Song of the Week 9/30/05

Bob Dylan - "Like a Rolling Stone (Live 1966)"

This week PBS ran both parts of Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home. Besides seeing Joan Baez drop the F-bomb repeatedly, the highlight had to be the recently rediscovered footage of Dylan and The Hawks (later The Band) just about to break into "Like a Rolling Stone" after someone in the audience yells "Judas." It's amazing to finally see see Dylan turn to the band and yell, "Play it fucking loud." 40 years later, that single statement still resonates (and still give me goosebumps).

Song of the Week 9/23/05

Mama Cass Elliot - "Make Your Own Kind of Music"

I love Lost. It's one of the best shows on TV in the past five years. The program doesn't usually use pop songs (well, because the people are stranded on an island with no power I imagine), but Wednesday night's season premiere used this song to perfect effect. And then the great Music For Robots had it up as an MP3 the next day. And now I can't stop listening to this song, which I knew first as a Paul Westerberg cover.

Song of the Week 9/16/05

Night Ranger - "Sister Christian"

There are times where I really look--or, more appropriately--listen intently to music anywhere I might be, trying to find that song that will pop up on my radar and announce itself as the Song of the Week. This week I was pretty sure it would end up being the Rolling Stones new single "Rough Justice" since I heard the song two mornings this week and I just got the new Stones disc A Bigger Bang. (And no, I have no idea if it's good. I haven't gotten the chance to spin it yet.)

But then Friday night, after yet another week that felt like a year, I sat down at a barstool at Great Lakes in my old haunt of 5th ave in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Within 15 minutes of getting a Rolling Rock, the jukebox cranked out "Sister Christian," and suddenly all the crap that has made the past two weeks hell melted away for those five minutes and two seconds. It's amazing how much healing power there is in cheesy nostalgia, especially in these lines:

"Sister Christian, there's so much in life
Don't you give it up before your time is due
It's true, it's true, yeah."

Um, those lyrics look really stupid in print. Hearing is much better than reading.

(Oh, and I didn't mention Boogie Nights once, so there.)

21st Century Boy 9/10/05

Thanks to all that came out for the very first 21st Century Boy night at Magnetic Field. I hope to do another night in late October. Stay tuned for details, and enjoy the playlist.

Spoon - “I Turn My Camera On”
Weezer - “Photograph”
New Pornographers - “Letter to an Occupant”
Old 97’s - “King of All of the World”
Wilco - “Heavy Metal Drummer”
Guided By Voices - “Glad Girls”
The Shins - “So Says I”
Art Brut - “Emily Kane”
Electric Six - “Danger! High Voltage”
Scissor Sisters - “Take Your Mama Out”
Doves - “Catch the Sun”
The Coral - “In The Morning”
Louis XIV - “Finding Out True Love Is Blind”
Joe Strummer - “Coma Girl”
Camper Van Beethoven - “51-7”
Modest Mouse - “Ocean Breathes Salty”
Juliana Hatfield - “Because We Love You”
The Gravel Pit - “Baby Gap”
The Gentlemen - “Let Us Know”
Oasis - “Lyla”
The White Stripes - “I Think I Smell a Rat”
R.E.M. - “Bad Day”
Green Day - “American Idiot”
Brendan Benson - “The Pledge”
Nouvelle Vogue - “I Melt With You”
Mike Doughty - “The Gambler”
Kevin Hearn and Thin Whistle - “War Pigs”
Local H - “Toxic”
The Darkness - “I Believe In a Thing Called Love”
Franz Ferdinand - “This Fire”
Death Cab For Cutie - “Soul Meets Body”
Nada Surf - “Do It Again”
Queens of the Stone Age - “No One Knows”
Soundtrack of Our Lives - “Sister Surround”
Kings of Leon - “The Bucket”
Bad Religion - “Los Angeles is Burning”
Cake - “Short Skirt/Long Jacket”
Rilo Kiley - “Potions For Foxes”
The Decemberists - “We Both Go Down Together”
Hot Hot Heat - “You Owe Me an IOU”
Electric Six - “Dance Epidemic”
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - “Is This Love”
The Thrills - “One Horse Town”
Rhett Miller - “Our Love
Ryan Adams - “Hallelujah”
Elliott Smith - “Son of Sam”
Josh Rouse - “Its the Nighttime”
The Strokes - “Under Control”
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - “Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away”
New Pornographers - “The Bleeding Heart Show”
Young Fresh Fellows - “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight”
Beck - “E Pro”
Mates of State - “Along For the Ride”
Of Montreal - “The Party’s Crashing Us”
Gorillaz - “Feel Good Inc.”
The Killers - “All These Things That I’ve Done”
PJ Harvey - “Good Fortune”
Green Day - “Holiday”
Bright Eyes - “Another Traveling Song”
Billy Bragg & Wilco - “Secret of the Sea”
Keane - “Somewhere Only We Know”
Weezer - “Hash Pipe”
The Figgs - “Something’s Wrong”
Son Volt - “Afterglow 61”
Beck - “Girl”
Postal Service - “Such Great Heights”
The Shins - “Caring is Creepy”
Belle and Sebastian - “Step Inside My Office, Baby”
Scissor Sisters - “Laura”
David Byrne - “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Live)”
Ted Leo - “Since You’ve Been Gone”
Spoon - “Everything Hits at Once”
Wilco - “Handshake Drugs”
The Redwalls - “Thank You”
Death Cab for Cutie - “The New Year”
The Decemberists - “Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect”
Spinto Band - “Oh Mandy”
Travis - “Sing”
Rhett Miller - “Come Around”
Radiohead - “Optimistic”
Doves - “Caught By the River”
Coldplay - “Don’t Panic”
The Thrills - “Not Enough Love in the World”

