Indian Summer - Dream Academy

Thought of these guys for some reason while in the grocery store today.  Very wistful sound from the mid/late 80s.  Here's Indian Summer from 1987.  I remember listening to this while home from college on vacation.

Illegan Alien - Genesis

Some songs are really good despite what their lyrics are about.  Case in point: Illegal Alien, by Genesis.  This was on their eponymous 1983 album, which was extremely good and for represents the high point of the Genesis brand of (by then very poppy, but still original and idiosyncratic) art rock.  It was meant as a lampoon of peoples' stereotypes, and the video really goes over the top with the concept.  This was all OK in the early 80s in both the US and the UK. But I imagine they could not put this out, at least as a band as prominent as they were in the charts back then (a totally different time in pop with totally different chart dynamics, of course).  And the song probably does not get very much air play these days because of the political correctness angle.  Which is too bad, because musically it is a really excellent and inventive piece of pop.

Alsatian Cousin

Here's my cover of this song - one of my favorites from Morrissey.  Voice is still rough; getting over a cold.

Earthstock 2012 gig - links

Here's the complete list of song videos from the 2012 SBU Earthstock performance

opening jam

smoke on the water

Roxanne

Unhappy Birthday

The Gambler

Ring of Fire

Homeward Bound

Country Roads

The Zoo

Unhappy Birthday - Earthstock 2012

Here's my version of the Smiths' Unhappy Birthday from SBU Earthstock 2012.  Screwed up the transition from the first verse into the chorus, but it otherwise turned out OK.

My cover of Here Come Cowboys

link
By the Psychedelic Furs.
Messed up one of the transitions into the chorus.  And Ru-Jun was running around.
This song is probably a keeper for the next gig.

Smoke on the Water - Earthstock 2012

The opening song in the Tralfaz Wizard Experience Earthstock 2012 set.

We Will Not Be Lovers - the Waterboys

Love this song. Simple chord progression, rather loosely played. But the raggedness is a critical part of the delivery with these guys. The guitar arpeggios that come in during the chorus are awesome. A rare occasion when a jam concept works in a song.

Thousands are Sailing

My favorite Pogues song. Fairly straight foreward but has a couple of challenging progressions. Of several of their best known songs I looked at, it's the only one without a completely dark lyrical passage in it.

no chance yet

To go through the video from Earth Day. So I don't know how it turned out. It was windy, so the mic on the camcorder might have been noisy (no wind screen). Hopefully some time in the next few days.

Wondering Where the Lions Are - Bruce Cockburn

I remember listening to this song on the radio in junior high after school while doing homework.

Time Travel

I've mentioned this before.  Physicists like to talk about time travel because according to the current standard model, it is theoretically possible.  But I suspect that either this will turn out not to be the case or that like a lot of things, it would be so technologically difficult, even for the most advanced civilization, that it is essentially impossible.  As far as we know (at least according to public knowledge and conventional scientific/historical understanding), no one has time-traveled into our historical timeline from the future or between points within our historical timeline.  Or if they have they've done it without being detected (either directly or in terms of causing anomalies - although it is arguable whether we would be able to detect the latter).
Another possibility is that from any point in time there may be infinite possible pasts (just as there are infinite possible futures), such that the singular historical timeline that we imagine ourselves having is essentially a needle in a haystack that would be very hard to get to.  This could protect us from getting time-travelled-into.  That would certainly be funny if time travel were ever invented.  You might not travel into the past that you wanted.  In fact, you would be very very unlikely to...

Alternate universes

Is it provable that an alternate universe, with physical laws different than the known universe, could exist?

continuing the contrast

two new learns this evening:

Waylon Jennings' Dukes of Hazzard theme

Julian Cope - Charlotte Anne

Too Late For Love - Def Leppard

Sort of grew up listening to this kind of stuff on hard rock radio.  They became a cliche, but their songs are simple and powerful and have good progressions (and because of that, they are really accessible).  Just learned it - pretty easy with a fudged chord or too.  Should be a fun one to play for people (like the Scorpions song).

Changes - Yes

Another great song from 90125.  I used to play the xylophone intro riff in the percussion section in band before practice when we were messing around.

