Just for fun (before diving back into work), a random random 10.
1. "You Don't Know What Love Is" - Sonny Rollins
2. "I Hate the Way You Love" - The Kills
3. "Rondón I" - Ensemble Músíca Fícta
4. "Minha Mulher" - Caetano Veloso
5. "Blue Train" - John Coltrane
6. "No Surprises" - Radiohead
7. "Bend Over Beethoven" - !!!
8. "Our Pasts, Like Lighthouses" - Rock Plaza Central
9. "Óskabörn Pjódarinnar" - Sigur Rós
10. "Surprise Ice" - Kings of Convenience
I hadn't done one of these in a long time, so now seemed as good a time as any.
1. "I Can't Get Started" - Charlie Parker
2. "Cheree" - Suicide
3. "Hold On, Hold On" - Neko Case
4. "Do The Rump" - The Black Keys
5. "Armanar (The Pole Star)" - Muhammad Dammou
6. "Cabocla Jurema/Ponto de Janaina" - Maria Bethânia
7. "Is This It" - The Strokes
8. "The Big Green Serpent" - Miles Davis
9. "Viva a Nau Caterineta!" - Anonymous
10. "Toul al Zeenah [The Length of the Bride's Ornament]" - Omar Souleyman
Since I don't have anything better to be doing at work right now, I thought I'd do a good old-fashioned random 10.
1. "Quente" - Lobao
2. "Todo Cais e uma Saudade de Pedra os Argonautas" - Maria Bethania
3. "Fly Drive" - Michael Nyman
4. "Outsmarted" - The Hives
5. "Hub" - Autechre
6. "Yusef's Mood" - Yusef Lateef
7. "Tired" - LCD Soundsystem
8. "Reunion 2" - Aphex Twin
9. "Bird Calls" - Charles Mingus
10. "The Rain Don't Fall On Me" - Blind Willie Johnson
1. "I Got to Cross the River of Jordan" - Blind Willie McTell
2. "Get Away" - Big Bill Broonzy
3. "Damn Redskins" - Peter LaFarge
4. "Infinite Spirit" - Albert Ayler
5. "Flores" - Titas
6. "Horses In My Dreams" - PJ Harvey
7. Matthaus-Passion: Ach, Golgotha - Johann Sebastian Bach
8. "Blame it on the Tetons" - Modest Mouse
9. "The Very Thought of You" - Billie Holiday
10. "Sad Hours" - Little Walter
For those wondering, the seventh song's title translates as "Catechism, Toothpaste and Me." It's off Ze's debut album from 1968, right in the heart of the Tropicalia movement, and it really is a great (if unknown compared to Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, or Gal Costa) example of the multicultural questions it raises both musically and lyrically (in this case, the title implies the mixing of Brazilian culture with the image of modernism promoted by the U.S.). If you haven't heard any Tom Ze, find ANY and give it a chance.
1. "Long Walk Home" - Bruce Springsteen
2. Petrushka - "The Jovial Merchant with 2 Gypsy Girls" - Igor Stravinsky
3. "Feio" - Miles Davis
4. "Best Foot Forward" - DJ Shadow
5. "Three Women Blues" - Blind Willie McTell
6. "Fixin' to Die Blues" - Bukka White
7. "Catecismo, Creme Dental e Eu" - Tom Ze
8. "Lazy Line Painter Jane" - Belle & Sebastian
9. "1000 BPM" - Beck
10. "Snowstorm" - Galaxie 500
I love the little amusing shuffles you get with music sometimes. This week, I'll simply note my bemusement at the fact that Sonic Youth was followed by one of their two namesakes, Big Youth (Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5 providing the other half).
1. Music for 18 Musicians - Section 1 - Steve Reich
2. "Raisans" - Dinosaur Jr.
3. "The Shepherd" - Culture
4. "Statesboro Blues" - Blind Willie McTell
5. "Androgynous Mind" - Sonic Youth
6. "Ten Against One" - Big Youth
7. "Polygyne" - Efterklang
8. "Girl Is On My Mind" - Black Keys
9. "Not What You Want" - Sleater-Kinney
10. "Gota de Sangue" - Maria Bethania
Haven't done one of these in awhile. Not much to say about the selection this week (due to writing that damn paper), save for this - I'm not a big reggae fan, but The Congos may have the best reggae album ever.
