Song of the Week 9/22/06

Bastards of Melody - "Fuck Waking Up"

Full disclosure: I work with the three guys in Bastards of Melody in the live karaoke group Bunnie England and the New Originals. But in the year or so I have been the MC for Paul, Paul and Troy, I have never seen them perform their originals as BoM. So all week I was looking forward to seeing them play a set at the Parkside Lounge in what used to be called Manhattan's Alphabet City. (The area of Ave's A through D.) And the guys did not disappoint me, delivering a strong vibrant set of songs that made me want to air guitar. Think Replacements meets Cheap Trick and you'll have an idea of what they sound like--and why I like them. Their set went great until they asked me to come up and sing "Surrender" as their last song...and I promptly forgot the words to the second verse. It must have been the lack of beer that caused it, as I've done the song at least 25 times with them and only messed it up once. Simply put, I was mortified afterwards.

The song the Bastards did before I ruined their set was "Fuck Waking Up" from their 2003 album Break Up. It's a damn good song, and one of my favorites from an album that's filled with strong tracks (and I found myself humming it when I woke up Sunday morning.). My visiting friend Nancy even got a free copy of it , just because Paul needs to clear out his basement. However, I still suggest you download it from iTunes so the guys can make some cash.

Song of the Week 9/16/06

Nada Surf - "Blankest Year"

This song has become my favorite tune on Nada Surf's The Weight Is a Gift. And as I got myself mentally ready for ACL, I knew they would play it during their set. What I didn't know was that they'd be joined by two horn players from Calexico--who blasted the riff at top volume--causing me to jump around and dance with pure joy. But I did stop to get a pic:



Aw fuck it, it WAS a party. I'll have more about the party that was my trip to Austin in the Top 20 this year.

I Suppose This Should Have Been A Song of the Week

I'm not sure why Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" never made it. I mean, I have a collection of over 20 different versions of the song in the ol' iPod. This article in Slate gives a great overview of all of the covers and why artists feel compelled to cover a song that's been everywhere this summer.

And here's my favorite cover version, as of right now. However, that could change at any moment:

Song of the Week 9/8/06

World Party - "Sweet Soul Dream"

Whew, that's one bitter entry below. Sorry about that. Thankfully this week features something that can be in short supply in these parts -- hope and positivity.

My co-worker Dave raved about the World Party show he saw in early August out in Los Angeles. So I took the initiative to get myself on the guest list for the band's show at Irving Plaza Saturday night. I've been a big fan of the band--basically frontman Karl Wallinger and whomever he chooses to play with--ever since I heard "Ship of Fools" on PYX 106 20 years ago. I saw them once before, way back in 1993 opening for 10,000 Maniacs. And all I can remember from that show is that most fans at SPAC seemed to not know who World Party was and they wondered why I was standing up and cheering when they broke into "Way Down Now."

My interest in the band waned a bit with their 1997 album Egyptology--and that's because I was a moron and didn't realize that "She's the One" is quite possibly one of the best love songs of the past decade. "She's the One" is one the library cuts that WFUV plays regularly (and with them that means once every two to three weeks) and it drive me nuts not being able to get it because the album was out of print. Thankfully my co-worker Dave had a copy and in January was able to send me the song for my Ipod.

Last year Wallinger got the rights back to all of his albums, including 2000's Dumbing Up which was available stateside only as an import. In the spring he reissued all of them and came to the U-S to do some acoustic shows to promote them. This in itself was miraculous, considering the man had a brain aneurysm five years ago! I don't know all the facts about his recovery, but from all accounts Wallinger is very lucky man to be on the planet right now, and even luckier to be able to speak and sing again.

I can't even imagine what it must feel like to get a second chance after staring down death, but I can now say I can see how it can impact a person's take on their own songs. During Saturday night's performance at Irving Plaza, Wallinger had a grin etched on his face for 90 minutes straight. The pure joy the man got from playing with what is a kick ass band (drummer Chris Whitten is great secret weapon) came through in every song he sang. Wallinger's vocals on the studio versions of songs such as set opener "Put the Message in the Box" and "Is It Like Today" always seemed to me a little bit detached, as if he needed to put some distance between himself and his words. Not on this Saturday night. Wallinger's passion for these songs rang through loud and clear.

