Category: music

… with some groovy, celebratory tracks of yesteryear:

I was listening to NPR’s listeners’ picks for the best songs of 2009 when I was reminded of that Metric track “Sick Muse.” Minutes later, an ad for Hennessy came on featuring The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” which has long been a favorite of mine. In fact, First Band on the Moon is a great little collection of songs (including the most bizarre cover of “Iron Man” imaginable).

So here they are, together. They make nice bookends, no?

= just what everyone wants: class-conscious christmas songs. Vive la révolution & Joyeux Noël!
(I’m pretty sure Rufus gets an award for using the word “mensch” in a christmas song.)

I discovered “The Headphonist” while watching one of my death shows, and it was an instant ‘need to know what that is’ feeling, having spent most of my life walking around cities and towns and well, everywhere, with headphones on & usually blasting.

I have a weakness for great rhythm, or a great weakness for any rhythm, so I went & poked around for other songs of theirs, and liked a lot of them. But it was when I was discovered they were a Mexican band that had covered Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio” that they made me laugh out loud: Gen X grows up & buys a clue, as it were.

What I’ve found in introducing people to Shriekback over the years is that you either you get them or you don’t. You could describe them as amphibious, maybe, or as something like geek funk. Most of you probably (only) know “Nemesis” — which was recently re-mixed — or you might know the lead, Barry Andrews, as that guy who was in XTC at the very beginning but was gone by the 3rd XTC album; Shriekback is where he went next. Here’s a recent interview with him talking about those days & about a bunch of other things. There’s some cool live footage on YouTube, too – here’s “All Lined Up” which was a WLIR favorite back in the day. (Check out the bass that’s got FACT written on it. Loved that. & Yes, Dave Allen was the bass player for Gang of Four, too.)

If any of you were also fans, you might be surprised to hear that there was a video for “Despite Dense Weed” – the first song they ever recorded, & which was only ever on a Y Records compilation called The Birth of the Y (which had a Diamanda Galas track, too).

& Yes, I saw them a bunch of times live, too. I learned the word scapula from Barry Andrews, because he signed over mine on the t-shirt I was wearing. I met Stewart Copeland that day too, but that was incidental & hardly very important to a Shriekback fan.

It was only a year or so later that I had shaved my head and wore an old priest’s cassock a lot; I think of it as my first (of many) monk phases. I found the cassock in my family’s basement, which means it was probably an altar boy robe once worn by one of my brothers.

If you like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, here’s another band that’ll be right up your alley. It’s rare that I like female singers, but when I do, I really really do.

(h/t to my friend Hellione)

Despite “This is the Day” being used in an M&M commercial – really? it had to be M&Ms? – Matt Johnson & theThe were a band I spent a lot of time with from at least 1985 forward.

His songs got at that yearning for – something. more. sex. love. escape. all of it & none of it. (It didn’t hurt that his voice was incredibly hot, either.)

You can go here to see some of the live performance from when Johnny Marr was playing with the The. Apparently he was as proud of Dusk as he was of Strangeways, Here We Come. (So there.)

The best gig I’ve ever found out about was the The at CBGB. I was walking down 7th Avenue, near St. Vincent’s (Hospital), and I was wearing am Infected t-shirt, and a guy stopped me & said, “You like the The? They’re playing a secret gig at CBs tomorrow night. They won’t be on the list. Just buy a ticket. Promise.” So my friend Brian & I bought tickets, mostly thinking we were going to see some band we’d never heard of. I was sitting on the bar knocking the heels of my boots against it anxiously, waiting & hoping, & then – out came Matt Johnson & the band: sometimes wishes come true. I can’t even count how many other times I saw them – in London, at the Beacon, at Symphony Space even. I skipped high school to meet Matt Johnson as he was leaving WLIR after an interview. Misspent youth, indeed.

Here are a few other favorites: Sodium Light Baby – The Mercy Beat (song starts at 00:45) – Perfect – Jealous of Youth (which is one of my favorite bass lines) – & there’s even some early & cool Matt Johnson from Burning Blue Soul – Bugle Boy.

(Writing this post took a few hours of my life, poking around YouTube, playlist.com, trouserpress.com and various other spots. Damn. It’s a good thing I don’t have my vinyl collection with me, or the whole night would be gone. Now if someone could send me an .mp3 of “Jealous of Youth” I’d be most appreciative.)

I discovered Spoon a few years ago while dinging in a cool little eatery in Park Slope called Jack’s that’s gone now. I still miss the pot roast & waiters who turned me onto cool music.

I go through phases where all I can take is JAMC.

I couldn’t find a decent mp3 of “Something I Can’t Have” but there’s a decent audio version of it on YouTube.

Wish I could have found one of their “New York City” since it’s one of my all-time favorite tracks, but here’s “Why’d You Want Me” which is all about the sweetness behind the feedback.

They were the last cool.