Uke stuff

Is still happening. Just no time to make vids these days. Hopefully some new ones before too long...

Power - Cassandra Complex

From 1987.  The late 80s is rich territory for keyboard driven gothic pop.  It wasn't virgin territory by that time, but from this distance, even the later bands into the movement bring back the time well.

One Story Town - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Great song from the Long After Dark album, my favorite of theirs.

Manna And Quail - Caterwaul

[link] One of the better goth-alt rock bands that came out of the late 80s.  Siouxsie influenced but tighter and more polished in production.  Need to listen to more of their stuff...

Who's Behind the Door? - Zebra

[link] New Orleans hard rock band that relocated to Long Island and may still be around.  I've seen their stickers on cars.  I really got into the first album (and one song on the 2nd album, "Bears") in the mid-late 80s.  It's got a lot more hooks than most hard rock/metal and the ballad parts are really nice, not cliched like the hair bands that were about to emerge a bit later.  Just enough of a prog component to be interesting.

Breakin the Law

Or the user agreement, at least.  I never give my birthdate to places like FaceBook.  And they of course want my real name and data. Now they are starting to ask people if they know whether friends of their are using their real names. They have a right to kick anyone off that they want to. They can claim me as a user, but they cannot claim my real name and data and keep me as a user.  That's the choice.

Beds are Burning - Midnight Oil

Speaking of driving songs, or at least driving videos.  Here's one.  Saw these guys live in the late 80s.  Excellent show.  The drummer had a section of culvert pipe behind him that had a mic in it.

Driver's Seat - Sniff 'N' The Tears

Great late 70s song.  The chord progression is a rel-minor, 5,4 (e.g. Cmin, Bb, Ab) which is a staple of mine.  It's the hookiest progression in pop/rock.  The use of keyboards/synthesizers and their fusion with the guitar track, so that both are vital but neither dominates, is adept.  The understated vocal and the effects on the vocal track combine with the rest to make for one very atmospheric rock song, as well as an excellent driving song, of course.

I Want Your Love - Chic

No one did disco better than Chic. The bass lines are the essense that disco pulled out of funk and the rhythm guitar, almost machine-like in its tightness, pulls everything together.  The brass part at the end also takes the best out of that element and smooths it right into the mix.  Nile Rodgers, the guitarist, still works and was one of the essential pop producers in the 80s.  Right up there with Prince and Michael Jackson in terms of prolific pop geniuses.

The pirate idiom

Pop culture is over pirate-ized right now for sure.  But One Piece and Pirates of the Caribbean are two examples of extreme creativity in the theme.

New Years Day - U2

Iconic song.  One of several from that time for U2.  In my opinion, their sound peaked with War, Boy, and October (i.e. all of the stuff that hit in the US during the first few years when they became known).  After The Unforgettable Fire (1984) their stuff became a lot less interesting.  But their popularity continued exponentially for a long time after that. Was a pretty easy learn and it gives me shivers to play it.

The three

Neil Diamond songs I mentioned earlier are in development (Cracklin' Rosie, September Morn, Forever in Blue Genes)_ They have pretty simple structures and limited number of chords for the most part.  Fun to play and people will like them. One problem is that the studio versions of these songs fade out.  Neil's TV appearances, which are the youtube videos I've been studying, also just fade to applause. So I have to figure out how to give them hard endings.  I'm still experimenting with all three of them...

an alternative dream job

One of my top dream jobs would be to be an independent paranormal investigator in a small town.  I don't believe in any of the phenomena but they are really cool as stories.  Especially UFO stuff.  Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster and stuff like that, also ghosts, are somewhat less interesting.  William Gibson's short story The Gernsback Continuum has an interesting treatment of paranormal sightings as pop-cultural semiotic ghosts.
I also am intrigued by political conspiracy theories.  These I find much more chilling because they are based on series of events and people that in many cases are real.  Many conspiracy theories, while not likely to be true or explanatory as wholes, have threads of true history running through them.  It's interesting to unravel these and think about why the theory developed.

The Flat Earth - Thomas Dolby

One of my favorite songs ever and one of his very best. Just realized watching The Two Towers tonight that the descending line of the orc/evil theme of the LOTR movies is very similar to the first phrase of the bass line of The Flat Earth.

Hyperactive! - Thomas Dolby

Dolby's version of funky dance pop. He brings his rich, bass-driven hooks and atmospherics to the song.  The transitions are really well done, even if the lyric quality kind of falls of toward the end (just before the flute solo).

