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.

Song of the Week 8/26/05

Rob Dickinson - "My Name Is Love"

The Catherine Wheel were yet another one of those English bands whose talent never quite matched up to commercial success in America. The band's been split up for five years, and finally singer-guitarist Dickinson has returned to the music scene with a solo album, Fresh Wine for the Horses. "My Name Is Love" is the lead single, and as I listened to the album this week to prep for my Dickinson interview (for my day job), this gorgeous chorus kept getting stuck in my head. Dickinson and his old bandmates always had the knack for making songs with a huge hooks, and "My Name Is Love" follows in that tradition. And not many people could pull off writing a great song about a conversation with an emotion.

Welcome back, Rob, Anglophiles have missed ya.

Trouser Press Issue 99 Playlist 8/20/05

Thanks to all that came out to see myself and Ira at TP 99 Saturday night. I'll be dj-ing solo at the Field on 9/10, doing a night called 21st Century Boy. Yes, only music from this century. Should be fun. Here's the playlist:

Bonzo Dog Band - “Death Cab for Cutie”
Jason & the Scorchers - “Absolutely Sweet Marie”
John Otway - “Racing Cars (Jet Spotter of the Track)”
Tenpole Tudor - “Three Bells in a Row”
The Fleshtones - “Right Side of a Good Thing”
Style Council - “My Ever Changing Moods”
ABBA - “Suzy Hangaround”
Danielle Dax - “Yummer-Yummer Man”
Snakefinger - “Beatnik Party”
Queen - “Keep Yourself Alive”
T. Rex - “Solid Gold/Easy Action”
Lyres - “Help You Ann”
R.E.M. - “Radio Free Europe”
Fingerprintz - “Bulletproof Heart”
Undertones - “Hypnotized”
Chelsea - “Many Rivers to Cross”
Prince - “When You Were Mine”
Paley Brothers - “Ecstasy”
David Bowie - “Drive-In Saturday”
The Teardrop Explodes - “When I Dream”

Slade - “Run Runaway”
Dave Edmunds - “Slipping Away”
Nick Lowe - “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass”
Graham Parker - “I Want You Back”
Elvis Costello & the Attractions - “Accidents Will Happen”
Blondie - “Accidents Never Happen”
Sparks & Jane Wiedlin - “Cool Places”
The Pretenders - “Show Me”
The Clash - “Know Your Rights”
The Replacements - “Color Me Impressed”
Minutemen - “This Ain’t No Picnic”
Husker Du - “Sunshine Superman”
Dead Kennedys - “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now”
Ramones - “The KKK Took My Baby Away”
Cheap Trick - “I Can’t Take It”

Yaz - “Don’t Go”
Jam - “The Modern World”
XTC - “Radios in Motion”
English Beat - “Mirror in the Bathroom”
Wire - “Mannequin”
ATV - “Action Time Vision”
New York Dolls - “Bad Detective”
Holly and the Italians - “Do You Say Love”
Status Quo - "Down Down”
Eddie and the Hot Rods - “Do Anything You Wanna Do”
Generation X - “Promises”
The Clash - “Safe European Home”
Husker Du - “Flip Your Wig”
Gang of Four - “I Love a Man in Uniform”
Human League - “Things That Dreams Are Made Of”
Gary Numan - “Cars”
New Order - “Blue Monday”
Pylon - “Beep”
B-52’s - “Throw That Beat in the Garbage Can”
Peter Gabriel - “Schock der Affen”
Stiff Little Fingers - “Suspect Device”
Joe Jackson - “Jack, You're Dead”
Keith Moon - “Don’t Worry Baby”

Romeo Void - “A Girl In Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)”
Echo & the Bunnymen - “Bring on the Dancing Horses”
Duran Duran - “Is There Something I Should Know”
Hoodoo Gurus - “I Want You Back”
Pete Townshend - “Rough Boys”
The Who - “Eminence Front”
Rolling Stones - “Hang Fire”
Rolling Stones - “When the Whip Comes Down”
Dire Straits - “Tunnel of Love”
The Cars - “It’s All I Can Do”
Devo - “Beautiful World”
Men at Work - “Overkill”
Meat Puppets - “Lake of Fire”
XTC - “Scissor Man”
Iggy Pop - “China Girl”
KISS - “God of Thunder”
Sweet - “Love Is Like Oxygen”
Kinks - “Low Budget”
Jeff Beck - “Freeway Jam”
Alice Cooper - “Elected”
Pete Shelley - “Homosapien”
Soft Boys - “Underwater Moonlight”
Madness - “It Must Be Love”
Talking Heads - “This Must be the Place (Naïve Melody)”
ELO - “Telephone Line”
David Bowie - “Moonage Daydream”
Elvis Costello - “Allison”

Song of the Week 8/19/05

Dire Straits - "Tunnel of Love"

Last week in the mail I received the 20th anniversary edition of Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms. It’s of them newfangled dualdiscs, with the CD on one side and a DVD surround sound mix on the other. Alas, the day I got it I couldn’t listen to it as I had impacted wax in one ear, making me virtually half deaf. After a great ear-cleaning trip (thanks Dr. Lee) I found my hearing dramatically improved, and I couldn’t wait to play to as much music as possible. As I listened to Brothers in Arms at my desk, I found myself wondering why Making Movies, Mark Knopfler and company’s 1980 classic, wasn’t given the same high end treatment. Almost any Dire Straits fan will point to that album as the high point in the band’s career. (Heck, I even wrote about it at length a few years ago, so I won’t rehash what I did then.)

So on my Friday commute to happy hour, back to Brooklyn for food, and home after numerous beers, I ended up listening to Making Movies almost twice in its entirety. And with my “new” ears, “Tunnel of Love” sounded almost as fresh as the day I first borrowed the vinyl of Making Movies from a high school buddy. From the intro of Rogers and Hammerstein’s “The Carousel Waltz” played by Making Movies’ guest MVP, E Street Band keyboardist Roy Bittan, to the intricate Knopfler guitarwork that makes up the last two minutes of the track, “Tunnel of Love” surpasses the typical pop song in every way. Knopfler’s lyrics weave a tale of a long lost love with cinematic images of an unnamed Spanish city, a sprawling carnival and a musician weary of life on the road. How this track is not played by classic rock stations that continue to spin “Money for Nothing” still amazes me.

