Pye in the Face

If you’ve never heard this song, yet recognize it immediately upon watching the video, there’s a very good reason. You’ve probably seen several little candy-coated chocolate treats dancing around while it plays in the background. That’s right, it’s the M&M song that everyone seems to like - yet no one has any clue who sings. I’m here today to help. And to eat a shitload of M&Ms.

If the current incarnation of the The The website is any indication, I think that Matt Johnson would rather be remembered for his political opinions and contributions than his music at this point. Why buy a The The record when you can get a George Bush countdown keychain, afterall? Sad. At one time, however, his music was a glorious thing. I saw the band once in 1990 on the Mind Bomb tour at the Orpheum in Boston when Johnny Marr was briefly part of the lineup. I saw them again at the Middle East in 1999 when they toured in support of NakedSelf. Hopefully I may even see them again some day if good old Matt can tear himself away from battling the evil Torys for five minutes.

This is the Day is off the band’s second album, Soul Mining, which is one of the great new wave albums, comprehensively. Giant, Uncertain Smile (the band’s best known song), The Sinking Feeling, The Twilight Hour - are all amazing songs and I still listen to them all the time. So forget the silly candy tie-ins and annoying moonbat leanings and enjoy the music. If I can do it, anyone can.

In between their 1989 debut Pod and 1993’s uber-successful Last Splash the Breeders quietly released the lovely Safari EP. I remember my sister bought the CD single and along with the title track there was a Who cover, the pretty “Do you Love me Now?” and my favorite - the very dark “Don’t Call Home“. One of the best short plays I’ve ever heard in terms of the quality of both the singles and the b-sides. Until someone asks me to stop, or I’m led away in shackles, I am going to offer up MP3s of Wadio subjects from here on out. They are often very difficult to find or unavailable on iTunes or Amazon. For your listening pleasure, and I mean that, here is Safari for y’all to right click and download. Send flowers and money.

I thought of the band last night when I read that they had a new album, Mountain Battles, coming out in a week and decided to make them the subject of this week’s Wadio. As I searched for an accompanying video I discovered, unbeknownst to me, that they’d actually made a video for Safari, and here it is…

It reminds me of one of Black Sabbath’s vids and that was probably the whole point. The band plays in front of a primitive green screen backdrop with literal translations of the lyrics flashing past. Gorillas, hippos, palm trees - but what is the song really talking about? Lion-peeping? Originally it could have been easily explained as one of Toni Iommi’s hallucinations. Please allow an explication attempt, and there isn’t a lot to work with:

He didn’t cry on a safari
In over his knees
He couldn’t leave a finer life
Always hugging the ground
And crying out for me
He didn’t cry on a safari
In over his knees
He couldn’t leave the flock, he couldn’t leave
always hugging the man
and crying out for me

I’ve got very little. He didn’t cry yet he’s crying out. He couldn’t leave the finer life, yet there he is on the Safari. Did he even go in the first place? Maybe next time take Kim Deal to Africa with you, buddy. I know I would. Also, is a safari the best thing do right after a tough breakup? Probably not. Do what everyone else does - save some money, get drunk on Schlitz and then call her at 2 in the morning. If nothing else I’ve learned that when singing along in the future I needn’t enthusiastically include the F-word. He simply couldn’t leave the “flock”. My Breeders bad.

I was hoping that after the Pixies reunion of 2004/2005 we’d see the Breeders resurrected as well. The new album will be their first in 6 years and will also mark their 20th anniversary. Kim and Kelley Deal (OK - Kim) turned this spinoff into a once hugely successful band. ‘Cannonball‘ proved more popular a single than anything the Pixes or Frank Black ever released. I still hear it nearly every time I leave the house. I hope that Mountain Battles fares well and earns Kim some new fans while pleasing those existing. As the ‘first lady’ of alt-rock there are high expectations. I must say - I already love the title. Is it going to be a Hatfield / McCoy concept album wrought with banjos? Will they change their name to The Inbreeders? I live in hope.

“Svn Fngrs, seven songs, seven moments of brilliance. The true return of PixieFrank that the last album promised to be.” - Brian Johnston.

No, thank you - I didn’t mean to type “Frank Black”. Black Francis, Charles Thompson’s pre-Frank persona from the Pixies is back. Back, black and most certainly bitchin’. His new EP is called SVN FNGRS and I literally cannot stop playing it. I’m going to start forwarding Mr. Thompson all of the speeding tickets I’m liable to amass during my fixation with his latest master work - as they’re sure to be most numerable.

“He seems to have effortlessly spat out a really hip, really funky collection of tracks that, while only loosely adhering to the notion of a coherent album, forge an instant connection and then hang around to develop a lasting friendship. It’s hard to stay mad at you, Black Francis.” - Tom Slater

The session which spawned this surprise gem of a mini-LP was supposed to see Charles recording a couple of B-Sides for another record already in the can. Ever the prolific songwriter, 7 songs ended up on the tapes and Cooking Vinyl thankfully decided the 6-day effort was worthy of it’s own release.

