Song of the Week 11/25/11

Macy Gray - "I Try"



Damn, it's fun hearing a bar full of women (or 90% women) sing this track.

Party Like It's 1999 11/23/11

Thanks to everyone that came out for our pre-Turkey Day gig. It was a fun and -- at times -- bizarre evening. Look for us to announce a December edition early next week!

Here's what you heard:

Cake - “Never There”
Filter - “Take a Picture”
Foo Fighters - “Everlong”
Garbage - “I Think I’m Paranoid”
Faith No More - “A Small Victory”
U2 - “Staring at the Sun”
Radiohead - “Karma Police”
Silverchair - “Tomorrow”
B.A.D. II - “Rush”
Matchbox Twenty - “Real World”
Better Than Ezra - “Good”
Everclear - “Father of Mine”
Shawn Mullins - “Lullaby”
Butthole Surfers - Pepper”
Beastie Boys - “Intergalatic”
Moby & Gwen Stefani - “Southside”
Fatboy Slim - “Praise You”
Eiffel 65 - “Blue”
Robin S - “Show Me Love”
The Cardigans - “Lovefool”
Supergrass - “Alright”
Eve 6 - “Inside Out”
Lit - “My Own Worst Enemy”
Green Day - “Longview”
Barenaked Ladies - “One Week”
L.F.O. - “Summer Girls”
Spice Girls - “Wannabe”
Ace of Base - “The Sign”
Salt-N-Pepa featuring En Vogue - “Whatta Man”
T.L.C. - “Waterfalls”
Mariah Carey - “Fantasy”
Notorious B.I.G. featuring Puff Daddy and Mase - “Mo Money, Mo Problems”
Snoop Dogg - “Gin and Juice”
2pac and Dr. Dre - “California Love”
Bell Biv Devoe - “Poison”
Boyz II Men - “Motownphilly”
Tony Toni Tone - “If I Had No Loot”
Janet Jackson - “(Love Will Never Do) Without You”
En Vogue - “Don’t Let Go (Love)”
Macy Gray - “I Try”
Alanis Morissette - “You Oughta Know”
Natalie Imbruglia - “Torn”
Des’ree - “You Gotta Be”
Arrested Development - “Tennessee”
Blackstreet - “No Diggity”
Notorious B.I.G. - “Big Poppa”
N’Sync - “Tearing Up My Heart”
New Kids on the Block - “Step by Step”
Backstreet Boys - “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”
Madonna - “Vogue”
Salt-N-Pepa - “Shoop”
Michael Jackson - “Black and White”
Dee-Lite - “Groove Is in the Heart”
La Bouche - “Be My Lover”
Vengaboys - “We Like to Party”
Britney Spears - “…Hit Me Baby One More Time”
Christina Aguilera - “Genie In a Bottle”
House of Pain - “Jump Around”
Kris Kross - “Jump”
Montell Jordan - “This Is How We Do It”
Heavy D and The Boyz - “You Can’t See What I Can See”
Ginuwine - “Pony”
LL Cool J - “Mama Said Knock You Out”
Ice Cube - “It Was a Good Day”
Prince and the New Power Generation - “Cream”
Brandy and Monica - “The Boy Is Mine”
Sugar Ray - “Fly”
John Mellencamp - “Wild Night”
Sublime - “What I Got”
Goo Goo Dolls - “Name"
Counting Crows - “A Long December”

Co-Songs of the Week 11/18/11

John Wesley Harding - "If You Have Ghosts"
Ted Leo - "The Back Seat of My Car"

Saturday night at The Bell House I somehow made it through 5+ hours of standing for an amazing double bill of Robyn Hitchcock and John Wesley Harding and The Minus 5. The evening closed out with some fine covers, two of which really stood out.

First Harding and the Minus 5 finished their set with Roky Erikson's "If You Have Ghosts," a song I had totally forgotten. Harding's cover was released on 1990's Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye and we played the hell out of it at WICB. I had to dig out that album after the show and made sure to rip in a few tracks into iTunes. Here's the bizarre video made for it:



After a brief break, Ted Leo came out and led the Minus 5 through a blistering take on Paul McCartney's "The Back Seat of My Car." Leo originally recorded it for the 2009 WFMU benefit album called Tom, which was a track by track cover of Macca's Ram. I really wished I had been filming Leo's performance. Here's the studio version:



And here's Leo doing a solo performance of it earlier this year:

Song of the Week 11/11/11

Goo Goo Dolls - "Name"



I heard this song twice in the space of 11 hours this weekend. Someone was going to attempt it at the world's most bizarre karaoke bar, Shenanigans, on Saturday night. But the track started and no one came up to the mic. That poor soul missed out on singing in front of a packed house--and the almost-brawl I got swept up into.

The following morning I heard it as I eating brunch at the local diner, a place that I waited to enter for 11 years. (Hey, it's on the other, sketchier side of McDonald Ave. I had a perfectly good reason to not be a customer there.)

Goo Goo Dolls are one of the few bands that I was a fan of for many years that suddenly stumbled upon big time success. I was stunned when "Name" hit number-one on the alternative chart, and totally flummoxed when the song became a Top 10 pop hit. I hadn't heard "Name" in a long time, and those two random plays made me remember that at one point I loved the song--and the Goo Goo Dolls

Song of the Week 11/4/11

The Carpenters - "We've Only Just Begun"




I downloaded this song for a special birthday mix, and then heard it in Foodtown days later.

I'd write more, but I don't want to think about the last time I saw Karen Carpenter on TV. She was SO damn skinny. Such a sad tale.