1. "Contrabajisimo" - Astor Piazzolla
2. "Can't Come In" - The Congos
3. Bacchiana Brasileira No. 2 for Chamber Orchestra - Heitor Villa-Lobos
4. "Jinrikisha" - Joe Henderson
5. "Percolator" - Stereolab
6. "Neverending Math Equation" - Sun Kil Moon
7. "Japanese Sleepers" - Fiery Furnaces
8. Satyagraha, Act II (Tagore), Scene 1 - Philip Glass
9. "A Ra" - Gal Costa
10. "Ogunde" - John Coltrane
Lots of people rip on bossa nova as music to play at dinner parties for middle-class forty-somethings, and of course, Jobim is directly tied to this. But the album "Urubu," where Boto comes from, is radically different from "The Girl from Ipanema," as Boto (the album-opener) immediately indicates. Instead of the traditional bossa nova sound, we get a birimbau, a one-stringed instrument used in capoeira, followed by whistles common to samba parades and unsettled instrumentation from there (and throughout the rest of the album). Tired of the bossa nova sound himself in the early 70s, Jobim decided to record more "out-there" material, incorporating other Brazilian instruments that weren't so closely tied to bossa nova into his music. Many fans turned on Jobim for Urubu and Matita Pere (another album he released around this time) because of his refusal to just crank out another set of "Ipanema"-style songs. However, while I enjoy bossa nova, I think Urubu is probably Jobim's best album, and well worth checking out, particularly if you aren't a fan of bossa nova. It just shows how deep Jobim's often-underrated compositional talent ran.
1. "Boto" - Antonio Carlos Jobim
2. "Here She Comes Now" - Galaxie 500
3. "The Magnolia Triangle" - Yusef Lateef
4. "Caminhante Noturno" - Os Mutantes
5. "Plastic" - Portishead
6. "Memorize Your Lines" - Sleater-Kinney
7. "My Heartbeat's Dying" - The Raveonettes
8. "Dry Well Blues" - Charley Patton
9. "Folha Morta" - Maria Bethania
10. "La Despedida" - Manu Chao
I absolutely love the film "The Squid and the Whale" - right now, it's in strong contention as one of the best movies of the decade the way I see it. For all the great things in it, from performances (Daniels' and Linney's in particular were really overlooked in the awards that year) and writing, what really sealed the deal for me was the use of "Street Hassle" at the end. I realize how ridiculous that may seem, but I love that song, and to see it included in any movie, much less one I already had loved up to the final moments was just a wonderful surprise. It's just such a simple yet great song, and it perfectly hit the mood of the closing of the film for me. And if you haven't seen The Squid and the Whale, do yourself the favor of renting it.
1. "Street Hassle" - Lou Reed
2. "I've Seen It All" - Bjork
3. "Oh Yeah" - Daft Punk
4. "Toda Cor" - Titas
5. "Justice Is Might" - Sonic Youth
6. "Instrumental Montage: The Tango/Circus Girl" - Tom Waits & Crystal Gale
7. "After the Locust" - John Cale
8. "Read the Book That Wrote Itself" - Liars
9. "Tha" - Aphex Twin
10. Music in 12 Parts - Part 3 - Philip Glass
It's been awhile, but I'm going to revive my random 10 here. It's purely for selfish motivations - I enjoyed doing it, plain and simple. I may not do it every Friday, and I'll probably only offer comments on random songs when I'm so inclined, but there you have it.
(And a quick comment: "The Freed Pig" is one of the best singles of the 1990s. The Sebadoh original is great, and Kim Deal's sped-up version makes it even edgier. Just great, great rock, 90s or otherwise, both versions).
