Gabriel to The Game

"Gabriel"  Lamb  Ultra Chilled , Vol. 4
"Gabriel's Oboe"  Ennio Morricone  Film Music By Ennio Morricone
"Galang"  M.I.A.  Live at KEXP, Vol. 2
"Galapogos"  Smashing Pumpkins  Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
"Galaxy"  War  The Best of War & More
"Galaxy In Janaki"  Flying Lotus  Cosmogramma
"Galley Slave"  Southern Culture On The Skids  Dirt Track Date
"Gallow's Pole"  Led Zeppelin  Led Zeppelin III (Zep "videos" boring stills - link to live Page & Plant)
"Galway Races"  Paddy Reilly  40 Irish Drinking Songs
"The Game"  Love And Rockets  Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven

  This is probably my least favorite set of songs so far.  "Gabriel" was 85% a find, Flying Lotus bears more listening, and there are strong, if already-known tracks from M.I.A. and Zeppelin.  However, for the most part these are weaker tracks from most of the other albums and artists here.  (And there is an Irish drinking song in the mix.)


  On more than one occasion, I have put on a song and within five seconds of it starting my girlfriend began screaming, "what the hell is this shit?"  I am reminded of this because the Lamb song is very good in the middle, but it starts with just her (Louise Rhodes) singing.  I don't dislike her vocals, but I think I hate the lyrics and it takes some effort to wait until the music kicks in.  The same thing happens at the end, the music tapers off and she is gratingly chanting about "my angel Gabriel."  But ignoring the ends of this song, I could listen to the middle quite a bit.

  My favorite thing I learned while researching  these songs is that Flying Lotus started out doing bumper beats for Adult Swim.

   I remember playing "Gallow's Pole" once in the 1980s and a friend of mine commented that he had never heard a song used to tell a story in so direct a manner.  This is another interpretation of a "traditional" song.  Leadbelly is credited with popularizing it around 1939.  I currently own a version of it (titled "Hangman Tree") by Almeda Riddle, as well as a remix of that same version by Tangle Eye.  Not to get ahead of myself, but these three side-by-side are excellent examples of different artists taking the same song and making it "their own."  The three versions are all radically different, and each is deeply engaging in its own way.

  As I said, most of the other tracks are not wonderful.  The Morricone track (from The Mission) sounds like film music to me (which is not true of all Morricone songs).  The Pumpkins song is just a song.  Neither of them is horrible, I am just not rushing to listen to them again.  Southern Culture plays an instrumental with chanting and moaning in between the guitar breaks.  I may be a SCOTS apologist.  I have seen them live several times, and find that dismissing them as gimmicky is a disservice to their talent both as songwriters and musicians.  Rick Miller in particular is a talented guitarist.  However, even I recognize that sometimes they put the gimmick too far ahead of the song, especially if the gimmick doesn't work.  This is the case here.  The Love & Rockets song embodies all the bad about that band, with none of the good - their moody pretensions are not balanced by either the pop hooks of L&R's better work or the force of personality that Bauhaus and Peter Murphy brought - it is droning and dull, with irredeemably horrible lyrics.  "Galaxy" is a later War single presumably thrown on to this collection in order to fill it out (or to try to justify their later work as on a par with "Why Can't We Be Friends?" and "Low Rider").  At least they have the honesty to put the "and more" in the compilation title.

F*** You to Faces and Names

"F*** You"  Lily Allen  It's Not Me, It's You
"F*ck Hodges [Don't Know Nothin JH Mix B]"  Jason Hodges/Mark Farina  Live At Om
"F*cking Boyfriend"  The Bird & The Bee  The Bird & The Bee
"Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)"  Otis Redding  The Complete Stax/Volt Singles, 1959-1968
"Fa-Ce-La"  The Feelies  Left Of The Dial: Dispatches From The 80s Underground
"Fables Of Faubus"  Charles Mingus  Mingus Ah Um
"Fabricoh"  Archers Of Loaf  Vee Vee
"Face It"  Ed Robinson  What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves
"Face to Face/Short Circuit"  Daft Punk  Alive 2007
"Faces and Names"  John Cale & Lou Reed  Songs For Drella

   Our first collection of songs about fucking.  None of them are actually about sex, but it is such a great word with so many wonderful uses, some folk just find it irresistible.  Of course the artists here, or their producers, balked at actually writing the word in the title.  They all say it with reckless abandon - Lily Allen and Inara George both give it a lilting cheer incongruous to the excoriation in the lyric itself.