“He’s a quirky genius with a distinctive style, and Svn Fngrs is a glimpse into the sideshow circus of his mind – simultaneously fun and disturbing, and as compelling as a couple arguing about their sex-lives in a crowded restaurant.” - Paul Raven

I was pleased to discover an official video for the lead single, I Sent Away, readily available on YouTube and here it is for your enjoyment. I am far more excited about Garbage Heap and The Seus but this song is still solid and comprehensively the EP makes me very happy. I’m sure my favorite song will change back and forth SVN times before my infatuation phase is over.

I absolutely love the speedy three chord progression that kicks off right away on I Sent Away and the harmonica at the end is just as grimy and wonderful. Edited and fimed by his wife the video is lively and manic - a far cry from Frank Black’s countryish albums of the last 4 years and more akin to the recent BlueFinger. But what really makes this release that of Black Francis as opposed to his alter-ego Mr. Black? It’s a little grittier, a little screamier, a little more Boston 1986 than Memphis 2002. A little bit of SlimFast and a dab of eyeliner. It’s a startling mid-career reinvention for the kidlings but a welcome return to form for the thirty-somethings. Thanks, Blackie F - and I hope you’ve sent a copy of this to Joey, Kim and David. It might get them thinking.

Earth-Shattering Update:

Live version of Garbage Heap.

About 5 years ago, WFNX polled the city of Boston and asked them what their favorite home cooked Beantown rock song was. Now that is a tough question (italics used for dramatic effect), but the people rose to the occasion and voted “All Going Out Together” by Big Dipper as their undisputed #1. Think about that for a second, because Boston’s bred indy bands like the Pixies, Throwing Muses, Mission of Burma, etc. and being chosen as the top song EVAH is testament to the band’s legacy within the town of beans. My friends and I have been listening to the Dipper since high school, we know some of them personally and one of us is even acting as a roadie at their reunion show at the Middle East on April 26th. I’m playing with the idea of flying down for this as I’d most certainly be backstage and most certainly be the happiest kid on the planet and possibly even the Milky Way.

I’ve seen a lot of bands play at the Middle East over the years - Breeders, The The, Jonathan Richman, Grooveasaurus, Gord Downie, Luna - and it’s a wonderful location to see a show. It was an even better location when my friend Adam worked the bar there and used to slide me Harpoons and get me gooned just for showing up. My point is, what a great choice for the Big Dipper Reunion. I like the Paradise and everything, where it was first rumored to be happening, but my preference is that slice of Heaven in Central Square. And not (there’s that emphasis again) spending an hour on the Green Line to the wilderness of BU and Comm Ave.

There’s a band of questionable repute called Built to Spill who released a popular song called “Big Dipper” a few years back, and boy do I ever wish they’d chosen a different name for the tune. It’s all you ever see online when running searches for my beloved Boston band. I did manage to find one proper video, for “Faith Healer“, and two live clips from a show at the Ritz in New York City circa 1987 - “Younger Bums” and “Lunar Module” which are both off the same album as “All Going Out…” so we’ll go with those.

If you remotely enjoyed the video then check out the MP3 for the vastly superior ditty She’s Fetching (hosted by Merge Records and fully downloadable by right-clicking) which is definitely in my Dipper top 3. She’s also got the skankiest little guitar riff you’ve ever heard. “Fetching” is still part of my vocabulary today as a direct result of listening to this song on the Sony Sport boombox I had plugged into the cigarette lighter in my ‘78 Chevy Malibu station wagon driving around Concord at 16 years of age. Blaupunkt eat your heart out.

Their catalog has been unreleased and heavily sought after for years, but Heavens, Boo Boo, Craps and are finally being re-released. They are also heavily promoting the 48 track greatest hits/anthology, Supercluster, via a MySpace profile and other online viral means. I was happy to see my very favorite Dipper song, Ron Klaus Wrecked his House, available to add to your profile and I have just done so. Click here to grab Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology from Amazon.

I have also uploaded the MP3 to my server as a special gift for you today - and I implore you to download it and see what you think. It’s a great song with gritty indy guitars, crashing drums, a complex baseline and a vocal harmony which is probably still hurts Gary Waleik’s throat 20 years on. If the style and theme of this song doesn’t remind you of college while also impressing you with its catchiness, then you probably never went to college. Or graduated high school, for that matter. For the love of God and all that is holy, listen to your old pal Dave, get your GED and do yourself a favor: Ron Klaus Wrecked his House. Glad to have you back, boys.

