I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll - Nick Lowe

[link] Don't know why I'm thinking of this just now except that Ru-Jun and I will be flying out to my brother's wedding in Cali in a few weeks.  This is a really fun wedding reception song.

Master of Crime - Colin James Hay

[link] This is a really great (but strange and awkward in a lot of ways) song off Hay's first solo album, which apparently did not sell well and has been out of print for a long time.  It definitely harks back lyrically and in other ways to the later Men at Work material. I loved M@W and a lot of the songs off this album (Looking for Jacks) and I listened to it a lot back in the late 80s. The bridge part really makes the song.  Haven't heard it in a very long time.  Great to find it on youtube.  Still sounds good.

Pump up the Jam - Technotronic

From 1989. This is from the rap house genre.  I went for the song in a big way.  The literal pumping of the drum machine line and the chord sequence really work.  I always thought the vocal was by a male, but it turns out is a woman (Manuela "Ya Kid K" Kamosi). These guys are from Belgium and this sound took over the dance floors of the world for a while.  This was always a money song when I was DJing.

Away - The Bolshoi

[link] Really great song. From 1987 (I think; it was also called A Way in some versions).  Trevor Tanner's vocal (and its production) are goth-pop.  The simple chord progression really sounds like it should be more complicated (I just learned it on the uke) but what makes it complex is the shifting bass line which hits unconventional on-root notes (this is a great technique of a lot of post-punk).  We have here most of the goth of say The Sisters of Mercy but in a cleaner, more poppy package.

Freedom of Choice - Devo

[link] Devo making a serious point about conformity but also with a great musical statement.  A deceptively simple chord structure underlies a driving bass line.  The intensity of the vocal burns above the whole thing, especially in the B part.  The chorus is simple and contains the take home message.  The instrumental brings a very beautiful high synth voice in.  These guys knew how to craft a message into the building blocks of pop/rock.  Great stuff.

inchworms

It's a pretty good year for (what I think are) spring cankerworm (Paleacrata vernata) inchworms.  Ru-Jun has collected some into a couple of containers and we have been feeding them leaves. One appears to have pupated.  Problem is I think they need to go through winter to emerge and the pupae are probably vulnerable to viruses.  But it's been really fun for Ru-Jun.

The Rhythm of the NIght - Corona

[link] This brings in a new dance subgenre: Eurocance/High NRG.  From 1993, this comes after the house stuff that I've been talking about.  The tempo is faster.  It's synth/sequencer driven.  Really really good, this one.  The big hook is everything.

Finally - CeCe Peniston

[link] This is one of the mixes of this song that falls under the Piano House subgenre.  I really like the organ progression that drive the B part,which is later picked up in piano. A nice complement to the strong vocal.  As a keyboardist it's really attractive to have songs that are driven by the keyboard chords, which the whole tempo is here.

Italo-House and Hip House

I listened to some examples of both of these genres today trying to figure out a difference.  From what I heard there isn't much of one, except for perhaps where the artists are from.  They both have piano and synth hook chords and both can have rap elements.  Both have diva singing (or samples) and sort of gender-neutral soul-ish vocals.  I like and dislike examples of both.  Italo- does seem more upbeat and anthemic, whereas Hip House tends to be more edgy.  But there seem to be huge overlaps.
Here is a Chicago Hip House mix

(Hip House is most associated with Chicago DJs in the late 80s)

Here is an Italo-House mix (also called Piano House)

Italo-house is associated with the producer Gianfranco Bortolotti

In these particular examples, the latter is more atmospheric and instrumental.  There are a lot of mixes on Youtube and they vary all over the place.

Everybody Everybody - Black Box

[link] Love this song, from 1990.  It was a staple in my 80s mix when I was an informal, amateur DJ. I'm not an expert on the genre, but the sub-genre that Black Box is described as is Italo-house or Italian.  The defining characteristic is the specific electric piano chords.  That sound, and the particular chords and chord progressions are really what make it.  Also, the tempo is slightly below the faster rave music of that same era.  Everybody Everybody has an infectiousness and accessibility that is really noticeable.  When it goes on, people dance.

