.

Do y’all know about the Indie music scene in this country? It is vast. I can’t navigate it and I won’t even try. But, hearya culls the Indie music scene down to a very selective great few. They do all the looking for me and I just get to listen.

Listening to indie music soothes my savage self, sometimes. (If that doesn’t work, I hit it with some opera. But we’ll talk about that next time.)

*Just so you know, there is some profane language on hearya. Consider yourself warned!*

My current favorites:
Angry Charlie by the Generationals. The title of this song is particularly ironic in my life right now. It is a feel-good song.

How You Like Me Now? is a James Brown-like song by The Heavy. They really groove and hit it about 3/4 of the way through the song. I like to crank this up in my kitchen. It goes well with my R&B background.

I Love You, But Goodbye is the breakup song of the year by one of my favs, Langhorne Slim. I really adore this song, even though I don’t want to break up with anyone. If Langhorne comes to St. Louis I would so like to see him.

Of course, this doesn’t by any means touch on all of my favorites. Click on over there and find some favorites for yourself!

By the way, I sort of wish that I was helping with y’all’s edification by recommending good free sermon mp3s or something like that….but music is what helps me and I’ve got to be real here. You know?