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(17 plays)
Rearviewmirror // Pearl Jam
The other night we watched this documentary about Pearl Jam. I lost interest somewhere around Vitalogy, kinda like I did with the band, not coincidentally.
Vs. is my favorite Pearl Jam album by far. Some really excellent, highly focused anger here, and that’s something I can appreciate. In particular I relate to “Rearviewmirror,” though probably not in the context Eddie originally intended.
I gather speed from you fucking with me Once and for all I’m far away I hardly believe, finally the shades…are raised…
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(92 plays)
Gardening At Night // R.E.M.
Chronic Town came out 30 years ago. That’s thirty. With a 3.
I wasn’t hip enough to be aware of it at the time, of course. My listening was pretty parochial until I got to college, and it was 4-5 years after its release that someone turned me on to this incredible music. It was probably when one of my bands covered “Carnival Of Sorts (Box Cars).” I’m pretty sure we even punctuated it exactly that way on our set lists because it was important, and so were we.
Anyway, now, more than half a lifetime later, I really do garden at night when my kids are in bed because that’s the only chance I get. This song enters my mind tonight while I’m watering my newly planted annuals, and I laugh at what the skinny kid in the apartment on Ridge that smelled like bongwater would think if he could see the life that would unfold before him.
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(50 plays)
The Day I Tried To Live // Soundgarden
5:20 for 5/20
I can’t find it right now, but I once read an interview with Kim Thayil wherein he said that he didn’t think Soundgarden owed anything to Led Zeppelin. This is easily the most absurd and least self-aware thing ever said by a rock star, ever, and I realize what a strong statement that is but come on, Kim.
All rock bands worth listening to owe something to Led Zeppelin.
Have you ever heard your lead singer? He’s the good looking guy with the long hair and the tight jeans in the front of your stage? Belting out high notes like only one rock singer ever did before him?
Polymeter. Look it up.
Nice job layering all those guitar parts, Kim. I wonder who else did a lot of that kind of thing.
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(26 plays)
Rain In The Summertime // The Alarm
5:12 for 5/12
Thank you for saying encouraging things about my little story from earlier. I may write down all those stories someday…the problem is, I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. Not sure how to reconstruct them, or whether to just write a fictionalized account and then get torn up by Oprah later.
I’ve forgotten a lot of the details of other things, too, but this song brings me back to feeling ways about things from even longer ago and some of those days are crystal clear. Emotional memories seem to always be the easiest to recall. I remember the day a girl gave me this song on a mix tape, and I remember the day I almost punched a guy on a trading floor. I forgot a lot of the days in between.
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(80 plays)
Took Too Long // Monte Montgomery
5:07 for 5/7
Part of an occasional series: Guitarists You’ve Never Heard Of Who Are Better Than John Mayer.
My friend Mike turned me on to Monte a few years ago. We saw him at Martyrs, a small club, small enough that I’ve played it. Monte’s an old school road warrior, pounding the pavement with his three-piece band and just destroying it night after night in front of a hundred people at a time. Absolutely blistering virtuosity, but still musical and never descending into wankery.
He gets that cool tone by playing an acoustic guitar, an ancient Alvarez, but through a rig with effects more common for electric guitars. Sustain for days.
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(51 plays)
New Kid In Town // The Eagles
5:05 for 5/5
I was wondering at what point it became uncool to like The Eagles, but the more I think about it, it was probably always uncool to like them. I imagine their fanbase in the early 70s to be mostly nerdy dudes with bad mustaches and polyester suits. I am sure their fanbase at that time also included at least one suburban kid who was only just learning about music. He didn’t know much about the themes they were singing about, but he was damn sure it was moving him emotionally.
I think this is one of the most haunting, beautiful pop songs ever written. I have probably heard it 500 times, and I still get a little shiver at the end when they change key back to E under the line “he’s holding her, and you’re still around…oh my, my.” Magic.
Fun fact: Randy Meisner played a guitarrón mexicano instead of a bass on this track. ¡Feliz cinco de Mayo!
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(20 plays)
Achilles Last Stand // Led Zeppelin
Sometimes you just need six or seven layers of Jimmy Page, stretching out over ten minutes long. See if you can pick them out, assuming your mandatory air drumming isn’t distracting you too much.
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(51 plays)
Make Me Smile // Chicago
4:28 for 4/28
I took my first real shot at arranging when I was a junior in high school. It was this song. There was a lot of movement between bands among my musically minded friends, a lot of cross-pollination. Little mini-bands came and went over the course of a week or two. I had the idea that it might be fun to put together something with a horn section, so I grabbed my Chicago II LP and a sheaf of staff paper and spent about 16 hours over the course of a weekend in my room, carefully transcribing the three-part (trumpet, sax, trombone) lines as well as I could. Sometimes I’d slave over just a few notes at a time, lifting the needle and backing up only a couple of grooves to hear it again and again and again. That song never played right on that record after that; I wore it out.
