Posted on August 25th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Deerhunter, "Agoraphobia"
The 5th Dimension, "The Eleventh Song"
The Jam, "Thick as Thieves"
Crystal Stilts, "Alight of Night"
Antonio Carlos Jobim, "Samba de Una Nota"
Aterciopelados, "Pilas!"
Super Furry Animals, "Hometown Unicorn"
Misha Mengelberg Quartet, "Criss Cross"
Mel Torme, "Gloomy Sunday"
Henry Threadgill Very Very Circus, "Next"
Augustus Pablo, "Frozen Dub"
Clarence White, "Pretty Polly"
Brenda Lee, "Big Four Poster Bed"
Posted on August 24th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Universal Congress Of, "Gold Tooth Girl"
Regina Spektor, "Summer in the City"
Tom T. Hall, "That Song Is Driving Me Crazy"
Gogol Bordello, "Wonderlust King"
Baden Powell, "Naquele Tempo"
Carla Bley, "Greasy Gravy"
DD/MM/YYYY, "Lismer"
The Nightingales, "The Bending End"
Silver Jews, "Inside the Golden Days of Missing You"
Slapp Happy, "Tutankhamun"
Heaven 17, "Soul Warfare"
Sleater-Kinney, "Don't Talk Like"
Michelle Shocked, "Contest Coming (Cripple Creek)"
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, "Government Magic"
Posted on March 11th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Songs, Words, Dance, Old Posts.
Last night I dreamed that I was skipping and running cheerfully along a colorful series of ledges, rails and ropes, with a partner, improvised yet perfectly synchronized, while around us "The Candy Man" by Sammy Davis Jr played, and it was the beats and chord changes of the song that we improvised our steps to. And it all. felt. perfectly. natural.
Posted on October 12th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Live Music.
I did not know that Johnny Cash and Joni Mitchell sang a duet of "Long Black Veil", in 1969, for the debut program of Johnny Cash's TV show.
from The Hits Just Keep On Comin'
Posted on July 17th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Michael Penn, "Long Way Down", directed by the Brothers Quay
This is my favorite music video, and it used to be lost (to me); never on youtube, and not on Brothers Quay compilations. But Velma found it on yahoo. Now I have to figure out how to download it.
Posted on June 17th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Musicians.
Song Project #20
Did you know that reality tv went back to the seventies? And PBS started it. An American Family was shown in 1973, twelve episodes long, depicting an actual family, the Louds. And yes, the Loud Family got their band name from them (and no, not the Loud family on Saturday Night Live); but that's not what I'm writing about now.
Lance Loud, one of the sons, was gay, credited with being the first openly gay person in television history. Eventually he died of AIDS, in 2001. But first he led a critically-respected rock band, the Mumps, in New York City, part of the late-seventies CBGB's scene. A friend from high school, Kristian Hoffman, was the keyboardist.
Kristian Hoffman is not famous, but he should be; well, at least at the level of the new wave and no-wave bands that he played in. He played with Ann Magnuson and Lydia Lunch, and was in Klaus Nomi's band: he wrote "Total Eclipse", the most famous Nomi song. Eventually he arranged for Rufus Wainwright's band, and became a long-term keyboard player for Dave Davies's band. And he played around the Los Angeles scene in the eighties and nineties, becoming not famous, but known to musicians.
I didn't know who he was when I picked up a used cd in a pile of one-dollar cds, but the names made me curious. It was called &; in fact, it was an album of collaborations: fifteen of them, and all of them more famous than him. Rufus Wainwright, Russell Mael, Anna Waronker. Maria McKee. Ann Magnuson, Michael Quercio. Lydia Lunch! Stew! Van Dyke Parks! Paul Reubens?? Well, I bought it.
I didn't prepare myself for the barrage of hooks that came at me. From the first song to the last, one listen was enough to tell me this was a once-a-year find, one I'd play tomorrow and next day and twenty years from now; a top-five for the year. And fifteen songs in (out of 17), the song that blew me away:
That's Ann Magnuson and Kristian Hoffman, trading off. It starts with Magnuson, hushed, piano-driven; the first hook, the verse hook, on the words "boy, earthbound", then loud drums, dum, dum, pause, dum, dum, dum, dum, dumdumcrash. Then repeat the verse. Then the chorus, the drums now there throughout, with tambourine, and guitar, Hoffman singing lead and Magnuson wordless harmony. The main hook at the end of the chorus: "where do I sign?" with the jump up an octave. Then stop, and head back into the verse, again hushed, but added vocal by Hoffman, though distant, ethereal. Then repeat verse, with two added keyboards. Then the bridge, then verse, once through this time, then the chorus, twice.
The chorus is amazing. It occurs four times, and each occurrence has a different musical lead-in to the title ("that's what is costs to buy a note so pure and high and so divine") and after the title ("the bottom line"), and that's gravy: the hook can stand by itself. And the words: it's about castrati, and the longing for the singer ("where do I sign?"), perfectly captured by the hook. That's a perfect pop song: words and music working together.
Posted on June 14th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
A very good video for "Roll Up Your Sleeves" by We Were Promised Jetpacks, on Pitchfork TV.
