Coach tought me to sing, he couldn't teach me to love.
The initial plan for my junior prom was this: My friend Andrew and I--the only two dateless wonders within our crews and sub-crews of friends, as I recall, and maybe less than chuffed about it--would dress up and tag along with a few of those romantic winners for the usual pre-prom dinner and limo riding, and then drop the loving couples at the prom itself, hijack (not literally) the limo, and watch crappy soft porn videos while everyone else made treasured memories inside the Newark High School gymnasium. Out of context that sounds kind of creepy and pervy, but classic Skinemax films were pretty de rigeur for junior year hang-out sessions at our friend Joanna's house, and I can attest that they were watched strictly for laughs, devoid of any and all steaminess and/or mid-90s eroticism. Of course they were also generally watched in big groups, which might be why the idea of just us two dudes watching soft porn quickly lost its appeal--it would have run contrary to the spirit in which those films needed to be watched and wound up some weird conceptual joke that neither of us really felt like making (not to mention the two films selected for us were an episode of Red Shoe Diaries starring Ally Sheedy and a movie that's probably still too hardcore for me now, called Auto Erotica). So we dropped the facade and hit up the prom proper. I danced awkwardly with a girl I wasn't into, goofed around, checked out everyone all gussied up, and had a pretty good time. The night wore on, and a bunch of us bailed on the gym, went to the now-defunct Perkins, and wound up staying at our friend Laura's house, where I fell asleep watching strange movies on the USA Network.

The following day my parents let me drive them up to Borders in Henrietta (I had a driving test coming up), and I forced them to listen to Devo's Greatest Hits all the way there. My dad got a kick out of "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA", but I think they were happy once they were able to get out of the car. I didn't have my P&C job yet, so I don't know how I had any money, but I managed to pick up Pavement's Brighten the Corners--kind of the End Hits and Steady Diet of their oeuvre, all in one--and it became my ultimate record of the summer (much to the chagrin of both my mom, who got freaked out when I played the creepy part in "Transport Is Arranged" while driving through a cemetary on the way back from dinner at our local Country Club, and Jason Wetmore who, on a separate occassion, said "I don't like this!" from the back of my overcrowded van once "Date With Ikea" started), at least until I purchased Minor Threat's Complete Discography from that same Borders a couple months later and got set off on an entirely different trajectory. Still, Corners resonated with me so much that even while I was devolving into a cheesy Fat Wreck Chords mess and trading in all of my Sonic Youth cds, I was still listening to it (and whatever other Pavement records I could get my hands on) exhaustively, exalting it to the top of all mental lists, littering mix tapes with "Stereo" and "Shady Lane" and possibly "Old To Begin", and accidentally memorizing every word of the only record I know all the words to.

Pavement - "Shady Lane/J vs. S"
Pavement - "Transport Is Arranged"
Pavement - "Old To Begin"
Devo - "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA"

So much more to talk about! Unreleased Nation of Ulysses demos, depressing answering machine tape (submitted by Jason Yawn Factory) at Chunklet. No Age video at here. Songs of the day, like "Into The Hollow" (or anything from Era Vulgaris) and "Stuck On An Island". Songs of the Memorial Day (aka Take Back the Center Street Day) weekend, like some Favela Funk--1, 2. RIP Charles Nelson Reilly, long live Match Game.

You get me in a crowd of high class people and then you act real rude to me.
Songs of the week for...I don't know, like the last 10 days. And begin:

The Isley Brothers - "Voyage to Atlantis" (from Go For Your Guns)
Bill Withers - "Use Me" (from Still Bill)
The first time I heard this Isley Brothers song was the other day on my way home from work, and I wound up hearing it again as soon as I got in my car the following morning. This was probably just a coincidence (and/or a wake-up call for Sirius channel 53 to add more songs to their library), but what if it wasn't?? Anyway, it's a good song with sweet guitar work. Plus I don't know what's more awesome--the idea that the song might actually be about going on a voyage to Atlantis sung from the point-of-view of a former inhabitant, or the idea of "going on a voyage to Atlantis" as a euphemism for fucking. Meanwhile, Bill Withers shrugs off a dysfunctional relationship because he's the nicest guy on earth. I was a little creeped out that the guy from Gym Class Heroes had "Use Me" AND an Isley Brothers song on some list he did for Nylon Guy, but we do both have a Geneva connection (just as creepy - ed.).

UGK featuring Outkast - "International Players' Anthem" (from UGK Underground Kings)
I finally heard this song in its entirety yesterday after weeks of catching the last 5 seconds of it, and shit is good. Not great, but good. Andre 3000's verse at the beginning is decent, Big Boi's verse at the end is fucking fantastic, and the beat (I think courtesy of Three Six Mafia) is beautiful.

Monks - "Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice", "Love Came Tumblin' Down" (from Black Monk Time)
Black Monk Time gets better every year, and makes me both proud of myself for being inexplicably obsessed with finding a copy when I was in high school and mad at myself for not picking up everything else in the short-lived Infinite Zero catalog. For those not up on the Monks story, check here. These are just random picks that have been stuck in my head lately, especially the guitar solo in "Boys Are Boys...". Also, something about "Love Came Tumblin' Down" (the repetitive-ness? the chunky-ness?) makes me think of Shellac.

Galaxie 500 - "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste" (from Peel Sessions)
Songs like this are the reason I don't flinch or recoil or barf when people use the term "indie rock". In fact, this--a loud, amazing rock version of a Jonathan Richman song--is almost note for note what comes to mind when that term gets thrown around, even though I get the feeling this isn't what people are talking about anymore.

Jacques Dutronc - "L'Espace d'Une Fille", "On Nous Cache Tout, On Nous Dit Rien" (from Les Playboys)
My obsession with Dutronc continues! Like the Monks picks, these are sort of random selections (this time from the first disc of a 3-disc mid-to-late-60s era Dutronc set) that I can't get out of my head. The only bummer about "On Nous Cache Tout..." is that it's mixed differently here than it is on the original Les Play Boys EP, and the awesome drum fills at the end of every line in each verse section--the ones that totally make the whole song!--got brought way down. Sacre bleu (sp?)!

The Beatles - "You Never Give Me Your Money" (from Abbey Road)
Harvey Milk - "War" (from Special Wishes)
I had a dream the other night that I picked up the cd single for "War", which included two unreleased live tracks and came with a bonus action figure of a tree that had a face and two branches/arms--sort of what trees always look like whenever they come to life. "You Never Give Me Your Money" will be on repeat in my mind probably for the rest of my life. I don't know why I paired these up.

Elliott Smith - "Whatever (Folk Tune in C)", "New Disaster", "Either/Or", "Pretty Mary K (other version)" (from New Moon)
I had a hard time figuring out which songs to spotlight, but I finally narrowed it down to a quarter of New Moon's second disc. Every song on both discs is a no-brainer classic, though, and from my favorite era of his ('94-'97), when everything was, for the most part, super raw. But yeah, these songs are all from the 2nd disc, and, with the exception of "Whatever...", are all Either/Or outtakes that leave most people's shining moments in the fucking dust.

