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Friday, May 02, 2008
REELING
Stew
The Naked Dutch Painter and Other Songs
Image Entertainment : 2002
[Buy It]
JEEZ LOUISE
Zumpano
Look What the Rookie Did
Sub Pop : 1995
[Buy It]
Gift horse, mouth: I bitched about spring in my last post and got a week of rain and chill in return. But now the weather may be turning. There's a chance that it'll be the springest spring that every sprang, as the homeless guy muttered to himself as I passed by him this morning. In that spirit I offer two happy pop songs, as befits the springiest spring etc. Though they are quite different--one is Canadian, for godsake--here are five things that the two songs have in common.
1. Both are relatively recent. This is intentional. Last week's selections were all from jazz and popular singers of thirties, forties, and fifties. When my wife read that earlier post, she said, "People will think you're 70," which hurt my feelings as I am only sixty-seven.
2. Both are songs by artists who have gone on to bigger and excellent-but-not-necessarily better things. Stew created the Off- and then On- Broadway musical "Passing Strange," which ensures that more people will know that he is one of the most accomplished (this is a fancy way of saying "best") psychedelic/soul songwriters of the century. Carl Newman, Zumpano's lead singer and main songwriter, went on to form New Pornographers. As it turns out, I prefer the old pornography.
3. Both are indie. I guess. Or are they? See Alex's long, excellent post of earlier this week to resolve the issue. He did the heavy lifting; this post hides behind uplift and light. But if you want to consider the question "What is pop?" to go along with "What is indie?" feel free. Or, better, yet, return to Alex's post and take part in the ongoing colloquy. It is a highly demanding adult conversation that I will not replicate, even in part, here. It seems like the wrong setting. (A friend who read a draft of this post hinted--and then came right out and said--that the process of gushing about pop songs is inherently juvenile. "Teenagery," she said. Maybe. Sourpuss!)
4. Both are perfect. That's why you may find yourself experiencing pleasure when you hear them, or (if you already know them) experiencing both pleasure and the memory of pleasure. They are like girls who are so beautiful that they don't have a bad angle. In fact, I will now irresponsibly and teenagerishly declare that they are the only two songs of the last fifteen years where I wouldn't change a note. For comparison purposes, here are the number of notes I would change in a few other songs:"The Song is the Single": 3
"Endicott": 2
"Generation Landslide": 3
"Nicotine and Gravy": 8
"Albatross": 1
"Badge": 7
"Umbrella": 3
"Small Stakes": .5
"Jambalaya": 82 5. Both are above.Labels: ben, pop
posted by Ben
LINK |
Thursday, September 27, 2007
GODMOMA HERE
BE ALL YOU CAN BE
Godmoma
Here
Elektra : 1981
Out of Print
SEX SHOOTER (DEMO)
SEX SHOOTER (EXTENDED DANCE MIX)
 Video
French TV Performance
Apollonia 6
Apollonia 6
Warner Bros : 1984
Out of Print
The girl group Godmoma was a sexed-up side project from that funk muppet Bootsy Collins. The girls: former P-Funk vocalists Cynthia "Sugar Baby" Girty, Arnenita "T Baby" Walker, and Carolyn "Baby Kay" Myles. Bootsy beamed them up to the Mothership, along with Sly Stone, and Horny Horns Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, and cut an album of dirty disco that sweats like a FEMA trailer.
The experiment only lasted the one record, but Bootsy may have ushered in one of the decades great pop trends. Didn't it seem like back in the 80s, every dude and his cousin had a girl group? Not the in a Berry Gordy supergroup kind of way. And not yet the calculated marketing creations of the video generation. No these were strictly vanity projects. The girl group as the ultimate accessory: stage candy, funk whores, the girl group as soft porn harem.
Prince had a vanity project. There were 6 girls in it. Prince called it Vanity 6. But Vanity left the band, so Prince reformed it as Apollonia 6. I would have killed to have been on the Staten Island Ferry the day of that casting call. There's a Herzog documentary in there somewhere. All that hairspray and the anxious savagery of chased dreams and the lingerie from the Red Door Store in Paramus with the tags still on it.
'Sex Shooter' is one of Prince's premier pieces of brilliantly ludicrous porn funk. (When you consider that no music critic worth his vintage Tretorns would dare discuss Prince without those four words: porn. funk. brilliant. ludicrous. - then you know I speak high praise.)
There are certain similarities between Bootsy and Prince's side projects. They both were at their peaks, both brought in all-star support, both embrace their signature sounds, and both parade some serious, vaingloriously confused sexuality.