It’s hard to believe this song only reached #55 on Billboard’s 100 when it debuted in 1970. Especially since it was up against such classics as “I Think I Love You” by the Partridge Family and “Everything is Beautiful” by Ray Stevens. Oh well, we can appreciate it fully in retrospect. My favorite element is the one note guitar solo which you can see in this video at 2:07 and again at 3:00.

We wouldn’t see the one-note solo reach such great heights again until Joey Santiago brought it back in the late 80’s - but that was because he didn’t know how to play the guitar. So what exactly was Neil’s excuse? My first guess would be - drugs - but there are many theories as to the inspiration and genesis of the song. Here are a few I gathered together:

• Young has never said who the Cinnamon Girl is. He prefers to leave lyric interpretations to the listener.
• This song got Young in trouble with his wife. He had to explain that the Cinnamon Girl was just a person he came across while touring.
• The liner notes in “Decade” say he wrote this song about a girl he saw walking down the street playing finger cymbals.
• There was a music club in the 60’s called Cinnamon Cinder. It was featured in an Time magazine article about teenage nightclubs in the early 60’s. It has always seemed obvious to me that it was about the girls that would hang out at that club.
• I think that the real “Cinnamon Girl” was a young, attractive Native American, Latina or Pacific Islander woman with dark tan (read: more or less cinnamon-colored) skin and long black hair.
• This song was known to be a song for Pamela Courson… also known as Pam Morrison. I know this because I read it in a book about the Doors.
• Neil was rated as one of the ten best lead guitarists in a recent magazine and it listed this song as THE essential Neil solo. That had to be a joke, because this solo is the same note played over and over.
• Neil Young had a very high fever when he wrote this song and just picked up his guitar and wrote a song. He talks about it on an episode of Conan O’ Brien its not a very big secret.

What? No space aliens were involved? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cinnamon Girl, anyone? Didn’t think so. This song rocks, grooves, bashes and batters its way through to the end, and even if you don’t consider yourself a classic rock fan, watching the video is worth it just to see where the Coen Brothers got their inspiration for Anton Chigurh’s haircut.

“Has the backlash started yet?” - YouTube Commenter

I may ultimately regret writing about Vampire Weekend for two reasons: 1) They are being championed by MTV and that just reeks of impending doom, disaster and uncoolness. 2) Their video for A-Punk is very, very OK Go-ish. That having been said, I am currently spinning the heck out of their debut album for three reasons:

1. They fully understand and appreciate the genius of Ray Davies.
2. They have a keyboardist. Love the keyboards.
3. They are proof that bloggers can occasionally help break a decent new band as opposed to just constantly deifying the mundane.

I’ll leave it there as I’m still a little skeptical. Cool song and I give them full credit for daring unimaginative people to tell them their name is appropriate because they ’suck’. Beggar’s Banquest must have a lot of faith for ’staking’ them. I blame the puppy-related sleep deprivation.

“Mellow… That’s my styyyyyle“.

A friend and I were taking a long drive on Monday with my iPod a’ crankin’. I have an 80 gig model, and putting it on shuffle is like staring into the abyss. You might get Pixies, but then again you might get Jerky Boys. Luckily, we got “Routine” by Urban Dance Squad and a full fledged retro appreciation phase quickly emerged. I knew I had to give Rudeboy Remington and UDS some love on the Wadio this week and I’ve been spinning them a lot in the 3 days since.

Deeper Shade of Soul broke onto the soon to be named alt-rock scene in 1990 and the Dutch band quickly became a hit on half pipes everywhere. The record label’s marketing department immediately jumped all over this demographic as this video will attest - but it’s still a good clip for a great song. UDS was pioneering the mid-90’s rap/rock tragedy from far across the sea when Fred Durst was still getting beaten up in a high school parking lot somewhere.

“Fast Lane” and “No Kid” were the follow up singles from Mental Floss for the Globe, and soon after they released Life ‘n’ Perspectives Of A Genuine Crossover which is my favorite. Solid full length albums are a rare thing, and this record is packed with gems like “Routine”, “For the Plasters”, “Careless” and others. This record didn’t do nearly as well, due in large to their choice of a first single “Bureaucrat Of Flaccostreet”. It’s a very cool tune with some (at the time) revolutionary inclusion of East Indian instruments a’ la George Harrison, but many of the others would have been much easier for the general public to digest. It was also released only a few months after Mental Floss, which was originally recorded in 1989, so that probably caused some confusion and flooding. If you like UDS, and have never heard this record, drop everything and get your hands on a copy.

The band performed at the 2006 editions of the Dutch Lowlands festival and Pukkelpop in Belgium, as well as at the Antwerp music club Petrol. According to what I’ve found it is unlikely that this will lead to a permanent reunion or a new studio album, as these performances were only to support their compilation album Urban Dance Squad: The Singles Collection in 2006. I’m encouraging you to dig in the crates a little bit today, kids. UDS was a great moment in time and a very rare example of, um, Holland having a huge influence on American popular culture. I am quite sure, at one point or another, you too did it all for the nookie.

