"Macarena [Bay Side Boys Mix]" Los Del Rio The Best Latin Party Album in the World . . . Ever
"Machine Gun" Slowdive Souvlaki
"Machito Forever [Cut Chemist Remix]" Tito Puente Brazil Classics: Belaza Tropical Vol. 2
"Madder" Groove Armada Lovebox
"Madder Red" Yeasayer Odd Blood
"Madeline" Yo La Tengo And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
"Madison Square" Lettuce Fly
"The Madison Time" Ray Bryant Combo Hairspray [Original Soundtrack - 1988]
"Madness" Miles Davis Nefertiti
"The Madness of Love" Graham Parker Beat The Retreat: Songs by Richard Thompson
Another cover of which I don't currently own the original. Which is particularly strange because there was a point in the past where I had practically everything in Richard Thompson's catalog - including this, which was on a cassette-only collection of RT obscurities. But the grind of time, travel, and a general disrespect for most of my possessions and things go away. The cassette - Doom and Gloom from the Tomb, Vol. 1, was a fan-club only distribution that the owner of this record store I went to all the time offered up to me in the late-80s because he noticed I kept coming in and buying Richard Thompson and Fairport stuff. When you are catching up on a 25-year catalogue in a matter of months, I guess. I regret the loss of a lot of my old music (it feels like I have somehow built-up and lost my music collection several times through my life, and then had to re-create it from memory), but this one in particular stings. My rule of downloading the original when faced with only having the cover is thwarted - the Doom and Gloom cassette doesn't show up anywhere on the internet. The version on that tape is a Richard & Linda recording that is not available anywhere else. There is a live version available as a bonus-track on later reissues of Live, Love, Larf & Loaf by French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson, so getting that might be as close as I get . . . but the bonus tracks are not available for download. So I might be getting that whole album - which isn't all bad since it is one that I used to have (pre-bonus tracks) and needs replaced anyway.
For all the music of the 80s I have lost, so much music of the 90s just kind of went past me the first time through. Shoegaze is becoming something of an infatuation recently, about 20 years too late, but just in time for a new MBV album for the first time in a thousand years. We may also be reaching a shoegaze revival ("newgaze?") in the nostalgia/influence cycle - see Tamaryn - so maybe I can keep up with this sudden new trend the second time. I can take solace in the idea that if the radio seems content to have missed most music in the last 40 years, trying to catch up to shit that I missed 15-20 puts me ahead of the curve.
It is a testament to its ubiquity that even my sad self could not miss the Macarena, and '94-'95 was probably as deep into my cave as I ever was. Having a well-marketed earworm is as good a path to financial security as any I guess.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
L Y F to La Collectionneuse
"L Y F" Wu Lyf Go Tell Fire To The Mountain
"L.A. County" Lyle Lovett Pontiac
"La Bamba" Ritchie Valens The Best of Ritchie Valens
"La Bayamesa" Buena Vista Social Club Buena Vista Social Club
"La Belle S'Est Etourdie" Kate & Anna McGarrigle The French Record
"La Bikina" Esquivel Music from a Sparkling Planet
"La Califfa" Ennio Morricone Film Music by Ennio Morricone
"La Camisa Negra" Juanes Mi Sangre [studio & live]
"La Camisa Negra (Sonida National Remix)" Juanes/Sonida National Mi Sangre
"La Collectionneuse" Charlotte Gainsbourg IRM
Once again it has been just about forever between posts. To the extent it is kind of ludicrous to even try to explain why, or to even suggest that it will get better. Whatever. The problems remain the same - the music comes in a little faster than I can keep up and catalog it. The Wu Lyf album is a prime example - the songs I come across, this one included, are consistently engaging when they float to the top, but then they disappears and gets lost behind the rest of life and other songs and go knows what all, and suddenly it is an album I have had for over a year and have not played in 8 months.
It is kind of true with everything, and maybe it is a part of getting older - you just get busy. Life gets more demanding as you get older - the job becomes more involved, your daily life becomes more . . . occupied. The stuff piles on, but the days don't get any longer. And you just . . . and this really sucks . . . you just aren't as young as you were. The days actually become shorter because suddenly you have to sleep at night. Partly because your job is no longer just a job, but a career, and if you don't show up and you get fired there isn't another shitty food-service job that is going to pay you the same amount just around the corner. There are people and things that depend on you, and you accept that responsibility. So something has to give, and maybe that something is your ability to go to shows a few nights a week, to just buy and listen to new music on a whim just because you read a review, or heard a clip or just liked the name or needed to get out of the house. And you certainly don't waste whole weekend days or late nights just trying to catch up on the music you may have missed. You just don't have time.
Or maybe that is all bullshit. It hasn't been my job that has gotten in the way of me doing this - other leisure activities - reading, TV, video games, just sitting around doing nothing, all at turns have taken more of my energy and focus over the past year than traversing my music library.
Regardless, here we are again. Since the first of the year, I have been trying to get out to more shows, and see more bands, and am again trying to get a grasp on the music collection. That is going reasonably well. It isn't exactly a resolution, it is just more a feeling of giving myself permission to go out. Sometimes it is easy to fall into a routine of staying at home, or at least being home at a reasonable hour. And reasonable hours and bar shows do not always go hand-in-hand. Another part of that is trying again to get a firmer grasp on the music I have (and still keep growing my collection).
