A straightforward garage rock song about a guy who escaped from an Australian prison in 1861.
2. "Gorilla" by Little Simz
British hiphop with a 1990's vibe.
3. "Denim & Diamonds" by Nikki Lane
The video is like watching Meg White cover Sheryl Crowe.
4. "Black Skinned Blue-Eyed Boy" by The Equals
A very funky protest song.
5. "Love is the Way" by Thee Sacred Souls
Old school soul that sounds like it should be on Daptone. This one has been played quite a lot over the past few months so it might be in your zShazams too.
6. "Oh Yeah, Oh No" by Add N to (X)
I don't know how to describe this. Maybe Neutral Milk Hotel doing electronica?
7. "Two Ways" by Weeping Icon
Sounds like something from A Place to Bury Strangers.
I haven't been carrying my weight around here lately so I'm posting the easiest schtick in my bag of tricks: zshazams. You too can find stuff like this on WFMU, WFUV, and WBGO. Here are a few recent gems.
"Viva Prado" by Stan Kenton
I played the trumpet in middle school and I was predictably bad at it. I love the sound of trumpets played well, especially high notes. They take on this weird smeary quality like magic markers or when you rub on a balloon. You'll see what I mean around 2:45.
"Controversy" by Prince
I saw Prince live once only because I blundered into free tickets. He was amazing and at the time I thought about familiarizing myself with more of his catalog. About 6 weeks later zson was born and I forgot about all that. Maybe I will do so now--Controversy is some funky shit.
"Jackie Down the Line" by Fontaines D.C.
This sounds like a Bloc Party song. I dig it.
"Cain's Heresy" by The Lounge Society
This sounds like a Bloc Party song until the switch at 2:40 when it becomes a psychedelic noodling guitar jam.
"Shombalor" by Sheriff & The Ravels
This is proto King Khan & the BBQ Show. A quintessential Fool's Paradise song, except Toddophonic Todd played it.
"Hard Rock Potato" by The Cool Greenhouse
These guys are heavily influenced by Greasetruck and the Almighty Yojo, except the eschew heavy vocal distortion.
"Our Love Will Still Be There" by Big Blood
This sounds like a Troggs song because it's a cover. I think it sounds like a Madonna song too, maybe "Ray of Light" which always reminds me of Mike Buddy because TR and I were at a Yankee game once and when he came to the mound they played "Ray of Light" and I said "Mike Buddy is like a ray of light" and TR laughed and so did I. We were wildly overserved, it was a double-header and the first game went 18 innings or something stupid like that so we guzzled Coors Light from those flimsy wax-paper tallboy cups for 27 innings so that was a funny thing to say under those circumstances.
I wrote about my Shazams in January. Here are a few more gems I've Shazammed since then.
Public Enemy did a "Fight the Power 2020" remix? With Nas and Black Thought? How did I miss this? "Fear of a Black Planet" still slaps in its entirety, and "Fight the Power" does so in particular.
Go vote!
"In Orbit" by Joy Lovejoy is just fun classic soul.
I feel like I should already know "Big White Cloud" by John Cale. rootsy is shaking his head that I had to Shazam this.
I also feel like I should know "Revolution" by Heartless Bastards. Whitney is shaking his head too.
Bill Landford And The Landfordaires don't look like I expected them to. "Run On For A Long Time" has a very O Brother Where Art Thou vibe.
If they ever remade High Fidelity, "Light Yearly" by the Allah-Las would work its way onto the soundtrack.
I suspect rob is already familiar with Nikki Lane's "Jackpot."
rob should know about "Cat Squirrel" too.
I suspect Juan Carlos is already familiar with "Friendship (Is A Small Boat In A Storm)" by Chicano Batman.
"The Grunt" by Eddie Kirk makes me want to dive into Fortune Records' entire catalog.
I was stunned to hear "Nightmares" by Dana Dane at 8:43 am on a Tuesday. Word up doc, I'm the ultimate!
I encourage you to post your Shazams too. Music! Postcount!