1. "I'll Believe in Anything" - Wolf Parade
2. "New Orleans Joys" - Jelly Roll Morton
3. "Knock Knock" - The Hives
4. "Pabellon de Las Rosas (Vals)" - Juan D'Arienzo & Su Orquestra Tipica
5. "Freed Pig" - Breeders
6. "Yonder Stands the Sinner" - Neil Young
7. "I Missed the Point" - Neko Case
8. "After Hours" - Velvet Underground
9. "Long Divison" - Death Cab for Cutie
10. "French Tickler" - Sonic Youth
Everybody talks about Beck's Sea Change as his "breakup album" (David Fricke even called it "Beck's Blood on the Tracks"). That's fine and all - it is an album written about breakups, in the wake of Beck's splitting from his then-fiancee. But all the typecasting what kind of album ignores what a great album it is. The emotion behind the songs is so simple yet heartfelt, be it the resigned suffering on "Guess I'm Doing Fine," or the statement on "Lost Cause" that he's "Tired of fighting, fighting for a lost cause," and just about every other song on Sea Change. Beck often gets more credit for his sound and mixing of elements than his lyrical skills, and sometimes that's fair (explaining what "Got a devil's haircut in my mind" isn't nearly as stupid as, say, an "intelligent" look at the Insane Clown Posse, but it's not exactly lyrical genius, either). But more often than not, his lyrics are saying more than he gets credit for, and Sea Change is definitely an excellent example of that (as well as arguably his best album).
1. Siegfried - Act II: Willkommen, Sigfried! - Richard Wagner
2. Symphony No. 2 (The Peak of the Sacred) - Fourth Movement (Sacred Field) Glenn Branca
3. "Untitled" - Panda Bear
4. "Horses In My Dreams" - PJ Harvey
5. "Making the Nature Scene" - Sonic Youth
6. "Im Gluck" - Neu!
7. "Guess I'm Doing Fine" - Beck
8. Octandre - Ili Grave - Anime et Jubilatoire - Edgard Varese
9. "Why Did You Give Me Your Love?" - Jimmie Rodgers
10. "Falling Rain" - Big Bill Broonzy
Roland Kirk is another one of those amazing jazz musicians who seems all but forgotten today. Kirk, blind from a very young age, was technically remarkable, creating his own horns and often able to play more than one horn at the same time. It wasn't some gimmick, though, like Kenny G holding one note for forever - Kirk could flat out play. He moves from swing to dixie to bop to free jazz effortlessly from album to album, and even from song to song. Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith, the album "Stompin' Grounds" comes from, is a minor masterpiece, with Kirk exploring nearly all styles of jazz. This isn't some hokey, tribute-type album - the music is genuinely great, and Kirk is natural in all settings. It's not my favorite of his, but it's close. His death at 41 in 1977 is as big a shame, if not a bigger loss, than Coltrane's early death, and even after his stroke in 1976, he showed no sign of creative loss. Kirk is definitely one of the 20th century's greatest jazz artists, and deserves much more credit than he gets.
1. "Pastorinhas" - Noel Rosa (with Silvio Caldas)
2. "Address" - Rashied Ali
3. "Lies" - The Black Keys
4. "Hear My Train A Comin' [Electric]" - Jimi Hendrix
5. "Despedida do Amor" - Musica Folclorica do Norte e Nordeste do Brasil
6. "Desculpe, Babe" - Os Mutantes
7. "Stompin' Grounds" - Rahsaan Roland Kirk
8. "There's No Fucking Rules, Dude" - !!!
9. "Ventolin (Video Version)" - Aphex Twin
10. "Shining Light" - Neil Young
For all the love Lou Reed (generally deservedly) gets for his lyrics, I feel that, at his best moments, John Cale at worst matches and often is a better wordsmith than Reed. "Guts," off Cale's 1975 album Slow Dazzle, is a great example of this. It probably has my favorite opening lines of any song ever: "The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife. Did it quick, then split." The song's title comes from the fact that somebody (presumably the narrator) killed the guy, leaving him and his guts "all over the living room floor Like parrot shit, parrot spit, parrot shit was shot." Cale remains as cool as a cucumber throughout the cinematic portrayal of the events (the shotgun "operatic in its self disgust), until the end, when he realizes what's happened, becoming more frantic with the realizations that "the waster and the wasted get to look the same in the end." To match it all, his backing band is as rocking and dark as the lyrical content. It's just a great, great song on a great album.
