Song of the Week 7/29/05

Aimee Mann - "I Should've Known"

I liked Aimee Mann for many years--until she wouldn't shut up about being screwed over by two different labels just as the Magnolia soundtrack was released in 1999. There's nothing like reading story after story about an artist whining about the record industry to piss me off to no end. Considering Mann had been a signed artist for almost 15 years at that point, it was amazing that she didn't realize that the record industry was always about screwing the artist over. Her attitude of "How dare this happen to me" just pissed me off. And it made me pretty much never listen to her work again.

Tuesday morning I woke up humming a song, and realized that it was Mann's "I Should've Known." In 1993 I couldn't get enough of that song and Mann's solo debut Whatever. Jon Brion's everything and the kitchen sink production paired up with Mann's insightful and slightly sarcastic lyrics made for a great combo to my ears. I remember my friend Jocelyn (who worked for Imago, Mann's label at the time) being shocked when I told her I loved the album, and I also kind of had the hots for Mann.

Now I'm not sure why "I Should've Known" popped into my head. I have softened my stance on Mann since she doesn't talk about getting screwed over any more. Her latest album The Forgotten Arm is the first she's released since the Magnolia soundtrack that I acutally like, so maybe my brain was digging out some gems from the past. I ended up listening to the track twice on the subway to get my fix. And then, perhaps, WOXY.com's Vintage Channel tapped into my brain as well. I started listening to this stream on Thursday, and one of the first songs I heard was "I Should've Known." God bless the power of the internet.

One last thought: the chorus of "I Should've Known" features one of my favorite writing tricks in a song. Mann starts it by singing, "I should've known," then pauses, and then Mann and Brion's multitracked voices go "dot dot dot," then Mann continues "It was coming down to this." Where else could one get a musical ellipses?

Song of the Week 7/22/05

Joni Mitchell -- "California"



I must admit, I don't think I'd heard this track from Mitchell's classic 1971 album Blue in at least 15 years--and then I heard it twice in 18 hours. The first time was while I was hanging out with a couple of special folks (well, one of them was a dog, but Scout seems very human-like) and having one of my best Brooklyn nights of the year. The second time came as I was listening to WFUV stuck in traffic on the West Side Highway in Manhattan. For those few minutes, the traffic didn't seem so bad at all. Thanks Joni, for being part of a great week.

Trouser Press Issue 98 7/16/05

Thanks to all that came by to see myself and Ira Robbins spin tunes for Trouser Press Issue 98 at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn on Saturday night. We hope to do another night again soon. Here's our playlist:

The Who - “Summertime Blues”
Bad Manners - “Lip Up Fatty”
Big Country - “Fields of Fire”
The Specials - “Gangsters”
The Cars - “Bye Bye Love”
Nice - “America”
Killing Joke - “80s”
Dead Boys - “Sonic Reducer”
Sonic Youth - “Eric’s Trip”
Fast - “Hawaii”
Dictators - “Stay With Me”
Sparks - “Girl From Germany”
Buzzcocks - “Love You More”
The Who - “Heatwave”
Rubinoos - “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”
Bonzo Dog Band - “Mickey’s Son and Daughter”

The Jam - “Going Underground”
The Clash - “London’s Burning”
Plastic Bertrand - “Ca Plane Pour Moi”
Devo - “Uncontrollable Urge”
Ramones - “53rd & 3rd”
Damned - “Neat Neat Neat”
PIL - “Public Image”
Undertones - “Teenage Kicks”
Soft Boys - “Rock and Roll Toilet”
Elvis Costello & the Attractions - “The Beat”
The Go-Gos - “We Got the Beat”
Blondie - “Kung Fu Girls”
Greg Kihn Band - “The Breakup Song”
Joe Jackson - “Happy Loving Couples”
Graham Parker and the Rumour - “Hold Back the Night”
Joboxers - “Just Got Lucky”
Cheap Trick - “Dream Police”
Dead Kennedys - “Police Truck”
The Replacements - “Something to Du”
Young Fresh Fellows - “Rock and Roll Pest Control”

