It was just that good.
I'm thinking of making this a regular thing—a way of honoring particularly memorable beers I consume, while at the same time devaluing records that wouldn't be worth much if I ever needed to unload them anyway.
Suffice to say, I've got big plans for Skunk's Last American Virgin EP as soon as I finish off this bottle of Allagash White.
OK. As you were.
Click here to listen with your preferred media player.
Dengue Fever - "Uku" - Cannibal Courtship (Concord) *
Risto - "Seuraavan Skupolven Paykopaatti" - 176-671 (Ensimmäiset Askeleet) (Fonal) *
Duffy - "Come Back, Come Back" - Beyond the Calico Wall (Voxx)
OMD - "Electricity" - 7" (Factory)
Magic Carpathians - "Enjoy Trees (Lynx Lynx)" - Enjoy Trees! (Free Music Archive) *
Lou Reed - "Dirty Boulevard" - New York (Sire)
Thee Oh Sees - "I Need Seed" - Castlemania (In the Red) *
Standard of Living - "N.F.A" - Bay Area Retrogade Vol. 1 (Dark Entries) *
Moving Targets - "The Other Side" - Moving Targets (Taang!)
Willie Loco Alexander - "Bass Rocks" - 7" (Pure & Easy)
Dynastie Crisis - "Le Corbeau et Renard" - Dynastie Crisis (Formule 1)
Spectre Folk - "The Blackest Medicine" - The Blackest Medicine, Vol. II (Woodsist) *
8-Bit Weapon - "Future Paths" - Mario in an Elevator (Free Music Archive)
X-Ray Spex - "Highly Inflammable" - Germfree Adolescents (EMI)
Belong - "Come See" - Common Era (Kranky) *
Tor/Aesop Rock - "Star of Wonder vs. None Shall Pass" - Best Of Breitband Vol.3 (Free Music Archive) *
Tommy Blake - "F-Oldin Money" - Before the Fall 2xCD (Ace) *
Roberta Flack - "Reverend Lee" - Chapter Two (Atlantic)
Sixtynine and The Continuous People - "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" - On a Distant Shore: A Tribute to Syd Barrett (Windless Air)
Roots Control - "Roots Control" - Crooklyn Dub Consortium Certified Dope Vol. 1 (Wordsound)
Human Eye - "Impregnate the Martian Queen" - They Came from the Sky (Sacred Bones) *
The Criminal Minds - "Just Check It" - TCM (Rephlex) *
Off Band - "Wake Up Her Majesty" - German Punk & Wave 1978-1984, Vol. 1 (Vinyl on Demand) *
Spartak - "Nightshift (Version)" - The Sound Of Young Canberra (Free Music Archive) *
Rites Wild - "Rites Wild Theme" - New Weird Australia, We Are After All Here (Free Music Archive) *
Prince Buster - "Earthquake" - Fabulous Greatest Hits (Sequel)
David Bowie - "TVC15" - Station to Station (RCA)
The Vandelles - "Losing Touch with my Mind" - Summer Fling (Eep!) *
Sven Kacirek - "Dear Anastasia" - The Kenya Sessions (Pingipung) *
Robert Wyatt - "Born Again Cretin" - C81 (NME)
Townes Van Zandt - "Come Tomorrow" - Delta Momma Blues (Tomato)
Okapi - "Mangoonia" - Bah! (Free Music Archive)
Six Organs of Admittance - "Dawn, Running Home" - Asleep on the Floodplain (Drag City) *
False Front - "Maniac I" - Dude (Shimmy Disc)
György Ligeti - "Atmosphere" - 2001: A Space Odessy (MGM)
Jackie DeShannon - "She Don't Understand Him Like I Do" - Come and Get Me (Ace)
Here's a top shelf version of the Television Personalities song "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" by an Italian group called Sixtynine and the Continuous People. [Download MP3] The original has been a favorite song of mine since forever.
If YouTube commenters are to be believed in this instance, the song got the TVPs booted from an opening slot on a David Gilmour tour, when bandleader Dan Treacy allegedly revealed Barrett's home address to a hall full of Gilmour-supporting Floydos. (Not surprisingly, Gilmour was unamused.)
This version is more haunting and less twee than the TVPs, but still quite excellent—that the band is singing in a second language is obvious, and at the same time endearing. Sixtynine and the Continuous People apparently make regular worship at the altars of Barret and Treacy, as there are some other related covers available on the band's webpage.
Glad/puzzled that someone put this on Soundcloud. The product of a slow day at work, circa 2004. And right about now, I'd like to pour some on the curb for CoolEdit 2000.
A loving tribute to songs that I've definitely overplayed in my nineteen years (yikes!) of doing radio.
This first installment honors the debut album of Jersey Weirdo band, Ween-pals, and Shimmy Disc confidantes, False Front. I distinctly recall grabbing their debut album (the terribly-titled Dude) out of WPRB's to-be-listened-to pile in 1992 and being immediately taken with the lush acidity of the opening track, "Maniac I." The twin guitar leads sounded like Thin Lizzy under the magical spell of Robitussin, and let's just say that lyrics like "when all the acid hits your brain, leave it to me to feel your pain" spoke with a particular kind of townie-DJ poignancy for me when I was 20 years old. Subsequently, the song became a staple of my program for years afterwards, even following me to WFMU (where I've apparently only aired it twice, according to the playlist search database. Both times in 2007. Huh.)