Saturday's set went deep on Goodbye Jumbo songs, with seven cuts played. And with many lyrics in those songs about not letting life pass you by ("See the world in just one grain of sand/You better take a closer look/Don't let it slip right through your hand") it was obvious that the meanings to many of his own word had changed for Wallinger. Even "Way Down Now," which is not the most uplifting song, came across now as anthem of carrying on. And damn, this audience was glad Wallinger carried on. Irving Plaza wasn't sold out, but the rapturous ovation Wallinger and company got throughout the evening was so loud I thought I was at the Garden. And it was obvious that Wallinger was touched by all of it. Someone left him a bouquet of flowers at his feet, and I could have sworn that he looked a little choked up when he went to the mic to thank the anonymous fan who had left them.

(Here's a sample of Karl in action today. The audio is pretty poor, but the feeling is still there.)


As for our Song of the Week, "Sweet Soul Dream" has always been my "buried on side 2" gem of Goodbye Jumbo. I didn't think Wallinger would play it, especially after one guy yelled out for it three times during one gap between songs. (And no, it wasn't me.) But that dude and I got our wish, and Wallinger sang it with, well, pardon the pun, a whole lot of soul. I think he especially dug into these lines that open the second verse:

"I don't need a body
A body's nobody to me
I'm just a cell
I'm leaving well
When I get you to give me the key."

Welcome back Karl, to your body and soul.

Song of the Week 9/1/06

The Gentlemen - "Through With You"

This song sounds really good when you're really fucking pissed at someone when they blow off meeting you without leaving a message saying they weren't going to meet you and that you can just go into the ballpark and you don't have to fucking stand there for 50 minutes wondering what the fuck the delay is and then when you finally go in and it starts raining and then the people behind you have small children who yell in your ear for an inning and kick your seat repeatedly until you get so fucking fed up you have to get the fuck outta there.

Whew, I feel much better after that run on sentence. At least the Yankees lost.

And man, does this song fucking bring the rock.

Song of the Week 8/25/06

Dan Hartman - "I Can Dream About You"

I must credit the great Jefito Blog for prompting this 1984 summertime hit to get stuck in my brain this week. He wrote a great piece (right here) about this song and made me discover that the version I had from Hartman's somewhat lame best of Keep the Fire Burning was not the version I was used to, it was a lengthy remix. In fact, even the album version (which Jefito had as a download) was not the version played on FLY 92 (Albany's CHR station) when I was 14 year old just making the transition from Top 40 to album rock. It was this version here:



And while doing some research, I discovered that in some parts of the country, it was this version that got played:



I never saw MTV until 1987, but I do remember seeing the top version of the video on the afternoon video show on channel 6. The bottom one (with the different vocal mix and faster tempo) I guess was the one used to promote that weird MTV inspired film Streets of Fire (which did have Diane Lane, and that's always a plus). Oddly enough, the version on the soundtrack is the "hit" one in my mind. Damn, all these different versions are giving me a headache, I must cease and desist writing about it.

I will add that in the summer of 1984, I thought this song was this shit. It's still pretty damn good today.

Ooops?!!?

I recently noticed that I never posted up the playlist for the Trouser Press night Ira and I did back in February. Click here to check it out, and get ready for Trouser Press 101 on September 30th at Magnetic Field.

Co-Songs of the Week 8/17/06

Elton John - "Philadelphia Freedom"



Bruce Springsteen - "New York City Serenade"


"Philadelphia Freedom" may be the only Elton John song left on this planet that I actually like. And during the past two weeks HBO has been running their documentary about Billie Jean King (it's top notch, and worth watching), which of course has segment about World Team Tennis and Elton John and Bernie Taupin writing this song for King's team. After hearing it a few times--and with a trip to Philly for a Mets game coming down the pike--I knew I had to download it and use it for one of the mixes I was making for our excursion.