Neu - “Fur Immer”
Spaceman 3 - “Take Me to the Other Side”
Hawkwind - “Masters of the Universe”
David Bowie - “Rebel Rebel”
Time Zone - “World Destruction”
Amon Duul II - “Pigman”
Sex Pistols - “God Save the Queen Symphony”
Sweet - “Six Teens”
Eurythmics - “English Summer”
The Residents - “Satisfaction”
Skids - “Sweet Suburbia”
Members - “Sound of the Suburbs”
Tenpole Tudor - “Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater”
Pink Fairies - “I Wish I Was a Girl”
John Otway - “Beware of the Flowers (Cause They're Gonna Get You Yeah)”
Madness - “One Step Beyond”
New Order - “Love Vigilantes”
Holly and the Italians - “Youth Coup”
U2 - “Bad (Live)”
Bryan Ferry - “The 'In' Crowd”

Utopia - “One World”
Dave Edmunds - “I Knew the Bride”
T Rex - “20th Century Boy”
Rolling Stones - “Hand of Fate”
Alice Cooper - “Be My Lover”
KISS - “Do You Love Me”
Iggy Pop - “I’m Bored”
Modern Lovers - “Pablo Picasso”
Blue Oyster Cult - “Godzilla”
The Who - “The Seeker”
ELO - “Mr. Blue Sky”
Fleetwood Mac - “Think About Me”
Peter Gabriel - “I Don’t Remember”
King Crimson - “Neal and Jack and Me”
The Pretenders - “Stop Your Sobbing”
The Kinks - “Living on a Thin Line”
Men at Work - “Be Good Johnny”
Patti Smith - “Frederick”
Hoodoo Gurus - “My Girl”
Madness - “It Must Be Love”
Pete Townshend - “Let My Love Open the Door"
Talking Heads - “Love> Building on Fire”
XTC - “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages”
Graham Parker and the Rumour - “Love Gets You Twisted”
Marshall Crenshaw - “Someday, Someway”

Song of the Week 7/15/05

Madness - "It Must Be Love"

One thing I love about having I-Tunes is that it allows you to search through your entire library by keyword. I have created some great mixes for the bar just by stringing together songs that have "Dog," "World" and all types of fruits in the song titles. I also made a mix where each song had "Love" in the title. One of those tunes was "It Must Be Love," and I had forgotten how great that track was. While it was hit in the U-K in 1982, it was the follow-up to "Our House" here in the States in 1983 and was one of those gems that the Top 40 station I listened to only played at night. Why, I have no idea.

After listening to this "Love" mix over and over on the Ipod, I decided I would play "It Must Be Love" during Saturday night's Trouser Press night at Magnetic Field. It sounded great at 2:30 in the A.M., and definitely captured my happy mood. But what clinched it as the Song of the Week was seeing the video come at at 5:45 on VH1 Classic. I apologize to my downstairs neighbors for cranking it up that loud, but it's not often that I'm giddy, ya know?

Song of the Week 7/8/05

Grateful Dead - "Hell in a Bucket"

Sometimes the old hippie in me comes out, what can I say?

Perhaps this should be called Video of the Week, since I somehow caught this clip on VH1 Classic three times over the week. I had totally forgotten how horrible this video was. I mean, Bob Weir is dressed in a yellow tank top with a purple suit jacket. And he rides down a street in the back of a Cadilliac with a duck:

I mean, what were they thinking? Nonethless, "Hell in a Bucket" has always been one of my favorite Dead songs. Whenever they opened a show with this galloping rocker, I knew that we were probably in for a good night. (Sometimes it didn't even matter if there were songs playing at a show for a good night!) Even today, if this song comes up on the classic rock station here in town (or on VH1 Classic) I will turn it up more than enough to annoy my co-workers.

I had a feeling that a Dead song would make it this week, since on the 5th of July I listened to a new live Dead disc called Truckin' Up to Buffalo, July 4th 1989. That was the first Dead show I ever saw (after a couple years of only being able to score tickets to Jerry Garcia Band shows). My biggest memory of the whole night was that it rained so hard for so long, my hat shrunk before the show was over. Damn cotton. And now I at least have more of a memory than that ill-fitting fishing hat .

And here's another shot I love from the video, where Weir sings the line "I can't think of a place that's more perfect/Or a person as perfect as you" and points right at Jerry Garcia:







That's a moment that is just perfect.

Song of the Week 7/1/05

Gorillaz - "Feed Good Inc."









This one was easy--I saw this video every single night on MTV Hits when I got home after work. I mean, it was the first video every time I turned that channel on.

Freaky.

(I would write more, but I'm fried from Live 8. Perhaps I will expand this entry in the future.)