Showcase: Kirsten Price's music is Hot and Spicy
``I don't wanna just get by." ― Kirsten Price
From ``Bring Me Back".
Song credits: Kristen Price & Fred Sargolini
Kirsten Price
Photo credit: Amy Davidson
NYC, FEB 2008
SUMMARY
Kirsten Price is hot, sexy, upbeat, and soulful. Her album is called Guts & Garbage. The album includes an assortment of pop, dance, and soul songs. To me, the title suggests she gets down and dirty with all aspects of life. Price's songs have been featured on several television shows including Showtime's The L Word. One of my favorite songs is a slower, soulful song called ``Bring Me Back". I definitely recommend ``Bring Me Back" and ``Magic Tree". ``Magic Tree" is a raw and sexy dance song. ``Possibilities" is another winner. The list could go on and on. I wish more pop music was like Kirsten Price's album, Guts & Garbage.
Click on the player below to hear Kirsten Price's song ``Bring Me Back''
Click on the player below to hear Kirsten Price's song ``Magic Tree''
8-Track Memories
Chasing the Train Wreck
As Kristen Price sings in her song, ``Bring Me Back", life can sometimes be a train wreck. But, if you're lucky, things can come back together with the certainty of an old soul record on an 8-Track that ``always hits that spot". And, like her, you can ``reach for the day that it never stops".
``Bring Me Back'' (lyrics)
You know I'm not the same inside... no.
It's the same train wreck, when you go, when you go.
I'm about to break this time... this time.
I'm slipping off the groove.
I don't know what to do.
Let's get us back on track.
...
...
'cause you bring back, yeah,
like an old soul record on an 8-Track.
...
...
My Personal Train Wreck
I was a train wreck during the two years I spent in junior high (1960-61/1961-62), but music helped keep me on track.
(I started junior high the year JFK was elected President (Fall, 1960). I was a Freshman in high school the year JFK was assassinated. On 22 NOV 1963 I was in Algebra class, when the hall monitor brought the mimeographed announcement stating the President had been shot. A month later, on 23 DEC 1963, the Beatles released ``I Want to Hold Your Hand". It was released in the USA on a minor label, Vee Jay, because Capital Records didn't think the group would be successful in the States. I first heard ``I Want to Hold Your Hand" between classes one day, when I overheard classmates listening to it on an ``illegal'' radio. One door closes. Another door opens. Was it an even trade?)
I was the youngest of four kids (girl, boy, girl, then baby me). My siblings and I all lived in the same house, but we lived very separate lives. We lived in one house until I finished Kindergarten, then we moved.
My brother and I shared a room in the new house. There were territorial disputes. I wasn't allowed to walk across his section of the room in order to get to the closet. He wasn't allowed to walk from the hall door to his side of the room. Neither was allowed to look at the other. It wasn't much like Wally and the Beave. (Note: My brother now tolerates me without any apparent discomfort.)
Fortunately for me, my brother kept two nerdy friends from the old neighborhood.
My father did not approve of one of my brother's friends. He smoked and drank beer. But, from time to time, this friend would come over to the house, and spend time with Mom. He would help dry the dishes, and tell her of his ambitions in life. Mom would then tell Dad to leave my brother and his friends alone.
This friend was into auto mechanics, and and he taught auto mechanics to my brother. As a result my brother rebuilt what we just called a Model A Ford, but it was probably a 1931 Ford Tudor.
Before he had his Model A, my brother would never have given rides to his younger sister and brother, but now he was willing to drive around town to show off his Model A.
My brother's other close friend was an audiophile. As a result of the second friendship, my brother built a component stereo system from parts; as in he brought home bags of loose parts home from the Hi-Fi store, and he soldered them together. (In those days we called quality audio systems ``Hi-Fi" for ``high fidelity".)
