Notify, Vol. VIII

Rob recently checked in on the WFCSAGS recurring feature and provided an update. Not sure Zman can with WCSAGD, other than to keep saying "Nobody's bought one yet!"

Well, here's an update nobody even asked for -- the Notify News! Welcome back to the Notify show, the one where we highlight songs not on Spotify!

And here's the latest, including which songs we highlighted that are now available on Spotify after all. [If you think I'm implying with such a post as this that the G:TB Notify posts have influenced the powers that be at Spotify, well, yes, yes I am.]

Here are the songs that I brought to that platform for you:

• De La Soul, "Eye Know"
• Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Rock and Roll All Nite"
• Garth Brooks, "Hard Luck Woman"
• Klark Kent, "Away from Home"
• All of Neil Young!
• CSNY, "Woodstock"
• Joni Mitchell, "Big Yellow Taxi"
• Nils Lofgren: "Keith Don't Go," "Bullets Fever," and "Jhoon Rhee Ad"
• The Blues Brothers, "Shake a Tail Feather"
• The Smithereens, "In a Lonely Place"
• The Dream Academy, "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want [instrumental]"

Z Specials

• The Beatnuts, "Off the Books" (on compilation and Big Pun album)
• Nina Simone, "Gin House Blues [live]"
• The Pharcyde, "I'm That Type of N****"

The rest, for which we remain ever vigilant:

• Brian Wilson, "Brian Wilson"
• Stevie Wonder vs The Clash, "Casbah Uptight"
• UB40, "One in Ten"
• CvB, "Laundromat"
• Arcade Fire, "Guns of Brixton [live at BBC Culture Show]"
• The Clash, "Listen"
• Aztec Camera, "Jump"
• CvB, "Eye of Fatima"
• Strontium 90, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
• The Police, "Nothing Achieving"
• Dropkick Murphys, "Guns of Brixton [live]"
• Wyclef Jean, "Electric City"
• Pizzicato 5, "Twiggy Twiggy"
• Danger Mpouse, "What More Can I Say"
• The Clash, "(In the) Pouring Rain"
• Cracker, "Been Around the World"
• Total Coelo. "I Eat Cannibals [original]"
• Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, "Prime Mover"
• The Walkmen, "Greasy Saint"
• Ray LaMontagne, "Crazy"
• Father John Misty, "The Suburbs"
• Bruce Greenwood & Circle the Wagons, "2 Ft. O' Butt Crack"

Okay, there's the recap. But what about some new Not-ifies?

Fair enough. 

Who doesn't love Ween?? Well, I don't right now, since they cancelled the show that was playing around here this weekend. But then again, it was for Deaner's mental health, and I'm for that. We waited out Gener, we'll wait for his buddy. 

Here are a couple of lost tracks.

Here's a tune they wrote when Captain Trips died.

And another for an All-Star pitcher's cousin. Love this one.

Speaking of dying, the Margaritaville Man died last year, and here's an old tune he did that appeared on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack.

Here's one that didn't even have a presence online until a month ago. An old tune by old VU-er John Cale, somewhere in the late 1970's. 

And there there's this. 1983's sophomoric, misogynistic, ludicrous, and mildly amusing Jerky Boys precursor, "Cooky Puss!" All hail Carvel ice cream. This ain't no Fudgie the Whale. 

That's all for Notify this go-around!

BUT... that's not all for Cooky Puss!  Stay tuned for Part II of the Cooky Puss saga!! It's fascinating!!

Notify, Volume VII

Notify is back after a bit of a hiatus. You're welcome.

A Notify Update! 

Spotify has listened to our pleas / ridiculing and has reinstated (or just instated) the following:

• Smithereens, Especially for You, featuring "In a Lonely Place," "Behind the Wall of Sleep," and "Blood and Roses"
• Total Coelo, "I Eat Cannibals"
• Kiss My Ass: Classis KISS Regrooved, featuring the stellar Garth Brooks cover of "Hard Luck Woman" and Toad the Wet Sprocket deconstructing "Rock and Roll All Nite"

That there is what mild success looks like, gheorghies.

