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”