Antarctica - Men Without Hats

My version of this song is pretty different (no synth lead, but I manage to get the menacing relative minor to major change in the rhythm guitar/bass down pretty well). The lyric sites don't agree on the lyrics to this song at all and there are a lot of propagated errors. This is a fun song to play. Will be interesting to see how it flies in the set. Pretty cryptic song that not a lot of people have even heard before.

Cloudburst at Shingle Street - Thomas Dolby

(click on entry title above for link to song on Youtube)

One of my favorite unconventional pop songs ever. Lyrics below. The last two lines have been iconic in my mind for over half my life (even with an ever-changing definition of "you"; a lot of the time there was no "you")

We climb the cliffs
And hang from trees
Wrap the rocks and pave the beach
State of shock at flick of switch

(mindless) into the cloudburst overhead
I wanna get my face wet
It's been buried in the sand for years
(headlong) into the cloudburst naked
There's really no escaping it
There's gonna be a cloudburst here.

Come out of your shell
And look at the sea
It may be just as well
You stayed here with me
Private hell at turn of a key

(blindly) into the cloudburst overhead
I wanna get my face wet
It's been buried in these hands for years
(mindless) into the cloudburst naked
There's really no escaping it
There's gonna be a cloudburst here

And it's dawning on me
I've been a cork in the ocean, been bobbing in the North Sea
Then take this vest of plaster, these boots of concrete
And mark them down as surplus, return to Mulberry...
Cloudburst at Shingle Street
Cloudburst at Shingle Street
Cloudburst at Shingle Street
When I was small I was in love in love with everything
Now there's only you

Flying North - Thomas Dolby

Somewhat continuing in the futurist dystopia theme, although Dolby always adds a decidedly retro-tech flavor, this song is one of my favorites off The Golden Age of Wireless. (lyrics in the screen shot)

My solo act

I'm naming my solo act The Tralfaz Wizard Experience. First gig is 17-Mar E&E retreat afterparty.

Revised set list

Antarctica
Country Roads
Last of the Famous IPs
Breakdown
American Girl
Smoke on the Water
Karma Chameleon
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Ghost Riders in the Sky
Roxanne

Someone will proably yell for Freebird. I wish that cliche involved one of the Lynyrd Skynyrd songs that was actually interesting.

Blue Flower - Pale Saints

In the 90s I went for shoegaze/dream pop in a big way. Pale Saints were one of the main artists in that genre on college radio. Here's Blue Flower. Would have been great to see them live.

Thirty Frames a Second - Simple Minds

One of my major influences as a band, their early stuff is relatively unknown. This song has that futurist dystopic vibe I've been talking about. Machine like rhythm section pumping drone throughout. The vocal is either trying to escape robothood or embracing it it, maybe both.

Heaven (Must Be There) - Eurogliders

This was the only US hit by this Australian band (1984). Very jaunty and bright with a nice vocal. Still have the 45 rpm record of this around somewhere.

Sleep (is For Everyone) - Sad Lovers and Giants

I really love these guys. Very atmospheric. Bleak but melodious. Pretty clearly Joy Division/early New Order/ early Cure influenced. Here's Sleep (is For Everyone) from 1989. Pretty sure it's about heroin, like a lot of great songs, sadly.

Added to the set

Karma Chamelion by Culture Club. Was not into them back in the day. Those were my hard rock days, before I shifted to alt/college rock via a quick journey through pop. But huge respect for a lot of these songs now. Virtually all pop was throw-away in the 80s. But a good fraction is worth revisiting. My favorite Culture Club song (I don't know many) is Miss Me Blind, but that one is ill-suited for a solo uke/singing rendition.

Learning songs

Learning songs, especially for playing them solo, is a great way to study the basics of songwriting in detail. I'm learning and appreciating a great deal about the artists' aesthetics in the songs I've been learning.

Blue Kiss - Jane Wiedlin

The Go-Go's were amazing and Jane Wiedlin was always my favorite Go-Go.

Blue Kiss

Possible set list

On 17-Mar for the departmental retreat party, I'll be opening up for Megachild and Rocio's new band (calling themselves Electric Platypus at the moment). I'll have a short set. Here's what I am thinking so far:
Ghost Riders in the Sky
American Girl
Straight Into Darkness
Roxanne
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Smoke on the Water
Antarctica
Last of the Famous International Playboys

Young Boys - 805

(I always thought it was Young Boy singular but the poster on Youtube seems to be in the know about the band and posted it as Boys.)
A period piece from 1982 from Syracuse band 805. I really like this song. Today we would describe it as progressive or "proggy", in this case because of its highly precise orchestration, especially in the instrumental section. Never saw these guys live. I was too young. But there were a lot of bands in western NY that were trying to achieve this kind of sound. Songs like this had to be pulled off exactly the same way every performance and every fan of progressive bands like this (supreme example = Rush) knew every single lick of every beat and measure of the song and expected no alterations. Very interesting looking back on this sound and era.

Roxanne - Police

Learned it tonight.
One of the most recognizable of their early songs. I'll have to sing it an octave lower than Sting. Should be a good one for gigging.