We received 2 recent entries in reader mail from a "Zman" in "New Jersey."

-- The Beatnuts album Stone Crazy, featuring "Off the Books"

-- The Walkmen, "Greasy Saint"

Keep those requests pouring in... like The Clash's "Pouring Rain," still not available on this mass music streaming platform. 

On to the Notify show!

I was in the Windy City last month, and I went to the Art Institute solo. So choice. Though I dressed up as Ferris last Halloween, I was Cameron on this outing, spending some time in my thoughts gazing at A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Mesmerizing. 

And yes, I was tuned in on the phone to the Dream Academy's cover of the Smiths' "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want," but for authenticity, I wanted the instrumental version. Notify.

Is there any good reason this song isn't everywhere? The answer is No. 

Ray LaMontagne's rendition of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy."

This dude is another Zman dig-on. I saw him co-headline with Isbell a couple of years ago. Zed shoulda joined me!

It's understandable why this rando cover outtake isn't widely available. But it still should be. 

Father John Misty, "The Suburbs."

Finally, this one goes out to my good old buddy rob.  Lucky even to locate this long lost gem.
Bruce Greenwood & Circle the Wagons, "2 Ft. O' Butt Crack"

Notify, Volume VI

You know the drill... don't look for this stuff on Spotify or the major streaming services.

Did You Know??? The Smithereens' Pat DiNizio and Suzanne Vega worked together at an office in the early 80's. By the end of the decade, they were both on the charts. After he died a few years ago, she wrote: 

“I met Pat DiNizio when I was in my early 20s, in 1983. He needed a job, I had a job for him, so for a while he was my assistant, a receptionist in an office at a typesetting company in midtown New York. He called his mom in New Jersey every morning, first thing. Unfortunately, a couple of months later, my boss told me I had to fire Pat, which I then did. I was gone myself in a few months, as I had gotten a record deal. We both laughed about that later, and he asked me to sing on the track, ‘In a Lonely Place,’ which I’ve always been proud of. I loved doing the video, too. I ran into Pat constantly through the years, and he was always the same: smart, funny, driven, confident but never arrogant. Full of soul. Playing at his 60th birthday bash so recently brought it all home for me. I was shocked to learn of his death. He is still a part of my life. I feel the loss.”

This song is cool, and should be on Spotify. The Smithereens' entire album Especially for You is MIA there.

The Grey Album... I haven't heard much about it in a while, and you'll never see it on the big streamers, so here you go. 

40 years ago this week, Clash drummer Topper "The Human Drum Machine" Headon was sacked from the band for outrageous drug addictions, and nothing was ever the same for The Only Band That Matters. After that, Mick Jones was dumped, which is like booting Paul McCartney. And then three stiffs were scooped up for one final album called Cut the Crap. Later disowned. The "Cut the" part was superfluous. Anyway, they never recorded this tune for the record, but it and the song "This Is England" represent the only listenable latter-day Clash cuts. Worth a listen. God bless Joe Strummer, even if he destroyed what he loved.

David Lowery from Camper van Beethoven and Cracker is now a professor at UGA telling kids how not to get screwed in the music biz. Half of both bands' stuff is greyed out on Spotify. This tune was always one of my favorites. 

Total Coelo. "I Eat Cannibals." Ridiculous. Fun.

Fun? You want fun? Have some Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction. Never on Spotify.

Enjoy.

Notify, Volume V

Cheers, and welcome back once more to the Notify show, the one where we highlight songs not on Spotify!

After a Neil-based assortment last time, let's go back to the random smorgasbord style that this silly feature was build upon. Here we go!

In the spirit of St. Patty's, here are the Dropkick Murphy's doing my favorite Clash song in their own particular . . . [sigh] [Idiom, sir?] idiom. 

I love the part at the start when the singer asks the crowd, "Do you know what this one is?"

My kids loved this one when it came on The Electric Company 13 or 14 years ago. I did, too, in one of those rare occasions when kids' TV meets super cool adult tastes.

