Eine Kleine Eselmusik

I have not had much time to tinker with my ipod recently, but it never stays the same.  The most recent changes:

What’s In

The Return of the King, soundtrack – All of those movies were truly well-scored.  It’s kind of fun to hear the film’s heroic theme as try to remove dog hair from the upholstery of castoff minivans.

A handful of Hendrix – Just the tracks from Are you Experienced? that hadn’t already made it when I added that “greatest hits” collection.

Boston by Boston – Great debut album.  Back when I was playing Guitar Hero I gained a new appreciation for “More Than A Feeling”.

The Essential Johnny Cash, Disc 1 – Where the hell is disc 2?  Anyway, this disc has lots to love.  It shows the full range of Cash’s virtues, from the playful (“Five Feet High and Rising”) to social criticism (“The Ballad of Ira Hayes”), to simple, unsentimental love songs (“Ring of Fire” and “I Walk the Line”) to the cowboy ballad (“Don’t Take Your Guns to Town”).  I’m also fond of  “Get Rhythm”, and “Cry,Cry,Cry”, so this was a good addition.

Hero, soundtrack – I recall enjoying Tan Dun’s beautiful, dreamy score to this movie, but I didn’t remember that I’d bought it ’til I found it in a stack of cds.  Intrigued, I threw it on the playlist.

What’s Out

“Sharing the Night” by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show – I had just added one of their albums recently, mostly on the strength of the first few songs (“The Millionaire” cracked me up).  I guess I should have listened to the whole thing, and weeded out this piece of pop-country schmaltz.

“Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” by Sophie B. Hawkins – I guess Ty was a Sophie B. Hawkins fan.  Thanks for “As I Lay Me Down”, not so much for this one.

“Dazz” by Brick – Off the recently added funk compilation.  Dazz apparently means “disco jazz” which was a name for funk which never caught on, probably because of this song.

“Mr. Cabdriver” by Lenny Kravitz – Snuck on in AJ’s mix cd.  Man, he sure looks like a rockstar, huh?  I guess you can’t judge an album by it’s cover.  I almost kept this for the sheer comedy value of  his “here we go now” which prefaces the most rudimentary guitar solo ever.  I mean, I remember Weird Al doing that something similar in one of his parodies – ecstatically calling out “Drum Solo!”, whereupon everyone stops playing but the drummer, who keeps playing the same simple backbeat for a few measures until the rest of the band joins back in.

“Sexy Eyes” by Dr Hook & The Medicine Show – Since I was now suspicious of them, I checked out the rest of their repertoire, and found this light disco dud.  No offense to the Beegees, who are instantly aware any time anyone anywhere in the world disparages disco, but it is a genre I have a difficult time enjoying, and this is the “adult contemporary” version of disco at that.

Well, those are the only alterations I’ve had time for recently.  If you keep coming around, I’ll keep you posted on stuff like this…

New Music

Yep, it’s a new week, and I’m throwin’ some new music on the ol’ playlist.

What’s In

Paranoid by Black Sabbath – If you ask most people which songs are Sabbath’s best, chances are “Iron Man”, “Paranoid”, and “War Pigs” will be near the top of the list.  Since this album packs all three, it was a good add.

Grace by Jeff Buckley – Buckley was an unearthly talent as a singer, and his amazing gifts are nowhere showcased better than the one studio album he released before his tragic death.  For my money, he still does the best version of Cohen’s “Hallelujah”.

Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: Son House - I didn’t see the documentary, but it caused the release of a number of good blues collections, including this one.  If you are a fan of rural blues, then you already know about Son House, if you’re interested in tasting this subgenre, this is a great place to start.

Me and Mr. Johnson by Eric Clapton – If you listen to certain types of blues, like Robert Johnson’s eerie wailing numbers, you wonder why the hell anyone ever went to juke joints except to get depressed and drink.  This is why.  Clapton and his band rework Johnson’s generally haunting portfolio into a rollicking, bluesy rave-up that would surely have set any backwoods juke jumpin’.

Keep It Simple by Keb Mo’ – A thoughtful Christmas Present from The Duck.  It never quite caught on with me because I’m pretty sure Keb Mo’ is too happy to sing the blues.  After a year or two away from it, though, I find myself appreciating how unique these heartfelt, mellow, positive blues songs are.