Russian Christmas Music - Alfred Reed

Of all the music I played in band in junior high and high school, this was one of the only pieces that at the time I found to be sublime. And it took a long time of playing it (it was a pretty challenging piece for that level) to appreciate it. I played chimes and tympani, which were at different ends of the percussion section, so I was going back and forth a bit. But there was also a lot of time to just sit and listen. The atmosphere is definitely wintry. Still sounds quite epic, actually.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Never was much into Tori Amos or Nirvana. But I've always really loved this Tori Amos cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was a B-side of one of her singles. Much better than the original, in my opinion.
I tried this song on the uke last night. Looks like a keeper. However, now that I know what the lyrics are, I'm underwhelmed by them.

Leipzig - Thomas Dolby

Great little obscure Thomas Dolby song from 1981. Has his signature lonely, techno-alienation, atmospherics. The chorus makes it. Great chords. Sweet transitional synth flourishes against a droning bass line.

Magnificent Seven - The Clash

One of my favorite Clash tracks, from 1981.
This TV performance is at a breakneck pace that must have been difficult to pull off. Emphasized by the jumpy, low quality video. The vocal is breathless. The studio version sounds very downtempo and spacious by comparison. Idiosyncratically atmospheric.

Good practice

The Megachild threesome of Pat, Rocio, and myself had a really good practice tonight getting ready for our dept retreat party gig in March. Ru-Jun was really good keeping Mommy company upstairs and not making too much of a mess painting and eating snacks. This bodes well for future practices.

Cemetry Gates - the Smiths

This song was the first Smiths song I ever heard, probably around 1985, and remains one of my favorites. The tight strumming, the chord changes, Morrissey's velvet lilt. A completely new sound to my ears then and has yet to be duplicated by anyone. I built a mystique around this sound. It seemed so sophisticated. It helped that artsy college kids who I thought were immensely cool liked this music. But it was still mostly the music itself.

A Forest -the Cure

From 1980. Pretty close to being a pure mood. It actually moves non-slowly underneath in the bass and guitar. Restrained. Gothic chord progression. A great example of stripping down the idea of pop, going somewhere no one has much before (the chords), capturing a narrative essence, and exploiting the hell out of it to very rich effect.

Getting difficult

To reanimate the Megachild corpse these days. We will one more time for the dept. retreat party sans Steve who will be out of town. Pat is finishing and heading to the west coast. Rocio is playing with a different band these days. And Steve is pretty busy. I've had a musical reawakening of sorts with the uke and am still interested in new instrumentation possibilities. I'm thinking about recruiting some players on campus and getting a new band thing going there.

Tom Petty songs

While I was waiting in the car for my eyes to undilate after my ophthalmology appointment, I started to work out some Tom Petty songs on the uke. These are some of my favorites and it's really cool to know how to plan them:

American Girl

One Story Town

A Woman In Love

Straight Into Darkness

Gotta say though, some other songs that have relatively easy chord progressions are really hard because of the way he phrases his lyrics. He sometimes jams a lot of words into single lines.

Martin Briley - The Salt in My Tears

From 1983, this got some airplay (or I wouldn't have known about it). But it remains a pretty obscure song. Great little guitar-figure driven pop song. Nice vocal harmony in the choruses.

For pure wistfulness

The Korgis 1980 hit Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime was a revelation. Nothing sounded like it, either in its production and instrumentation, or more basically in its chords and structure. This song is pure mood. The sound anticipates an entire swath of pop that came after, encompassing bands like Tears For Fears and Dream Academy, the latter being one of the army of artists to have a hit covering the song (unfortunately that version is apparently not on youtube).

The essence

Of course the essence if this dual embrace/dread of the hyper-modern can be thoroughly felt in the seminal Computer Love by Kraftwerk. It's not just the synthesizer instrumentation. It's the wistful narrative of the chord changes. Sweet sadness.

(I Love You) Miss Robot - Buggles

I really love the whole Living in the Plastic Age album. The atmosphere, especially of Miss Robot is simultaneouly a utopian and dystopian vision. It's Euro and modern, like International Style architecture. But it's knowingly over the top. Falling in love with the perfection of a robot who cannot love. It's nostalgia for a future that never was and can never be. It's so damn lovely...

Kihns other big hit

Jeopardy. I didn't like it for quite a while. Not enough of a change into the chorus. But years later I came to really appreciate the incredibly solid rhythm track of this song. Laid back, subtle, funky, just cool.

Breakup Song - Greg Kihn Band

From 1981, couldn't escape this song and didn't want to. Terrific chord progression hooks in both the verse and chorus. Nice harmony in the chorus. A near perfect song.

Fire Lake - Bob Seger

Not many rock artists had more huge hits than Bob Seger in the 70s and early 80s. Fire Lake from 1980 is by far my favorite. The chord progression of the verse (of the whole song really) and the backing vocal harmonies (which included Glen Frey and Don Henley of the Eagles) make the song.

Marys Danish - Dont Crash the Car Tonight

From 1989, the beginning of my peak college radio listening period. Tight tight boppy guitars and rhythm section. Great vocal harmony.

Dramarama - Anything Anything

Great band name. Did very well on college radio in the late 80s and 90s. Here's the iconic Anything Anything from 1985. Classic thrashy dynamic oscillations.