I ended up playing “Tunnel of Love” at Trouser Press 99 Saturday night, and I had two different people come up to me and say how great it was to hear the song. So for once, the Song of the Week entertained someone else as well.

Song of the Week 8/12/05

Juliana Hatfield - "What a Life"


Damn, this is a great song, even a decade later. The leadoff track from 1995's Only Everything was a regular staple of the CD player in my first apartment in Brooklyn. Thursday night I saw Miss Hatfield play at Maxwell's in Hoboken, backed by my friends Ed and Pete from The Gravel Pit and The Gentlemen. The entire show was great, but this song rocked especially hard. And I loved how she almost screamed these lyrics:

"Messy stringy pathetic hopeless, dredgy stringy pathetic hopeless"

Hatfield's new album, Made in China, is yet another good one--and contains the best artist written bio I have ever read. Check it out here.

Song of the Week 8/5/05

Coldplay - "Fix You"


I know, I know--Coldplay is so summer 2002. And I really think that the band's latest album, X&Y, is completely inferior to A Rush of Blood to the Head. And I also know that right around the 761st time everyone heard "Clocks" they wanted to choke the living crap out of singer/whiner Chris Martin.

That being said, the second single from X&Y, "Fix You," is the only song on the album that captures what made me like Coldplay so much in the first place. Everywhere I turned last week I heard the song; it forced its way on here, and it wasn't going to give up until I wrote about it.

In this track the lyrics aren't so over-the-top earnest like the rest of X&Y. It's just a gorgeous ballad about wanting to help a person you like (girlfriend, family member, whomever) in any way you can, even though you know there's absolutely nothing you can do at all. I've felt that way in the past, and I've had that feeling overcome me rather recently. It's that feeling of helplessness in the face of someone else's problems that just might overwhelm them. It's a feeling that (at least in my emotionally stunted way) only a song can accurately convey. And even though the person that I think could use this song will never read these words, I feel compelled to put them up here, just in case:

"When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you"

"High up above or down below
When you too in love to let it go
If you never try you'll never know
Just watch and learn
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you"

"Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down you face and I...
Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face and I..."

"Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you"

Next week, I swear, it will be something infinitely more hipper.

Or maybe something from Hall and Oates, who knows?

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.)

Song of the Week 6/24/05

Eisley - "I Wasn't Prepared"

















Over the two and a half years I've been doing the Song of the Week, no track has just missed the cut as much as this one. I've listened to both recordings of it many times for over two years, yet another song would always seem to raise its head up above it. After listening to it each day last week in anticipation of their show Friday night at Bowery Ballroom, I decided its time had come.

I first heard "I Wasn't Prepared" when it appeared on Eisley's debut EP, 2003's Laughing City. At the time I thought the piano-driven song was a nice and intriguing ballad, good enough to make it onto a mix of new stuff I made for a trip up to Boston in the fall of that year. I was pretty sure it was a sad song, most likely about lost love, even though I couldn't figure out what the heck the lyrics were about. Yet something seemed to be missing from the song, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

The second time I heard it was this February when Eisley's full-length debut, Room Noises, was released. After one listen, I knew what was missing in its original recording--some road experience. In this version the playing was more confident, the harmonies between the two female singers were up from great to absolutely spine-tingling and the overall production finally matched the quality of the song. Quite simply, this new version of "I Wasn't Prepared" knocked me out. Of course, I had no idea how inexperienced the band was to begin with. As I read the bio that came with the disc, I was stunned to find out that these two great voices came from 20-year-old guitarist Sherri Dupree and 16-year-old keyboardist Stacy Dupree. So that's what they sounded a bit more experienced two years later.

The whole Eisley story is truly fascinating: The Tyler, Texas band consists of four siblings (along with one close friend) who were home-schooled by their parents; the group got off the ground when the other guitar-playing sister Chauntelle at the age of 14 (she's now 22) discovered Radiohead's OK Computer; the band played their first gigs in Christian bookstores; and they took their name from a space port in the original Star Wars. It's amazing to me that more music magazines haven't written about how crazy it is that this band got discovered by Coldplay's management and got signed to a major label.

Back at the end of March Moria the concert pal and I went to see Eisley open for New Found Glory at that hell hole Webster Hall. I must admit I was nervous going in because I thought the Dupree girls' harmonies were somehow manufactured in the studio. After one song, I knew that wasn't the case. And when they did "I Wasn't Prepared," I got another surprise--these two traded off verses during the song. And oh, they sang it so well and sounded so sad I was genuinely moved. (And then genuinely felt like a dirty old man thinking how young they are.)

Friday the concert pal and I checked out Eisley's first headline show in New York, and once again "I Wasn't Prepared" was the highlight of the set. And yet, even after all the times I have listened to the album version (31 times by my Itunes count) and the original EP version, I still don't understand these lyrics:

"Oh, when the day is blue
I'll sit here wondering about you
and how the pollen fell
All around your face in strange yellow patterns

But, I wasn't prepared for this
Oh, I wasn't prepared for this

When the morning came
The bees flew down and
Wrapped themselves around me
and that's when i spoke the word
To have them trace your face for me in pollen

But, I wasn't prepared for this
Oh, I wasn't prepared for this

Come, come back to me, my, my darling
Come, come back to me, my, my darling

I wasn't prepared for this
Oh, I wasn't prepared for this

When the day is blue
I'll sit here wondering about you"

They're sad--that's obvious. So was the subject of the song taken away by bees? Are these two young girls afraid of bees? Aren't these girls a bit young to be writing such great songs? And why do I like a band that I am old enough (seriously) to be their father? I wasn't prepared to feel this old.

Song of the Week 4/1/05 UPDATE

So this is odd, no doubt about it.

R.E.M.'s "World Leader Pretend" was Song of the Week over two months ago, and I wrote about how there was a new band called World Leader Pretend releasing an EP on R.E.M.'s long-time label, Warner Bros. Over the past few weeks I've been hearing some really good cuts from World Leader Pretend on the World Cafe and on the best internet station out there, WOXY.