Live In Dublin by The Corrs – Well, there goes my musical cred again.  I am forced to admit a certain susceptibility to girly pop bands (though I tend to loathe the so-called “divas”).  Throw in some fiddle music and a kick-ass girl drummer, and you just got me.  The guest appearancs by Bono on “Summer Wine” and Ron Wood on “Little Wing” don’t hurt either.

Rocksteady by No Doubt – I owned and liked Tragic Kingdom when it came out, then lost track of the band for around five years, which is how long it took them to come out with another good album.  This is a very reggae-inflected album and the sound really works for them.  Tough to find a weak track on it, actually, and it’s a very cohesive listen as an album as well.

Rock Selects, Vol. 1 – This cd was part of a promotional giveaway Transworld Entertainment did back when I toiled for them, and I snagged a copy for myself.  It has some classic hits on it, like ”Lust for Life”,”Love is a Battlefield”, ”White Wedding” and Blondie’s “One Way or Another”, but the hidden gem on the cd is actually Meredith Brooks’ “What Would Happen” a track I overlooked on her Blurring the Edges album.

Light Of Day, Springsteen Tribute Album – Covers by an assortment of artists, most of whom are relatively obscure – Joe Grushecky & The Houserockers are among the more famous.  Elvis Costello, the biggest celeb on the roster, contributes a worthy version of “Brilliant Disguise”.  I nabbed about five other tracks off this album and left the rest on the cutting room floor.

The last surviving cd from Rebekah and Burro’s wedding reception (the others having been stolen when my car was broken into a couple years ago) – This yielded up some true goodies, like Springsteen’s “Sad Eyes”, a terrific version of “He Moved Through the Fair” from Sinead O’Connor, and Greg Brown’s “One More Goodnight Kiss”

Funk 1 – This was one of those genre compilations they sold cheap at Walmart.  Highlights include The Commodores’ “Brick House” and “Tell Me Something Good” from Rufus (feat. Chaka Khan)

A Mix Cd I made in the early days of Rebekah and Burro’s relationship – This turned out, more than anything, to be a trove of Springsteen’s lesser-known love songs like “Happy”, “Back in Your Arms”, “All That Heaven Will Allow”, “My Love Will Not Let You Down”, “Man’s Job” and “Valentine’s Day”.  It also had a couple of “lost favorites” on it, like David Gray’s “Please Forgive Me”, and “We Close Our Eyes” by Susanna Hoffs.  There were also a couple tracks from Clapton’s Unplugged in there as well.

I also added the few tracks from Bruce’s We Shall Overcome that weren’t already on the playlist.

What’s Out

“I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain – This is actually a relatively inoffensive little pop song, but there comes a point when “inoffensive” is not good enough to stay on the list.

“A Place for My Head” by Linkin Park – I’m fairly ambivalent toward Linkin Park.  This song’s lyrics essentially boil down to “you expect me to pay you back for all those favors you did me?  That is so uncool!”  Reminds me of when I was a young ungrateful punk.  I don’t like to be reminded of that, so this song must go.

“Meet Virginia” by Train – This tries to be a quirky love song, and succeeds in some places, but not enough.  Now that I’ve met Virginia, I don’t care if I ever see her again.

“Lose Your Way” by Sophie B. Hawkins – Something from the Dawson’s Creek Soundtrack, if I’m not mistaken.  My friends in high school loved that show.  Me?  Not so much.  Another Ty fossil gets retired to the museum.

“All I Want” by Toad the Wet Sprocket – Not a bad song, really, just too bland to keep making the cut.

“Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down – Meh.  This song was so overexposed that I’ve probably heard it more than nearly a thousand songs I like better.  I’ll give it a pass.

“My Sacrifice” by Creed – As previously mentioned, not a big Creed fan.

“Surfin’ Safari” by The Beach Boys – Not a real shocker that I’m cutting a surf-rock song.

A piano sonata by Liszt (hell if I know which one) – I adore Beethoven’s piano sonatas but this 27 minute buzzkiller is just not accessible enough to listen to casually.

The Woodpile

And here is the stuff that I have cut from my ipod playlist.  Thank you for indulging me; I know that Rebekah, for one, finds the playlist posts boring, and I wonder if all my readers agree – I could keep this stuff to myself, I have plenty to write about these days.