The Sorceress Amy

[link] Finally got a decent recording of this (decent enough for now; I screwed up the ending). I've been working on playing standing up.  The strap I'm using is a Mobiusstrap.  Works really well.

Alison - Slowdive

[link] A more canonical shoegaze sound from these guys.  This way of making music defies the melodic convention, although there are usually melody elements present in the vocals.  The instrumental sound is sort of a color faucet that is pointed outward and manipulated.  The effects on the guitars and sustains and reverb in the other audio elements set up a background, which is then manipulated and sculpted by the performers. I think the narrative content of the music can be huge, such that the vocals themselves are often free to go abstract.  In the case of the Cocteau Twins, one of the founders of this sound, the vocals typically went into experimental and conceptual (if not sonic per se) spaces that musical composition usually reserves for the instruments.  The era of shoegaze was pretty short. But it never really ended, either.  There is still huge potential for the genre.

Crazy for You - Slowdive

From 1995. The dream pop side of shoe gaze.  The atmosphere almost goes into ambient, thanks to the samples and repetition.  Very dreamy.  Almost cold.  But also warm.  I like the miasma...

Drive, She Said - Stan Ridgeway

[link] Stan also fits in the New Wave idiom I discussed below.  His voice was made for storytelling - especially with a background of kitsch/Americana, which was a major focus of American New Wave (e.g. the B-52s, most famously).  He structures his songwriting and production around this storytelling aspect.

Interesting Dream

I often have interesting dreams but I seldom remember much. In the one I just woke up from, I was one of hundreds of workers being transported large distances by plane, train, and bus working on building a pipeline. We were going ever further south to eventually finish in Antarctica. We would hear the pipeline humming at each stop and I was tringvto figure out if the humming was getting higher as we got closer to the pipeline's source in the south. We were laying down plastic tubing or hose in an underground facility and one guy asked me if I could hear the D note of the humming. I replied that I don't have perfect pitch so I couldn't tell. At one point we got out of buses at night and we were trying to figure out where we were. It was warm and the stars were bright. We concluded we were in southern Africa. There were several buses of other crews there. I think we were supposed to have a meal there in a large cafeteria but I got separated from the group and missed the meal. The team I was in had men and women of various ages, none were known or recognizable people from real life. But in the dream I thought I recognized one or a few of them as character actors from movies or TV and I was going to talk to them about that. The person I was invthe dream had also played minor parts in a few movies. Toward the end when we were outside just before I lost the group i remember that I had put down a oair of fingerless gloves that were mine on the ground. A third glove was found, maybe by me, that was identical but I concluded that it wasn't mine.

World Party - The Waterboys

[link] From 1989.  I really like Mike Scott's vocals and the use of fiddle in these guys' songs.  Songs like this one and We Will Not Be Lovers are intense.  A lot of soul here.

Boheme - Deep Forest

[link] Listened to these guys (specifically this album, from 1995; this is the title track) a lot ca. 1996. They do a good job with most of the samples.  Extremely atmospheric, which is kind of the whole modus here.

Devo, the Talking Heads, and American new wave

At Ru-Jun's dance recital over the weekend, one of the classes danced to Whip It by Devo (in red futuristic dresses).  This is the only Devo song 99% of people know and it's a really good song.  It got me thinking what Devo actually did to music.  Like the Talking Heads, Devo had its roots in the punk movement of the mid-late 70s and many of their songs had rootsy origins (e.g. Working in a Coal Mine) (TH had more funk flavors).  Both of these bands stripped down those sounds and made them abstract, sometimes by adding synthesizers, other times by just going really minimalist.  Then stuff could be added back to expand the possibilities of the abstract essence.  Both bands did it with the rhythm section. TH did it predominantly with rhythm section, reflecting the funk essence, whereas Devo added a lot of synths on top of things (TH was no slouch at this either) and later got into more of the 80s synth pop sound (whereas TH ended up going toward what David Byrne eventually did solo with the Latin influences he got into).  I really like this about these bands' role in new wave: abstracting, finding the essence of the music, and using it to make a completely different, and often completely infectious, sound.