No Rain - Blind Melon

Most of the instrumental jams of Megachild over the year ended up sounding something like this 1993 song.  Pretty simple song, with one of the most delightful videos ever.

Groovy Train - The Farm

A fun song from 1990.  Picked it up in iTunes some time ago.  Probably doesn't repay too many plays.  But sounds pretty good every once in a while.

Burning Down One Side - Robert Plant

The first song on his first solo album.  I really like his first four solo albums; kind of lost track after that.  It's a different sound than Led Zeppelin, but still very hard edged, both instrumentally and vocally.  This song got a lot of airplay on hard rock radio of the day.  The album (casette) was one of my first purchases after buying my first stereo.

E A D G

That's the tuning I settled down with the strings I have.  The high one is tight and goes flat quickly.  The others are loose, which means I need different strings for this tuning.  Sounds pretty sweet and is fun to play though.  Not as much sustain, but the percussive qualities are great of course.  Working on some known and new folk songs.  Such as Old Dan Tucker. Lew Dite's work has been an inspiration ever since Ru-Jun and I started watching him when she was less than 2.

woops

This arrived today.  Tried to use the strings it came with to do my B E A D tuning.  Broke the top string.  I have other strings in the office.  No big deal.  But I can't get it up to a B or even a C up top.  So for now I'll do a G C F Bb tuning and see how that goes (might be better for singing some songs; others will be worse).  I can probably work with the vendor I bought it from to get a set of strings for my unconventional tuning.  This is a beautiful instrument that is going to be very fun to play.

Hella Good - No Doubt

This song is indeed hella good.  Great mid tempo rock groove.  The empty space in the mix provides for great atmosphere.  Saw it first as a video, which strengthened the impression.

I Don't Remember - Peter Gabriel

From 1980. One of my favorites of his. Very driving, which overcomes the lack of contrast between chorus and verse. I had not heard this version before. Interesting but disturbing video.

key changes

Key changes in songs are interesting, but they're a bit of a pain when playing them on the uke (at least for me; they wouldn't be much of a problem for me on keyboards).
I was watching the video for Neil Diamond's Cracklin' Rosie (1971) and there was a lot of room noise so I couldn't really hear the key change.  So I googled "Does Cracklin' Rosie have a key change" and found several references confirming that it does.  One was an entire blog on songs with key changes.  Cool.

Forever in Blue Jeans - Neil Diamond

Another one I'm nostalgic about.  From 1979.

September Morn - Neil Diamond

From 1979.  I was 12 and still listening to a lot of top 40 on AM radio.  This song got played incessantly and it makes me pretty nostalgic hearing it now.  Top 40 was much different then.  Much more diverse.
Might take a stab at this song on the uke.  Could be a fun play...

Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls - Book of Love

Quintessential American electronic dance pop from the 80s, but alternative pop.  Not something that fit well with the top 40 of the time, and that's good.  It stays fresh over time.  I saw these guys live at University of Rochester.  They were great.  Different than anyone I had seen before, both in music and in setup.  There's nothing complicated about their songs.  Simple, well-produced, well executed. Fun and light hearted too.  The machine groove of this song in particular really impressed me.  I've long had an idea that one pull of technopop dance music is the feeling of giving oneself away to the beat, in the manner of an automaton or android.  Tranformation into a machine, a desire for perfection.

Yoda - Al Yankovic

Ru-Jun's current favorite song (based on Lola by the Kinks).  I've memorized the lyrics and most night she asks me to do both Yoda and Lola,

First week

of the new semester. Science going very slowly. No time at home this week for music either. So it goes...

What Do I Know - Saga

Saga showing their poppier side in 1985.  I didn't keep up with much of their stuff after this, but I really liked this song.  Probably had something to do with the detatchment I was going through in my early college days (well all of my college days pretty much).  Pretty scary thinking back, how much development I still had to do as a person even in the early 20s.

Smooth Operator - Sade

[link] I have a thing for Sade.  Always have.  Always will.

Absolutely Immune - Act

Lush dance pop.  Among the lushest.  Great chords.  Great layering of sound.  Claudia Brücken is powerful.  This is from 1987.  The clubs I went to at that time played alternative pop like this, and DJing consisted of mixing one song into another, not creatively mixing stuff into new compositions, which is what DJing has come to mean since then.  There were dance mixes of songs meant for clubs.  This particular song was pretty much club ready as is.

