Ipe Odditry
This is something that people do a lot, and I was levied in my resistance by Norbiz tonight, by his example.
And also by sloth against finishing the next Assful chapter.
Ahem. What’s I on the Pod? It’s actually Winamp, on random, and it goes like:
English Beat — The ‘Ee-lump-bump’ song. And it goes like,
Ee-lump-bump,
In the holes in your heart,
Well, I wee-lump-bump,
And it tears me apart,
Well, I ee-lump-bump…
And I EE-lump-bump…
In your heart again,
Ah-wump-bump.
It’s such a good song I can’t believe it. The lyrics don’t do it justice.
Jerry’s Kids — ‘Vietnam Syndrome’
Boston hardcore. Also my favorite song, age 17.
Comsat Angels — The ‘Stay Tonight’ song.
Sort of deep into the root cellar of guitar-based UK New Wave.
Sibelius — a piece of the ‘Finlandia’
The bit that you hear in old cartoons when it’s morning and the sunbeams are spreading over the chirping birds. It’s in E Dorian mode or something — the intervals are the same as Television’s ‘Marquee Moon.’ You’d totally know this if you heard it.
[update: wait a minute – is this actually grieg’s ‘peer gynt?’ no, it totally is. it’s from peer gynt.]
Eddie Money — ‘I Think I’m in Love’
Not gonna explain or defend this one.
Skrewdriver — ‘Voice of Britain’
Um…
Echo and the Bunnymen — ‘Bedbugs & Ballyhoo’
I think Ray Manzarek plays keys on this. The chorus goes like,
Down on your knees again,
Saying ‘cheese’ again…
Which sort of also calls to mind that Steely Dan song. The one that goes,
Are you reeling in the yeast,
Stowing away the thyme,
Are you gathering up the cheese,
Have you had enough of mine?
There’s a very good solo in that one, but the best Steely Dan solo by far (by the very same hireling studio guy) is in their ’70s-LA Santana ‘Oye Como Va’ ripoff song. He plays one of those Vincent Bell signature model electric sitars (made by Coral; they all had those in the ’70s, or perhaps passed one well-used one back and forth [Mick Jones also got ahold of it for ‘Armagideon Time,’ for that ‘beer-beer-beer’ part], and it goes like:
Rack, Jack, do it again,
We’ll turn around, around,
Oh, crack, Jack, do it again…
Ok, one more.
Wipers — ‘Moon Rider’
Live track.
What’s on yours?
[addendum: if you should happen to download the jerry’s kids song…
i’ve seen a couple hundred punk bands in the years since, and what you have to realize with these guys, what i’ve certainly never seen since (leaving aside, possibly, a single bad brains show), was that they’d come out on stage, these skinny, normal-looking boston dudes, and the one guitarist would do that guitar intro — and this GIGANTIC EXPLOSION would hit the room — stunning volume with the entire band airborne and flailing, doing insane backflips from the amps — the audience throwing tables…just unbelievable, jaw-dropping, hyperactive, club-destroying violence with no respite, for like 20 solid minutes.
If you listen to the studio tracks you can imagine it. It was so loud your ears distorted, but you couldn’t even think about it from second to second because the bass player is jumping 20 feet off a lighting rig and the guitarist is skidding on his knees straight across the stage with the other guitarist leaping over him, and someone is throwing a beer keg across the room — and the first guitarist vaults off his giant amp and smacks headfirst on the stage with his legs up in the air, still playing, with the drummer screaming, inaudible, above the gargantuan roar, while the bassist swipes his bass neck at a guy in the audience who’s hurling full beer cans… no matter how many times you saw them, or how much you were like, ‘oh yeah, jerry’s kids. this’ll be a really great, fucked-up set tonight,’ they’d come on, and you’d be there with your mouth open like, ‘holy jeez.’]
[i played this for a good and deep adult, when i was 17, and she was like, ‘gah. they seem really angry.’ i was like, ‘mm. yeah.’]
Wow, I thought I got hosed by Blancmange on my list but you dug up the Comsat Angels.
(http://3bulls.blogspot.com/2005/06/pinko-punkos-friday-musical-audit.html).
The funniest lyrics a la your Steely Dan- my sister thought a little ditty by Simon and Garfunkel went like this:
“Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson/
She’s the slutty Mormon girl you know”
and a little party song by Ini Kamoze wen like this:
“Here come the hotstepper/
I’m the leprechaun dancer”
Oh no. But it really SOUNDS like that, right?