Take a lick, gimme a hit, get on the stick
and suck upon this
and
I need you to pull my trigger babe
I need you to get me off
I'm your bomb getting ready to explode
I need you to get me off
Be your slave do anything I'm told
Im a sex shooter....
Blow me away,
C'mon kiss the gun
It's a real Pandora's Box. Normally, when it comes to early '80s girl groups and party funk, I try so very hard not to pull the trigger on concerns of sexual identity politics. Those debates of stripper pole feminism: empowerment v objectification, emancipation v subjugation, the balances of power on the fetish exchange. This music just is what it is. It's post-narrative, it's post-innuendo, it's some serious species level action. When it comes to Pandora, Bootsy and Prince really aren't worried about what's coming out of her box so much as what they're gonna' put in it. I like to leave all that figurative groping to the gender studies undergrads at Sarah Lawrence. They can hash it out in their tutorial. Maybe in that new class they have:
The Nasty Dialectic: Transgression, Aggression, Sexuality and the mOthership.
But listening to Apollonia now 20 years on, please forgive me if I clear my throat. Prince really is a freak. Sure Bootsy and the ladies get into some gender role play, but it's all in fun. You know he's just trying to bring some dialogue to the dance floor. But in the Thealogy of pop funk, Prince is flying solo. He's sorting out some serious hyper-gender-erotica business, and he's using Apollonia 6 as psycho-sexual proxies in his little vagina monologue.
Maybe Prince just loves sex so much, that he wants access to all possible POVs available. Maybe he's a raving sexual narcissist, not just satisfied to sex-up women, he wants to enter the female form to embody it so he can experience what it's like to be a woman sexing him up. Or maybe these are just the shadow puppets of his erotic theater, and Prince in the role of of sex puppeteer, Gepetto as pimp. The Apollonia 6 certainly seem like puppets. Really, you can tell their hearts are not in it. When they command "Soon as I get undressed y'all clap your hands OK?" they just sound tired and blue collar. The orgasms are obviously faked, the gyrations the tired hulas of a Tijuana burlesque. They are nice girls; all they really wanted was to work at the Macy's cosmetics counter but Prince went and turned 'em out. And look at poor Sheena Easton: a sweet Scottish kid, with a stable career in Adult Contemporary music ahead of her. She studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She sang duets with Kenny Rogers. She hooks up with Prince, and now she's inviting American inside her 'Sugar Walls' and has Tipper Gore and the Parents' Music Resource Council naming her one of music's "Filthy Fifteen." Prince takes these young ones, coaches them up, gives them a new language, a genital lingua franca.
It must be exhausting to be Prince. Me, if I lived in the Purple Rain universe, I'd skip the whole girl band thing altogether. It's just so deviant and sexually confusing. I'd go for something normal, something conservative. Maybe settle down with a fashionable manservant named Jerome who would be full of self-esteem and would dance around in front of me with a giant mirror.Labels: funk, James, pop, sex
posted by James
LINK |
Thursday, August 02, 2007
OH, CANDY
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Epic : 1977
[Buy it]
LISTEN
Lambchop
No You C'mon
Merge : 2004
[Buy it]
SYMPATHY
Sleater-Kinney
One Beat
Kill Rock Stars : 2002
[Buy it]
WALKING AND FALLING
Laurie Anderson
Big Science
Warner Bros. : 1982
[Buy it]
Throughout my life there has been a type of female friend who has come to me with problems. When I was very young, these were girls I was interested in dating. Why else would you listen to four thousand hours of girl problems? Ha ha. I am joking. You would listen to them because they are people, too, people you care about, and listening to the problems of people you care about is both altruistic and selfish, in that it exhibits kindness and also illuminates aspects of the human condition, which is vital, especially if you plan to be a writer. Ha ha. I am joking again. The real answer, especially when I was fifteen, was somewhere in the middle. I wanted trust. I wanted to trust other people. I was willing to listen. I was not shy about giving advice when I thought it was appropriate. I had a certain appetite for problems and no real capacity for being shocked. And I was interested in dating them. So that's what happened.
Fast-forward fifty years. Now rewind twenty. Now rewind another ten. Now fast-forward five. Okay. That's about right. That's about now. The phenomenon I have sketched above has continued to occur, with several key differences. Just this week, for example, I heard some problems. Because I have been trusted with these problems, I am obligated to blur the facts. So what I will do is refer to individual people as if they are groups of people. I will also furnish some incorrect details. These people are half-Japanese. These people like Half Japanese. They are either the tallest or shortest people I have ever known. They never read magazines, which is rare for women, and they once punched a guy in the stomach during a carnal moment in a hotel bathroom in Portland, Oregon. There. That should do it.
