Song in My Head

Can't figure out why this is... but it is. And it's far from their best...

RIP Lou Reed

There have been so many great obits about Lour Reed that I cannot do him any justice.  Please read one of my favorite writers, Chuck Klosterman's take on Lou Reed, the man.  Also, in 2008, the AV Club did a fair portrayal of "The Five Faces of Lou Reed," as he changed throughout time. 

I have always had a fascination with Lou Reed.  There has always been a coolness/darkness about him that fascinated me.  He epitomized what I visualized New York was before I ever really frequented Manhattan.  I painted a portrait of him in 9th grade.  Even in pictures, he came across so angry, smug, and arrogant that I was drawn to what he was all about.  I ended up reading a biography, Transformer, about his youth, elector-shock therapy, issues with sexuality, life at Syracuse University, into the Velvet Underground and beyond. 

To me. the Velvet Underground's"banana album"(The Velvet Underground & Nico) is a masterpiece.  Odd and different, but still listenable today.  Much the opposite, but still a masterpiece is 1975's Metal Music Machine four sides of pure feedback with the last side on a loop to continually play forever.  I still don't know if I call it bullshit or brilliance.

"Sweet Jane" from Reed's Rock & Roll Animal is one of the best recorded live songs ever.  The long intro into a new take (at the time) of a Velvet Underground classic is still a song that I listen to happily when it shuffles on my ipod. 

New Tune on Monday

Long live the Happy Mondays! OK, so the brothers Ryder aren't doing anything new. But they are a big influence on the new album by the Australian duo Cut Copy. Cut Copy's new album Free Your Mind is out in early November, and the tracks that they've released ahead of the album have a decidedly Madchester sound.

Here's "Let Me Show You". (Epileptics beware).

And while I'm at it, here's the title track "Free Your Mind", which sounds like Fleetwood Mac crossed with the Mondays... if that's even possible.

New Tune on Monday

WOW!  Haven't posted anything about new music in a while, but this one has stuck with me for the past few weeks.  It's "Toe Cutter - Thumb Buster" by Thee Oh Sees.  The group formed as an experimental rock band, and have many elements of things I like: one part Blues Explosion, another part Kim Deal, some surf guitar, with a sprinkle of  Neil Young.  I haven't heard anything like it in a while, and find it in my current rotation lately.

Song In My Head

This is really unusual for me. I overheard a very classic sounding R&B song yesterday and it struck me. Not just for how Motown it sounded, but also for how modern it sounded. I realize that's a bit of a paradox, but you'll know what I mean when you hear it.

It's Raphael Saadiq's 2009 track "100 Yard Dash" -- it's effortlessly cool and infectiously funky. And the video is great too. I also hear Cupid & Psyche '85 era Scritti Politti in this tune (those backing vocals!).

Fun fact about Raphael Saddiq: He was a founding member of the late-80s/early-90s R&B band Tony! Toni! Tone!

Enjoy.

New Tune on Monday

For Columbus Day, I'm going across the Atlantic Ocean to Holland. That's where we find the neo-psychedelic Jacco Gardner. This guy is almost a doppelganger for Syd Barrett, complete with harpsichord and glockenspiel. And while you may find yourself checking your calendar when you listen to this, I can assure you that it is - in fact - 2013.

I too have seen the Future of Rock & Roll...and she's 80 years old!

To quote David Letterman, "It's fun when you leave the theater humming the music from the show." 

That's what you get when Yoko Ono reforms the Plastic Ono Band featuring her son Sean along with the Flaming Lips for a new album, Take Me to the Land of Hell. 

Here's the thing: I don't know if I love it or hate it! The groove is infectious.  it has a great bass line.  Yoko, which I must remind you, is 80 and rocking on stage like a grandma who still thinks she is hip, gives her trademark howls and screeches. That confuses me if she thinks she's an artist who is making a statement, or just realizes it's all a big joke.  I found this and watched it as for the expected craziness I expect out of her, and have now viewed it twice. Enjoy.

New Tune on Monday

I was thinking of a new way to trade music that you might not know so well -- because I've been on a listening binge lately -- and I came up with this handy paraphrase of Duran Duran.

Today, in the inaugural New Tune on Monday post, I give you Brooklyn's Parquet Courts, and their not-a-wasted-note triumph "Stoned and Starving". This is a perfect piece of late 70s inspired post punk -- catchy and minimal in the best spirit of the Buzzcocks or Wire. Plus it name checks a very unlikely NYC neighborhood, Ridgewood, Queens: "I was walking through Ridgewood, Queens/I was flipping through magazine/I was so/stoned and starving"

I've Seen Rock and Roll's Future...

...and its name is Frank Turner.

Did I get your attention? The Springsteen reference is apt, if perhaps a bit premature. Englishman Turner has the pedigree, and he has the chops. After playing in a hardcore band in the early 2000s, he was inspired to make his brand of folk-punk after listening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. That should pique the interest of one of the Discordants. (Another one would be happy to know that he opened for the Gaslight Anthem on the European tour.)

So now, some music.

Here's "Recovery", the radio-friendly first single off his current 2013 album Tape Deck Heart:

The second single is called "The Way I Tend To Be". It's more of a love song, but I could see it getting airplay on American country radio despite being far more literate than the usual Nashville tripe.But I am loving the mandolin.

Here's 2011's "Peggy Sang the Blues", which he wrote for his grandmother. Lots of message, here, and some themes about living life that he tends to revisit in his work.

And from 2008, something a little more political, with a little more bite.

What the Kids Were Listening To

Last weekend, I went to my first college football tailgate in years. OK, truth be told, I simply walked through the parking lot while others were tailgating. There was a large group of fraternity and sorority types, all in crazy costumes, and as we walked by they were all dancing to a song I didn't recognize. It had folksy-sounding verses offset by a stadium-dance chorus. It sounded popular enough, so I went to billboard.com and it took me all of two minutes to discover what it was: "Wake Me Up" by Swedish EDM DJ Avicii. And that shows you just how out of touch I've become with mainstream pop music. I mean, this song was huge around the world all summer, and somehow it eluded me.

Song In My Head

Stuck in my head for virtually the last five days has been the clever tune "Sale of the Century" by the long forgotten -- or should I say never-really-caught-on-in-this-country-to-be-forgotten -- Britpop band Sleeper.

Like Elastica, the London band was fronted by a woman -- Louise Wener -- though they skewed more pop than their harder-sounding compadres. Wener and Elastica's Justine Frischmann really were considered the two biggest female stars in Britpop. And the band also spawned a English slang term -- Sleeperblokes -- anonymous dudes who hang out with more glamorous women.