September Morn - Neil Diamond

[link] From 1979.  That year I ended up listening to a lot of AM radio, more than most years of my childhood.  I think this was due to car rides to the Pittsford YMCA for swimming lessons and swimming with my dad and brothers.  Anyway, this was one of the big hits of that year and it kind of grew on me.  I learned this on the uke a few months ago, then forgot it, then relearned it again tonight.  I hope I can keep it available in the set.  Should be fun to play live.

Piccadilly Palare - Morrissey

[link] Morrissey  has to be indulged  when it comes to the dark material, but this song is musically delightful with any words.  Bouncy and sing songy. The edginess doesn't overwhelm.  And he really knows how to build through the song and rally out of breaks.  The dynamics of the song parts are great.  Just a terrific song.

Brilliant Mind - Furniture

[link] This song was on the sountrack of the 1987 movie Some Kind of Wonderful, which was one of my favorites back in the day.  Hugely wonderful song, especially for the introvert.  Everything works here, the tempo, the progression, the rhythm track, the vocal.  It's a lonely, yearning, song.  I was there then.
Tonight I've been going through old poems from 10-20 years ago.  I really was tied up into myself just as this song makes me feel.  Kind of got stuck in the process of writing through myself, running rusty water out of a pipe to get to clean fresh water.  Anyway, this song does a supreme job of complementing my inner life back from the late 80s on.  Still does today...

Papua New Guinea - The Future Sound of London

[link] From the 1992 movie Cool World. One of several songs from the then current rave culture that is on the sound track.  I really like this one.  I've never gotten sick of the use of vocal samples like this one uses.  I'd love to mess around with this kind of recording myself, but have never had the time.

New song memorized

I have the new song memorized. I just need to practice it a lot to work it into the set. I also want to record a vid if it. Tough to get time for that these days. Being a musicuan is mostly for people with no parenting responsibilities.

Special One - Ultra Vivid Scene

[link] Kurt Ralske's work as Ultra Vivid Scene was one of the trenchant sounds for me in the early 90s.  Here, with Kim Deal of the Pixies (another one of the trenchant sounds).  The emotional range here is narrow.  But it gets at a laconicness I had at the time.  Life was simultaneously moving fast (school and some science) and not moving at all (personal life and other stuff in science).  I was lurking in the universe somewhere, like Kurt's voice, with stuff to say that was poetic but hard to decipher.  I didn't have any stories so I made up words that could be interpreted as a lot of different stories if anyone were looking.  No one ended up looking.

New Song

I wrote this on the piano in March 2010 as a song for Megachild.  I decided to dust it off to see if I could play it solo with the uke.

Here are the lyrics.

My Life as a Tree

Princess Amy
One day would be Queen
She learned the spell craft
Walking beneath the trees
From the wizard Tralfaz
The magic - it was good
It came from the Earth
The soil and the wood
Her father aging
The king - he was not well
The kingdoms borders
Were visited by beasts of hell
Evil dragons
Were hatching in the north
Diabolical mages
Cultivating the dragons' source

My life as a tree
Got as tall as I could be
We marched down to the sea
But then the axe men came for me

Amy was crowned
A full Sorcoress and the Queen
But Tralfaz had departed
For a universe unseen
Her high council
Was corrupted by piles of gold
And she knew there was evil
Building in the mountains cold
She knighted many
Brave fighters for her cause
She built her army
Still hoping to avoid a war
The demonic mages
Saw their time was short
So they unleashed the dragins
--- it was War ---

When the clouds had broken
And the sun came beaming through
The field was scattered
With dragon scales of every hue
Many knights had fallen
But the dragons were all dead
The mages that did not perish
Threw down their staves and fled
Amy's face was blood
As she looked out in victory
But the Queen's tears streamed down
Because she had lost all the trees

including me

My life as a tree
Got as tall as I could be
We marched down to the sea
But then the axe men came for me
The Princess planted me as a seed
She grew up beneath my leaves
She became the Good Witch Queen
But then the dragons got free
No time to say goodbye
I let some of my seeds fly
In a Princess's garden someday
They may fall from the sky
-

The Unforgettable Fire - U2

Among their mid 80s material, U2 had some wonderfully atmospheric songs. This is a great example. In fact the entire Unforgettable Fire album really is of a piece with this.  It often gets lost in the analysis between their early punk-influenced breakthrough hits and their world-dominating Joshua Tree and later days.  For me, this was their peak.  I don't need any of the stuff after this album.  It hit me at a very inward part of my existence.  My latest conclusions about that particular time in my life are pretty damning, but at least I had this music, which was great even though I didn't really know how to be an interactive human being at the time.

