Zam'dziko to Zimbabwe

"Zam'dziko"  The Very Best  The Warm Heart of Africa
"'Zat You, Santa Claus?"  Louis Armstrong  Verve Remixed Christmas
"Zebra"  The Magnetic Fields  69 Love Songs
"A Zed and 2 L's"  Fila Brazillia  Pure Chillout
"Zera A Reza"  Caetano Veloso  Noites Do Norte
"Zero"  Smashing Pumpkins  Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
"Zero"  Yeah Yeah Yeahs  It's Blitz
"Zig Zag Wanderer"  Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band  Safe As Milk
"Ziggy Stardust"  David Bowie  The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars
"Zimbabwe"  Bob Marley  Songs Of Freedom [updated link b/c warner wiped out the last one - copyrant in future] 

  I don't know if it is naive to think music can effect any meaningful political change, or if I am just cynical and jaded at this point.  Not only did people like Bob Marley, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Fela Kuti think that they could be significant beyond mere entertainment, but apparently people who did not particularly like them agreed with them.  All of them were arrested or exiled.  Marley was shot.  Of course, Gil later became Brazil's minister of culture.  And Rhodesia actually did become Zimbabwe, so maybe I am cynical.  Whether any good comes from overtly political music, I guess no harm comes from it.

  One problem with political music is that it is inherently dated - at the very least the lyrics become outdated, so you had best hope the music sustains.    It is why something like "Joe Hill" seems like a museum piece.  The acoustic folk of the '60s (and agit-prop & hardcore later) is tied both musically and lyrically, into a specific time.   All that said, I think "Zimbabwe" holds up.  Maybe reggae is still a going concern.  Maybe Bob Marley is just better at it than most.  Maybe it is the music - you don't need a history degree (or even a wiki search on Rhodesia) to appreciate the rhythm.  It could be that there are enough vaguely stated universal truths in the song that it sustains (I particularly like the understated description of "overcome our little trouble").  Or maybe I just like Marley better than Joan Baez.

  Also - the guy in the "Zimbabwe" video (you can't miss him) who reminds me of this.

  More Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  Karen O gets a lot of press for being physically attractive, which may be unfortunate, because it is her voice and the hook-laden exciting music that make the band enjoyable.  The difference between the video here, and the one for "Y Control" make me worry that she might be reading the press clippings - much more focused on her (rather than the band or terrifying small children).  The bedazzled "KO" jacket is so extreme I assume it is a joke.

  Which may sum up every lyric ever written by Billy Corgan.  And yet Smashing Pumpkins' guitars are so wonderful, Billy's whining and self-absorption gets a pass most of the time.

Y'all Don't Wanna to Yank Me (Doodle)

"Y'all Don't Wanna"  Capone-N-Noriega  Heavy Hits Mixed By DJ Enuff
"Y Control"  Yeah Yeah Yeahs  Fever To Tell
"Y Tu Que Has Hecho?"  Buena Vista Social  Club  Buena Vista Social Club
"Y.M.C.A."  The Village People  Ultimate Disco 30th Anniversary Collection
"Ya Ya"  Art Blakey  Orgy In Rhythm, Vol. 1-2
"Yadnus" !!!  Live at KEXP, Vol. 4
"Yakety Yak"  The Coasters  Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-74
"Yalira"  The Very Best  Warm Heart Of Africa
"Yamore"  Salif Keita  Moffou
"Yank Me (Doodle)"  The Barracudas  The Complete Stax/Volt Singles, 1959-68

  Once again I apologize for the long absence.  I broke my right arm being either stupid or awesome depending on who you ask.  (while there is not a one-to-one relationship, there seems to be a correlation between finding my injury more "awesome" than "stupid" and the presence of a y-chromosome in one's genetic makeup).  I have been down for about two months, but have reached a point resembling full mobility, at least full enough for typing and prattling on about music.

  For those of you who may have forgotten, or are just stumbling along this piece of self-absorption for the first time, the idea is that I am going through my ripped music collection 10 songs at a time, alphabetically, and blogging loosely about the music I encounter in each set.  While I was injured I started going back through the collection and finding links to videos of the songs I listened to.  These are not my uploads, and hopefully I can avoid C&D letters.  Some caveats about the videos - I am not always that concerned about getting the exact version of the song that I have listened to.  If mine is unavailable, or if there is something much more awesome out there, then I will link to something else.  Generally, if there is an official video I will use that, unless there is some other bit of fan art that is more exciting (see, kids' recital to "Galaxy" after a science class, although I will now cheat and give you this live version from "Thee Mr. Duran Show," complete with messy opening interview).  I then tend to look for live versions (Of which there are many - even while Steve Jobs continues to try to displace Lars as the most hated man in music).  After that, the only thing I try to avoid are the lazy "videos" that just slap up a photo of the album cover and play the song (in this set, I did use one of those for the Art Blakey song - there wasn't going to be anything else.   However, I used an odd remix by the Drapers for "Yakety Yak" rather than one of those, or one that was a slide-show of stills from "American Graffiti).  I am continuing to update the old posts with links as well.

I would point out here that !!! and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are in some kind of competition to create the more disturbing official video.  Despite the singing roadkill and the poorly dancing daughters of the corn for !!!, I would have to say Karen O & Co. win.

