When I was 13

My family and I sat in a Captain D's the other night (a fish place, for those of you outside Saint Louis) and the background music was pretty crappy old pop. My daughter asked us what we thought the most popular songs were when we were 13 (her current age). Sandy and I really had to think about this, and offered up some pretty bad songs we thought were hits back then: All out of love by Air Supply, some Madonna, but then we hit a wall. It is so nice not to know much about pop music.

I don't listen to the radio. I usually listen to songs through my mp3 player, some of which are my own songs, and mostly I do that to study their flaws and to figure out how to write better songs. I also listen to a lot of the bands around St. Louis that are quite local and even more unsigned. B & E and the defunct Poor Man's Burden and Bitch Slap Barbie songs are good examples. I dare you to listen to B & E's song "Mighty Fine Mess" at www.myspace.com/bandelive and not find it meaningful, melodic, unusual, and very witty. Hell, buy the CD and treat yourself to many songs with the same qualities. It is well worth the ten bucks.

I know many of you listen to indie bands, and I just encourage you to do more of it. Myspace hosts tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of bands that write better songs than you'd ever hear on the radio. You can hear it all, instead of that corporate produced crap, and it's commercial free!