What’s Out

“Follow Me” by Uncle Kracker – This song is kind of catchy, but ultimately I find its lyrics a combination of trite and morally reprehensible.  The trite: “I swim through your veins like a fish in the sea”.  The reprehensible: “I’m not worried about the ring you wear / ‘Cause as long as no one knows then nobody can care” – beautiful sentiment, that.

“Higher” by Creed – I don’t like Creed.  I’m thinking this is a fossil from the times when Ty and I shared this computer.

“Introduction” – this is the track from Let the Music Take You Home where Seamus Kennedy is introduced.  Seems like a pretty cheap cut to me, especially since my player’s always on shuffle, so as soon as the track ended it would jump to someone who is most likely not Seamus Kennedy.

“Never Again” by Nickelback – You must be truly cursed as a songwriter if you can take something as awful as domestic violence for your subject and still produce a song with this little humanity or pathos.

“On My Own” from Les Miserables – I am not really all that susceptible to musicals and showtunes, although there are some that I quite enjoy.  Songs like this, however, the workaday numbers where it just feels as though a big slab of characterization or plot has been set to music because it’s a musical and they kind of have to, leave me cold.

“Shame On You” by the Indigo Girls – As previously discussed, I am not a huge fan of the Indigo Girls, though their songs “Galileo” and “Get Out the Map” appear to be safe for now.

“Spread the Glory” by Chris Thomas King – The only bad song on an otherwise stellar blues album.  Kind of a mellow, “elevator music” feel to it.

“Surf City” by Jan & Dean – When I saw this track nestled into the playlist, I gave a wry grin.  As the song which provoked my famous petulant outburst, I almost felt a nostalgic affection for it.  I decided to give it a listen, see if my jets had cooled.  Ten seconds after I’d clicked “play” I was clicking “delete”.  There’s just something about this song that makes it anathema to me.

“From My Head to My Heart” by Evan & Jaron – Who the #$@% are Evan & Jaron?  A cursory listen reveals the likely donor of this particular playlist entry, the lyrics are just redolent of Ty and his hangups.

And there we have it, at least for the present.  I continue to mold the playlist, however, so stay tuned.

The Softer Side

Yes, the softer side of my music collection has been emerging in the latest stack of cds I’ve unearthed in my quest to fatten up the ipod playlist.  I’ve continued to swing a mean axe on the cutting side as well, so I thought I would give y’all an update on the process.

What’s In

Is This It - I’ve had The Strokes debut album laying around for awhile, as I am not much into the whole much-hyped indie band scene.  I played it, liked it for its NYC garage-punk aesthetic, and tossed it on the playlist.

The Best of Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs – Mom had given me this for a birthday a couple years back, and I had enjoyed it but never put it on my computer.  Don’t know why, these guys are hilarious!

Dr. Hook, Greatest Hits – This is actually one of two “best of” cds that I have for these guys, and the other one, focusing as it does on their early work with Shel Silverstein (yeah, Where the Sidewalk Ends Shel Silverstein, who wrote a lot of their early stuff) is much better, but this one is ok too.

Ultimate Air Supply – It is kind of embarassing to admit that I have an Air Supply cd.  Back when I was dating April, I even went to see them in concert with her and her friends.  It was unintentionally hilarious, as these consummate nancy-boys tried so hard to rock in their live show.  Don’t bother, guys, you’re at your best singing ballads.  Anyhow, I imported just under half the tracks on this cd, the rest being too wussified even for me.

O, Yeah!, Disc 2 – This is an Aerosmith hits collection, and I have only found the second disc.  It was a welcome addition, however, containing some good tracks by one of the greatest rock bands of all time.  The perpetually cool Run D.M.C version of “Walk This Way” is of course the cherry on this particular sundae.

Rock of Ages, Disc 1 – The first part of The Band’s essential live album is perhaps the weaker half, which is impressive considering that it has gems like “Stage Fright”,” The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “Across the Great Divide”, and “Rag Mama Rag”.  Strikingly honest folk-rock.

The Dutchess – Hoo boy, first Air Supply and now Fergie?  My macho points are just taking a beating here.  Once again, I found myself paring about half this cd away before clicking the “import” button.  Sometimes I can’t resist the bouncy rhythms and playful rhymes of these songs, though.

