Ipod shuffle play list at random 3 day weekend extra bullshit edition.
1) Piss Aaron-Todd Rundgren. an odd choice for the weekend kicker-offer, but this is at random. If I had to pick one track off Something/Anything, this would not be it. Gimme “Song Of The Viking”
2) Show Biz Kids-Steely Dan. This is better. Driving music. Great screaming on the outro/fade
3)Help, I’m A Rock. Zappa. Another song with a comma. Songs with commas pretty much rule ….Paint It, Black.. Walk Away, Renee..
4) The Courage Of Others.-Midlake – Can’t help it, this record continues to kick my ass in every which way. MOJO magazine just reviewed it and gave it four stars. It will be interesting to see how this UK mini tour and the February 1st release of the album carries them, press-wise.
5) House For Everyone-Dave Mason- ok I’m embarrassed to say, it’s Traffic. All the Mason songs on “Dear Mr Fantasy” kinda annoy me. Like they’re trying to jump on the psychedelic bandwagon. His efforts on the second album were better when they were trying to sound like The Band. Can’t blame them, everybody was.
6) Cousin Kevin-The Who-Rumored to be the half-time opener at the game which will not be named.
7) The Scarecrow-Pink Floyd –Syd Barrett, the original punk rocker.
8) Don’t Blame It On Me-The Association. Curt Boettcher production, I wrote about him earlier.
9) Summer Days-The Partridge Family –Wow what a coincidence. Boettcher’s influence right here, big time especially the shrillness of the background vox. I dare to say they stole his sound outright.
10) What You Is-Robyn Hitchcock – I love this guy but it seems his idea well has run a little dry.
In fairness, his back catalog is extremely difficult to live up to. He’s has certainly delivered enough masterpieces in my book.
11) The Planners Dream Goes Wrong-The Jam-Weller trying prove he’s as eclectic as The Small Faces were. Yawn.
12) The Train-Frank Sinatra–”Watertown” is really a terrific album. A mid ‘70’s effort by Frank with songs written by Bob Gaudio of Four Seasons fame. File under underrated.
13) She’s Leaving Home-Cheap Trick –from their Sgt Pepper Live record. Overall, kind of an antiseptic effort. Not bad though.
14) Prologue -Gentle Giant Unheralded ‘70’s proggers. These guys were just chock full of tricks. Highly recommended.
15) Cold Wind To Valhalla-Jethro Tull–Someday Ian Anderson will get his propers as a songwriter.
16) Can I Get Some Help-James Brown—Riffin’ and shoutin’
17) Stupidly Happy-XTC–Andy Partridge it seems is a control freak and that’s why people eventually tire of working with him. But with results like this, it would be my way or the highway, too.
18) Kansas City-The Beatles–Fab Four filling out the “For Sale” album with a cover version that goes all the way back to the Hamburg days.
19) Brand New Cadillac(live) The Clash-Crushing everything in it’s wake at breakneck speed.
20) Lady-O–Judee Sill–I sent this out to my Rock NYC brethren about a week ago. Did’nt get much feedback, maybe they already have it, or haven’t gotten around to it yet. One of the most glorious and adventurous melodies ever written.
Happy MLK day (three day weekend! Whoop!)