Song of the Week 4/28/06

Rihanna - "SOS"

Dear lord, will there be anything catchier than this song this year? Whoever decided to use Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" as the sample for the song is a pure production genius. I listen to it once, I want to listen to it again. As a co-worker said, "It sounds like a mash-up of two really good songs."

Of note--this is the youngest artist (18 as of February) to garner Song of the Week honors. I will now go bang my head against the wall next to my desk.

Song of the Week 4/21/06

George Harrison - "Cheer Down"

I have sold a lot of CDs over the years to a) pay for beer; b) pay for moving to New York; c) to pay for vodka; d) to clear space out of my tiny apartment and e) to pay off my credit card debt. The biggest regret I have in selling discs over the past 13 years is selling George Harrison's Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989. At the time I sold it to my co-worker Sal I had no idea it was out of print, and worth much more than the 7 bucks I sold it for. I kicked myself a few times (especially when Harrison passed away in 2001), but when we reported that his back catalog was being remastered I was happy. I became very upset when that remastering did not include the three new songs that were on Best of Dark Horse. "Poor Little Girl" and "Cockamamie Business" are good songs, considering they were recorded specifically for the compilation. And "Cheer Down," well, that's one of my favorite Harrison solo songs ever. It came out a few months before the compilation on the soundtrack to Lethal Weapon 2. That summer was my first away from home, as I worked at the college station in Ithaca. I listened to a lot of music that summer when I was not on the air, and I couldn't get enough of "Cheer Down."

Finally this week I asked Sal if he could bring Best of Dark Horse back in so I could burn it into my Itunes. He just so happened to have it in his desk, so I snatched it and walked briskly to my computer. A few minutes later I was never so happy to hear the slide guitar of George Harrison. Pardon the cliche, but cheering down never cheered me up so much.

Exposed! The Grandmother of Sammy Hagar and Rhea Perlman

She's not really, she's just an 87 year old granny who happened to be a convicted murderer who eluded police for THREE DECADES.

Brings a new meaning to "It's About Time." Turn your clocks back!

Song of the Week 4/14/06

Dio - "Rainbow in the Dark"

I wrote two stories last week that were about Ronnie James Dio. That's about two more stories than I write in a whole year about Ronnie James Dio. The metal midget (seriously, he's about 5' 2") had his wife put out a statement that he wasn't reuniting with Black Sabbath this year, and in fact, he was going to be out promoting his new Holy Diver Live album. Yes, it's that classic 1983 album, done live. Whew, talk about the well running dry.

In any case, I listened to the three Dio songs I have on my Ipod on the way back to Brooklyn Friday night and eventually found myself in Great Lakes. This was the first indie rock bar in Park Slope, so you expect to hear Death Cab for Cutie, Pixies, punk, etc. So I was a bit stunned when "Rainbow in the Dark" came blasting out of the jukebox. And what was even funnier is that some guy all the way at the front of the bar started singing along as loud as I did (well, as loud as I wanted to--that dude was loud). Raising up the devil horns (pictured above) never felt so good.

Song of the Week 4/7/06

Josh Rouse - "Winter in the Hamptons"

Moria the concert pal and I went to see Josh Rouse last night at Town Hall in Manhattan. It was a good show, yet kind of odd because Rouse made a big deal about having a string quartet tour with him, but he only used them on six or seven songs during a 95-minute set. It seemed as though he could have gotten more of his money's worth.

In any case, when he led the crowd into a sing-along of "Winter in the Hamptons," I started focusing on the lyrics, and a couple of lines really struck me as perfect for the way I feel right now:

"Here we go, singing our songs with our soul
The winter has gone, where do we belong
We have stayed too long"

It's been a long winter, indeed. (I"m not talking weather-wise.) And singing along with Rouse and the crowd at Town Hall felt good. Singing along with a song that has somehow mapped a direct link to your soul (or whatever it is inside us) makes some of the stress that life brings melt away.

Or maybe it was the six pints of Rolling Rock, whatever.