We Are What We Are - The Other Ones

1989, my senior year at college. I was still MTV deprived and MTV was still playing music videos then. Saw this really cool video and was mesmerized. It's a great song. Deceptively simple chord changes. Incredible vocal.

Behind the Wall of Sleep - The Smithereens

One of my favorites of theirs. Also a pretty easy learn. The "the" in the song title should really be an "a" in my opinion.

S.O.S. - Abba

Abba has a lot of really great songs, from a purely pop music standpoint, no matter what you think of their pop cultural status.  This is my favorite.  Multiple hooks.  Really well thought out transitions and instrumentation.  Vocals are sparkling and rich.  These guys could write and produce songs.

This is scary.

Soybeans Susceptible to Man-Made Materials in Soil. Specifically nanomaterials that are already in consumer products.  I'm not surprised by this.  We are stuck with these things.  Now we've got to hope that this doesn't become a serious or irremediable threat to our food supply.

Co-sleeping

Seems so maladaptive for the adults involved. So inconvenient that the co-sleeping urge/need wasn't purged from our lineage eons ago.

science gives way to teaching

starting next week, a lot of the time anyway
I'm way behind on getting ready for the teaching...

The Human Jungle - The Jazz Butcher

College radio was really into these guys in the late 80s, early 90s.  They seem to be in the XTC/Camper Van Beethoven/China Crisis vein of quirky, intellectual rock, with jazz and funk influences.

possible setback

I've been breeding a bunch of Drosophila melanogaster third chromosomes, from five populations along the East Coast, from one X:2 background into another through a four generation crossing scheme involving balancer chromosomes.  The new background has white+ on the X and they are coming from a white- background.  In the current generation I'm seeing white eyed males when I should not see them.  The simplest explanation, which would not be good, would be if the new background stock (Ral[303]; Ral[303]; TM2/TM6) is contaminated with a white- X chromosome. If this is the case then the stock contains recombinant chromosomes and about a month of work would have to be discarded and restarted.  A less likely possibility would be if the above Ral 303 stock has a high incidence of X nondisjunction in females and the white- males are X:0.  This would not pose a problem to the stock or the lines because these males are sterile.  I'll probably know in the next two weeks as I collect the next generation whose mothers are from the Ral[303] stock.

Send Me and Angel - Real Life

From 1983.  Bought the vinyl 45 of this (which means it is packed up in the basement or on a shelf somewhere in the house).  Great pop song with a gothic edge.  Still sounds great after all these years.

Music and Wine - Blue Six

Love this deep house track.  The chords establish the atmosphere.  The rhythm touches are subtle.  Very nice mid tempo atmosphere. A great ride into the night.

Benny Benassi - Love Is Gonna Save Us

Don't remember how I found this a few years ago.  But I went for it in a big way.  Unlike autotune, which I hate, the vocal effect in this is terrific.  Very atmospheric.  The break is not my favorite, but the main A part of the song has such a drive that it doesn't even matter how it is broken up.  If I were a club DJ, my instinct would be to take tracks like this and literally make it a different planet on the dance floor.

She's in Parties - Bauhaus

Bauhaus's sound and look became quite polished, and Peter Murphy's voice translated well into pop.  This set a sound for a lot of bands like the Bolshoi and  Blancmange and even extended into the huge mainstream sounds of bands like Depeche Mode and Erasure.

The Passion of Lovers - Bauhaus

From 1981.  By many accounts, these guys originated the goth idiom in rock in pop, although it is arguable that hard rock in the late 60s and 70s had a lot of the elements lying around (Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, the black magic references in Led Zeppelin, just to name a few).  Bauhaus injected punk/raw-postpunk elements, which was novel.  (I don't see the aesthetic connection with the Bauhaus artistic/design style, but that's OK). The vocal (and deep, echoing production) is there, which seems to have started everything off.

Blue Water - Fields of the Nephilim

[link] Fairly mainstream Goth, complete with the imagery.  The zombie-esque lead vocal seems to be a prerequisite for the main line of this genre.  Pure and literal.  Doesn't do as much for me as some of the earlier posted songs...

Bittersweet - New Model Army

[link] Kind of in the same vein, but even more drive from the rhythm section.  The punk side of goth.  Really like the base line here.  This song is a very sharp and thorough expression of a strong musical idea.  It gets there.