Gary Wilson - "Soul Travel", "Rhythm In Your Eyes", "New York Surf" (from Forgotten Lovers)
Every Gary Wilson song starts out sounding like the best song I've ever heard and then usually veers into bizarre territory or just kind of hangs out and winds up sounding like the most pretty good song I've ever heard. But some of them are the best songs I've ever heard, and here's three of them. Forgotten Lovers may even be better than Mary Had Brown Hair, but not better than the cover of Mary Had Brown Hair.

Song that's also on the list but not listed is No Age's "Great Faces". Video is Amps For Christ on Practice Space. Also, I'm taking up a weekly post routine for at least the summer, if not the remainder of eternity, and I might throw in a podcast somewhere down the line, which will probably be called "Rappin' Ronnie Reagan Tape".

I probably forgot more than you'll ever need.
Objectively I don't know how In Cold Blood stacks up against the 100,000 million Johnny Thunders albums, bootlegs, collections, or bootleg album collections since it's the only Thunders record I've listened to in its entirety (I've also listened to, I think, five minutes of Hurt Me). But I do know that my dub of Nick MacLaren's dub (which only included the first five, in-studio recordings), squeezed onto the end of a 120-minute tape immediately following Black Flag, went missing sometime after being listened to on a chartered bus to Washington, DC in the fall of 1997, sending a small part of me into a severe panic. If there was a way for me to have filed a missing persons report for a tape, I would have. But eventually I realized there was this thing called the internet and I managed to track down a copy of it--released on cd by Dojo Limited in '95, but originally released on LP by New Rose in '83, I think--thus ressurecting another of my high school-era favorites from the high school-era graveyard (props to finding my Wookiee tape a couple weeks ago, as well!), sort of. So yeah, the hazy haze of nostalgia is probably making some non-essential, crappy New York punk/drunk rock outtakes sound much more revolutionary than they really are, but I'm going to stand by these songs (the first five songs, anyway; the live set tacked on the end will have to fend for itself). They're catchy and sleazy and, in the case of "Diary of a Lover", terrible, but they're SINCERELY catchy, sleazy, and terrible, and that goes a long way. Plus the version of "Green Onions" is dirty as hell and kind of sacrilegious, and all the studio tracks were produced dutifully by sometime Stones producer Jimmy Miller.

Johnny Thunders - "In Cold Blood" (from In Cold Blood)
Johnny Thunders - "Green Onions" (from In Cold Blood)
Johnny Thunders - "Diary of a Lover" (from In Cold Blood)

Brighten the Corners song of the day is "Blue Hawaiian", runner-up is "Type Slowly". In On The Kill Taker demos song of the day is "23 Beats Off", but keep it hush-hush. Video of the day is...yikes, Black Oak Arkansas' "Hot & Nasty" (or absolutely anything listed in this WFMU post). Remember when VH1 Classic used to play videos?

D as in Denison, E as in Enison.
While I'm waiting for my Denison Kimball Trio 7" to arrive on my doorstep, I figured I'd talk a little about Duane Denison and his work with The Jesus Lizard. I'm not really a historian on Denison, though (I'm not familiar with the works of Firewater or Tomahawk), and I'm only a novice Lizard dude. But I can still say that his guitar work is fucking great--adding so much terrifying color, just-slightly-off-from-each-other layered guitar lines that give you that squirmy/mind split open feeling (like Joey Santiago does with his one note bend-ups, but in greater numbers), and a sense of restraint and tastefulness in all the right places ON TOP of his and the rest of the band's great pummelling math blues attacks. As much as the band wouldn't be what it is/was without David Yow's raving derelict vocals and should rightfully be remembered for just that, it's Denison's experimental, almost jazz approach to the dirty rock game that really does it for me--the moments when his guitar alone seems to blow open the entire song ("If You Had Lips", "Boilermaker"), or when his guitar without a doubt, definitely does blow open the entire song ("Monkey Trick").

The Jesus Lizard - "If You Had Lips" (from Head)
The Jesus Lizard - "Pastoral" (from Head)
The Jesus Lizard - "Boilermaker" (from Liar)
The Jesus Lizard - "Monkey Trick" (from Goat)

Mad decent songs are The Free Design's "Bubbles" and Pavement's "Zurich is Stained". The former was in my head all weekend, the latter all day today. Videos are Them and the Huskers on TV (not at the same time).

It's affecting you and me, subliminally.
Hey, check it out--the songs of the week ca. April 23-30, 2007, with a little bit of talk about them!:

Boys Life - "Sleeping Off Summer" (from Departures and Landfalls)
That echo-y thing that pops up just after the start of every line in the verse parts of this song is one of my favorite sounds ever, but what the hell is it?! A whistle maybe? A keyboard? I have no idea. Also, the second half of this album (which this song starts off) really, really destroys.

Spacemen 3 - "Take Me To The Other Side", "That's Just Fine" (from The Perfect Prescription)
Deerhunter - ""Like New" (from Fluorescent Grey)
Two bands cut from similar, drug-soaked cloths. Spacemen 3 are more 60s rock and Deerhunter are more shoe-gaze, but both space the fuck out with nice results. They also both work best for me in small doses (read: Cryptograms is too fucking long).

Lil' Kim - "Queen Bitch" (from Hard Core)
Say what you will about Lil' Kim being a progressively more gross-looking hyper-slut perjurer(sp?), but I've never disliked any of her songs. I just heard this one randomly while driving by Cayuga Lake yesterday and it sounded really good. It even has a quick, awesome line from Biggie tucked in there. I also thought it would be funny if it somehow played off the Bowie song of the same name, but it doesn't at all. That's the only real bummer here.

The Rapture - "Love Is All" (from Echoes)
Not sure why I decided to break this record out, but it was a decent listen several years removed from the unrelenting hype surrounding its release. This song really stuck out to me since it's not a dance song at all. It's more of a ramshackle, mellow rocker, with some nice reverb-y, almost Rolling Stones guitar in it. The way they work in the warped vocals/sounds at the end is pretty nice, too.

Deerhoof - "Giga Dance" (from Milk Man)
I never paid much attention to this song (or this album, really), but goddamn. Deerhoof takes three sections that don't go together at all and puts them together first to accentuate their differences, then manages to find common elements among them. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think that's what's happening here. And then there's the lyrics. This song is really insane the more I think about it.

Make Up - "Blue Is Beautiful", "Have U Heard the Tapes?", "Substance Abuse" (from I Want Some)
I should post every song on this singles comp., but I'll stick to just these three for now. I don't usually fuck with the latter half of this cd and I have no clue why. I guess I thought it was too rough, wasn't as groovy and clean as the first half ("I Am If...", "Born On The Floor", "Walking On The Dune", etc.) and that was apparently a bad thing?? Something stupid like that. But I'm a changed man now. I M a believer.