Two of my friends, a husband and wife team that zwoman and I refer to as The Elegances, were early iPhone adopters. I didn’t understand the hoopla at first. Jenny Elegance showed me the great camera and how good photos looked on the big screen. It was cool but I wasn’t blown away. Then she showed me the map feature with GPS directions. I was really impressed—-I have no sense of direction and this is the type of thing I could really use. Then Danny Elegance came over the top with Shazam. My mind was blown. I said something like “Yo, this thing just sniffs the beats out the air and gives you the song?!? I want that beat sniffer!” FOGTB JP quickly replied “The beat sniffer, that’s my dog!” This is funny because his dog Hank liked to sniff the crotch of our friend Julie Beats. I guess you had to be there.
All this is to say that Shazam is great and it was the motivating force behind my first iPhone purchase. Over a decade later, Dave apparently just learned about Shazam and started blogging about it. Better late than never.
I still love Shazam. Here are some of my recent finds:
“It Was Wrong to Love You” by The Jay Vons (of course they’re on Daptone, here's the song live)
“Talk That Talk” by The Du Droppers (nothing like the Rihanna song)
Back in my youth, like any red eyed American white kid who discovered a taste for the devil's lettuce, I heard Bob Marley's Legend. Soon enough I had my own copy, and decided to dig deeper into Marley's music. I went to local Record Exchange (remember record stores?) and purchased the four CD Songs of Freedom boxed set, all chronologically sequenced and nicely bound together in an attractive package.
It's a fair bet that I used the cover to roll out a spliff like the one Bob Marley is holding between his fingers in the cover photo prior to first listen, preparing to take the reggae sacrament. I heard the first track, "Judge Not" from 1961, and was not feeling it. Went on through the disc, but it wasn't the same, clean sounding recordings that I'd heard on Legend. Same with most of the second disc. I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't love it. Discs 3 and 4 were a bit more in line with the Bob Marley sound I was expecting, and 1 and 2 sat for years in the now ragged package, played maybe twice each.
Fast forward to January 21, 2017 - I got called up on stage at the inaugural Roanoke Women's March, to play some percussion with one of my band mates and a female singer he gigs with locally. I grabbed a tambourine and some shakers and pretended to be a percussionist. We played Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come", another tune I can't recall, then one called "Small Axe", which I thought I might have heard before, but wasn't sure. When I got home I did a little research and discovered that it's a tune the Wailers wrote with Lee "Scratch" Perry, and it is on Disc 1 of Songs of Freedom. So I dug out the old box set and for maybe the third time ever, put in the first disc, skipped to track 22 and pressed play.
My forty-something self was a lot more open to the more primitive vibe of this track, and the others on the the first two discs of the set. And, since I didn't handle them much in my youth, they still play perfectly. Here is a story about the tune's origin as a diss track.
Oh, and the Jimi-Bob tattoo is on the leg of a buddy of mine from Roanoke, who is now out in LA working as DJ Petey Clicks. He came up with the idea, and his tattoo guy thought enough of the joke to adorn Peter's leg with it for free.
Petey Clicks sounds like the nickname Klam wished he had.
Predictably, rob sent me a fully-formed layzman's filler submission. Pay attention Dave.
In 1990, a regionally successful band from Tucson, Arizona released its second album. In 1993, that same band toured with Pearl Jam as its opening act. And within two years, it was disbanded, its legacy carried away like desert dust in a heavy wind. But that second album, man, that thing rocked.
I'm talking about Auntie Ramos' Pool Hall by the Sidewinders, a rollicking 50 minutes of grunge-era (but not exactly grunge) alternative rock. This record could've been the soundtrack of any period film about disaffected teenagers set in the desert southwest, guitar-heavy and evocative of its geographic roots.
The album kicks off with its best tune, 'We Don't Do That Anymore', a young grown-up's lament about how it hurts to stay up late these days, a wistful "I've got a job, you pay the rent and what do you know. All that time spent wasting time, has come and gone." 'Sara's Not Sober' follows, turning the opening track on its head, kicking up the guitars a notch and asking a lover to choose booze or her man. 'Get Out of That Town' could fit in on a Godfathers record, another 80/90s alternative throwback. 'If I Can't Have You' changes the calculus on the typical lovelorn tune, 'cause "If I can't have you, I'm gonna find someone new." And 'Came on Like the Sun' is at turns a sweet duet and a drunk's regret story, wrapped in a Tucson sunrise.
