Whole lotta something

In honor of the RAWK SAWNG OF THE DAY - Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” – I offer a whole lotta tiny thoughts about today’s songs. 

Queens of the Stone Age – “Do It Again”

Whole lotta ego.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – “Monsoon”

Whole lotta drugs.

Elvis Costello – “Lip Service”

Whole lotta sass.

The Flaming Lips – “Buggin’”

Whole lotta kick drum (and bubbles).

Wilco – “In a Future Age”

Whole lotta dreaming.

John Lennon – “Working Class Hero”

Whole lotta repitition.

Mute Math – “Picture”

Whole lotta lost love.

Albert Hammond Jr. – “Hard to Live in the City”

Whole lotta nothing. Must delete this album immediately. Sucks to an embarrassing degree after first listen.

The Beatles – “Good Day Sunshine”

Whole lotta keys.

The Minus 5 – “Great News Around You”

Whole lotta harmony.

The Darkness – “Blind Man”

Whole lotta spandex.

George Harrison – “I’d Have You Anytime”

Whole lotta romance.

Metallica – “Ride The Lightning”

Whole lotta power chords.

RAWK SAWNG OF THE DAY: Led Zeppelin – “Whole Lotta Love”

Whole lotta Plant-o-gasms.

Creeper Lagoon – “Keep From Moving”

Whole lotta hope.

Bob Dylan – “Pledging My Time”

Whola lotta harmonica.

Clearlake – “It’s All Too Much”

Whole lotta purgatory.

David Bowie – “Rebel, Rebel”

Whole lotta lipstick.

Injected – “Only Hurts Awhile”

Whole lotta rhymes.

Incubus – “Diamonds And Coal”

Whole lotta snap.

Stars – “Ageless Beauty”

Whole lotta X chromosome.

Skybombers – “6 a.m.”

Whole lotta snarling.

Breakdown: 22 songs, three places

If anyone knows how to prevent my cell phone from interfering with my car stereo, I’ll give you some gum. I’ve about had it with the incessant buzz-hum-crack interruptions.

Pour me a pint

Bob Dylan – “Like a Rolling Stone”

David Bowie – “Starman”

British.

Bob Marley and the Wailers – “Roots, Rock, Reggae”

Starsailor – “Four to the Floor”

British, even though this song was produced by America’s favorite afro-maniacal murderer / producer: Phil Spector.

Minus The Bear – “Michio’s Death Drive”

The Used – “The Taste of Ink”

Dirty singer Bert got dirty with Ozzy’s Brit daughter.

Against Me! – “Rice And Bread”

Van Halen – “I’m The One”

Starsailor – “Talk Her Down”

Still British.

Radiohead – “Nude”

British.

Upside – “Something More”

The Beatles – “For No One”

Rumored to be British.

Built to Spill – “Don’t Try”

Clearlake – “Keep Smiling”

Bri-ish.

Billy Bragg and Wilco – “Stetson Kennedy”

Bragg is one the craggiest British wankers of all time. That’s why I like him so much. The guy’s got an album called England, Half English with a song called “Take Down the Union Jack,” fercrissake! Strangely, one of America’s best songwriters, Woody Guthrie, and the best American band of my generation, Wilco, are the meat on this song. Bragg’s just the sauce.

Lucero – “Coming Home”

Josh Rouse – “Sad Eyes”

Bernard Butler – “Smile”

British badass.

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers – “Loco to Stay Sane”

Coldplay – “Everything’s Not Lost”

Best song these British bastards have ever done.

Jet – “Rip it Up”

Flickerstick – “All We Are is Gone”

Texans that wannabe British.

Built to Spill – “Broken Chairs”

Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Commotion”

Big Star – “Back of a Car”

Jet – “Shiny Magazine”

Breakdown:

23 songs

all during commute (assignments on opposite ends of city)

Not that it has anything to do with, well, anything, but Boddingtons is perhaps the tastiest beer on the planet. Boddingtons is British.

Bill O’Reilly might see this playlist and call me a treasonous ex-patriot. I’d pour Boddingtons on him and call him a bloody treasonous ex-patriot motherwanker.

Miss Jones taught me English

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Swingin’”

Sometimes I wonder if Petty writes every one of his songs about girls he sees on the side of a road. Opening lines of this song: “She was standing by the highway / in her boots and silver spurs / gonna hitchhike to the yellow moon / when a Cadillac stopped for her.” The girl in boots and silver spurs proceeds to run into trouble with the law, go on a Vegas bender and call her mother-in-law for help only to go “down swingin’.” Opening lines of some other Tom Petty song: “She’s a good girl / loves her momma / loves Jesus / and America, too.” We all know what happens to that girl: Vampires, broken hearts, Ventura Boulevard, bad boys – the whole lot. Years back, I saw an interview with Petty where he’s talking about how “Free Fallin’” started out as a joke song about a girl he saw on the side of the road on the way to the studio one day. This makes me curious, but really makes me wish more girls would hang out on the side of the road near Tom Petty’s house.

The Clash – “Janie Jones”

Injected – “Untitled”

Elvis Costello – “No Action”

Fake friend Rob Gordon wouldn’t be happy with me, but “No Action” is much worthier of Top 5 Track Ones – Side Ones distinction than The Clash’s “Janie Jones,” which was the song before this one during today’s shuffle. Come on, Rob (or John Cusack, or Nick Hornby – whoever you are), ever heard “London Calling?”

The Flaming Lips – “One More Robot”

Centro-matic – “Tundra (Part Seven)”

Dead Moon – “It’s OK”

Finch – “Miro”

None of the emo kids liked the second Finch album. Probably because it was actually good. Damn good. One of my favorite loud r-a-w-k records from 2005.

Ben Folds Five – “Jackson Cannery”

The Used – “Greener with the Scenery”

John Coltrane – “Summertime”

Third Eye Blind – “Slow Motion (Dirty Version)”

This version of the song didn’t make the “Blue” album. There was a mostly instrumental sleeper instead. Probably something to do with the opening lines: “Miss Jones taught me English / but I think I just shot her son / ’cause he owed me money / with a bullet in the chest you cannot run.” Just gets gorier and more cryptic from there. It’s everything Third Eye Blind isn’t, and everything I wish they were.

Ben Folds Five – “Emaline”

Spoon – “The Beast and the Dragon, Adored”

Sufjan Stevens – “Casimir Pulaski Day”

Social Distortion – “Sick Boys”

Bob Dylan – “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”

Billy Joel – “Ain’t No Crime”

The Who – “Magic Bus”

The Pistol Arrows – “Who is the Dreamer and Who is the Dream?”

Sloan – “The Other Man”

The Beatles – “Hello, Goodbye”

Tom Waits – “Everything Goes to Hell”

Doesn’t this pretty much sum up every Tom Waits song?

Islands – “Rough Gem”

May 16. Dallas. Granada. Anyone who lives in Texas should go. These guys were the best band I saw at SXSW – show is unlike anything I had seen before.

Breakdown:

24 songs

2 during commute to work

20 at work

2 during commute home

Went home from work sick today. Was listening to Tom Waits at the time and nearly succumbed to his wishes for everything to go to hell as I ran into two curbs on account of the wooziness from the meds. But I’m alive for now. Nice try, Tommy boy.