Last night I went to see Dark New Day and to hang with my friend Jim. He's Dark New Day's publicist and was in town from L.A. for a couple of days to handle some press things with them. (Full disclosure: I am one of those "press things," as I am interviewing them later today for work.) Jim works for Warner Bros and...(wait for it)...I discovered is also World Leader Pretend's publicist. I told him that I wrote about the band's EP two months ago, and he told me their full length album was due out next week. I thought to myself, "Cool, another good record to look forward to in the mail."

Flash forward to this morning: I step out of the shower, and what song do I hear on WFUV? Yup, "World Leader Pretend."

I told you it was kind of odd.

Song of the Week 6/17/05

Soul Asylum - "Sometime to Return"

Karl rocks, at Rock for Karl

In my “day job” as a “music journalist” I’ve had to write a few obituaries for rock musicians that have died before their time was up. I’ve finished most of them pretty easily, perhaps with the occasional joke or two (because we’re sarcastic bastards in the media ya know) before moving on to write about the latest dumb shit Fred Durst or The Offspring or Dave Matthews Band did that day.

But once in a while I end up having to write about a musician that’s gone too early (George Harrison, Elliott Smith, 3/4 of the Ramones) whose songs have played a large part in my life. That’s the case with Karl Mueller of Soul Asylum. Mueller died Friday morning at the age of 41 (or 42, depending on whose obit you believe) after a year-long battle with throat cancer.

I only met Mueller once, at a post-show meet-and-greet in Syracuse in early 1993. He seemed to be the least likely “rock star” in the room. He sat there on a couch, pretty much minding his business and letting Dan Murphy and Dave Pirner deal with the small group of fans in the dressing room (there was less than 10 of us, as this was many months before “Runaway Train”). He seemed happier than anyone in the room, content with the memory of a great show they had just played, and the cold beer currently in his hand.

I saw Soul Asylum seven times in my life, and all but one were great shows. Pirner would always flail around with his guitar somewhere down around his knees. Murphy would lay down blistering lead licks and some of the most passionate backing vocals any man could muster. Drummer Grant Young (and later on, Sterling Campbell) would bash away on the drums. And in the middle of it all, holding it together, was Karl Mueller. He wasn’t flashy, but didn’t need to be. His steady playing held things together when the group would do a 10 minute medley of 70s covers or a blistering 90 second version of a Descendents song.

Now you might be wondering why I would waste all this space (and paper, as this was written in my little notebook while drinking a few beers at one of my Brooklyn haunts) on a bass player from a 90s one-hit wonder. Well my friends, Soul Asylum had a life before “Runaway Train” saturated the airwaves and pictures of missing kids became a staple on M-T-V. Soul Asylum rocked, oh they rocked hard, they rocked recklessly and they knew how to make a song that would cause you to scream the chorus at the top of your lungs and pump your fist as if nothing else mattered at that exact moment. So allow me to indulge you with the story of my discovery of one of Minneapolis’ finest acts.

In the summer of 1989 I worked at my FM college station, 92 WICB. The station was kept on 365 days a year because the powers that be thought it was good P.R., so a small staff of students was hired each summer to run the station. When that summer began I knew only about 15% of the “modern rock” that the station had in its library, but I got to hear a bunch of great new albums that first month of being on air six days a week -- Bob Mould’s Workbook, The Pixies' Doolittle, Love and Rockets' self-titled album and Adrian Belew’s Mr. Music Head were all in heavy rotation, and all of them were brand new artists to me. Included in heavy rotation that summer was the Lost Angels soundtrack, which included a new Soul Asylum cut called “Just Plain Evil.” After my first couple of spins of the (gasp!) vinyl I wasn’t that impressed. However, one 92sday (when we played double shots) I grabbed the Soul Asylum album called Hang Time at random and played a song called “Sometime to Return.” I was dumbfounded. How had I missed a song this great? Words fail me when I try to sum up how much this song rocked my world that one late June afternoon 16 years ago. From the low rumble of Mueller’s bass and Murphy and Pirner’s cranked-to-1100 guitars to the words that make no sense most of the time (“Throw away your calendar/And saddle up your salamander”) this song, at that moment, crystallized everything I felt was good about music that summer -- and pretty much for the rest of my life. And Friday night after writing up Mueller's obit, I listened to “Sometime to Return” over and over again, trying to make sense of life, and those lyrics.

People my age (35.6) are getting used to losing some of our older greats (how long will the entry be when Neil Young goes to the harvest in the sky, I wonder), but losing Karl Mueller at such a young age seems like a crime. I think the respect and love that his fellow musicians felt was best summed up by Bob Mould, who reunited with his ex-Hüsker Dü bandmate Grant Hart at a Minneapolis benefit last fall to defray Mueller’s medical costs. Mould told Billboard just last week about the two-song reunion, “Grant got my cell number somehow that afternoon and called me. I said, ‘Sure. This cause is bigger than anything.’”

And how can you not miss a guy that would agree to be slathered in clam dip for an EP cover:



R.I.P. Karl -- we hope your time here brought as much joy to you as it did to us.

Song of the Week 6/10/05

Spoon - “My Mathematical Mind”



Have I mentioned that the new Spoon album, Gimme Fiction, is one of the best of this year? Oh wait, I did right here. This week I got my first chance to see Austin’s best export since that famous public T-V show, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. Britt Daniel and company blazed through a set of tight, muscular songs that were great exercises in the old cliché “less is more.” In another band’s hands, songs like “Sister Jack” or “The Way We Get By” would have a lot more flourishes and instruments added on top. But Spoon have learned to break down all their songs to the bare essentials -- one great riff (either on piano or a lone guitar) matched up with great drumming and a perfect use of various percussion.

I spent every commute this week listening to Spoon albums, adding 1998’s A Series of Sneaks to the I-Pod when it came in from Amazon on Monday and playing 2002’s Kill the Moonlight at work repeatedly before Wednesday’s show after picking it up on a record shopping adventure Tuesday night. And while I played those two as much as possible, I kept coming back to Gimme Fiction, particularly “My Mathematical Mind.” A five minute song with no chorus that sounds like the same eight seconds of piano and guitar interplay over and over doesn’t seem to be a winning combination for a song, yet these guys somehow make it work. It's as if the band decided that getting the song down to its essential elements required dropping out that last chord that would bring a natural resolution at the end. Spoon closed their main set with it Wednesday night, a perfect placement for a tune that doesn’t seem to end -- I believe it stops because it’s too tense to continue.