Out of Touch - Hall and Oates

These guys had tons of amazing songs in the 70s and 80s. Hard to grow up listening to pop at that time and not be hugely influenced by them. Vocals, songwriting, rhythm tracks, they could put it all together and evolve with the time and never churn out derivative product. Here's Out of Touch, from 1984, performed at the perspicacious distance of 11 years in 1995.

More Country

Country songs are definitely the easiest to play. The chord progressions are usually 1-4-5 with maybe an extra chord or two. They are also typically short. And pretty fun. I can affect a country-type accent pretty well.
Tonight I learned Charley Pride's classic "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" and Willie Nelson's immortal "On the Road Again". Great stuff.

Our Song - Yes

From 1983's 90125, a really tremendous album. The pop end of proggy (in terms of hookish accessibility; not that top 40 fans ever accessed most of the songs on the album other than "Owner of a Lonely Heart"), but so many musical ideas per song.

How it went

Things went OK today.  It was really early in the Earthstock program, so there were only a handful of people watching.  Which was OK because I made quite a few mistakes.  Forgot an entire stanza of Me and Julio.  There's a video.  I'll take a look at that this weekend and see if I can get some clips posted.  More on this in a later post.  The rest of the day was crazy and Ru-Jun and I need to get to bed.

Difficult to practice

With Ru-Jun very annoyingly interrupting almost every song.  But got through the set.  Will be in the sun tomorrow, with sweaty hands.  Hard to move up and down the neck.  I'll try to have someone video it.  I have the equipment but I don't have anybody to run the camera yet...

Set is ready

Still a couple rough edges here and there but the set of songs I listed on 4-12 is pretty much ready. I'll give it another run through tomorrow night. I only have 30 min, so maybe I'll give people some options of what they want to hear.

Gig confirmed

11-11:30 Friday on the 2nd stage
Opening the show
Weather predicted to be 65 and sunny
As soon as I get the official schedule I'll start letting people know

gig?

Not sure if the Earthstock gig is going to happen.  I have not heard back from the organizers.  Would be disappointing.  But positive things are happening with developing songs and optimizing equipment setup.  I'll have to look for some other opportunities.

Also new

Wireless headset mic. Works well - tested it in the office on Saturday. It was difficult at the house party singing into a mic. With the headset, I'll be able to look down at the fretboard as much as I like.

Just added

Tralfaz as an author, using a new gmail account.  But Tralfaz=Slig in RL.  Old Grimy remains a separate person.  Now far away in Texas.  The days of his fronting Megachild are fondly remembered and missed.

Wow

Just played around with the new clip-on piezo pickup. Have turn up the gain a bit, but it works really well. If I had tried one of these a few months ago, I would not have bought the acoustic-electric (although I really like that instrument and it's good to have for the long term). This will be great for playing. It's almost completely unobtrusive for playing. Right now the acoustic is so much more comfortable to play. The sound is great out of my little Roland Micro Cube bass amp, which has flange, delay, and reverb on board.

After the Gold Rush - Neil Young

This was in a list of environmental songs that I found online. Great song. Slow, which is good for piano (what Neil plays it on). I'll work on it on the uke. Don't know if it will be ready for the gig.

Not many

Environmentally conscious rock songs. Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult is one. Looking for others.

Possible set list

For an 8 song set

Roxanne
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Country Roads
The Gambler
Folson Prison Blues
Ring of Fire
Homeward Bound
Me & Julio

If another set is needed

Smoke on the Water
Unhappy Birthday
Last of the Famous A P
Alsatian Cousin
American Girl
The Zoo
I've Got Spurs that Jingle Jangle Jingle

Also picked up

Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash (written by his wife and first recorded and performed by her sister). Pretty easy song and very well known.

Looks like the gig is going to happen.

possible gig coming up

Earthstock at SBU on 20-April. Megachild has played this event a few times. Tonight I worked on two Paul Simon songs: Me & Julio and Homeward Bound. I'm also going to try Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash. One of my Madison bands played this (I think it was Seed Pod 17, with me, Eric and Matt). So it's pretty familiar. These should be popular songs to do.

Postcards From Paradise - Flesh for Lulu

[click on post title for video link]
A lesser known band in the whole Ramones -> Psychedelic Furs-> Jesus and Mary Chain lineage of postpunk with some really great songs is Flesh For Lulu. This song has apparently been covered by quite a few artists since it came out in 1987, including Paul Westerburg. Which seems about right, the guitar chords sound like the chords in a lot of his songs.