Inside Out - Into a Circle

Another one off the Goth compilation.  The only thing I could find on YouTube is this compilation - it's the second song (just a clip of it).  Great verse hook.

Hex - Specimen

Another one in the Gothic Rock 3 compilation.  Dance-gothic with a little glamminess thrown in.  Pure atmosphere.  It's right in the chords and synth lead.  The B part is especially nice.

Lucretia My Reflection - The Sisters of Mercy

Their material becomes fairly redundant fairly quickly (not unlike their fellow Yorshirian goth-oid rockers The Cult in that respect), but The Sisters of Mercy mined a very tight wavelength of gothic rock to produce a very big sound, grandiose in its heavy, romantic poetics, which is what goth is all about. Here is one of my favorites of theirs, Lucretia My Reflection.

Walking On Your Hands - Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

I forget whether it was in Durham or Madison, but at some point in my days of going to used CD stores I picked up a 2 disc compilation called Gothic Rock 3.  There were a lot of great tracks, some fairly obscure (at least to me).  Here is one (from 1986).  I would love to get the first two CD sets in this series.

Monastic mode

Me. Alone in lab. At the scope. Collecting/sorting/scoring flies.  Notebook to my right.  How I best like to do science.  Doing it a little bit these days.  Not enough though...

My Favorite Led Zeppelin album

Houses of the Holy, from 1973.  Amazing from start to finish.

The Song Remains the Same
The Rain Song
Over the Hills and Far Away
The Crunge
Dancing Days
D'yer Mak'er (pronounced 'Jamaica' BTW)
No Quarter
The Ocean

One of the best album covers of all time, as well.

The lab

The lab still needs a lot of cleaning up.  There are a lot of things from when things came to a halt in 2010 that need to be cleared out, including most of the material in the freezers.  I am slowly getting around to things, mostly clearing out the space that we use the most: the fly and computer benches and the bench where we video behavior and one molecular bench.  We are doing a lot of phenotype work on two projects, the elegans/gunungcola project and the melanogaster project; myself, Rocio, and a group of undergraduates working with me.  They are both huge projects and everything we are doing is working well.  I just need more time there.  When summer runs out, my lab time largely runs out...

Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

The grand daddy of all hard rock songs (ballad and otherwise).  Learning it and should be able to come up with a passable derivation.  Not simple but not as complicated as I thought.

No technician

Other than Shian-Ren on a part-time, volunteer basis, I've never employed a lab technician.  These days I manage everything with my own hands (we are not doing cloning any more or much molecular stuff these days other than fly DNA preps).  I've never wanted to worry about keeping a tech supported.  It's pretty impractical in terms of my own schedule.  But I like being in the lab and I have things streamlined enough (am gradually cleaning up the lab from the remnants of the way things were during the first eight or so years) that things go OK.

Some people meditate

My substitute for that is to do repetitive manual labor.  Mostly in the lab but elsewhere too (dishwashing, lawnmowing).  It lets me think.  I'm sort of notorious about this around the department.  It's also because I've never hired a technician (don't want to without long term support, which doesn't exist).  Good for the soul and good for the mind...

Favorite Band Names

Microdisney
Telefauna
Killdozer
Bikini Kill
Swervedriver

(I'll post others as I remember them)
I like hybridizations of concepts that can have multiple connotations.

A Girl Like Jesus

My version of the 1998 Right as Rain song.
Starring Ru-Jun.

lawns

Lawns have a very interesting community ecology, if they aren't sprayed and watered into a monoculture, that is.  Ours has been maintained as what I call "natural" since we moved in in 2002.  It was maintained by a lawn care company before that (and there is an in-ground sprinkler system put in by the previous owner).  We don't water, and whatever can grow we let grow, including probably dozens of different kinds of weeds.  Many of the weeds flower in interesting and beautiful ways.  Overall, I think it regulates itself better than a monoculture lawn and generally needs less mowing, even in wet years.  It doesn't look like a manicured lawn, but that is a matter of aesthetics.  I like the look of our lawn better than high maintenance (which are also high carbon and water footprint) lawns.

On the Road Again

My version of the Willie Nelson classic.