Co-Song of the Week 3/31

Young Fresh Fellows - "Hillbilly Drummer Girl"


Tina Turner - "Better Be Good to Me"


I've rarely had two such diverse songs dominate one week like this. The Tina story is easy--somehow my-coworker Doug brought up "Better Be Good to Me" in one of our stupid conversations that dominate our days. Of course, I immediately downloaded the track and cranked it up. And when Doug did his own Tina impression, I knew we had a winner. We listened to the song every day at work--and fruitlessly looked for the video where Tina just rips it up on stage somewhere. Damn, she was hot for a 60 (maybe older?) year old woman in 1984.

"Hillbilly Drummer Girl" is a bit of a longer tale. This week I saw two shows from The Minus 5, the group led by Young Fresh Fellows frontman Scott McCaughey. Scott started this band 13 years ago as a vehicle for his non-Fellows material and stocked it with a rotating cast of musicians. Within the past five years, he's solidified the lineup to an amazing four piece--Peter Buck on bass, John Ramberg on guitar and vocals and Bill Rieflin on drums. I've seen this lineup perform four times, and those shows are easily the best out of the nine Minus 5 gigs I've made it to.

Their two shows this week were two of the best concerts I imagine I'll attend this year. The second show at the Mercury Lounge was slightly better for one reason. (Well, two reasons if you count the smoking guest appearance by Lenny Kaye on guitar.) Scott walked up to the mic at one point and said, "This next song is a cover. It's by one of the best bands you'll ever see, and this song is probably one of the best you'll hear this year." Then McCaughey kicked off that killer riff that starts off "Hillbilly Drummer Girl." I started jumping up and down, screaming "yeah, YEAH!" All of the people around me at the front of the stage gave me some extra space for the rest of the show after that little display. And then two people came up and asked me, "Who does that song originally?" "Ugh," I thought, "How could these people not one of the best Fellows songs ever?" After the show was over I went up to Scott, gave him a hug and thanked him for breaking out that song, telling him he had no idea what it meant to me.

Now the Minus 5 have covered a Fellows song before--"I'm Not Bitter" from Down With Wilco was first on a rare Fellows LP--but I never expected this song to ever make a Minus 5 set. Hey, the Fellows have played New York three times in the past 12 years, so I'll take what I can get. And for it to be this song, well, it's almost too much.

I discovered the Fellows in college, really dug playing them throughout my time on 92 WICB and even played songs from them on my "alternative" show in Syracuse from 1992 to 1995. After moving to New York, I sort of forgot about them until I discovered my co-worker Jodie was a huge fan. One week we preceded to go on a Fellows spree, buying all the albums we didn't own, playing them at work, annoying our co-workers all the way. All these years later, whenever I hear "Hillbilly Drummer Girl," I think of her and the crazy, mixed-up and (once in a while) most perfect times in my life. (It also doesn't hurt that The Figgs recorded a cover of "Hillbilly Drummer Girl," making it even more appealing to my ears.)

The past few months I've been going through another emotional rollercoaster that makes me think back to those times almost a decade ago. So having the Minus 5 play this silly song about a female drummer going to Memphis on Tuesday night somehow how brought it all together. I'm not sure if it was relief, sadness over what could have been, sadness that what I hope for in the present day I know will never happen or just the extreme lack of sleep I've had all this year due to stress on all sorts of fronts, but during those three plus minutes Scott was singing and the band was rocking, it all melted away. I felt like that college kid again; I felt like that guy who had been in New York for a year and unexpectedly stumbled upon love; I felt like that guy from last summer who was cheerful to be around and truly enjoyed life for the first time in years. I felt good. I don't think I could adequately explain to Scott (who I feel lucky enough to be friendly with) how much his music has meant to me over the past decade, or how much that performance of "Hillbilly Drummer Girl" meant to the healthiness of my soul. But who knows, maybe that brief sweaty post-show hug said it all.