I've been on a Springsteen kick as the well the past week, and have been especially fixated on tracks (studio and various live versions) from The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. "New York City Serenade" is a gorgeous nine minutes and 55 seconds of song, closing out an entire side of epics. (Side 2 of the 1973 album also features the seven-minute plus cuts "Incident on 57th Street" and "Rosalita.") I was looking to put together a mix disc of New Jersey artists for someone I know moving to the Garden State, and closing it off with this dream-like tale of kids and homeless folk and the "fish lady" in New York wrapped it all up on a great note. And it contains one of my favorite lyrics from the Boss:

"It's midnight in Manhattan, this is no time to get cute
It's a mad dog's promenade
So walk tall or baby don't walk at all."

Indeed.

Song of the Week 8/11/06

The Monkees - "Mary Mary"

I was born after the Monkees TV show went off the air--and I never saw MTV until 1987, long after the video channel had propelled the band's music back into the mainstream. To me, they were a band from the '60s--not a prefab band, just a band that made some good pop hits. This week Rhino is reissuing the band's first two albums--The Monkees and More of the Monkees--in deluxe two disc editions with each album in stereo and mono, along with tons of bonus tracks

These reissues are awesome.

I have listened to "Mary Mary" from More of the Monkees over and over again since I got the reissues on Thursday. I could swear I heard a cover of this song recently, perhaps the past two months, but I just cannot place it. So the original will just have to do.

Song of the Week 8/4/06

Soul Asylum - "Lately"

Thursday night I saw Soul Asylum again. Unlike the last gig a few weeks ago, this was a full on headline set at Irving Plaza. And I'll be damned if they weren't just as good as their show last fall at the Bowery Ballroom. I knew that one of their songs would end up as Song of the Week because I listened to every Soul Asylum track I had in the iPod twice during my commutes this week. And when they broke into the third song of their set, "Lately," I knew that I had found my pick.

"Lately" is perhaps the most topical song Dave Pirner has ever written. Inspired by a story in a local paper about a woman waiting for her husband to come home from Iraq--and to see his child for the first time--Pirner paints a picture that too many families have been going through the past three years. The song especially resonated with me this week, as one of my friends found out that her brother was finally coming home from Iraq just in time to be there for his daughters birthdays. These lines seem especially worth highlighting:

"You gotta bring your soldier home
All those stones have all been thrown
You gotta give a kid a chance to get a look at his kid
And hope that he can live with whatever he did."

The band's performance of "Lately" Thursday night was, simply put, fucking rocking. Dan Murphy made his guitar howl at the end of the song, setting the tone for a night where he was on fire during every song. I went looking on You Tube to see if someone had perhaps posted some footage from the show, but what I found was infinitely more interesting:



I love how today's technology allows anyone to create a video to their own liking and then post it for the whole world to check out.

Song of the Week 7/28/06

Electric Six - "I Buy the Drugs"

Let me make a bold statement:

Electric Six are the best band of the 21st century.

(I told you it was bold.)

Let me rephrase that--Electric Six are the best band that has released albums only in this century. 2003's Fire is a certifiable classic and the follow-up Senor Smoke is almost as good. The band's third album, Switzerland, is due out September 12th. And the four tracks that have streamed on their My Space page have me thinking that we've got a potential album of the year candidate coming in just a few weeks.

"I Buy the Drugs" is the first single. I have been listening to it constantly since I (cough, cough) recorded it off My Space. This week the video made You Tube. So sit back and relax, the Electric Six are going to take you to school:



Singer Dick Valentine may be one of the Top 10 frontman ever in rock. Ever.

(Oh, and the address Valentine sings in the bridge--that's a real address. Google it and you'll find out.)

Steve's Indie Scrapbook 7/28/06

Thanks to all who came down for the second edition of the Scrapbook. Next time, I will reunite with all my old mates in TV Eye. Here's the playlist so you can check out what you might have missed.