Anyway, this week, these people had discussions with me about sad things in their lives. Mostly, these were romantic things. I have worked out the romantic problems in my life -- or at the very least brought them to a resting point -- but I remember the time of tumult and trouble, and as a result I am a good candidate for listening. These people said, "I don't understand this guy," or "Why didn't this guy do the thing he said?" or "Why would someone visit me and bring me a newspaper as a present?" and "I have to say I'm disappointed." Sometimes they cried a little. Five days later, their sadness has faded from memory a bit, though at the time it seemed urgent. It wasn't that I thought something tragic would happen, but I couldn't be certain. Times get tough. Self-worth wiggles and wobbles. People get sad. They need friends to pick them up. They should be reminded that they're something to many people even if they're no longer everything to one person. If I had to do it all over again, I might just email a copy of "Oh, Candy," one of the saddest songs ever written about an irretrievably sad friend. Oh Candy why did you do it
You didn't stick a needle in your vein
You just got so damned depressed
We all liked you except yourself
Oh, Candy worked so hard
At doing what he thought was right
It really really doesn't mean a thing Or maybe it would have been too much. It's about a suicide, after all. These were sad people. Believe in yourself, I said. He's a jerk, I said. He's not really a jerk, probably, I said, because if he's a jerk then that's going to undermine your sense of having picked a good guy, but he's probably afraid of you. It's hard to imagine someone not wanting to be with you, I said. In the end, it made them feel better. I know because they told me. (I'm sure it also made them feel a bit worse, to live inside their problems with such intensity, but I'm not a big believer in repressing sadness at the moment. Or rather: I am a big believer in it but I believe that other people should do the opposite.) And that was my aim, to make them feel better, so far as I could. Job well done. I went to eat with my wife and my kids. I went to shoot baskets at the playground. The women who were my friends had cut their sadness with conversation and that was enough for me. All I had to do was listen, which is what Kurt Wagner's doing in "Listen":Tell your trouble to
Someone stuck here just like you
Sucking in the smoke
Like it's going out of style
And I'll listen,
To what you have to say
You said it any way to me Then, last night, after a few days of listening, I suddenly became exhausted. I went to sleep early and woke up in the middle of the night with an evil question in my mind. I am not going to disclose the question yet, because it's embarrassing. But I'll just say that it is a horrendous question, horrendous to think and even more horrendous to actually type, so I hope that I will get at least some credit for bravery. But I'd be lying if I said that the this shameful, horrendous thought didn't cross my mind, and that's what writing is for, in part: to give voice to the thoughts that cross your mind, catch sight of themselves in the mirror, and run off, appalled by their own ugliness. So here's the thought I had when I woke in the middle of the night: Where's my goddamn reward? If you spend time being a big fat shoulder for someone to cry on, aren't they supposed to go to the catalog of shoulder gifts and pick something out and send it to you? Yecch. Even now, it makes me unhappy to hear myself think that. How bad a person does that make me, that I decompressed from the process of hearing about someone else's horrible week and settled eventually on the question of my own reward? As bad as Ken Lay? As bad as Robert Blake? As bad as Pol Pot? The charitable answer is that it puts me just south of Ken Lay, because all I was really doing was desiring, after the fact, in an imprecise way, that the friendship be mutual, as it has been before, as it should continue to be. But if the charitable answer came so easily, I wouldn't have been grappling with this in the first place.
I couldn't find a song about this, not exactly, because there's no song called "Selfish Jackalope." The closest I could come was "Sympathy," which isn't about adult friends, men and women, dealing or not dealing with each other. It's about Corin Tucker's fear over having a premature baby and her appeal to God. It would be presumptuous and even idiotic to insert myself into that relationship, even for the purposes of understanding my reaction to the people who need my sympathetic ear, and for that reason I'm going to do it:I know I come to you only when in need
I'm not the best believer
not the most deserving Do people deserve to be heard when in need? Yes, obviously. Candy did. So did my friends, which is why I listened. But what does it say about the process that they can't exactly reciprocate? Or, more to the point, that they are maybe not aware of the ways in which they can -- and, as Ken Lay would say, should -- comfort me just as I have comforted them. Just because I don't say I'm not sad (which I don't) doesn't mean I'm not sometimes. It's just that I'm less likely to say so, and say why, in a straightforward way, and so they are less likely to be able to offer comfort through listening. I guess I could say, "Hey, look, I am always happy to listen to you, but yesterday I got this crazy fleeting sense that I want more concrete rewards. It landed on me like a black butterfly while I was sleeping. It smelled like tar. It said, 'Remind them that they have the power to comfort you too.' At any rate, forget it, because that fleeting sense has fled. I am mortified. Back to normal."
