My Hear Factor disc came with this title; not sure about that title, there’s nothing here that causes me any queaziness Here are my intial thoughts after spending a morning with it (screw my clients!):
Fuzzhead – Radio Telescope – not an auspicious way to begin the disc; I like it enough but I wouldn’t want a CD-worth of this sort of ambient/electronica.
Art Brut – My Little Brother – Pink Flag for the 21st century?
Sun Ra – Tiny Pyramids – man, I just don’t know why Ra isn’t spoken of in the same terms as the rest of the jazz giants! This sounds like early (1950s?) Ra when he was very “traditional” sounding. The 2 CD The Singles set is a great place for anyone to start who wants to get into Sun Ra. A leisurely stroll from straight jazz to the more cosmic Ra.
The Original Sins – Shopping Trip To Mercury – too good to take in on a few listens, gotta give this more time.
Buried Beds – Ten Things – never heard of this band before. The vocalist sounds like a good candidate for the vocalist that Richard Thompson has been missing since he split with Linda.
Bobby Bare Jr. – Valentine – do rock & roll bands make rock & roll music like this anymore? This is a more direct descendant of the music that country birthed than most anything you hear these days; daddy must be proud. I think the lyrics seem a little contrived but all is forgiven.
Lotte Lenya – Alabama Song – I don’t listen to German music hall stuff enough…
Old 97’s – Victoria – I’ve tried to get into Old 97’s but haven’t made it. They are a good, solid second-level band and I don’t have time for that. And no one should write a song titled “Victoria” anymore.
Sally Timms – Drunk By Noon – If I didn’t know who provided this disc, I’d now know who provided this disc. Bobby Bare Jr., Mekons – Geo’s touchstones are all over it. I feel like I should like Sally Timms’ voice more than I do. It’s just not distinctive enough. She ought to listen to more Lotte Lenya.
Man Man – Engrish Bwudd – is this a lost track from some mid-70s Ray Davies stage production? Can’t be, it’s too interesting for that.
Lee Dorsey – Yes We Can – a song I’m more familiar with from the Pointer Sisters. I sure like their version but this tops it. The right amount of greasy swampiness.
Les Sans Culottes – Apollinaire – a strange song, a mixture of all sorts of things I can’t quite put my finger on. Punk drumming, backing female vocals that remind me of Steven Reich’s Tehillim, some bossa nova. Best song on the disc?
P.J. Harvey – Man-Size Sextet – I could never get into Harvey and I don’t think this will do the trick either. I like the “Street Hassle” cellos. Is this how Lou wanted his music to sound?
Neko Case – Knock Loud – that same “Street Hassle” opening as the Harvey track; is that why these are back-to-back?
Rufus Wainwright – April Fools – I wonder how many people Rufus has pictures of? I’ve loved him from his first album which this is from. But even then I wondered what label exec thought he’d pay back the investment. So sui generis, which slot did they want to fit him into? And yet, he’s about to come out with his 5th disc. (And is there a soundtrack he’s not on?) I can’t believe any of them sold much. I could do with never reading another interview with him, as I long ago tired of his gay/decadent/unprotected sex/crystal meth pose.
Chuck D – Gunslinging Bird – not so bomb squad as the PE stuff I know and maybe the better for it. I assume that’s a Charlie Parker sample in there, based on the title. Has Chuck D abandoned music? Whenever I hear old style rap these days I think it’s a shame that rap has evolved the way it has.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Bang – or is this the best song on the disc? Is this typical of this band?
The Deathray Davies – Is This On? – every time I’ve come across a song by the Deathray Davies I’ve like it; might be time for a disc. This sounds like a harder dBs song. (Speaking of which, anyone know what happened with that supposed dBs reunion from early last year?)
She-Haw – Monstrous Man – another band I never heard of with a song I like but I’m not sure I’d want to spend anymore time with them.
Mekons – Mekons Rock ‘n’ Roll – is this why you’ve been hyping the Mekons to me all these years? The third “best song” on the disc?
Baden Powell – Canto De Ossanha – if this isn’t a Jobim song, his heirs ought to sue. Great cut.
LCD Soundsystem – Losing My Edge – I like this and I guess I can see what the buzz was about but does anyone think they’ll be listening to this in 5 years?
Aldo Ciccolini – Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 3, Lent et grave – somewhere I have an old LP of Ciccolini doing Satie. I’ll have to dig that out as this is really pleasant (in the best sense of the word) to listen to.
Wow. Where can I order this disc??;) Seriously though.
Yeah – this collection sounds really interesting! I want one too!
Anyone who wants a copy can send me their snail mail address.
Mr. Mod? Me you send Motown, and the perp gets a CD full of “best songs?” Where’s the justice? This CD does sound good. Is it just me, or does it sound like it would please virtually everyone here and challenge no one? And, if we may, let’s hear what the creator thought the “genre” was. Appollinaire and Satie is suggestive, and a case could be made for a “Banquet Years” kind of decadence, with Rufus, “Drunk By Noon” …
I was actually playing bass for She Haw when we played with Buried Beds at Doc Watsons. They had these amazing string playing sisters, high-school asian girls (yes, Mr. Clean, I tried to sign them on for Big Mess, but they couldn’t come out on a school night!) I really liked their songs. They set up, and during “sound check” (it *was* Doc Watsons, after all) everyone was milling around, getting their shit together for the show, and whoever was at the board says, “ok, violin?” And suddenly this sound comes flowing around the room! Everyone stopped, feeling something on a line between someone running their fingernail up your spine, and being terribly guilty about the sounds they were going to make when called upon to sound check. Baffling and stunning.