This Is Hip, Disc 2 – Just in the nick of time!  The music snob in me can absolutely get behind this collection of blues from John Lee Hooker.  And it’s pretty masculine stuff, focusing on the tough, growling side of  one of my favorite bluesmen.  I wish I had found disc 1, though, as I recall it has “TB Sheets” on it.

Goodbye Alice in Wonderland - And here we are with Jewel.  Well, I did say this was my softer side, I guess.  Although it more or less bombed commercially, this album is not that bad.  I gave it a careful listen before importing it, and ultimately judged 10 of the album’s 13 tracks to be playlist material.  Jewel is truly a fine lyricist and really gets across as wistful and discontented on this record, which pretty clearly documents the personal turmoil leading to the end of her pop career.  I wonder how her country album is…

Mr. & Mrs. Smith, soundtrack – This was a strong soundtrack comprised largely of updates and covers of famous love songs, most of which are quite good.  It is leavened by quirky 80′s hits like “Love Stinks” and “Tainted Love”, as well as a nice instrumental piece and other odd bits, like the surprise highlight of the album, “Mondo Bongo” by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros.  The only objectionable tracks were a version of “Baby, Baby” a song which I’ve just never been able to quite like, and Atreyu’s cover of “You Give Love A Bad Name”, which was so inferior to the original as to be completely pointless.

Whew!  That went a bit long.  Maybe I’ll get around to the cuts tomorrow…

Culling the Herd

It’s been a while now since I got my ipod playlist squared away to the point where I could begin adding and subtracting for aesthetic reasons instead of a brute attempt to impose order on a chaotic mass of music.  So what have I been up to?  Well, the first thing to do seemed to be to start gathering all my cds together and importing the worthwhile ones.  I had a ton of space to work with; the ipod was a shade under half-full with about two days of music on it, so there was room for, by my conservative estimate, eleventy-billion more songs.

Even though space wasn’t much of a concern, I decided that I should work on trimming the irksome, inappropriate, and mystifying selections out of my playlist, so I decided that for every cd I added, I would hunt down and eliminate one undesired track.  Even though this process has occurred over several weeks, I am still able to offer you a detailed look at the cuts and additions by virtue of my neurotic, compulsive behavior, which prompted me to keep records of everything I changed.  Seriously, I’m not sure I shouldn’t have a minder…

What’s In

The Best of Van Morrison – So, so many great songs from this amazing singer.  From “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Wild Night” to lesser-known gems like “Wonderful Remark”, “Jackie Wilson Said”, “Full Force Gale”, “And It Stoned Me”, “Cleaning Windows” – the whole cd is just stuffed with great tracks.  I remember going to see David Gray when he came to town, and when he covered “And It Stoned Me” as an encore, it just knocked me and ‘Bekah right out – Van’s version is better, but it still just about doubled the value of the evening.

Born in the USA – I had some of these tracks on there already, so some clerical work was necessitated to avoid duplicate tracks, but this album is essential, and not just for the big hits.  I was listening to “Darlington County” when the Towers were hit on 9/11, which is a bit eerie, considering that the song mentions the World Trade Center, and has to be just about the only rock song to do so prior to the attacks…

The River, disc one – Not that the first disc is better, I just haven’t found disc two yet.  Although, as I look over the track list, seeing the title song, as well as “Sherry Darling”, “Hungry Heart”, “Out in the Street” – maybe this is the better disc…

Sin City soundtrack – This is an odd playlist choice, but it is a helluva good record for driving around to, bringing this dark, edgy noir feel from beginning to end.

Live Wide Open, disc one – Oh, Martin, you are so good live.  The versions of “Angeline” and “Hallelujah” on this disc are sublime, and the whole thing is a treasure.  Now where is that second disc?

Genius, The Best of Warren Zevon – Warren is one of the major deities in my personal pantheon, possibly rock’s best lyricist.  Unlike some snarky, cynical singer-songwriter types, he’s a bonafide rocker.  This album is a trove of his best work, ranging from the sly (“Poor Poor Pitiful Me”, “Mr. Bad Example”), to the silly (“Werewolves of London”), to the downright vicious (“Play it All Night Long”), and then, sprinkled here and there amongst this glittering hoard of mordant wit, are moments of such candor and desperation (“Carmelita”, “Splendid Isolation”, “Genius”)  that the whole thing is elevated to a work of…well, genius.