Matthew Perpetua of the great Fluxblog was at the same show, and he and I must have been on the same wavelength Thursday morning as he wrote a great piece about the song as well. He also posted a live version of the song from Willie Nelson’s Songs for Tsunami Relief: Austin to South Asia benefit album, which is worth picking up. And have you bought Gimme Fiction yet? What the heck are you waiting for?

Song of the Week 6/3/05

Graham Parker and The Figgs - "Dislocated Life"

"Dislocated Life" is one of the many fine tracks on Songs of No Consequence, the first studio effort from Graham Parker and the Figgs. I've written many, many times about The Figgs over the past 11 years, so I think I'll let G.P. himself tell the story about how this album came to be:

Thoughts of Chairman Parker

"Dislocated Life" was the first track that grabbed me on the album, and Friday night at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey G.P. and The Figgs (with added guitarist Brett Rosenberg, who G.P. called "the Figg du jour") played an absolutely killer version of the song that brought yells from the crowd before it was even done. That's pretty good for a tune which the majority of the audience had never heard before. Songs of No Consequence is in stores tomorrow, and I encourage everyone that likes bitter and cutting lyrics matched up with some great power-pop to buy it.

And if you're in the New York area, G.P. and the Figgs will be at the Knitting Factory Saturday night. Show starts at 7pm. I'll be the guy up front, rocking out.

RT20 Special Report: Music on the Brain

I read a fascinating piece in the New York Times on Tuesday. It discussed how researchers had begun to pinpoint where, as the headline said, "New Love Sears the Brain." Discovering that a specific part of my brain--one that was completely separate from the part that controls the desire for sex--had caused me such intense pain over the years made me want to grab a sledgehammer, crack open my own coconut and extract that tiny section of brain matter.

But besides inspiring the desire to make myself a vegetable, the article got me pondering about other parts of my brain--specifically the ones that control this all-consuming passion for music I've had most of my life. So I did a little research, and came up with the following diagram:


I’ve identified the 22 parts of the brain that deal with my musical pursuits. Here is what each of these numbers on the diagram mean:

1) Matsdate - Inspires devotion to drunken musicians from Minneapolis.

2) Beatlegotta - The first area to develop in the brain pursues short hooky songs.

3) Discothalamus - Another area that develops early taste for dance music, which goes away as a person gets older, only to come back with a vengeance in the late 20s.

4) Mouldulla Oblongata - Inspires devotion to gay Minneapolis singer-songwriters.

5) Posterior Figgsa - This part of the brain controls an almost psychotic devotion to bands from upstate New York.

6) Brain Jam - Located near the bottom of the brain, this portion of the brain causes the love of neo-hippie rock, but stops growing at the age of 19 and shrinks over time.

7) Vedder Plexus - Controls the obsessive collection of all things Pearl Jam-related.

8) Dylanbellum - Inspires devotion to the world greatest songwriter from Minneapolis, even through his born-again albums.

9) Cerebral Wilco Fluid - This fluid needs to be replaced before the release of albums by bands based in Chicago.

10) Pettytuitary Gland - A small gland where all the words to "American Girl" are stored.

11) Quadro Fossa - A very mysterious part of the brain, it controls how much a person likes rock operas by British bands.

12) Cuomo Chasm - The junction where all the power-pop loving parts of the brain meet.

13) Asylum Region - Inspires devotion to Minneapolis rockers who date famous actresses.

14) Gravel Tissue - Controls how much one listens to bands from New Haven.

15) Come On Come On Callosum - This fiber deep in the brain enables one to sing all the words to Cheap Trick's first three albums.

16) Hawk Cord - Connects the brain to the rest of the body, and alt-country bands from Minneapolis.

17) Fresh Fellows Fossa - The obsessive part of the brain, which focuses on singles and compilations of Seattle bands.

18) Buffalo Ganglia - A small part of the brain that likes drinking and trios from Boston.

19) Private Eyes Optic Chasm - Another nerve area that connects to the eyes, which allows a person to see Philadelphia blue-eyed soul.

20) Costello Nerves - This part of the optic nerve makes one wear geeky glasses and like smart-ass lyrics.

21) The Neilstem - Linked to a love of quirky Canadian singer-songwriters

22) Zappa Tentorium - This flap of tissue keeps lyrics like "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" away from other, more serious parts of the brain.

So there you have it. Next week, maybe I can figure out the other half of my brain that likes beer and baseball.

Song of the Week 4/8/05 UPDATE

A few weeks ago I wrote the following lines in the Song of the Week entry about Josh Rouse's "It's the Nighttime":

"In the guise of my day job I interviewed him in 2000 about his second album, Home. I vaguely recall liking the disc, but I don't have it in my collection now. I think I may have given it away to a co-worker or (more likely) sold it on St. Mark's Place to feed one of my various addictions."

Now, dear reader, that mystery has been solved, as my friend April revealed to me over the weekend that I had given her that copy of Rouse's second album. She was even kind enough to ask if I wanted it back after five years, which of course I respectfully declined. Now if someone (cough, cough) made an illegal copy (cough, cough) of it at some point and it showed up mysteriously at my desk at work, I'd have no choice but to play it.

One more thought about "It's the Nighttime": I've had I-Tunes and my I-Pod since mid-March, and on Saturday I checked out what was the most played song on the I-Pod. You guessed it -- 22 times so far for "It’s the Nighttime." I do believe we have a contender for Single of the Year.

Song of the Week 5/27/05

They're GOOD bad news.

Rilo Kiley - "Portions for Foxes"

Thursday night I finally had my chance to see Rilo Kiley perform, and rarely has a show far exceeded my expectations as this one. The L.A. group's last album, More Adventurous, landed at number-four on last year's Top 20 list and is a tour de force of guitar-based pop. Singer-guitarist Jenny Lewis sounds like a dry political commentator, a heartbroken homewrecker and the leader of a '60s Phil Spector-produced girl group -- and that's just within the first five songs. I never expected Lewis to play all these roles live, and do it in such a forceful and -- yes, I'm a guy, so I have to say it -- incredibly sexy and seductive way. Lewis strutted around the Webster Hall stage like she knew she owned it. It was such a confident and powerful performance that I can't imagine Rilo Kiley not breaking through to a much bigger audience very soon (perhaps when they open Coldplay's U.S. tour later this summer).

