A thank you to Murph on the day of his birth

...or should I have said Burph?...

I've always been pretty terrible at keeping in touch with firends and family and especially atrocious at remembering birthdays.  Because of that, I think I'm really starting to enjoy this Facebook thing.  I still don't carry on long conversations with friends or anything because of my entry into social networking, but my friends and I can at least casually stalk each other through our various picture posting and status updates.  Also, I can tell when friends and family have birthdays coming up.  Recently, my Facebook page alerted me to the upcoming birthday of my friend and old roommate, Murph.  In the words of another friend, "everyone needs a buddy called Murph."  I couldn't agree more.

I met Murph on the first day of our freshman year at Dear Old State and after establishing that we had similar taste in music, we explored central Pennsylvania's musical hotbed (for those of you who've never been to State College, its about as hot a bed as you can get when there are 10s of thousands of kids running around and nothing outside the town other than cows).  The discovery of the wonderful City Lights music store on College Ave and the live shows at the Crowbar were especially influential in shaping my taste.  I've lost track of the number of times I got a cheap ticket to a great show at the Crowbar - with or without Murph along for the ride.  Man, I miss the Crowbar.  Murph was always an eager companion for the local shows and surprisingly just as eager to hop in the car to see a show at a moment's notice. 

I think these conversations are almost 100% to-the-word accurate:
A Thursday in fall 2000...
Seabass: "Want to head into Pittsburgh and see John Mayer at a little club in Oakland then get up and drive back into town for the noon football game?"
Murph: "Sure."
Mid to late winter 2002 (with the usual amount of PA snow on the ground)...
Seabass: "Guster is playing in West Virginia.  Want to head out and catch the show?"
Murph: "Sure."

Between road trips, parties, procrastination sessions over pizza and video games, and other downtime, we got to delve deeper into the bands we liked and the bands they were like.  I'd like to think I steered Murph toward some great tunes over the years.  I know for sure that he's pointed me in the right direction a number of times.  So as a little birthday tribute, here are two bands that I give Murph full credit for opening my ears to:

Belle and Sebastian

Somehow, I managed to miss out on these members of indie rock royalty (kings and queens?  dukes and duchesses?) until Murph clued me in.  If I remember correctly, my introduction to B&S was a compilation of a few EPs they had put out.  I knew about 2 or 3 songs in that I was going to be throwing some money down at City Lights on an album or two on my next trip in.  Sadly, I had to pass on my only opportunity to see them when Murph grabbed some tickets to a show in DC a few years ago.  Yet another reason why I shouldn't have ever grown up and got a desk job.  Daggone limited vacation time ruining all my fun.

The Old 97's

I think the Old 97's became a staple of some always enjoyable and sometimes raucous thursday night gatherings at some point (I'm trying to use intelligent sounding words in case my parents see this and think I wasn't spending my Thursday nights studying in college).  Regardless of how often they were played at parties, the music was always good.  Murph and Goose (another friend with a nickname because nicknames are fun and real names are usually boring...unless you're Rivers Cuomo...that dude's name is awesome) saw the Old 97's live and quickly reported that they may be the best live act in the world.  My wife and I got tickets to see the 97's play the 'rocking river cruise' here in Annapolis about a year and a half ago and I can definitely vouch for the awesomeness of the 97's as a live act.  The video above is actually from that show, on a boat somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay with only a couple hundred people aboard.  We had a nice summer breeze, some quality pulled pork sandwiches, some great rowdy tunes, and Rhett Miller almost cracked his head open jumping around on the main deck of the boat.  We have a video of our own buried somewhere on my wife's laptop and I'll post it as soon as I can.  For now, I'll rely on what someone else shot.

In closing, happy birthday to Murph and thanks for the tunes!

(11/2/09 - Updated with bonus coverage of the Old 97's Rocking the Chesapeake Bay from my wife's very own camera.)