“God damn them all! I was told, we’d cruise the seas for American gold
We’d fire no guns! Shed no tears!
But I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett’s Privateers”

- Stan Rogers’ Barrett’s Privateers

Jonothan Richman came to Guelph in 1994 and I went to see him at the almighty Albion hotel for what ended up being one of my favorite concerts of all time. The chap who opened up for him, and I wish I could remember his name, did a jaw-dropping acapella version of Stan Roger’s Barrett’s Privateers that will stay with me forever. This incredible song grabbed me by the short and curlies right away, and after hearing it in the car the other day on one of my Dad’s CDs I knew I had to write about it. Every version of this song is acapella, actually, as that is how Rogers intended it, and here is a very grainy video of him singing it around a kitchen table from a documentary entitled One Warm Line which you can watch in its entirety by clicking the link.

Rogers was killed in an airliner fire on June 2, 1983 when he was exactly my age, 34 years young. There are unsubstantiated claims that he made it off of the Air Canada flight on the ground in Cincinnati but succumbed to smoke inhalation after going back in to rescue other passengers. Like that story, Rogers’ music immediately gets under your skin and if you’re Canadian the subject matter - primarily ye olde maritime sailing culture based - is uniquely of this country and stands to provide a wonderful history lesson. I had no idea, for example, that there was such a thing as a Canadian pirate which is a loose way to describe Privateers. But I’m not going to regurgitate everything I’ve just read. You won’t find a better explication of the song and the history behind it than Dan Conlin’s:

“There was no Elcid Barrett. There was no Antelope sloop and there wasn’t even a town of Sherbrooke in the year of 1778. Stan Rogers basically made up an imaginary privateer to carry a 60s anti-war theme in a traditional folk setting. Having said all that, many of the details, ranging from the type of cannons mentioned to the letter of marque reference, are very authentic.”

Back in the golden years of sailing, once you were on a ship you were on a ship, and as part of the crew you were doomed to follow orders and obey regardless of how you felt about missions that were called on the go - lest you walked the plank or spent the rest of the long voyage eating rats in the hold. And many ‘conscripts’ were downright lied to about their intended purpose. Barrett’s Privateers tells the story of a naive young Nova Scotian who boarded a ship under the promise they would fly under a legal English charter (letter of marque) and inconvenience the burgeoning American navy by by stealing cargo. But Barrett had other ideas, and the song goes on to describe the mental anguish felt by the ‘broken’ protagonist when he finally makes it back to his Halifax pier.

The song is available for purchase on Amazon, and I encourage anyone who owns an album by the Decemberists to check out the late, great Stan Rogers in greater detail. There is also a Facebook petition devoted to getting Stan a star on the Canadian walk of fame and it’s good to see I’m not the only “younger” Canuck spreading the word about this great musician and his ongoing influence.

Not surprisingly my podunk internet has been down for 4 days, so pardon my absence and Happy new Year to you all. I am digging out from a massive backlog of work, so brevity will be my friend today on Wadio. King of California is a solid movie I watched New Years Eve with my cat whilst drinking green tea starring Michael Douglas as a bi-polar mental patient who is released perhaps a little too soon. He moves back in with his teenage daughter and begins looking for a buried treasure he discovered the clues to whilst reading a Spanish missionary’s journal in the hospital library. The movie is about their relationship and its many strains more so than a National Treasure-type booty hunt, and Douglas’ ‘Charlie’ is a sad character that you will want desperately to believe. But does the treasure actually exist, or is this another mental episode? The DVD will be out in a few months.

As the closing credits began to roll, and I sat laughing at the film’s one final twist involving “naked Chinamen” as Charlie likes to call them, a wonderful song I’d never heard before began to play and I looked it up this morning as soon as my web access corrected itself. It’s a little-known B-side by Wilco entitled “California Stars” and has already been added to my desktop’s “songs I want to learn to play on the guitar” text file of chords. Here is a live version from a few years ago, and I hope you enjoy it.

I felt is was high time to devote some wadio writing to the almighty Moz who has been keeping me in excellent music since I first discovered the Smiths while listening to Chris Shepherd’s old Saturday night radio show on CFNY in 1987. Sadly, I started listening to the seminal Manchester band only a year before their demise, and as such never got to see them live, but Morrissey went on to put out an amazing solo catalog - and at 48 years of age there is no end in site. I saw him solo at Great Woods during the Kill Uncle tour in 1990, and caught his Smiths’ co-writer Johnny Marr play with The The at the Orpheum in 1991 - it was the best I could do as a postmortem and not a shabby accomplishment as both shows were phenomenal. I’ll have to give Matt Johnson similar attention here soon.