The Replacments - "Bastards of Young"
Husker Du - "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely"
Soul Asylum - "Cartoon"
R.E.M. - "Can't Get There From Here"
Social Distortion - "Bad Luck"
Dinosaur Jr. - "The Wagon"
King Missile - "Detachable Penis"
Lemonheads - "Into Your Arms"
Camper Van Beethoven - "Pictures of Matchstick Men"
Guided By Voices - "Teenage FBI"
The Stone Roses - "She Bangs the Drums"
The Clash - "Police on My Back"
Dramarama - "Last Cigarette"
Dead Milkmen - "Bitchin' Camero"
The Smithereens - "Only a Memory"
The Rave-Ups - "Positively Lost Me"
Jesus & Mary Chain - "Just Like Honey"
The Jam - "Beat Surrender"
Franz Ferdinand - "Tell Her Tonight"
Interpol - "PDA"
The Psychedelic Furs - "Dumb Waiters"
Happy Mondays - "Step On"
Big Audio Dynamite - "Just Play Music"
Julian Cope - "Charlotte Anne"
The Fall - "Hit the North"
Guadalcanal Diary - "Always Saturday"
Joe Jackson - "You Can't Get What You Want"
Elvis Costello - "Kinder Murder"
Supergrass - "Alright"
Blur - "Chemical World"
Buffalo Tom - "Summer"
Too Much Joy - "Crush Story"
Scruffy the Cat - "My Baby She's Alright"
The Shins - "So Says I"
Elliott Smith - "L.A."
Nada Surf - "Blankest Year"
Husker Du - "Crystal"
Ramones - "Somebody Put Something in My Drink"
The Raconteurs - "Steady As She Goes"
Oasis - "Slide Away"
The Cult - "Rain"
Love and Rockets - "No New Tale to Tell"
The Cure - "Fascination Street"
Echo & the Bunnymen - "Seven Seas"
Midnight Oil - "Best of Both Worlds"
Electric Six - "Radio Ga Ga"
The Figgs - "Bad Luck Sammie"
Snow Patrol - "Eyes Open"
Wilco - "Monday"
Fountains of Wayne - "Red Dragon Tattoo"
The Go-Go's - "Turn to You"
Weezer - "The Good Life"
They Might Be Giants - "Ana NG"
Icicle Works - "Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)"
The Hives - "Main Offender"
Superchunk - "Slack Motherfucker"
The White Stripes - "I Think I Smell a Rat"
Reigning Sound - "Time Bomb High Shcool"
Black Flag - "Six Pack"
The Gravel Pit - "The Ballad of The Gravel Pit"
The Afghan Whigs - "Gentlemen"
The Gentlemen - "Sour Mash"
The Minutemen - "Political Song For Michael Jackson to Sing"
Mudhoney - "Touch Me I'm Sick"
New Pornographers - "Letter From an Occupant"
Romeo Void - "A Girl In Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)"
Juliana Hatfield - "Everybody Loves Me You But You"
Sugarcubes - "Deus"
Bob Mould - "See a Little Light"
The Pogues - "The Ghost of a Smile"
The Pixies - "Gigantic"
Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - "Balloon Man"
Jeff Who - "Barfly"
Hoodoo Gurus - "What's My Scene"
Mojo Nixon - "Elvis Is Everywhere"
Cake - "I Will Survive"
The Pursuit of Happiness - "I'm An Adult Now"
Talking Heads - "Take Me to the River"
Folk Implosion - "Natural One"
Uncle Tupelo - "Gun"
XTC - "The Mayor of Simpleton"
Matthew Sweet - "Sick of Myself"
World Party - "Way Down Now"
The Strokes - "Reptilia"
Spoon -"Advance Cassette"
Joe Strummer - "Coma Girl"
The Long Winters - "Pushover"
Phantom Planet - "California"
The Posies - "Dream All Day"
Adrian Belew - "Men in Helicopters"
The Bears - "Fear Is Never Boring"
The English Beat - "Save It For Later"
The Specials - "Rudi, A Message to You"
Blondie - "The Tide Is High"
Madness - "It Must Be Love"
The B-52's - "Private Idaho"
Geggy Tah - "Whoever You Are"
The Flaming Lips - "Do You Realize"
The Jam - "Going Underground"

Song of the Week 7/21/06

Nada Surf - "Inside of Love"

So please forgive me for one more week of this musical self-pity party. Next week we'll get back to something lighter, like this or this. Anyways, it's not like I'm worried about turning off or depressing my readership, as 96% of the time I am my own readership. (How egotistical of me, eh?)