I haven't heard this album in nearly 20 years. And I don't own it any more. But I loved it once, it's Western twist on the East Coast alternative guitar bands that were the soundtrack of my 1990s. And now I'm gonna go listen to it again.
The hits keep pouring in. Here's what Whitney had to say:
Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel (Melt)
Peter Gabriel is a curious fellow. He was the star of the art-house theater show that Genesis was in the early 70’s. Then he saw a Bruce Springsteen show and broke from that act to go solo, as diarized in “Solsbury Hill.” His first four solo albums were all called Peter Gabriel, which he explained as being like issues of the same magazine. Weird, confusing, and a mess to catalog. Thanks, Pete.
His first two albums were interesting but spotty, like G:TB. Experimental sounds and oddities, but drifting into pop/rock more than his Genesis stuff. And then, somewhat out of nowhere, he released his third eponymously titled record in 1980. It’s come to be known as “Melt,” because of the graphic on the cover which features half of his face melting. The picture is interesting; the album is a keeper.
It starts with a creepy song about B&E, with former bandmate Phil Collins drumming out something pretty spooky. There are songs about blacking out, an assassin’s POV, Stephen Biko’s murder, and “a commentary on war and international diplomacy being like children's games.” Titles such as “No Self-Control,” “And Through the Wire,” “Not One of Us,” and “Lead a Normal Life.” His record company thought he was having a mental breakdown and dumped him. PG is an odd bird.
Fortunately, up-and-comer David Geffen’s new company scooped him up. The album is listenable start to finish with nary a dud. He makes the weirdness work, and this is the genesis, if you will, of the sound that gave him the hit “Shock the Monkey” two years later and a big batch of successes on So in 1986. (See John Cusack and the boom box.) Of course, then he released two (lesser) albums in 22 years. Mr. Gabriel is a strange one.
Give this one a listen start to finish, and play it loud and/or on earphones. The studio work is worth some attention. The lyrics are worth catching. The songs are worth multiple listens. I discovered the album while attending a summer program at Bennington College in 1987 and played it on repeat all summer long. (The ratio was 6:1 girls:guys, so a lot of girls got really tired of “Games Without Frontiers as a backdrop.) Anyway, I was seven years late to the party back then. It’s been 38 years now, and still it’s not too late.
Shlara, also known as Gheorghe Muresan's favorite Gheorghie, sent what she deemed a "half-ass entry" in response to my request for layzman's filler, which means that one of you attempted what is at best an eighth-ass entry. But I guess that's what happens when you can only write one sentence a day. Foreshadowing! Anyway, here's a post about an album that Shlara thinks you should listen to.
I like this idea
I don't like doing a lot of work, though.
So you get a half-ass entry from me
Album: The Rip Tide by Beirut
Link #1: cheating with this Tiny Desk concert clip. It features 3 songs, 2 of which are from this album (East Harlem and Santa Fe)
Upside is you get so see the band's endearing nerdiness
Link #2: official video for Riptide (video is weird, song is good)
Why Gheorghies should listen:
It's got a modern 80s throwback feel to it. Angsty and also optimistic. If you like DeVotchKa, you'll like this Beirut album. It was on my regular rotation when I lived in NYC--nice way to tune out and stay zen while you're riding the subway. I think the band is technically labeled as "world folk music" and I'm pretty sure I heard one of their songs on XMU years ago and bought the album. The critics didn't like this album as much as their others, "too mainstream and cute." But that's just the way I like my fringe music: pop-y and cute. Top to bottom, all 9 tunes are good, but if I have to pick one, East Harlem is my fav song on the album.
G:TB superfan Squeaky is a musical connoisseur extraordinaire. I don't know if he has more GB of music than Whitney, but he has a shitload of music. So much so that I requested multiple layzman fillers from him. Here's the first.
Mastersystem
What is Mastersystem? It's a supergroup that TJ and everyone else on G:TB has never heard of before.
