“Imaginary Friends,” by Ben Lear: I don’t know what it is about this track, but I can’t stop listening to it. It start out slow and whiney (why do I like it) and then kind of booms out into a faster whinier chorus… and I LOVE IT! Judge for yourself. Kind of a Neil Young feel on this little guy.

“Florida,” by Starfucker: With a name like Starfucker, you kind of need to be awesome. These guys make the cut. Feel free to bang all the celebs you want, but not Burt Bacharach! GODDAMN YOU IF YOU TOUCH BURT!

“Death,” by White Lies: I’m a huge fan of any song that starts off slow, but carries you along with it. Wagging it’s finger to come hither. Just wait. The pay off is coming. This song does that and then some. Breaking down into a climax of shaken bones.

“About Today,” by The National: This song doesn’t. It kind of just teases you. Annoying, right?

“Hush,” by Actually: I have a weird thing with this song/video. I’m sexually attracted to it. I’m not kidding. Are there any songs that make you feel funny in the pants region? See that comment box on the bottom. USE IT.

“Badonkadonkey,” by Born Ruffians: This band has had pinches of spotlight cast their way, but nothing substantial, and it blows my mind. They’re fantastic. Everything they do is fantastic. They genre bounces so fluidly you don’t even recognize that you’re listening to a song influenced by decades and decades of different sounds. One day Ruffians, I promise.

“Give It To Me,” by The Troggs: Another band that wasn’t fully appreciated in their time. The Troggs, short for The Troglodytes, were one of the first punk acts ever. They may not sound like it, but what do you think they’re asking you to give them? “All your love?” (that translates to vagina).

“Love Vigilantes,” by New Order: One of those songs you hear and think wow, I never hear this anymore, who sings it? Ends before you can Shazam it, and then you keep living your life, ignorant. One of the band’s best tracks.

“Go Raquel,” by ABX: Who’s Raquel? What’s she done? Where’d she come from? All this and more…

http://hoodinternet.tumblr.com/post/553774417/pitbull-vs-neon-neonabx-go-raquel-direct

“Close To You,” by Burt Bacharach and Barbra Streisand: Don’t you touch him Babs.

“New York is my love,” said Tony Award-winning writer Steven Sater, best known for writing the lyrics and book of Broadway rock musical Spring Awakening.

The writer divides his time between Los Angeles and New York City. Though his wife and two children live in L.A., in a big house with a full-sized refrigerator and a yard, he opts to work out of his apartment in the Dakota Building.

Steven Sater

“It’s very tiring and I’m away from my family a lot,” he said of his bi-coastal life. Still, it affords him the flexibility to work with top artists from around the country and the world.

Sater is currently collaborating with legendary composer Burt Bacharach.

“He is spectacularly talented, and it’s the dream of a lifetime for me to be writing with him,” Sater said. “We write in a very traditional manner. I give him a lyric first, then I go to his house and he plays it for me and we sit around a piano.”

This contrasts with the more modern method he uses with Duncan Sheik, his collaborator on Spring Awakening and other projects. “When I write songs with Duncan, we write by email. I email him a lyric, he emails back an MP3,” explained Sater.

Sater won the 2007 Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Musical Score for Spring Awakening. He writes for television and movies as well as theater. In addition to the Bacharach collaboration, he is working on a new version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for Sony Pictures and workshopping three new shows with Duncan Sheik, including The Nightingale, a musical based on the Hans Christian Anderson story.

Sater grew up in Indiana and attended Washington University in St. Louis before moving to the East Coast to study English Literature at Princeton.

“I felt at home the first time I came to the Upper West Side,” he said. “I make much more use of the cultural life of New York than I do L.A. In New York, I go out. I’m at the theater, I’m at museums, I go to concerts.”

He enjoys being within walking distance of the theater district, Lincoln Center and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, where he often goes to watch videotapes of old shows.

The health-conscious vegan writer has no trouble finding food to his taste close to home. Some of his favorite neighborhood restaurants include Josie’s, Cafe Dell’arte, Telepan and Cafe Luxembourg.

Sater selected Lea Michele to star in Spring Awakening when she was just 14, and has remained close with her throughout her rise to stardom on the hit Fox TV series Glee.

The two recently enjoyed a vegan dinner together on the West Side.