Going international, here's the Pizzicato 5, a Japanese pop band from the 80's and 90's. Culture!

Okay, here's a better way to watch it, and why I originally heard it.

So this song isn't on Spotify in any form, but with Not-ify, you get one of the more fantastic scenes from an old classic, The Blues Brothers.

Here's a song that gets wedged out of most places for obvious reasons, but given that it's not a political or cultural statement but simply an incredibly loose version of Albert Camus' absurdist novella "The Stranger," the shunning is a bit off. In any case, it ain't on Spotify.

 

See you next bat-time on Notify! Who else will appear here?

Notify, Volume IV

Welcome back to the Notify show, the one where we highlight songs not on Spotify!

Well, there will nobody out there surprised with this edition's inclusions. Remember when the ugly news of the day was Neil Young vs. Joe Rogan for Spotify's heart? I miss that.

That bickering did make me dig back into Neil's catalog. I'm a sizable fan of that prickly pear, and there are way, way too many of my favorites of his to pick one. (Probably warrants a separate post.) You could do a lot worse than simply rolling yourself a wooler and chilling out on a back porch on a rainy day with the Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere / After the Gold Rush / Harvest trilogy of brilliance.

But for now I'll pick two, one that's Greatest Hits material and one that's less so. 

This is probably my favorite Neil Young song.

This one is just loose and a mellow anthem for life and how to live it.

CSNY stuff is no longer on Spotify. Here's a dandy.

Joni Mitchell wrote that last one. She pulled her stuff off Spotify as well.

You know who also followed suit? Our guy Nils Lofgren, whom we celebrated a few years back. (And we didn't label him as Bite Me, Randy Newman, even though he's 5'3"!)

Yep, Nils did the song for our fratre's dad Jhoon Rhee's Tae Kwon Do Studios that we highlighted in that post, and he did "Bullets Fever." Both were included in a release last year from Lofgren called Bonus Tracks. They were both on Spotify for a hot minute! Now they aren't. Giddyup.

He also recorded a song in the 70's when it sounded like Keith Richards was leaving the Stones. In this early version, guess who is sitting in, singing, and playing piano?

Yep. His old Crazy Horseman Neil Young.

See you next time on Notify! It's getting easier!

Notify, Holiday Edition

Greetings, merry makers. 

Here's hoping all the gheorghies are about done with the shopping and prepping and can start to hunker down, be around loves ones, and enjoy the festivities.

I myself am not close to that.

While my Christmas shopping has pretty much been done for a few days now, I decided to throw an open house on Christmas Eve for a few friends and family to pop by. As such, the scramble to buy and prepare food, beverage, and decorations goes on and on. My to-do list is still long and distinguished. 

Who knew that people would actually be available on December 24 for some nog and grog by the Yule log?

I failed to mention it to you, but all gheorghies are welcome. Last names and numerical indicators have been whited out, but if your sleigh is nearby, come on by.

Why would I subject myself to this overly hectic stress and rather steep expense?

I may have mentioned this more than once here, but this year I am spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with my daughters for the first time since 2008. Divorce sucks any way you slice it, but this part has always been one of the worst components for me. I cannot overstate the seasonal depression that I inflicted on myself because of missing them in this 24-hour period year after year. It's just a night, just a morning, I know. But it has sucked not seeing the glee and awe in their faces from ages 6 and 8 through 17 and 19. 

But through a confluence of events, this year is different. And the three of us are thoroughly excited. Add in the Whitdog's superfun gf and we got ourselves a throwdown coming tomorrow night.

Grateful is not a string enough word. Ecstatic. So much so that I am grinning through all (most) to the nuisances to get things ready to sparkle tomorrow evening. I've had carols and holiday tunes on the Sonos speakers throughout the house for days. I bought a full-size tree for the first time in years. I've gone a bit overboard on gifts for the girls, and we're all wont to do now and again. And we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye.

Merry Christmas, friends. I love the gheorghie gang.

