Another Monday. Will they never cease?

Shuffle up. Describe five.

1. Vampire Weekend - Horchata. This whole album reminds me of last Christmas, because so many of these songs ended up on TV commercials. Not a bad song.
2. The Cure - All Cats Are Grey. A cold, but hypnotic, drum track and just sketches of organ and piano. Takes two minutes for Smith to start singing his two verses, and then solo piano finishes it off. Very nice.
3. U2 - Promenade. It's one of those atmospheric anthemic things from The Unforgettable Fire. I rather like this one, though. It's short: barely 2:30 long. And I'm glad they didn't stretch it any longer; it says what it has to say and gets out.
4. Calexico - Woven Birds. Whispered vocals, skeletal arrangement, a touch of Mexican vibe, a creepy waltz. Reminds me of Cormac McCarthy novels.
5. Paul Simon - Something So Right. Though it's not one of my favorites, I do enjoy listening to Simon sing it. The song itself is a bit too mid-70s smooth jazz/pop for me; reminds me of early Billy Joel or James Taylor. Still, I love Simon's voice no matter what he's singing about.

Take it away!

Shuffle five. Describe. Survive.

1. Hector - Last Night. Hector is one my old bands - Rochester NY, early 90s. We had a lot of good tunes, but this isn't one. Actually, the song isn't bad, I just really hated playing it. I never came up with anything that I really liked, so it was always a chore. Sounds like I wasn't even in tune for this. Blah.
   

2. Beck - Volcano. A super-mellow, slightly-melancholy tune from Modern Guilt. Just kinda shuffles along. Good song for an overcast Monday AM.
3. The Kinks - Moments. Don't know if I've ever heard this one before. But, wow - this ballad just drips with early 70's. At times it sounds like The Beatles, Clapton and Raspberries - and of course with Ray Davies singing, it always sound like The Kinks. Duh.
4. Steve Miller Band - The Window. Possibly my least favorite track from Fly Like An Eagle. I especially hate the keyboard sound in the intro.
5. Oxford Collapse - Please Visit Your National Parks. On the other hand, this might be my favorite Oxford Collapse song. Their noisy, grating, hooky, pop-song, Archers Of Loaf thing is going full-throttle here. Shame they broke up.

Comply.

Shuffle, play, describe the first five so that we may learn of new things to listen to.

1. The Strokes - Taken For A Fool. A fairly standard Strokes tune, but with a strong disco vibe in the drum track. Not sure I remember this one.
2. The Black Keys - Black Mud. A quick little Beastie-esque instrumental.
3. Neil Young - The Loner (from Live Rust). The opening chords sounds like "Cinnamon Girl". Not my favorite song from the album, and it's a little long for what it does. But it does that nice, crunchy, stompy Neil thing pretty well, so I can at least make the head-nodding crunchy-face along to it.
4. Kevin O'Donnell's Quality Six - Blues For Andrew. Not sure if the Andrew in the title is Andrew Bird, who played violin for the band, or not. Nevertheless, this is a straight-up 30's-style jazz number, with a nice solo my Mr. Bird.
5. Holy Sons - From Home. These guys opened for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, this past Saturday. I was sufficiently impressed that I bought the record. I've never heard this song before, though. Haven't even had a chance to play the album yet! Live, they played a kind of loud, heavy, dark, psychedelic/blues/jazz hybrid. This is much more mellow. I still like it, though.

Enlighten us!

Five songs, randomly selected, briefly described:

1. Gastr Del Sol - Ursus Arctos Wonderfilis. Gastr was one of the big names in 'post-rock', which is the scrappy, lo-fi, indie- version of prog-rock. And so, this two-guitar instrumental - with a tiny bit of drum action in the middle - is cerebral and angular, but not as technically dazzling as you'd see in a King Crimson (for example) tune. And it doesn't do a lot, so it feels a bit long for four minutes.
2. Q-Tip - Gettin' Up. Smooth modern-R&B flavored. Q-Tip does his thing, the chorus is hooky. I like it in the background.
3. Neil Young - After The Gold Rush (live). This is from the awesome "Live Rust". I always prefer live Neil to studio Neil; his studio recordings just seem muddy and flat, by comparison.
4. Tokyo Police Club - La Ferrassie. Starts off a-typically slow and pensive for a TPC song: minor key, atmospheric. A nice change. Transforms about halfway through into a standard TPC sound, but with chaotic, unintelligible vocals. An interesting experiment.
5. Sea And Cake - Four Corners. Interesting structure here too. It's basically the same chord sequence all the way through this nearly-six-minute tune. Energy is high for the first few minutes, backs off when the vocals come in, then tapers to nothing for the last minute or so. It's on the first of what I consider their modern-era records: where they seemed to lose a lot of their spark. But this song has been growing on me for the past few years. And recent listens to the other modern-era records makes me think I maybe dismissed them too quickly. John McEntire, drummer here, was also the drummer for Gastr Del Sol (above). Bookend.

Now, you do it.

Having successfully slain Oracle, I can now do this...

Random five, describe:

1. Sonic Youth - Kim's Chords. Don't know this one. Not very interesting. Takes a long time to not really go anywhere. It's an instrumental, though, which saves me from having to complain about them singing the same things in the same way they've been singing things for the past eighteen years. I'm so not interested in new SY. Oh well.
2. Police - Masoko Tanga. A snappy tune from their first record, with mumbled nonsense lyrics. There's some wicked playing from Sting and Stewart on this, and Andy holds it all together with his steady spiky reggae chords. Precedes the Heads' "I Zimbra" by a year. The Beatles' nonsense-lyric song, "Sun King", precedes this by nine years, of course.
3. Portishead - Undenied. Man, their first two records were just awesome, weren't they?
4. The Doors - Tightrope Ride. A post-Morrison song in which the remaining three Doors get an early R&B Rolling Stones sound going. There's a bridge that shifts to a standard mid-era Doors vibe for a half minute or so. Dislike that part. Ray's voice is surprisingly decent here, even when he slips into Morrison-esque phrasing here and there.
5. Robyn Hitchcock - September Cones. A solo-acoustic tune very much in the "I Don't Remember Guildford" vein. Not crazy about this one, though. I think it's the vocal melody - doesn't really grab me like "Guildford" does. Since this is an outtake, I won't count it against him.

Right.

Now you do it.

Random five, describe:

1. U2 - Seconds. A marching martial tune about ... well, bombs and puppets; war is bad. Something like that. At the very end, though, when that very last "say good-bye"s echo away and the opening notes of "New Years Day" start playing in my head, in anticipation - that's the best part of this song. But, this being shuffle, I get...
2. J Geils - I Do (live). Catchy! OMG, so catchy. I bet this could be distilled, bottled and weaponized. Spray it on rowdy crowds and they'd instantly start snapping their fingers and doing the "doo-doo-doo DOO-DOO-DOO doo-doo-doo DOO-DOO-DOO" backups. Wonder if the CIA has already tried this.
3. 10 Ft Ganja Plant - Jah Teach I A Lesson. Classic roots reggae. Could've been written 40 years ago. If it wasn't for little modern touches in the recording, I'd think it was recorded in the Bob Marley era. Very nice. Plus, ganja.
4. Hank Williams - My Heart Would Know. Two seconds in, you know this is a Hank Williams tune: that steel guitar, the bittersweet melody, the shufflin country drums. And then Hank comes in with his achey-breaky sangin'. Not one of his better-known tunes - it was the B-side to "Hey Good Lookin", and never released as a single of its own. But it's still good in the same way most Hank Williams songs are; he knew how to make em.
5. Cat Power - Kingsport Town. Cover of a Bob Dylan song. I don't know the original, and don't hear any Dylan in this sleepy, sleepy, sleeeeeeepy cover. I'm not sure there's more than one chord in here. Sleepy.

Make it so.