  My older son hates Lily Allen, and I fall a little in his esteem every time he hears one of her songs come out of my speakers.  I can see how she could annoy, but I find her amusing.  My son won't budge, and holds this is a moral failing.

   There are a handful or artists that make me cry nearly every time I hear them.  When I hear "Beautiful Boy" or "Watching The Wheels" by John Lennon I think about the hope in those songs and how shortly after they were released he was killed, and suddenly I am weeping.  There is a point in "Little Wing" when I am overcome by the feeling that I am standing in the presence of something greater than myself.  For both those reasons, just thinking about an Otis Redding song makes me cry. 

   Now seems a good time to sing the praises of Rhino Records.  From 50s rock & roll, through  60s soul, 70s funk and punk, 80s indie music, as well as "pop culture" boxes from both the 80s and 90s, Rhino has provided my collection with literally hundreds of songs.  The two songs on Rhino boxes here are representative.  "Face It" is the b-side to a 1971 cover of "Temptation's 'Bout To Get Me"  The artist has almost no internet presence at all.  Wiki brings up nothing.  Allmusic has only cursory and incomplete references to a discography.  The 45 itself was not listed on an Atco discography, and is selling for $100 on eBay, yet here is Rhino, giving Ed Robinson the same stage as brighter lights such as Cyril Neville, Rufus Thomas, and Little Richard. The Feelies and "Fa Ce-la" are better known than that, particularly to people of a certain age (approximately mine), but Rhino helps to keep those alt bands of my adolescence from being drowned out by an 80s "revival" that embraces the same bands that kept them off the radio the first time around.  Rhino traffics in nostalgia and marginalia, yes.  But it is nostalgia and marginalia that consistently speaks directly to me.  (Of course I recognize that they play both sides of the table - they are currently peddling remastered copies of Van Halen's 1984 and ZZ Top's Eliminator, and they are the also the only reason I have a copy of "Working For The Weekend.")

E-Mac (interlude) to Early Morning Wanderings

"E-Mac (interlude)"  Outkast  Speakerboxx/The Love Below
"E Is For Estranged"  Owen Pallett  Heartland
"E.S.P."  Deee-lite  World Clique
"Each and Everyday"  Best Coast  Crazy For You
"Each Coming Night"  Iron & Wine  Our Endless Numbered Days
"Each Day"  Sister Wynona Carr  Dragnet For Jesus
"Each Step I Take"  Deanie Parker  The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968
"Early In The Mornin'"  Cyndi Lauper  Memphis Blues
"Early In The Mornin'"  Johnny Lee Moore & prisoners  Southern Journey Vol. 5: Bad Man Ballads
"Early Morning Wanderings"  Chris Joss  You've Been Spiked

  Women dominate this set - Best Coast's neo-surf rock with its doo-wap chorus and fuzzy guitars, Lady Miss Keir's feel-good funk, Cyndi Lauper trying on the blues, Sister Wynona Carr's joyous gospel, and a lost gem from Stax.

  On Memphis Blues, Cyndi Lauper brings a whole album to the covers discussion.  Throughout the album, she avoids the question of "What can I add?" by surrounding herself with musicians more talented in the style.  Here, B.B. King and Allen Toussaint provide guitar, keyboards and additional vocals.  Cyndi's vocal is a part of the success of this song in the same way "Frosted Flakes are a part of this nutritious breakfast."  You could replace it with a pop-tart, jello, or a punch in the face at little cost.  That said, the song (like the breakfast) is all right on its own.  (despite the same title, the chain gang sings a completely different song.  Cyndi's covering a Charlie Spand song which I have found under the title "Soon This Morning Blues." - by my count we will get to it here in about 10 years.)

