Start your music shuffling machines! List the first five song it gives you, and describe them to us!
I'll go first:
- The Boys Of The Lough - Patsy Campbell. A quick Irish pipe and drum song. My dad periodically mails me LPs that he needs transferred to CD. I always keep copies of all the records I rip - just for the sake of collecting. Some I don't care for, most I like. This one has stayed on my iPod pretty much continuously, for years.
- DJ Krush - The Kinetics. DJ Krush is a Japanese hip-hop DJ / turntablist. Most of his tracks are instrumental, atmospheric/ambient, and a little trippy - like this one.
- Television - Friction. This one's a bit more raucous than the rest of the Marquee Moon album - that loud a-melodic guitar grinding over the top of everything else gives the song a bit of an edge that the other songs, IMHO, lack.
- Sonic Youth - Total Trash. A great song from their best record. There's a nice hook, some fun lyrics, a nice long SY feedback break-down in the middle: everything you'd expect from a good SY tune. Makes me think of the winter of 88/89, and what a happy shock it was to discover this. Up until then, the most deviant stuff I'd heard was REM, The Cure and Metallica. Hearing this was like discovering that my house has an extra floor where gravity works in reverse - why didn't I know about this sooner, and wow... disorienting! "Slap him on the back / with a heavy rock".
- Rush - Subdivisions. Any escape might to smooth the unattractive truth that the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth. Kindof a cliche, these days: both the song and the band. But, I'll always love Rush - Permanent Waves through Signals, at least. Be cool or be cast out? Can't cast me out, I was never in.
OK, now you.
Bellringer Blues – Grinderman. The days of being among the younger attendees at a rock show I thought were safely behind me. That was until I saw Grinderman last year. Mostly Goths in their 50s. Wonderful show, as you might expect.
Three Car Jam – Minutemen. Just some car sound effects from Double Nickels on the Dime. Great album. Great band. Do you need more than this album in your collection to appreciate them? Maybe not.
Madame George, the TB Sheets version – Van Morrison. This live sounding demo sounds like it aspires to have a Motown/Phil Spector feel when it grows up. I love the super-compressed guitar sound. Not as good as the final product on Astral Weeks but interesting as a work-in-progress.
Blood on Saddle – NIL8. Springfield IL’s deathless hardcore band. The singer and his brother are Christian Scientists and would often be seen hanging in the Christian Science reading room prior to playing a show at our local club. Almost none of their drunken, loutish fans knew this.
Bulletproof – Afghan Whigs. I think this is their best album. More coherent and developed than the excellent Gentlemen. I got a little starstruck last November when I realized that a lady I had met several times before while visiting in Seattle played cello for Afghan Whigs. Her parts on this album are sublime.
Okay, back to the debt ceiling show.
I need a holiday.
Peter Gabriel – We Do What We’re Told
Almost-instrumental track from the superb 1986 album ‘So’. A pretty song that I can hear reflected in a number of modern works – the percussion wouldn’t sound out of place if it was coming from Thom Yorke’s laptop. Another one of those 80s albums that has stood the test of time. 25 years old. Blimey.
Coldplay – Don’t Panic
First song from the first Coldplay album, released back in 2000. Nothing particularly special but hints of what was to come in Chris Martin’s voice and a nice guitar sound. The band sound very grown up for a debut album. Fact: my wife and Chris Martin were born on the same day. Sadly she doesn’t get to have sexy time with Gywneth Paltrow.
The Wonder Stuff – The Size Of A Cow
Party like it’s 1991. I’d completely forgotten about this top 5 hit from 20 years ago and in about 10 minutes I’ll forget about it all over again. I was out raving in 1991 so this band passed me by but I do remember their terrible spoof cover of ‘Dizzy’ being number one for ages. It didn’t want to make me listen to guitar music again.
Ride – Taste
Another song released while I was listening to dance music and getting off my face every weekend. Some close friends of mine are absolute crazy about Ride and I like them just fine, but I’m not going to marry them or anything. This track is pretty good in a jangly, swishing, twirling sort of way.
Supergrass – Sun Hits The Sky
Now you’re talking. Another Oxford band and one I love very, very much and would happily marry. Great fun, very talented (basically a 3 piece), cracking songs and simply brilliant live. I always admire bands that have one guitarist but still manage to sound like they have three. This song is from 1995’s ‘In It For The Money’ and requires plenty of volume. They never released a bad album.
Booked next week off work. Going to laze around with the kids and stay the hell away from computers (ha! who am I kidding?).
I’ve had it with life, and love, and relationships.
1. Baby I Want You, and That’s About All — Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, from the “Perspex Island” demos. Sort of not much, except of course the beautiful voice, and always nice to happen on a new-to-me RH track.
2. RH stage patter about Lars and THON, from a 97 KF show. He’s got a big pair of Ray-ban’s, but he’s blind. He’s got expanded bugs at the end of his fingers. Sort of like a free-form “Happy the Golden Prince.”
3. Mountain Station rehearses “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. One of my fave gospel tunes to sing. Pretty bumpy early rehearsal tape but with a nice bit of fiddling towards the middle and decent vocal harmonies at the end.
4. RH reading from John Wesley Harding’s “A Bloody Show.” (Are you familiar with this tape? Worth checking out if you are not.) After the reading a chorus sings “Lambkin”. Pretty gory murder ballad.
5. “Alligator” by the Dead, Fillmore February 69. Percussion is far out, guitars are far out. This is what the Dead sound like when they are in the right place.
“I’ve had it with life, and love, and relationships”
That is when one’s music collection becomes like oxygen. Just breathe slowly, deeply and steadily.
“I’ve had it with life, and love, and relationships.”
well, shit.