My brother's component stereo system proved to be my personal salvation. When I could grab some moments in the house alone, I would put on a record, turn off all the lights, and sit back in the La-Z-Boy chair. (Note: La-Z-Boy is a Michigan company, and in 1961 they introduced the ``Reclina-Rocker". We had a brown tweed Reclina-Rocker La-Z-Boy. It was our one ``family" luxury, until many year's later, when my oldest sister's husband bought my mother a dishwasher for her birthday.)
Note: My brother worked summer jobs to earn the money to purchase his stereo system and his Model A.
But how did I manage to buy the records? Somewhere along the line I convinced my mother I needed an allowance. I said, ``An allowance would help me learn to be responsible." I am sure I gave her a whole litany of ways a young man in junior high might spend a small stipend of $2 per week (that's the amount I requested). But not so fast, Buster Brown! First, Mom wanted to discuss it with ``your Father". (``Oh, no! All is lost!") But to my great surprise, Mom won me a weekly stipend of a buck twenty-five every other week, and after six months she convinced Dad to increase that to $1.50 twice a month. Joy, of Joys! That meant I could buy one LP every month at the 5 & Dime! (By the time I graduated from college, I had ten linear feet of LPs.)
Old soul singers that hit the spot. There were many days when I came home from school with a spirit in need of a refill. That's when I would call for help from The Drifters, Sam Cooke, and Ben E. King. Later on I would become dependent on The Righteous Brothers, and a litany of other singers and bands who are all well known.
Music can knock me off my feet and spin my head. I will mention a few times it has happened.
- Around 1954, when I was about four years old, some band friends of my eldest sister stopped by after school to practice. I was playing in another room, when one of the boys started playing this particularly wild song on his saxophone. I walked into the living room, and immediately imprinted on the wild music like a duckling imprints on a fake mother duck. (I mean the way I reacted, this guy might as well have been Clarence Clemons!) I have no idea what that boy was playing on his saxophone, but I can now make an educated guess. My educated guess would be ``Rocket 88".
- In 1963 I was given this totally stupid battery operated transistor radio for Christmas. It was about the size of a modern MP3 player. I had to hang this long antenna wire out the window, and put an earphone in one ear. It could only receive WKZO during the day (news, talk, baseball). Dad said, ``It's the only station he needs." But I discovered one thing. If I waited up until about 2am, I could get a station in Memphis. They played Sam Cooke and other singers that dazzled and amazed my mind and ears. But the first time I heard ``Another Saturday Night" I went totally wild. The only thing was everyone in the house was sound asleep. I didn't think they wanted me to wake them up!
- I first heard the Ronettes 1963 hit ``Be My Baby" when I was walking up the stairs to my room. By this time my brother and I had separate rooms, and my brother had a clock radio. On this occasion he had apparently gone downstairs to make himself a snack (probably a mustard sandwich), and he had left his room door open. As I walked up the stairs I could hear ``Be My Baby" blaring from my brothers clock radio. I thought to myself, ``Dear God, we should declare a national holiday!"
- The next time was also in 1963. I alluded to it above. It was during a break between classes. I got my books out of my locker. I closed the locker, and spun the lock. I headed out towards my next class. Kids weren't supposed to have radios at school, and I had never seen any one with a radio at school, but suddenly, as clear as a fire alarm, I heard the Beatles singing their song ``I Want to Hold Your Hand". Then, soon after, there were adult footsteps clearly coming from the direction of the school office, and the Beatles go mute long before the Principal arrives. I thought to myself, ``We should just take the rest of the day off"; but no one heard me.
- On the next occasion, I was a Freshman in college. There were five of us in a four man room. We were a close group of guys. One morning the clock radio went off, and the DJ said ``Here's the Beatle's latest single." Then ``Strawberry Fields Forever" played. Wow! Double Wow! When the song finished, I said, ``We better take the day off." My four roommates all agreed. We were all too weak to get up.
I hope you will have a Wow! moment soon. Perhaps, Kirsten Price will Wow! you. Please, give her a listen.
Kirsten Price
Photo credit: Zandy Mangold
Kirsten Price — Freedom
Technorati Tags:
music, people, philosophy,
literature, film, and video.