A sort of dream

I would like to perform somewhere as a street musician.  Or at least try it.  Preferably out here on the island somewhere, not in NYC.  I saw some advice online and one of the points was to stand up, not sit down.  That's a bit difficult, for long, with a uke without a strap, because with the ukes I have (except the banjo, which has a strap) I have to hold them up while playing them.  It's tiring.  So I'm looking into various ways to use straps and types of straps.  There are a couple of them that don't require installing buttons on the uke.  One called the uke leash holds the head stock and frees up the left hand.  I got one of these and tried it.  Not good.  Playing angle not good and it doesn't free me up enough.  There's another that I will probably try, called the mobius strap.  It wraps around the waist of the body.  Looks like it could do the trick.  We'll see...

White City - Thomas Dolby

[link] One of the classics off The Flat Earth.  Wasn't one of my favorites at first but has grown on me immensely over the years.  The lyrics are great.  The dialogue at the end (by Robyn Hitchcock) has stuck with me over the years.  Dolby at this time is a master of creating a personal landscape within a song - really great atmospherics.

Hold Me - Fleetwood Mac

From 1982.  This song was played interminably when it came out.  But I always liked it and it still isn't worn out with me.  I think the piano intro and the verse really do it.  Whispery yet somewhat complex vocal.  There really isn't much to the chorus.  Weird how some songs manage to sound good.

Shot by Both Sides - Magazine

From 1978.  These guys were part of new wave from the UK.  Definitely on the edgier and harder side, and there are strong flavors of what would soon emerge as the goth sound.  The late 70s had a miasma of undercurrents in pop/rock.  Always rich to re-explore them...

Nothing Compares 2U - Sinead O'Connor

Usually not a fan of down temp ballads.  But this one works thanks to the production.  Very nice layering and atmosphere.  And her vocal captures soul like a windmill in a storm.

Overall

I'm pretty happy with the Earthstock set.  The weather really kind of ruined it but I can't complain about that.  I had a good number of different songs from last year and given the conditions, my playing and singing went off OK.

The rest of the set

And here's the rest of the set:

Country Roads

Layla

Ring of Fire

Please Come to Boston

Blue-Footed Booby Blues

A few more

The wind is a problem in most of these but here they are:

Southern Cross

Country Roads

Layla

Some of the Earthstock set

Finally got some time to work with the video files.
Here are the first four songs of the Earthstock set:

After the Gold Rush

Folsom Prison Blues

Evangeline

Last of the Famous International Playboys

No stupid questions

On its face, I originally thought the question "why do organisms age and die?" to be kind of a no brainer.  Stuff breaks down.  But of course I now appreciate that this is a complex evolutionary and biological question and that "stuff breaks" is only one of many facets.  In the same vein, the question "why are kids so troublesome?" sounds similarly kind of dumb.  They are developing; they are not fully self-aware or able to control their compulsions, etc.  But as in aging, this is a complex question with likely several biological and evolutionary facets. 

Man Turned Inside Out & Sexi Luv - Devo

[link] Two pretty good songs from Devo's 1988 album Total Devo, which seems forgotten and got panned by some.  They sound a bit like Blancmange et al. here.  Sort of a different sound for them...

Laughing - R.E.M.

Pretty good live footage from 1982.  Their early stuff is by far their best stuff.  And this is one of the earliest and one of the best, IMHO.  I've thought a lot about their sound and what made it so fresh and great in its time.  The vocal had something to do with it, as did the guitar work and the songwriting.

time to play

Got some time to play outside on the deck this past weekend.  Always fun to do music outside.  With the uke especially.