Born to Run – One of rock’s iconic albums.  There’s really nothing else that needs to be said about this one, but I’ll add my two cents.  In addition to the titular rock anthem, this album contains “Jungleland”, this nine-and-a-half minute epic that just dizzies me every time I listen to it.

AJ’s Xmas Mix#1 – Thanks for making this for us, AJ.  If nothing else, I haven’t had “Hook” since I lost my copy of Four, and my whole face just lit up when I saw that on your liner notes.

Experience Hendrix – This is a “best of” which has pretty much all the Hendrix I need.

The Legend of Tommy Johnson – This was burned for me by a peer of mine in college.  He accidentally put the schmaltzy final track on first, and I very nearly discarded the cd without listening to the rest.  That would have been a grievous mistake, as Chris Thomas King is one of the best bluesmen on the modern scene.

Let the Music Take You Home – I really should have mentioned this on St. Patrick’s Day.  Seamus Kennedy’s name alone is ridiculously Irish, and listening to this incredibly charming and funny collection of songs and stories counts as about half a trip to the Emerald Isle.

Past Masters, Volume Two – The Beatles.  “Hey Jude” and others that you can’t do without.

Cheap Trick Live At Budokan – Their best album, and one of the best live albums in my collection.  This version of “I Want You to Want Me” is one of those instances where, if you’ve heard the studio version first, you listen to the live version and say “Oh, so that’s what that song is supposed to sound like!”

For Those About to Rock – AC/DC, and not one of their absolute best, but sometimes you just need these hard-rockin’ bastards.  The title track is of course a good deal of fun.

What’s Out

Virtually all of Denis Leary’s Merry F#%$in’ Christmas.  Not really safe for work, and a lot of it was not really worth hearing again and again, anyway.

“At the Beginning” – Donna Lewis and Richard Marx.  What the…?  Did Ty put this on here?

“All the Young Dudes” – Mott the Hoople.  This is one of the most overrated songs in the rock canon.  It has that distinctive David Bowie suckiness despite the fact that he gave it to another band to perform.

“Be True to Your School” – The Beach Boys.  I think we all know how I feel about these guys, and this ode to school spirit was singled out for special attention because it’s just so nauseating.

“Better Days” – The Goo Goo Dolls.  Again, I’m not really sure how this got on here.  It’s not especially bad, just lackluster.  I stumbled across it while looking for something to cut, didn’t recognize it, gave it a couple of listens and just had a reaction of “meh”, so in the recycle bin it went.

“Closer to Fine” – Indigo Girls.  Ty is much more of a lesbian than I am, and put several of the IG’s songs on my computer.  They don’t really “speak” to me, which is not surprising, since they were not talking to me in the first place.  I liked this song ok when I was a young high school kid searching for meaning and whatnot, but now that I’m a drudge heading into middle age, all I’m searching for is security for my loved ones and a way to blog without running afoul of senior citizens in Minnesota.

“Counting Blue Cars” – Dishwalla.  Cool band name, but this song just irks me for some reason.  Its memorable refrain of “Tell me all your thoughts on God” reminds me of those conversation you would have as a teenager, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning, about God, Life, Love, Society, Poetry – all these things of which you had very vague conceptions (and, as you were soon to discover, much less practical knowledge than was required to keep you from getting hurt), but about which your opinions were nevertheless very strong.  Ah, me, what times those were.  I’m certainly going to enjoy not thinking about those times again for a long, long while.

Constantly Gardening

I invested an hour this morning and finally finished the long and methodical process of paring away all the duplicate tracks from my ipod playlist.  Along the way I’ve eliminated some of the more awful pieces that turned up, as well as purging all xmas music (if I want it back, I’ll put it back in November at the earliest).  Finally, my playlist has shrunk from a bloated, unwieldy 1,002 tracks to a svelte 770 tracks.  While this is still more than two days worth of music, there are no “wasted” tracks now, and everything is neatly ordered by artist and title.  I feel like I can move on from here.

My next step, I think, will be adding music from my cd collection onto the playlist, while discarding the remaining dross.  I know there are some of the less tolerable parts of Ty’s legacy lingering in there, and I have grown sick of certain items acquired in the frenzied pillaging of my youth as well.  The difference is, eliminations will be made now purely on the basis of taste, not the need to clean up my filing system.