Thursday night's performance of "Portions For Foxes," the second single from More Adventurous (which has gotten a recent push from their new label, Warner Brothers) was absolutely perfect and justified the 12 times I listened to the song this week. Lewis sings about someone that's bad for her, but she just can't shake. It's a topic many folks (including yours truly) can easily identify with. This verse and chorus always slays me:

"I know I'm alone if I'm with or without you
But just bein' around you offers me another form of relief
When the lonliness leads to bad dreams
And the bad dreams lead me to callin' you
And I call you and say..."C'MERE!"

And it's bad news
Baby I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news"

Oh yeah, I know you're bad news Jenny, but I'm sure that wouldn't stop me or the other 599 tongues-a-wagging indie rock guys at Webster Hall from taking that phone call from you.

Trouser Press Issue 97 (a.k.a. A Friday Night of Rock) 5/20/05

So Friday night I teamed up with Trouser Press co-founder (and the guy that runs the office at my day job) Ira Robbins to spin a night of artists that the magazine covered from 1974 to 1984 at the lovely Magnetic Field in Brooklyn. Thanks again to all who showed up; hopefully we were popular enough that they'll invite us back. So what follows is the complete list of songs that we played:

The Bonzo Dog Band - “Intro and Outro”
The Bonzo Dog Band - “Trouser Press”
The Yardbirds - “Over Under Sideways Down”
The Troggs - “I Can Only Give You Everything”
Beau Brummels - “Laugh Laugh”
Rolling Stones - “In Another Land”
King Crimson - “21st Century Schizoid Man”
Status Quo - “Caroline”
Taste - “It’s Happened Before, It’ll Happen Again”
The Animals - “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”
T. Rex - “Children of the Revolution”
Dr. Feelgood - “Back in the Night”
Mott the Hoople - “Sweet Angeline”
Tom Robinson Band - “2-4-6-8 Motorway”
Bryan Ferry - “The ‘In’ Crowd”
Sparks - “Something for the Girl with Everything”
Brian Eno - “Driving Me Backwards”

999 - “Homicide”
The Replacements - “I Hate Music”
The Clash - “Tommy Gun”
New York Dolls - “Personality Crisis”
Dead Boys - “Sonic Reducer”
Dead Kennedys - “Too Drunk to Fuck”
Hoodoo Gurus - “I Want You Back”
Cheap Trick - “Southern Girls”
KISS - “Love Gun”
Sweet - “Ballroom Blitz”
Graham Parker and the Rumour - “Discovering Japan”
Joe Jackson - “I’m the Man”
Nick Lowe - “Maureen”
Elvis Costello and the Attractions - “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down”
Dave Edmunds - “Let’s Talk About Us”
The Soft Boys - “Queen of Eyes”
Psychedelic Furs - “Dumb Waiters”
The Cure - “The Walk”
The Go-Go’s - “Turn to You”
Buzzcocks - “Orgasm Addict”
The Jam - “In the City”

Jeff Beck - “Plynth”
Sensational Alex Harvey Band - “Swampsnake”
Be Bop Deluxe - “Crying to the Sky”
Brian Tchaikovsky - “Girl of My Dreams”
Skids - “Into the Valley”
Flamin Groovies - “Shake Some Action”
Roxy Music - “Virginia Plain”
Kraftwerk - “Autobahn”
Damned - “I Feel Alright”
David Bowie - “Where Have All the Good Times Gone”
Elvis Costello and the Attractions - “Goon Squad”
The Who - “Heatwave”
Thane Russell - “Drop Everything and Run”
Cockney Rebel - “The Psychomodo”
Nektar - “Remember the Future”
The Clash - “Police and Thieves”
The Move - “Hello Suzie”
Mike Heron - “Call Me Diamond”

Rolling Stones - “Crazy Mama”
Ramones - “I Remember You”
The Pretenders - “Back on the Chain Gang”
The Tubes - “She’s a Beauty”
The Runaways - “Cherry Bomb”
Blondie - “Rip Her to Shreds”
Blotto - “I Wanna Be a Lifeguard”
The Who - “5:15”
Blue Oyster Cult - “Joan Crawford”
ELO - “Showdown”
Faces - “Stay With Me”
Alice Cooper - “Billion Dollar Babies”
T. Rex - “Jeepster”
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - “Change of Heart”
The Stray Cats - “Rock This Town”
Marshall Crenshaw - “Cynical Girl”
Split Endz - “I Got You”
The Plimsouls - “A Million Miles Away”
Talking Heads - “Take Me to the River”
J. Geils Band - “Love Stinks”
INXS - “Don’t Change”
Donnie Iris - “Ah Leah”
Sweet - “Fox on the Run”
David Bowie - “Life on Mars”
Rolling Stones - “Time Waits for No One”

Song of the Week 5/20/05

eels - "Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)"

As of Friday night I had no idea what the song of the week would be, and then I ran into my friend Rhett. He asked what I knew about the eels, and in our discussion he said he saw the band play on Last Call With Carson Daly, doing this quirky song with a chorus that went "hey man" or something like that. I told him the song was called "Hey Man" and it was on the eels excellent new double disc, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. Then I realized that was the song I was humming the other day after hearing it on my usual new music reference, the World Cafe. Voila--a Song of the Week was born.

Co-Song of the Week 5/13/05

Austin's favorite utensil.

Weezer - "Tired of Sex"
Spoon - "Sister Jack"

I've never had a Co-Song of the Week before, but these two songs battled for my brain over the past seven days, so I figured, why not. It's my damn blog, I can do whatever the heck I like (except post MP3's I suppose).