Spring Rain - The Go-Betweens

[link] Always liked these guys.  Learned this song this evening.  Works pretty well with the baritone uke.  Lyrics are a bit klunky, but that's sort of the nature of the song and their sound.

This Charming Man - The Smiths

[link] Other than the screaming falsetto stuff, Morrissey is a vocal model/muse of mine.  This is one of the songs that sealed it for me.  The album The Smiths came out in 1984.  I discovered it in 1987 after I taped it from my bandmate Tom's LP collection.  Marr's classic jangly playing in this song really sets an atmosphere, especially with the changes and in combination with the bass line.

Firestarter - The Prodigy

[link] Possibly the most disturbing video I actually sort of liked.

Songs during childhood I needed to have

Frank Mills - Music Box Dancer

Billy Joel - Piano Man (B side of 45 was Root Beer Rag)

Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around - The Police

[link] Still one of the best outfits to have ever played music on this planet.  My favorite band through most of my formative period. I was telling a friend the other day that the most straightforward bands I've been in were trios.  Take three good musicians and you can really do something, make something new.

Still no time

to go thru the Earthstock video.  Crazy week at work and home.

Watching the Wheels - John Lennon

[link] I am not heavily directly influenced by the Beatles and I don't listen to them except when their songs are on the radio, commercials, etc. But I liked (and bought) John Lennon's 1980 album Double Fantasy.  This is my favorite song off that album.

End of the Party - The Beat

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwC30oQcJAA] (aka The English Beat in the US).  Great chords. Sensual singing. The chord changes here really cannot be worn out.  And the production/arrangement really gets everything out of them.  Chord changes are narrative devices and sometimes the whole song can be an evocation of its hook over and over again.

Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes) - Book of Love

[link] Absolutely love these guys.  Saw them live at Univ. Rochester in 1989.  Very electronic, of course (for the time).  But they have the progressions and the vocal is so low and sort of laconic.  Sets up a perfect atmosphere and attitude.

A wet set

The weather deteriorated after the late morning and it ended up being lightly drizzly and windy during my set.  But things still went OK.  I played for the full 30 min and got 9 songs in.  I'll see if the video turned out in the next couple of days and post vids.  10-20 people stuck it out and watched me in the rain.  I'm pretty happy with the way most of the songs turned out.

Weather looks good for tomorrow

Partly cloudy and mid 60s.  Should be good for the show.  I don't have anyone to run the video camera right now but I'm going to see if one of my undergraduates can.

Ring of Fire - Wall of Voodoo

Their cover of the Cash classic. Stan Ridgeway is a master of atmosphere.  This version really works for me.

Songs available for Friday

Folson Prison Blues (Cash)
Ring of Fire (Cash)
Southern Cross (CSN)
Thousands are Sailing (Pogues)
Country Roads (J. Denver)
On the Road Again (W. Nelson)
Evangeline (Icicle Works)
Leila (Clapton)
Last of the Famous Intl Playboys (Morrissey)
After the Gold Rush (N. Young)
New Years Day (U2)
My Little Stickleback (original)
Blue-Footed Booby Blues (original)
Roxanne (Police)
Please Come to Boston (D. Collins)
Unhappy Birthday (Smiths)
Here Come Cowboys (Psychedelic Furs)

Twilight Zone - Golden Earring

[link] Such a great song.  Pretty uptempo, great minor chord progressions in both verse and B part (beginning of chorus).  The guitar slide into the B part  really makes it. When Shian-Ren and I were in Leiden in 2002 we saw flyers up for these guys.  We weren't in town long enough to catch their show but I think it was in a small pub and was probably pretty great.

State of the Nation - New Order

A classic from 1986.  Heard it today in the lab listening to Soma FM's Underground 80s, which is truly excellent.  The vocal and low lead guitar are a high tension counterpart to each other and the always terrific New Order bass line.  The synth work and the strummed high rhythm guitar add the rest of the parts of the taut machine. High 80s dance pop par excellence.