Cacophony

A number of music related things are going on at the moment.  For starters, the long slog through my ipod’s playlist, making sure everything is titled correctly, is over.  Yay!  Now I just have to sweep through one last time, trimming out any duplicates that have been revealed by this reorganizing, and I’ll have a pretty good foundation from which to proceed.

In addition, I made two music-related purchases on the recent Valentine’s Day book romp.

The first is Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Working On A Dream.  I normally don’t allow myself to spend bookstore money on cds, but I made an exception for The Boss.  I am finishing my second listen to the album, and I must say that there weren’t many songs that made a knockout first impression (except Outlaw Pete), though the album as a whole flowed together beautifully.  A second listen has cemented the first 6 or 7 songs as strong additions to Springsteen’s repertoire, though I generally feel like the album kind of peters out after that.  The exception to this would be the “bonus track” at the end of the album, Springsteen’s award-winning contribution to the soundtrack of The Wrestler.

The other purchase was more of an accident.  I finished book shopping before ‘Bekah, and decided to pick out one of those hefty reference-type tomes to read while I waited for her to finishing browsing.  The book that I picked up was called 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die and said it was part of the “before you die” series, which apparently spun off the success of the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.  Must be some other people out there who are as list-obsessed as I am.  Who woulda thunk it?

Anyhow, I ended up reading the preface and being hooked by the damn thing, which shows you that the author knew what he was about when he wrote it.  He managed to infuse it with the passion and promise of the three-year quest he went on to assemble the thing, so I couldn’t help but be curious as to what made the cut.  Also, he sounded eminently knowledgeable, and explained his method for organizing the book in a very lucid way, which appeals to several of my neuroses.  I’ve decided that, funds permitting, I am going to begin delving into this list one recording at a time, and share the destinations and experiences with y’all.

Bad Vibrations

I was planning to write about some other nifty old songs that had surfaced on my ipod playlist, but I happened to hear one yesterday that irked me, so I’ve decided instead to write about why I never really liked the whole surf rock phenomenon.

The song in question yesterday was “Surf City”, a Jan and Dean tune co-written with the evil mastermind of the whole surf genre, Brian Wilson (of Beach Boys fame).  If you are looking for a reason not to like this song, you don’t have to go very far.  The first line of the song is really one of the most objectionable, but it is really the refrain, so we’ll skip to line 2:

“I bought a ’30 Ford wagon and we call it a woody”

Seriously?  ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that a “woody” meant somethin’ else, even back in 1963.  I’m sure you juvenile creeps had tons of fun with those clever little innuendos – “All the girls agree that my woody is a pretty sweet ride – huh huh huh”, or “Hey Bobby, Sherry told me you two had to cut your date short ’cause your woody broke down.”

Anyway, the point of the song is that these fun-loving guys are “goin’ to surf city, ’cause it’s two to one” – or, as they spell out later, there are “two swingin’ honeys for every guy, and all you gotta do is just wink your eye.”  Wow, what a cool place.  Guess girls are just so desperate to get with these cool guys that they don’t mind sharing.  How many passengers can your woody handle?

This kind of underscores my problem with the whole genre.  It is about the blessed, the vacuous leaders of charmed lives.  Take, for example, this lyric from the Beach Boys track “I Get Around” (you and your woody, both, pal!):

“My buddies and me are gettin’ real well known

Yeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone”

In the same song, they also mention a car that’s “never been beat” in a race (nobody’s woody is faster than mine!).  All is success, friends, and adoration from the opposite sex.

Well, I’d like to write now as a self-appointed spokesperson for my people, the outsiders.  And not the cool hipster outsiders, either: the malformed, the failures, the weirdos and the weak. The oddballs, the forlorn, the f***-ups and the freaks.  The untalented, the shiftless, the unloved and the unwell.  The ugly, the awkward, the unfortunate, and the unlikable.  The lost, and most of all – the losers.