I would never say that.
After this idea cooked (rotted?) inside me for a day or two, I actually did work up the courage to articulate it -- with great tentativity -- to my half-Japanese friend, and she had an interesting response. "What reward do you want?" she said. That question deafened me. What reward would I want? Money? Dirty pictures? Whiskey? An e-card? A hug? A puppy? For everyone to be fifteen again? I guess the sane safe answer, the only answer I'd ever give in public, is that I want to trust that friends will pick the appropriate reward and give it at the appropriate time so that I'm comforted when I need to be. That sounds like a dodge. In fact, it's both a cop-out and an opt-in. Which is, maybe, what friendship has to be to be real.I wanted you and I was looking for you but I couldn't find you.
I wanted you and I was looking for you all day but I couldn't find you.
I couldn't find you.
You're walking.
And you don't always realize it, but you're always falling.
With each step you fall forward slightly and then catch yourself from falling.
Over and over, you're falling and then catching yourself from falling.
And this is how you can be walking and falling at the same time. Labels: ben, pop, rock
posted by Ben
LINK |
Thursday, July 05, 2007
OOPS... I DID IT AGAIN! (LIVE)
Richard Thompson
1000 Years of Popular Music
Cooking Vinyl : 2006
[Buy It]Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that.
-Britney Spears Labels: alex, pop
posted by Alex
LINK |
Thursday, May 24, 2007
PARTY GIRL
Charlie Rich
The Complete Smash Sessions
Polygram : 1992
[Buy It]
Our friends at Minnesota Public Radio are putting together a segment on campaign songs, so MW & MPR are forming like organized crime to pose the au courant musical question: What campaign songs should America's most enterprising and indefatigable candidates adopt?
BAM BAM
Toots & The Maytals
Monkey Man
Berverly's : 1970
[Buy It]? UTAH MORMON BLUES
Phil Pavey
Available on: Jazzin' the Blues vol. 4 : 1929-1943
Document : 2000
[Buy It]? Readers of Moistworks - good news. We're opening the floor up to you! What do you think? We mean, really? We're interested. And, for once, we're talking big news: Obama, and McCain. Romney, Clinton, Edwards, and Hero Mayor Rudy G. - Important stuff!
OMG WTF LOL, right? But for serious - you're our BFF! So let us know, in the comments below. Ground rules?Surprise Us: TAKE ON ME [DEMO]
A-ha
[Unreleased]& Make Us Love You: NOBODY
Larry Williams and Johnny Watson with the Kaleidoscope
Okeh : 1967
Courtesy of [the newish & wonderful audioblog]: Office NapsTell The Truth, But Eschew The Obvious - RUN ON FOR A LONG TIME
Bill Landford & The Landfordaires
Columbia : 1949
Available on: There Will Be No Sweeter Sound : The Columbia/OKeh Post War Gospel Story 1947-1962
Legacy : 1998
[Buy It]& Off Point: BRENDA AND EDDIE
Billy Joel
Live : somewhere& Omit Those Words That You Find To Be Needless: ONCE
The Feelings
Dearling Darling
Darla Records : 1990
[Buy It]
Bonus points for riffing off something whichever candidate you're on about said, or did, within the past few news cycles - we paying enough attention to you to know you're paying attention to that sort of thing so: we'll post the best songs next week, and who knows - you might even end up famous here or on the radio! Either way, any idiot with with a suitcase nuke can tell you that the fate of this free world we're building rests squarely and securely on your shoulders.