I do want to keep discovering new music. I just hate "CLASSIC ROCK" - not the music itself, I actually really like a lot of that late 60s, early 70s guitar rock that has been pushed down my throat for the entirety of my life. But the title, and the attitude. I despise the idea that somehow there is a period of music that is intrinsically better, more important, more pure, than any other, and particularly anything that came later. I don't think it is an attitude inherent to baby boomers, but because they are the most abundant generation on the planet, they are the most visible, and have been able to control the narrative of music for a long time.
But that isn't really the issue here. The issue is that I don't want to be that guy - I don't want to be an '80s-'90s guy whose musical taste has calcified around a few bands from Minneapolis and Seattle a thousand years ago. I really think we are entering a golden age for music - in terms of its availability, its variety, its vibrancy. I don't want to miss it because I am playing Tim for the millionth time.
It is hard to reconcile, when for years I was among the youngest people at a show, that suddenly I might well be the oldest. I am trying to embrace that - I stay in the back now (no one wants to see their dad in the pit). I buy better beer. I tip well. I try to buy merch (CDs, not a t-shirt I am never going to wear) because these kids half my age probably could use the cash.
On the other hand . . . I still really like Tim. There are songs in everyone's life that they know so well that at their mere mention - the title, a lyric - they not only hear it, but have an emotional response. You have to keep time for those songs. Just because I know every note to "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" doesn't keep me from playing More Fun In The New World every month or so. I am just trying to find a balance - I don't want to become rigid, but I don't want to be looking for new music just because it is new.
Anyway - a lot of foreign language songs here, given iTunes' inability to strip articles in French or Spanish the way it throws away "the."
"L.A. County" Lyle Lovett Pontiac
"La Bamba" Ritchie Valens The Best of Ritchie Valens
"La Bayamesa" Buena Vista Social Club Buena Vista Social Club
"La Belle S'Est Etourdie" Kate & Anna McGarrigle The French Record
"La Bikina" Esquivel Music from a Sparkling Planet
"La Califfa" Ennio Morricone Film Music by Ennio Morricone
"La Camisa Negra" Juanes Mi Sangre [studio & live]
"La Camisa Negra (Sonida National Remix)" Juanes/Sonida National Mi Sangre
"La Collectionneuse" Charlotte Gainsbourg IRM
Once again it has been just about forever between posts. To the extent it is kind of ludicrous to even try to explain why, or to even suggest that it will get better. Whatever. The problems remain the same - the music comes in a little faster than I can keep up and catalog it. The Wu Lyf album is a prime example - the songs I come across, this one included, are consistently engaging when they float to the top, but then they disappears and gets lost behind the rest of life and other songs and go knows what all, and suddenly it is an album I have had for over a year and have not played in 8 months.
It is kind of true with everything, and maybe it is a part of getting older - you just get busy. Life gets more demanding as you get older - the job becomes more involved, your daily life becomes more . . . occupied. The stuff piles on, but the days don't get any longer. And you just . . . and this really sucks . . . you just aren't as young as you were. The days actually become shorter because suddenly you have to sleep at night. Partly because your job is no longer just a job, but a career, and if you don't show up and you get fired there isn't another shitty food-service job that is going to pay you the same amount just around the corner. There are people and things that depend on you, and you accept that responsibility. So something has to give, and maybe that something is your ability to go to shows a few nights a week, to just buy and listen to new music on a whim just because you read a review, or heard a clip or just liked the name or needed to get out of the house. And you certainly don't waste whole weekend days or late nights just trying to catch up on the music you may have missed. You just don't have time.
Or maybe that is all bullshit. It hasn't been my job that has gotten in the way of me doing this - other leisure activities - reading, TV, video games, just sitting around doing nothing, all at turns have taken more of my energy and focus over the past year than traversing my music library.
Regardless, here we are again. Since the first of the year, I have been trying to get out to more shows, and see more bands, and am again trying to get a grasp on the music collection. That is going reasonably well. It isn't exactly a resolution, it is just more a feeling of giving myself permission to go out. Sometimes it is easy to fall into a routine of staying at home, or at least being home at a reasonable hour. And reasonable hours and bar shows do not always go hand-in-hand. Another part of that is trying again to get a firmer grasp on the music I have (and still keep growing my collection).
I do want to keep discovering new music. I just hate "CLASSIC ROCK" - not the music itself, I actually really like a lot of that late 60s, early 70s guitar rock that has been pushed down my throat for the entirety of my life. But the title, and the attitude. I despise the idea that somehow there is a period of music that is intrinsically better, more important, more pure, than any other, and particularly anything that came later. I don't think it is an attitude inherent to baby boomers, but because they are the most abundant generation on the planet, they are the most visible, and have been able to control the narrative of music for a long time.
But that isn't really the issue here. The issue is that I don't want to be that guy - I don't want to be an '80s-'90s guy whose musical taste has calcified around a few bands from Minneapolis and Seattle a thousand years ago. I really think we are entering a golden age for music - in terms of its availability, its variety, its vibrancy. I don't want to miss it because I am playing Tim for the millionth time.
It is hard to reconcile, when for years I was among the youngest people at a show, that suddenly I might well be the oldest. I am trying to embrace that - I stay in the back now (no one wants to see their dad in the pit). I buy better beer. I tip well. I try to buy merch (CDs, not a t-shirt I am never going to wear) because these kids half my age probably could use the cash.