Flier for Friday's gig

Sound Mirror - Clock DVA

[link] Clock DVA produced some of the more melodic stuff of the industrial genre.  In this one, the high synth line and the toned percussion line provide that. Not that it's that much, but it's there.

Wild Flower - the Cult

[link] One of the only arguably metal bands to get major airplay on US college radio in the late 80s and 90s.  Probably because they weren't hitting high in the rock charts in the US at the time ("alt-rock" had not yet broken into the mainstream rock of the time).  The Cult tended to use the same chord progression over and over, but they had a solid sound that was never boring.  This is one of their really good ones.

Fears to Remember - The Brothers Martin

Starflyer 59 led me to Joy Electric, which led to Dance House Children, which led to The Brothers Martin.  Now this is an excellent mid-tempo synth pop/dance song. Sort of a smoothing out of Depeche Mode with some more synthy elements thrown in.  Very nice.

No New Kinda Story - Starflyer 59

[link] Reading online about shoegaze led me to these guys.  I like the low-guitar/bass driven arrangement.  The light pulsing (synth or guitar) is a nice element as well.  Not in love with the orchestral elements, and the vocal is just OK.  But overall the atmosphere in this song is pretty good...

A Million Miles Away - the Plimsouls

A classic, very hard rocking new wave song from 1983. The verse builds a slow hook that leads into the multi hook of the verse. '83 was pretty close to the peak diversity of 80s pop.  A lot of great stuff was going on at the time...

Low Tide of the Night - Everything But the Girl

[link] I really like the housey stuff that this duo has done.  Very easy down tempo groove with the maudlin chords and amazing vocals of Tracey Thorn.  Some of the best atmosphere among music I heard in its time.

Set is shaping up

The set for my April 19 Earthstock performance is shaping up pretty well.  I definitely have 30 min worth of new songs, with most of them different from what I played last year.

Never as Good as the First Time - Sade

[link] I'm a huge fan of all the Sade classics. Coolness distilled.  This song has so much good stuff going on in both the top and bottom of the mix.  The breaks before the verses.  The vocal harmonies are extremely penetrating.  The bass and synth rhythm lines are really cutting.  But all within a very controlled and essentially single bass root groove (there are a couple of chords underneath the chorus, but still...).  Everything fits together perfectly in this song...

cool wizard hat for performing

Found this on eBay and just bought it.  Should be fun (hope it fits) to wear on stage.

Masquerade - Berlin

[link] I've always like this 1982 song. Perhaps captures a cliche about the Euro scene of the time (in both the band name overall and the song title), but it is a slice of the zeitgeist of the time.  And both the songwriting and the instrumentation are a tribute to early Euro synth pop/alt...

Linda Linda - Blue Heart

There is a lot to this, even if the song is really simple.

I would love

to be Dave Stewart to someone's Annie Lennox.

Modern Love is Automatic - A Flock of Seagulls

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFdyL63RiI]  Probably because of the hair, these guys got a lot more criticism than they deserved.  These guys were on the early vanguard of synth pop as it went global and into the top 40 lists.  Their songs are layered, moody, and atmospheric.  And they haven't lost anything in 30 years.

A Thousand Stars - Pale Saints

[link] One of the original 4AD bands that kicked off Shoegaze.  All about the atmosphere.  90s college radio was full of this sound.  Possibly the last truly formative time for me, musically...

Cosplay

It's one of the coolest phenomena in the universe.  It just makes me happy, even thought I don't know half of the movies/comics/manga/anime/video games these people are dressing up as.
I'm bummed that there was no I-Con this year.  I've only been once but I like being on campus when it's going on.  I was once an avid D&Der.  These are my people.

The Last of the Famous International Playboys - Morrissey

[link] This is a great great song.  Reflects Morrisseys apparent fascination with 1960s London gangster/club owners Reggie and Ronnie Crayne.  A two chord hook with M's epic lilt over the top - perfect.

Don't Wanna Fall In Love - Jane Child

I really like this 1990 hit. Really all about the chorus hook.

Turn to You - the Go-Gos

[link] They were great. The 80s were great precisely because acts with this kind of freshness were all over the place.