NB: Speaking of same, Moistworks' Astoria Bureau would like to take this opportunity to endorse Mitt Romney - who believe you us, the last thing we want is to see our friends and readers committing Sodomites and catching GommorrheaLabels: alex, country, gospel music, indie, pop, radio, reggae, soul
posted by Alex
LINK |
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
THE LAST DAY OF OUR ACQUAINTANCE
Sinead O'Connor
I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Chrysalis : 1990
[Buy It]
GO WHERE YOU WANNA GO
The Mamas and the Papas
If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears
Dunhill : 1966
[Buy It]
A NEW ENGLAND
Billy Bragg
Life's a Riot with Spy Vs. Spy
Charisma : 1983
[Buy It]
On the day after a Valentine's Day made glorious by your great song suggestions and a steady chocolate IV, my divorce came through. A lone piece of paper in a thin, yellow, self-addressed stamped envelope arrived in my mailbox. Seeing my own handwriting and the stamps I had, (sadly, defiantly, resignedly? which was I that day) applied only a couple months before, was very odd. As a literary magazine editor, the "SASE" as we call it, is an instrument of a not-so-different form of heartbreak and rejection (your story/poem isn't good enough so we're returning it; you failed at marriage so we're returning you).
I thought this moment would bring elation. I had even talked of a big "divorce party," where everyone I know, including my ex, would celebrate. We're still friends, after all, and this is what we both want. Most people I've heard of go through agonizingly long battles involving lawyers, financial dispute, and in some cases, custody. We had none of that. The only property (and our version of a child) we shared was a 1993 Nissan Sentra, which, due to my relocating to the impossible-to-park-in East Village and his to LA, I let him have without a fight. But all that ease did not in fact lend itself to joy or party planning. Some relief yes, particularly that I had beaten the arcane, labyrinthine New York state court system, whose representatives told me again and again, "Get a lawyer. You'll never get it right on your own." Trumping the thrill of conquest, though, was the agonizing first moment of accepting my new adjective: "divorced." Who ever expects to bear that word? It's the thing that happens to other people, most certainly not to thirty-three-year-old me. It's horribly sad, and, even if it's for the best, is another way that life has failed to resemble anything I thought it would.
Last week, at the eye doctor, I was filling out a new patient form. There it was: "Marital status: married, single, divorced, widowed." I stared at those little boxes for a very long time. Why must they know? How is this relevant to my contact lens prescription? I contemplated just checking off "single," not a lie, but felt that truth was in order and checked the dreaded d-word. Just when I thought the agony was over, the next section: "emergency contact"! My God. Who would it be now? And who makes up these questions? I'll tell you who: a cabal of self-satisfied married people. I know because I'm a former member. I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut about the whole thing, but if you're nice, someday I'll teach you the secret handshake.Labels: classic, joanna, pop
posted by Joanna
LINK |
Monday, March 12, 2007
BRING IT ON HOME TO ME
Sam Cooke
One Night Stand: Sam Cooke Live
RCA : 2005
[BUY IT]
WHAT DID I DO WRONG?
Betty Harris
Sansu : 1966
Available on: Lost Soul Queen
[But wait for a legitimate release to BUY IT]
As a mom, trying to raise a daughter in today's challenging world, I'm always thrilled to find quality entertainment that the whole family can enjoy. Today, it's my honor to present the mother's seal of approval to Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds.
Flexibility: Top-Rated
Dating has taught me that most men can't meet the needs of a single woman. JT, on the other hand, appeals to the psycho-aesthetics of four females across two generations. My best friend, aka my daughter's other mom, just went through a break up. She rocks out to "What Goes Around Comes Around."This is the way it's really going down?
Is this how we say goodbye?
Should've known better when you came around
That you were going to make me cry My 9-year-old, the girl most likely to admire herself, prefers "LoveStoned."She shuts the room down
The way she walks and causes a fuss
The baddest in town
She's flawless like some uncut ice
I hope she's goin' home with me tonight My daughter's vice-sister (the other mom's oldest) has a pronounced taste for world domination. She prefers the title track.Tell me which way you like that
Do you like it like this?
Do you like it like that?
Tell me which way you like that And we all enjoy the feminist sensibility expressed in "SexyBack."Dirty babe
You see these shackles
Baby I'm your slave
I'll let you whip me if I misbehave Which puts JT in the tradition of such panty-peeler crooners as Sam Cooke, who have invoked the shackles of love to fine effect.
Values: Top-Rated
My favorite song is "My Love." I love the beats. I love how JT's wailing like, well, like a pussyThis ring here represents my heart
And everything that you've been waiting for and then T.I. steps in to add some much-needed perspective.I'm patient, but I ain't gonna try
You don't come, I ain't gonna die It reminds me of a story a co-worker told me, years ago. Jackie had this boyfriend who had some ex-wife that kept coming around, showing up at his house wrapped only in a raincoat, sitting out front waiting for him to get home. The boyfriend told Jackie he hadn't had any dealings with the wife for over a year. But Jackie didn't buy it. She told me, "Ain't no dick in the world that good. He's been hitting it on the side this whole time, and I'm done with him." I love those old masochistic love songs as much as anybody, but do you really want your daughter crawling on the floor like Betty Harris? Less masochism, more pragmatism. Because Jackie's right.
