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I remember watching Alternative Nation on MTV at my buddies house when the “Somebody to Shove” video came on. I instantly fell in love with Soul Asylum. It was crazy that they didn’t break out until their sixth album. Grave Dancers Union is a great album from start to finish, but “Runaway Train” got too overplayed. To this day, I alway skip that song when I listen to this album. “Black Gold” always reminds me of my senior year of high school. Soul Asylum is definitely my second favorite Minnesota band. Motion City Soundtrack being my favorite, obviously. Sorry to The Replacements and Hüsker Dü, and yeah Prince; not much of a fan.

Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend came out in 1991. I didn’t discover it until my college roommate introduced me to it in 1993. I don’t know if 1991 me would have liked Matthew Sweet, but 1993 me loved him. Girlfriend has always been a good road tripping album for me. To this day if I’m ever road tripping by myself I will crank this album up.

Towards the end of my senior year of high school I discovered Lookout! Records. I bought almost every album I could find off the label. I loved so many of the albums Lookout! was putting out those days. The albums weren’t all that well produced, the songs were just stupid simple punk rock songs, but damn were they good. Kerplunk! was probably my favorite off of Lookout!. I still listen to it a couple times a year. Green Day has come of long way and I have loved everything they have done. In fact I think their latest is one of their best. But sometimes I just love the rougher, simpler, older Green Day songs. Plus I have so many memories attached to these songs. From “Christie Road”, “80”, “Android”, all such good songs. Then there was “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?”. I had to look up who Holden Caulfield was and ended up reading The Catcher in the Rye. That was the beginning of reading for leisure for me.