Due to the depth of his solo work it was a hard choice to choose one song to focus on and the final decision came down to what had a good showing on YouTube. I originally wanted to cover “The Loop” which is a noteworthy B-side that he plays regularly in concert, but the cell phone snippets I found certainly wouldn’t win over any new fans from my readership. I tried my luck with “Why Don’t You Find Out for Yourself” but had a similar problem. It would have been easy enough to use one of his many proper music videos I suppose, but none of the singles are personal favorites. Except maybe this one. I eventually found a decent live capture of “Jack the Ripper” from a recent L.A. show and we’re gonna run with it.

I first heard this song on the World of Morrissey CD which was a mix of mid-nineties singles and B-sides. It got hours of playtime during my residence in Mills Hall and it instantly reminded me of those days the moment I heard it today. Due to the title, it’s not very hard to explicate the lyrics. The protagonist seems to be Jack the Ripper himself, and he seems to feel sorry for the women of the night he encounters. Until he vivisects them, of course.

Oh, you look so tired… Mouth slack and wide.
Ill-housed and ill-advised.
Your face is as mean as your life has been.

Jack goes on to tell the prostitute in question that he wants her… and is definitely gonna get her. Unfortunately for the 18 (+/-) actual Whitechapel murder victims of 1888, Jack wasn’t just talking about getting his German helmet waxed. But let’s not let that get in the way of enjoying this soaring tune and it’s almost funky rhythm. It’s definitely a dark ditty, but it still manages to be quite catchy in spite of the subject matter. If you’re not familiar with Morrissey this is less than the tip of the iceberg, and if you are JTR is a gem you’ve likely overlooked thus far.

“Cindy tells me she’s had fun sitting backstage, someone’s plus one. Up in her room the records spin, needle in the grooves that she’s worn thin. She lifts a sleeve and sees a name, and she’s got a smile on her face, and she’s got a story you can’t see: it’s just between that name and Cindy“.

I wrote about Okkervil River’s 2005 masterpiece ‘For Real‘ about a year ago and I have to give them the floor once again. Their latest album is called The Stage Names and it’s solid from beginning to end. The song that really jumped out at me, which I’ve sent to all my friends - that I listen to daily, that I’ve learned to play on the guitar, that I’m currently obsessed with - is ‘A Girl in Port‘. I found an excellent live video version which I’ll post below, but I also encourage you to download the MP3 here (free) as it took me a few listens to fully appreciate and is a definite keeper.

The song is a sort of ode to rock and roll groupies and each verse sees the protagonist describing his relationship with a different member of someone’s road harem. But the harem isn’t his - rather Will Sheff’s lyrics seem to bemoan the emotional states of Marie, Holly and Cindy more than anything. The narrator distances himself from from “the lady-killing sort” and stresses that he has no desire to “hurt a girl in port”. The way I see it, he is secretly in love with the three girls, but is either in the “friend zone” or romantically invisible to these doomed women who have nothing but rock stars in their sights. It’s a touching piece of work with a great, erratically appearing chorus which doesn’t follow the structure of most tunes. I love it, have a listen.

I’m not trying to be obscure. I’m not trying to be retro, kitschy or cool. This song made it onto my iPod courtesy of the Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels soundtrack and it’s been haunting me in my car for a few weeks now. Guy Ritchie effectively took a page out of Scorsese’s book with his uncanny ability to dig up obscure old music and give it new life at the movies. After you get over the shock that the first part of this Castaways classic is actually being sung by a man you’re in for an ethereal masterpiece of ‘Garage‘ rock - a genre of which bands like The White Stripes and Hives are direct descendants.

I’m pretty sure that the song is firmly lodged into my subconscious because it was a favorite of The Pill DJ at the night’s various locations around Boston. When it was held every Friday at the Upstairs Lounge in North Station my friends and I were frequent and loyal attendees. What a delightful little moment in Beantown nightlife that was. Sigh.

The song reached #12 on the Billboard 100 in 1965 and made the band the epitome of a one hit wonder. They still exist with one original member intact, and in addition to Liar Liar they’ve apparently added ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ to their repertoire and are available for weddings and bar mitzvahs throughout greater Minnesota. You can legally download a full MP3 version of Liar Liar from the Castaways’ website, and if you like what you see in the video make sure that you do - as the compressed audio really doesn’t do this remarkable little song justice. Please listen and enjoy.

I made it to Beantown in one piece this evening and enjoyed Buffalo chicken sandwiches and Harpoon IPA with Moynihan, Joanna and my sister at Bukowski’s in Inman Square. As we drove back to Janet’s place in Medford, “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” crackled through on the always reliable WERS and we had a jolly good time singing along. Collectively, ladies included, we knew about 80% of the lyrics by heart and it was a nice little trip down memory lane for the lot of us. Not exactly the most patriotic of tunes on the eve of my induction into American citizenship, but to the best of my knowledge Bushwick Bill never recorded a version of “Ballad of the Green Berets”.