In an age of decadent relativism, JT bravely calls for the return of the ethical standards we've left behind.I'm bringing sexy back
Them other boys don't know how to act I have this conversation with my women friends every weekend. Three cheers for JT for using his public platform to give voice to the voiceless and raise awareness on this critical issue.
Prix d'Honneur
Best use of "bitch" in a song lyric: "Damn Girl"Don't need no Maybelline
Cause you're a beauty queen
Don't need no L'Oreal
Cause bitch you're bad as hell And thanks to James "Disco-Ball" Morris, who persuaded me to listen to this album.
Readers, I need to shake off the winter blahs. What's worth listening to these days? I'm pretty tired of rock, but I'm open to most things.Labels: megan, pop
posted by Megan
LINK |
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
CRASH
The Primitives
Lovely
RCA : 1988
[Buy It]
HEY HEY HELEN
Lush
Gala
4 A.D.: 1989
[Buy It]
SUEISFINE
My Bloody Valentine
Isn't Anything
Relativity: 1988
[Buy It]
EVERYDAY IS LIKE SUNDAY
Morrissey
Viva Hate
Warner : 1988
[Buy It]
PROVIDENCE
Sonic Youth
Daydream Nation
Enigma : 1988
[Buy It]
I moved recently, and this past weekend started unpacking my music. A friend came over in the middle of the mess-making and demanded "Everyday Is Like Sunday." Which, he somehow knew, I would only have on tape. I started tearing apart boxes, desperate to find Viva Hate, but instead unearthed my semi-precious collection of mix tapes. Each one with it's own clever collage cover (typically cut out from Interview, Sassy, and flyers for all-ages shows); serial killer-like titles made up of cut-out letters; and personal messages I can no longer remember the meaning of.
The oldest I could find is from 1988 (and, as luck would have it, features the Morrissey song in the middle of side B). The blurry blue-and-white snow-like pattern on the front and the brown cardboard-colored inside are distinctly reminiscent of a late-eighties Esprit ad. The tape itself says (in pencil; when was the last time you used a pencil?) "Jo's Tape (pretty mellow stuff) 11/88." The real coup would be to find those old mixes I made by holding my tape recorder next to the radio, which date, much, much earlier, as do the fake radio shows my brother and I would record, one of which bore the following call letters and tagline: "WJYJ, WJYJ, the station that repeats itself."
For now, I give you selections from this mix that are actually from 1988 (except the Abba cover "Hey, Hey Helen," but I couldn't help it). In my bedroom in Framingham, Massachusetts, it was the year REM signed to Warner, regular kids started knowing who Siouxsie was, Mike Boddicker joined the Red Sox (minor interest in baseball, major crush on him), Surfer Rosa came out, and my big brother left me alone with my parents by going off to college. Though on the day I made this mix, I was probably much more focused on the person for whom it was intended. Sadly, it's clear that I never gave it to him.
1988? You?Labels: indie, joanna, pop
posted by Joanna
LINK |
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
SEA OF LOVE
Phil Phillips with the Twilights
Single
Mercury : 1959
[Buy It]
ALWAYS ON MY MIND
The Pet Shop Boys
Discography
Capitol : 1991
[Buy It]
HALAH
Mazzy Star
Rough Trade : 1990
[Buy It]
MAMA, YOU BEEN ON MY MIND
Bob Dylan
The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1-3
Columbia : 1991
[Buy It]
KATH
Sebadoh
Sebadoh III
Homestead : 1991
[Buy It]
Last week I sent an email to about twenty friends, relatives, ex-boyfriends, new friends, old friends, and people I hardly know but thought would have good answers, asking "I'm making a list for my Moistworks Valentine's Day post...what are your favorite love and anti-love songs...?"
My main reason for asking was that I was curious to see how certain people would respond. Who would ignore it, thinking "What a stupid question." Or, who would ask "Don't all songs fit into one category or the other?" Who would respond immediately with a long, rambling list, or who would write, also immediately, with "I need to think."