Throughout my adult life (for our purposes, let's say since the time I went off to college at age 17) I've always identified with those depressing, "My girl doesn't like me anymore/my girl left me/my love for that girl will always remain unrequited"-type songs. These songs run the gamut from hard rock (The Gentlemen's "When We Broke in Two") to wuss rock (any Coldplay song I ever liked) to somewhere in between (much of the Old 97's catalog). During the past two decades I've never had a song a) strike me as so perfect for my life years after I initially heard it and b) have the lyric pretty much describe the entire story of my romantic life exactly right in just a few verses. This week I discovered just such a song, recorded by three talented guys that live in my borough.

While doing laundry on Monday night I was listening to Nada Surf's great 2005 The Weight is a Gift album (it's well worth buying, trust me). I took a little walk up the hill past Green-Wood Cemetery rocking out to "Do It Again" and "Always Love" and then headed back down when the album hit "Blankest Year." Weight was done long before I got back to the laundromat, so I decided to stay in the Nada section of the iPod and started Let Go. As I got about 10 feet away, "Inside of Love" came on and the first two lines stopped me dead in my tracks. And right there, in front of the Clean Rite on McDonald Ave in Kensington, Brooklyn, the lyrics to "Inside of Love" acted like krazy glue on the bottom of my Chuck Taylors. I couldn't move, I could only listen and be stunned that I had never gotten, never grasped, never sensed, never knew that these five year old lyrics from singer-guitarist Matthew Caws encapsulated my life in the 21st century.

At that moment I couldn't think, felt like I couldn't breath and--perhaps most importantly--couldn't even remember which washer had my clothes. I had to sit down, it was just too much for what was left of my brain and tangled emotions. After a few moments, I gathered myself, put the clothes in the dryer and waited anxiously so I could get home and check the CD booklet just so I could confirm I wasn't insane. (Or better yet, more insane than I already am.)

So now dear reader, I present to you the lyrics that, well, I think were written about me, with my in depth analysis about them:

"Watching terrible T.V.
It kills all thought
Getting spacier than
An astronaut"

In the past three months I've had people (well, these people were mostly bartenders, but not all of them) ask me where I've been hiding on weekends. I've used a combination of spring allergies and being poor as my excuses (and yes, I have been battling both), but that's not the whole truth. Sometimes I would come home from work on a Friday, turn on the T.V., not even eat dinner and curl up on my futon and try to find the stupidest program or movie on to numb my brain so I wouldn't think about how bad I had messed things up, how I would never get certain chances back and how I was going to be eating meals alone until I was 80 (if I was fortunate to live that long). And when Caws sings "It kills all thought," he ain't kidding. I mean, I watched Hitch, Herbie: Fully Loaded and The Pacifier multiple times on these weekends at home. Only Mets games kept a sliver of thought going.


"Making out with people
I hardly know or like
I can't believe what I do
Late at night"

Um, yeah, got this one covered. By my rough estimate, since this century began I have made out with at least 15 (could be more) women after midnight at various bars in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and 75% of them are people I didn't really like, or didn't recall their name, or didn't even care if I ever got their name to try to remember. And yes, there have been too many things that I can't believe I did late at night (sometimes even early in the morning too). I believed that this was just a good way of making up for the lost time I had in college and working upstate. Now, I'm not so sure--I think I just wanted to be a whore for the hell of it. (And the great stories to tell the kids later on in life.)

Then the chorus rolls around:

"I wanna know what it's like
On the inside of love
I'm standing at the gates
I see the beauty above"

Yup. Always on the outside, looking at other folks relationships. Now this part isn't always bad. I have been lucky enough to be there when some great people I know have met and ended up falling deeply in love, and I like seeing people I like be happy. I guess that's the whole beauty line right there.

Onto the second verse:

"Only when we get to see
The aerial view
Will the patterns show
We'll know what to do"

Well, I'm doubtful I'd know what to do. I have done some amazing self-sabotage of potential relationships with that 800 pound monkey on my back. (His name is Mr. Commitment-Phobe, and he likes washing cats for some reason.) Someday I will write a book compiling my greatest hits in this regard, and then I will hit myself over the head repeatedly with this book until I beat some sense into my skull.

"I know the last page so well
I can't read the first
So I just don't start
It's getting worse."