Song of the Week 3/24/06

Humble Pie - "30 Days in the Hole"

This track from Peter Frampton's first band has always been one of those classic rock staples that slips through the cracks for me. Like Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" or Steve Forbert's "Romeo's Tune," "30 Days in the Hole" was one of those one-hit-classic-rock-wonders I discovered in 1984 when I first started listening to PYX 106 in Albany--and for all three tunes, it took me years to discover who sang them. (Ah, those sexy pre-Internet days.) I finally discovered it was Humble Pie when I started co-hosting WICB's Classic Rock Sunday. For some reason we had this track on CD, and I swear I must have played it once a month the year plus I hosted the show. But since then, I can't recall thinking about the song more than once in the past 15 years.

So this week I'm killing some time by exploring the ITunes store, and I stumble upon Kiefer Sutherland's celebrity playlist. Being the huge 24 fan that I am, I clicked on the link, and there it was, track 3, "30 days in the Hole." Sutherland describes the Humble Pie album Smokin' as "A bad-ass rock record from start to finish." I'm inclined to agree with him. I ended up downloading the song and listening to it three times in a row. The goofy acapella beginning where the Humble guys work on their harmonies made me feel like I was back at home circa 1985, having my cassette recorder on pause all the time, waiting for some great song to come on so I could capture it on tape.

Bless this Itunes thing and its ability to fulfill my crazy musical needs.

Song of the Week 3/17/06

Sugar - "Hoover Dam"

So during my vacation out West I went to the Hoover Dam for the first time. The morning before we drove there, I listened to this track from the most excellent Copper Blue. My entire visit I was humming the song. And as I posed for a picture with one foot in Nevada and one in Arizona, the opening lines never seemed so appropriate:

"Standing on the edge
Of the hoover dam
I'm on the centerline
Right between two states of mind"

Considering my messed up mental state of late, this Bob Mould metaphor worked quite well. Thankfully, the vacation did me a world of good, which will hopefully lead to goofier Songs of the Week for a bit.

Song of the Week 3/10/06

Yes - "Love Will Find a Way"

I doubt the truth of this song's title, but it has been stuck my head all week. The three-part harmonies from Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire and Jon Anderson on this track (and on most of the album) just sound so pure, like these guys were meant all their lives to sing together. When I saw "Love Will Find a Way" on the master list of songs I've been plowing through for my HD radio channel, I just had to hear it. And then hear it again. And again. Every trip this week on the subway, this Big Generator cut has kept me mezmerized. I love the Trevor Rabin edition of Yes--those two albums were as good as AOR got in the mid-to-late 80s. Too bad they couldn't keep it together.

Love will find a way. Yeah, right.

Song of the Week 3/3/06

Soul Coughing - "Screenwriter's Blues"

Perhaps the musical cosmos knows that I can't wait to visit L.A in two weeks. Maybe that's why I a) watched the video for this great track online today and b) soon disocovered it had a fuck in it, which means it can't really be played on my HD Radio channel called Radio Radio.

Dammit.

Nevertheless, it's one of the best songs ever about the film business, which seems appropirate with the Oscars on Sunday.

Is it vacation time yet?

Song of the Week 2/24/06

Skeeter Davis - "The End of the World"

This classic tearjerker of a song has popped up from time to time in my life. My first memory of it comes from my grandfather, who was big into country, especially the start of the Chet Atkins-era of "Countrypolitian" production in the early 60s. I vaguely recall hearing this in my house at some point growing up, alongside a wealth of great country albums that I am proud to say I stole for my own collection when I was in high school.

The second time was about six years ago when it was used (to rather excellent dramatic effect) in the Winona Ryder/Angelina Jolie insane asylum flick Girl, Interrupted. This time, I scored the soundtrack from a friend of mine at TVT, and I played the song a few times, soaking in its sadness.

The latest time I was able to make a "Skeeter" reference in public was last night when Mike Viola did a cover of the song during his show at Barbes in Brooklyn. Simply put, it was a stunning performance of a song that is pretty damn great to begin with. Viola has written his share of uptempo catchy numbers, but I swear he's at his best when he's doing a slow ballad about loss or heartbreak. This cover -- which also featured a stellar pedal steel solo by Bob Hoffnar -- was no exception, and fit perfectly amongst Viola's originals.