My people did not disappoint; I got all of the above. Al Green (obviously) and Ween (awesomely) showed up on several lists. Bob Dylan, yes (and even I, with vast ambivalence about him, am torn apart by the last line of this song). Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra, Throbbing Gristle, Monochrome Set, Judas Priest, Orange Juice, Sebadoh, Van Halen, and the Buzzcocks, yes, yes, yes. But the best answers, which I did not anticipate, were those songs that would make absolutely no sense to anyone but me, due only to the nature of my relationship with the responder.
"Sea of Love" fits squarely into the last sentence. "That was the day I knew you were my pet," does not typically ring the bell of today's modern woman, yet the man who named that song has sent me so far to the brink of sanity and submissive lust that I could do nothing but nod and drool and wonder which version to use here. (Of course I opted for the one he had specified.) The Pet Shop Boys version of "Always on My Mind," could only be on the list of the man who held my hand at a concert in an airplane hangar in Berlin, as both of our jaws dropped at the odd and scary sight of a thousand German fists banging the air to the rhythm. "Halah" by Mazzy Star would be merely a pretty, dreamy whine were it not for the fact that the record was played over and over again to mask the sounds of the first great sex I ever had. "Kath" was mentioned by both a close friend who knows I wrote a poem after it in college and a man who has no idea how much my heart aches for him whenever I hear it.
All this to say: Love is such a specific, alchemical thing, that to merely hear someone else sing about his/her love for yet someone else doesn't quite register. To me, a love song is all about association. But anti-love, that's another story. Gut-tearing, nauseating rejection and loss, now that is indeed universal. Here, though, is where my friends did disappoint, and where I, for fear of breaking down into a quivering wreck before finishing this post, have failed. This is what I leave to you, dear readers. Tell me the saddest (or angriest) love songs you know, and by sunset (just in time for the east coasters to burn a mix for their dinnertime sweetie), I'll post a handful here.
Thank you! Here are some highlights. I wish I could post them all...
FARE THEE WELL, MISS CAROUSEL
Townes Van Zandt
Townes Van Zandt
Sunspots : 1969
[Buy It]
ALL THE LOVE I EVER HAD
Hank Williams
Single, 1951
Available on The Original Singles Collection
Mercury : 1991
[Buy It]
GIN HOUSE BLUES
Nina Simone
Nuff Said!
RCA : 1968
[Buy It]
THE CHAIN
Fleetwood Mac
Rumours
Warner : 1977
[Buy It]
HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART?
Al Green
Let's Stay Together
Hi Records : 1972
[Buy It]
And a late-stage addition, for a friend and reader who knows who he is (and whose own version I prefer but don't have a recording of):
EVERY TIME IT RAINS
Randy Newman
Bad Love
Dreamworks : 1999
[Buy It]Labels: indie, joanna, love, oldies, pop
posted by Joanna
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Thursday, October 13, 2005
GLYCERINE
Bush
Sixteen Stone
Kirtland : 1994
[Buy It]
DISCIPLE
SEVEN FACES
HERE COMES THE PAIN
Slayer
God Hates Us All
American : 2001
[Buy It]
Sorry about the site being down for a little bit. James said we're not supposed to blog during Yom Kippur. Also, we needed some new server action, which we got (from God), so all is well.
In response to the winners of my bands-named-after-tragedies contest, I was going to post Anthrax and Bush. But you know what? As sort of terrible as Bush is, Anthrax is terribler. I couldn't sully our beautiful new bandwith that much.
But Slayer Slayer Slayer. Just because. (Though notably, in this context at least: this record was released 9/11/01.)Labels: joanna, metal, pop
posted by Joanna
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Wednesday, October 05, 2005
LOOK AROUND YOU
I Am the World Trade Center
Out of the Loop
Kindercore : (June) 2001
[Buy It]
YOUR INARTICULATE BOYFRIEND
Jenny Toomey (formerly of TSUNAMI, 1991-1997)
Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings The Songs of Franklin Bruno
Misra Records : 2002
[Buy It]
WALKING ON SUNSHINE
Katrina and the Waves
Katrina and the Waves
Capitol : 1985
[Buy It]
Inspired by Alex's comment on James's hilarious Monday post-"James, you are the World Trade Center" (you can't see the art anymore but it was a doctored image of Lalo Shifrin towering above the Towers)-today's is an homage to bands whose names have been forever tainted by tragedy.
There's a surfer bar in my neighborhood called Hurricane Hopeful, but otherwise, the Williamsburg Bureau couldn't come up with more than this. So over to you, dear readers. The best one in the comments box gets a signed copy of the brilliant Home Land by one of the top ten funniest New Yorkers, Sam Lipsyte.Labels: indie, joanna, pop
posted by Joanna
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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
XANADU
I'M ALIVE
Olivia Newton John and E.L.O.