Exactly. I know how this is going to end, how it's ALWAYS going to end, so its just easier making out with or sleeping with the girl whose name I have to get the next day from a bartending friend of mine.

(Not that that has ever happened.)

(Okay, not that it's happened more than once.)

After one more go around on the first chorus, we head to this chorus:

"I wanna know what it's like
On the inside of love
I can't find my way in
I try again and again"

Indeed, I haven't found my way, but that's not for actually trying once in a great while.

"I'm on the outside of love
Always under or above
I can't find my way in
I try again and again"

Yeah, you're right again Mr. Caws. And then a killer change comes in this chorus:

"I'm on the outside of love
Always under or above
Must be a different view
To be a me with a you"

Ah yes, that's what it boils down to--the ability to change. To take those parts of yourself that are emotionally unattractive (or make you look emotionally unstable) to others and either hide them (not the best course of action) or change them because you think that will help deepen a bond with someone. Of course that's a crock--change is only good if you're doing it for yourself, not because it might get you some nookie down the road. And as for someone who can be quite resistant to change, this is most likely my inherent fatal flaw.

"I wanna know what it's like
On the inside of love
I'm standing at the gates
I see the beauty above."

Why is the beauty always above? Does he like 6' 4" women or something?

And then, the kicker:

"I wanna know what it's like
On the inside of love
Of course I'll be alright
I just had a bad night.
I had a bad night."

I have said "I had a bad night" to myself the next day and to others multiple times after various hook-ups. And a bad night doesn't always mean those things "I can't believe what I do late at night"--it also means those times spent babbling about how this girl or that girl of my dreams just doesn't feel the same way. Oh yeah, everybody loves hearing those stories. They can't get enough of them!

So there you go--Steve Reynolds, ages 31 to 36, summed up in song in just four minutes and 58 seconds. Amazing. When I first listened to this album Monday night in front of the Clean-Rite, the play count in my Ipod was 2. After the past 6 days it's up to 26. This may be the first time a Song of the Week has actually helped my mental state and set me on a better path of life.

(Or perhaps send me down a path of stalking the singer of Nada Surf, who knows?)

I swear, next week I will be writing about something like Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time." Or perhaps Paper Lace. It's summer, and these Songs of the Week should be a little more fun.

Damn you brain and feelings!

Song of the Week 7/14/06

Oasis - "Slide Away"

One of the latest trends in the rock club scene here in hot ol' NYC has been bands covering other folks' albums. It's been the rage at Arlene's Grocery in the East Village for a couple of years now. Friday night the folks at Magnetic Field decided to give it a try for the special occasion of William's birthday. He's one of the owners, he's a man who loves his Pavement and loves dousing himself in beer while on stage for Live Band Karaoke. Yet he surprised me by asking local faves Tide to tackle Oasis's Definitely Maybe. It didn't seem like an album he would like--unlike myself.

Long-time RT20 readers will know of my love for the battling Gallagher brothers, so I need not rehash what I wrote in the 2004 list. I still love this album and was anticipating this gig for a couple of weeks by giving it a few spins in the Ipod. I also listened to Tide's music on their MySpace page during the week and thought that these guys could do a good job because they share some of that same Brit-pop sensibility. And when they kicked into "Rock n' Roll Star" I was not disappointed. It wasn't an Oasis tribute per se--it was a good band (with tons more stage presence than Oasis has ever had) playing a good set of songs. And to get that for free on a Friday night is no small matter nowadays.

"Slide Away" has always been the hidden gem on this album. I liked it when I first became a fan of the band, but my understanding of it has deepened over the years as I've attempted (and always failed) at one relationship after another. And after another successful failure recently (this time by my own withdrawal just before giving it one last shot because it likely would have hurt us both for a long time...sigh), I couldn't wait to sing along with these lines:

"Slide away - and give it all you've got
My today - fell in from the top
I dream of you - and all the things you say
I wonder where you are now?

Hold me down - all the world's asleep
I need you now - you've knocked me off my feet
I dream of you - we talk of growing old
But you said please don't !