1. "Shimenawa" - Bjork
2. "In a Silent Way (rehearsal)" - Miles Davis
3. "Defeito 3: Politicar" - Tom Ze
4. "Alone for a Long Time" - Charles Caldwell
5. "Stay Sweet" - Young People
6. "Untitled" - Panda Bear
7. "Guts" - John Cale
8. "Untitled 2" - Sigur Ros
9. "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" - Bob Dylan
10. "I Cover the Waterfront" - Billie Holiday
"Alphabet Pony" is off the Kills' new album, Midnight Boom. I loved the Kills' raw, sexual primitivism on their previous two albums, but wondered how long they could make it last. They still have a raw sexiness that is all too rare in rock today on the new album, but they really branch out their sound, and singer W's voice has definitely gained more emotion (including a mournful cooing on "Black Balloon," and a really fun list of declarations of what different things used to be on "What New York Used to Be"). Alphabet Pony is a concise, rowdy rocker more in step with the first two albums (Keep on Your Mean Side, and No Wow), but it doesn't sound redundant, and is just one highlight from an album that's top-notch and fun from top to bottom. Midnight Boom is definitely my early leader for "album of 2008," and I highly, highly recommend it (and their other 2 albums, if you haven't heard them).
1. "Carro de Boi" - Milton Nascimento
2. "Wasted State of Mind" - ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
3. "Etude IV" - Philip Glass
4. "Impressions" - John Coltrane
5. "What It Means" - Mates of State
6. "Pressure Zone" - Beck
7. "Alphabet Pony" - The Kills
8. "Schunkel" - Mouse on Mars
9. Symphony No. 4 in F. Minor, Op. 36 - II. Andantino in modo di canzona - Peter Tchaikovsky
10. "Guilty" - The Bad Plus
There's little more to say about Beethoven, so I'll comment on something different this week. When I got my iPod in 2006, I did so not out of any love of modern technology, but because it was going to be easier to take my 1000+ CDs to Brazil on an iPod than to take all the CDs (or to decide which albums were worthy of going). When I got the thing (or rather, the day after I got it), reports started coming out questioning their durability. I commented to my wife (then girlfriend), "well, I don't care if it doesn't last 20 years - I just need it to last while I'm in Brazil.
I got back from Brazil last Thursday. On Friday, it started freaking out (as did my laptop - must be some technological dengue or something). It's functioning normally now, but only after I had to wipe the whole thing clean. While re-ripping everything and putting it back on the iPod is already tedious, I can't complain - it lasted as it was exactly until I got back from Brazil. Hooray technology.
1. "Corta Jaca" - Abel Ferreira
2. "Last Ap Roach" - Squarepusher
3. "Mutiny, I Promise You" - The New Pornographers
4. "Talkn' Trash" - Betty Davis
5. "Now Now" - St. Vincent
6. "Riot" - Miles Davis
7. "Sonata #8 In C Minor, Op. 13, "Pathetique" - 1. Grave, Allegro Di Molto E Con Brio" - Ludwig van Beethoven
8. "Belo Horizonte" - Noel Rosa
9. "Oriente" - Gilberto Gil
10. "Foundation #2" - William Parker
You don't need much imagination to figure out what "Banana in Your Fruit Basket," an old blues song, is about, but if you haven't figured it out yet, it's from the excellent album Raunchy Business - Hot Nuts & Lollypops . The album does a great job of chronicling one of the most forgotten-about and lost aspects of the blues - sheer playful vulgarity. Few of the artists on this album are well known today (Lonnie Johnson is the most "famous"), but their performances are all top-notch. Some of the songs use metaphors, like this week's seventh song or Lil Johnson's "Get'Em from the Peanut Man," while others, such as "Shave'Em Dry" by Lucille Bogan, "Wipe It Off" by Lonnie Johnson, or "If It Don't Fit (Don't Force It)" by Barrel House Annie, are....less than subtle. However vulgar the titles seem, though, the songs are always incredibly clever with wordplay, and have a playfulness about them that, while not the norm, wasn't uncommon to blues in the 1920s and 1930s.