Video of the day is this Replacements interview. Regular album talk will probably resume tomorrow. Oh and Beck isn't peforming in Canandaigua this summer as previously reported, but this guy is.

Full of thoughts already written.
So yeah, The Gentle Rain. More soul/funk/jazz instrumental stuff from yesteryear, which is really all I want to hear right now (in between Bone Awl records, '60s freakbeat shit, and Abbey Road), with a nice bit of '70s light FM going on, ie. jazz flute, synths, horns, shag carpet, good times, Good Times, etc. The original hits by not the original artists, including reinterpretations of Stevie Wonder, Carole King, and the Beatles a few times over (including yet another take on "Fool On The Hill"--what's the deal with that song?) brought to you by Nick Ingman and friends, and eventually the good folks at Sunbeam and Anthology. Writing this off as dentist office Muzak would be a mistake, but having a little shindig and gettin' a little loose to this would definitely not be.

Moody - "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" (from The Gentle Rain)
Moody - "Across The Universe" (from The Gentle Rain)
Moody - "Gonna Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse" (from The Gentle Rain)

Song of the day is "Rabbit Hop" in honor of Leah Daniels and her being 23, I think. Runner-up is "Happy Bunny Goes Fluff-Fluff Along" (WARNING: not really a fun song). Non-Leah song of the day is "Melbourne".

The Late Skip Moonlight.
I should really be talking about The Gentle Rain, but I want to round out the very slapdash Beck/Mix Tape double-theme week I started over a week ago, so here are a few random Beck tracks from compilations (which are basically mix tapes, albeit the most unsatisfying mix tapes imaginable, generally speaking). First is Beck's take on Skip Spence's "Halo of Gold", from More Oar: A Tribute To The Skip Spence Album, sounding like a decent/bizarre Odelay b-side. Don't know much about Spence or the Oar record (I'm blanking on what they said in the Rock Snob's Dictionary), so I can't compare and contrast, but I will say my interest is piqued, KIND OF. Next up is a take on Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You In The End", from the Late Great Daniel Johnston tribute comp. Its a pretty standard pairing of Johnston's lo-fi production and Beck's Sea Change voice, and not quite as killer as the original (or any of the original versions, I should say), but it's not bad by any means. And then finally a couple old blues numbers from the soundtrack to Steve Hanft's film Kill the Moonlight--"Leave Me On the Moon" and "Last Night I Traded My Soul's Innermost For Some Pickled Fish". I think I'm going to see Beck with my parents sometime this summer, in Ganandaigua.

Beck - "Halo Of Gold" (from More Oar)
Beck - "True Love Will Find You in the End" (from The Late Great Daniel Johnston)
Beck - "Leave Me On The Moon" (from the Kill The Moonlight OST)
Beck - "Last Night I Traded..." (from the Kill the Moonlight OST)

Beach Boys songs of the day for Saturday morning were "Little Pad" and "Can't Wait Too Long". Beauty Pill song of the day for yesterday (Monday) was "Nancy Medley, Girl Genius, Age 15". Incidentally, check out the blog at Beauty Pill's myspace spot for some free music school. Oh and you can listen to the Clutchy Hopkins-related radio show courtesy of An Aquarium Drunkard--check out the download alone or sign up for their regular podcast. Like it says in the recap, there was barely any talking and TONS of random, good soul/funk stuff for two magically fantastical hours. Run, don't walk...uh, over to that site.

Flying through the air with grace!
Yeah, so let's talk Beck singles ca. 1994. The Steve Threw Up single was the Holy Grail '96 for me, maybe until I found the Jimmy Castor Bunch E-Man Groovin' record but probably even after that, and just like the real Holy Grail, it had to be returned to my friend Andrew since the copy I had been listening to ad nauseum (ba dump bump!) technically belonged to him. But what a song--three and a half minutes of what exactly Steve threw up (falafel, tequila, bagels, catfish, granola, pickles, etc.) while on acid at the top of a ferris wheel. Beck's knack for absurdity and perfect folk songs reaches its zenith at both ends with some help from the gals of That Dog., before devolving into his patented lite Wolf Eyes noise mania (a trick that even found its way onto Sea Change). Luckily I had the presence of mind to be in Washington, DC some eight or nine years later and to bring $8 (kind of steep) with me so I could own my own grail, FINALLY. Also of note, the B side has a slightly longer version of "Mutherfuker" than the one featured on Mellow Gold. I'll try to post that up someday.

Beck - "Steve Threw Up" (from the Steve Thew Up 7")
Beck - "Mutherfuker" (from Mellow Gold)

Not to be outdone, the Loser single bosts four unreleased songs that trump most of what actually made the cut on Mellow Gold. That record has its moments and everything, but I've always been more insane about these fucking B-side gems. Well, not so much "Corvette Bummer", but check out the alternate take of "Soul-Suckin' Jerk". Fucking genius. And again, Beck's savant-like folk mastery is all over "Alcohol". And then there's "Fume", which is whatever for a couple minutes and has some funny lines ("smokin' broken pencils and beatin' up kids"), but then drops major heavy loads all over the place for the last two minutes. It also reminds me of my friend Andrew and his tales of doing nitrous while visiting his brother in Houston. I think I even saw a diary he tried to keep while getting insanely fucked up down there and it was pretty great.

Beck - "Corvette Bummer" (from the Loser single)
Beck - "Alcohol" (from the Loser single)
Beck - "Soul Suckin' Jerk (Reject)" (from the Loser single)
Beck - "Fume" (from the Loser single)

Song of the day is Husker Du's "Makes No Sense At All" because its so good. It also, like "Steve Threw Up", comes courtesy of disc 2 of the Matt Werts Goes to Pittsburgh mix compiled by Tyler Robert Farren. Both come with bonus Carnage clips. Video of the day is some much-needed Dutronc.

A void we filled with death and noise.
The good news is that the forgotten mystery tape from Stoney Way, Spring 2005 opens with a classic clip from a Forever Leather infomercial, and has some surprise picks/decent transitions on side B--ie. Morphine's "Whisper" into Fugazi's "Pink Frosty" into Gordon Lightfoot's "Beautiful", and then later Beck's "Earthquake Weather" (the best song off the worst Beck record?) into Black Dice's "Schwip Schwap" into Nels Cline's "The Ringing Hand". The bad news is the forgotten mystery tape from Racquet Club, Spring 2000(?) is mostly humiliating with very few exceptions--ie. "Broken Face", Beck's "Cyanide Breath Mint" (the best song on the best Beck record?), Boys Life's "All of the Negatives". Best to just avoid personal mixes altogether (are you really trying to impress yourself??). Plus, who has the time?

News of the day is this Clutchy Hopkins shit! Songs of the day are the Misfits' "Green Hell" and Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl (single version)", but they have to be played one right after the other as you're pulling into work. PS--this is clearly the video of the day (probably NSFW).