Let's face it, I like really sad songs. Heck, I even ended up making a mix called A Heartbreak Special for my friend's bar that led off with that song.

Yeah, I know, what a sap...

UPDATE 2/26: Just to add to the Song of the Week mystique, I decided to sing "The End of the World" at some birthday karaoke in Koreatown Friday night. Alas, I am no Skeeter Davis or Mike Viola, even though I certainly can pack a lot of depression into my voice. Nobody wanted to hear it, and I was cut off before the second verse.

Drunk on Sapporo bastards.

Song of the Week 2/17/06

Josh Rouse - "It Looks Like Love"

Mr. Rouse has done it again, creating another batch of 10 great songs about love, loneliness and...Spain? The first U.S. single from his upcoming album Subtitulo--a title influenced by Rouse's new Spanish home--was one of the highlights of his acoustic show a few weeks back. It's damn catchy, and it seems as though our Josh has gotten over his divorce and found a new squeeze. After listening (cough, illegally recording from the internet, cough) the album on Thursday, I had to listen to it again on the way home. And then when I was checking my email late that night, I saw I had gotten an email about a pre-sale of tix for Josh's Town Hall show on April 7th. As I was texting Moria the concert pal about this news, "It Looks Like Love" came on WFUV. Really, these folks (especially those at the World Cafe) seem to know my musical brain a little too well.

April 7th can't get here soon enough. (Same for March 21st, Subtitulo's proper release date.)

Song of the Week 2/10/06

Death Cab for Cutie - "Crooked Teeth"

This has long been my favorite song on Plans, and now the new "Sledgehammer" homage clip for it has been stuck in my brain all week.

Fuck, I'm gonna go watch it again now.

Trouser Press 100 2/4/06

Thanks again to those who came out to see myself and Ira spin at Magnetic Field last night. We hope to do it again soon. Check out what you heard (or missed) below...

Psychedelic Furs - “Into You Like a Train”
PIL - “Public Image”
Wire - “Mannequin”
XTC - “Life Begins at the Hop”
Lords of the New Church - “Russian Roulette”
Talk Talk - “Talk Talk”
Art of Noise - “Close (to the Edit)”
Cure - “Hello I Love You”
dBs - “Amplifier”
House of Freaks - “It’s a Fucked Up World”
OMD - “Souvenir”
Normal - “Warm Leatherette”
M - “Pop Muzik”
Grandmaster Flash - “White Lines”
Be-Bop Deluxe - “Cryin to the Sky”
Clash - “Time Is Tight”
Elvis Costello - “Lipstick Vogue”
Dave Edmunds - “Girls Talk”
Cheap Trick - "Heaven's Falling”
Status Quo - “Down Down”
Jason and the Scorchers - “My Kingdom for a Car’
Tom Robinson Band - “2-4-6-8 Motorway”
Dictators - “Minnesota Strip"
Plimsouls - “A Million Miles Away”
Foghat - “I Just Want to Make Love to You”
Stranglers - “Duchess”
Damned - “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today”
Sex Pistols - “Frigging in the Rigging”
Red Rockers - “China”
20/20 - “Yellow Pills”
John Cooper Clarke - “36 Hours”
Billy Idol - “Dancing With Myself”
T. Rex - "20th Century Boy"
T. Rex - "New York City"
The Cars - "All Mixed Up"
Joe Jackson - "Don't Wanna be Like That"
Split Enz - "History Never Repeats"
The Motors - "Airport"
The Pretenders - "Time the Avenger"
Talking Heads - "Slippery People"
Echo & the Bunnymen - "The Back of Love"
The Jam - "Start!"
Go-Go's - "Get Up and Go"
Blondie - "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence Dear"
Monroes - "What Do All the People Know"
Dukes of Stratosphere - "Vanishing Girl"
Spongetones - "(My Girl) Maryanne"
English Beat - "Best Friend"
Madness - "Wings Of a Dove"
Eurythmics - "Love Is a Stranger"
Patti Smith - "Redondo Beach"
David Bowie - "Panic in Detroit"
The Church - "The Unguarded Moment"
Graham Parker - "Stick to Me"
Smiths - "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"
Ramones - "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World"
Replacements - "I Will Dare"
Sex Pistols - "Holidays in the Sun"
Smithereens - "Strangers When We Meet"
Descendants - "Suburban Home"
Hoodoo Gurus - "Like Wow--Wipeout"
Vapors - "Turning Japanese"
Sugar - "A Good Idea"
Replacements - "Bastards of Young"
KISS - "Hard Luck Woman
Alice Cooper - "Only Women Bleed"
The Kinks - "20th Century Man"
Rolling Stones - "Hand of Fate"
Rolling Stones - "Sweet Virginia"
Television - "Marquee Moon"
Elvis Costello - "Allison"
Graham Parker - "Wake Up (Next to You)"
Mott the Hoople - "I Wish I Was Your Mother"
Jazz Butcher - "D.R.I.N.K."
R.E.M. - "Perfect Circle"
Pretenders - "Thin Line Between Love and Hate"
Joe Jackson - "Breaking Us in Two"
Big Star - "Thirteen"

