Crank up your electro-digital Victrola Shuffle-trons and describe to us the first five songs that come up.
- Love And Rockets - B Side, No. 1. In which Love And Rockets do their own Revolution #9. Mercifully, it's less than two minutes long.
- De La Soul - Bitties In The BK Lounge. One of De La Soul's less-musical numbers. More of a sketch with a bit of soundtrack in the background. This stuff really hurts DLS, IMO.
- Blue Sky Boys - Katie Dear. A nice, old-timey, double-suicide ballad. Basically, Romeo and Juliet in the Appalachians.
- Sidney Bechet - Ja-Da. I like it, but if I was looking for a generic pre-war jazz tune, this would be near the top of the list. It has little to distinguish it from the archetype.
- Stevie Ray Vaughan - Close To You. In my dumb little head, this song will always be associated with The Doors, since their "Absolutely Live" is the first place I ever heard it. SRV kills it, of course; but I can't help but think he's too polished, too slick, compared to The Doors' rough and loose version.
It will make you a better person.
1. 1. Sha na na – Goodnight Sweetheart. Ha! J/k. I remain mystified by 50s nostalgia. I see now that I incorrectly thought that members of Sha na na would be, in temperament, like the sort of person who would be a fan of Sha na na. Retrograde weirdos. That was a rookie mistake. But get off my case for not thinking deeply about Sha na na, alright. Sheesh!
Okay, okay. Here we go:
1. Ondarnyng Ayany Ondar’s Medley – From the soundtrack of Ghengis Blues. A great little doc about the fellow who wrote Jet Airliner and his travels in Mongolia. He is a self-taught throat-singer. I have more Tuvan throat singing on my ipod than is strictly necessary, I admit.
2. 99 Problems – Jay Z featuring the Dap-Kings. I would link to youtube clips of these songs if only I knew how. This is an excellent little re-mix by someone named Prince of Ballard. I think if you don’t like rap, you might still like this. Just a theory.
3.Don’t Get Excited – Graham Parker. I have another theory that all Graham Parker songs are in the same key. I could easily test this theory–but isn’t it more fun to smugly assume some things? I do love GP’ voice but his band and song writing get monotonous in a way that Elvis Costello’s never did. Let’s put Graham Parker and Joe Jackson in a cage and make em fight for first runner-up.
4 Gangsta Lean- The Gourds. Actually a better song than their at first funny but then kind of monotonous Gin & Juice.
5. Hey Joe – Sha na na. Or really Jimi Hendrix. In the The Beatles A Day in the Life you can hear the Hey Joe chords as a retransition to John’s part right after Paul says, “Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.” Go listen. Then amaze your friends.
Howling day here in the UK. May is the new October?
Talking Heads – Girlfriend Is Better
Hands down my favourite ‘Heads song from 1983’s ‘Speaking In Tongues’ album, perhaps the best they’ve ever done. The live version blows the studio version out of the water – to be honest I’ve never thought the production on the album was up to much so the version from ‘Stop Making Sense’ is the definitive version as far as I’m concerned. And the version from the tour movie is basically showcasing David Byrne’s now famous ‘big suit’. What a great start. And what a damn shame I missed out on seeing this band live. I couldn’t find a decent live version on youtube (the first I was about to link has been speeded up!) so apologies.
Thin Lizzy and Gary Moore – Out In The Fields
R.I.P. What a great guitarist. Bit of a classic tune round these parts. It’s got pretty much everything you’d expect from an 80s rock song so lap it up my little Cleekaroos! The video is bloody awful though so be warned.
Oasis – Guess God Thinks I’m Abel
Ack. Oasis by numbers. Tired and out of ideas. They should of split in 1997 when the going was good. They had a massive influence on me and are the reason I started playing guitar but shit like this makes me wince. Liam Gallagher is still milking it with his new pub-rock outfit Beady Eye.
Ultravox – Vienna
Wow, I haven’t heard this for a while and it’s brought back some interesting memories of a girl I haven’t thought of in about 25 years. It was a big success for Ultravox even though it didn’t actually make 1981. I rediscovered it when I started getting into music a few years later and liked it more (especially when listening to it with said girl…) Still sounds pretty good actually.
Love – Live And Let Live
From the simply amazing 1967 album ‘Forever Changes’ which is the most listened to 60s album in my collection. Probably. I was turned onto this album by a friend about 10 years ago and couldn’t believe that I’d never heard of it before. I mention it to people now and they’re ‘Eh? Who? Never heard of ’em!’. Their loss. This song starts with the line ‘Well the snot has caked against my pants, now it’s turned to crystal.’ Don’t let that put you off – it gets a lot better! I saw Arthur Lee play this album in it’s entirety in Oxford a few years ago and it was bloody amazing and the venue half-empty (sadly).
So, my favourite guitar tab site has pulled Bowie, Led Zep and Clapton tabs after much pressure from The Man. WTF? Sick of this shit.
@cleek: Oy! The rap skit! It’s the bane of the genre. Who started this skit shit anyway? “This album is perfect! Now to dilute our work with some ham-fisted moralizing and un-funny in-jokes.”