Posted on March 16th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Song Project #19
The Dismemberment Plan was my favorite band from their third album (1999, where I became aware of them) to their fourth album (2002, whereupon they broke up). They were probably my most obscure favorite band. (My favorite bands? In chronological order: the Beatles, the Spinners, Talking Heads, R.E.M., Throwing Muses, Pixies, Throwing Muses again, Blur, the Dismemberment Plan, Café Tacvba, Belle and Sebastian, Sleater-Kinney, Meshuggah, Of Montreal.)
Velma, too, became a fan, and we reacted with dismay when the announcement came that the Plan were no more. We bought two tickets for both of their farewell shows, and were gratified when almost none crossed over; one repeat song, their perennial favorite “Okay Jokes Over”, otherwise no overlap: 49 lovely songs. I can’t tell you how much joy was contained in those two nights, and how much sorrow.
The third album, Emergency & I, was perfect. The fourth album, Change, was nearly perfect, stretching out and sometimes missing, but even the wrong parts were interesting. The four songs that closed it were fabulous; four songs fit to end a career. The first song was “Following Through”.
(Listen to "Following Through")
Six things I like about “Following Through”:
1. The fast start, following the drum fill at the beginning all the way to forty seconds from the end.
2. The end, still as fast but quiet, first solo guitar, then joined by another guitar, then bass, and finally drums.
3. The drums, steady yet changeable throughout.
4. The bass, which doesn’t cut in till the A part has been by once. Then four notes, silence, four notes, silence, four notes, silence, five notes. Then after the chorus, the silences are filled: four notes, four notes, etc.
5. The chorus. The way one note is held for half the chorus; the way that “following through” sounds different from the rest. And my favorite part: The vocals, lead and harmony, are an octave lower the second time.
6. The way that the chorus is led into the second time: “I’m quite, oh, kay, with, losing that fight!”
Not a promise nor a threat nor an ultimatum though I can do those too. Yeah.
Posted on September 24th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Lyrics.
I used to send my misheard lyrics to my pal Gavin, but since he's retired from the mondegreen-documenting business, I figure I should document mine in a small way here*.
Today I was idly listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helping for the first time, and I swear I heard them sing:
Well I used to wake the morning before the rooster crowed
Searching for soda bottles to get myself some dough
Brought 'em down to the corner, down to the country store
Cash 'em in and give my money to a man named Kurtis Blow
Turns out the guy was actually named "Curtis Loew". As is so often the case with these things, I think I prefer mine.
Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Wilco's "Impossible Germany" (from Sky Blue Sky) could be a lost Tom Verlaine song.
Posted on August 19th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Posted on August 16th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Posted on August 14th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Posted on August 12th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Posted on August 12th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Songs, Words, Lyrics.
Is the Dovells' 1963 top ten hit "You Can't Sit Down" the earliest hit single to use the word "hippy" as a noun referring to a person?
When you're on South Street,
(You can't sit down.)
And the band is really bootin',
(You can't sit down.)
You hear the hippy with the back beat,
(You can't sit down.)
And you see the gang a-groovin',
(You can't sit down.)
Gotta get your bottom movin',
(You can't sit down.)
You gotta make it, break it,
Shake it all around.
Posted on August 8th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Finally, some Spanish-language stuff. One of the odditites of the shuffles so far was the lack of Spanish and Portuguese stuff, as I've been pretty obsessive about Latin American pop music lately.
"We're All Alone" is one of my favorite adult-contemporary hits ever, so that seemed like a good place to stop.
Posted on August 8th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Games.
I'm late announcing this, but we're in the middle of a new Name That Tune game over at Popdose. Come over and play!
Posted on August 7th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Posted on August 6th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
33 consecutive songs from shuffle play this afternoon:
Posted on July 24th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Music Criticism.
"Before they were the biggest band in the world, U2 made three records of flag-waving, populist post-punk," says the blurb for Joe Tangari's Pitchfork review of the reissue of the first three U2 albums.
It would never cross my mind to use "post-punk" to describe U2, except in the most literal sense. U2, even on those first three albums, were a straightforward rock band. "I Will Follow", "Gloria", "New Year's Day", and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" are excellent songs, but there's nothing strange or form-breaking about them, nothing that couldn't have happened without punk, nothing that challenges the listener's idea of what rock n roll is or what it can do.
"Post-punk" has been from the start a very broad descriptor, a catch-all for an explosion of innovation that happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a set of styles and approaches to rock that reverberate to this day (and when the term is used for new music, it no longer means music that is innovative and form-breaking; it means music that sounds like the innovative and form-breaking music of the original post-punk era).
Post-punk can probably be most quickly exemplified by pointing to the massively influential 1980 compilation Wanna Buy a Bridge? on the Rough Trade label. There are some other obvious touchstones -- Gang of Four's Entertainment!, in particular, has had such a persistent influence on subsequent rock that its aggressive, jagged style often seems to be all people mean when they say "post-punk" -- but Wanna Buy a Bridge gives a good sense of how sonically varied the post-punk landscape was. And if you dropped an early U2 song into that context, it would have stood out for what it was: a well-executed, passionate, conventional rock song.