Here Come Cowboys - Psychedelic Furs

[Click on post title for link.]
The Furs are a top 5 all time favorite and influence of mine. This is one of my favorites from their Mirror Moves album, when they were in their prime, in terms of both songwriting and producing their sound. Just learned the song too. Surprisingly simple and very easily transposed down into the comfortable area of the uke neck.

Here Comes the Rain Again - Eurythmics

[click on title for video link]
Eurythmics were among the coolest of the wave of early 80s artists that hit MTV in the early days. They have a lot of great song, but this one has always been my favorite. It has the minor - 5th (of the relative major) - 4th chord progression that always gets me as a hook (cf. just about every Steve Nicks song that is any good). Annie Lennox's vocals are second to none. Dave Stewart is just plain cool.

Peanuts - the Police

[click on title for link] One of the hoppier tunes off their 1978 debut album, Outlandos d'Amour. Live footage of the Police is always informative for players. They get a lot done for a trio.

Apples

I grew up eating an apple a day, probably from age 5 or so to age 15. My grandparents had a couple of small apple orchards and we ended up having apples all winter. The varieties I remember were: macs, romes, northern spies, 20 ounce (a really good tasting cooking variety), greenings (another cooking variety), yellow and red delicious. The varieties in the stores now don't resemble these very much and in many ways are superior. More flavor. Brown a lot slower. I'm particularly impressed by Braeburns and Galas, especially since these are among the least expensive varieties.
This time of year we were reduced to wrinkled up yellow delicious (which were still quite sweet) or maybe some spies (which have a very nice taste) or romes (my least favorite - hard on the outside, grainy and not much flavor in the flesh). The more recent varieties really store excellently.
BTW, the red and yellow delicious that we had back then are nothing like what goes by those names today. I think there is huge variety in that strain (or name appropriation).

New (re)learns

Worked on Substitute (the Who) and Magnet and Steel (Walter Egan) this evening. Both were songs I checked out in the very early uke days last fall, before I was yet doing much with the instrument.

Into The Groove - Madonna

My all time favorite Madonna song. IIRC it was featured in Desperately Seeking Susan, which I like a lot, but more because of Rosanna Arquette than Madonna.

Flesh For Fantasy - Billy Idol

This is one of several songs of his that I've always liked a lot. This live version gives an indication of how important the studio was in the production and impact of the album tracks. He sounds very vulnerable when it's just him and the guitar. The crowd for this MTV gig wasn't exclusively paying attention to the music. Must have been a party for something.

The Glamorous Life - Sheila E

A unique and amazingly talented performer. This live performance is scintillating. Beyond that, for me there is a mystique around this 1984 song and others of its time because I wasn't listening to top 40 at the time yet there were some really really great pop songs emerging. There's an abstractness about this particular song that I've always found appealing. It's almost like the song was wasted on most of the ears it hit. Ephemerality is a key character of most pop. They didn't know what they had there.

Piano in The Dark - Brenda Russell

I don't know any of her other material but this is a brilliant song. B part into C part is about as hooky as a hook can get. It's all about the hooks.

Night Ranger

This 80s band is still loved by many, no doubt, but is also a bit senamentalized as lightweight kitsch by some. Probably both because of their name and because of a single song, the accessible but sort of strange Sister Christian. Somewhat unfortunate that this is what they are remembered for. Their breakthough hit Don't Tell Me You Love Me is really great and is even a bit proggy in places. And their lesser known hit Sentamental Street (couldn't find good video) is also a really nice song.

Sine qua non

Are misogyny and sexual hang-ups the sine qua non's of all fundamentalist religion? Sure seems that way.

Cyndi Lauper - All Through The Night

Another great song by Cyndi Lauper. When this genre of 80s songs came out I was busy transitioning from hard rock to college radio/alternative music. I was not attracted to top 40, didn't really take time to listen to the songs, didn't take them seriously. It's sort of a personality trat of mine that I tend to discover things many years after they were popular and have been long abandoned by the mainstream culture.

Shooting Shark - Blue Oyster Cult

My all time favorite blue Oyster Cult song. From 1983's underrated The Revolution By Night album. Very atmospheric. Great chord progression. Awesome vocal.

Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper

A classic pop song from a very classy and talented artist of the 80s. Started learning it tonight. Took a bit of listening and trial and error to get all the changes.

Got some practice in yesterday

With the plugged in baritone uke setup in my office. Getting more use to it. Had the effects box working and played with settings on it and the amp. Tightened the end screws on the tuning knobs for the two high strings. Seemed to stay tuned better after that.

another new learn

Unhappy Birthday by the Smiths.
Love this song. Dark like all the rest of their stuff. But a heck of a fun song to sing. And play.

Crush - Jennifer Paige

I've always loved this song, from 1998. Chord progression rocks. Separate hooks in verse and chorus. I have a thing for high, breathy female vocals and Paige is killer throughout, the soul is right there. Don't think much of the video but Paige has the dark eyes with blonde hair contrast going, which hooks me as well.

low hanging fruit

Currently searching for easy to learn songs by the Replacements. Let's see if I can find anything.

Lola

After an aborted attempt a few weeks ago, I finally learned it tonight. I was telling Shian-Ren and Ru-Jun about Al Yankovic's "Yoda" version of this song and got the lyrics to both of them. It's a hard song, with three distinct parts that take me all over the fretboard the way the instrument is tuned and the way I do chords. I tried three different transpositions and settled on the middle one of those.

I love this TV version of the Kinks "Lola"

Here is "Yoda" by Al Yankovic

new learns

"Alsatian Cousin" - Morrissey
"The Gambler" - Kenny Rogers
"The Zoo" - Scorpions

The first and third are long time favorites of mine. The second is a classic song I grew up with and a lot of people know (easy to play too; even with the key change).

How it went

Antarctica - didn't play; was running short on time and confidence
Country Roads - went well; opened the set with it; a keeper
Last of the Famous IPs - good, need to slow it down though
Breakdown - good but short
American Girl - ditto; could have been sharper
Smoke on the Water - hard to do the guitar lick consistently while performing live; closed the set with it; may not actually be a keeper
Karma Chameleon - did not play; very underconfident about this one
Smells Like Teen Spirit - went pretty well, one of the highlights; got good response
Ghost Riders in the Sky - made some mistakes, hard to pull off without messing up lyrics
Roxanne - the other highlight of the set; people liked it
Free Bird - there was a request, but my mind was blanking, didn't attempt it

Gig went OK

The Megachild set went well. I'll miss playing with Pat and Rocio. Rocio's new band, which she is fronting, is pretty good. The TralfazWizard Experience set was OK but very rough around the edges. I'll have more to say about it in future posts.

gig tomorrow

The Tralfaz Wizard Experience gets off the ground tomorrow night opening for Megachild and Electric Platypus at the E&E retreat afterparty. The songs are ready give or take some lyrics I have a mental block issue with. The hardest thing will be getting used to the acoustic-electric, which has a much higher action. And playing it through the effects and amp. And playing and singing into a mic. Haven't done that before. OK, this will be pretty challenging. Hopefully I can still relax and have fun with the songs.

A half step too high

The third string on my new acoustic-electric ukulele just would not stay at Bb. I even tried changing to a wound metal string instead on a nylon one but the same thing happened. So I took all four strings down one half step. The string seems to hold OK there. I'm now playing all my songs a half step lower because of this change (I also made the change on my acoustic one at home). This actually impoves my ability to sing a few songs and doesn't seem to harm the others.

Simone - Thomas Dolby

Apparently Thomas Dolby had a new album out last year. I ran across this advance video and gave it my first listen. Jazzy, Latin rhythm, laid back. With the visuals, both rollicking and retro, as he is wont to be from the beginning. Very nice.

Destination Unknown - Missing Persons

Got really into Missing Persons in early 1989 in my last semester of college even though their main work was from the early part of that decade. This performance is a lip-sync of Destination Unknown for German TV.

Free Bird

Some fool will be calling for this Saturday night, so I went ahead and learned it. Pretty simple, but couldn't pick it up from just listening - it has a prominent D chord which makes it too low for my baritone uke, which only goes down to F. So I picked up the chords from a guitar tab site and transposed it down a bit so I'm not going way up on the neck to get that chord.

It's of course a tremendously boring song to listen to. Lynyrd Skynyrd has a bunch of much better songs, such as Gimme Three Steps and I Know a Little, to name just a couple.

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.