The Lemonheads

I've always liked their songs, raw and simple but usually hooks lurk in them. Gotta work one of their songs into my uke playlist soon. Here's Stove.
.

Some songs I am working on

To play with the uke

Last of the Famous International Playboys - Morrissey
Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple
Working on My Tan - Tim Curry
Substitute - the Who

songs I will try to tackle soon
Hang Fire - Rolling Stones
Careless Whisper - Wham

Right Down the Line - Gerry Rafferty

From 1978, this is a beautiful song. I especially like the smooth keyboard chords driving the rhythm section on top of the textural Latin percussion instrumentation.

My Favorite Eagles Song

New Kid in Town
Laid back tempo, prominent keyboards, nice harmony. It must have been the winter of 1976-1977, my family spent the winter break helping clean out the basement and fellowship hall of our church. My brothers and I were too young to help much and were bored out of our skulls. All we had was Mom and Dad's old green AM transistor radio listening to WHAM, then a top 40 and news station. New Kid in Town and Abba's Dancing Queen played at least once every hour.

Van Halen

Most of Van Halen's work as a band I can take or leave. The David Lee Roth era was far better than the Sammy Hagar era. From the earlier stuff, there are three songs I would want with me if I got deserted on an island or planet somewhere:

Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love

I'll Wait

Panama

Another very cool instrument

The bowed psaltery.
Very sweet and beautful sound. Looks like a lot of fun to play.

Singapore Rice Noodles update

I still enjoy Singapore Rice Noodles a lot. Mostly get them from just a few blocks away, the Great Wall in Sound Beach. They have gotten really good at this dish, definitely rivaling Sung Wo in Rocky Point. The family who used to run the Great Wall we became friends with. They have a little boy about our daughter Ru-Jun's age. They unfortunately moved to NJ (and started a restaurant there, I believe). Their cousins now run Great Wall. They love to see Ru-Jun come in and always give her lollipops.

Alice's House - Psychedelic Furs

Another favorite of mine. Great ascending bass line in the verse - chromatically gothic sounding. The end of the chorus has a nice rally back into the intro line. Very simple pop song, but extremely elegant.

Groove Salad

My other internet radio favorite is Groove Salad. Trippy, trancy, acid and deep housey. Great music to work to in the lab or take a nap to. Very atmospheric.

Flashback Alternatives

Listened to Flashback Alternatives for the first time in probably about a year while I was working in lab today. This is simply the best 80s music station I've ever found on the web. There are a few commercials but this is a small price to pay for the range of 80s alternative and pop music that FA plays. At various times in the past I interacted with the regulars on the website there and I even donated a couple of 'Til Tuesday CDs to DJ Ed, who runs the station a few years ago. I'm really glad this station has been able to stick around. I've been introduced to a lot of great, more obscure 80s and 80s-inspired more recent music on FA,

Here Come Cowboys - Psychedelic Furs

One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands. But the video leaves a lot to be desired, unfortunately.

Antarctica - Men Without Hats

Very tension filled song in both the studio and their live version. I started working on a much more laid back version on the uke this evening.

A very cool instrument

the shahi baaja

Kid - the Pretenders

Always one of my favorites of theirs, from 1979 (or at least was in the charts then). There is a lot of roughness to the live performance linked below, but it's interesting how they really try to reproduce the studio arrangement and sound of the song on stage. Not easy.

Kid - the Pretenders

Jesse - Carly Simon

Also in the country pop vein, the soulful and catchy Jesse by Carly Simon, from 1980, which got a ton of airplay but has since largely disappeared.

More Multiverse stuff

At each moment, there is a virtually infinite number of possible futures. There is also a virtually infinite number of pasts that could have led to that moment. There are many different ways to get to the same future. But there seems to be only one path through the past which got to the current moment.
Not sure what this means, exactly. But it seems important.

Bette Davis Eyes

Predictably a mention of Kim Carnes is going to turn to this song. a monster hit from 1981 written by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon. Sparkling thru the massive radio overplay, it was a striking juxtaposition of Carnes's raspy vocal and machine-like synth pop that somehow produced magic. The chord changes are right in my sweet spot (see also any number of Stevie Nicks songs).

Kenny Rogers

Kenny Rogers had two songs in the Billboard Top 100 in 1979, The Gambler and She Believes in Me. My favorite song of his is the duet with Kim Carnes Don't Fall In Love With a Dreamer from 1980. Great harmonies.

A 1979 instrumental hit

Rise by Herb Alpert. Replete with the bassline later sampled by The Notorious B.I.G. for Hypnotize. Downtempo, funky, contemporary jazz marketed to the disco buying public. There is a resignedness about the song that seems to anticipate deep house music as well.

Time travel

I don't think time travel is possible. I think that the past does not exist once each moment is gone. At each moment there are essentially infine possible futures all containing that moment as their past. As each time interval ticks by, one of those possible futures becomes the present and access to the previous moment and anything before that is gone forever.