On the other hand . . . I still really like Tim. There are songs in everyone's life that they know so well that at their mere mention - the title, a lyric - they not only hear it, but have an emotional response. You have to keep time for those songs. Just because I know every note to "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" doesn't keep me from playing More Fun In The New World every month or so. I am just trying to find a balance - I don't want to become rigid, but I don't want to be looking for new music just because it is new.
Anyway - a lot of foreign language songs here, given iTunes' inability to strip articles in French or Spanish the way it throws away "the."
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
So . . .
Girls "Lust For Life" Album
A long while ago, maybe 20 years, my old man (father, not male partner) was faced with one of many challenges to his early boomer worldview (class of '60). As a member of a Unitarian Universalist church in the suburbs of Cleveland, he was faced with a number of his peers, now in their forties, suddenly divorcing their wives and taking up with new partners who just happened to be men. My dad, being still a bit awesome . . .
It has been a steady decline in awesomeness for my old man From teenage early-adopter of Chess and Checker Blues and Rock, to mid-life embracer of the white-liberal faith of Unitarian-Universalism to second-divorce visitor of "singles camps" to septuagenarian global-warming denier, he has been on a strangely wrong trajectory . . .
As I was saying, while still awesome, my old man reflected upon this seemingly more than occasional occurrence of his baby-boomer friends leaving their long-term relationships for a mid-life, same-sex partnership, and he told me, "I guess I get it. Frankly, at this point, I don't really care who is lying in the bed next to me as long as they leave me the fuck alone."
Also, on November 6, for the first-through-fourth time ever, same-sex marriage was upheld at the ballot box in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. And the supreme court justice in Iowa that conservatives were trying to oust because he had upheld marriage equality through the state constitution won reelection.
And there is this video for this song, which I like not because it is porn (which I guess it is if singing into a penis like it is a microphone is porn), but because everyone in it is young and dumb and full and it doesn't much matter who it is they are rolling around with. "Maybe if I really tried with all of my heart, then I could make a brand new start in love with you . . ."
That is the bottom line and why I have never (and really never) given a shit about a person's sexual identity. It is really hard to find someone you want to be with for more than even a drink, let alone an evening or god forbid a lifetime. To have someone else telling you that the person you choose is somehow wrong . . . who needs to deal with that. If there has ever been an even quasi-legitimate reason for nosing into someone else's bedroom beyond a parent's selfish fear they may not get grandkids, I don't see it. Even that is based solely in vengeance, and therefore pretty base.
It doesn't matter your damage, which comes in all shapes and sizes. And it doesn't matter your cure, which are equally as varied. Everyone is looking for the person(s) that make(s) them complete and helps them get through the next few hours, next days, next months, years, decades. As my old man slides into an ultra-conservative convalescence, I guess we can take heart that the nation as a whole is moving more toward awesome and no one much cares who is lying in bed next to you, even if they don't just leave you the fuck alone.
A long while ago, maybe 20 years, my old man (father, not male partner) was faced with one of many challenges to his early boomer worldview (class of '60). As a member of a Unitarian Universalist church in the suburbs of Cleveland, he was faced with a number of his peers, now in their forties, suddenly divorcing their wives and taking up with new partners who just happened to be men. My dad, being still a bit awesome . . .
It has been a steady decline in awesomeness for my old man From teenage early-adopter of Chess and Checker Blues and Rock, to mid-life embracer of the white-liberal faith of Unitarian-Universalism to second-divorce visitor of "singles camps" to septuagenarian global-warming denier, he has been on a strangely wrong trajectory . . .
As I was saying, while still awesome, my old man reflected upon this seemingly more than occasional occurrence of his baby-boomer friends leaving their long-term relationships for a mid-life, same-sex partnership, and he told me, "I guess I get it. Frankly, at this point, I don't really care who is lying in the bed next to me as long as they leave me the fuck alone."
Also, on November 6, for the first-through-fourth time ever, same-sex marriage was upheld at the ballot box in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. And the supreme court justice in Iowa that conservatives were trying to oust because he had upheld marriage equality through the state constitution won reelection.
And there is this video for this song, which I like not because it is porn (which I guess it is if singing into a penis like it is a microphone is porn), but because everyone in it is young and dumb and full and it doesn't much matter who it is they are rolling around with. "Maybe if I really tried with all of my heart, then I could make a brand new start in love with you . . ."
That is the bottom line and why I have never (and really never) given a shit about a person's sexual identity. It is really hard to find someone you want to be with for more than even a drink, let alone an evening or god forbid a lifetime. To have someone else telling you that the person you choose is somehow wrong . . . who needs to deal with that. If there has ever been an even quasi-legitimate reason for nosing into someone else's bedroom beyond a parent's selfish fear they may not get grandkids, I don't see it. Even that is based solely in vengeance, and therefore pretty base.