And what I (we) would like to say to the golden surfer-boy types is simply this: Take your “woody” and shove it up your a**.  Y’know what the “bad guys” are doing while they leave you alone?  They’re beating us up in the parking lot.  Or figuring out ways to steal a little bit more from our paychecks with hidden charges, late fees, telemarketing scams and “special taxes”.  Or regretting to inform us that our spot on the team, our admission to their college, or our dream job has just been given to you.  Well, you deserve it, after all.  You have the right face, the right words, the right attitude and the right skill-set to navigate this shallow, hollow, pretty, petty world.  And damn us double for wanting in so badly…

Golden Oldies

I continue to thresh out the chaff from my ipod playlist slowly but surely.  One interesting development is a decided bias toward old rockabilly, rhythm & blues, and early rock and roll that has been created because these are the types of music I downloaded straight to my computer rather than purchased on cd (not all of my cd collection has been transferred to the computer yet).

Since this playlist is what I find myself listening to at work all the time, I’ve kind of been in a musical time machine lately.  I thought I would select a few of these old gems to share with you, gentle reader.

“Mona” – Bo Diddley  His “I’m a Man” is awfully good as well.

“Lonely Weekends“ – Charlie Rich Sounds so much like a young Elvis Presley it is uncanny.

“Dedicated to the One I Love” – The Five Royales If you’ve only heard the sugary cover versions of this song by The Shirelles or The Mamas & the Papas, then you haven’t heard this song for real.

“Maybe” – The Chantels “Every Night (I Pray)” is also a terrific song.  There just aren’t many singers who get across yearning like this any more.

“A Fool in Love” – Tina Turner While I’m not sure that the relationship described in the lyrics is all that healthy, you just have to check out the raw, soulful power Tina puts into this vocal. (sorry there’s no link – can’t find my favorite version on the interweb).

There are certainly more treasures on the old playlist, but I thought this handful (all recorded no later than 1960) would do for a start.

Son of Playlist

The “underplayed hard rockin’ songs” playlist is back with another hour of music, but first, a quick ipod update.  I’ve finished purging all the obvious duplicate tracks, and got rid of some fugitive Christmas music that snuck in there, as well as Bjork’s “Pagan Poetry”, a relic of the time when a friend shared my computer.  Just a quick observation: Bjork sucks.

Now on to the playlist, with a couple of contributions from the ever-helpful Ezekiel (other contributors are welcomes, seriously – a comment, an email, whatever – as long as it rocks and isn’t overexposed on classic rock radio, I’ll throw it on here).

“In the Evening” – Led Zeppelin  Since when is there anything wrong with a big old slice of rock with a good guitar solo in the middle of it – even if it wasn’t a huge hit?

“Sitting On Top of the World” – Cream  Blues-rock from Cream.  Do I even need to say anything else?

“Brand New Cadillac” – The Clash  Have I ever mentioned that The Clash is my favorite punk band?

“Dress” – PJ Harvey  Although my musical crush on PJ Harvey has cooled a bit, I still find this up-tempo rocker irresistible.

“Paranoid” – Ozzy Osbourne  This song is played on classic rock radio, but Ezekiel would like to request the much more rarely-heard live version from the Randy Rhoads tribute album.

“It’s a Long Way to the Top” – AC/DC  When you can rock hard enough that having bagpipes on the track won’t slow you down, there really isn’t a mountain left unclimbed, is there?

“You’ll Be Mine” – Stevie Ray Vaughan  I’m a big fan of Stevie’s slower, bluesier stuff, but it’s fun to hear him do an up-tempo number every once in a while.

“Sabotage” – The Beastie Boys  As a rule I am not terribly fond of rock-rap hybrids, mostly because they tend to be underdone, as though the band deems novelty a sufficient substitute for musicianship and songwriting.  This is the best of what should have stayed a weird little subgenre.

“Take it Off” – The Donnas  These gals bring an offbeat perspective and plenty of attitude to this gem, which I admit I discovered because of Guitar Hero.

“Sex On Fire” – Kings of Leon  Another hip pick from Ezekiel, who is considerably more current than I.

“Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” – Def Leppard  80′s pop-metal at its very best.

“Highway 49″ – George Thorogood & the Destroyers  George Thorogood is perhaps my favorite purveyor of blues-rock.  Other artists can rock the blues, but nobody seems to live in that niche as comfortably as Thorogood and his crew.

“Interstate Love Song” – Stone Temple Pilots  The groovy little guitar riff on this has stood the test of time by now, hasn’t it?

“No Surrender” – Bruce Springsteen  The organ riff on “Born in the USA” confuses most people; they think the song is an anthem, when in reality it is much more of a plea.  This was the real rock anthem on the Born in the USA album.