Blatantly copied from somewhere because I have to go to sleep:  “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” was the only number 1 single ever released by the Geto Boys. It was featured on their 1991 album We Can’t Be Stopped. Bushwick Bill (a.k.a. Dr. Wolfgang Von Bushwickin the Barbarian Mother Funky Stay High Dollar Billstir) continued on with other records with both a solo career, and later updated records with The Geto Boys. It is the most successful Geto Boys single ever based on its gold certification. [1] Not so oddly, it is on the most successful Geto Boys album based on its platinum certification. “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” heavily samples Isaac Hayes’s song “Hung Up On My Baby” (1974) from the Tough Guys soundtrack.

“Mind Playing Tricks on Me” was rated number 18 in the 100 Greatest Rap Songs by About.com. The Kottonmouth Kings remixed the song for their album Hidden Stash II under the same name. “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” has been referenced by Prodigy, of Mobb Deep fame, in his single, Mac 10 Handle, and by The Clipse, in the song “Nightmares” of their third album, “Hell Hath No Fury.” The Notorious B.I.G. references “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” and sings the guitar line from the song’s chorus in his hit “One More Chance.” In the song “She Lives In My Lap” off the highly successful 2003 OutKast album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Andre 3000 samples Scarface’s vocals from Mind’s Playing Tricks On Me.

Reactions to my first music video have certainly run the gamut: “”The gong at the end? Comedy genius”. or my personal favorite “There’s Citizen Kane, there’s Battleship Potemkin and then there’s this”. Regardless, Lucy in the Car with David is a special moment in time. The sort of moment you may spend a lot of time trying to block from your memory for a few days after having watched it. So for goodness sake - make sure your volume is up.

Recorded in Newport Rhode Island roughly two weeks ago while left to my own devices in the parking lot of a liquor store, I think it’s fitting that unadulterated genius was hatched thusly. It’s not the Cavern Club, it’s not Big Pink, it’s the back seat of an Audi Quattro. But it’s undoubtedly a little slice of musical heaven. As it’s Halloween, I dedicate this to Joplin, Cobain, Lennon, Orbison, Hoon, Curtis, Harrison, Dimebag Darryl and anyone else who’d likely spin in their grave given the opportunity to hear LITCWD. No need to thank me for the exercise.

No animals were harmed in the making of this film. Unless you count Kingman and Henry who were inside buying enough liquor to sicken the crew of a pirate ship.

In a word, wow. I was so, so ready for a new Radiohead album. It’s been at least 3 years since the last one which I could never really get into. Upon first listen of In Rainbows at 2 o’clock this morning, however, I knew I was in the room with something very special. If you haven’t already heard, read this article about how the band has made the album available only as a download, and that they ask fans to pay them what they think it is worth. You can enter in $20, $10 - I know one cheeky bastard who entered $0 - and then you’re taken to the download page. Nobody knew they were even recording a new album, let alone releasing it in such an innovative and original way until just a few days ago. Amazing story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbXrdOwDlGc

“Nude” was the first song I heard off the new album a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve included a live version of incredible quality in this post. I use the word “spooky” quite a bit in my Wadio posts, and this one is going to be no exception. Maybe I just dig spooky music. It begins with a spooky baseline and rimshot combination as Thom Yorke’s eerie, distant vocals creep in and a guitar starts to pick away in time. It grabbed me from the first 10 seconds I heard it and has so many subtle and sophisticated chord changes that it’s not going to get old anytime soon. By the time the second guitar comes in and starts playing chords the volume has increased significantly and I’ll be goddamned if you’re not seriously digging it. Have a look and a listen:

After a day of spins, we can say this is the record we wanted them to make - or at least, it’s the middle-of-the-record we wanted them to make; everything from “Nude” through “Reckoner” is warm, organic, and instant classic. Less paranoid - or focused on paranoia - than recent past. - StereoGum

Friend and PITF denizen, Taz, sent me an excited email from Munich after I wrote to him last night to find out what he thought. Always one for a creative and thoughtful response, he did not disappoint:

“Loving ‘In Rainbows’… basically a masterpiece… simply not one bum note… 3 years in the making… and the perfection shows… to be honest on first listen to the splintery fractured guitar-fueled plaintive Yorke vocal hysteria at the end of ‘Bodysnatchers’ I knew I was in for something special… Hail to the Download Thieves! A magnificent addition to the rock pantheon.”

If you’d like the MP3 for the song, Nude, if my remote woodland satellite internet connection ever stabilizes I am going to offer it here for download for a few days as I want to get the word out and spread a little love. And because the album version gets me so excited that I want to stuff a large, slimy piece of salted pork down the front of my camoflage shorts. Hey, whatever floats your boat, right? Soak it all in and if you want the entire record you can pay for it - whatever amount you want - and then download it from the In Rainbows website. Music website StereoGum has a very active thread where fans are sounding off in large about what they think of the album. Yes, I was so ready for this.