Violence

Our aide Min's favorite country song is El Paso, the 1959 Marty Robbins song. The chords are pretty simple. Classic western story, sad and violent.
El Paso - Marty Robbins

Country Roads - John Denver

John Denver was huge in the 70s when I was growing up. This is one of my favorites from among his many hits. Deceptively simple song. The bridge (C part) makes the song. It just sticks in one more chord in addition to the 1 4 5 constructions that make up the rest of the song.
Country Roads - John Denver

Camphor - The Fixx

I've always had an affinity for this deep cut from the Fixx's 1986 album Walkabout. I used to take afternoon naps listening to this album. Camphor is the last track. It seems to exactly correspond to the feeling of waking up gradually from a comfortable rest.

A 1979 pop gem

It was massively overplayed, but I've always loved Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes. Clean, downtempo, rhythm section hook that drives the verse. Big vocal hook that picks that up in the chorus. Fun story and surprise in the lyrics. Really the perfect pop song.

New songs learned

"Everywhere I Go" a Nick Jr. kids song, "Country Roads" by John Denver, and I'm Walking the Floor Over You" by Ernest Tubb, which IIRC was depicted in the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter".

Cowboy songs so far

There are a lot of songs known as cowboy songs. So far, I know the chords to Home on the Range, My Darling Clementine, Red River Valley, and Ghost Riders in the Sky. Memorizing the lyrics, however, is going to take some time. Next on the radar are El Paso, Back in the Saddle, and Jingle Jangle. These songs tend to have simple structures with just a few chords and have melancholy or even morbidly sad lyrics.

1979

Check out a top 100 singles chart from 1979 and among the many crosscurrents of pop going on at the time you'll find this:
Are Friends Electric? by Gary Numan's band Tubeway Army. Numan could, unembellished, play a humanoid species other than our own in a SF movie. His voice and the cold delivery are clearly pointing to a post-human, yet still romantic, future. Under the tightly orchestrated synthesizers is hard, driving, rock. This is hybrid music from a rich time of hybridization and experimentation.

Gig on Friday

I'll be playing a sing along on me uke at Ru-Jun's day care on Friday. I've been learning and practicing kids and Christmas songs at home most evenings the last month with Ru-Jun singins and dancing along. Teally fun and is helping me to de-stress.
Here is a partial list of the kids songs that I've picked up:
Ive been working on the railroad
My Bonny
Twinkle Twinkle
ABCs
BINGO
the Hokie Pokie
Camptown Races
Yankee Doodle
Puff the Magic Dragon
Oh Susanna
Pop goes the Weasle
You are my Sunshine
The Old Gray Mare
When the Saints Go Marching In
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Itsy Bitsy Spider

Camouflage - Stan Ridgeway

There are probably hundreds of rock songs that bear the strong influence of Ghost Riders in the Sky but one of my favorites is the absolutely brilliant Camouflage by Stan Ridgeway.

Cowboy songs

So far I've learned Clementine, Home on the Range, Red River Valley, and Ghost Riders in the Sky, which might just be the coolest song ever.

Baritone ukulele tuning

Since I am not a guitar player, but i do have some experience with four string bass guitar, I decided to tune the uke in fourths like a bass. So the tuning is C F Bb Eb. This is very unconventional. I could not find any mentions online of this tuning with this instrument although I did see that people like to experiment with different tunings on ukes. I like the fourths tuning even though I have to move up and down the neck a lot for 1-4 and 1-5 changes. I picked up the chords for about 15 holday songs and I have about the same number of childrens' and folk songs, with more on the way. At some point I'll post a list. This has been very fun.

Straight Into Darkness - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Straight Into Darkness Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
No one fused keyboards and guitars in the late 70s/early 80s better than Tom Petty. This song and the Long After Dark album have long been my favorites of his.

The Multiverse

This seems like an intuitive idea. I bet that 100s of people originated it in one form or another and never promoted it as an original idea. It also seems pretty damn untestable, so i.e. not science.

Christine McVie

I've always liked Christine McVie's vocals. Low and smoky in an entirely different way than Stevie Nicks. Her solo work is underrated,
Got a Hold On Me - Christine McVie

Gold- John Stewart

Always live to revisit this late 70s hit that was not spoiled by its massive radio overplay. Probably Stewart's strongest rock effort, having long been established in folk. Intersects with the Fleetwood Mac axis with Stevie Nicks on backing vocals. Great use of the major -relative minor dyad. Nice keyboard line and simple instrumentation.
Gold - John Stewart

Baritone ukulele

I bought myself one of these and tuned it in 4ths like a bass (because I have bass but not 6 string guitar experience) and have been teaching myself how to play chords to accompany singing. Mostly holiday and kids sons so far. Very fun. Mine has a very rich, guitar- like sound. (sorry couldn't post a picture from the web using the iphone app)

I'm Back

Well, Old Grimy lives in Texas now. He did a good job on the blog in 2008 but neither of us had time between then and now to keep it up. No more. I'm back to talk about songs. There is other stuff in my life (mostly good, some bad) but that is for elsewhere. Here is an amazing song (Magnet and Steel by Walter Egan; in case the link below doesn't imbed) from the 70s, which until I looked up its info on Wikipedia I didn't know Stevie Nicks sung backup on (yet another plus for the song). It's a downtempo ballad with echos of Motown in the chorus, but the chord progression (simple involving mostly a minor and the 4 and 5 chords of its relative major) is what makes this song. And the driving, but slowish, tempo. And the incredible sweetness of the chorus. Enjoy.