  We are about a week out from New York's legalization of gay marriage.  This comes too late for Jacques Morali, the producer behind The Village People, who died of AIDS in 1991, and for the leatherman, Glenn Hughes, who died of lung cancer in 2001 (and was interred in his leather).  However, the cowboy, Randy Jones, married his partner in 2004, stating presciently (but underestimating the public), "Its only a matter of time before the courts rule in favor of what is morally right and humanly decent."  The lawyer me believes they will probably have to renew those vows now in order for the marriage to be legally binding.  Victor Willis, the cop and frontman, was the only straight man in the original group, and made his way into the news this week for demanding an apology from Tracy Morgan for implying that the writer of "Y.M.C.A." (Willis) was gay.   Willis was apparently married to Claire Huxtable for a few years, and apparently was fighting drug abuse for 25 years, spending time in and out of jail, and being featured on "America's Most Wanted."  Since getting clean, he has apparently been fighting with the other village people.  On May 2 of this year he filed suit for more royalties from the other Village People (not his first suit against the band).  I love this website's then & now picture of Willis - it clearly shows the pages feelings.  The three other original members still go around as The Village People - the construction worker, David Hodo, who started as a roller-skating fire-eater and now apparently rescues stray animals in the Bronx, the soldier, Alex Briley, whose brother was the photographed "falling man" on 9/11/01, and without question the greatest of all Village People - the native american, Felipe Rose, who has embraced this all as strongly as Willis seems to have fought it, and whose website defies adjectives.

  As for the song itself (and the other hits), Willis has tried to say that it was not meant to be a gay anthem when he wrote it.  He is of course lying.  The lyrics are one long double-entendre, and the context only drives the point home, it doesn't create the issue.  In fact, hearing it now (and watching the video), it is astounding that there was not a quicker or more vehement backlash at the time.  Instead, it became a mainstay of not only dance clubs, but sports arenas.  Kind of amazing.

Still down

While I am not writing well (I am hoping to be two-handed by next week maybe), I have begun going back through the prior posts and linking to videos or copies of the songs if I can find them.  Did the first post tonight - the Jackson 5 appearance on Dick Clark is just awesome.

Technical Difficulties

I broke my right arm.  I will be back typing less inconsistently soon.

It is settled

  After long and careful consideration, I have landed on "Six-Sided Dice" as the permanent blog title.  I know this has nothing to do with music or anything I write about.  However, it is the greatest nerd litmus test ever.  What I mean is - if you take two of those little white or red cubes with dots all over them, and you hold them out to someone and ask, "what are these?"  You will get one of two answers.  Most folk are going to say, "dice."  But certain of us know that is far too vague, and we will inevitably narrow it down to "six-sided dice." 

  Y's tonight.

X Offender to Xylophone Track

"X Offender"  Blondie  No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion
"X Rewrites 'El Paso'/Because I do"  X  Under The Big Black Sun
"X.Y.U."  The Smashing Pumpkins  Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
"Xandinha"  Cesaria Evora  Cesaria
"Xplosion"  Outkast  Stankonia
"XR2"  M.I.A.  Kala
"Xxzcuzx Me"  Crystal Castles  Crystal Castles
"Xylophone Track"  Magnetic Fields  69 Love Songs

  So this is it for 'x' songs - eight tracks, and really one of them shouldn't even be here.  The X track is an out-take/cd-bonus that happens to start with the band name.

  I saw X live once on a recent reunion tour - 2005 or so, I think.  It was a great show, and Billy Zoom in particular has kept his chops.  D.J. is dead bald.  John Doe looks about the same - like he has been hanging around bars in SoCal for the last 25 years or so.  Exene still wears the same kind of thrift store mom dresses she was wearing in the early '80s, but instead of looking like a young punk in thrift store mom dresses, she just kind of looked like a mom.  I have seen the same thing, only worse, in late video performances from Debbie Harry and Mick Jagger - it is hard to pull off coquette at 50, and at nearly 70, whatever Mick is doing now is more than a little creepy.

  The best track of this set is the Outkast one, followed closely by M.I.A.

  No excuses for the delay.  I will do better.

Wack Wack to Wait 'Til We Get Home

"Wack Wack"  Young-Holt Trio  Beg, Scream, and Shout: The Big Ol' Box of '60s Soul
"Wading Through a Ventilator (live)"  The Soft Boys  A Can Of Bees
"Wagon Wheel"  Lou Reed  Transformer
"Wah Wah Man"  Young-Holt Unlimited  What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves
"Wail"  The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion  Now I Got Worry
"Wailing Wintry Wind"  Baroness  Red Album
"The Wait"  Chris Joss  You've Been Spiked
"The Wait"  Pretenders  No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion
"The Wait"  Pretenders  Pretenders
"Wait 'Til We Get Home"  Lone Justice  Lone Justice

  After almost the whole alphabet, my past is starting to show through in the past couple sets.  Half of these songs are from my 1980s late adolescence.  Lou counts among these - there was a renaissance of interest in both VU and all things Reed at the time.  It could be argued that this was when the rest of the world finally caught on.

  Still not sure how I missed Jon Spencer before.  There are16 tacks on that album, so expect to hear that a few more times.

  Chrissie Hynde is from Akron.  She has a vegan restaurant here in town, and I have been a couple of times.  I think I find the premise behind a vegan restaurant to be the same as Dick's Last Resort.  Dick's is just more honest about the fact that you are paying to be insulted.  That said, they have the best patio in town, and some of their mixed drinks are very good.  I like to go there on St. Patrick's day because they won't serve Guinness, so we have the place mostly to ourselves.  "The Wait" is from the Pretender's punk past and the version on No Thanks! is the single version (b-side to "Stop Your Sobbing") and is not nearly as clean as the album version.  The bridge at about 1:30/1:50, leading into the guitar break, in particular is more urgent - just thumping bass and drums.

  I only own two songs from the Young-Holt Trio/Unlimited and here they are.