Having lost track of my own copy of the album years ago, I might've forgotten all about "Maniac I" had it not popped up randomly on the iTunes rotation yesterday. I went back and listened to it three times in a row. Yep, still a great song! Listen using the player below.
The term "podcast" has seen some rough road over the last decade. I'm no tech-head, and the amateurish design stylings of this blog certainly don't give me any license to kvetch, but a proper podcast implies automatic delivery at regularly scheduled intervals. Sort of like a magazine subscription, in that you sign up for it, and get a new issue at around the same time every week or month. As such, MP3 blogs that haphazardly post 40MB Audacity mixdowns and call them 'podcasts' might be exposing people to a lot of interesting sounds, but they are doing so while severely agitating the RSS nerds in their collective midst.
While I appreciate the plight of said nerds, I don't actually know very much about syndicating content or RSS feeds myself. So in a feeble effort to distance myself from this conundrum of syntax, I'd now like to announce the Read:My:Back... Mixtape!
Same concept, slightly different method: The R:M:B Mixtape will occur on no set schedule and will hop genres with reckless abandon—pretty much like the last three years of my terrestrial radio shows on WFMU, but minus the James Gang deepcuts and rambling mic breaks. (Though I am considering rectifying that last detail... Can anyone recommend a reasonably-priced condenser mic to me?) Furthermore, downloading the entire show is more than likely to just scatter the songs into your iTunes library according to whichever filing protocols get you hot and bothered. So much for my meticulous and thoughtful segues, eh? But never mind about that -- As always, it's the music that matters.
The source material for this project is WFMU's Free Music Archive. With more than 30,000 free and legal MP3s now residing in their stable, the FMA has been my first and best connection to new sounds as my life transitioned from that of weekly radio host on WFMU (with regular access to the station's fabled new bin) to stay-at-home dad, where daily engagement with the art that I love is now limited to around 45 minutes during naptime. Not to say that the 180 degree lifestyle changeup hasn't delivered amazing rewards.... I just didn't come here to tell you about them.
So for whatever it's worth, here's the first of what will hopefully be many editions of these musical diversions. Observing the metamorphosis of my music sharing habits across the years from obsessive mixtape-maker to radio show host to harried blogger fills me with a kind of weird anxiety -- where or what will the next leap forward will be?
The only song that's ever made afternoon Holland Tunnel traffic not only tolerable, but transcendent.
Windows down, volume clockwised. Inching along like a dying slug.
I dunno, maybe you had to be there?
Photo by Keithlam [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0]
Praise be to Joltin' Joe Belock. He's had Steve Wynn as a musical guest on his radio program almost as many times as I've had Dalek, and from my perspective, nothing defines the Three Chord Monte aesthetic better than these fantastic sessions from the former Dream Syndicate frontman. Now based in New York after years of being closely affiliated with the left coast musical underground, I've had the pleasure of seeing Steve and band perform many times and under many different circumstances. Two that come immediately to mind include a spur-of-the-moment run through of the Dream Syndicate's Days of Wine and Roses (at Manitoba's sometime in mid-2001), and also the odd occasion of them providing ambient musical accompaniment to a reading by crime fiction writer George Pelecanos (at Magnetic Field.) The latter was especially great, as my wife lived mere steps from Magnetic Field at the time—that afforded us the rare opportunity to rock until the late hours sans the mood-killing reality of a 3 AM subway ride on a work night. (Feel free to ignore that last bit if you're younger than 30, though I've always been ornery about getting home so late. I have theorized that my fleeting interest in hardcore music was mainly rooted in the fact that most of the shows were weekend matinees.)
Anyhow, in the midst of what were at one time fairly frequent live dates around town, Steve and band also made periodic stops at WFMU for live sets on Joe Belock's program, all of which are now available in their entirety in the FMA. This mix is whittled down to reflect my favorites, so take the fact that I've titled it "The Best of..." with a grain of salt. Try as I might, I was powerless to shy away from his epic renditions of old Dream Syndicate classics, even though Steve's more recent sounds are just as impressive. Naturally, if you like what you hear, I'd certainly urge you to go grab everything else.
I've been to exactly one Wedding Present concert. They played Maxwell's sometime in 1993, and although they performed masterfully and were louder than a freakin' atomic bomb going off, the fact that "Dalliance" (or anything else from the brilliant Sea Monsters LP) did not figure into the setlist sort of tarnished the experience in my memory. Sea Monsters and Bettie Serveert's Palomine totally defined a particular era at WPRB for me, and even as those months were unfolding in realtime, getting stiffed on "Dalliance" was a palpable annoyance. Getting on twenty years later, this live radio session from around the same time makes me feel like it's finally time to forgive.
Originally heard on the Black Sessions program which broadcasts on France Inter (French Public Radio—"FPR", if you will...) this great-sounding set showcases the band at their creative peak, and David Gedge's vocals in their exquisite and froggy-like prime. That's not to suggest that their later material is anything to scoff at—many years after this performance, a reincarnated version of the band effortlessly blew a lot of minds (mine included) with the track "Interstate 5", and rightly so.
But I didn't come here to tell you that. (Focus, man, focus!) These sounds have been blaring forth from the official r:m:b sound system all morning, and show no signs of relinquishing their control any time soon.
Go forth and amplify!
Via BT.