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Another one from the Imaginary John Hughes Soundtrack files. This song deserves a better anecdote than my tired self can muster. Hard to believe that this is the same Wire from the late-'70s. Elastica ripped off this melody once. I don't think anyone cared. There, discuss.
One of the reasons I've never been crazy about the Jewish high holidays is that you have to deal with people who mistake enactment of ritual for an actual measure of Jewishness. Any rabbi worth their salt will tell you that if there's nothing behind it, you're really just playing dress up.
On the other hand, I've found that if you're gonna put yourself through a daylong fast, it helps to turn it into a little competition with yourself. Like those World's Strongest Men who pull trucks aided only by rope, an iron will, and grotesquely inflated bodies. I won't say how far I made it, but my truck made some good distance on this Yom Kippur. Yessir.
Apropos of none of that, here's a drum-o-riffic track that puts those hunger pangs in a far away place.
Thought I'd do a quick Itunes library search for a Yom Kippur-appropriate song. The "sorry" these Australian mods are talking about is the furthest thing from Judaic soul reflection, but it's a pretty hot listen, and that's what counts here. It's also miles away from late '80s R&B, but you know I can never resist a terrible pun. Sorry.
I admit it, I've finally caught the Mad Men bug. I've also found myself listening to this strange tune quite a bit. They pair up nicely, what with their surface glosses hiding all kinds of trouble. It's typical early-'60s girl group fare except for, uh, the lyrics.
It's hard to figure out exactly how to read this. Is she a masochist? Not just taking her socially-sanctioned licks for cheating, but eroticizing it as well? Is there a certain romance in the violence, a love meant just for you? A comfort in stability, even if it's cruel? Or is it just a hard chunk of subversiveness, casting the whole soon-to-be-toppled order as brutality wrapped in syrupy strings? I think Don would give it all a nervous smile. Not so for Grizzly Bear.
It is Songblague's position that the best love songs are the ones where bitterness and ambiguity, however appropriate, get banished straightaway. Which would seem to put this one right in the wheelhouse. When you spend a full 65% of a 5 minute song locked into a 'love love love' refrain, you're either the most devoted dude in the world, so smitten that no other words come, or you're hijacking the air until your demands are met. I'm not sure this song is such a straight arrow. Maybe there's some ambiguity after all. Unrelatedly, Happy Birthday, B!
Can't keep a good sad bastard down. Or off my stereo anyway. After a luxurious dish of instrumental prowess, I like me some tormented indie rock to sting the palette. Given my geographical origins, I wish I could care to look for an essential New Jersey resonance in the song, but it's the transcontinental despair and the gauzy, surging music that gets me. Sweet sad bastard.
Some people have split personalities. Why not songs too? This one begins all bonged-out, with a guitar solo straight out of a late '70s bubble bath. And then suddenly, it springs to attention and lays some Steve Reich-y geometric stuff on us. Call and response? Heads and tails? I don't know, but I'm feeling the disconnect today.
So you may have heard Beck recently recorded a full-album interpretation of The Velvet Underground and Nico. It has a nice homespun quality; having your own home studio facilitates that. The covers are a pleasing, playful homage to that big, intimidating work. Nothing revolutionary, nothing embarrassing.
But this track stands out, mainly because the Germanic elements are flipped. Instead of Nico's teutonic harshness, we get warm-throated Thorunn Magnusdottir. And rather than John Cale's avant piano poundings, we get throwback krautpop of the best kind—with its one-chord background insistence, ghostly synth, and a graceful sparseness that hints at some kind of ceremony. It rolls ahead but feels almost suspended in air, pulling off the trick that bands like Harmonia had down pat in their '70s halcyon days. Or maybe I like it because it feels like Autumn, and so does the weather.
OK, let's slow it down and get into some deep left-field dubby goodness. If you don't have it, Songblague heartily recommends African Head Charge's Off The Beaten Track. Everything people love about Byrne and Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is here, but the global reach sounds less academic and a whole lot more bumpin'. Good for slow-motion dance parties or welcoming the new year. One day I'll understand why the Jewish holidays always get me in a dub state of mind.
