Special dilemma edition:
Best way to orient two monitors: landscape or portrait?
Once you've answered that, start your music shuffler, list the first five songs and describe them!
- The Beatles - Tell Me What You See. An OK number from "Help!". Kindof sing-song, a little lyrically meh.
- Dizzy Gillespie & Stan Getz - Impromptu. The first three minutes of this uptempo number feature neither minutes Gillespie nor Getz; piano and guitar run the show. But, eventually, Getz shows up with a long and exuberant run, and Gillespie comes in with his own at minute 5. Gillespie, Getz and the guitar player close it out with 90 seconds of intertwining solos.
- Nick Drake - Hanging On A Star. A nice Pink Moon-style tune, vox + guitar. It's one of the last songs he recorded, for an album he never finished in '74. It's from the mostly excellent Time Of No Reply outtakes and alternates CD, put out in 1986.
- Big Black - Pigeon Kill (live). This sounds pretty much identical to any number of other Big Black songs. Rocks pretty damned hard, though - even if it is about killing a bird.
- Broken Social Scene - Handjobs For The Holidays. That title sets the bar pretty high. Does the song itself measure up? I don't think so. Not quite. It bops along at a nice clip, but without a hook of any kind. There's a lot of stuff going on, too much, maybe. The lyrics are mumbly, and, I couldn't tell if they had anything to do with the title.
Now, you do it.
Landscape!
Did I get it right? What do I win?
Wazan Samat-Group Doueh. This dude is supposedly the Jimi Hendrix of the Western Saharah. A friend saw them play and recommended them to me. I like what I’ve heard so far. As an aside, I am not even the Jimi Hendrix of my block; a blues prodigy kid lives right across the street from me.
Now And Then-UB40. From their wonderful Promises And Lies album. Loudest concert I’ve ever been to. It was the horn section. Lord, what a lot of high end even a small horn section can push out!
Combination Pizza Hut Taco Bell-Das Racist. Wryly delivered, this song still cracks me up. Some of their other stuff isn’t half bad either.
The Carpet Crawlers-Genesis. Brian Pern is a character based on Peter Gabriel which on its face sounds too inside baseball to be funny and for most, probably is. Maybe you’ve all heard of him before. I’ll bet Rob has. This seems designed specifically to crack me up. Not the first time I’ve felt guilty for not paying BBC licence fees.
Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt – The Mars Volta. Nope. Too proggy/fusiony for my tastes. I find the Mars Volta a difficult listen with no rewards. If I was a teenager and had time to burn their music into my head through repeated listenings, maybe I’d like them.
Landscape, so you can stretch that Burt Reynolds centerfold on your desktop across both of them.
The Who – 1921
The seminal “rock opera*” was a smart solution to the wheat/chaff problem. The off-tracks on Tommy may not have much hook to them, but they advance the plot or characterization. I don’t know if it’s art, but I’m okay with it.
*Though some Wikipedia editor says it’s really an oratorio.
Helen Reddy – I Am Woman
That’s right! Hear me roar, bitches.
One thing about being a 40-something: our consciousnesses were shaped in the real 70’s. These kids these days, they think it was all about disco and progressive rock. No, I say it was the Carpenters and Burt Bacharach and solo McCartney. Okay, and David Bowie sometimes.
Final Fantasy 7 – The Birth of a God
This whole video game soundtrack thing has worn out its welcome. And I haven’t even finished the original Final Fantasy (which I’m playing on the iPod touch), what do I know about this stuff? Anyway, a tiresome track. But I follow the shuffle rules!
Cat Power – I Found A Reason
This is really well-produced. It took me a second listen to realize it was nothing more than voice and piano.
Alan Silvestri – Scorpion Shoes (from The Mummy Returns)
Props to Silvestri for snatching the creepy crawly theme from “Veris Leta Facies.” Otherwise a fairly competent but standard adventure film fanfare.
First day of my holiday and it’s a scorcher! We went canoeing out on the lake at the Cotswold Water Park in 30 degree heat and there were no crowds at all. It was bliss and the kids loved it. Mrs C is not loving her sunburnt shoulders though.
Smashing Pumpkins – 1979
The best Pumpkins song ever IMHO. It used to get played back at a mate’s flat after the pub and I always used to tell myself to buy it the next day but alcohol would erase the memory until the next time. It’s a bit of a trippy number and has an almost ethereal quality about it. Check it out – it might even lead you to their back catalogue. And what is it about that year? 1979 seems to feature a lot in songs, films, etc. Or is it my imagination?
