Start Your iPods

It was fun last week, so let's do it again: turn your music player of choice to 'random', describe the first five songs that come up.

  1. Miles Davis - Love For Sale. This is from a record I, for some reason, don't listen to often ('58 Sessions). So, I'm not too familiar with it. I'm going to have to do this one by actually listening to the song a couple of times... luckily, it's only 12 minutes long...

    It's basically the same band that would make Kind Of Blue slightly less than a year from when they made this one, so it's got that great combination of Bill Evans' introspective piano and Miles' lonely trumpet vs. the Coltrane and Adderley power sax duo, with Jimmy Cobb's quick, light touch on the drums. Can't hear the bass at all in my headphones - sorry Mr. Chambers. But this a more conventional tune than the stuff that makes Kind Of Blue special - though it starts leaning in the KoB direction near the end, when Evans' and Davis' solos start reaching into that cool, unresolved space that their next record inhabits so well. Not a bad number, but the length is a little much - at least on this first (and second) really close listen.

  2. Death Cab For Cutie - Expo '86. Lazily melodic, with a calm sing-song verse, a loud and soaring chorus, a great bridge, wistful lyrics: a Death Cab For Cutie song. And it's one of my favorite DCfC songs.

    Sometimes I think this cycle never ends.
    We slide from top to bottom and we turn and climb again.
    And it seems by the time that I have figured what it's worth.
    The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse.

  3. Blind Boy Fuller - Big Leg Woman Gets My Pay. Early country blues - with washboard accompaniment! Not a bad song, but - title notwithstanding - nothing spectacular, either.
  4. The Coctails - City Sun. Archer Prewitt, The Sea And Cake's lead (?) guitar player was in this band, first. That's really the only way I know about this band. They were a rock/jazz band in somewhat the same style as Sea And Cake, but with a bit less polish. This track is just guitar and drums, and sounds like it might have been a Prewitt solo thing - sounds very much like the kind of stuff guitarists make when they're experimenting in their living room.
  5. Sunny Day Real Estate - One. Loud and bombastic and emo. It's not their best song, but it's not their worst, either. That's pretty much how I feel about all of this, their last, record.

And you? What have you to say?

14 thoughts on “Start Your iPods

  1. cleek

    it is a character flaw. i blame bad parenting.

    actually, my dad, whose musical taste mine mostly matches, loves the stuff. a couple of years back, he did a tour of the south, visiting the graves of all these old blues guys. Blind Boy Fuller’s is in Durham, NC – just up the road from me.

  2. The Modesto Kid

    My guitar teacher thought Fuller was the best Piedmont blues picker. After my first lesson with him (this would have been in 1995 or 6 I guess) I went to Tower Records (remember Tower Records?) and bought disk of Fuller remasters and one of Gary Davis (who also came from near there, and IIRC was Fuller’s teacher) and one of MS John Hurt. I was especially interested in Fuller because the song that had made me get interested in old-time guitar was Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band’s cover of his “Rag Mama Rag” (totally diff song from the like-titled Band song). (And on the John Hurt tape was my other favorite Kweskin tune, “Richland Woman Blues”.)

  3. platosearwax

    I need to dig out that Miles Davis and listen well to it. I haven’t spent a lot of time with earlier Miles, have always concentrated on fusion Miles.

    1. Radiohead – Creep

    I was living in Los Angeles when this record came out. At this time Radiohead were just another British band sort of trying to imitate the grunge sound that was coming out of America. At least that is what we all thought. This song will forever remind me of Los Angeles and the great alternative station KROQ and of course Beavis and Butthead who loved this song if I recall correctly.

    2. The Sound – – Fatal Flaw

    This is from 1981 but is actually a recent find for me. I was looking for some old 80’s things and stumbled over these guys who I had never heard before. They sound a bit like Echo & The Bunnymen and some other bands of that time. It’s actually a wonder that they weren’t any more popular than they were considering their sound and decent songwriting. I understand that the singer is dead from suicide.

    3. Talking Heads – Slippery People

    The version on random is the studio version but I post the video from Stop Making Sense. I really like this song, as I do the entire album it comes from (total aside: the keyboard on my brand new laptop randomly types letters twice, which is ridiculously annoying and difficult to type with any speed). The more I listen to Talking Heads lately the more I listen or the bass, thanks to our host here. She is much better than I ever thought. Bernie Worrell is awesome on keys here as well.

    4. The Beatles – Obla Di Obla Da

    Possibly my least favorite Beatles song of all time. I can’t even listen to the whole thing. In fact…there, deleted from my player.