Everyone has their own theme music. It lives in your head, sometimes barely audible. If you cultivate it right, it becomes the song that announces your presence at even the most mundane of life's events—your arrival at the bank, your stroll into the office, your freshly-showered emergence from the bathroom. I have one in my head mostly all the time. And it sounds a lot like this red hot jam.
Feeling compelled to segue from yesterday's excellent piano performance to a fine little solo number from the man. I guess the hook is the intro, which I'm sure you'll recognize. Despite the robot romance that it's evoked for the last 10 years or so, it actually makes a whole other kind of sense in its late '70s conception.
But this one isn't here for sample trainspotting purposes. Give a listen or two and honestly say you can resist the chorus. Bouncy, sweet, and oozing with tender lyrical inspidness. It's more than you can say for the album cover, which is an art director's nightmare. I get it, the album's called Master of the Game, but why does the master's hand have to resemble a confused crab? And why the chessboard staircase? The game is hard enough to master when the board is flat. Help us out George, will ya?
Well now I've got Zappa on the brain. So here's some more for yez. This one comes from the 'commercial' period, when Frank enlisted top flight musicians to play raunchy rock with fancy zigzags. This one's actually a little somber, obliquely riffing on the ebb of the civil rights tide in the mid-'70s, and with barely a hint of smirk or snark. Props to that, but really this track is all about the gosel funk of Sir George Duke's piano.
Frank Zappa is so deeply woven into Songblague's DNA that it's easy to lose sight of the man himself. And then there's sheer scope of the his work, which you'd be well-advised to go research if you're not already familiar. Having spent some time plumbing the depths of the Zappa cult and the span of his cosmology, I'd be foolish to try to summarize the layers of appeal.
Of course, some tracks are more essential than others, and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" is an early masterpiece, far beyond just about anyone in the rock idiom circa 1967. Not that this is even rock music at all, what with reference points ranging from R&B to Varese-ian dissonance. The track lays bare the suppressed depravity of straight-laced, post-war America, ripped loose from the dark desk drawers of its elites, without enacting the caricature of middle-class, hippie pseudo-rebellion (Frank's stance on that was pretty brutal too, as we know). From a musical and technical standpoint, it's a stunner. Totally controlled and surreal. And yet, there's something of the bootstrap, lo-budget charm that he'd lose in later years.
Zappa would go to many fascinating places after this, but I don't think he was ever a more astute cultural observer or keen satirist. Oh, did I mention the music is effing sick too.
My favorite breakup songs are the ones where you can't quite tell if the singer feels liberated or tortured when he lets loose his grief. I want to hear the triumph in this one. Releasing all the "padlocked grays" when he sings the songs he's written about the girl seems awfully cathartic. On the other hand, he vows to avoid the temptation of writing another one in order to keep the misery safely locked away. I think someone could use a hug.
I like the tremble in the guy's voice, like the uncertain confidence of confronting a bully on the schoolyard. It's matched by the barebones grandeur of the music, which sounds big but not bombastic. Nothing kicks out the jams like emotional turmoil.
Remember the scene in Spinal Tap where the band recalls naming themselves the Originals and then explaining that they had to change it to the New Originals because there was already a band called the Originals? I think of it every time someone slags a group off because they sound like other bands or mimics some predecessor. Except for cases of total break-the-mold originality, there's always an Originals out there.The Legends take this to the point where they're pretty much a genre tribute band. Which wouldn't be interesting if they didn't write such great songs in the idioms they adopt. Having since traversed Cure/Joy Division postpunk, bright British '80s synthpop, and Jesus & Mary Chain-ish white noise garage pop, I still think their debut puts their best foot forward. I'd go through the influences, but one listen through today's track makes it all very obvious. Shake that tambourine, kids!
The road of excess may lead to the palace of wisdom, but aren't palaces kinda fundamentally excessive in themselves? And what about an excess of wisdom? You could end drawing and quartering your own brain.
Don Cab built some pretty over-ornamented edifices in their day, but I think they've weathered the years better than lots of their fellow post-rockers, or whatever you want to call them. They started out kicking ass all over math class and ended up learning how to sip tea. Almost. At least they put their looper pedals to good melodic use. I figure this is a good tune to mark the start of the academic season. Not that I'd know anymore. Nowadays, I can only have my back-to-school moments over evening beers or by wandering around the Kmart.