I got tickets for Weezer a few weeks ago, and I've been playing their albums like mad in the Ipod for the past two weeks in anticipation of last night's show. During that same time I've also been thinking that now as I approach middle age, it's probably time to stop catching up on all the nookie I felt like I missed out on in my 20s. So when Weezer played "Tired of Sex" to open their show Thursday night, I yelled every word for what it was worth. (And I'm sure I scared my concert pal Moria--as well as many other kids much younger than me--standing near the sound board with my yelling and pogoing.) I could go on and on about Pinkerton's impact on me and the many messed up young adults who worship the album, but plenty of other folks have already done. I will say that its crazy, mixed up, self-loathing lyrics resonated with a self-loathing unconfident 26 year-old, and they still do to a much more confident, yet still incredibly self-loathing 35 year-old:

"I'm beat, beet red
ashamed of what I said
(What I said)

I'm sorry,
here I go
I know I'm a sinner
but I can't say no
(Say no)

Thursday night I'm makin' Denise
Friday night I'm makin' Sharise
Saturday night I'm making Louise
Oh, why can't I be making love come true?"

(Sigh.)

The lyrics in "Sister Jack" don't grab me like "Tired of Sex" (Heck, I don't even understand most of them.) But the oft-kilter rhthym hooked me the first time I heard it on the public radio show The World Cafe 2 weeks ago. That one spin convinced me I needed to get Spoon's new album, Gimmie Fiction, as soon as it came out on the 10th. I was pleasantly surprised to find an MP3 of the song the next day, and quickly got it onto the Ipod and listen to it almost everyday.

Somehow this week almost became "Sister Jack" overkill. I heard it Monday morning on on WFUV, and I was singing the song all day. Then I was invited to a listening party that night at a bar in the East Village, Hi-Fi, where I heard it the track two more times. The next day I bought Gimmie Fiction and was surprised to find there was a bonus disc with a demo verson of "Sister Jack." Later on Tuesday I went to one of my favorite MP3 blogs, Sixeyes, and they had posted yet another demo version of it. Wednesday night I heard it yet again on the World Cafe. So with all those signs, I had no choice but to also make it Song of the Week. I just hope these two tracks can co-exist peacefully on the same page.

Song of the Week 5/6/05

Oasis - "Lyla"

(Ooh, I figured out how to put a pic up!)

I haven't liked an Oasis single since 1997's "D'Ya Know What I Mean," so I must admit to being surprised that this has grown on me so much. Like most of Noel Gallagher's best songs, "Lyla" is a complete ripoff of someone else's work. The melody of the opening verse is a complete nick of the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man," and the rest of the song sounds like it was borrowed from The Who and Soundtrack of Our Lives. The thievery is besides the point--it's just good to have Oasis back is somewhat fighting form. Now we just need more outlandish Noel Gallagher interviews.

Song of the Week 4/29/05

Andrew Gold - "Lonely Boy"

This is quite possibly one of my favorite songs from the '70s.

It's also quite possibly one of the worst songs of the '70s.

When I was a kid, I loved this song, most likely because I was an only child raised in a small town with one traffic light. I had no friends anywhere near where I lived, so I spent all of my childhood by myself or thrown in with a bunch of adults in my house. When I went through my initial nostalgia for the '70s in 1990 and 1991, hosting a very popular show on my college station called Artists Only: The 70s, this song got played rather loud in the studio. And if you read the Song of the Week two weeks ago, you know I definitely considered myself a "Lonely Boy" back then.

The past two Fridays at work I played a bunch of '70s songs from ITunes to entertain me and my fellow co-workers, and "Lonely Boy" got stuck in everyone's heads at one point or another. And then I listened to it again last Saturday morning as I left a complete stranger's house after spending the night there (it's a LONG and bizarre story), and it seemed so appropriate that I started laughing out loud while walking down 2nd place in my beloved Brooklyn. Later that day I played it for my concert pal Moria after we saw The Shins and I had told the story of my crazy night. She had never heard the song, but I could tell by her head bobbing that its hookiness had snagged her, even if the song is three years older than her.

So you might be saying to yourself, "So why is it one of the worst songs of the 70s if you like it so much?" Here I ask you, dear reader, to take a glance at the lyrics:

He was born on a summer day,
1951
And with a slap of a hand he had landed
As an only son.

His mother and father said
What a lovely boy
We'll teach him what we learned,
Ah, yes, just what we learned.
We'll dress him up warmly
And we'll send him to school,
We'll teach him how to fight
To be nobody's fool

Oh, oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy.

In the summer of '53
His mother brought him a sister.
And she told him,
"We must attend to her needs,
She's so much younger than you."

Well he ran down the hall and he cried,
Oh how could his parents have lied?
When they said he was their only son,
He thought he was the only one…

Oh, oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy.

Goodbye mama!
Goodbye you!
Goodbye papa!
I'm pushing on through…

He left home on a winter day,
1969
And he hoped to find all the love
He had lost in that earlier time

Well, his sister grew up
And married a man,
He gave her a son,
Ah, yes, a lovely son.
They dressed him up warmly
They sent him to school,
They taught him how to fight,
To be nobody's fool…

Oh, oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy.

Whoa, whoa, whoa,
Oh, oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy,
Oh what a lonely boy.

WOW--talk about some of the most self-pitying, navel gazing lyrics even put down in a song! It slams his parents, his sister and his nephew, all in the space of four minutes. I wonder what family gatherings were like after this song came out. Maybe that's why he followed it up with "Thank You For Being a Friend"--he probably needed to mend some bridges.

Song of the Week 4/22/05

The Shins - "So Says I"

I came WAY late to The Shins party. I, like many unhipsters, had never heard of them until Zack Braff's great little movie from last year, Garden State. That's not exactly true -- I had heard them on the film's soundtrack (which I got a promo copy of) long before I saw the movie. One Friday night last summer I was talking about movies and music with my friend Rhett, and he asked me if I had seen Garden State, because he thought it would be right up my alley. I told him I hadn't, but I did love the soundtrack. Then he started raving about The Shins, saying that their second album, Chutes Too Narrow, was even better than their first, Oh Inverted World, which supplied two songs to the Garden State soundtrack. So the next week he gave me a copy of Chutes and said I needed to listen to it. And damn if he wasn't right.