Nobody can hear the missing.
Welcome to another week of barely posting anything! I assure you (both of you) my lack of writing things is warranted and that I'll get back to the usual three-scattered-posts-a-week routine shortly. In the meantime, here's a two-fer post. First up is Gonzales' Solo Piano, recently issued in the USA after being a mostly non-USA only record, from what I understand. There isn't much I can say about it that isn't spelled out in the name of the record, but the guy from Aquarium Drunkard called it a kind of "musical palate cleanser", and he's dead on. I would also say it's extremely simple and good, makes a perfect soundtrack for driving slowly through the decaying streets of Geneva, and fulfills my current need to hear anything even vaguely foreign.

Gonzales - "Manifesto" (from Solo Piano)
Gonzales - "Armellodie" (from Solo Piano)
Gonzales - "CM Blues" (from Solo Piano)

Second up is Townes Van Zandt's Townes Van Zandt. I was listening to this a lot last week, but I caught part of Be Here to Love Me last night and it got me thinking about what I had been thinking about. I don't know if its maybe uncouth or retarded to relate Townes to someone like John Denver, but that's who he first reminded me of. Like a John Denver who doesn't immediately make me think of muppets (although I have nothing but absolute adoring love for A Christmas Together), I should say. Like a John Denver who is also Gram Parsons who is also [insert old bluesman]. But anyway, Townes Van Zandt is my record of choice so far, until I go headlong into the rest of the Texas Troubadour set. Lots of classics, maybe nothing but classics. Plus "(Quicksilver Daydreams Of) Maria" reminds me of that thing Ray Charles said about how if you want to write a great song, you've got to praise a woman. I don't know if that's completely true (I don't know if it explains Black Flag), but the last thing I want to do is argue with Ray Charles.

Townes Van Zandt - "(Quicksilver Daydreams Of) Maria" (from Townes Van Zandt)
Townes Van Zandt - "Waiting Around to Die" (from Townes Van Zandt)
Townes Van Zandt - "Columbine" (from Townes Van Zandt)

Songs of the day are Earth's "Miami Morning Coming Down" , from the new Hibernaculum joint, and the Aliens' "R:18" from their upcoming anthology. Video of the millenium is Lumidee and Tony Sunshine's take on "She's Like The Wind". Holy lord.

My cyber impulse was uneven.
I thought writing about Miho Hatori's record from last year, Ecdysis, would be easy, but I've been re-reading all of her lyrics from the record while listening to Flowers-Corsano Duo and Bone Awl, and now my brain is completely scrambled. Suffice it to say, Ecdysis is way more impressive than you think it is, sometimes because its melodies and arrangements are so mellow and subtle that they don't always register, and sometimes because the most brilliant or most crushing lyrics are sung in a language you don't understand ("A Song For Kids" slips this by you: "I found a key to the dream island, I'll be back/I'll give you a code between us, it's secret/Only we know, even mom and dad don't know/I will find the place like this, when I become an adult"). It's a record that reads both willfully child-like and unexpectedly heavy ("I live near the river/In the forest of the deer/I release my arrows/To the sense of your fear") , and often sounds like it's being played from both the future and the past, like a bossanova jazz record re-interpreted by a wistful, time-travelling dream warrioress. Think something like "Sugar Water" with quieter beats or Bjork when she's not singing the shit out of everything or Joanna Newsom's subject matter done right, and you'll be part-way there. Tons of ideas done with care is always a good thing.

Miho Hatori - "A Song For Kids" (from Ecdysis)
Miho Hatori - "The Spirit of Juliet" (from Ecdysis)
Miho Hatori - "Walking City" (from Ecdysis)

Guitar solo of the day comes courtesy of the song of the day ("Rainbow"), which comes courtesy of Boris and Michio Kurihara's record of the same name. Video of the day is this making of "Peg" clip, but I also like this Camera Obscura video.

Baby baby, are you down?
Before I go to a show that promises to be 10% great stuff and 90% stuff that needs to fucking go away, let's talk about some music that has fucking gone away. With its lounge-y, vaguely hip-hop inspired rock thing going on, Butter 08's lone release is very much a mid-90s NYC time capsule record. Weirdly, it's taken me about 10 years to really get into it and not just go along with it based on personnel (Blues Explosion's Russell Simins and Cibo Mato's Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, along with future Thumbsucker director Mike Mills, and a guy from Skeleton Key (the band)) or enjoy it strictly as late night, I-can't-sleep music. Most of it seemed like a very well-produced joke at the time of its release, but now it feels like a bunch of extremely well-versed cool kids fucking around and making an admittedly schizo, but still for-real album. And as it turns out, being a bunch of fun weirdos is pretty eternal, even if the music feels extremely dated. I'm pretty sure Grand Royal Direct doesn't even carry this anymore, so you may have to check eBay or Gemm, and also the cd came out in both a mock-LP sleeve and a jewel case (not at the same time obviously). Somehow I wound up with both.

Butter 08 - "Dick Serious"
Butter 08 - "How Do I Relax"
Butter 08 - "What Are You Wearing"
Butter 08 - "Sex Symbol"

Song of the day is definitely "Deacon Blues" or anything off Aja, video of the day is this Bobby Conn video that I forgot about.

"I would like to call certain people murderers."

I don't really have an album to talk about today. You should definitely own Meat Puppets II ("Aurora Borealis", "Teenager(S)") and Bjork's first record is incredible, but mainly you need, NEED to watch Dream Deceivers: The Story of James Vance & Judas Priest, the documentary on the Judas Priest suicide/subliminal messages trial back in 1986. It's not widely available, so this is probably the only chance you'll have to see it. Fans of Preacher's Arse-face, take extreme note. Shit is CRAZY. Major appreciation to WFMU's Beware of the Blog for being so fucking great.

I feel so glotious when I fly in my bonahr.
I'm gonna finish up "Essentials" week by talking about Men's Recovery Project as best as I can, and I guess specifically about The Very Best of Men's Recovery Project. The easiest way to sum them up would be to say that--with their synthesizers, stage theatrics, and songs that seemed to be about humans sung from the point of view of another species--they were to the hardcore scene of the mid-90s what Devo must have been to the rock (or punk or new wave) worlds of the late 70s/early 80s, and even recalled the kind of bizzaro material found on Devo's Hardcore collections. But I would argue that they they were possibly more surreal (and less structured) than even Devo was at their most uninhibited, and maybe even funnier. There's also something cheaper about MRP that's really endearing, and that feeling that they were genuinely in another fucking universe (just listen to "Bleeding Gash"!) all the time, and that nobody will ever be able to recreate what it must have been like to be in that universe. Their Very Best of... compilation is a perfect sampling of the aural absurdity Sam McPheeters, Neil Burke and their occassional guests had to offer, and draws from (probably?) everything they ever released, even the record I'm still not sure they really put out, 2001's Night Pirate LP. I'd also highly recommend The Golden Triumph of Naked Hostility, which compiles a bunch, maybe all of their 7"s (Normal Man, Botanica Mysteria, Immense Ovary Reject, et al.), if you can find it. Oh and Million Man March.