It doesn't matter your damage, which comes in all shapes and sizes. And it doesn't matter your cure, which are equally as varied. Everyone is looking for the person(s) that make(s) them complete and helps them get through the next few hours, next days, next months, years, decades. As my old man slides into an ultra-conservative convalescence, I guess we can take heart that the nation as a whole is moving more toward awesome and no one much cares who is lying in bed next to you, even if they don't just leave you the fuck alone.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Kangaroo to Katalon
"Kangaroo" Big Star Third/Sister Lovers
"Kansas City" Albert King Born Under A Bad Sign
"The Kansas City Song" Buck Owens The Very Best Of Buck Owens, Vol. 1
"Kashmir's Corn" Victoria Williams Musings of a Creek Dipper
"Katey vs. Nobby" Galactic Ya-Ka-May
"Kathelin Gray" Ornette Coleman & Pat Metheny Song X
"Kathy's Song" Simon & Garfunkel Sounds of Silence
"Kathy's Waltz" Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out
"Katie's Been Gone" The Band The Basement Tapes
"Katolon" Salif Keita Moffou
So I have been paralyzed about writing for a while. Some things have been keeping me busy, but mostly I just get on the site and stare at the screen and feel overwhelmed. I am going to try to keep the posts [a bit] shorter and [much] more frequent from here on out - it may well mean some posts just kind of suck. But maybe something is better than nothing at all. Hopefully some will be Sometimes it can just be the rantings of a madman - that is the essence of the internet, after all.
The Song from this set is without doubt "Katey vs. Nobby" - New Orleans rhythms, P-Funk synthesizer, two Sissy Rap MCs . . . everything about it just beats you up, and it has a verse about Popeye's Chicken . . . wish there was a decent video. Instead, all you get is ass everywhere.
"Kansas City" Albert King Born Under A Bad Sign
"The Kansas City Song" Buck Owens The Very Best Of Buck Owens, Vol. 1
"Kashmir's Corn" Victoria Williams Musings of a Creek Dipper
"Katey vs. Nobby" Galactic Ya-Ka-May
"Kathelin Gray" Ornette Coleman & Pat Metheny Song X
"Kathy's Song" Simon & Garfunkel Sounds of Silence
"Kathy's Waltz" Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out
"Katie's Been Gone" The Band The Basement Tapes
"Katolon" Salif Keita Moffou
So I have been paralyzed about writing for a while. Some things have been keeping me busy, but mostly I just get on the site and stare at the screen and feel overwhelmed. I am going to try to keep the posts [a bit] shorter and [much] more frequent from here on out - it may well mean some posts just kind of suck. But maybe something is better than nothing at all. Hopefully some will be Sometimes it can just be the rantings of a madman - that is the essence of the internet, after all.
The Song from this set is without doubt "Katey vs. Nobby" - New Orleans rhythms, P-Funk synthesizer, two Sissy Rap MCs . . . everything about it just beats you up, and it has a verse about Popeye's Chicken . . . wish there was a decent video. Instead, all you get is ass everywhere.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Half Marathon Playlist
"Early In The Mornin'" Johnny Lee Moore & Prisoners Southern Journey Vol.5: Bad Man Ballads
"Go Outside" Cults Cults
"Iko Iko" The Dixie Cups Chapel of Love
"All Eyez On Me" 2Pac All Eyez On Me
"Grown Up" Danny Brown
"Bhangra Fever" MIDIval PunditZ Six Degrees 100
"Boe Money" Galactic Ya-Ka-May
"Theme from Black Belt Jones" Dennis Coffey Can You Dig It? Music & Politics of Black Action Films
"Higher Ground" Stevie Wonder Innervisions
"Get Some" Lykke Li Wounded Rhymes
"Racehorse" Wild Flag Wild Flag
"Whole Hog" (live) Sebadoh Lounge Ax Defense & Relocation CD
"Precious Lord Lead Me On" Sister Gertrude Morgan/King Britt King Britt Presents Sister Gertrude Morgan
"Midnight City" M83 Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
"You Put A Smell On Me" Matthew Dear Black City
"Help I'm Alive" Metric Fantasies
"Thunder Road" Bruce Springsteen Born To Run
"Growing Old Is Getting Old" Silversun Pickups Swoon
"Post Acid" Wavves King of the Beach
"Georgia" Yuck Yuck
"Ladyflash" The Go! Team Thunder, Lightning, Strike
"Gentlemen" The Afghan Whigs Gentlemen
"Freak Scene" Dinosaur Jr. Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the 80s Underground
"Heads Will Roll" Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz!
"Within Your Reach" The Replacements Hootenanny
"Big Poppa" The Notorious B.I.G. Greatest Hits
"Dead Pontoon" Toro Y Moi June 2009
"I See You Baby [Fatboy Slim Remix]" Groove Armada Vertigo
"Hott Bizness" Lyrics Born Later That Day . . .
"Check The Rhime" A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory
"Angola Bound" Aaron Neville The Very Best of Aaron Neville
"Don't Miss That Train" Sister Wynona Carr Dragnet For Jesus
"Hard-Core Troubadour" Steve Earle I Feel Alright
"Heroes" David Bowie Changesbowie
"Simmer Down" Bob Marley Songs of Freedom
"Let The Good Times Roll" Harry Nilsson Nilsson Schmilsson
"Whipping Post" The Allman Brothers Band At Filmore East
Still not posting enough here - it has been difficult to prioritize this little project the way I would like. Anyway - I just ran a half-marathon with my son (and about 20,000 other people, but really - it was with my son). Since I figured he would leave me behind, I made a race-day playlist so I would have something to listen to while I ran, and rather than my usual alphabet crawl, I just put that up here. He did stay with me for the first hour of the race, but then he set off and ultimately finished about 10 minutes ahead of me. We were both hoping to break two hours - he came close, and I was at about 2:11.