  The debt soul owes to gospel is so well-documented as to be axiomatic.  However, here it is side-by-side.  Sister Wynona Carr and Deanie Palmer sing a pair of songs virtually identical in theme.  With each move and each passing day they get closer to the one they love.  For one, it is God.  For the other, it is more secular.  With slight rewording the songs could be reversed.

  Deanie Parker was a singer and house songwriter during Stax/Volt's early period, and co-wrote this song with Steve Cropper.  She did not sing any of the label's largest hits - I could only find references to 4-5 songs listing her as the performer at all.  Of course, the bulk of the references to her on the internet don't talk about her as a singer.  Instead she seems to have been the driving force behind the revitalization of the Stax/Volt studios and the creation of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and its associated Music Academy.  She served as director and CEO for the Soulsville Foundation until 2007, and again in an interim role until last April.  She has received numerous awards (including an honorary doctorate from , and appears to be a tireless advocate for Stax's legacy, and Memphis generally.

  The efforts to get the museum built is a reminder of the confluence of talent and energy that was Stax records.  That the label survived as long as it did, despite a litany of tragedies (the deaths of Otis Redding and Martin Luther King), and unfortunate business deals (the loss of their back catalog to Warner, a failed relationship with CBS), is a testament to the abilities and motivations of the people behind the label.  That the original location has been restored and turned into a first-class museum and you music program, after sitting fallow for years, further adds to that.  Since I have approximately 250 songs by Stax/Volt artists, I will not run on too long about this, but be warned.  Extended rants in this vein may recur at any point.

D'Nhirim Reforma to D.M.S.R.

"D'Nhirim Reforma [Pension Money]"  Cesaria Evora  Cesaria
"D'yer Mak'er"  Led Zeppelin  Houses Of The Holy
"D-7"  The Wipers  Chili Peppers Jukebox [Mojo Disc]
"D-Boi (Interlude)"  Outkast  Speakerboxx/The Love Below
"D's Car Jam/Anxious Mo-Fo"  Minutemen  Double Nickels On The Dime
"D.A.I.S.Y. Age"  De La Soul  3 Feet High And Rising
"D.A.R.L.I.N.G."  Beach House  Devotion
"D.C.B.A.-25"  Jefferson Airplane  Surrealistic Pillow
"D.F. (Interlude)"  Outkast  Stankonia
"D.M.S.R."  Prince  1999

  Beach House is one of the reasons I am doing this.  What I mean is, this is a band and a song that I know almost nothing about.  It is something I read about briefly, and picked up.  But since the music collection is so large, it was instantly absorbed and had not risen to the surface.  Listening to these ten songs, "D.A.R.L.I.N.G." stood out as immediately engaging and strikingly different, certainly from the songs in this block - they fit in with other stuff, Bat For Lashes and Mazzy Star come quickly to mind (nothing springs full-blown from the head of its creator with no reference at all).  Apparently, they are a duo from Baltimore.  Alex Scally plays keyboards and guitars.  Victoria Legrand sings and plays organ.  They formed in 2004, and this is from their second album released in 2008.  I read one interview where Scally said they wanted people to have sex to their music, but that was in reference to the third album - apparently this one is chaste.  While I am not in the adjective business, allmusic used the phrase "alluringly hypnotic" which seems a good term.  Apparently the genre "dream pop" is bandied about, which seems convenient and probably an effort to pigeon-hole them.  (that is a bigger rant about "genre" as a means of balkanizing music and its listeners that I will save for another time).

Listening to these songs I found myself asking, "what does the title mean?"  Some answers I have come to after repeated listening, perusal of the lyrics, and a cursory and completely unreliable search through the internet.