Magnet and Steel - Walter Egan

Ultravox LCD Sounsystem Bowie

A buncha live videos. No theme. Just stream of consciousness connections...

This video is pretty special. So much synth. Ultravox - The Thin Wall



Vocals and synth-laden sounds remind me of... LCD Soundsystem, "Get Innocuous"



Granpa Bowie strikes my mind again with "Golden Years" too, I think. Goddam what fanaticism.

The Killing Moon, Stars, and the Sunder the Milky Way

A cosmic medley of songs.

The Killing Moon, Echo and the Bunny Men (1984). This song has been covered quite nicely by both Nouvelle Vague and Pavement.




Instant Karma!, John Lennon, (1970). Phil Spector produced and isn't it nice to see Yoko crocheting blindly?


Under the Milky Way, The Church (1988). Australians know how to do some cosmic music, huh? make sure to listen for the EBow solo at 2:22... and is that an eye in the egg? ewww.

New Romantic

Violens - descendents of New Romantic?


Basis of New Romantic, so devo, so funky. Spandau Ballet.





Japan - Ghosts - great synth and vibes



Grandaddy Bowie kills the scene.

Tomorrow Never Knows

Today I have been steeping in John Lennon and Brian Wilson. I have listened to Tomorrow Never Knows many times in a row now. The wikipedia page on this song talks about the interesting experimental procedures that were developed in the recording of this song, which apparently was never performed live because of the impossibility of repeating the song. Sounds like 2/3 of every Megachild song. Not that ours approach the greatness of the Beatles. Lyrical ifluences came from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is a really out there piece of literature and also the Leary et al. Psychedelic Experience.



The drum riff of "Tomorrow..." seems also to be repeated in the song "End of Music" by Ontario band Do Make Say Think (the riff converges on the Beatles riff a little after 3 minutes into the song).

I have been playing around with some vocal layering on Stair Bears (Bear Shoulders version). I go way off key and things break down in lots of places, but I think there are some interesting bits in it here and there. Working on my vibrato, but it would be awesome to hook up to a Leslie Cabinet like Lennon did. Plastic Soul, man, plastic soul.

I also recorded some things on my cellphone when I was attempting to fish. Then I chopped up some bits and rearranged and amplified and filtered some of it and added some vocal drone track. The song is called Moan You Snake Oil Salesman, a play off of a Blind Lemon Jefferson's song, "Black Snake Moan" and the anachronistic term for an exaggerator (sort of an abstract jab, I guess). I used a "helium voice" effect on one layer of vocal, which comes across sort of similar to the effect in "Tomorrow Never Knows" and the skipping crunchy static noise is similar to some of the stop that comes out in Do Make Say Think's label-mate Fly Pan Am. Here for example is Jeunesse Sonique.

REM - Crush with Eyeliner

I was just rocking out in the shower to the Megachild song Bannisters. I was thinking about how to lift this song back up... and then I started thinking about the early-mid nineties album Monster from R.E.M. This album provided ample anthems for my early high school years, although I remember that I ultimately traded the album with a friend in order to get my hands on Soundgarden's Superunknown. Although I still love that Soundgarden album (which also provides great anthems, especially "My Wave", which sticks in my head when I am surfing, and "Fell on Black Days" is a great song to sing along with on a long drive).

R.E.M. had already established themselves well before Monster, and some might even say that this album is not among their greatest works. It met with fairly great commercial success, as I remember, especially the single "What's the Frequency Kenneth?" Although there were a few mellow numbers on the album, there was a rocking fuzzy-reverbed & distorted guitar component that was characteristic of most of the album. "Crush with Eyeliner" is a song with a moderate tempo that exemplifies that guitar work, paired with some groovy bass work, and Michael Stipe's fun & bizarre lyrics.

I'm thinking that Bannisters could adopt a little bit of the sound from Monster, if our gear permits it.

Deerhunter Blog

The band deerhunter often leaves aural/visual goodies on their blog site. I really like the mix of music available for download you can get at this link. Esp. listen to the Beach Boys' Can't Wait Too Long (shows up about 42 minutes into the mix and finishes it up)

enjoy.

Energetic Crooning

To keep up with the different ideas around the song Stair Bears, here is a song from Arcade Fire. I like the persistent energy of this song, and I guess that the phrasing of my lyrics are largely substitutable for the melody of the song. It wouldn't be the first time that I write a song from the melody of another when its stuck in my head and I can't remember the lyrics of the original.

Keep the Car Running


Also, I mentioned in the earlier post that there was a vocal/keyboard refrain that was reminiscent of "Voices Carry".... it originally started as something a little bit more in the vein of Beach Boys, which has also been recaptured by bands like Animal Collective. Hear them croon with weird water/paper crinkling sound effects in this tune:

"College"

Obvious Connections. Black Moth Super Rainbow and the Velvet Underground

The end of "Stair Bears" turns into a synthed out, drummy, psychedelia fest, with vocals that are pretty Jim Morrison-y in yell mode.... the music is sort of like Black Moth Super Rainbow, but if we could regularly achieve such heights of synthed out drummy psychedelia fest, I would be... well... psyched.



The visuals at a BMSR show are reminiscent of Velvet Underground/Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable...

