For those of you not in the know, music is a big part of my life.  Not in the “I have an Aerosmith tattoo on my ass” or the “I followed Phish around for a few years” way though.  There’s nothing wrong with having band tattoos on your backside, or showing your love for a bands music by stalking them across the country for years on end, those just aren’t my style.  But I have always been involved with music, performing it, producing it, reviewing it, watching it (yes watching sound), and of course listening to it, and I’ve always been pretty dependent on it too.  Dependent on it in the way that an alcoholic is dependent on her alcohol (chicks can be alcoholics too).

Since I have lived a relatively drug and alcohol free life so far, music has always been the medium that I could use to consciously alter my state-of-being.  The occasional coke (red) has some effect, but in order to really have an effect, I’d need to binge.  Even after an all night bender, the caffeine pales in comparison to the effect music can have (I imagine the difference between smoking a cigarette to shooting some heroin).  I’m not a genrelitist (although I’ve yet to find a country song that can move me much), I am a sucker for a good song.

What’s strange about my love for music is that I ignored it for a while.  When I was little my parents used to put Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson on the turntable all the time, and I remember listening to it in the living room.  In some houses we lived in, it was the only activity I would do in the living room (in the houses we lived where the turntable wasn’t in the living room, I never went into the room). Then for a few years I didn’t listen to much music at all.  My brother always had hundred of tapes/CDs of his favorite Rap/Hip-Hop artists, but I didn’t have any music.

Until one day Seb bought me the single ‘Run-Away Train’ by Soul Asylum on tape. I think I had just gotten a tape player for my birthday or Christmas.  I listened to that tape on the hour long bus ride to school everyday, and the hour to three hour bus ride home from school everyday.  Imagine how much capacity I have to love music if I could find love in a Soul Asylum song…

Fast forward to this weekend when I happened across the album Bring Me Your Love by City and Colour.  City and Colour is the name for Dallas Green’s solo act, which he focuses on when he’s not pouring his time and energy into Alexisonfire.  Most of that won’t mean anything to you, because like myself he is a Cannuck.  That said, check your Canada-hate at the door because this album is the most beautiful twelve consecutive songs I have heard in eight years.  Every single song is a keeper depending on your mood, and if you have a free hour anytime soon, I recommend putting on your headphones or speakers, turning off the lights and just listening.  If you don’t have an hour free anytime soon, make one, because this album may change your life.

You will notice that all of my posts so far have at least one song to accompany them.  I feel that life is better with a soundtrack and that the same holds true for reading my blog.  This post however, will not have a song accompanying it.  This is because I want you to go buy this album (or steal it), and listen to it from front to end.  It will be well worth your hard-earned money, for it’s the type of high that only comes around once or twice a decade. Let me know what you think.