Category: Music

Covering Your Big Black Butt

A couple weeks back, Nina Gordon’s cover of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton got promoted to my ‘Getting Things Done’ smart playlist.

I’m a sucker for a good genre-bending cover tune – Ever since Faith No More covered the Commodores’ Easy (still a classic in my book) and the Vandals’ cover of Summer Lovin’. Then there’s the Gourd’s cover of Gangsta Lean and Gin n Juice.

This evening, I heard Jonathan Coulton cover Baby Got Back. If you haven’t – heard anything by J.C. yet, this is the place to start. It’s a thing of beauty.

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Gentle Readers’ Hihoney Review

I picked up the (now defunct) Gentle Readers’ album Hihoney via Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles’ Stuff package. I’ve never been one to listen to an album all the way through. On the rare occassions that I have a CD, I rip it into iTunes and wait for the individual tracks to come up on random. When ‘Nothing You Can Do’ came up this afternoon, I stopped. If every song on the album is like this, I need to hear it. Right now.

As a whole, this is the perfect album for an early autumn day in the upper Midwest. Melancholy, comforting, catchy. Like when the sun is low in a blue sky, and that cool, light breeze through the bare trees means you really should have grabbed a scarf before you left. Just like NE Minneapolis right now.

I can see why Dave likes talking with Lee so much. Her smokey voice must be accompanied by strings and drums in regular conversation. (This comment makes no sense based on Dave’s comment below)

That being said, here’s the song-by-song run down.

  • Nothing You Can Do & Lunchhour
    Two nice honest, unpretentious, alt country tunes. Comfortable and timeless, like a more mature Be Good Tanyas or if Son Volt was fronted by a woman.
  • Last Day at the Office
    This is the theme song to Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles. I’m waiting for Dave break in with “Hello friends and neighbors”. Oh sure, it’s a nice enough song without Dave.
  • Difficult
    A few years back, a colleague of mine commented on turning 31, “I now know how to get what I want and people take me seriously”. This song is that comment put to music.
  • Sweetest Taboo
    My least favorite song on the album. I just don’t think it translated well to a recording. If I was at the Kitty Kat Bar sipping whiskey and the Gentle Readers played this song live, I’d declare it the best song of the set. This song needs a dark, melancholy, spacious atmosphere. The home office is none of these.
  • Center of the Universe & Turn Up the Sound
    These tracks remind me of early Edie Brickell or Natalie Merchant, songs that make you stop and let all those great, long forgotten memories flood over you.
  • California

    “the moral of the story is – there is no moral”

    Ouch. I did have one small sliver of hope left. No longer.

  • California Part 2
    I’m sure there are some happy, sunny songs titled ‘California’ in the world. This is the third in my library that isn’t. Like the others, it’s a catchy tune about loss and regret.
  • Separate & Friction
    Neither of these tracks did anything for me. They’re solid tunes with a decent beat, just feel like they’re missing the clever, honest writing that makes a song more than a solid tune with a decent beat.

Support independent musicians and podcasters, head over to Dave’s site and pick up the album. You’ll make his day and for that, he’ll throw in an EGC t-shirt.

Jonathan Coulton Spells Jonathan Coulton

I can’t believe I haven’t raved about Jonathan Coulton here yet. He’s been on heavy rotation since I stumbled across Ikea nearly a year ago. The honesty and bizarre humor of his song writing is matched with some of the catchiest guitar riffs.

Everytime I hear Skullcrusher Mountain I envision Skeletor serenading an increasingly uncomfortable She-Ra.

Screwed is one of those songs you play over and over again as you come to terms with doing something really, really stupid. Flip that sentiment around and you’ve got First of May and Laptop Like You. Both magical tunes for nothing-can-go-wrong days.

Ok, two more.

That Spells DNA – “D-N-A, baby that Spells D-N-A” still cracks me up.

Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance on the night life of NPR commentators. Brilliant. Just Brilliant – though I prefer the Terry Gross version.

Buy the way, after you give these songs a listen give Jonathan a few bucks. He’s trying to make a go of doing this as a day job.

In the early seasons of the Gilmore Girls, Grant Lee Philips played a strolling Troubador. Jonathan Coulton is a Troubador for the 21st Century.

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P2P is the Same as Used – What You Want Isn’t Always There

Inspired by We Jam Econo screening by MN Film Arts, I thought I’d blow out my fIREHOSE and Minutemen collection.

Now, I haven’t set foot in a cd store since I stopped doing secret shops for Cheapo Discs and buying CDs from Amazon seems like a step backwards. Today, I thought I’d check iTunes and mp3.com – nothing except “Flying the Flannel”. Not one of Watt’s better albums.

Nothing over in the torrents either.

Moments like this make me wonder where in the long tail I need to look for digital versions of late 80s punk.

This reminds me, Jen got into Lost a little late this season, and we’ve been trying to catch up before the new season starts. This experience has proved to me that unless bandwidth speeds dramatically increase tv and movie producers shouldn’t worry about “piracy”. According to our calculations, by the time we would have waited for the entire season to download, the DVDs were available in stores – for $40. I spent more than that just figuring out how to do it.

Now, I’m all for simultaneous release dates across multiple medias; TV, DVD, Theater, P2P networks, Netflix. Each distribution channel has their own strengths, weaknesses, costs, and benefits.