Strange Sources- Phil Collins, Hall & Oates, Iggy Pop

Simple bass lines. These could underlie the new Megachild song "Stair Bears". Stair Bears also has a nice keyboard refrain (it started as a crooning vocal refrain) that could give it another layer of hook. I think of it similar to the keyboard hook from a previous post by Slig.... "Voices Carry"

Phil Collins - Can't Hurry Love


Hall & Oates - Maneater


Iggy Pop - Lust for Life

Broken Social Scene and Jam Philosophy

Broken Social Scene provides hope and validity for the musical model that Megachild adopted. The band is composed of a rotating/shifting/fluid cast of men and women, often beardy scruffians of varying ages, and often teetering on the razor's edge of becoming overcrowded with sound.

Their songs seem to emerge from jams, which can tend to be... well... jammy. Often deliberately sticking with a riff for much, if not the entirety, of a song. They uncover the emotive core of their music readily, and to me evoke the robust realization of that nameless song you've been humming or singing inside for days and days.

I'm sure that the describes the creative process for a lot of bands, but it definitely seems to be one of the approachs of Megachild. Everyone has stored up their musical energy for a week or more and is ready to release. The best nights come when everyone has a musical idea to bring to the table and when everyone else clicks in to round out the sound.

Despite their tendency to jams, Broken Social Scene can deliver some tight sounds with pop hooks. Watch the embedded stuff below and follow links to get a sense of what their moods produce on a given evening.

The Ting Tings, Franz Ferdinand, and INXS

Just listened to the Ting Tings on World Cafe and enjoyed much of it. These songs are built with hooks, and while I like the wonky-naive chord of "Great DJ" (which sounds like something I would play), I really liked the surging rythym of "Shut Up and Let Me Go" the best. The surging hooky thing reminds me of "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand.

Add in some breathy Michael Hutchence vocals (see "Devil Inside" and "The One Thing") and some sensual botanical allusions (a la Poi Dog Pondering) and you've got the roots of Megachild's "Horehound Honey".

Muscles, Beck, Dan Deacon, and Brad Neely

Here are some songs with synth and falsetto. Megachild has worked on a synth-pop falsetto song called Disco Wooden Spatula. It has a nice guitar riff and absurd lyrics about dancing to the choice of kitchen utensil.

First up is Sweaty by Muscles. I just discovered this song this morning. I first listened to the Shazam remix version, which is set to a video that highlights the amazing elasticity of the human face.

Link:

As you may have noticed in this cheerleader-chant, bumping fuzz-synth melange, the lyrics are both naughty and saccharine. That combination comes across as simultaneously sexy & grody in that version, but comes off more purely fun and hilarious when sung in harmonious falsetto and doofus voice in the original track, featured in the poor quality video/audio below. A better version of the audio and a more professional review of the song is provided in the link below the video (so if you can sink up the audio in that link with the youtube video, it provides a slightly better listening/watching experience).



Pitchfork review with good audio

The Pitchfork Review mentions Midnite Vultures era Beck. It wasn't something that I thought of at first, but the connection is pretty obvious now. Midnite Vultures was a great album, displaying the fun side of Beck before he got all grown up and serious in his latest albums. I couldn't find a good video for "Get Real Paid", which is the track that is probably most similar to "Sweaty in its bumpin synthedness. But "Nicotine and Gravy has a similar vocal mix with falsetto and droning, esp. coming to fruition at 1:45. The video embedding has been disabled, so just follow the link. Note the Warhol and Japanese Pop influences in both this and "Sweaty" videos.

Beck - Nicotine and Gravy

I love when synth uses cat sounds. Some may say it is overdone, but just like with cowbell, there is always room for more "Kitty Synth". Kitty Synth may have reached its artistic peak in the work of Dan Deacon and his "Crystal Cat". I really don't want to say much more about this, I just want to let the art speak for itself.



I missed seeing Dan Deacon play at the Whitney Museum in NYC last winter, and I am very sad that I missed it. I also realized upon this listen that Dan sings "Gonna get my face on" which I realized is connected (and either descended from, ancestor to, or independently derived) to China, IL, a short animated series by the musically talented absurdist/warped cartoonist/humorist, Brad Neely. The character sings the words, "Gonna get her face on, gonna get her din-din, gonna get her shoe-shoes), let me tell you she was my world".

Tweedy Van Lee Roth Weiland

Megachild has a new song that has more alternative names (3) than the number of times it's been played (1). It is tentatively labeled Tweedy Van Lee Roth Weiland, but might preferably be called Forget About Me/Looking for Abuse (1 title or 2). The Tweedy Van.... etc. is a reference to the sounds, esp. vocal sounds that I hear in the song. Wilco's Jeff Tweedy songwriting style inspired some of the lyrics and phrasing, esp. some of his more "rockin" stuff from disc one of "Being There". I may post a version of the Megachild song when we record a sensible demo of it.

In the meantime, here are some videos of the influences that I hear in the song.