Before I got the boy to run with me, I always described running as my best opportunity to listen to hours of music without interruption (I have been a runner of questionable consistency for about 6 years, when in a fit of turning 40, I ran a marathon). I leave it to the iTunes shuffle to pick the shorter runs, but if I set out for over an hour, I find iTunes likes to say things like "shorter of breath and one day closer to death" a little too often, so I try to lay out the tracks ahead of time. It helps me mark pace as well if I know what song should be playing when.
The goal in making a playlist is to put some interesting stuff on here that was basically up-tempo enough that I wouldn't fall into a stupor. While I try to pick songs that are thematic and make me happy to hear, I try not to pick anything to cliched or ridiculously "inspirational." The obvious exceptions are "Thunder Road" and "Heroes" - which I have put on my long run lists for years. "Thunder Road" marks my halfway point, and "Heroes" marks where I want to be crossing the finish line. Yes, totally over-the-top and idiotic to want to run under that clock with "we could be heroes just for one day . . ." I balance that out with a few cheerful prison songs and a few songs about growing old or dying. "Simmer Down" and "Let The Good Times Roll" serve double duty as either cool-down diddies or cushion between my target time, and when I would start to feel like I might suck as a runner and a human being - 18 minutes of "Whipping Post" is there for that.
Race as metaphor . . .
This was the second half marathon my son and I have run together. He has always been more physically capable than me - when he was thirteen he ran a 5K at a sub-8 pace, just by waking up and saying "okay lets go ahead and do this." The only thing I can give him is guidance. When we ran the first half, he stayed with me the whole time, and if he needed to slow down or rest, we stopped together. This time, he stayed with me out of courtesy and affection. This time though, it was clear to both of us that I was holding him back and at about the halfway point he just took off and left me to my playlist. He ran off, disappearing into a crowd of people. But, after it was all done, he found me and we left together. I guess that is just how things are going to be now.
"Go Outside" Cults Cults
"Iko Iko" The Dixie Cups Chapel of Love
"All Eyez On Me" 2Pac All Eyez On Me
"Grown Up" Danny Brown
"Bhangra Fever" MIDIval PunditZ Six Degrees 100
"Boe Money" Galactic Ya-Ka-May
"Theme from Black Belt Jones" Dennis Coffey Can You Dig It? Music & Politics of Black Action Films
"Higher Ground" Stevie Wonder Innervisions
"Get Some" Lykke Li Wounded Rhymes
"Racehorse" Wild Flag Wild Flag
"Whole Hog" (live) Sebadoh Lounge Ax Defense & Relocation CD
"Precious Lord Lead Me On" Sister Gertrude Morgan/King Britt King Britt Presents Sister Gertrude Morgan
"Midnight City" M83 Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
"You Put A Smell On Me" Matthew Dear Black City
"Help I'm Alive" Metric Fantasies
"Thunder Road" Bruce Springsteen Born To Run
"Growing Old Is Getting Old" Silversun Pickups Swoon
"Post Acid" Wavves King of the Beach
"Georgia" Yuck Yuck
"Ladyflash" The Go! Team Thunder, Lightning, Strike
"Gentlemen" The Afghan Whigs Gentlemen
"Freak Scene" Dinosaur Jr. Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the 80s Underground
"Heads Will Roll" Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz!
"Within Your Reach" The Replacements Hootenanny
"Big Poppa" The Notorious B.I.G. Greatest Hits
"Dead Pontoon" Toro Y Moi June 2009
"I See You Baby [Fatboy Slim Remix]" Groove Armada Vertigo
"Hott Bizness" Lyrics Born Later That Day . . .
"Check The Rhime" A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory
"Angola Bound" Aaron Neville The Very Best of Aaron Neville
"Don't Miss That Train" Sister Wynona Carr Dragnet For Jesus
"Hard-Core Troubadour" Steve Earle I Feel Alright
"Heroes" David Bowie Changesbowie
"Simmer Down" Bob Marley Songs of Freedom
"Let The Good Times Roll" Harry Nilsson Nilsson Schmilsson
"Whipping Post" The Allman Brothers Band At Filmore East
Still not posting enough here - it has been difficult to prioritize this little project the way I would like. Anyway - I just ran a half-marathon with my son (and about 20,000 other people, but really - it was with my son). Since I figured he would leave me behind, I made a race-day playlist so I would have something to listen to while I ran, and rather than my usual alphabet crawl, I just put that up here. He did stay with me for the first hour of the race, but then he set off and ultimately finished about 10 minutes ahead of me. We were both hoping to break two hours - he came close, and I was at about 2:11.
Before I got the boy to run with me, I always described running as my best opportunity to listen to hours of music without interruption (I have been a runner of questionable consistency for about 6 years, when in a fit of turning 40, I ran a marathon). I leave it to the iTunes shuffle to pick the shorter runs, but if I set out for over an hour, I find iTunes likes to say things like "shorter of breath and one day closer to death" a little too often, so I try to lay out the tracks ahead of time. It helps me mark pace as well if I know what song should be playing when.
The goal in making a playlist is to put some interesting stuff on here that was basically up-tempo enough that I wouldn't fall into a stupor. While I try to pick songs that are thematic and make me happy to hear, I try not to pick anything to cliched or ridiculously "inspirational." The obvious exceptions are "Thunder Road" and "Heroes" - which I have put on my long run lists for years. "Thunder Road" marks my halfway point, and "Heroes" marks where I want to be crossing the finish line. Yes, totally over-the-top and idiotic to want to run under that clock with "we could be heroes just for one day . . ." I balance that out with a few cheerful prison songs and a few songs about growing old or dying. "Simmer Down" and "Let The Good Times Roll" serve double duty as either cool-down diddies or cushion between my target time, and when I would start to feel like I might suck as a runner and a human being - 18 minutes of "Whipping Post" is there for that.