Such gratitude makes us want to pay it forward, or give a little back. It makes me think of an enormous outpouring one holiday season 37 years ago. Since you can't listen to the extended version (with Phil Collins crushing it on drums) on Spotify, here's a little Not-ify for you, Geldof style.

And here's the documentary on the making of this song, which is still my favorite holiday tune of them all, edging out Bing/Bowie's LDB and Dino doing Let It Snow³.

Peace, gheorghies.

Notify, Volume III

Here goes with Volume III of Notify, aka not on Spotify. (See Volume I and Volume II.)

A two-fer from a covers album from the 1990's. It was called Kiss My Ass: Classic KISS Regrooved, and it had plenty of filler. (Extreme's soiling of my favorite KISS song "Strutter" should be burned at the stake.) But Toad the Wet Sprocket, of all bands, had a terrifically deconstructive take on the band's most popular song.

Garth Brooks is a well-publicized Spotify holdout, and while there are great original songs in his catalogue that I could include here, I'll go with his Evan Lloyd-approved cover of "Hard Luck Woman." Here's Garth and KISS playing the song live -- crappy quality video, but you get the gist of two great tastes that go great together. Pretty cool.

Speaking of Evan, he sure did love his KIϟϟ. He would tell a story circa '91 about when he bedded a W&M co-ed we knew but had a few seconds of coitus interruptus when he had to get up to flip the KISS Destroyer LP on the turntable. Did so, and apparently didn't miss a beat. Alas, she was not named Beth.

Back to the songs... this spring rob and I exchanged our top picks for one of our favorite bands from our youth, The Police. Here's my list, in order. (I can't find his.)

Most of The Police catalogue has been Spotified... but there are some fun outliers worth Notifying. First, before there was The Police there was some low-level act called Strontium 90. They had an LP's worth of material, one track of which you'll recognize.

Before Sting and Stewart Copeland added Andy Summers to the mix, they recorded a single and B-side. "Fall Out" was the lead track and featured Copeland on drums and guitars, save a solo by some dude named Henry Padovani. Most preferred it to the more menacing B-side.  I did not. Here's a link to "Fall Out," and below is "Nothing Achieving." This is far more punk rock.

After The Police got big, Copeland would mess about and play most or all of the instruments on some songs, usually with inanely silly content. He operated under the moniker Klark Kent.  "Away from Home" was a fun tune, but below is my favorite track, "Don't Care," with a video featuring Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart's brother Miles Copeland (founder of I.R.S Records) masked and pretending to play instruments.

Stewart Copeland comes off like a super talented and cool dude.

Enjoy, and post more random stuff you can't find on the major music sites.

Father's Day Gift Ideas

I like simple pleasures.

Alright, maybe not like that.  But most of you guys are relatively simple too.  We're simple men.

Chances are you already have all the stuff you think you need, and most of the stuff you want.  With that in mind, here are a few simple Father's Day gift ideas to request this year.

A beef jerky subscription from Craft Jerky Co.  Options include keto-friendly for TR, booze-infused for Whitney, hot & spicy (like "hot hot caliente") for Dave, gluten free for Marls, and paleo for rob (because he's old).

Some new sneakers.  Like these Nike Killshots for about $69 or these Nike Blazers for about $52.

A slimmed down wallet.  Like this for $40.  I made the move from billfold to card holder a few years ago and it's liberating.  You don't need to carry every membership card, collect-10-punches-get-a-free-sandwich card, car wash coupon, or receipt you've ever been handed.  All you need is some cash, your license, ATM card, a credit card, health insurance cards, and maybe a subway/rail pass.  The rest is all bullshit.

A Spotify subscription.  Then you can make contributions to Notify.

An OXO computer cleaner.  You probably spent the past 15-16 months working and living at your desk so your keyboard is full of dust and crumbs and your monitor is covered in sneeze stains and fingerprints.  This $10 widget makes all that go away really easily.