Men's Recovery Project - "Bleeding Gash"
Men's Recovery Project - "Get The Fuck Out of My Office"
Men's Recovery Project - "Avoid Pregnancy During Alcohol"
Men's Recovery Project - "Sexual Pervert"

Song of the day is Gonzales' "Gogol". Yeah, I've never heard of him either. Other song of the day is Ghostface's "Chunky".

The sun just went behind a cloud.
Although its maybe been surpassed in my mind by his brilliant 1971 concept-debut Yesterday's Wine, Willie Nelson's 2003 collection of assorted early/mid-'60s demo recordings, Crazy: The Demo Sessions, has a lock on my heart and stands as the starting point for my unstoppable love and appreciation for Shotgun Willie. I remember randomly catching an NPR review of the, at the time, recently-released demo set and being completely floored by the first thirty seconds of "Opportunity To Cry", which sounded to me like he'd recorded it live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere at some ungodly hour, at the absolute lowest point of his entire life. There's a lot of that feeling on this record, so if you're into the spare, the depressing, and the beautifully-written, you'll probably love this. There's also some great full-band, up-tempo stuff ("Things to Remember", "I Gotta Get Drunk"), lots of previously unissued versions of major classics, and some top-secret unlisted bonus songs at the end. I don't know if I can stress enough how badly you can't go wrong with this record. Seriously, we're talking, like, Harvey Milk essential.

Willie Nelson - "Opportunity To Cry"
Willie Nelson - "Darkness On The Face Of The Earth"
Willie Nelson - "I Gotta Get Drunk"
Willie Nelson - "Something To Think About"

Today's song of the day is The Expressions' "These Moments". Yesterday's other song of the day was Servotron's "Theme For An Ultimate and Inevitable Victory", in honor of Kurt Werts getting elected (AGAIN) as Village Trustee. Video of the day is one of the Professor Brothers episodes ("Late Date"), because it's fucking funny. An extreme thank you to Jessica Hopper for posting some of these on her blog.

Get it up and also get it on.
(sigh)....Harvey Milk's long out-of-print 1998 album The Pleaser was on my ultimate Christmas wishlist last year, a list that included mostly impossible, impratical gifts that I had no intention of receiving in my lifetime, and which I anticipated my children or my children's children might devote their whole lives to tracking down, a la the movie National Treasure. But lo and behold, here it is! It's a St. Patrick's Day Christmas miracle! On their last recorded effort before disbanding for several years, the Milk dudes trade their sludgey, white-spaceness ("musical chinese water torture to the uninitiated", as Henry H. Owings describes it) for some unbelievable KISS/Zeppelin/ZZ Top shit, albeit KISS/Zeppelin/ZZ Top shit that's obviously being played by Harvey Milk. It was also apparently done as an attempt to kill indie rock, which basically exalts this record to someplace higher than what my assessment of higher could be, someplace (like everything else they've done) beyond essential.

Harvey Milk - "Misery" (from The Pleaser)
Harvey Milk - "Shame"(from The Pleaser)
Harvey Milk - "Rock & Roll Party Tonite" (from The Pleaser)

Song of the day is Andy Kim's 1974 hit, "Rock Me Gently". I had a weird thing for the snippet of this song that was featured in an ad for a Hits of the '70s compilation that ran in the fall of 1996. It's got a certain Neil Diamond, good-time feel, and I can't say no to Neil Diamond good times.

"They're gonna turn the power off...on your very lives."
Alright! Harriet the Spy Week continues...and ends. Whoops. But we've got some doozies. First off: two tracks from their very out of print, one-sided, limited tour 7", issued just in time for their summer 1998 tour. I've seen copies of this record with funny things etched on the blank B side, but my copy is just blank. Also of note: these are the last recordings they ever did, and were "recorded with haste, May 1998 in our home". "Synthetic Synthesis" is kind of long and pretty depressing on all fronts but with great lines like "let's be pieces of shit together", while "So Called Reality" is also pretty depressing but with some outstanding guitar notes towards the end. Meanwhile, the Live 1998 split with the Party of Helicopters finds them raging through two songs at the More Than Music Carnival in Columbus, OH. Very lively and awesome versions of "The Forgettable Fire" and "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?", and precisely the kind of stage banter I dream about. Why was this wasn't expanded into an entire album I will never fully understand.

Harriet the Spy - "Synthetic Synthesis" (from the Summer 1998 Tour 7")
Harriet the Spy - "So Called Reality" (from the Summer 1998 Tour 7")
Harriet the Spy - "The Forgettable Fire" (from the Live 1998 7")
Harriet the Spy - "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?" (from the Live 1998 7")

Song of the day is the Nation of Ulysses' "N.O.U. Cooking With Gas!", from one of those Kill Rock Stars compilations, maybe the first one. Its a jazz jam similar to their cut on the Feer of Smell comp, or like those couple songs on Plays Pretty For Baby. Video of the day is THIS!

Peanut butter on my pants.
I'm going to pause the Harriet the Spy talk and talk real quick about the Kids Soundtrack (maybe this should've been talked about last week?) because I got thinking about it today. I know when I first saw that movie I had to rewind the first part over and over again just so I could hear that Deluxx Folk Implosion song, "Daddy Never Understood". Did anyone else do that? How fucking awesome is that song? When that mellotron part (or whatever it is) kicks in? Fuck. I don't even remember what else happened in that movie. Who cares? That song and that soundtrack (which also includes a bunch of "regular" Folk Implosion songs, Slint's absolute destroyer "Good Morning Captain", and a couple Daniel Johnston songs that are more tolerable 10+ years later) wound up providing the soundtrack (literally) for summer '96 in Newark, NY--which included long stretches of not having my parents around, Drivers Ed classes, and repeated viewings of 1991: The Year Punk Broke--and probably ranks in my top five favorite soundtracks of all time. If you have this, the Take a Look Inside... record, the Pole Position single, and the DFI 7", you're totally set for life as far as Folk Implosion stuff goes.

Deluxx Folk Implosion - "Daddy Never Understood" (from Kids: OST)
Folk Implosion - "Jenny's Theme" (from Kids: OST)
Folk Implosion - "Raise the Bells" (from Kids: OST)
Folk Implosion - "Summer's Over" (from the Pole Position single)

Song of the day is Ennio Morricone's "Una Pistola Per Ringo". Video of the day is Prince KILLING SHIT at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame a few years ago (go to the 3:30 mark).

Who axed you anyway?
There's a chance this could turn into "Harriet the Spy Week" if Tyler will allow me to beat up his free time a little. But even if it doesn't let's just take this opportunity to talk about the Harriet side of their split 7" with Fat Day anyway. So here we have a couple more vinyl-only jams that didn't make the cut on Anthology of Selected Recordings, though probably because they weren't released until after that collection came out (either that, or they were as hated/mis-placed by the band as their impeccably named demo tapes). While not their strongest showing production-wise, "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?" and "How We Got On Kill Rock Stars" are still worth a damn for their unrivaled guitar work, propulsive/sloppy/intricate punk rock, and brilliant off-hand blunt hatred ("I'll say anything to never have to talk to you")--all Harriet the Spy trademarks. The version of "How We Got On..." from the Troubleman Mix Tape is better, but its nice to hear alternate versions sometimes (ie. "Cum Stomache" from Unfuckwithable vs. "Cum Stomache" from Anthology...; everybody wins!).