Race as metaphor . . .
This was the second half marathon my son and I have run together. He has always been more physically capable than me - when he was thirteen he ran a 5K at a sub-8 pace, just by waking up and saying "okay lets go ahead and do this." The only thing I can give him is guidance. When we ran the first half, he stayed with me the whole time, and if he needed to slow down or rest, we stopped together. This time, he stayed with me out of courtesy and affection. This time though, it was clear to both of us that I was holding him back and at about the halfway point he just took off and left me to my playlist. He ran off, disappearing into a crowd of people. But, after it was all done, he found me and we left together. I guess that is just how things are going to be now.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
J'Ai Passe Devant Ta Porte to Jailhouse Rock
"J'Ai Passe Devant Ta Porte" Michael Doucet & Cajun Brew A New Orleans Visit: Before Katrina
"Jacqueline" Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand
"Jacques Lamure" Of Montreal The Gay Parade
"Jag Vet en Dejlig Rosa" Robyn Body Talk: Pt. 1
"Jaguar" John Gregory The Sound Gallery, Vol. 1
"Jah Live" Bob Marley Songs of Freedom
"Jail Guitar Doors" The Clash The Clash
"Jailhouse Rock" Dean Carter Instant Garage [Mojo]
"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis Presley The Complete '68 Comeback Special [x2]
"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis Presley Elvis 75
MCA died. Junior Seau did too. I am pretty upset about them both. Mostly for selfish, self-absorbed reasons though. Junior Seau killed himself at age 43, after a long, successful career in the NFL, and he is not the first to do so (or even the first recently). Given the increased awareness of head injury and the long-term impact of the game on the people who play it, I am wrestling with whether a sport I have been an avid fan of my entire life is actively killing people. I am also concerned that if that is not the point, there has been very little concern for whether it is the case. Professional football is a spectator sport - it doesn't exist without people watching it. The point of it is so that people will spend their money in order to witness it. Stadiums seating nearly 100,000 people and billion-dollar television contracts attest to this. So the violence, the speed of the game, the crushing blows, are at some level because I want it (not me alone, but y'know . . . this is my navel-gazing so just accept some melodrama). I can say that I did not know, and that is both fine and true. The issue is now I do know. So do I stop watching, do I insist it be fixed, or do I merely live with my own hypocrisy. (as I sit here today, my money is on the latter). I honestly live in fear that I will see a young man killed one Sunday afternoon, and I know that is the last time I will watch football on any level. I also feel like that will be too late.
Adam Yauch died of cancer at 47. This makes me feel old. (I am not alone - a lot of my peers commented on the death that a part of their youth or adolescence died with him). I have now reached the point where my peers are dying of natural causes. No longer restricted to violence or drugs, now we face the everyday presence of death by just no longer living. This is the territory of Baby Boomers and Classic Rockers. I am not ready for an extended future of maintenance prescriptions and annual check-ups. My least favorite phrase, which I started hearing at the doctor's office a couple of years ago, has to be, "It is a natural part of the aging process." So now I not only hear it in my creaking bones, or from the doctor when he mentions the disappearing cartilage in some joint or another - now I am reminded of it as the rock stars of my youth shuffle off this mortal coil like Frank Zappa (just shy of age 53, but somehow suddenly almost 20 years gone . . . that went by fast too).
"Jacqueline" Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand
"Jacques Lamure" Of Montreal The Gay Parade
"Jag Vet en Dejlig Rosa" Robyn Body Talk: Pt. 1
"Jaguar" John Gregory The Sound Gallery, Vol. 1
"Jah Live" Bob Marley Songs of Freedom
"Jail Guitar Doors" The Clash The Clash
"Jailhouse Rock" Dean Carter Instant Garage [Mojo]
"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis Presley The Complete '68 Comeback Special [x2]
"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis Presley Elvis 75
MCA died. Junior Seau did too. I am pretty upset about them both. Mostly for selfish, self-absorbed reasons though. Junior Seau killed himself at age 43, after a long, successful career in the NFL, and he is not the first to do so (or even the first recently). Given the increased awareness of head injury and the long-term impact of the game on the people who play it, I am wrestling with whether a sport I have been an avid fan of my entire life is actively killing people. I am also concerned that if that is not the point, there has been very little concern for whether it is the case. Professional football is a spectator sport - it doesn't exist without people watching it. The point of it is so that people will spend their money in order to witness it. Stadiums seating nearly 100,000 people and billion-dollar television contracts attest to this. So the violence, the speed of the game, the crushing blows, are at some level because I want it (not me alone, but y'know . . . this is my navel-gazing so just accept some melodrama). I can say that I did not know, and that is both fine and true. The issue is now I do know. So do I stop watching, do I insist it be fixed, or do I merely live with my own hypocrisy. (as I sit here today, my money is on the latter). I honestly live in fear that I will see a young man killed one Sunday afternoon, and I know that is the last time I will watch football on any level. I also feel like that will be too late.
