thus spake drake is five years old today

Weird to think it was five years ago that I started this mess of a blog. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: Guided By Voices were on their farewell tour, Arcade Fire's Funeral was stuck on repeat, and GWB had somehow just been elected President again. That's what I ended up writing about, which was a distraction from what I thought the blog was going to be about -- the confluence of these four things:

1)Finding my birth parents
2)The impending birth of my first child
3)The impending death of my younger sister
4)Another four years of George Fracking Bush

Music is the perfect distraction from such prickly personal (and political) posts, so it ended up winning out -- didn't hurt too that music was the only writing experience I'd had up to that point, having briefly worked as a freelance music journo back in '96, and the company I work for makes the best music sharing application known to man (Rhapsody). Early days were not pretty, but I found a couple small nuggets that first week that tricked me into thinking I could write again:

Arcade Fire Funeral - "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" is a blood-pumping, fist-raising, hyperglycemic pop masterpiece. The album seems to flows out of that song's center, ending "In the Back Seat" with Régine Chassagne's voice soaring over churning strings, breaking your fucking heart.

Elliott Smith From a Basement on the Hill - The record hangs heavy like a warm wet coat. It ranks as one of the saddest records I've ever listened to, and it's difficult to hear without his tragic end overwhelming the album's every note. But it plays out like a movie you watch over and over thinking it will end differently, every song progressing the story to a happy ending that slips through our fingers.

In the first year I invented the time-consuming Novel Soundtrack, put together ridiculously long playlists and genre histories (example - the four-part Power Pop project) and, after the birth of my first child, started writing about music on television. And yes, I'm not afraid to admit it began with The O.C.. Music-based posts about Grey's Anatomy, Nip/Tuck, The O.C. and HBO shows (Six Feet Under, Entourage, The Sopranos) led to merging my hobby with my day job when Film.com was launched, and I mixed writing in with paid gig of photo-editing.

Blah, blah, blah... can I start drinking the champagne now?