Radiohead – Scatterbrain
From their 2003 album ‘Hail To The Thief’ and *shock* not one of their best IMHO. Not bad, interesting guitar melody, interesting lyrics but it doesn’t really get started. That album should of been 10 tracks – they threw in too much and could easily of had another classic on their hands had they spent a bit longer recording fewer tracks (it was recorded in 2 weeks in L.A.). It does contain two of my favourite Radiohead tracks though – ‘There There’ and ‘Where I End And You Begin’ which are simply f*cking brilliant.
Shed Seven – Parallel Lines
Mmmm. Might of posted about this before so apologies if this is a repeat. Shed Seven had some success in the mid-90s Britpop explosion and managed a few top 10 hits. I played their second album ‘A Maximum High’ endlessly during 1996 and this was the closing track and it’s really good – probably the album’s highlight. It takes about 2m to kick in but really gets into a groove and is almost certainly about blowing all your cash on cocaine which was, you know, the way they did it back then. Paul Banks, their guitarist, is very good indeed and I get the feeling the rest of the band were holding him back (which is probably why he left and did his own thing for a while but by then the Britpop era was already in it’s death throes).
Sleeper – Inbetweener
Another Britpop hit. Without their charismatic, articulate and intelligent singer, Louise Wener, I would probably have forgotten all about this band. She put up with a lot of sexist behaviour back in the day as the idea of a strong woman fronting an indie guitar band was almost treated as joke in the UK music press. She took this in her stride and has since gone on to be a successful author. This tune was the highlight of the bands career and is worth 3m of anyones time.
PJ Harvey – The Words That Maketh Murder
From her latest album ‘Let England Shake’ this is perhaps her best song in a long and interesting career. The video is really good BTW so please give it a go. The whole album is about the horrors of war and there is something about the sound that means I could only imagine it being recorded in England. The album as a whole is much like this and if you’ve never heard Polly before then start here and work backwards.
Off to the zoo tomorrow and it could be even hotter. I don’t about anyone else but I quite like it hot.
“30 degree heat”
it’s been over 100F (37C) here in NC, 9 of the past 30 days. killer.
I like it hot (or did when I grew up in New Mexico), but the zoo is kind of a bummer on a scorcher. The animals just want to crash out in the shade. An overcast but warm day is optimal zoo weather.
Just spent a month in the States where the majority of the time the temps were in the high 30’s C. Add that in the midwest the humidity hovers around 80% and it was pretty miserable. Lots of reasons to sit around a pool and drink beer though so it all worked out!
Portrait! Just to be contrary.
1. Monty Python – Sit On My Face
About 45 seconds of genius.
2. The Black Angels – Young Men Dead
I really, really love this band. Bluesy, gritty and psychedelic to the max, this song just wants to be on really loud in your headphones. This video which contains clips from No Country for Old Men is excellent, even though this song appears nowhere in the film or the soundtrack. It fits though.
3. Secret Machines – Nowhere Again
I guess random is in a psychedelic mood. I really like these guys as well. Sort of a retro 80’s vibe but with a shoegazer drive. They remind me a bit of Ride but with an American psychedelic feel.
4. Thomas Dybdahl – Nothing Else Matters
Norwegian folky with a really slow and interesting take on Nothing Else Matters from Metallica. If you like slow and mellow Dybdahl rules. My wife is a HUGE fan.
5. Yes – Owner of Lonely Heart
I always liked this song. Sure the 70’s progressive Yes were fine and all, but in the 80’s I really liked this album and the one after. But really, 90125 was on my turntable all the damn time back then. It seems kind of dated now, but I still dig this song. And the video was directed by the now deceased Peter Christopherson from Coil and is an iconic 80’s video.
Currently 16C and sunny at 9pm. Ahhhhh…back in Norway.
Secret Machines rock.
1. Robyn Hitchcock talking about seeing Mary J. Blige at a Jools Holland recording session, and about having a direct line to God. (From a 2008 concert in London.)
2. “Life Left Him There” by the Minus 5, off of Wilco Must Die. Hey! I’m going to see the Minus 5 this fall, in Brooklyn! I’m excited. The bill: Robyn Hitchcock plays Eye; John Wesley Harding; Minus 5. Far out. This is a record I don’t listen to enough (if memory serves there is a big awful track in the middle of it, and that is why I don’t listen to it enough) — I like songs from it in isolation a lot though.
3. “Lady Gay”, by Mason Brown and Chipper Thompson. Straight-up Appalachian ballad, no frills. Nice!
4. “Downtown Train”, Tom Waits. I wish listening to this song did not make me think about Rod Stewart. Man do I wish that. It makes it almost unbearable to listen to.
5. “Madelaine”, Robyn Hitchcock. Yeah, it does not get much better than this… The really clear, spare acoustic picking, the weird effects on the vocals.
Bonus track: Mountain Station sings “Walk Right In”