I forgot about the disc and the band until my fellow concert collaborator Moria sent out an email asking if anyone wanted to go see The Shins with her. Since I was going to get us Doves tickets, I figured it would be a good trade, and quickly agreed. So a few weeks ago I finally picked up Oh Inverted World, and loved it. And then I started listening to Chutes again, and the one song that always stuck in my head was "So Says I." There's a part where frontman James Mercer sings "Oooo whoooo ooooo" through a wall of distortion, and that little two seconds of the tune has been stuck in my head all week. I can't get enough of it. And tonight I look forward to seeing them for the first time -- and hopefully the crowd won't be filled with too many way-too-late-to-The-Shins-party-folks like me.

(Right clink the link at the top for a free MP3 of the song from Sub Pop. And if you like that, check out a great live version from Austin City Limits by right clicking here.)

Song of the Week 4/15/05

Graham Parker and the Shot - "Wake Up (Next to You)"

Last Saturday -- for the first time in my life -- I was able to walk to a wedding. My friends Jessica and Kevin were getting hitched right off of Brooklyn's beautiful Prospect Park, which is a 35-minute uphill walk from my abode. It was beautiful and sunny day, so I grabbed the Ipod and -- clad in my Thinker tie and black suit jacket -- and started walking. Since I was going to the nuptials of two friends that I love dearly, I decided I needed to listen to some happy songs about love. I chose a playlist called "Sappy Songs," which starts out with "Wake Up (Next to You)." This was the first song I ever heard from one of England's best songwriters of the past 30 years, Graham Parker.

The track, from Steady Nerves, was Parker's only Top 40 hit in the U-S, and I discovered it via the Top 40 station out of Albany, FLY 92. It wasn't until I got to college that I heard more from Parker's great catalog, such as "Local Girls" and "Discovering Japan" from Squeezing Out Sparks and "Fool's Gold" from Heat Treatment. But "Wake Up (Next to You)" was always my favorite tune -- until I ended up playing it repeatedly about a girl.

(Gee, that's a surprise.)

My sophomore year (1988) I met a girl named Sarah who lived in the same dorm as I did. She had a serious boyfriend who lived on my floor, and she always came down (maybe it was up?) to visit him. They ended up breaking up that spring because, well, she was crazy and VERY flirtatious. It drove this guy nuts.

Fast forward to the summer of 1989: I'm working at the college station, 92 WICB, for the entire summer, getting some really good radio experience. In July our transmitter got struck by lightning, throwing us off the air for just over three days. So I found myself with some time off the air, and Sarah happened to call me at the station to see if I wanted to get together. She was working in Ithaca, and while we'd kept in touch, we'd never really hung out. So that night we proceeded to go to the only bar that I could drink at in town, TJ Tuesdays. 5 dollar pitchers ruled at that joint, and she and I drank many of them. We proceeded to drive (we were stupid, I know) to my pad, and then head back to her place. After making out while watching Rattle and Hum, I admitted that I was exhausted (I got up three days a week at 5am to work that summer), so she told me to get into her bed and she would follow me in in a while. A few minutes later I heard her roommate come home from his job at Dominos. I lied there for a while listening to them chat, and finally passed out.

I awoke at 6am and discovered I had slept alone all night. Puzzled, I got up and went to the bathroom -- and saw Sarah was in bed with her roommate, and it was obvious both of them were naked. I pissed, got the hell out of there and drove home. We were back on the air later that afternoon, which was my normal shift on a Friday. My fourth song of the day was "Wake Up (Next to You)," which I sarcastically dedicated to Sarah. I didn't see her again for the rest of the summer.

When school was just day away from starting at the end of August, I moved into my new on-campus apartment. That first night I discovered that my downstairs neighbor was none other than Sarah. When I bumped into her, I took the high road, asking her how her new boyfriend Jason (the roommate) was and how the rest of the summer went, and just trying to be cordial. The rest of that semester I rarely saw her, but we would be pleasant, even friendly to one another, which was fine with me since I had already found another woman to be fixated upon.

I stayed at the on-campus apartment during winter break of 1990-91 to work once again at the radio station, and surprisingly Sarah stayed as well to work at her off-campus job. We ended up hanging out evenings she was off, since we were the only two people in our entire apartment building that break. And -- you guessed it -- we ended up making out many of those nights, but she would always stop just before sex because she didn't want to cheat on her boyfriend. So about every third morning I would play "Wake Up (Next to You)" either in extreme frustration or total bliss -- I wasn't sure then what I was feeling, and I'm sure as heck not sure now. After that break ended, I never played the song again on air.

In the fall of 1996 The Figgs signed on to back Graham Parker on tour, so as a primer I went out and bought the two-disc Rhino collection Passion Is No Ordinary Word, and there was "Wake Up (Next to You)" on disc two. All the weird feelings I had associated with the song had melted away over those five years, and now it was just another great mushy song from my misspent high school days. So when I was putting together a playlist in I Tunes of "Sappy Songs," it seemed only appropriate for it to kick it off. I listened to the song twice while walking to Jessica and Kevin's wedding, which put me in a good mind set for what ended up being a great ceremony and an even better reception. (And for me, a man that believes marriage is a sham, to say that is pretty amazing.) And once again, WFUV read my mind, as the first song I heard the Monday after the wedding was "Wake Up (Next to You)."

Steady Nerves and Passion is No Ordinary Word are both out of print, but the song does appear, along with 19 other great tracks, on The Ultimate Collection, which you can still order online. So snatch it up, you won't regret it. (Well, unless you end up playing it over and over because you keep getting dissed by the same girl, then you might want to break the disc in half. Just don't blame me if that does indeed happen.)

Song of the Week 4/8/05

Josh Rouse - "It's the Nighttime"

It's not often that one person's love for a certain artist is so strong that one would be compelled to go see that artist without owning a single piece of music from their catalog. Heck, I've tried for almost a decade to get people to see The Figgs using my my persuasive power, and in some case, alcohol bribery. Whenever I've succeeded, I feel like it's an amzing achievement.

Now I'm not sure how my fellow Brooklyn to Midtown commuter Moria feels about having done just that (somehow I'm sure I will find out after this post), but it was her pure love of Josh Rouse's music that directly led me to my activity for this evening--seeing Josh Rouse perform at Irving Plaza.