Xanadu soundtrack
MCA : 1980
[Buy It]
TELEPHONE LINE
E.L.O.
A New World Record
Jet : 1976
[Buy It]
As I'm sure you all know because you've been following this case very carefully (since there hasn't been much else in the news lately): Olivia Newton John's boyfriend Patrick McDermott has been mysteriously missing for about nine weeks. He was on an overnight fishing trip off the coast of San Pedro. Some think he fell off the boat, though a witness saw him de-boating, alive. And that's not the only fishy thing. His ex-wife (not ONJ) was the one to report him missing--but a full two weeks after he disappeared. It seems as though Olivia herself didn't notice his absence. They've been together for nine years, but maybe they just don't talk much. And she's been photographed at tree-plantings and shit, smiling away, not looking at all worried. Foul play has not been ruled out, not that I'm casting any suspicious glances toward lovely Olivia, whose amazing movie Xanadu taught me some mean roller skating moves all the while educating me about Greek muses and gods.
I'll be carefully monitoring the McDermott situation and will be sure to keep you posted.Labels: classic, joanna, pop
posted by Joanna
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005
OUTDOOR MINER
Wire
Chairs Missing
Harvest : 1978
[Buy It]
THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT US
Tracey Ullman
You Broke My Heart in 17 Places
Repertoire : 1983
[Buy It]
HOLOCAUST
Big Star
Third/Sister Lovers
PVC : 1978
[Buy It]
I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU
Dolly Parton
Jolene
RCA : 1974
[Buy It]
I have been jumping up and down for months about the epidemic of New Yorkers shutting out of the sounds of the city, people not moving out of your way because they can't hear "excuse me," the ubiquitous white cord. This perfectly fit in with the other thing I like to jump up and down about: the uselessness of the generation behind me, the twentysomethings (except Brian Howe) who seem to not really be working or doing much of anything but shopping and fiddling with electronic items. I have worked since I was nine. Paper routes! Babysitting! Walgreen's! Never mind the fact that in MY twenties my friends and I began our path toward total world domination. What have these people been doing?
I had a Walkman. Walkwoman. I rode the bus with Wire and New Order. Later I skied to Mountain Song. I'm a great skier. The only sport I'm actually good at, aside from swimming, which always seemed less a sport and more something you do in order to enjoy the water and not die. Fucking hell, I took that far. I was a lifeguard. Never for oceans, I wasn't strong enough, but for pools and lakes. I saved small children by reaching out a hand. Adults by saying "stand up (the water is three feet deep)."
I love computers, I love Macs. And when they came out I was fully supportive of the endeavor. I even sort of wanted one. I just didn't have the money. And as it evolved I even went through the entire thought process about the amount of memory on the regular one versus the Mini and how stupid Mac was that the Minis were the cute ones in colors and for a feminine but tech-oriented person like me it was all just a huge conflict that left me feeling broke and tired. Color against space. This time around, I wanted a Shuffle. It's tiny, I'll wear it at the gym. But then it has no screen and hardly holds any songs and if you're going to spend $100 you might as well spend $200. Really? I think that's still twice as much.
But then the real rationalizations began. I'm feeling sad. Music makes me happy. Getting rid of my anti-iPod feelings will alleviate some of my day-to-day stress. I live in Williamsburg. It's a lot of work getting mad at the kids all day. I can use it in the car. I can use it for work to record interviews. Though I publish fiction and poetry and have never done an interview in my life. But the musician interviews I start doing for moistworks will take me places I've never dreamed of and of course pay back the $259 in minutes. I am on my way to becoming a new person, and there is only ONE WAY for the new Joanna to even begin to emerge.
YES! Please, yes, yes. A pink one.
I tried it this morning on my way to work, listening to Dolly Parton and Big Star. I was getting into it a little, making sure not to sing aloud. A woman across from me had hers on. She was about five years older than me, a little frumpy, but nice looking. She smiled. Women smile at me all the time. I smile back. It's something we do. Either about an outfit or shoes or good hair or just, "you look like a nice person." This woman may have been doing any of those things, yet all I could think was, she's smiling out of iCamaraderie, something I am in no way ready to participate in. I gently removed the buds and pulled out a magazine, making sure to make another eye-smile at her. There was no need for hostility.
-by Joanna YasLabels: country, indie, ipod, joanna, pop
posted by Alex
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