    5. Jello Biafra & The Melvins – Islamic Bomb

    Kind of an inspired choice of hookups here, teaming Biafra and The Melvins. The Melvins go fast for a change I am sure at the urging of Biafra. Biafra sounds decent here as well. This is not best cut from their project together but fun nonetheless. Old school style punk.

  4. The Modesto Kid

    1. “Don’t Ease Me In” (instrumental) — The Grateful Dead
    Just a couple minutes of jamming. Not really long enough for me to develop a reaction other than “nice”.

    2. “The Road To Lisdoonvarna” — The Modesto Kid. Irish jig. I’m quite happy with the recording quality and quality of performance on this one but it needs a little more improvisation to be a keeper.

    3. “Mystery Train” — The Band with Paul Butterfield (The Last Waltz). This is such a great song. Last time I heard it was at a Nick Lowe concert, it was the final encore with Robyn Hitchcock and Elvis Costello on stage. In general I like train songs a lot, this one is one of the best. It’s got the rhythmic chugging bass line and the screaming lyrics and guitar solos. And said guitar solos are being performed by Robbie Robertson!

    4. “Beautiful” — Loudon Wainwright III, from his Charlie Poole project. An old gospel tune with a lovely 2nd vocal part by Lucy Wainwright.

    5. “On the Sea of Galilee” — The Carter Family. More gospel, more lovely vocals.

  5. cleek

    This new policy of maximum verbosity may actually entice me to post one of these weeks.

    jump on in! the water’s warm and the fish are biting!

  6. Rob Caldecott

    That’s right, this shit is really happening.

    1. R.E.M. – Finest Worksong.
    From their 1987 album ‘Document’ this excellent song starts with a lush Peter Buck guitar riff and it gets better with each listen. This was about the time that R.E.M. were starting to get a *little* more commercial I guess as this is one hell of a radio friendly tune and I can imagine that US college radio lapped it up. The bass is also really, really good which isn’t always something you’d associate with an R.E.M. song. And I can even decipher most of what Michael Stipe is singing!

    2. The Rolling Stones – Paint It, Black.
    It’s 1966 so lets add a sitar! But it works! I’ll admit that I’m not a massive Stones fan but this is one of my favourites. I love the main riff and by all accounts Brian Jones taught himself the sitar basics pretty quickly. Amphetamines eh? Is there anything they can’t do? The whole thing gets a little messy towards the end though but that might be down to production quality. Oh, and it’s the 1960s so it sounds kind of tinny *cough*.

    3. The Stone Roses – Begging You.
    I love this track. Ian Brown can’t sing for toffee but John Squire sure can play guitar and this song has a hypnotic-dancey feel about it. Probably sounds amazing if you’re stoned. This would be the sort of song that would accompany some quality football highlights on a sports show. It has a woozy feel towards the end which is almost Beatlesesque. This track is from their second album ‘Second Coming’ which was a long time coming because of contract issues and was much criticised by the UK music press. Bah – what the fuck do critics know? BTW the video is a little fucked up.

    4. PJ Harvey – This Mess We’re In.
    In which Thom Yorke sings ‘Night and day I dream of making love to you now baby.’ Who’d of thunk it? This duet from Harvey’s criminally brilliant 2000 album ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’ is basically a New York love song. There is a simple-ish guitar riff all the way through with some odd piano. It’s quite lovely. Now, Ms Harvey reinvents herself with every album and this one just clicked with me – earlier and later work not so much. She’s quite the national treasure.

    5. Electronic – Get The Message.
    Lead singer of New Order + guitarist from The Smiths = lush acoustic gem. Yep, it’s Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr in the house. They made a few albums as Electronic in the early 90s and were very hit and miss but this 1991 tune is stand-out. I love the 12 string sound (I think it’s a 12 … got to be surely?). The drum sound is a bit dated, there’s some horns later on which are a bit naff, and the lyrics are the usual Sumner tosh but it’s well worth a listen Cleekers!

    Same time next week sweeties.

  7. cleek

    I need to dig out that Miles Davis and listen well to it. I haven’t spent a lot of time with earlier Miles, have always concentrated on fusion Miles.

    i just can’t abide fusion Miles. i try and try, but i’ve come to accept that he and i parted ways at the “In A Silent Way” / “Bitches Brew” juncture.

  8. platosearwax

    As usual, Rob’s list kicks my list’s butt. I think I played those Electronic and Stone Roses albums to death. And PJ Harvey has never made a record that wasn’t brilliant.

  9. platosearwax

    Oh man, In a Silent Way is one of my favorite things ever. He lost me a bit at On the Corner but redeemed himself with the Agharta and Pangaea live albums which are two of the most awesome things I have ever heard. really loud in headphones and they are mindblowing.

Comments are closed.