Asparagus,
In the material world…
Uh, not ‘Living on the Ceiling’ by Blancmange. That would be weird. It’s on my playlist.
The other Blancmange one. “Don’t Tell Me”-
the one that goes “I can’t get a grip on…”
Of course, the CLASSIC is
“Blinded by the light/
wrapped up like a douche/
in the middle of the night”
I think you might appreciate this Steely Dan conversation that came up the other day with my friend.
Pinko Punko said:
Clearly the most elitist liberal band in the whole universe is Steely Dan. They are so elite even their session players don’t get it. Some people have an aversion to them like fingernails on a blackboard, and that is just family. Yet even Tony Soprano sings along to “Dirty Work.” “I’m a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah”. Even The Random Randroid likes that song. In fact he’s pissed because now he can’t get that *ucker out of his head.
The Uncanny Canadian said…
I don’t want non-elitists to understand Steely Dan. It would suggest some breakdown in the educational system that they would get how awesome Steely Dan is. And fuck, do you think Donald Fagen gives a rat’s ass whether his whored-out session player knows why he’s playing an acid jazz rhumba?
But what’s so hard to understand about Steely Dan? Upper-middle-class New York Jews with a blues fetish and a Brill Building background graduate from Vassar and move to LA, hiring ace studio whizzes against a background of giant doobies and cocaine.
Like, what else would result?
One of the jokes at the start of the new season of Reno 911 was that the one lady became a Steely Dan groupie. They’ve done what, 1 tour ever?
They fuckin rock.
wait, i thought steely dan was just one guy…
Sweet Reno 911. Thing about that show is that you know in the outtakes, they have a million more awesome jokes improv-ed for exactly two people in the audience. If only it didn’t have so many commercials. I love the one where.., wait I love all of them. I love the part X (fill in whatever part of the show you want) and now we’ll giggle together thinking about it.
If you’ve got Jerry’s Kids floating around in that mix, you must have some Gang Green in there as well, right?
Yeah, the ‘Boston Not LA’ tracks. I never saw the original lineup though. What’s his name, the main guy, was playing 2nd guitar for Jerry’s Kids at that point.
Gavin, careful. Your street cred might take a beating if people like Norbizness found out you were praising the Coral electric sitar. After all, the Coral was used by Steve Howe on the Yes tracks Close to the Edge, Siberian Khatru, Awaken and a few others. *Gasp* it was used a by a prog-rocker. Oh the shame Gavin, the shame.
Seriously though, how did that Skrewdriver song end up in there? I loved it when their lead singer, Ian Stuart, was found out to be gay; the spectacle of seeing skinheads going in to total denial was fantastic.
The weirdest thing about the Coral sitar is that 85% of the times you hear one, it’s the same recycled riff. It’s the same riff that’s in that Paul Young song — ‘Wherever You Go,’ or whatever it’s called. Goes like, ‘deer-deer-deer-deeeer’ [Ab-A-B-lowE].
The new Line 6 guitars have a Coral sitar setting, and it sounds pretty good, but you just find yourself playing that deer-deer-deer-deeeer riff over and over again because there’s no other repertoire to draw upon….
Wait a minute, Ian Stuart was gay? I never got that memo.
Woohoo, that’s funny….
“Yeah, the ‘Boston Not LA’ tracks”
Was “Alcohol” one of those tracks? Talk about an anthem. What else can one say about a song containing the immortal line “I’d rather drink than fuck”?
The Dropkick Murphys did a cover of the song recently, but it can’t hold a candle to the original.
Oh wow, you gotta hear the original three-piece, super-crazed Gang Green stuff.
For MP3 search purposes, titles include ‘Lie Lie,’ ‘Snob,’ ‘I Don’t Know,’ ‘Narrow Mind’…
SKREWDRIVER?!?!?
A freakin’ skinhead band? There goes your Flaming Liberal credentials.
I do hafta tell ya though…one of the prettiest rock ballads I’ve ever heard was from the racist skinhead band RAHOWA. It’s a number called THE SNOW FELL and it sounds like a pretty salute to fallen soldiers until you realize that it’s about Nazis. Say what you will about Nazi scum…they definitely do cloying sentimentality well.
Well, one beautiful thing about MP3s is that you can get all the skinhead stuff you want, and no royalties go to the bad people.
Skrewdriver’s Tomorrow Belongs to Me (originally from Cabaret) is pretty inarguably a great cloyingly sentimental song….