Winning the War - Til Tuesday

[link] One of my favorites of theirs.  Just really fantastic pop song writing.

Red Ball 1, 2, 3 (Vintage Sesame Street)

[link] I loved this on Sesame Street, although I think it was a different version.  In the end there was no little girl eating a sundae with the ball as a cherry.  Instead, it became powder.  The synthesized soundtrack (which is like the Moog album I listed to a lot as a kid) seemed to really go with the film, providing a sort of atmosphere for this highly abstracted setting.  Cool stuff.

Hit - The Sugarcubes

[link] One of the freshest sounds of the early 90s era.  These guys did so many things right, starting with Bjork's look, attitude, and amazing vocal style.  And the rhythm tracks were always rock solid.  Songs like this will never grow old...

Kiss on My List - Hall & Oates

From 1980.  Heard it on the radio in the car today.  It's supreme pop.  Terrific keyboards, bass line, and vocal harmonies.  It's sing song happy pop, but a really sophisticated version.  These guys have just a ton of really great pop songs.  They are masters.

Answers to Nothing - Midge Ure

[link] I really like the rhythm track to this song. Up-tempo and with the keyboards sets a really nice atmosphere.  The lyrics and vocal track are just OK, but as a composition it works really well.  The song got some good airplay on alternative stations in 1988 when it came out.  Seems to have aged pretty well.

Pepper - Butthole Surfers

An alt-rock classic from the 90s.  The chorus is a pop-rock hook.  Yeah, it's sort of about heroin.  So are a lot of things in rock...

Kidney Bingos - Wire

I love this song, although I have to idea what it's about.  Great chord progression in the guitar and really good sounding bass runs.  This live in-studio version is interesting.

set

Starting to think about my set for Earthstock in a few weeks.  So far: Evangeline, Layla, Thousands are Sailing, Southern Cross, Girl Like Jesus, Folson Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, New Years Day, After the Gold Rush.  The last two I have to work on memorizing...

The Toadlickers - Thomas Dolby

[link] Hadn't seen this before.  Dolby arrives about 30 years late at a (hopefully) fascination with rural Americana. Not much here.

867-5309/Jenny - Tommy Tutone

There's a reason why this song was such a huge hit.  It's the hooky chord progression, predominantly.  Everything else in the song serves it.  The lyrics are clear and tell a story everybody gets.  The B part is pretty good too, ending in the break back into the intro/progression and then the instrumental.  It all works.  Seamless pop.

The Chauffeur - Duran Duran

[link]  Probably came across as a bit of an outlier amongst their huge pop hits of the time.  But songs like this grow on you and bear the test of time.  A simultaneously atmospheric and joyously bouncy (once the rhythm kicks in) song.

Laughing Man - Red Rider

Great song off their 1981 "As Far As Siam" album.  Hooky little verse makes it.  Nice integration of keyboard and guitar sounds.  They were much more of a band in those days than a vehicle for Tom Cochrane's vocals, although that component has always been a crucial component of the band's sound.

what to use

On my FaceBook page, there's a bit of a discussion between R users and Python users about which is better, but neither of these groups does what I want to do: population genetic simulations.  So for the moment I'm sticking with BASIC and studying sorting protocols and seeing how fast they are on various sized arrays.

Money's Too Tight to Mention - Simply Red

[link] A classic of the 80s. Hadn't seen the video before.  I guess the setting is meant to be realistic; rough. Vocally, you pretty can't be more sort of quietly powerful than Mick Hucknall.  The A part is a great simple chord progression groove. I wonder if the whole social class thing is why the Brits have always understood and had the chops for real blues and soul.

first success in R

R is pretty opaque, looking at the code and all the argument names, from what I'm used to.  But I successfully input a starting data matrix for population genetic simulations (1000 individuals with genotype/phenotype data at two loci).  Baby steps...

R

In my insomina hour overnight I read a tutorial on R (programing language implementation of S++ statistical software), which all the kool kidz in my field are using now.  Looks like I can use it for population genetic simulations. I have always used BASIC, and still "think in" that language, and I never learned a compilable language (I took a Pascal course in college and have read part of a book on object oriented C but neither of those stuck with me).  R speeds up and simplifies a lot of array/matrix stuff (like sorting), that are key to the way I write individual based simulations.  If I get some time, I'll try to write the Converse Antagonistic Pleiotropy model simulations in R; it will be a good excuse to learn the language.