• Wilco's "Monday & Outtasite (outta mind)" finale from Lollapalooza 2008
  
• Wilco's "Monday", I Believe this is from "I am Trying to Break Your Heart" nice guitar solo after the wolf whistle around 2 minutes:
• Wilco's fairly cheesy video for "Outtasite (Outta Mind)

There are vocal nuances in the new Megachild song that are, I'm sad to say, like loungier David Lee Roth/Scott Weiland. This is a little sickening, but not surprising. Just the product of my immature influences I guess. Weiland was the vocalist for Stone Temple Pilots and evetually the totally sucky "super-group" Velvet Revolver... sorry if you like them, but I was such a high school fan of STP and now I think that Weiland is a total disgusting washup. Here are some pretty slimy videos from Van Halen and Stone Temple Pilots. Enjoy.

• Stone Temple Pilot's "Sex Type Thing" Video:
• Van Halen's "(Oh) Pretty Woman" from Diver Down:

Dr Dog - The Ark

Update: See correction below and in comments. Also, go listen to Dr. Dog on "Morning Becomes Eclectic"

Just discovered this song and video via NPR's World Cafe and the blog of Kanye West. The music is psychedelic and guitar parts remind me of some White Album Beatles "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and Pink Floyd "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" from Wish You Were Here.

In "The Ark", I really like the spastic growl of vocalist Scott McMicken (oops- see correction in the comments, thanks to Lindsay), in the refrain that occurs late in the song. The imagery of this video pretty out there; still trying to explain the role of the guys spitting the seeds. They seem to be guardians or something.

According to Dr. Dog's website, they have a penchant for diminished chords and 3-part harmonies. I am a fan of the harmonies, but I haven't a clue about the chords. I tried to do some wiki-learning about diminished chords, but my ignorance can not be penetrated even by this new information.

There's some similar elements in the song "Easy Beat" which is from one of Dr. Dog's earlier efforts. Still Beatles-y, but also a little more Beach Boys.

Dr. Dog "The Ark" from Adam kurland on Vimeo.

Pavement - The Hexx and Box Elder

Pavement was the best band I never heard of while I was in high school. I didn't discover them until my buddy back in college put some Pavement on a mix CD during my last year of college. "Spit on a Stranger" was the first cut from Terror Twilight, the last album that Pavement put out. It was still another couple of years before I started dutifully collecting the other Pavement studio albums. I know that I can still see Stephen Malkmus perform if I find myself in the right place at the right time with enough money in my pocket. But I have forever missed the energy of an early Pavement performance. After sticking to a nearly strictly Pavement diet about 4 years ago, I weaned myself for a little while and have just been revisiting again. Blah blah blah on to the songs...

"The Hexx" landed on Terror Twilight. Here's a live recording of part of that song so you can get a sense of the sort of "preppie/straight guys go slightly punk and obtuse" style that Pavement was bringing in the late season of their game. Unfortunately, you don't get some of the crisp guitar elements that show up in the album cut, which I included in the next video below.

Here's the studio album cut, check out the echo-y guitar calls around 2:20, and the spacy-bluesy solo that starts at 3:35. It descends into distorted, rocky arpeggiating... and it's great for some supreme mellow air guitar sessions.


The other song I want to throw up on here is Box Elder, MO. This is from the early end of Pavement. Quirky lyrics and phrasing were a Stephen Malkmus hallmark from the beginning, but Box Elder had pretty straightforward lyrical content and straightforward rockiness was the musical vessel of delivery. Although the recording posted here doesn't quite do it justice (it's from a DVD commemorating the 10th anniversary of the album Slanted Enchantment) you can probably pick up on the simple but effective, quasi-epic-anthemic arpeggios and the dissonant, but not distorted guitar harmonics, which have a surprisingly hooky rhythm. You can also watch the happy-go-lucky seated frolicking of the early drummer Gary Young, who was eventually asked to leave the band for his constant drunken shenanigans that caused disruptions to performances.


This acoustic performance of Malkmus at the Knitting Factory from a couple of years ago give you the lyrics a little more clearly, and give you sense of the less abstract side of his songwriting. The verbal concepts and messages are mostly direct, but the casual non-sequitir or abstract image slips in now and then, too. Now that I've annoyed myself with my analysis, here's the video.

Old Grimy Songs

Hi. This is Old Grimy, and I'll now be posting to On Songs, picking up not necessarily where Slig left off, but wherever it is that music emerges from my mind through my fingertips and onto an electronic page where you can read, watch, and hear.

Bye for now

I'm going to take a long vacation from this blog so I can work on a new blog on Long Island moths. Thanks for viewing! Bye!

suxxors

amazon.com informs me that products labeled suxxors are also labelled:

abominable (1), adoption (1), ambulance chase (1), ambulance chaser (1), an act of mcarthurism (1), and shutup jack (1), anti religous (1), arsewipe (1), attack mouse (1), attention monger (1), authors who did not win peabody award (1), bad (1), bad authors (1), bad parenting guide (1), bad person (1), bad read (1), bad writing (1), bastard (1), biased (1), biased lies lies propoganda (1), bigot (1), bill oreilly (1), blatant lies (1), blind (1), books that should be burned (1), boring (1), brianboitano (1), bs (1), bugger (1), bugger off (1), bullocks (1), bullpoo (1), burns well (1), calumny (1), censor (1), chicanery (1), childish (1), childish name calling (1), closed minded (1), clueless (1), concerned parent (1), coprolagnia (1), coward (1), crazed and libelous screed (1), cruel (1), crybaby (1), debar (1), debarred (1), deceit (1), defamation (1), diarrhea (1), disbar (1), disbarred (1), divisive (1), doubt (1), draw and quarter (1), dumb (1), ego rant (1), egoistic (1), egomaniac (1), egotistical maniac (1), even more blatant lies (1), evil (1), examples for youthanasia (1), expensive firewood (1), falsified information (1), fear (1), fearmonger (1), ferret cage liner (1), firewood (1), fool (1), foolish (1), fraud (1), freemason (1), fud (1),... and 3 more pages of descriptors.