69 Love Songs

“It makes you blind, it does you in
It makes you think you’re pretty tough
It makes you prone to crime and sin
It makes you say things off the cuff”

The Magnetic Fields are definitely in my top 10 list of all time favorite bands, and considering my fanatical obsession with music - that’s no small feat. I’m sure Stephen Merritt is reading this right now and crossing himself in relief. It’s hard to encapsulate the Fields, or any of Merritt’s many incarnations for that matter, in one song - so I decided not to try. Love is Like a Bottle of Gin is a favorite of mine, but due to it’s slow tempo and short length a record company executive would definitely never choose it as the first track to play the uninitiated. Luckily I don’t think the Magnetic Fields have ever made a proper music video, so I was happy to settle for this fan-made clip that sets the gloomy and brilliant tune to scenes from the Britcom Black Books. I’m not entirely sure why, but beggars…

“It’s very small and made of glass
and grossly over-advertised
It turns a genius into an ass
and makes a fool think he is wise”

The man behind the Fields and several other bands (the Gothic Archies, the 6ths, etc.) is an absolute musical genius. In addition to his prolific output under multiple band names, he has also scored all of the massively popular Lemony Snicket audio books and movies, released the astounding 69 Love Songs (from which this song is taken) a 3 CD collection of tunes he and the Fields-of-the-moment wrote and recorded in one studio session back in 1999 and is as revered in the deep alternative scene as you can get. I’ll provide some links towards the end of the post where you can branch out and learn more for yourselves, and I sincerely hope you do. You may remember the incredibly catchy song from the Southern Comfort ads of a few years ago. The old folks dance around to it, assumably while getting cocked on the only adult libation which still makes me gag due to one particular night of early-teens indiscretion. Strange Powers is as good a place to start as any and I might have featured it had it been up on YouTube.

“It could make you regret your birth
or turn cartwheels in your best suit
It costs a lot more than it’s worth
and yet there is no substitute”

LILABOG, however, is an incredible song in its own right. From the unique time signature, to the distorted and spooky guitar sound to the lyrics’ uncanny ability to draw parallels between how love can make you act just as stupid as downing too much strong, cheap liquor. I think learning these words should be part of gym class or sex ed in high school as it covers a lot of important bases simultaneously. Namely - stay away from both entities until you are much, much more cynical and jaded.

69 Love Songs

“…this excellent little 7″ is just about the best thing Frank Black has released in the last decade.” www.boomkat.com

All the Threshold Apprehension reviews I read this morning, while mulling what I myself would throw down, said that the song is a “return to form” and very reminiscent of Frank’s work with the Pixies. Yes, he recorded his latest album under the moniker Black Francis as opposed to Frank Black. And yes, he utilizes his amazing screaming capabilities at a level not seen since Bailey’s Walk. Is this Charles Thompson’s version of a mid-life crisis, perhaps? He is 41 this year. Is dusting off the old nom de plume and wailing like a banshee akin to pulling into the driveway in a 2007 Mustang when the wife thinks you’ve been saving for a mini-van?

Threshold Apprehension, although released as a single, doesn’t have a traditional video to accompany it. I’ve posted a crazy live version below, and you should also check out this fan-made accompaniment if you want to hear what the studio version sounds like. I’d recommend that so you can share my sheer joy 57 seconds into the song when the single strum becomes a double and the tune all of a sudden makes me want to punch my accelerator. The part where he describes drinking Grand Marnier, snortin’ speed and then “doing 185 on the new Ring Road” doesn’t help either.

If you combine 80’s-era Pixies, 2004-era Pixies and Frank’s solo touring between 1993 and the present I have seen the man in concert 14 times - and I’ve never seen him put down his guitar except to pick up another one. I’m not sure what got into him at the performance above earlier this year in Toulouse, but I likey. Recently I decided to make a Frank Black “best of” playlist for my iTunes and as it sprawled to over 30 songs (he has released no less than 13 solo albums since the Pixies’ demise in 1992 - two of them doubles) I realized how much joy this unique and prolific songwriter has brought to my stereos over the course of my life so far. Actually, take a prolific songwriter and feed them bathtub meth through an IV for half a day, hook them up to a solar power generator and then maybe you’ve got something better resembling Frank.

Bluefinger, not to be confused with a Daniel Craig-era James Bond villain (hat tip to FrankBlack.net) was inspired as a whole by an obscure Dutch artist with whom Charles apparently feels quite an affinity. It’s his latest thematic focus in a long line of space aliens, cowboys, science fiction writers and fellow musicians and I just have to say - whatever works. Well done yet again, Mr. Thompson. Now get back on the treadmill so you can continue trying to impress the babysitter next time you drive her home in the ‘Stang.