• "D-7" refers to the chorus "dimension seven" which is not helpful at all.  
• Apparently "D'yer Mak'er" is the punchline to a bad joke and hints at the Jamaican feel of the track.  
• I am assuming that the Cesaria title is the bracketed phrase in Portuguese, although no translation site would confirm that for me. 
• Dance Music Sex Romance is easy enough, but why abbreviate it?  
• D.A.I.S.Y. stands for "da inner sound, y'all"  This is also why there is a broken daisy pot on De La Soul Is Dead - by the time their second album came out, the daisy age was over and replaced by Dre's gangsta period.
• D/C/B/A is the chord progression, and the last bit is a reference to LSD-25, because, it seems, some folks in San Francisco may have used drugs at the time this record was made.
• D-boi is how you spell drug dealer in Atlanta.
• The Dungeon Family is the Atlanta hip-hop community Andre and Big Boi came up through.  Here are a lot more words about that.

C'Mon Every Beatbox to Cactus

"C'Mon Every Beatbox"  Big Audio Dynamite  No. 10 Upping St.
"C'Mon Everybody"  Eddie Cochran  Somethin' Else: The Fine Lookin' Hits Of Eddie Cochran
"C.C. Rider"  Chuck Willis Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-74
"C.O.C.A.N."  Patchwork  Jazz Lounge [Water Music]
"C.R.E.A.M."  Wu-Tang Clan  Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
"Cabbage Head"  Dr. John  Goin' Back To New Orleans
"Cacada"  Bebel Gilberto  Momento
"Cachita"  Esquivel!  Music From A Sparkling Planet
"Cachito"  Esquivel!  Music From A Sparkling Planet
"Cactus"  Pixies  Surfer Rosa

   Rammellzee died this summer.  That and the name-check by B.A.D. here is really the extent of my knowledge of him.  I don't know how well this band has aged.  I still enjoy this, but it seems very much like a period piece. The overwhelming presence of the Simmons drum on this track, as well as the film loops and white guy proto-hip hop marks it from a period in the mid- to late-80s.

  Of course, I like period pieces (at this point, I may be one). Juan Garcia Esquivel did the bulk of his recording before 1962. Eddie Cochran died in 1960.  Chuck Willis in 1958.  (O.D.B in 2004, but that may not be relevant to this line of reasoning).  Good music is good music regardless of when it is made, and the mere fact that an artist is bound to a particular time, with its particular technologies, predispositions and worldview does not make it any less valuable.  The vicissitudes of public opinion mean that some things fall out of favor only to be rediscovered later.  By the same token, some artists make music that is so out of step with the tastes of their own age, it takes years for the rest of the world to catch up.

   It is a testament to my own ineptitude and general out-of-touchness that I am only now catching up to Esquivel!  The rest of the world had their self-aware, ironic revival of his space age pop/lounge music in the mid-90s.  But here I am, getting my first Esquivel! album in 2010.  And I can't say I didn't get it with the same base love-of-kitsch approach to it that folks did 15 years ago.  I am just slower at it.

  In my continuing study of cover songs, here are two songs that seem to transcend the term "cover" to become "standards."  "C.C. Rider" was 30 years old, and had been recorded multiple times already, when Chuck Willis made this version in 1957.  There are over 100 different versions recorded.  Dr. John's "Cabbage Head" is a version of an old irish ballad that has been recorded in different forms by everyone from Ruth Brown and Sonny Boy Williamson to Steeleye Span.  (I checked - I have at least one other version of each of these songs).  So the question is, given the broad recording of these tracks, is it even meaningful to consider whether the track is "the artist's own?" 
 