Song of the Week 9/9/05

Son Volt - “Afterglow 61”

I really enjoy it when albums that I dismiss on first listen come back and force me to like them. Son Volt’s Okemah and the Melody of Riot is one of those discs. My first time through I just didn’t like the new version of the band frontman Jay Farrar had assembled, and each song sounded like anything else the band had done, but better, on their debut on Trace.

Yet bit by bit this summer, songs from Okemah slowly won when over whenever I heard them on the radio or on my computer at work. And as I finally got around to reviewing the album for Trouser Press, I was completely won over, and “Afterglow 61” played a big part in that. It was the first track I heard on WFUV and thought, “Hey, is that from an old Son Volt album?” Yes, it is yet another Jay Farrar song about being behind the wheel. But damn, the guy knows how to mine that vein. And the songs rocks. I heard it four different times this week, not counting my subway listening as I did my final passes before finishing my review. I can’t wait to hear it when I’m behind the wheel again.

I Am Trying to DJ Your Heart

So I am DJ-ing again this Saturday. This time it's a solo gig, with a slightly different musical focus:

When: This Saturday 9/10 at 10:30 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. - FREE!

Where: Magnetic Field, 97 Atlantic Ave (at Henry), Brooklyn

What: 21ST CENTURY BOY!
DJ Steve Reynolds (that's me) gets nostalgic for the decade that's only half over -- the '00s! From Wilco to The White Stripes, Death Cab to The Decemberists, Spoon to Scissor Sisters, Ryan Adams to Rufus Wainwright, you'll hear the artists that have made the best music so far in this century.

Yes, that's right, music made when you were alive and dealing with mortgages, car payments, baby formula, ineffectual presidents (or in my case) acting like you're still 23. The more people that come out, the better chance I will have of getting to do this night again. So if you've never made the trip before, this Saturday is the time.

Thanks y'all.

Song of the Week 9/2/05

Bad Religion - "Los Angeles Is Burning"

I suppose if I had actually gotten a chance to listen to The College Dropout or Late Registration before the NBC telethon last night, the Song of the Week would have been a track from Kayne West just because of his bold, going way off the script rant, which left Mike Myers looking rather pale:

Amazing television; easily the most compelling thing I've seen on a live entertainment I've seen in years.

In any case, with all the horrible images I saw this week from the Big Easy (as well as seeing how distraught it made my friend and NOLA native Heather), the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina and the absolutely pitiful response from our government dominated my thinking (and everyone else's, obviously). This week I also downloaded a few Bad Religion albums I did not own already, including 2004's The Empire Strikes First. "Los Angeles Is Burning" is an amazing track about the California wildfires of 2003, yet somehow the song's lyrics resonated with all the horrible things our friends in that grand old city were going through:

"This is not a test
Of the emergency broadcast system
Where Malibu fires and radio towers
Conspire to dance again
And I cannot believe the media Mecca
They're only trying to peddle reality,
Catch it on prime time, story at nine
The whole world is going insane"

Here's hoping New Orleans rebounds like my adopted hometown has over the past four years.


P.S. I wrote this post while listening to The College Dropout--it really is as good as everybody says.