I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

-Neil Gaiman-

~*~

Listen: Beyonce : I Was Here (4, 2011)

For the last month, I drove from the tip of Northern California’s wine country all the way down to San Diego and the Mexican border, east to the Grand Canyon and snow in the mountains of Arizona, the sandstorms of New Mexico, the saddening cattle meat packing farms of Texas, into the wild tornadoes of Oklahoma, the eerie bible belt of Missouri and Illinois, the changing leaves of Indiana, the darkness of Ohio, through the hills of New Jersey into the skyline of the best city in this world, New York City, and all to circle back once again to the deserts of California.

Driving over 9000 miles allows the mind too much time to wander through your own fears of the unknown. Most of us travel to discover a new reality however, those we share our real stories with may never understand the extremities of what we experience.

With each new state it was exciting to see the physicality of America, but inside internally heartbreaking and somehow inspiring to feel alone with no home and no direction on the road.

“Wherever you go there you are.”

The past haunted with tantalizing ghosts motioning the road towards crashing over canyons, snow peaks, and valleys. So blinding but impossible to forget what the imagination of pain, death, and cascading into a million little pieces feels like.

Crossing through lines of so many dark moments, my eyes opened to numerous sunrises and sunsets congratulating my completion of this test, and for making it across all of these scattered paths safely.

Throughout that journey, some of the songs I listened to over and over again are now remembered as the words and music that saved me. A few artists are secrets from my favorite songs of 2011, and the rest are old timeless songs that will always be cherished.

~*~

Please enjoy!

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds : If I Had A Gun… (Self Titled, 2011)

running away from yourself

your body, your mind

all your life

with each place

it’s easy to keep wondering

what brings us there

and what we are expecting to find

so we create our own distractions,

to figure out who we are and where we are going

until it’s realized the past is over

and all that matters right now is the present.

listen :: fleet foxes :: mykonos

you go wherever you go

you go today

you go wherever you go

you go today

you go wherever you go

you go today

..laying myself down..
..just to regret and that’s all..

After 15 years of waiting for something new, California’s Mazzy Star released two beautiful singles Lay Me Down, and Common Burn on October 31, 2011 through their private label Rhymes Of An Hour Records. Hope Sandoval and David Roback will soon entertain a series of tour dates in early 2012, and will release an entire LP of new material.

..when we can’t dream any longer, we die..
artwork by royal art lodge

Born in NYC, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Grant is a singer/songwriter known under the stage name of Lana Del Rey. Her managers suggested that Elizabeth go with a new name as the music she was making was reminiscent of Hollywood glamour. Her debut ep “Video Games / Blue Jeans” was released by Stranger Records on vinyl on October 10, and October 11 digitally. Lana Del Ray has no qualms about revealing of how the business challenged her to become an indie retro pin up girl, and secretly shared her opinion in an interview with Pitchfork of how sleeping with the boss does nothing for your career. What truly is the deciding factor on her fast success is not how the internet conspiracy provided her quick rise to fame while people loved or hated what she stood for, but how Lana Del Ray’s actual music brings back memories and qualities of a young Stevie Nicks, providing a soft but rifled beauty discovered easily throughout her own melodies.

singing in the old bars
swinging with the old stars, living for the fame

kissing in the blue dark
playing pool and wild darts, video games

he holds me in his big arms
drunk and i am seeing stars, this is all I think of

Lana Del Ray - Video Games

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”

~*~

Listen: John Lennon – Well Well Well
(from the album Plastic Ono Band)

listen

florence and the machine – heavy in your arms
(from the album lungs :: b sides, 2011)

photography by khomenko

los angeles’ foster the people‘s pumped up kicks became a familiar summer soundtrack in the background while you were jetsetting to foreign islands, drinking pina coladas, laying underneath the sunshine, swimming in a fancy pool, feeling the heat, riding your bicycle, laughing with friends, and dreaming to the nighttime’s cool warm breezes. although previously released in september 2010 to modern rock radio stations, it was first thought of as a sleeper hit without too much recognition. happily now almost a year later, pumped up kicks quickly grew to be a constant part of billboard’s alternative top number one singles of the summer of 2011.

I have come curiously close to the end, down
Beneath my self-indulgent pitiful hole,
Defeated, I concede and
Move closer
I may find comfort here
I may find peace within the emptiness
How pitiful

It’s calling me…

And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping
The moon tells me a secret – my confidant
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own and
A million light reflections pass over me

Its source is bright and endless
She resuscitates the hopeless
Without her, we are lifeless satellites drifting

And as I pull my head out I am without one doubt
Don’t wanna be down here feeding my narcissism.
I must crucify the ego before it’s far too late
I pray the light lifts me out
Before I pine away

So crucify the ego, before it’s far too late
To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical,
And you will come to find that we are all one mind
Capable of all that’s imagined and all conceivable.

Just let the light touch you
And let the words spill through
And let them pass right through
Bringing out our hope and reason …
before we pine away.

~*~

Reflection

Music by Tool

Words by Maynard James Keenan

Artwork: Tool, and Alex Grey