While sensible people spend Labor Day weekend slowing it down or getting some much-needed zonk-out time, I had Nina Hagen's Nunsexmonkrock album on endless repeat. Talk about a polarizing figure! She's one of a kind alright. To call out the obvious elements—punk, opera, devilish noise collage, East German satire (hey, it was '82)—doesn't do justice to the whole package. Apparently, she's been focusing on more "serious" gothy music in recent years, which doesn't do too much for me. I think her best moments were her earliest. She seems genuinely possessed. This track sounds like gremlins taking over a Pat Benatar backing track.
And because Nunsexmonkrock is just all-around awesome, here's a cut that's pretty and relatively mellow, if equally weird. Two for Tuesday. You've earned it, friends.
Whirlwind of a workweek. Certainly won't be the last for the next while. Best to turn attention to octave doctors, flying teapots, and other radio gnome invisibles. Happy labor days. Back Tuesday.
Been a couple of weighty days, musically speaking. I think it's time for something light and playful. Like a little cat. But I have cat allergies. How about a song instead? A song to be played for a drunkard dancing with a lampshade.
Oranj Symphonette were some jazzers who got together to do fun romps through the Henry Mancini songbook. They expanded the palette to other like-minded guys on their second album. This tune was written by Burt Bacharach for a movie of the same name, which apparently flopped. It was sung by Peter Sellers, which is always a plus. No vox here, but the plunger mute has character to spare.
You spend all day twisting little muscles in a conference room. Your senses retreat, and the walls start to look like geological facts. And then a cavernous song comes to blast open the mental landscape and swell you with something that cannot be captured in headline or footnote.
The long tones, the funereal cadence that doesn't drag, the resignation that doesn't blink but can still harmonize. Really, if you had time before dying to deliberate on your own last moments, I think this is the way to go out.
Talk about making a song your own. I love that old Warren Defever just got down to the barest lyrical grist and dispensed with all the Jesus stuff. In his restlessness, he's revisited this tune a few times. It's come a long way from his original Neil Young-ish version, and he's got it right where it needs to be. An honest indie rock spiritual. Listen lots of times.
Another one from the Imaginary John Hughes Soundtrack files. This song deserves a better anecdote than my tired self can muster. Hard to believe that this is the same Wire from the late-'70s. Elastica ripped off this melody once. I don't think anyone cared. There, discuss.
One of the reasons I've never been crazy about the Jewish high holidays is that you have to deal with people who mistake enactment of ritual for an actual measure of Jewishness. Any rabbi worth their salt will tell you that if there's nothing behind it, you're really just playing dress up.
Thought I'd do a quick Itunes library search for a Yom Kippur-appropriate song. The "sorry" these Australian mods are talking about is the furthest thing from Judaic soul reflection, but it's a pretty hot listen, and that's what counts here. It's also miles away from late '80s R&B, but you know I can never resist a terrible pun. Sorry. 
I admit it, I've finally caught the Mad Men bug. I've also found myself listening to this strange tune quite a bit. They pair up nicely, what with their surface glosses hiding all kinds of trouble. It's typical early-'60s girl group fare except for, uh, the lyrics.
It is Songblague's position that the best love songs are the ones where bitterness and ambiguity, however appropriate, get banished straightaway. Which would seem to put this one right in the wheelhouse. When you spend a full 65% of a 5 minute song locked into a 'love love love' refrain, you're either the most devoted dude in the world, so smitten that no other words come, or you're hijacking the air until your demands are met. I'm not sure this song is such a straight arrow. Maybe there's some ambiguity after all. Unrelatedly, Happy Birthday, B!
Can't keep a good sad bastard down. Or off my stereo anyway. After a luxurious dish of instrumental prowess, I like me some tormented indie rock to sting the palette. Given my geographical origins, I wish I could care to look for an essential New Jersey resonance in the song, but it's the transcontinental despair and the gauzy, surging music that gets me. Sweet sad bastard.
Some people have split personalities. Why not songs too? This one begins all bonged-out, with a guitar solo straight out of a late '70s bubble bath. And then suddenly, it springs to attention and lays some Steve Reich-y geometric stuff on us. Call and response? Heads and tails? I don't know, but I'm feeling the disconnect today.
