Stakes Is High to the Red Headed Stranger

The first thing I heard when I stepped into my suite at Carman Hall was the album Stakes Is High by De La Soul. The last thing I heard at Columbia, leaving my suite in East Campus, was the album Chopper City in the Ghetto by BG. Somewhere in between, I went to see:

• Wyclef Jean at Hammerstein, with my whole Carman suite

• The Cure on Halloween 1997 at Irving Plaza

• Morrissey at Roseland

• The Beastie Boys in 1998 at Madison Square Garden (MCA got booed for protesting that day’s bombing campaign in Iraq)

• live drum and bass at CBGB at 3AM on a weeknight

• live samba music at Sounds of Brazil

• the Freight Elevator Quartet, everywhere they played

• Outkast, before they went pop, on the Steps and at S.O.B.

• Sonic Youth on the Steps in the rain

• The Rite of Spring and Symphonie Fantastique at Carnegie Hall

• Cibo Matto, Sean Lennon, and Petra Haden at Bowery Ballroom

• Stereolab at Battery Park (rest in peace, Mary Hansen)

• Sebadoh at Irving Plaza

• De La Soul and Mos Def at Miller Theatre

• The Willie Nelson Fourth Of July Picnic in Luckenbach, Texas

I guess that last one might not really count. I think it does though.