“It goes without saying that the only people who should be allowed to purchase Unkle Dysfunctional are those (like this writer) who own one copy of Pills n’ Thrills n’ Bellyaches for each room of their apartment.” - CokeMachineGlow.com

For the uninitiated, the Happy Mondays were one of the central bands of the late 80’s “Madchester” movement which also included Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets, James and the Charlatans. The focal point of the ’scene’ was the legendary Haçienda club, the colored history of which is available in excruciating detail on any number of sites. To the initiated, if you were already aware that the first Happy Mondays album in 14 years was released earlier this summer, you may well be wondering how it is, how Sean sounds and what it’s all about? As a lifelong fan of the group, who even got to see them in 1990 as a 16-year-old in Boston, I’ve listened to the album a big bunch of times and am here to lay it on you. I have thought of this at long length and can sum up my review in one sentence:

It’s better than I expected, but tragic due to the large number of good ideas hastily thrown together and wasted.

I haven’t bothered to look up the producer, but with more time spent and a different set of fingers twiddling the knobs, the mostly mediocre material could have easily comprised a legendary comeback of biblical proportions. And Sean Ryder was set for it - his cameo on the Gorillaz “Dare” last year made for the best song on an album of very good songs. His cohort Bez recently came back into the limelight after winning Celebrity Big Brother 5 and 50 thousand pounds along with it. Before I talk about the album’s highlight, let me first expound upon the tragedies - I owe it to my 16-year-old self.

Songs with great musical production have god-awful, chanty lyrics. I am thinking particularly of “Deviant” and “Cuntry Disco”. The music in Deviant is funky and wonderful, and I rap along to the chorus with delight every single time I hear it. But the verses, Sean mindlessly rhyming one word throughout - “She grabs it and stabs it and flabs it and…” make me feel like I’m playing some kind of drinking game. And losing. Deviants could have been an amazing song if someone had put the brakes on and said “Right… we’re on the verge here, but the versus sound worse than a Yoko Ono solo album being played backwards through a bullhorn.” Why, oh why, didn’t somebody say that! Give me a day alone with the masters and an unlicensed copy of Pro Tools and I’ll save the world.

The best tune on the record is without a doubt “Jellybean”, and it’s beyond cruel that it’s also the first. I remember driving around Burlington, singing the uber-catchy chorus after I’d heard it just once and wondering if I wasn’t about to experience something amazing - a solid Mondays album nearly 15 years after their last one sank an entire record label. But it “were all downhill from ‘ere” as they’d say in Manchester.

There’s no video as far as I could locate, but I found a decent clip of them performing it in Middlesbrough, England on May 26th of this year. I suppose even just one above average song on an album as unlikely as Unkle Dysfunctional is a pretty good average - so I’m featuring it on Wadio today and that makes me happy. A year ago I’d have bet a lot of money against it. Ecstasy money.

I have been laughing at this video all day. It also just so happens to have an original song as the soundtrack - so technically it can pass for Wadio this week. It’s only a minute long. It’s also wicked feckin’ retaaarded.

I feel for Charles’ owner, because Boss also has a severe licking problem. I wish I didn’t taste like salt. But I don’t know what Charles’ deal is. His hypothalamus? At any rate, put the damn thing out of its misery. Extra points if this isn’t stuck in your head all damn day.

It’s amazing how when you hear an older song out of context, you see it in a completely different light or find a new appreciation for it. For example, a tune you’ve ignored as part of an album you usually listen to in its entirety is featured on its own in a movie or something and you suddenly think - Wow. How did I miss that? And why am I watching Arachnophobia again?

I heard my favorite Joy Division song, Leaders of Men, on random ipodiness while walking around today and was taken back to my family’s house on Nashawtuc Hill where I used to sit on the hardwood floor and listen to it on cassette with enormous headphones covering my head. Because that’s where your ears are, generally. I wanted to feature it on Wadio today, but short of a short live clip there is nothing on YouTube which does it justice. Which is hardly surprising seeing as how it’s a lesser known song from the catalog of a band whose lead singer hung himself over 25 years ago.

I did find a good quality collage-clip of ‘Decades’ and was immediately reminded of an eerie story I read many moons ago, about a New Order recording session which took place a year or so after Ian Curtis cashed in his chips. You see kids, when Curtis died, JD became NO, and guitarist Bernard Sumner took over on lead vocals. After Bernard came out of the booth to twist the knobs on the vocals for one of the earliest New Order tracks, they realized it was unusable - because they could clearly hear someone whistling Decades in the otherwise empty sound booth. Whether that’s true or not… alright, it probably isn’t. But it’s a great yarn befitting a song that is already plenty spooky enough without the ghost story.