Adam Yauch died of cancer at 47. This makes me feel old. (I am not alone - a lot of my peers commented on the death that a part of their youth or adolescence died with him). I have now reached the point where my peers are dying of natural causes. No longer restricted to violence or drugs, now we face the everyday presence of death by just no longer living. This is the territory of Baby Boomers and Classic Rockers. I am not ready for an extended future of maintenance prescriptions and annual check-ups. My least favorite phrase, which I started hearing at the doctor's office a couple of years ago, has to be, "It is a natural part of the aging process." So now I not only hear it in my creaking bones, or from the doctor when he mentions the disappearing cartilage in some joint or another - now I am reminded of it as the rock stars of my youth shuffle off this mortal coil like Frank Zappa (just shy of age 53, but somehow suddenly almost 20 years gone . . . that went by fast too).
Friday, April 13, 2012
I'd Be A Yellow Feathered Loon to I'll Be Your Mirror
"I'd Be A Yellow Feathered Loon" Of Montreal The Gay Parade
"I'll Be Forever Loving You" The El Dorados Vee-Jay: The Definitive Collection
"I'll Be Good To You" The Brothers Johnson Ultimate Disco 30th Anniversary Collection
"I'll Be Home For Christmas" Diane Schuur Christmas for Lovers
"I'll Be Home For Christmas (Garry Hughes Remix)" Joe Williams Christmas Chill
"I'll Be Loving You" King Khan & BBQ Show Invisible Girl
"I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" New Kids On The Block Like Omigod! The 80's Pop Culture Box
"I'll Be There" The Jackson 5 Hitsville USA, Vol. 1: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971
"I'll Be There For You" (the theme from "Friends") The Rembrandts Whatever: The 90's Pop and Culture Box
"I'll Be Your Mirror" The Velvet Underground & Nico The Velvet Underground & Nico
Charles and I have an ongoing debate about the music collection - we get new music, and I immediately rip it to the computer and into the iTunes library (the iTunes decision is a rough one which I will pick up later, but sticking to the point). At this point almost all of our listening opportunities are hard-drive based. Neither of our cars have mp3 players or even ports to connect them, so that is the exception and even that will probably change in the next few years as the cars wear down and need replaced. So, we inevitably have a . . . I don't know what exactly. It isn't an argument - neither of us care about it that much. While I used the word debate it isn't even that thorough. Let's call it a periodic recognition of a basic philosophical difference. Charles firmly believes that just because we have obtained something, there is no obligation to keep it forever. If you don't like it, why are you letting it take up space indefinitely. I, on the other hand, argue that there is no point in deleting songs - they take up very little space and there is always the possibility you might one day want them.
This is not a new, digital, aspect of our personalities. While Charles forces herself to regularly clear away some things she is not using, I tend to keep everything. Books, records, clothes . . . I have a box of old board and role-playing games in the garage that I literally have not opened in over 20 years, but I don't get rid of it. Since I find it difficult to part with things that take up actual space, getting rid of 1's and 0's is next to impossible. Part of this is a completist tendency - if I am interested in something, I want to have everything related to it. I am that Who fan who bought Scoop and tried to justify Chinese Eyes. I owned every Talking Heads album including Naked, and tracked down albums by The Bunch and The Golden Palominos just because Richard Thompson played on them. This has tempered somewhat as I have gotten older - I didn't run out to buy Magic just because I like Born to Run. (although 4 Paul Simon albums appeared in one afternoon, but I can justify that I swear).
The other piece is that it all marks time - when you listen to music, wear certain clothes, read a book, that is what you are doing at that moment. When you hear that song, pick up that book, or wear those clothes, you are returned to that moment in some small way. I have trouble giving that up. And music is certainly the most likely opportunity to revisit that moment. Even though I think I will, I almost never re-read that book, and I admit that even I would be appalled to put on some of the clothes (although some might argue not appalled enough or often enough), songs last. I revisit albums and songs much more often - my sons know all the words to Bettie Serveert's first album even though they have never heard it anywhere other than in my car . . . for the past 15 years. It is not an act of pure nostalgia, either. Every time you listen to a song, you are not only hearing it again, but you are hearing it for the first time. As you grow older and your life changes, your interaction with that song changes. Sometimes this change makes the song irrelevant - sometimes listening to the Who I cringe at how overwrought the lyrics are and at how much I used to care about them. Other songs remain relevant because they reach back to that place in your past - the Replacements' "Left of The Dial" has become a dead metaphor at this point, but it puts me back in my twenties when that phrase meant a certain thing about who you were and what you did. Still others change and remain relevant in a wholly current way - "Little Wing" is a timeless work of beauty that leaves me awestruck every time I hear it. It was made at a particular time, but it is not of a time. (this may be a different point). Because I can always go back to so much music, I am loathe to get rid of any of it. Just because I have not listened to it in a very long time, does not mean I will never listen to it again.
Of course, my arguments are invalid when I come across "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" and the theme to "Friends." Once again, Rhino's need to preserve the missteps of our cultural past goes far beyond anything I could conceive and the whole company sometimes seems like it should be on an episode of "Hoarders." The good and the bad of this are ever-present on their website - for every complete Smiths reissue (re-mastered by Johnny Marr, so I assume he just mixed Moz so far behind the guitars he can barely be heard, which would be fine with me), there is a live set from Twisted Sister or Iron Butterfly. I never wanted to hear New Kids On The Block in the first place, I can't think of a time when I would want to play this song again (I liked Donnie in Band of Brothers though). The Rembrandts (who apparently were an actual band, not just a creation for this song) made a throwaway piece of jangle-pop that became the aural signature for a cultural phenomenon. That doesn't make it less of a throwaway song or a moment in time I am going to want to go back to. These are songs I can all but guarantee I am never going to listen to again, and that I will probably skip through if they come up on the shuffle.