Slide in baby - together we'll fly
I've tried praying - and I know just what you're saying to me

Now that you're mine
I'll find a way
Of chasing the sun
Let me be the one that shines with you
In the morning when you don't know what to do

Two of a kind
We'll find a way
To do what we've done
Let me be the one that shines with you
And we can slide away."

Oh yes, I was singing along loudly. Then something rather funny happened. Tide's guitarist Michael Boyd looked up from his ax, stared directly at me, and started nodding and mouthing the words as if he knew exactly why I was screaming along. I discovered afterwards that thankfully he didn't, because then I would have had an X-Files pyschic-type moment, and I certainly didn't want that. Afterwards Boyd and I chatted about the song, and we basically determined that it was fucking awesome. And when I left Magentic Field that night, I listened to it twice more, leaving people on the street wondering just exactly what words I was mouthing along to.

Song of the Week 7/7/06

Fastball - "The Way"

I made my first trip out to Shea Stadium last week and in celebration I put together a playlist of baseball and Mets-related songs (three versions of "Meet the Mets!") to entertain me as I hopped on the 7 train. Obviously I had to include Fastball just for their name. Even though I'm a bigger fan of "Better Than It Was" from All the Pain Money Can Buy, I decided to go with the hit single (get it, single?) "The Way." Eight years and a zillion overplays later, this track still sounds amazing to me. Each note, each instrument, each sample and each harmony is perfectly arranged. If anyone wants to teach a course on what made a great pop-rock song in the late 20th century, they need to look no further.

I ended up listening to my Shea-inspired playlist a few times over the rest of the week--and I think the volume my earbuds reached when "The Way" played took care of what was left of my eardrums. Oh well.

Song of the Week 6/30/06

Soul Asylum - "Stand Up and Be Strong"

Multiple times in the history of the Reynolds Top 20 (and this blog) I’ve written about my love for Soul Asylum. Monday the band added yet another chapter to the glorious history I’ve experienced with their music over the past 17 years.

The band was booked to play at a event at the Hard Rock Cafe for Free FM, the talk radio successor to the former Howard Stern station K-Rock. Everything about this event made me have flashback to my own radio days--and why I quit. Some of the highlights included: interns who didn't know what they were doing; a contest where male listeners had to sing Aerosmith songs with a dildo in their mouth; and a homemade bikini contest.

(Shudder.)

The topper of all of this was when the host of the shindig, "The Radio Chick," came out and basically asked her fans to not boo Soul Asylum when they went on. Yeah, that's how great this crowd was--and it didn't faze the band one bit. When Dave Pirner sang the line "All is well here in hell" (from The Silver Lining's "All Is Well") and then proceeded to point at the crowd in a very subtle way, I knew that they didn't give a fuck. They just wanted to play for themselves. Pirner and Dan Murphy rocked with wild abandon, while drummer Michael Bland hit the drums as if they had personally offended him. To perform a show this great with a crowd that could care less (and thinned as their hour-long set went on) was just a testament to the greatness of this band.

Then something funny happened when they broke into "Stand Up and Be Strong," the first single from The Silver Lining. I swear, people started listening. Something about this anthem (perhaps the first positive song Pirner has ever written) hooked a few folks standing around me. Their heads started bobbing, and I'm pretty sure I saw someone else pump their fist. And it's hard not to be hooked by this song. The studio version is one of the band's best songs post-Grave Dancer's Union, but live it takes on this huge life of its own. Just before the last chorus, the band stops so it's just Pirner and his guitar. He then sings "Stand up and be...stand up and beeeee," and then the rest of the band kicks back in, and it's perhaps one of the most life-affirming, fist-pumping, fuck you everyone that has screwed me over the years moments in music.

Ever.

Seriously--it's that great of a moment. The band is going to be on Leno July 10th doing this song, and I suggest you watch it and prepare for the chills to run down your spine when they get to that part.

Song of the Week 6/23/06

Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris - "This Is Us"

I was fortunate enough to luck into a pair of most excellent seats (special thanks to Aerosmith for making Sal go to Boston) for Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris at Radio City Music Hall Thursday night. Their duets album All the Roadrunning hadn't really caught my ear yet, but I figured Knopfler usually doesn't disappoint and Emmylou is, well, Emmylou, so how could I turn down an opportunity to see this show?