Song of the Week 2/3/06

Brandi Carlile - "Throw It All Away"

I've written in the past about albums that I missed the first time around, and Seattle youngster (and cutie, as you can see) Brandi Carlile's self-titled debut is no exception. I listened to once and dismissed it as another clone in the Sheryl Crow/Lucinda Williams vein. But over the past couple of months WFUV has been spinning various tracks, and one morning last week the morning jock Claudia Marshall played "Throw It All Away" and something just clicked. At that point I'd already put the album in the giveaway stack ages ago, so I had to go to Itunes that day and download it. Then I proceeded to listen to this tearjeaker of a song over and over. Something about Carlile's passioned delivery of the chorus slays me every time. Of course, this song isn't one of the two singles Carlile's label has released, so props to WFUV once again for playing another hidden gem.

Song of the Week 1/27/06

KT Tunstall - "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree"

Not much to write about this song, except that I heard it almost everyday this week. And after watching her Today show performance (where she basically recreates the track by looping her own singing an playing) I gained a new respect for this Scottish lass. And I believe this album will become a big hit.

Song of the Week 1/20/06

Ambrosia - "You're the Only Woman"

Why oh why did this song have to get stuck in my head? I'll blame my co-workers for bringing up other Ambrosia songs after "How Much I Feel" came up on my iTunes one day. And then once I downloaded and played "You're the Only Woman," it was stuck in my head for a few days. I guess the only upside is that I thought it was a Doobie Brothers song, so now I know better.

What's next, something by Stephen Bishop? And seriously, look at that album cover. These guys look like they have the market cornered on soft rock.

Song of the Week 1/13/06

The Who - "The Kids Are Alright"

As part of my continuing effort to listen to every nook and cranny of my IPod, I spent a good deal of time in the "W" section this week. While listening to The Who's Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy while walking through downtown Brooklyn, I decided I wanted to sing a Who song at Live Band Karaoke that night--specifically "The Kids Are Alright." So when I looked at the lyrics, I realized that I had no idea what this song was about. Is Pete Townshend writing about getting away from his family? Should his significant other get away? And when he writes kids, does he mean small children? And why hasn't Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy been reissued on disc? I know The Who have been subject to 1034 best of compilations, but this is the first, and by far the best.

Song of the Week 1/6/06

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - "Get Down Moses"

The beginning of a new year always allows me to dig into the back catalog, as the mail slows to a trickle at work and there's not a lot of bands to interview. (Well, at least not until January has a couple of weeks under its belt.) This week I've been going through my ITunes and clicking on stuff that has nothing marked off in the play count column. One of these selections was the posthumous Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros album Streetcore. "Get Down Moses" was in my head the rest of the day after I listened to it, and then this morning WFUV spun it.