Harriet the Spy - "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?" (from the Fat Day/Harriet the Spy 7")
Harriet the Spy - "How We Got On Kill Rock Stars" (from the Fat Day/Harriet the Spy 7")
Harriet the Spy - "How We Got On Kill Rock Stars" (from the Troubleman Mix Tape comp.)

Song of the day is Elvis Costello and the Attractions' "Beyond Belief", off Imperial Bedroom. Full credit goes to Chad Clark for piquing my interest. Video of the day is Boston's "More Than A Feeling", in memory of Brad Delp (RIP). Only in the last year have I realized how much I geniunely love Boston. Don't even try to fuck with them.

Pick me a tune, sing it like a black man.
I'm not sure how it compares to the rest of his catalog, but Neil Diamond's 1970 album Taproot Manuscript is fucking bizarre, sounding like standard Diamond fare on side A, then shifting abruptly to an African song-cycle for children on side B. Of course since its Neil Diamond, all the songs are great (its especially hard to go wrong with songs like "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Free Life") and I have to respect his willingness to experiment, but that doesn't prevent "Childsong" and "I Am the Lion" from being some of the most sweetly hilarious shit ever, nor does it prevent songs like "Soolaimon", "Missa", or...fuck it, the entirety of side B from sounding like some proto-Lion King Soundtrack pageantry (albeit wayyyyyy better; '70s cheese slays '90s cheese with a vengeance). Full credit goes to Melanie Wood for introducing me to this forgotten gem. All tracks taken from her family's original vinyl copy of the album, too, so enjoy the snaps and pops.

Neil Diamond - "Childsong" (from Taproot Manuscript)
Neil Diamond - "I Am the Lion" (from Taproot Manuscript)
Neil Diamond - "Soolaimon" (from Taproot Manuscript)
Neil Diamond - "Cracklin' Rosie" (from Taproot Manuscript)

Song of the day is The Grumpies' "No One Knows Why", rounding out "Kids Week". Should you choose to listen to this song, you may want to imagine a band made up of kittens who also solve mysteries on the side. That's generally how I used to approach The Grumpies. Other song of the day is Fat Day's "Quintland". Videos of the week were a couple of VBS joints--the Soft Focus interview with Chan Marshall and their latest installment of Sublime Frequencies (seriously check this shit out).

We've got the fever down at Hooper's.
Although I don't have any specific memories of boogie-ing down to it as a kid, I like to think I seriously cut a rug to 1978's Sesame Street Fever--the amazing Robin Gibb-assisted disco concept album featuring most of the major players (Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, The Count, and someone named Marty?). I say "concept album" because apparently its about disco fever sweeping through and infecting the residents of Sesame Street and causing them to "go down to the disco to...boogie", as Grover puts it in "Has Anybody Seen My Dog?". Sounds good to me! It really does sound good, too, particularly the tracks on side B, which include Robin Gibb's absolute stunner (not kidding) "Trash", Cookie Monster and the Girls' deeply funky, celebratory "C is for Cookie", and Marty and Grover's gut-wrenching tale of love and loss that's sure to make you move your feet, "Has Anybody Seen My Dog?". Not sure if this is still in print, so enjoy!

Cookie Monster and the Girls - "C is for Cookie" (from Sesame Street Fever)
Marty and Grover - "Has Anybody Seen My Dog?" (from Sesame Street Fever)
Robin Gibb - "Trash" (from Sesame Street Fever)

Song of the day is either Daniel Johnston's take on "I Saw Her Standing There" or The Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue", which is admittedly a much better video. Video of the day is Delfin Quishpe's "The Twin Towers" (lyrics here), no question.

Thanks a hundred, cap'm.
I think the theme for this week is going to be "Music that could reasonably be considered 'kids music' that I also really like", and since I've had "The Wizard's Baker Rock Opera" songs stuck in my head for most of the past week, let's talk about Home Movies. For those who don't know, Home Movies was one of the few consistently funny (maybe because it wasn't 15 straight minutes of non-sequitors every week?) shows the Adult Swim folks ever aired, and featured some of the best songs I've ever heard in a cartoon, not counting the music of the original Scooby-Doo show, which I can program in my head on a loop almost on command. All of the songs--including incidental pieces and opening/end credit themes--were written and performed by main writer and voicer Brendon Small (who now does that show Metalocalypse (sp?) which I still haven't checked out), which is pretty insane considering the range of material involved (guitar shredding, folky strumming, showtunes, etc.). Check out the Season 4 DVD collection for both the 52-song Bonus CD featuring nearly every piece of music composed for the show (except "Freaky Out-y", the song that drives even Prurient fans off the deep end) and the episode entitled "Bye Bye, Greasy".

Brendon Small and Jon Benjamin - "The Compliments Song"
Brendon Small - "Duane's Big Solo"
Brendon Small, Jon Benjamin, Melissa Galsky, Janine Ditullio, and Todd Barry - "Psycho-Delicate (Medley)"
Brendon Small - "Brendon's Camera"

Song of the day for last night's drive in upstate New York was Claudine Longet's "Snow", if not Wrangler Brutes' "White Out". I think today's song is "Dirty Fingernails", from the non-suck version of Modest Mouse. Video of the day is the majorly kid-friendly video for Kanye West's "Throw Some D's On That Bitch" or whatever its called.

There's a light on in the house.
Holy crap, I took a major vacation from this page for a bit, making Dr. Dog's "The Way the Lazy Do" the official song of the past week, I suppose. But I don't know if that's the most appropriate pick since I spent a good chunk of last week putting together a mix tape for a baker who was going on vacation (that sounds like code for something, but that's literally what I did), so it wasn't like I was doing nothing. Plus the real best Dr. Dog song of the week--and there were a lot to choose from--was "From", a previously unreleased track recorded live as part of a Daytrotter Session in mid-February. The rest of the songs can be found here, but "From" is the real killer, showing that they can homage the shit out of Neil Young just like they can the Beatles, and do it beautifully without sounding like they're even trying. Also, their write-ups on each song are fantastic.

And speaking of mix tapes, I read the interview with Rob Sheffield on Fluxblog (its a three-parter, you have to scroll down a bit), and though I had planned on never ever ever reading his book just based on the title, I kind of want to now. If you're prone to obsessing over music, have a history with cassette tapes, and have had crushes, you'll probably want to read it, too. The interview is a really good read, and I particularly liked the discussions of old zines and favorite album-combo tapes (I can't think of another way to describe them, its fucking early). I think my favorite of all time was my tape with Sonic Youth's Sister on side A and Gravediggaz' 6 Feet Deep on side B. Oh and when they talk about that Dump song, you should check it out because its pretty good.