Now I have seen the man in the past--as a matter of fact, in the guise of my day job I interviewed him in 2000 about his second album, Home. I vaguely recall liking the disc, but I don't have it in my collection now. I think I may have given it away to a co-worker or (more likely) sold it on St. Mark's Place to feed one of my various addictions. What I do remember about the interview is that Rouse was big into cooking, and we spent the last third of the interview chatting about cooking and the recipes he listed on his site.

Fast forward to January 2005: I've known Moria for just over a month, and its already apparent to me that we have one of those very rare person-to-person music connections that come around just a few times in a person's life. I can count the number of people I've had this bond with on just one hand. (Check the 1999 Reynolds Top 20 List for those other folks.) Since Moria and I click on this level, I figure I should check out whatever she raves about, as there's a 90% chance I'm going to like it.

So in one of our numerous email conversations she mentioned that she saw Josh Rouse on the street in Brooklyn, and how much she loves his music. A couple of days later I got a copy of Nashville, Rouse's new album, and I immediately burned a copy because I know she needed this disc fast, just like an old booze hound needs his first drink of the day at 8:00 a.m. I also decided that I should give this album more than my patented "Listen For Two Songs And Then Eject It Rapidly, Mumbling Disgustedly Under My Breath 'This Disc Sucks'" treatment.

And here's the thing with Nashville--it doesn't suck. Rouse's diverse tales of heartbreak (some likely inspired by his 2004 divorce) are catchy yet uncomfortable in how close they cut to the bone in nailing failed relationships. I always thought of Nashville (the city) as a place where sadness thrived in music--and was commercially successful as the same time. Alas, most of America won't hear this disc as much as they would, say, the latest from Kenny Chesney, but that's the topic for a whole other site, nay, book.

So to get back to the Song of the Week, ever since I decided in late March that I should go see Rouse play based on the one disc that I owned, I found myself drawn to "It's the Nighttime." The entire track is masterful, but what reeled me in is when the last chorus rolls around. Rouse harmonizes with himself on the final line, "It's the nighttime baby/Don't let go of my love." But when he sings "love" this time, he streches the syllable out, and squeezes all the heartbreak out of it by singing "looooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvveeeee." (Gosh, that looks stupid in print.) I listened to this song everyday on my way to work this week, and I heard it twice on WFUV, as if they wanted to put an exclamation point on my story.

So thanks WFUV, and thanks to Moria for giving me a music passion transfusion that a cranky old man definitely needed.

Song of the Week 4/1/05

R.E.M. - "World Leader Pretend"

They say death comes in threes (The Pope, Mitch Hedberg, that feeding tube lady). Sometimes that works for the Song of the Week as well:

1) I spent my Sunday afternoon going through the DVD's that are part of each reissue of R.E.M.'s Warner Bros. catalog. The last one I watched was Green, which not only has the album remixed in surround sound but also includes three songs from Tourfilm, the concert movie shot at the end of their extensive 1989 tour. One was a clip for "World Leader Pretend," a song which the group deemed so important in 1988 that they included the lyrics on the album sleeve, which was a first for Michael "Mr. Mumbles" Stipe.

2) Tuesday morning I woke up to WFUV playing "World Leader Pretend."

3) I read some MP3 blog (which I would link to, but I can't remember which one it was) on Wednesday which mentioned a new EP from a band called (wait for it...) World Leader Pretend...who just so happen to have an album coming out on (wait for it again...) Warner Bros. (On that blog I listened to one track called "Bang Theory" that was pretty damn good. and I look forward to hearing more from them.)

Wow, that's pretty freaky when I see all of it put together on the page. I hope it doesn't happen with this song next week.

Song of the Week 3/25/05

Supertramp - "Take the Long Way Home"

It's not often that a co-worker points out the Song of the Week to me, but I must credit my next door cube neighbor Doug for saying on Thursday of this week, "Haven't we heard this song every day this week?" He was correct--for some reason, the programming computer at the local NYC classic rocker Q104.3 must have had a glitch. It's not often that you hear the same song four days in the row in the daytime on a classic-based radio station. The computer or the program director or music director should be able to catch that it ran in the same daypart that many days in one week. In the world of classic rock radio programming, that is a no-no.

As if that repeated exposure wasn't enough, I heard "Take the Long Way Home" at a crucial point in a trip upstate on Friday. My friend Heather had the use of a van for a week, so I bribed her to take me up to my aunt's house to pick up a recliner and a bed frame. (I thrive on the hand-me-downs of my aunt--I would be eating on paper plates and using plastic forks without getting her rejects.) Since the van had no working stereo, I brought the Ipod and a little portable speaker system that ran off the headphone output. The trip up turned out ot be hellish, as it took two hours just to get from my abode in Brooklyn to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Somewhere around there "Take the Long Way Home" came up one of of the two lengthy playlists I created for the trip. Oh that song never seemed more appropriate than that moment.

Song of the Week 3/18/05

The Mars Volta - "The Widow"

This track from the group's second album, Frances the Mute, has been played for weeks upon end here in New York on our alt rock station, K-Rock. It was pretty much background noise until the begining of this week, when Cedric Bixler's voice cut through my haze as I was thinking about how crappy the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies would be. (And oh, it was.) Then the next three days I think I heard every single time K-Rock played the song during the day. Finally I broke down and made the single version of this song my first I-Tunes purchase for the I-Pod. Who doesn't like Tex-Mex progressive rock?

Song of the Week 3/11/05

Tears For Fears - "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"

Yet again, VH1 Classic inspires another entry. I saw the video on Monday, heard it on the local Hot AC station on Wednesday, which then inspired me to put Songs From the Big Chair on the new gadget of the house, the 60 gig Ipod. Damn, how did I ever live without this thing?

Song of the Week 3/4/05

Queen - "Somebody to Love"

I'm not even that big a fan of this track (I prefer "Tie Your Mother Down" or "Get Down, Make Love"), but when you hear a classic rock song six times in the same week over one video channel and two different radio stations, you gotta go with what had fate has dealt you. And I must ask, why are Brian May and Roger Taylor touring with Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers? As a colleague of mine said (and I paraphrase here) "Why replace one of the most effiminate frontman with one of the most macho frontman?"