Damn, how do they know me so well?

The 16th Annual Reynolds Top 20 List

Maybe I Should Make This a Podcast Next Year?

“Seriously, you listen to the discs in your car? What’s wrong with you?”
—Steve Reynolds (a.k.a me) talking to a subscriber in February of this year.

Hello readers, both new and old. For those of you exposed to the list for the first time this year (of which there are a few), let me explain what you’re holding in your hands. This loosely stapled pack of papers is my annual attempt to sum up the year in pop culture as I see it. Somehow my jaded (and occasionally insane with lovesick-depression) mind has been able to crank out a bunch of gibberish about albums, singles, concerts, movies and TV shows for 16 years now. This process usually makes me a bit cranky and incredible stressed out at the end of the year. (Hmm, maybe it’s this list that makes me act like the Grinch around the holidays, not working near the Rock Center Christmas tree.) So if you’re reading this, you’re someone who I think might share the same sensibilities. Or like my potty-mouthed humor throughout, whatever.

(RT20 veterans, you can start reading again.) So let me admit this: I never expected the response I got from last year’s multi-media edition of the list. Those two CDs of my fake radio show elicited more feedback than anything else I’ve ever done with this crappy little end of the year rag. People listened to those two CDs in their cars, at home, while on vacation and even put it in their iPods. I was constantly amazed, and I thank all of you for the great feedback and compliments.

Of course, all that positive reinforcement is not something I’m used to, or accept very easily. And that just about increased my self-created pressure while planning this year’s edition to new almost-lethal heights. I spent a good deal of time during the summer trying to plan out what my next radio show could be, and how much time it would take and if I’d have to actually pay my voice and production talent this time around (they were cheap suckers the first time around—ha ha). I thought about doing a one disc show of the top singles of the year or perhaps two discs that would cover most of the Songs of the Week from this year. I even thought about an audio documentary about me making this list, but I figured nobody needed to hear me belching, farting and yelling while I type (the people I work with have to live with that five days a week already).

And then I had a couple of things come along that postponed those plans: 1) I spent four months pursuing a book deal (which, alas, had the plug pulled on it in early December) and 2) I’ve taken a part-time job creating a classic alternative radio format that will be launched in early January on the ’net and elsewhere. I can’t go into full details about what it entails, but let me just say this: when you find yourself working on Thanksgiving night at 10pm in an office with no heat, you kind of start thinking, “Did I sign on to do too much? And did my pinky toe just fall off inside my Doc Martens?” So with this extra work, you can see why I would be a little hesitant to try and create something to follow-up last year’s Top 20 radio show. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do one next year.

One final note—this list was the easiest to write since the first one, which I only listed the albums and wrote nothing else. Doing two different blogs over the past year had certainly made the creative muscles in my mind easier to access and get working, once I can pull myself away from watching Miracle for the 138th time it’s shown on Starz. (For those that don’t know, the two blogs are the Reynolds Top 20 which contains all of the previous issues of the RT20, and Zisk, which is an offshoot of the baseball fanzine my friend Mike and I co-edit.) I wrote something once a week for the RT20 blog, and while the Mets season was going, I wrote something everyday for the Zisk blog. Let me tell you, coming up with new ways to say “Braden Looper blew an important game” forces you to up your level of writing and made me able to crank out copy at a stunning pace. (Everything you read after this page was written over a space of six eight-hour working days, which is a record for me. And no, I wasn’t on coke, only Diet Coke.)

Well, that’s it for this year’s babbling explanation. Thanks once again for reading this pile of my loves, likes, neuroses, paranoid fantasies, weird ideas to change the music scene and many half-baked jokes. May it keep you in good company in your bathroom or your train ride home.

It's True, We All Are (I)Pod People

2005's Top 20 Albums

Top 10 Headlines I Hope I Don't Write in 2006

2005's Top 20 Singles

Other Musical Stuff From 2005

Top 10 Visual Aids