The stage was set for a good night when the lovely A.B. and I met my friend Hank and his pal George for drinks across the street from Radio City. We had a blast drinking Indian River Light; playing with the little buzzer they give you while waiting for a table; and trying not to laugh at the tall dude with the porno moustache--and shirt. (WOW.)

As we entered the venue, A.B. told me she had never been in Radio City, which I'm sure I could have eventually figured out as she looked around in wonder at what is easily New York's most beautiful music venue. It's funny how jaded -- or perhaps better put -- how accustomed I've become to what the inside of all the venues look like. Watching her was like discovering the theater again for the first time.

The show started out a little rough (especially vocal mix-wise) but settled down after a few tunes. When Knopfler pulled out the Dire Straits classic "Romeo and Juliet," it was, in a word, breathtaking. I think I even saw A.B. get a bit misty during that one. Heck, I thought I was going to get a bit misty. And then when Knopfler and Harris started singing "This is Us" -- the first single from All the Roadrunning -- something clicked. I thought, "Holy crap, this song is great, this show is great, this is one of the best nights I've had all year, I need to listen to this album more and this song every day." As if to emphasize that point, after that song was over A.B. leaned into me and said, "I really like that song."

Yup, me too.

(P.S. -- Click the link on "This Is Us" at the top of the page for a European tour bootleg version of the song. Or click here for the entire set)

Song of the Week 6/16/06

The Isley Brothers - "Summer Breeze"

Summer is really here. Temps in the 90s; thoughts of putting the A/C unit in my bedroom window; listening to tons of Beach Boys on my day off on Friday; sweating in a theater and drinking more beer because of it. So much beer was drank (nothing like a 40 of Tecate to make local theater better) that I started singing "Summer Breeze" outside the theater when I felt a little cooling wind. Then I come into work today and while cruising through some music blogs I found this cover.

OH.

MY.

GOD.

BEST.

COVER.

EVER.

Download it now while you can (follow the link above). You won't be disappointed.

Song of the Week 6/9/06

Bruce Hornsby and The Grateful Dead - "The Valley Road (Live)"

I spent much of the week listening through the upcoming Hornsby box set Intersections 1985-2005 in hopes that I'd be getting him for an interview for work. Alas, that looks like it won't happen. The four disc/one DVD set is heavy on previously unreleased live tracks, including this one representation of Hornsby's time as a member of the Grateful Dead. I was a fan of Hornsby's until the mid 90s when he started moving away from the tighter songs structures of his first three albums. That's why I'm so surprised at how much I love this Deadafied rearrangement. Hornsby, Jerry Garcia and other keyboardist Vince Welnick (RIP) nail some great three part harmonies; Garcia rips off a classic solo; and the whole band just basically kicks the shit out of this song. They sound like they're having a ton of fun backing Hornsby here, and it makes me regret not going to see the band during his brief tenure in the beyboard seat.

(For those who might care, Intersections is in stores July 25th.)

Song of the Week 6/2/06

Egghead. - "Donna's Always Mad at Me"

I saved Egghead. and tons of Neil Young for the end of "Listen to Everything in My Itunes" project. (I finished this morning, finally.) Egghead. was a band comprised of three of my best friends in the world -- singer-guitarist Mike Galvin (a.k.a. Johnny Reno), singer-bassist John Bowie and drummer Mike Faloon. Part of my reason for moving to New York was so I could see them play more often. They played smart punk/power-pop songs, were lots and lots of fun to see and pretty much were always in my musical thoughts. Heck, I wrote liner notes for their posthumous compilation Dumb Songs For Smart People -- and even produced a limited edition box set of their six year career with a really big booklet that took a lot of time to figure out how to copy correctly.

"Donna's Always Made at Me" was instantly one of my favorite songs when I first heard it. (I think in 1994 at an Ithaca gig? Or was in it 1995 at Spiral? Someone help me out in the comments.) And hearing it in its studio and live versions over the past week was like welcoming an old friend back home, one that was a bit less jaded and had a lot less damage done to his liver and couldn't stop smiling and laughing at every Egghead. show.

I paid a lot to see the Pixies reunite--I'd pay a lot more for one more Egghead. show.