19 - Paul Hardcastle

This track, esoteric for top 40 in any era but a pretty big hit in 1985, was part of the post-Vietnam recovery culture of the early 1980s.  This period included movies like the Rambo films, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket, and informed US culture and foreign policy into the 90s (e.g. the Powell Doctrine in the Gulf War, which reflected an existential fear of committing ground troops to a conflict without 110% assured victory and low likelihood of casualties).  The rehabilitation of the images of veterans and US enlisted troops also began during this era resulting in their exalted status in the popular culture (even if not exactly in government policy) today.
Musically, I like the haunting narration from a TV documentary.  Wikipedia lists the genre of the song as "New Wave, freestyle, post-disco".  But I hear a lot of house in it.  It's truly excellent as a mid-tempo dance track, although not often usable as that because of the sampled narration.

White Hot - Red Rider

Red Rider's first single, from 1980.  Poppy with progressivity around the edges.  And it is inflected with the band's apparent obsession with Vietnam-era arms smugglers.

Living on the Ceiling - Blancmange

Blancmange is another 80s UK band that was well represented on US alternative radio and that I need to explore more.  They have a sound that has kind of grown on me.  Here is Living on the Ceiling, from 1982.

Cross The Border - Icehouse

From 1986.  Seems fairly poppy in retrospect, and I think in their native Australia and in Europe they were.  In the US they were played on alternative radio.  I first heard it on WBER, an alternative radio station in Rochester, which was truly amazing in the late 80s and 90s (and probably still exists).  At the time I was just getting my feet wet in alternative rock.  Loved this song...

Not much playing lately

Things too crazy both at home and work. I managed to get Lola memorized over the weekend, however.

Escapism

It's why I watch most of the movies/TV I watch.  Possibly sports as well.  I'd rather watch a movie I like with a known good ending for the 30th time than take a chance on something that might not be a good escape.  I hate being manipulated by movies.  I avoid entire genres, like horror and psychological horror, and depressing subject matter.  Why waste precious time on something so negative.

Worlock - Skinny Puppy

From 1989.  Didn't get into much industrial.  This is one of its high points to my (not well studied) ears.  The chord progression of the chorus does it.  The samples are good as well.  My late high school friend Keith (a different story for a different day perhaps) introduced me to this band.

Love Will Find a Way - Yes

A bit later.  Qutie a bit poppier.  It's got my chord progression (variations on 4-5 with the relative minor).  Exquisitely produced, in a good way (which is not usual; there is way too much overproduced stuff out there since the mid 80s).

Changes - Yes

90125 is as progressive a rock statement as ever hits the mainstream.  The whole album is really good.  Changes got a lot of airplay but continually rewards relistening.

And then there's Space Disco

Ganymed - Music Drives Me Crazy (1978)

Just one of many fun and interesting things going on in the late 70s.  Europe never trashed disco.  And that's a good thing for most of the pop music that came after that.

Reckoning - R.E.M.

From 1984. Tremendous album. Harborcoat is just the beginning. Had this on vinyl but not on CD. Until a few days ago.

Miss Gradenko - the Police

One of the sleeper tunes on Synchronicity (1983).  According to Wikipedia, it's "a song about a romance in the middle of a communist bureaucracy."  Interesting in that it is not listed as one of the singles of that album but it got airplay on rock stations in the US.  As I recall it was announced that the Police were breaking up as that album was being released.  I was very sad at that news, but given how bands tend to go stale, in retrospect it's a great thing that they stopped there.  Just about everything they every produced is superb.

White Hot Day - Simple Minds

Another good track from Sparkle in the Rain.  Pretty unconventional - harking back to their earlier, more experimental work.  I especially like the drum track.

Something to Grab For - Ric Ocasek

From what I've heard of Ric Ocasek's solo career (first three albums; i.e. about half of his stuff), it sort of exposes the parts of his songwriting that the Cars' virtuousity and the stellar production they always had covered up.  But the songs are always really good a affecting the atmosphere and imagery that Ocasek was about, and there are some real gems.  The best was the first single, Something to Grab For, off Beatitude (1982).

Book of Brilliant Things - Simple Minds

Every Simple Minds album up to and including Once Upon a Time (didn't follow them after that) is different.  Sparkle in the Rain, from (1984), was a transition to their shimmering danceable pop of New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84 and their harder but inferior Once Upon a Time material, which launched them to worldwide fame (following Don't You (Forget About Me), which was not on any of their album and which they did not like and was not written by them.
This is a great song.  Very simple chord progression, driven by rhythm and keyboard figures and the vocal.