I still didn't delete them, though.
A couple other quick thoughts:
"I'll Be Forever Loving You" The El Dorados Vee-Jay: The Definitive Collection
"I'll Be Good To You" The Brothers Johnson Ultimate Disco 30th Anniversary Collection
"I'll Be Home For Christmas" Diane Schuur Christmas for Lovers
"I'll Be Home For Christmas (Garry Hughes Remix)" Joe Williams Christmas Chill
"I'll Be Loving You" King Khan & BBQ Show Invisible Girl
"I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" New Kids On The Block Like Omigod! The 80's Pop Culture Box
"I'll Be There" The Jackson 5 Hitsville USA, Vol. 1: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971
"I'll Be There For You" (the theme from "Friends") The Rembrandts Whatever: The 90's Pop and Culture Box
"I'll Be Your Mirror" The Velvet Underground & Nico The Velvet Underground & Nico
Charles and I have an ongoing debate about the music collection - we get new music, and I immediately rip it to the computer and into the iTunes library (the iTunes decision is a rough one which I will pick up later, but sticking to the point). At this point almost all of our listening opportunities are hard-drive based. Neither of our cars have mp3 players or even ports to connect them, so that is the exception and even that will probably change in the next few years as the cars wear down and need replaced. So, we inevitably have a . . . I don't know what exactly. It isn't an argument - neither of us care about it that much. While I used the word debate it isn't even that thorough. Let's call it a periodic recognition of a basic philosophical difference. Charles firmly believes that just because we have obtained something, there is no obligation to keep it forever. If you don't like it, why are you letting it take up space indefinitely. I, on the other hand, argue that there is no point in deleting songs - they take up very little space and there is always the possibility you might one day want them.
This is not a new, digital, aspect of our personalities. While Charles forces herself to regularly clear away some things she is not using, I tend to keep everything. Books, records, clothes . . . I have a box of old board and role-playing games in the garage that I literally have not opened in over 20 years, but I don't get rid of it. Since I find it difficult to part with things that take up actual space, getting rid of 1's and 0's is next to impossible. Part of this is a completist tendency - if I am interested in something, I want to have everything related to it. I am that Who fan who bought Scoop and tried to justify Chinese Eyes. I owned every Talking Heads album including Naked, and tracked down albums by The Bunch and The Golden Palominos just because Richard Thompson played on them. This has tempered somewhat as I have gotten older - I didn't run out to buy Magic just because I like Born to Run. (although 4 Paul Simon albums appeared in one afternoon, but I can justify that I swear).
The other piece is that it all marks time - when you listen to music, wear certain clothes, read a book, that is what you are doing at that moment. When you hear that song, pick up that book, or wear those clothes, you are returned to that moment in some small way. I have trouble giving that up. And music is certainly the most likely opportunity to revisit that moment. Even though I think I will, I almost never re-read that book, and I admit that even I would be appalled to put on some of the clothes (although some might argue not appalled enough or often enough), songs last. I revisit albums and songs much more often - my sons know all the words to Bettie Serveert's first album even though they have never heard it anywhere other than in my car . . . for the past 15 years. It is not an act of pure nostalgia, either. Every time you listen to a song, you are not only hearing it again, but you are hearing it for the first time. As you grow older and your life changes, your interaction with that song changes. Sometimes this change makes the song irrelevant - sometimes listening to the Who I cringe at how overwrought the lyrics are and at how much I used to care about them. Other songs remain relevant because they reach back to that place in your past - the Replacements' "Left of The Dial" has become a dead metaphor at this point, but it puts me back in my twenties when that phrase meant a certain thing about who you were and what you did. Still others change and remain relevant in a wholly current way - "Little Wing" is a timeless work of beauty that leaves me awestruck every time I hear it. It was made at a particular time, but it is not of a time. (this may be a different point). Because I can always go back to so much music, I am loathe to get rid of any of it. Just because I have not listened to it in a very long time, does not mean I will never listen to it again.
Of course, my arguments are invalid when I come across "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" and the theme to "Friends." Once again, Rhino's need to preserve the missteps of our cultural past goes far beyond anything I could conceive and the whole company sometimes seems like it should be on an episode of "Hoarders." The good and the bad of this are ever-present on their website - for every complete Smiths reissue (re-mastered by Johnny Marr, so I assume he just mixed Moz so far behind the guitars he can barely be heard, which would be fine with me), there is a live set from Twisted Sister or Iron Butterfly. I never wanted to hear New Kids On The Block in the first place, I can't think of a time when I would want to play this song again (I liked Donnie in Band of Brothers though). The Rembrandts (who apparently were an actual band, not just a creation for this song) made a throwaway piece of jangle-pop that became the aural signature for a cultural phenomenon. That doesn't make it less of a throwaway song or a moment in time I am going to want to go back to. These are songs I can all but guarantee I am never going to listen to again, and that I will probably skip through if they come up on the shuffle.
I still didn't delete them, though.
A couple other quick thoughts:
- Sound like the Brothers' Johnson cribbed their chorus from Bill Withers' "Lovely Day."
- It is a toss-up for favorite song in this set between King Khan and Nico.
- Check out the back half of the Jackson's video, in which Diana Ross and Michael literally wrestle each other for center stage.
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