B-A-B-Y to Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You

"B-A-B-Y"  Carla Thomas  The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968
"B-Boy Kingdom"  Aceyalone  All Balls Don't Bounce
"B Side Wins Again"  Public Enemy  Fear Of A Black Planet
"R.L. Got Soul"  Jon Spencer Blues Explosion  Now I Got Worry (error in title discovered 5.25.11- fixed)
"B.O.B."  Outkast  Stankonia
"Baadima"  Elie Karam  Buddha-Bar V
"Baba"  Salif Keita  Moffou
"Baba O'Reilly"  Waco Brothers The Who Covered [Mojo disc] (5.25.11 - no link, but learned this is Jon Langford's band)
"Baba O'Reilly"  The Who  Who's Next
"Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You"  Led Zeppelin  Led Zeppelin I

   Carla Thomas is Rufus Thomas' daughter and one of the staples of the early Stax/Volt roster.  She did some duets with her father, which given the content are a little creepy (i.e. - "The Night Time Is The Right Time").  Later, she recorded duets with Otis Redding, and those are less disturbing.
   
   There is a long line of songs about people trying to destroy, outlaw, or regulate music out of existence.  Frank Zappa, Parliament, X, Public Enemy all put forth the notion that their music is dangerous or unaccepted by the masses.  Aceyalone's boisterous rap joins that line - "Welcome to the glory of the b-boy kingdom."

  I feel like I should know more about Jon Spencer than I do.  I remember my girlfriend had this album years ago, but somehow he just kind of went past me.  It is loud, fuzzy, and trashy - I can't imagine why I would not have embraced this earlier.  I asked my older son if he knew about them, and he said, "They have a theramin."

   So a countried-up version of "Baba O'Reilly."  Huh.  I guess it is all right, even though I think there might be a mandolin lurking back there somewhere.  They changed the lyrics though - I don't approve.  I feel about covers the way I feel about remixes.  There has to be a reason.  The Waco Brothers at least try to make this their own - the synthesizer has been replaced by a big ol' bass line, the twang is perhaps too present.  But the other part of it is - does this song need to be remade?  Thanks to classic old rock stations, I expect the original is still everywhere.  What are you going to bring to people by recording this?  The rules are different for covers in a live performance, but did they go into a studio to do this?

Some of this is personal, I know.  The Who are a band that I listened to with an almost religious fervor for a stretch of time.  I can point to four such artists in my life - The Beatles, The Who, Talking Heads, and Richard Thompson (chronologically).  There were periods where I voraciously pursued these artists, sometimes to the exclusion of all other music.  That zealotry passed, but there are remnants of that passion.  When I hear a Who song, I know every note and yet anticipate the next one.  From the start of the synth line, I am rushing along toward Roger's climactic scream at the end.  When I hear this song, or many who songs, it reminds me of my past in a visceral, emotional, almost physical way.   Those feelings that The Who spoke to come rushing back.  For better or worse, this band is my youth.  So regarding covers of Who songs, I may not be the fairest judge.

That said, Led Zeppelin's "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" fits everything you need in a cover.  It is a 1950s folk song that the band converts into a blues workout that is all their own.  (Oh god - the alt-country kids can't touch a "classic old rock" song, but the dinosaurs . . . they did it right.  I really am not that guy, I promise).  Admittedly, I am not hearing this in 1969, so the familiarity of the original (or Joan Baez's 1962 version) at the time of Zeppelin I is unclear.  What is certain is that after 40 years, the band so completely owned this song that I doubt many people know it was someone else's first.  (of course how much of that is the due to the monolithic presence of classic old rock is hard to say.)


 

A-Punk to Abdullah's Delight

"A-Punk"  Vampire Weekend  Live At KEXP, Vol. 4
"'A' Bomb On Wardour Street"  The Jam  All Mod Cons
"A/B Machines"  Sleigh Bells  Treats
"A.W.O.L."  Beastie Boys  Paul's Boutique
"The Abandoned Brain" Robyn Hitchcock  I Wanna Go Backwards
"ABC"  The Jackson 5  Hitsville USA:  The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971
"ABC (Salaam Remi Krunk-A-Delic Party Mix)"  The Jackson 5/Salaam Remi  Motown Remixed
"The Abduction of Margaret"  The Decemberists  The Hazards of Love
"Abdul and Cleopatra" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers  The Best Of . . . : The Beserkley Years
"Abdullah's Delight"  Art Blakey Orgy In Rhythm