In development

New Years Day.  Fun to play.  Also in development: R.E.M.'s Disturbance at the Heron House and Lola by the Kinks.  Need to practice these every night.

New Year's Day - U2

None of the stuff U2 did after their early hits approached the power of this simple, powerful, punk-inflenced rock.  Heard this working out today.  I think I can do a version of it.

Wind Him Up - Saga

It was 1981.  They were progressive and used lots of synthesizers. I was pretty into them. This song was the beginning for me.  They have a lot of other good ones.
They are apparently still going.  Good for them.

More on Lola

Thanks to the Al Yankovic take off Yoda, Ru-Jun now loves that Lola video.  She even recognize that Ray and Dave Davies look similar.  My friend Scott and I used to listen to taps of Dr. Demento (which was on the radio way too late for me to stay up) and Yoda was among our favorite (and one of the most clean) songs. I have huge respect for Yankovic.  He is a hugely talented and funny musician.

Jingle jangle jingle

Simple cowboy song, but the lyrics have resisted memorization.  I actually attempted it at the Earthstock gig but was only good for a couple of stanzas.  So I decided to sort of make the stanzas up as I go along.  It doesn't matter if they are exactly like the song was played before.  Just needs to be something like

(1) Oh Sally Jane, Oh Sally Jane,
Though I'd love to stay forever this is why I can't remain

(2) Oh Betty Lou, Oh Betty Lou,
Though we've done a heap of dreamin' this is why they can't come true

(3) Oh  Lily Bell, Oh Lily Bell,
Though we've shared some special secrets, this is why I never tell

(4) Oh Mary Ann, Oh Mary Ann,
Though you tell a pretty story this is why I never can

etc.

There are a lot of possibilities.  Just have to come up with them on the fly...

Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills, and Nash

I learned this song (a pretty derived and faster version, as I play it) a while back.  The song gets massive play on classic rock radio.  Very hard to do justice to the vocal.  I'll try to record it when I get a chance.  No time to do that kind of thing this past week.  Crazy schedule with not much relief in sight.

Lola - the Kinks

As I may have said before, I never really appreciated this song musically until I started to learn it.  Fairly complex for a pop song.  The thing I really like about this video is that the band members are really having a good time lip syncing it.  Probably aided by some substances, but nonetheless...

Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love - Van Halen

The original Van Halen incarnation with David Lee Roth was a pretty good hard rock band. This song is so simple, but one of the best ever hard rock song.  It has two just chords.

Pat Benatar

It's hard to overstate what a breath of fresh air Pat Banatar was in hard rock in the late 70s-early 80s.  Brilliant, straight ahead rock.  Very clean.  Her vocal range was very wide but strong everywhere, especially on the high end.  My favorite two songs of her many great ones are "Treat Me Right" and "Heartbreaker", both from the 1980 Crimes of Passion album.  Scintillating rock.

Harden My Heart - Quarterflash

I really like the sound of Quarterflash.  They were contemporary (maybe slghtly following) with Pat Benetar but seemed to get a pop label as opposed to the hard rock labeling Benetar's early hits got.  1981's Harden My Heart was their first and biggest hit, achieving massive overplay.  It never got old with me.  Very simple chord progression.  Mid tempo bouncing beat. The vocal is very pure and the song is a rare case of a sax lead that really augments the song as opposed to detracts from it.

The Warrior - Patty Smyth and Scandal

[link]
I guess I have a soft spot for this kind of pop from the 80s. This has a nice chord progression in the chorus. And the B part between the verse and chorus works quite nicely.  I even like the brief instrumental part; it's quite atmospheric.

Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA - Devo

[link]
Devo is known for a lot of things. They constantly innovated and are still going. As a musician, I respect them a lot. They rocked hard in the traditional rock and punk senses, which formed the bedrock of their ideas that went beyond the music. They have a LOT of great songs. I hope there is a complete works box CD set available someday. (There was one released in Japan that can be had on Amazon for ca. $250).

Roads Go Ever On

This is a song with words written by J.R.R. Tolkein.  It appeared in the Hobbit and a couple of times in the Lord of the Rings.  The version sung by Glenn Yarbrough was in the 1977 Rankin Bass cartoon version of the Hobbit.  That cartoon was very dear to me, even though it is for kids and greatly truncated from the original story.  I have been learning the song but have not had time to do a recording yet. Parenting and work have been impinging on music this week.

