guest blogger: aaron lee tasjan

Even if the name Aaron Lee Tasjan isn't one you recognize, we bet you're familiar with his tunes. After all, the musician does have multiple TV and film placements and a record of his own. So when he reached out to write a guest blog post, we couldn't turn it down. We're big fans of this dude and after you check out this inside look on his life, we think you'll be a fan too. Read on below:

I did most of my growing up in a small town in Ohio called New Albany. It's a lot fancier now than when I lived there. For example, they now have many first class amenities like Bob Evans (which is a fancy word for Denny's) or Starbucks (they even have a damn Starbucks!). The Country Club life has pretty much taken over… the white people have headquartered themselves there. They are sending faxes and getting bank loans (it's not all golf and lemonade for them) and sometimes, they have to get that business done and be as busy as they are always telling you they are.

Still, I remember a different place growing up. In small towns like New Albany you hear a lot of people say some shit like, "there's nothing to do here." I am here to tell you that is a damn lie! In fact, when I was growing up in that town, there were times where I directly contributed to foiling this very notion by calling up a friend of mine and saying, "hey man, you wanna do something?" All things being as they were, most of the time when you called someone and asked that question, the answer was yes. Where it went from there, depended on what you were into…

If you were one of those kids who found their way into some weed or something of the like, you generally hung out in: a) the field (or sometimes the parking lot of a Kroger) or b) the garage. The field was good for a few reasons; there was no chance your folks would catch you and there was a great probability that you would come out high and covered in ticks (but you will only grow from that as a person)—however, the garage ruled the hardest for the pot smokers. In the garage you could hang up a poster of say, a red sports car with some sort of awesome looking tanned lady laying elegantly across the hood and you could stare at her after getting stoned and think of how if you gave her a ride in that red car you could open the door for her and make sure the AC isn't on too low a setting for her comfort. Different shit like that. The trouble with the garage and being stoned is that at any moment you could flash back to that time in Boy Scouts where you had to make that pinewood derby car and yours was shitty and you didn't win anything and suddenly your buddy hands you a lunch bag full of spray paint and you find yourself doing shit you didn't even plan on. If you have a plan, stick to it… if you don't have a plan that is also a great plan.

For those who liked to drink, the place of choice was called "the basement." You had to have a guy who could get you some beer though. We had this guy called Baseball Fred and although that wasn't his birth name it was accurate because we'd found out at one point he had played baseball. One time we drank in my basement and started a full contact midnight football league with famed jazz pianist Aaron Diehl… it was mainly a two on two backyard sort of thing. One night, one of the games woke up my Mom but all she wanted to know was who was winning.

Life was good and the choices were easy: garage, field or basement— i was usually trying to find a way to be in all of them at the same time. I still am. So, wherever you like to hang out America, and whatever you do there, my heart goes out to you and I hope you have a great time and that you have a sweet car/lady poster to look at while you do it.

Check out his music video for "Don't Walk Away" from his recently released solo EP, Crooked River Burning-- also be sure to check him out on Facebook HERE and Twitter HERE.