@Rob: You don’t need online tab. That’s a just a crutch. Those transcriptions are often wrong anyway. This an opportunity to stretch your ears. I have complete faith in you. Now get up out of that chair and walk!
Grandaddy – Now It’s On
Weren’t we just talking about this? This opening track sets up the theme that Jason Lytle explores throughout the album: get out of your soul-killing modern existence and start living again. “Bust the lock on the front door, once you’re outside you won’t want to hide anymore.” I love this, and I don’t even mourn Grandaddy’s demise because I think they knew when to call it quits.
Final Fantasy 3 – The Mines of Narshe
Whut? There’s all these video game soundtracks on my shuffle drive.
Green Day – Haushinka
From Nimrod. I enjoy Green Day and I’m not going to take any shit from anybody about it because I don’t care whether they’re “authentic” punk or what. This is pretty much what I expect from them; fast and loud, but cleanly executed and with bonus pop harmonies.
Ernie – Rubber Ducky
I can hardly hear any of the characters Jim Henson voiced without thinking of the man himself. He was as earnest as Fred Rogers, but so much less serious. My brother is working on an authorized biography of Henson, and loving every minute of the research. Henson was as cool in real life as you would expect.
James Labrie – Undecided
This is the “Dream Theater” guy. Competent metal. Pretty cool, I guess. Not really my thing.
@Rob Caldecott: I love that Love track! I’m the same as you and all your friends — “why have I never heard of these guys?” Yay, something new (old) to add to the collection.
@Cris. Sharing the Love has made my day. Wait till you here the rest of Forever Changes!
The Soft Boys are playing “Song in D” — this is off the rehearsals tape for “Underwater Moonlight”. This is about as early-Pink-Floydy as The Soft Boys get, I think. Keeps sounding like they’re going to bust out into “Arnold Layne” or something. Nice long instrumental jams, no lyrics.
Walker’s Corbin Ramblers play “Ned Went a-Fishin” in that high, reedy, pre-bluegrass sounding way the old old-time bands played. Another instrumental tune, the lead is switching back and forth between fiddle and banjo.
John Cali and Tony Gottuso are playing some fine jazz on their guitars, “Hitting on all 6” — this is a pretty sweet instrumental groove.
And now we get lyrics from Mother Maybelle Carter singing “The Homestead on the Farm”. This song is pretty blah except for Maybelle Carter is singing it.
Thomas Dolby is singing “White City”. He is not as good of a singer as Maybelle Carter but it is a more interesting song.
“In the The Beatles A Day in the Life you can hear the Hey Joe chords…”
i will listen closer next time it pops up. but my favorite song-in-a-song is when John and George sing “Frère Jacques” in the background of “Paperback Writer”.
“The live version blows the studio version out of the water…”
indeed it does. all those live versions crush what was on Speaking In Tongues. IMO.
“I enjoy Green Day and I’m not going to take any shit from anybody about it because I don’t care whether they’re “authentic” punk or what. ”
seconded. “Castaway” popped up today. man, what a fun song.
“This is about as early-Pink-Floydy as The Soft Boys get, I think”
some of that unofficial Soft Boys stuff reminds me of Belew-era King Crimson. same time period, so maybe that sound was just in the air, at the time.
1. Kid Infinity – P.Y.C.O.; If the Beastie Boys were two Midwest WASPS instead of three nice Jewish boys, they might sound this sleazy. Fun and catchy, if you like that sort of thing.
2. R.E.M. – So. Central Rain; Classic R.E.M., and probably a favorite of any fan who’s been listening long enough to have heard it.
3. The Smiths – The Queen is Dead; “Has the world changed or have I changed?” Oh, Morrissey, you’ve changed. More classic 80s alt rock.
4. Nicola Conte – Bossa Per Due; Late ’90s acid jazz retro Latin swing. Like all the best songs, ended up in a car commercial.
5. Great Lake Swimmers – Pulling on a Line; Beautiful, plaintive tune from a new band that reminds me of Creedence Clearwater Revival and R.E.M.
Oh, and agreed on Stop Making Sense live versions crushing studio tracks. Check this shit out. That performance by Byrne is brilliant. “Anybody have any questions?” Hell, no, Dave.
Eh, tag fail on the R.E.M. Fuck it, there’s a bunch of live versions on Youtube if you really want to hear it. Here’s one acoustic version that’s pretty good, but the original is more rawk.
So I was strumming ‘A Day In The Life’ last night after having a crack at ‘Hey Joe’ and yep, those middle chords after ‘the Paul bit’ are the same. Great bit of Beatles trivia which would make a really hard pub quiz question!
Hey Joe is a great teaching song because of the repetition, straight forward counting, first position chords. That’s why it’s burned into my brain. How clever the Beatles were to sneak that in there.
Isn’t that progression just a circle of fifths? Not to take anything away from either Hendrix or Lennon, but I don’t think either deserves credit for inventing it.
Here now, “Hey Joe” predates Hendrix…
(doesn’t it?)
Yeah Wikipædia gives the credit to Billy Roberts.
C – G – D – A – E – E
Repeat.