Let's do a classic random ten. Shuffle em up, list the first ten that pop up, no matter what they are:

1. Pavement - No Life Singed Her (live)
2. Alison Krauss & U.S.: Last Love Letter
3. Rolling Stones - When The Whip Comes Down
4. Matt Pond PA - Imperfect
5. Le Tigre - Hot Topic
6. Robyn Hitchcock - Meat
7. Eagles - I Can't Tell You Why
8. Marah - ...(Keep Going)
9. Smaller Animals - pink
10. Joy Division - New Dawn Fades

Your turn!

Special treble clef edition.

Open your music collection, sort the songs by first letter and list the first song that begins with 'E', then 'G', 'B', 'D', 'F'. No skipping or selecting. First song, period. Describe each of them.

• E : Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz - E Luxo So. A pleasant little bit of Brazilian tropicalia. Guitar and Getz' soft saxophone. Ahh.. This would've been a nicer way to start the day than what I really had to deal with.
• G : Smaller Animals - galapagos. Initially, a slow, creeping thing: Tortoise-like; Bass simulator + ring modulated guitar. It picks up speed in the second half; that's the finch section, I guess ?
  

• B : Love And Rockets - B-Side, No 1. A mercifully short bit of audio collage. Can't find this on YouTube.
• D : Codeine - D. One of my favorite Codeine songs. "D for effort. D for intent. D because you pay the rent." And, the last chorus/bridge section is oddly quick for a Codeine song - it's so fast, you can almost tap your foot to it!
• F : Neil Young & C.H. - F*!#in' Up (live, from Weld). A pretty good 90's-era Neil song. Lots of growly guitar, some nice interplay between Neil and Poncho, a howling, screaming Neil solo. What more could you ask for?

OK, that was easy. Now you try!

It's ... Monday.

Among other things, that means it's time to start your music shuffling device, list the first five songs that come up, then describe them to us, so that we may learn.

Watch:

1. The Arctic Monkeys - Old Yellow Bricks. Not sure I've heard this one before. It's got a strong disco vibe, especially in the chorus, that reminds me of Franz Ferdinand's rock/disco hybrid. That really dates the song, IMO.
2. Jimi Hendrix - Mannish Boy. From the awesome "Jimi Hendrix: Blues" collection. This isn't the best tune on the disc (that would be Red House or Hear My Train a-Comin'), but it's a neat version of the Muddy Waters classic; it's not straight blues, but sounds more like Band Of Gypsies-era funky Jimi. Heavy effects on the guitars, not a lot of pyrotechnics, etc..
3. Beck - Replica. The slightly-chilled, paranoid atmosphere here reminds me of Radiohead. Beck's mumbly vocals add to the effect.
4. Spoon - Don't You Evah. So so so catchy. One of Spoon's best. And that video is awesome.
5. Mudhoney - Need. Seattle's finest. Well, no, that would be Jimi. But maybe for a few months in 1989, these guys held the title. Love the guitar sound. Note how similar the opening to this is to a certain very popular Nirvana song. Then note that this song came out years before Nirvana's did. Just sayin.

See how easy that was? Now you try.

Monday morning!
Start em up!
Five songs!
Describe!
Go!

1. Them Crooked Vultures - Spinning In Daffodils. I can't tell one Josh Homme project from another. Everything he does sounds the same to me. I like it, but he has such a distinctive guitar and vocal style and it completely dominates everything he gets near.
2. Faces - Open To Ideas. A pretty standard 70's soft rock love song. Might as well be an Eagles song. Skippable.
3. Nod - I'm Something New. This reminds me of The Modern Lovers, a tiny bit. A kind of shambling Frankenstein version of "I'm Straight", maybe. It's probably not my favorite Nod song, but I don't hate it, dog.
4. Norah Jones - The Nearness Of You. A no-nonsense piano and vocal jazz standard. Jones is very good at this kind of thing. Reminds me of drinking wine in the afternoon near the shore (because this is the kind of stuff wine bars like to play).
5. Pink Floyd - Pow R Toc H. Tinkling psychedelia. Though I like the strange melodies in this one, the song as a whole never quite comes together for me.

Et tu?