A duffel garment bag.  Like this one for $95 or this big one for $275.  This is so smart I wish I came up with it.  It's a garment bag with three flaps that fold up to form a duffel bag on one side of the garment bag, so when you have a one-day trip that requires a blazer or suit you can pack it in your carry-on.  Or you could just be like me and wad your suit into a ball, stuff it in the rollaboard and hope for the best.

A mountain glass from North Drinkware.  These guys hand-make pint glasses and tumblers with 3D reproductions of famous mountains rising from the bottom.  I can't fully explain it, you have to click on the link.  They have nifty topographical map coasters too.  And I went to high school with one of the company founders.

Now when your wife or kids ask what you want for Father's Day you don't have to lamely say "I don't know" or "Just spending the day with you is all the gift I need."

Notify, Volume II

More "NOT-ify"...

Let's begin with some Zman recs. Z's favorite Notify track is this version of "Gin House Blues" by Nina Simone...
 

According to Z, "also available on Notify is the original version of I'm That Type of N**** by the Pharcyde which slaps orders of magnitude harder than the Spotify version (I assume there's a copyright issue with the sample)":

Back to the Whitney channel, here what's airing on my Notify waves...

Egregiously on Notify: De La Soul. Rob lamented this absence to me, Z has said it before, and it's a fact. We could put most anything below and it wouldn't be on mass streaming music, but we'll start at the start: album #1.

Arcade Fire does a killer take on my favorite Clash song.

And here's The Clash themselves with an early instrumental you can only find on Super Black Market Clash, "Listen." 

Aztec Camera taking Van Halen down a notch...

Camper van Beethoven - Last time was Key Lime Pie, here's Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. Starts out with a classic, Eye of Fatima. Favorites include a postmodern "O Death," "One of These Days," "Turquoise Jewelry," and "Tania," the rare song about Patty Hearst and the SLO.

Enjoy, and post more random stuff you can't find on the major music sites.

Notify, Volume I

That's pronounced "NOT-ify"...

I love Spotify.  I was slow to jump in on it, since I had (have) a hard drive with 36,000+ songs on it that I have collected, compiled, bought, beg, borrowed, and maybe even stolen across three decades. After a while, since I didn't possess the technology to access my HD anywhere on the globe, I could no longer deny the convenience that Spotify offers. It's pretty cool.

For a while, certain musical artists held out from the platform for purist or purely pecuniary reasons. And in truth, a lot of them weren't being selfish; it's well known that Spotify pays artists exactly jack diddley. Such is life as a rock and roller in the 21st century. Ask Rootsy, Les Coole, and Greasetruck.

Anyway, Spotify certainly does the trick for me, and these days, by now mostly everyone and everything is up there.  Mostly.

Some of my favorite stuff isn't there. Cool stuff I'd love to put on a playlist and expose to music fiends and friends everywhere. I don't just mean live stuff, there are cool studio tracks and one-off moments that should be shared.  So here I go with Volume I of Notify.

Brian Wilson sings "Brian Wilson"... I love this.

Still my favorite mash-up of all time...

A random one. When I was 15, someone gave my dad UB40's Little Baggariddim EP on cassette for his 40th birthday. UB40, get it? Hilarious. Anyway, he never bothered with it and I scooped it up.
The hit was the cover of "I Got You Babe" with Chrissie Hynde. I quickly skipped past that for a mini-treasure trove with "Don't Break My Heart," "Hip Hop Lyrical Robot," the super great/green "Mi Spliff," and a new and improved version of one of their early hits, "One in Ten." You can't find this version anywhere except on this EP, and I dig it the most.

Camper van Beethoven / David Lowery had a bone to pick with Spotify, and a $43 million lawsuit settlement caught some attention. A bit of Camper's stuff is still missing from Spotify, including most of Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and Key Lime Pie. 

Here's the latter. You've heard their cover of "Pictures of Matchstick Men," but again, I'd skip over it most of the time. Check out the three song mega-tandem of "When I Win the Lottery," "(I Was Born in a) Laundromat,", and "Borderline." 


Enjoy, and post more random stuff you can't find on the major music sites.