I erred:
Appollinaire and Satie is suggestive,
I thought you meant *Guillome* Appollinaire. I didn’t realize someone named a band after him. (Did they?) I just downloaded the song, and it isn’t him, I’m thinking. I had just gotten a CD out of the library called Futurism and Dada, and he’s on that.
And di Lee Dorsey do the first version of that “Yes We Can?” It’s an Allen Toussaint song, isn’t it? I don’t know that he did a version, but does anyone else? Steve?
Lee Dorsey’s version (1970) is from his album called Yes We Can, and I always assumed that was the original version. In case you can’t tell, that’s the Meters backing him up. And yes it is a Toussaint song.
Townsman General, this is not the time to wax indignant. This was the luck of the draw. I will say that a few Townspeople seemed to lose track of my desire for the trading of focused mixes of music each person loves but knows is not everyone’s cup of tea. Some of the mixes go down real easy. There’s still the matter of living with them for 3 days, so let’s be patient.
Waitaminit! I’ll admit thatit wasn’t genre-centric, but generally my tastes don’t run that way. There was a lot of stuff on there that I think is unique, striking in some way. That’s my world. That’s what I’m looking for. I had made this mix for an old friend that goes back, oh round about thirty years just a couple of months ago. I realize now that if I focused on a single genre, it would have been Brazilian Music, which very underrepresented on this disc because the folks I made it foor were very likely to have a lot of that stuff. Consequently, I had put together fairly off the track folks including a handful of local artists and some stuff like the Neko song that is not widely available.
Looking back on it, I’m surprised how much the lyrics drove the selection. Lyrics are seldom something that make a first impression on me that snags me in, but I’d have to say that the following songs got on there in large part because of the words: My little Brother, Shopping Trip to Mercury, Victoria, Drunk by Noon, Apollinaire, Knock Loud, Monstrous Man,
Oh, and LCD Soundsystem. How could I forget? So I had a CD with about two dozen songs that I really have loved of late, that were unlikely to be known by my original intended audience and I thought it was a reasonable representation of “my world”. Al was probably not that bad a pick to drop this on since it was fairly full of semi-recent stuff and as he’s said before, he just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time in the world for new stuff since he’s got so much indisputably great old stuff to catch up with. On the other hand, since he and I go back about 38 years and our main point of introduction was a presentation I gave in Freshman English class on Subterranean Homesick Blues, it’s pretty ironic that the CD landed in his lap.
I looked for the Lee Dorsey compilation with Yes We Can at a reasonable price for about 5 years. I had heard this somewhere on the radio and I loved the way it moved, especially the cool Toussaint horn part so reminiscent of his arrangement for Life is a Carnival by the Band. I was thrilled when I finally found a copy, and even happier when I discovered that it was as good as I remembered.
One final thing, I recently got the Box set of the Warner Brothers era Dead. Given the general animosity toward San Francisco Psychedelia and the Dead in particular, I could probably now put together a nice sampler of that stuff that would test the mettle of the average Townsman. I think I could make a case that although the Dead might not rock, there are somethings that they do that are in fact very worthwhile. Unfortunately, including the first two sides of Live Dead wouldn’t leave room for much, but doing otherwise wouldn’t seem fair.
Geo Said:
“I think I could make a case that although the Dead might not rock, there are somethings that they do that are in fact very worthwhile.”
I have to recently agree – I’ve never been a Dead fan at all but just the other day on my morning commute, XPN played “New Speedway Boogie” and I had to admit there was some tasty guitar and a good groove going. I knew it was the Dead almost immediately but instead of reflexively scrambling to change the station – I let it play and was surprised that I enjoyed it. Oh the humanity!
That’s a number from Workingman’s Dead and the low key double drumming with a very low end dusky sound is a really nice groove, This was also when Garcia switched from Gibson’s to Fenders and he has a thin, trebly tone with a great edge of distortion. The song was about Altamont and although it has some of Hunter’s typical post Graduate poetic metaphors (think Simon and Garfunkel), they convey the intended sentiments for me without total embarassment.
Townsman Geo, I should make one thing clear: it was wrong of me to take even the slightest shot at the perceived broad brushstroke of your and any other mixes received and distributed. Despite the charges raised against me by the good General Slocum, I’ve been more than willing to let this exercise be what it is. There will be varying degrees of struggle and appropriate degrees of healing. Not all participants will suffer and heal in the same manner. If I weren’t so busy right now, I’d be chiming in with my thoughts on your mix. I will say that there was a method to my madness in selection Al for receipt of your mix. How large a role does the mix CD/tape play in longtime friendships among music lovers? I thought it would be cool to hear Al’s thoughts on the kinds of songs you might put together for him. Totally valid point of view in the middle of this exercise, if you ask me.
I can report that in today’s long walk around Toronto, we stumbled across a Legalize Marijuana festival at Queen’s Park. Our first clue that we were happening on an alternative gathering of some sort was all the young hippies and punks walking alongside us. Then, at the foot of the park entrance, were two trucks parked back to back: a Mr. Softee truck and a truck named “Hemp on Wheels.” There were booths spread around the park selling bongs, see-through rolling papers, stash boxes, and the obligatory Bob Marley t-shirts. A few kids were running around with Canadian flags with a red pot leaf substituting for the maple leaf. A band was setting up onstage. The soundman was getting levels on the various congas and the drummer’s 12-piece, thuddy set, then he turned his attention to a guitarist playing – CANADIAN ROCK CRIMES ALERT – a green Ovation roundback acoustic! Talk about throwing The Man off his scent.
Sorry, the one on there with nice tom-tom heavy double drumming is “Easy Wind”. Speedway Boogie has one of those hand-clap, acoustic rhythm guitar feels that makes the drums almost superfluous, if they’re there at all.
I for one would like to hear that sampler of Dead songs that you’re thinking about putting together.