They are comprised of members from Frightened Rabbit (a few of you have heard them before) [zcomment: I've heard of them, through Squeaky, natch], Editors (you haven't heard of them) and Minor Victories (not a chance). All their music is indie rock/pop slash whatever the kids are calling it these days.
Mastersystem just released an album April 6, 2018.
The single, “Notes On A Life Not Quite Lived”, is below but you can hear the whole record on the streaming service of your choice at this point.
https://youtu.be/v0boT0OsxCE
The music is more on the dirtier, grungier side of indie rock. It has a little harder edge than most Frightened Rabbit stuff but not punk. But the soul-searching lyrics are still present.
As is wont with album releases, the members of the band get interviewed. Below is one such question and response from Scott Hutchison, lead singer of Frightened Rabbit and Mastersystem.
Speaking with Stereogum about the themes behind the record, Hutchison said,
“I thought it would be interesting to play around with the themes of restlessness and dissatisfaction on this album, both as a counterpoint to the exuberance of the music and as an obvious reference to the angst and tension I heard in the grunge and fuzz of my teenage years. This is not the angst of a teenager, however. This is the anxiety of a man in his mid-30s, and for a lot of this record I found myself wrestling with the ways in which I am not quite doing life right, in spite of appearing to lead a relatively joyful, playful and artistic existence.”
Bold emphasis is mine. But if you spent any time listening to Frightened Rabbit you can always hear about his fight with his own ‘demons’ through his lyrics.
Is this album revolutionary? No. Is it a desert island classic? No idea, but doubtful. Just started listening to it today but after a few passes it’s squarely in my musical wheelhouse.
So why mastersystem, why the bolded emphasis, why this post? Well on May 8 Scott walked away from a Glasgow hotel after tweeting the following tweets.
“Be so good to everyone you love. It’s not a given. I’m so annoyed that it’s not. I didn’t live by that standard and it kills me. Please, hug your loved ones.”
“I’m away now. Thanks.”
As a lot of us know firsthand, depression can bring out the worst thoughts and actions. Let’s hope he is safe but it’s not looking too good right now.
Unfortunately we have more information about Hutchinson now than when Squeaky sent me this. Enjoy what I assume is Hutchinson's last album.
There are a number of albums I love that no one else seems to know about. It occurred to me that there are innumerable such albums, albums that are beloved by a only a few people and that deserve more spins. So I decided to shine a light on this stuff that we slept on, while simultaneously harnessing the immense power with which I am clothed via my G:TB platform to crowd-source content. To that end, I surveyed about a dozen of our twelve person readership for hidden musical gems. The resulting layzman's filler will trickle out as needed. First up is TR's response:
Warren Zevon's Excitable Boy turns 40 this year. The song he is most known for (Werewolves in London) is on this album, but it is far from his best song on the album (IMO).
Excitable Boy is a fun rocker with an oldies tilt, but that's not the tune I'm gonna pimp here.
Lawyers, Guns and Money is also on this album. I have loved this song for the last fifteen years, since I first heard Widespread Panic cover it. The lyrics are like something Hunter S. Thompson would write, which is high praise from a guy with a Gonzo tattoo and a son named Hunter. "Now I'm hiding in Honduras. I'm a desperate man. Send lawyers, guns and money. The shit has hit the fan." Giddyup.
The other tune I'm gonna pimp is Night Time in the Switching Yard. I vividly remember when I first heard this. I was driving to Saratoga early on a Friday morning for Sammy the Bull's BP in the mid aughts. I was near Woodstock and found a great classic rock station. This was pre-Sirius, when you had to work to find tunes. This song came and I quickly turned the volume up to 11.
YouTube link is here. You have to embed this video or you won't be my friend any more:
If nothing else, Werewolves, Excitable Boy, Lawyers and Night Time highlight Zevon's tremendous musical range, lyrical prowess and potential as a rock superstar cut from the same cloth as Petty and Springsteen. Ultimately, his numerous personal demons proved to be too much of a limiting factor on his professional success. But he put it all together on one tremendous LP. I own it on vinyl. You should too.
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