So you may have heard Beck recently recorded a full-album interpretation of The Velvet Underground and Nico. It has a nice homespun quality; having your own home studio facilitates that. The covers are a pleasing, playful homage to that big, intimidating work. Nothing revolutionary, nothing embarrassing.
OK, let's slow it down and get into some deep left-field dubby goodness. If you don't have it, Songblague heartily recommends African Head Charge's Off The Beaten Track. Everything people love about Byrne and Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is here, but the global reach sounds less academic and a whole lot more bumpin'. Good for slow-motion dance parties or welcoming the new year. One day I'll understand why the Jewish holidays always get me in a dub state of mind.
Everyone has their own theme music. It lives in your head, sometimes barely audible. If you cultivate it right, it becomes the song that announces your presence at even the most mundane of life's events—your arrival at the bank, your stroll into the office, your freshly-showered emergence from the bathroom. I have one in my head mostly all the time. And it sounds a lot like this red hot jam. 
Feeling compelled to segue from yesterday's excellent piano performance to a fine little solo number from the man. I guess the hook is the intro, which I'm sure you'll recognize. Despite the robot romance that it's evoked for the last 10 years or so, it actually makes a whole other kind of sense in its late '70s conception.
Well now I've got Zappa on the brain. So here's some more for yez. This one comes from the 'commercial' period, when Frank enlisted top flight musicians to play raunchy rock with fancy zigzags. This one's actually a little somber, obliquely riffing on the ebb of the civil rights tide in the mid-'70s, and with barely a hint of smirk or snark. Props to that, but really this track is all about the gosel funk of Sir George Duke's piano.
Frank Zappa is so deeply woven into Songblague's DNA that it's easy to lose sight of the man himself. And then there's sheer scope of the his work, which you'd be well-advised to go research if you're not already familiar. Having spent some time plumbing the depths of the Zappa cult and the span of his cosmology, I'd be foolish to try to summarize the layers of appeal.
My favorite breakup songs are the ones where you can't quite tell if the singer feels liberated or tortured when he lets loose his grief. I want to hear the triumph in this one. Releasing all the "padlocked grays" when he sings the songs he's written about the girl seems awfully cathartic. On the other hand, he vows to avoid the temptation of writing another one in order to keep the misery safely locked away. I think someone could use a hug.
Remember the scene in Spinal Tap where the band recalls naming themselves the Originals and then explaining that they had to change it to the New Originals because there was already a band called the Originals? I think of it every time someone slags a group off because they sound like other bands or mimics some predecessor. Except for cases of total break-the-mold originality, there's always an Originals out there.
The road of excess may lead to the palace of wisdom, but aren't palaces kinda fundamentally excessive in themselves? And what about an excess of wisdom? You could end drawing and quartering your own brain.
While sensible people spend Labor Day weekend slowing it down or getting some much-needed zonk-out time, I had Nina Hagen's Nunsexmonkrock album on endless repeat. Talk about a polarizing figure! She's one of a kind alright. To call out the obvious elements—punk, opera, devilish noise collage, East German satire (hey, it was '82)—doesn't do justice to the whole package. Apparently, she's been focusing on more "serious" gothy music in recent years, which doesn't do too much for me. I think her best moments were her earliest. She seems genuinely possessed. This track sounds like gremlins taking over a Pat Benatar backing track.
Whirlwind of a workweek. Certainly won't be the last for the next while. Best to turn attention to octave doctors, flying teapots, and other radio gnome invisibles. Happy labor days. Back Tuesday.
Been a couple of weighty days, musically speaking. I think it's time for something light and playful. Like a little cat. But I have cat allergies. How about a song instead? A song to be played for a drunkard dancing with a lampshade.
You spend all day twisting little muscles in a conference room. Your senses retreat, and the walls start to look like geological facts. And then a cavernous song comes to blast open the mental landscape and swell you with something that cannot be captured in headline or footnote.
The long tones, the funereal cadence that doesn't drag, the resignation that doesn't blink but can still harmonize. Really, if you had time before dying to deliberate on your own last moments, I think this is the way to go out.