1. "Birds of Paradise" - The Pretenders
2. "PDA" - Interpol
3. Requiem, KV 626 - "Sanctus" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
4. "Dollars and Cents" - Radiohead
5. "Thrills" - LCD Soundsystem
6. "Kissing the Lipless" - The Shins
7. "Banana In Your Fruit Basket" - Bo Carter
8. "Butter" - A Tribe Called Quest
9. "Swordsmen" - Genius/GZA
10. "My Melody" - Eric B & Rakim
Roscoe Mitchell is another one of those jazz greats who should be better known. He excels at improvisation on the sax (and occasionally flute), and, by drawing on modern classical music, his own works have a uniqueness that you don’t find in the improvisations of Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane (not that those two are any worse for it). His work from the late-60s and 70s is wonderful, his material from the 90s and into the 2000s continue to be excellent and exhilarating (the 80s are a little hit or miss), and his debut, Sound, is one of my favorite jazz albums.
1. “Rukrym” – Sigur Rös
2. “Radioactive Eskimo” – Peter LaFarge
3. “Grooveallegiance” – Funkadelic
4. “Machine Gun (Second Take” – Peter Brotzmann
5. “Glory Box” – Portishead
6. “Knowledge God” – Raekwon
7. “Ornette” – Roscoe Mitchell
8. “Saar” – Helena Tulve
9. “My Stove’s In Good Condition” – Lil Johnson
10. “Paris Is Burning” – St. Vincent
Ah, Lou...as much praise as he gets for his work with VU and for Transformer, I think Coney Island Baby is his best solo album. While I like a lot of his albums, I don't think there's a single one (including Berlin, which I think is the tightest concept album ever, as well as the most depressing album ever) that is as consistently great from start to finish, and shows a level of emotion that Reed albums hadn't really shown up to that point, and didn't always show beyond that point. It's really one of the more overlooked albums of the 1970s.
1. "Bad Moon Rising" - Creedence Clearwater Revival
2. "Rettic AC" - Autechre
3. "Louisiana Bound" - Ishmon Bracey & Charley Taylor
4. "Mushroom" - Can
5. "The First Time I Met the Blues" - Little Brother Montgomery
6. "Beatles a Granel" - Tom Zé
7. "She's My Best Friend" - Lou Reed
8. "(Honey) It's Tight Like That" - Tampa Red
9. "Folha Morta" - Maria Bethânia
10. "Lopsided" - At the Drive-In
I really know very little about American Folk music, and only got into John Jacob Niles because of Scorcese's documentary on Bob Dylan. In discussing the early influences on Dylan as he was moving to New York City, Niles comes up, and they show about 10 seconds of him singing "Go 'Way from My Window." With Niles' otherworldly falsetto, it is simply one of the more haunting things I'd heard, and that's how I got into more of his music. His songs range from playful to political to personal, and, in true folk fashion, often sang standards, but his voice always made the traditional songs completely new.
1. "Don't Go Back to Rockville" - R.E.M.
2. "The Letter" - P.J. Harvey
3. "It's Me" - Dinosaur Jr.
4. "Hunting for Witches" - Bloc Party
5. "Broken Train" - Beck
6. "Ghost Bitch" - Sonic Youth
7. "American Street, Field and Jail House Cries" - John Jacob Niles
8. "Untitled" - Akron/Family
9. "I Surrender, Dear" - Thelonious Monk
10. "Coisa No. 10" - Moacir Santos
I'm not quite sure what's left to say about Creedence. It seems to me like they don't get mentioned as much as they should by music journalists and "hipsters," which is a shame, but they're still far from underrated. Fogerty was a force of nature, and I'm not quite sure how he still keeps his voice going like that even now. "Travelin' Band" isn't my favorite of theirs, but it's really hard to go wrong with any Creedence (excepting the other members' songs on the final Creedence album).
1. "Marquinhos Cabeção" - MV Bill
2. "Heavy Denim" - Stereolab
3. "Senor F" - Os Mutantes
4. "Sometimes" - My Bloody Valentine
5. "Get a Shot of the Refrigerator" - Stereolab
6. "Segundo Sol" - Cássia Eller
7. "Travelin' Band" - Creedence Clearwater Revival
8. Sonata No. 8 in C Minor - "Pathetique" - 3. Rondo (Allegro) - Ludwig Van Beethoven
9. "Samba do Gringo Paulista" - Suba
10. "Free at Last" - Antony & the Johnsons