Anywho, (ir)regular content should resume tomorrow, the beginning of a really long week.

Consolation in the stardust of a bong.
Silver Jews' Tanglewood Numbers won a whole bunch of awards in my head this past year--including best lay-out, best album-opening lines ("Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor?/Just in case I feel the need to puke"), best random lines that popped in my head while I was working ("Andre was a young black Santa Claus", "His sister was like the heat coming off the back of an old TV", "Get a load of this fucking view, its the best in the west!"), etc., and it made my best of 2006 list even though it came out in 2005--that's how goddamn good it is! I could really go on and on about it, but I already did. Here's the review I wrote like a year ago for the forthcoming debut issue of The Chuds Present:

"I always figured a band called 'Silver Jews' would be terrible but then I saw that thing in Vice with those pictures of Dave Berman and Harmony Korine harassing an anti-immigration rally with a sign that said 'You are the bottom-feeders of American life so we're going to replace you with cool Mexicans' and 'Go back to Pussy-stan' and I had to re-assess things. So yeah, I'm a newbie when it comes to Berman and his Silver Jews stuff, and I have zero insight into how this compares to the rest of his shit. Has he always done low-key, later-Pavement-sounding stuff, but with a plain-spoken Southern baritone guy doing vocals instead of a smart-alecky nerdnik? Because this shit is good. It actually reminds me of being in Newark around NewarkFest time (beginning of June) for some reason, which might seem incredibly insulting if you think about the dread of seeing former high school classmates you had specific plans to avoid at all costs forever, who will undoubtedly recognize you and try to catch up with you. I guess I'm just picturing the nice weather and the wealth of human absurdity that a three-day carnival/celebration in a small rural town in upstate New York can bring out of the slowly rotting woodwork, in the most explicit, undiluted ways possible. It can be hilarious and off-putting and maybe even deeply depressing, usually at the same time or in very quick succession. All of which roughly translates to a great time, and this album is the soundtrack I'd prefer to have blasting as I'm laughing and wincing my way through it."

Silver Jews - "Punks in the Beerlight"
Silver Jews - "Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed"
Silver Jews - "Sleeping is the Only Love"

Song of the day is Sunn 0))) and Boris and Jesse Sykes' "The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep)" even though its kind of cheesy. Runner-up is Owls' "We Are the Owls" even though its not the best Owls song.

I'll show you my endzone dance.
I try to champion Bastro as much as I can, even though I feel like a tease championing a band whose records aren't readily available, apart from the Antlers: Live 1991 record (which is more of a Gastr Del Sol practice tape) and random eBay listings. The situation was remedied briefly back in early 2005, when Drag City re-issued their two proper full-lengths--1989's Diablo Guapo and 1990's Sing the Troubled Beast--as a one-disc set, but even that cd fell out of print by the end of that year, leaving only the tiniest of windows to easily grab a copy of the best collision of the Minutemen, mid-'80s DC hardcore, and abrasive Big Black-ish stuff you will ever hear. Its seriously ridiculous, if not criminal, that these two records--not to mention their remarkable debut, the Rode Hard and Put Up Wet EP--aren't widely available, and I hope Drag City or somebody, anybody! decides to re-remedy the situation. Sing the Troubled Beast feels a little more anthemic, if still schizo, like a Revolution Summer spent locked in a sweltering basement; Diablo Guapo alternates between outright noise frenzy and goofyness, and gets more incredible on every listen. You should just start scouring the interweb for copies of these jams, you won't be disappointed (unless...you can't find them, I mean). Oh and its also worth pointing out that the dudes behind all this were David Grubbs, John McEntire, and Clark Johnson (but not this Clark Johnson, as far as I know), who have all done many, many other great things.

Bastro - "Demons Begone" (from Sing the Troubled Beast)
Bastro - "Noise/Star" (from Sing the Troubled Beast)
Bastro - "Engaging the Reverend" (from Diablo Guapo)
Bastro - "Decent Skin" (from Diablo Guapo)

Song of the day is No Trend's "Human Garbage" and I want to send it out to Tom Fields, Linda Warner, and everyone who lives in my neighborhood.

Honey, he's back from the grave.
This past weekend was a super church-y one for me--my niece was baptised, plunked down into the lukewarm holy waters and anointed with weirdo oils by a man who sings poorly, and there was much rejoicing--so its kind of fitting that I've been rockin' Loose Fur's Born Again in the USA on repeat (almost as fitting as hearing "Spanish Bombs" on the way to see Pan's Labyrinth). For those who don't know, Loose Fur is the side band featuring Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, as well as Wilco producer and super genius, Jim O'Rourke. Their first record, 2003's Loose Fur, was great except the songs went on FOR FUCKING EVER and felt half-finished. But on Born Again..., they tighten shit up (except on "Wreckroom", but only on the second half, and the first half is fucking brilliant) and make everything super catchy, and wind up sounding like a punk rock version of Wilco that also sounds like Faraquet. I'm pretty sure everyone slept on this album except for Tyler and myself, but don't let that sour you. Its awesome on every level, the Tomoo Gokita artwork level in particular. Oh and they have a video.

Loose Fur - "The Ruling Class" (from Born Again in the USA)
Loose Fur - "Stupid As The Sun" (from Born Again in the USA)
Loose Fur - "Wreckroom" (from Born Again in the USA)

Song of the day is "The Partisan", from Leonard Cohen's Songs From a Room. Not sure if there's a specific reason this reminds me of my mom when I was a little kid, but it definitely does. Its probably just the parts sung in French.

You're thinking about equilibrium.
I've been itchin' to put some rare-ish stuff up here lately, but since my somewhat hard-to-find shit is all on vinyl and since I'm pretty ignorant on how to transfer vinyl to Tyler's computer, all that stuff is gonna have to wait. HOWEVER, I remembered I have a copy of Horses' (maybe) lone release--a 4-song cd-r they sold at one of their few shows, with Q and Not U and some annoying "dance party band"/garbage at North Six about a year and half ago. Horses featured 3 ex-Black Eyes dudes (non-shrieking vocalist Hugh McElroy and the two guys who played drums, whose names I can't remember...one of them's named Dan, I think?) and a guitarist (not sure about her name either) from DC-based mathematicians Et At It, and managed to last about a year or so before packing it in and moving on to other things (much of which can be investigated at the Ruffian Records site). They weren't too far off from what Black Eyes was for the three years they were together--a no-wavey, heavy-on-the-rhythm post-punk band that always sounded fresh and galvanizing, while nearly all of their contemporaries sounded either incredibly forced and mediocre or simply awful. But where Black Eyes seemed to trade almost entirely in desperate reactions to weird social/political/sexual interactions, Horses felt a little more subdued, even kind of spooky (low, chanted vocals; darker tones; lots of talk about death) while still throwing in the kind of polyrhythms and bass grooves you might have found on Black Eyes (but none of the free jazz skronk you might have found on Cough, unfortunately). Their cd-r sounds like it was 4-tracked or possibly even layed down on a boombox--there's literally no other information about the recording or the band aside from what's written on the cover (see image above)--so prepare yourself for some definite rawness. They played so many more songs at that show, though, and I wish they'd had a chance to lay them all down and put it out. Shit was tight.