Woo Hoo!

Over the weekend, Wigan tied Tottenham Hotspur 1-1! They are now in 13th place with 5 points and 4 teams between them and relegation. I think there are three games left in the season. They are not out of the woods yet, but it could be much worse.

My top 3 videos

I haven't actually seen a lot of videos, since we didn't have MTV at home when I was a teenager. Nevertheless, in the intervening years several videos have been influential to me. Here are what would be the top three:

(3) "Pour Some Sugar on Me" - Def Leppard. The song is forgettable (and the audio in the clip is not great) but what I like about this video is that it captures all of the fun and excitement of playing a live show, from the beginning set up and sound check to the show itself.



(2) "Sabotage" - Beastie Boys

These guys capture the essence of 70s cop shows and also something trenchant about the urban environment. The characters are supposed to be funny but they are spot on for the imagery they are conveying in the video.



(1) "Been Caught Stealin' " - Jane's Addiction

This is a deeply absurd and wonderful celebration of strangeness, and of course a really good song.

Woo Hoo!

Wigan played Chelsea to a 1-1 draw! A last minute goal by Wigan in stoppage time tied it! Chelsea is the second place team in the Premier League and this dealt a severe blow to their championship hopes. Wigan is now in 15th place, 6 points out of relegation territory. Go Latics!

Toto

One of the turn-of-the-decade bands that enjoyed huge popularity but perhaps has not aged particularly, in the staying power of their music, is Toto. The band produced some really hooky rock/pop, that seemed to be heavily flavored by the art-rock trend of the 70s (e.g. Yes, Genesis). At the same time, they had some of the stylings of power rock (e.g. Triumph, Kansas) without actually being too metallic (see e.g. the Tolkein-esque art on their 1st and 4th albums).

The first song I heard of theirs was the very pleasant "99" (1976)



Of course I had heard "Hold the Line" (1978; it was and still is ubiquitous on radio) before and not really known it was them.

They had monster hits in the 80s with the massively overplayed "Rosanna" (1982), the sweet pop song "Africa" (1982) and the less well known "Stranger in Town" (1984).

Overall, an interesting band that had success in both rock and pop radio formats that was absolutely a product of their time.

Nostalgia

My top five favorite arcade video games from back in the day:



(1) Mr. Do

(2) Killer Komet (appears to have been an extremely rare game; could find nothing online about it)

(3) Xevious

(4) Front Line

(5) Time Pilot

Deep Thought of the Day

Ever since I became of age (and abandoned religion) the concept of worship always puzzled me. It seems to me that any entity that demands worship does not deserve to be worshipped. Think about it: what the hell kind of a person would demand to be worshipped?

The Tubes

The turn of the decade around 1980 was, for me, the most interesting time in pop and rock. The Tubes provide yet another great example. These guys were capable of producing both quintessential glam, as in the classic clip below of "White Punks on Dope" and supremely hooky rock/pop, as in their rock hit "Talk to Ya Later" (have to click on the link, the video was not able to be embedded). I guess interesting bands like the Tubes, if they occur at all today, are mostly in local scenes away from the national spotlight. Which is the way things appear to work these days.

Judas Potter

I'm not a huge fan of either but I like creative hybridizations. Not that this is that great but it's fun. It's amazing how tame JP sounds from this temporal distance. They were considered quite hard-edged in their early 80s heydey. But all manner of punk, speed metal, and industrial craziness outstripped the metal of that time in terms of dissonance, irreverence, and overall evilness. Enjoy...

Woo Hoo!

Wigan 2 Birmingham 0!

Wigan now has 34 points and is 15th place in the Premier League, 8 points out of relegation. Not many games left. Let's hope they stay safe.

Gardening at Night - R.E.M.

Here's a really good live version (pretty decent footage and sound), from 1984, of one R.E.M.'s many early strongly guitar driven tracks, off Chronic Town. I discovered them at about this time, when I was still in high school. Ironically, the local rock station (96 WCMF in Rochester) was playing "Pretty Persuasion" from the The Reckoning for a very short while, which was the first R.E.M. song I ever heard.

Not complaining

But spring hasn't been exactly balmy so far. Instead of getting warm air masses, we are getting slightly warmer cold air masses. This time of year we tend to get little one day tongues of warm air (often accompanied by rain) followed by big sweeping cold fronts from the northwest. Then it's chilly for a day or two and gradually warms until the next little warm front tongue laps at us. But hey, it was a mild winter with almost no snow. So we have nothing to complain about...

Pet Sematary - Ramones

Since this tune is banging around my head this morning, here it is. Great chord progression and vocal harmonies. The lead guitar lines are also very nice. It's actually a very sad song...