It all depends on what’s going to work best for the individual fan.

To entertainment producers: Personally, I prefer .mov in my backyard.

Like MTV, Radio Doesn’t Find Music Valuable

Long ago, broadcast radio gave up with introducing their audience to new music. I first became aware of it sometime during the summer of 1996 [1] , I’m sure the tipping point occured long before then.

Between Cumulus Media president/CEO Lew Dickey, Jr. promoting the talk radio proliferation on the FM dial, my conversation about Broadcast Radio and Podcasting with Noah Lamson, and the frequency of MTV actually showing a music videos, musicians are in a pickle.

Their traditional distributors aren’t interested in distributing music anymore – let alone new music.

This is unfortunate because I’m more reliant on and interested in new music in the past 6 months than the 6 years before.

[1] My first full-time job in UW-Stout’s tech department. The same radio station was on in the office throughout the day. Because radio listenership is measured by the quarter-hour, after an hour in the shop, you knew the playlist for the next hour – and every 15 minutes thereafter. A painful way to spent 8 hours in a college town

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My 7 Most Influential Albums

Inspired by Kottke’s list of favorite albums, I offer mine. After looking at the list, I’m surprised at the emerging pattern. Yes, this is roughly in chronological order.

  1. Anthrax – I am the Man
    Take 5 white guys, a simple beat, some dorky lyrics, and hit record. I ate up the DIY attitude and the playful self-parody (especially on the Extremely Def Ill Uncensored verion). This album is the reason I have to the urge to start every podcast with

    “We are recording tonight, I want to hear you singing it loud out there.”

  2. They Might Be Giants – Flood
    This was the first compact disc I purchased. After listening to repeatedly, I discovered you just need 2 white guys (not 5), a simple beat, and some dorky lyrics. Of all the albums on this list, this is one Jen and I can agree on.
  3. Rave ‘Til Dawn, Various
    Kottke reminded me how influential this album was for me. For all the same reasons he mentioned. Some how a dorky white kid living on a dirt road and 40 acres of woodland discovered techno music. It doesn’t matter that this album contains the worst of early 4-4 rave music. The first time I heard vocal loops manipulated to create rhythm I was astounded. Of course the voice is an instrument – how had I missed that before. This laid the groundwork for my love of Trans Am’s Futureworld and Add N to X’s On the Wires of Our Nerves.
  4. Too Much Joy – Son of Sam I Am
    The moment I heard their cover of LL Cool J’s “That’s a Lie”, I knew it was the beginning of a life-long, obsessive relationship. Tim Quirk’s lyrics are funny, timeless, and powerful, fully capturing the melancholy of growing up. The music is catchy, poppy, and comforting. In TMJ’s later track, “A Rap Like Mine” they admit;

    “We’re 4 white boys that grew up in the ‘burbs…”

    If The Vandals’ Fear of a Punk Planet ever grows up, it’ll be this album.

  5. All – Percolater
    An All show in Mankato, MN showed me that every song in the world is a love song. Even angry punk songs from 4 white guys with catchy beats and dorky lyrics.
  6. Panacea – Low Profile Darkness
    Sometime in the late 90s, I went to a drum and bass club in Hamburg, Germany. Imagine the back closet of the Star Wars Canteena surrounded by broken robots. That’s what I experienced there – this album was the closest duplicate I could find. Combine with Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash and Gibson’s Neuromancer for a dystopian, cyberpunk world more enveloping than BladeRunner.
  7. Brad Sucks – I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
    One white guy, simple catchy beats, and dorky lyrics. I completely ate up the DIY attitude and the playful self-parody, “one man band with no fans”. Brilliant.
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iTunes, Bringing Back Old Friends

Our CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes are still in the boxes we packed them in when we moved from Chicago 3 years ago. The other night, Jen and I were trying to figure out the lyrics to Kenny Rogers’ Gambler, so we dug out the boxes.

Most of the CDs in our collection went right back in the box. There were a handful I had fond memories of, yet they weren’t in my iTunes rotation.

In that list:

A good chunk of the tracks on these albums immediately landed in my ‘Getting Things Done’ Smart Playlist. I smiled each time I rated those songs – knowing they’ll be there, like an old friend, when I need them. Not something possible back when I originally purchased the CDs.

Lucero Survived the Culling of SXSW Showcase Music

I’ve got a smart iTunes playlist set up entitled ‘Getting Things Done’ – it holds my tried and true favorites, songs that are just the right combination of ‘covering background noise’ (lawn mowers and road construction) and ‘keep me motivated’.

Specifically, the list contains tracks I’ve rated greater than 2 stars that aren’t in my ‘Most Played’ list (play count > 18) and aren’t podcasts or audio books.

So it’s a nice mix of 118 songs. Right off the bat That Much Further West played from Lucero. A great tune by a band reminding of the best parts of Uncle Tupelo, the Replacements, and any number of long broken up indy country bands.

Lucero came to me via the SXSW 2005 Showcasing Artists download. That’s right 2.6+ gigs of indy music – and I’ve got 70 unplayed songs left. Lucero and 615 others stay, all the death metal – gone.


Other surviving SXSW Showcasing Artists:
Go Betty Go
Daphne Loves Derby
Richmond Fontaine
Melissa Ferrick
Hayes Carll
Linus Pauling Quartet
Rob McColley

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