On that Monday, after school, I grabbed three friends with the right instruments and we set up in the back of the band room. A little crowd of other band nerds was hanging out. We always hung around the band room…that’s what band nerds did while everyone else was out having sex or whatever.
They started playing my charts along with me on guitar. I knew I’d nailed it. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. And then about 30 seconds in, after the opening bit is done and it transitions to that first legato line, I will never forget this kid Frank who was among those listening along, throwing his fists up in the air and screaming “FUCK YEAH!” because it was just that right.
I don’t think we ever played it at a gig because that little mini-band never got legs. There wasn’t enough material around with horns then unless you wanted to be a Chicago tribute band, but that idea was already grody by 1983…they’d gone completely rotten from schmaltz by that point, and all their good stuff like this was 15 years old (like us).
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(81 plays)
Chain of Fools // Aretha Franklin
4:22 on 4/22.
Rolling Stone ranked her #1 in their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Who’d argue? This is an extended version with a long intro where she improvises along with the guitar which gets it up to 4:22. It’s a shame the labels and radio stations didn’t have the nuts to play this version in 1967, though the edited version did pretty well, so what do I know.
This song also reminds me of one of my college bands, maybe the best band I was ever in. What I wouldn’t give for some video from a Little T & The Bags gig. Hell, I don’t even have any photos. When I write my book, one chapter will include us playing this song on the lakefill on a perfect early summer day in front of a completely wasted Dillo Day crowd. You’ll have to buy the book to learn what Sarah was wearing, and what Thom and I had eaten just prior to taking the stage.
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(226 plays)
Carrie Manolakos // Creep
I know people don’t click on links to watch videos here, even when beseeched as desperately as I did earlier today. People are occasionally more inclined to listen to music posted inline, so I converted her video to MP3 and am presenting it here in the hopes that a few other souls might be stirred today.
I can think of maybe one other time in my life when a musical performance affected me so strongly.
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(40 plays)
Move On // Jet
4:21 on 4/21
I have this feeling I posted this once before, but I can’t find it now. If only there were a way to somehow search the Internet for content that has been previously posted. Tumblr oughta think about something like that, in between hiring Awesome User Experience Designer Architect Visionaries with Expensive Glasses and Scarves.
Anyway, if I had posted this song before, I probably would have said how much I loved it for its obvious affection for Let It Bleed- and Sticky Fingers-era Stones, the slide guitar and Dobro, and the general wistfulness of it all. I guess Flinders Street station is right in the heart of Melbourne, but the picture in my mind is of a lonesome train station out in the desert somewhere, saturated by dusty yellow sunlight.
10:34, Flinders Street station I’m lookin’ down the track Uniformed man asking am I paid up Why would I wanna be that?
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(70 plays)
Everlong // Foo Fighters
4:11 for 4/11
I tried the new Spotify feature — it looks so cool at first blush, with the integrated search and everything. And then you get the pretty album art in the post, though maybe a little bigger than you want it, but that’s OK.
And then you click play and it proceeds to pop up 256 dialog boxes before launching that bugfest POS proprietary Spotify app which always needs an upgrade that takes 10 minutes and intrudes in your music with a stupid, unlistenable ad every 14 seconds after you do.
So, tumblr’s track record of adding borderline unusable chrome without actually enhancing usable functionality remains unblemished. At least they get points for consistency.
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(30 plays)
Out Of Touch // Hall & Oates
4:07 for 4/7
This is officially a Hall & Oates appreciation blog now. Also, please accept my apologies and consider this a palate cleanser by someone who can actually sing.
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(40 plays)
Another Muse (demo) // John Scholvin
Toni’s exceptional vlog post today challenged us to explain why we’re full of shit when it comes to finding reasons not to pursue our creative endeavors. Right after I saw it this afternoon, I started thinking about my answer.
But on the way home from work, it occurred to me: what if, instead of explaining why I’m full of shit, I spent some time finishing one of the 60024 unfinished projects around here. You know, stop being full of shit. So I did. I finished this demo that has been siting here for a good long while. (Well, mostly finished…there are things missing and things to redo and that game never really ends, you know?) So, it’s almost midnight, and while today is still today, I’m calling it.
BTW, I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever put a song that I wrote up in a public place. I do lots of work on other people’s stuff; maybe there’s time for my stuff, too.