   So the Decemberists present a problem with my plan.  There is nothing wrong with them per se.  In fact quite the opposite - a Decemberists song has a way of reaching out and grabbing you by the collar and saying, "Listen up!  you will want to pay attention to this!"  The trouble is that with Hazards of Love, and to a lesser extent The Crane's Wife, the songs are written as a whole - not only does the music relate from song to song, but the tracks tend to flow from one to the next without break.  So when you set out to listen to the tracks out of order, the abrupt finish can be jarring.  This is especially true when the next song happens to be by Jonathan Richman.

  On the other hand, I think Jonathan is well served by this format.  Taken one at a time, Jonathan Richman's are enjoyable breaks from the harshness of every day life (and of a lot of my other music - see Sleigh Bells; Beasties).  In clusters though, his overwhelming niceness becomes a bit exhausting - you can't bear someone who seems to be smiling all the time. 

  Which brings us to the Jackson 5.  Now that he has passed, I think my position on Michael is that I might just have to forgive him his off-stage foibles, however unclear or unseemly they may ultimately have been.  It is impossible to get past the greatness of the best of his music.  (Especially those songs he made when he was actually a child, rather than the strange, creepy child-man from the uncanny valley that he became). 
  
   Regarding the ABC remix - the question with any remix has to be "is there some reason to listen to this over the original?"  Here the answer is emphatically no. 

Why bother?

This is for my own edification.  However, because I live in the twenty-first century, it is only right that I conduct this ritual of self-involvement in a public forum.  The purpose of creating the blog is a new year's resolution.  Two resolutions actually. 

One, I want to write more.  I write a lot for my job, but that is very fact-driven and not exactly creative.  I am not hoping to write the next great american novel, but expository, creative writing would be a nice change of pace. 

Two, I want to listen to my music collection.  I looked up and found I have a massive amount of recorded music right now, and I am a little overwhelmed by it.  Even though I tend to play music throughout the day, regardless of what I am doing, I don't always listen to what is being played.  Songs go by and I barely notice them.  Or some songs just don't get played.

So in order to address both those shortcomings, I am going to listen to ten songs a day, and I am then going to write about them.  I am not so out-of-touch with my own laziness to believe I will do this without fail every day.  However, I want to set the bar high enough that it has meaning and does not just fall by the wayside.  So I am setting the goal at 4 posts per week, ten songs per post.  Right now, I haven't told anyone I am doing this, so for the most part I am writing just for myself.  However, at the end of the first week, I will let some people know this is up and running.  This is to keep me honest and try to keep me to the pace I set.  Also, if you don't write as if you will be read, you don't try to write well.

And so, even though I know how this will work, I am spelling it out here for those readers who do not have direct access to my thoughts.  The goal is to listen to all of my music, but I want to do it in a way that brings some variety to the experience - so the list will be sorted alphabetically by song.  There was no good way to randomize every song in the library so I could avoid repetition, and sorting by artist or album would mean talking about one album per post and that isn't really the goal.  The goal is to listen to songs and write in reaction to those songs.  Not necessarily a review, but a response.  However, since going through the songs alphabetically means it could take years before I reached the z's, and quite possibly a month of songs starting with the word "I," I am going to alter the alphabet a little.  Day 1 I will start in the a's, Day 2 I will move to the b's, and so on, until I wrap around and we can start back at "a."  This may lead to trouble later on as we will not finish all letters at the same time, but we will address that when we get there.  I will also need to find a way to accomodate new songs that I obtain after I have passed their spot in the listening order.  However, these are details that can be worked out once I have established that I actually will keep doing this beyond some brief Mr. Toad-like passion.

So that is the plan - tomorrow we will start with our first ten songs.