Mulu The Rain Forest - Thomas Dolby

Beautiful song on one of my all time favorite albums, The Flat Earth. The main keyboard figure over the shifting bassline in the instrumental section (starting at 2:42) seals the deal for this song. Also the descent just before the rallying chorus (3:39).

Imagination - Belouis Some

From 1985. Not much productivity from this guy; but his few singles were of high quality.  Tightly produced pop, strongly rhythm-driven. Like a lot of stuff - derives from Bryan Ferry.  Phrasing of the chorus is very nice.  There was a bunch of British pop that sounded like this but I think this was toward the front end of that sound.

only a little

time to practice these days.  But I think most of the songs are staying fresh in my brain.  No gigs on the horizon.  But still having fun with it when I can at home...

Emotion in Motion - Naked Eyes

[link]
Less well known then their major hits and the chorus is a bit weak on ideas.  But the lofty melody line of the verse makes the whole thing scintillating.

Promises, Promises - Naked Eyes

[link] (gotta wait through an ad - sorry)
Brilliant pop.  The verse has an absolutely on mid tempo groove.  And the verse is pure genius - nothing like it in pop, from what I've heard.

Dixie Storms - Lone Justice

Beautiful song that I used to play on piano.  Not sure if I could develop it for the uke.  May give it a try.

Athena - the Who

This song was played incessantly in the summer of 1982. Never figured out what it was about and never really studied the lyrics, which are:
***
Athena, I had no idea how much I'd need her
In peaceful times I hold her close and I feed her
My heart starts palpitating when I think my guess was wrong
But I think I'll get along
She's just a girl - she's a bomb

Athena, all I ever want to do is please her
My life has been so settled and she's the reason
Just one word from her and my troubles are long gone
But I think I'll get along
She's just a girl - she's a bomb

Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
She's just a girl

Athena, my heart felt like a shattered glass in an acid bath
I felt like one of those flattened ants you find on a crazy path
I'd of topped myself to give her time she didn't need to ask
Was I a suicidal psychopath?
She's just a girl - she's a bomb

Consumed, there was a beautiful white horse I saw on a dream stage
He had a snake the size of a sewer pipe living in his rib cage
I felt like a pickled priest who was being flambed
You were requisitioned blondie
She's just a girl - she's a bomb

I'm happy, I'm ecstatic
Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
She's just a girl

Look into the face of a child
Measure how long you smiled
Before the memory claimed
How long would children remain
How long would children remain

Athena, you picked me up by my lapels and screamed "leave her"
It felt like waking up in heaven on an empty meter
And now you're stuck with a castrated leader
And I hate the creep, I didn't mean that
She's a bomb
I just said it
She's a bomb
I didn't mean it, please
She's a bomb

Athena, I had no idea how much I need her
My life has been so settled and she's the reason
Just one word from her and my troubles are long gone
But I get along
She's just a girl, she's a bomb
She's just a girl, she's a bomb
***
According to Wikipedia, Pete Townshend wrote this song about his frustration about being rejected by the actress Theresa Russell.  And they have only played this live about 10 times, and not since the 1982 tour.  I knew it would somehow be interesting.  You don't have lyrics like that without some kind of backstory...

Face Dances Pt. 2 - Pete Townshend

From 1983. [link is the studio version of the song as the soundtrack to a compendium of pics from Ru-Jun's first year, which always amazes us when we look back on it]
This was one of the first videos I ever saw on MTV and the song immediately infected me. Most of it is in 5/4 time, which is pretty rare but works amazingly.  This is a truly progressive song, and yet has all the pop and hard rock instincts that characterize Townshend's entire career.

You Belong to Me - Carly Simon

From 1978. A very formative year for my musical brain. This song is ahead if its time yet also right in one of the grooves that was hitting in the late 70s. The jazz/rock thread that Steely Dan was farming is here. Yet elements also anticipate post disco pop trends (e.g. Sade, house music).

Too Late For Love

My version.  Had to get rid of a lot of the middle. Simplification is good, though...

Charlotte Anne

my cover
Far from perfect.  Was using the Oscar Schmidt acoustic-electric in the office.  Still not 100% comfortable with the feel of the instrument.

Screen Kiss - Thomas Dolby

[link]
My favorite Thomas Dolby song.  I don't think I would ever be able to do a version  of this.
It's hugely layered and almost doesn't rely on rhythm.  How he fits the lyrics in without compromising him is a major part of his brilliance here.