King in a Catholic Style - China Crisis

[from 1985] Was a bit into these guys back in the early 90s.  They have a unique, light sound but with some deep lyrical topics.  At least in America, they were alternative.  But still very poppy.

Miss Gradenko - The Police

One of the gems on the Synchronicity album. Chant-like and abstract; a distillation of a situation that allows the song to expand as sort of a mood, able to be the background of other, somehow similar stories.  Just a short thing, but really fascinating...

Til Tuesday - You Know the Rest

The 1985 album Voices Carry was an American pop classic.  The pity is that most people only know it from the smash hit title song.  But just about every other song is even more amazing than that one.  This song is just one.  I really like Aimee Mann's voice coupled with the synth oriented pop/rock backing that the band provided.  It's probably a bit of production, but I prefer this sound to Mann's later, more singer songwriter stuff.
The best part of this song is the rally back into the chorus after the quiet verse toward the end of the song.  Luscious.

Think I'm in Love - Eddie Money

[link] Eddie Money has had his problems and is lately into self-parody.  But his 1982 "No Control" album is really good; hard hitting hooky rock.  Especially this song and "Shakin'", the other single.

Copperhead Road - Steve Earle

I've always liked this song. Colorful, sad, paints a picture about rural life and social class. Always more complex than any politics can capture.

If I get a chance

to actually write an individual based model for the converse pleiotropy idea, I'll be programming in BASIC like I always have.  I never really learned another language.  20 years ago, one would have needed to learn a compilable language to have any hope of running bulk simulations with realistic parameters (e.g. population sizes in the thousands or higher).  But in recent years with PCs getting faster and faster, this is much less of an issue.  I really love BASIC.  It's intuitive to me and the simple programming methods are all straightforward.  Except that I don't know a fast sorting algorithm, which would be really useful for population genetic models involving selection.

Our Song - Yes

A hidden gem on an iconic rock album of the 80s. Yes, probably moreso than Rush and Genesis (whose popular stuff was not as proggy), introduced progressive rock ideas into the mainstream of pop, at least briefly with this album.  I don't think this has been replicated since.

Nowhere Girl - B-Movie

From1980. An early and truly excellent specimen of synth pop. I didn't discover this until recent years, listening to Flashback Alternatives and, lately, Soma FM's station Underground 80s, which is also excellent.

On Our Own - Bobby Brown

This was the main theme for the 1989 movie Ghostbusters II. Watched (most of) this on cable this afternoon.  It's not a bad movie song.  It's hooky.  The movie didn't do as well as the first one, but there is no way it could have.  It relied on many of the gags that were used in the first movie.  But it hasn't aged too badly, mostly because all of the actors are there and we don't see them too much these days.

A model

I've been moving closer to being able to model the converse pleiotopy idea using an individual based simulation.  Since the question is interwoven with the evolution of parental care, I'll probably model that first, and then impose a phenotype of the offspring that "uses up" the investment by the parent.  I should be able to use a two gene model.  One gene will control parental care.  The other gene will control the offspring phenotype, which will be a twofold, pleiotropic phenotype, one will be adult fitness and the other will be the juvenile fitness cost of the parent to rear it.

Stone Cold - Rainbow

From 1982.  This was the end of the album rock radio era in Rochester, NY where I grew up.  Ritchie Blackmoor and Ronnie James Dio have and had top hard rock/heavy metal credentials but songs like this (which is in the same subgenre as Foreigner, who was king at this time) have huge pop instincts.  The hard rock elements are reined in and the pop formula is served.  The B part even has a funk feel (Chicago was also huge at this time).  The early 80s were a time of hybridization and overlap among genres in rock.  The chord progression in the chorus is really nice. There was certainly a lot of pursuit of the hit and subjugation of creativity, but I think the successes are still very listenable.  And the pop formulae are distilled and therefore easier to decipher.