Horses - "Track 1" (from 4567)
Horses - "Track 2" (from 4567)
Horses - "Track 3" (from 4567)
Horses - "Track 4" (from 4567)

I know I'd said that yesterday's song of the day would be "Is It Me You Really Love", but it was actually The B-52's "Whammy Kiss", if only for the part that goes "He cannot stand to go into work/when he needs some whammy love". That's pretty romantic, right? Today's song is the not-so-romantic "Grounds For Divorce" from the forthcoming Big Business jam, which is pretty much full of songs of the day. Site of the day is a pretty thorough look at You Can't Do That On Television.

Guess what?
Nostalgia sucks.
That being said, NOFX's Fuck the Kids 7" instantly takes me back to any and all events that may have happened between summer 1997 and summer 1998. This record may have been even more of a soundtrack to senior-year me than what I thought was the prevailing soundtrack (Minor Threat's Complete Discography), but at the very least (and perhaps most importantly) it was the vinyl face that launched a thousand Chuds ships--or to put it another way, it was the record that hastened my entry into the world of people who play music, via a band called The Chuds. And obviously I'm talking the original, Newark-based Chuds, not this monstrosity. I haven't paid much attention to NOFX since So Long and Thanks For All The Shoes, so I can't really say if they've gone downhill. They're still at the top of my "best of the bands I've been obsessed with at various points in my life" list, though, just based on Fuck the Kids (and Ribbed, White Trash..., The Longest Line, Punk in Drublic, Heavy Petting Zoo, So Long..., and the song "Six Pack Girls") alone.

NOFX - "Reagan Sucks"
NOFX - "My Name's Bud"
NOFX - "Please Stop Fucking My Mom"

Song of the day is The Damned's "Fish", from Damned Damned Damned. Song of the day for this past Saturday is Madvillain's "Great Day". Song for the approaching Valentine's Day Massacre (aka me working in a sub-zero blizzard) is Black Velvet's "Is It Me You Really Love" courtesy of Truth and Soul on myspace.

Today's been pretty good, actually. Wrap it uuuuppp!!

I will break my arm.
I've been rockin' David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World (aka Bowie's take on the Sabbath-y prog thing) a lot lately, and its pretty sweet. I mean it feels like he's playing with other people's ideas and hasn't quite found his voice yet (this is '72, long floppy hair time), and the lyrics are kind of cheesy, so its hard for me to really love the shit out of it. But I do like the shit out of it. In particular, I've been liking the shit out of "All the Madmen" (even with the flute solo...shit, maybe because of the flute solo) and "She Shook Me Cold"'s last couple minutes. Holy FUCK. Mick Ronson is the shit:

David Bowie - "All the Madmen" (from The Man Who Sold The World)
David Bowie - "She Shook Me Cold" (from The Man Who Sold The World)

Song of the day for yesterday was Ida's "Shrug", from their 2000 release, Will You Find Me. Song of the day for today is The Jesus Lizard's "Monkey Trick", from the almighty Goat. Fuck all that Young Widows bullshit. Runner-up song of the day is Electric Light Orchestra's "Daybreaker". Live performance of the day was Carlos F. singing "Hakuna Matata"(sp?). Thing-said-by-my-mom of the day was "Pomegranates--those are like love machines, aren't they?" Phone call of the day is "Eddie Money".

Try to be right in whatever I say.
Speaking of Talking Heads again--before the release of their Once in a Lifetime best-of box set (and its counterpart--the shorter, best of the best-of The Best of Talking Heads) in 2003, there was 1992's two-disc Sand In the Vaseline collection. And while it lacks the beautiful packaging, genius video program, and about a third of the tracklist of the Lifetime set, Vaseline does include one mad crucial song, "I Want To Live", not found on any other Talking Heads collection (or album, to the best of my knowledge). Working with the same line-up (Byrne, Weymouth, Frantz only, I think) and production set-up as the probably more well-known, brilliant pre-77 /demo track, "Sugar On My Tongue", "I Want To Live" completes what I imagine in my head to be one of the best singles never actually released from the pretty much flawless New York punk scene of the mid-'70s. If they'd never released anything other than these two tracks, they would still be one of my favorite bands of all time (although I guess I'm glad they went on to make a shitload more great songs and basically every great video ever.):

Talking Heads - "Sugar On My Tongue" (from Sand in the Vaseline)
Talking Heads - "I Want To Live" (from Sand in the Vaseline)

Song of the day is Harriet the Spy's "This Music Festival Sucks", in honor of the little album nobody wanted. Feel free to replace the words "music festival" with "motherfucking deep freeze I can feel coming in through my not-so-good bedroom windows". I need some plastic sheets to seal them up. Videos of the day are Dr. Dog's "My Old Ways" and even more Nation of Ulysses. Oh and VBS is up and running!!

Smokin' bones in the staircase.
For the past couple weeks I've listened to almost nothing but the first of El Michels Affair's Shaolin Series 45s (where they do incredible full-band instrumental covers of Wu-Tang classics), which features their brilliant re-interpretation of the gold-standard classic "C.R.E.A.M." on the A-side, and a jaw-dropping take on Raekwon the Chef's "Glaciers of Ice" on side B. Anything Wu-related is an easy sell for me (they're basically the starting point for my love of hip-hop, or re-starting point, I should say), but this shit is seriously GOLDEN. Thank you, Truth and Soul. El Michels Affair is what every soul/funk band should sound like--like they're straight out of the late '60s/early '70s and wicked wicked dusty. I think they're my new favorite band, or they're at least giving Soiled Mattress a run for their money. Its a tough call. But these jams are more guaranteed day-brighteners, life-exciterers, etc.-- so don't dawdle:

El Michels Affair - "C.R.E.A.M." (from The Shaolin Series Vol. 1)
El Michels Affair - "Glaciers of Ice" (from The Shaolin Series Vol. 1)
El Michels Affair - "Behind the Blue Curtains" (from Sounding Out the City)

Song of the day is the songs I was just talking about. Video of the day is Talking Heads' "Crosseyed and Painless", which I guess I never saw because I fell asleep the one time I tried to watch the DVD from the Once in a Lifetime set. And speaking of Talking Heads and that video and sleep--I had a dream last night that I was visiting my friend Andrew at work, and I was telling him about the video, and he was pissed because he wanted to see it but he didn't get out of work for a few more hours. And I was like, "You'll just have to wait." and it sounded EXACTLY like the part in "Stereo" (go to the :37 mark), and we both thought it was pretty strange.

PS -- You have until 12:35 PST on February 4th to snag your copy of Harriet the Spy's Anthology of Selected Recordings. What's that? You don't need it? Ummm, did you read the song titles?