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.

If it’s far out, was it ever far in?

Friday May 2

The Flaming Lips – “Free Radicals”

Ryan Adams – “Halloweenhead”

Yeah, I’ve been alone on the highway late at night and proudly butchered this song at the top of my lungs. What of it? Mindless idiot-rock from Ryan Adams, of all people. Still, he managed to turn this into a piano ballad when I saw him at Cain’s a few months ago. Unreal.

Hey Mercedes – “Eleven to Your Seven”

The Feds – “Angels & Devils”

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – “Magnolia Mountain”

Low – “Closer”

Jesse Malin – “High Lonesome”

Islands – “Jogging Gorgeous Summer”

Elbow – “Fugitive Motel”

Mute Math – “You Are Mine”

Watched a couple Mute Match videos on YouTube before a party this weekend (a party at which I am rumored to have set myself on fire, even if I dispute it). Somehow, I think I managed to see Mute Math play a less-than-stellar show at Cain’s a few months back. This isn’t to say I wasn’t floored at that Cain’s show – it was easily one of the most extraordinary and original things I’ve ever seen. That rhythm section is alien, I swear. I only say less-than-stellar now, after seeing the madness that ensues at other shows. This band might just take over the world with its next record, or it might just fade away. Either way, at least I got to see it.

Stars – “The First Five Times”

Guster – “Two Points for Honesty”

RAWK SAWNG OF THE DAY: Injected – “Burn it Black”

Tom Waits – “Blue Skies”

June 23 – Dallas at Palladium
June 25 – Tulsa at Brady Theatre

The Who – “My Generation” 

Ben Folds Five – “Your Redneck Past”

Breakdown: 16 songs, two places

I’ll be working out of the paper’s Capitol Bureau from now until next Friday. This means little-to-no time for tuneage at work. Instead, I’ll be listening to the music of conference committee reports, filibusters, partisan pandering and engrossed bills. May God help us all.

Short playlists ahead, but big news music news for yours truly will make up for it. Stay tuneage-d.

Meat on a Monday

Uncle Tupelo – “Gun”

Starting the week off right…

Doves – “M62″

Kenna – “Red Man”

Injected – “Dawn”

Pearl Jam – “Dissident”

Fifteen years after its release, Vs. remains one of the purest and most sonically pleasing albums I’ve ever heard. The engineering is just superb. That kick drum feel is so deep and heavy, but not too boomy. The snare drum cracks like a lightning bolt. Most engineers will tell you kick and snare sounds are two of the hardest things to master, and most good engineers will tell you Brendan O’Brien and Nick DiDia hit perfection on all cylinders with Vs. and most of the other records they’ve done. On Vs., they top the rhythm section with this jangly, open-ended guitar tone that’s as meticulous as it is loud and a purposefully raw, up-front vocal sound that makes it feel like Eddie’s sitting in the room with you. I find myself listening to this album more for the sonic value than the songs sometimes, and that’s a damn shame since most of the songs on Vs. are my favorite in the Pearl Jam catalog.

Bloc Party – “On”

The Minus 5 – “Desperate for Someone”

Eels – “Jungle Telegraph”

The Jayhawks – “Will I See You in Heaven?”

The Beatles – “A Day in the Life”

The Stills – “Helicopters”

Metallica – “Sanitarium”

Ol’ Dirty Bastard – “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”

This the only song I can play on piano. I’m cool with that because I think ODB would be coo’ wit dat, 2.

Breakdown: 13 songs in three locations

Ate all the meat I could at the barbecue at Kody’s place in honor of Cooper’s birthday tonight. Didn’t keep track of every song that belted out of the monstrous mono speaker in the living room, but I feel totally comfortable and damn proud to report it was nothing but AC/DC, Airbourne and Lucero. At least until the whiskey and tequila took hold of Cooper and Co. That’s when I heard grown men getting down to Kelly Clarkson and realized I didn’t have enough booze in me to get down like that. Not on a Monday. So I left, being the occasionally responsible professional I am. What a shame!

A sewer song

Ryan Adams – “Is This It?”

The Beatles – “Honey Pie”

To quote a regular customer at the record store where I once worked: “Listening to album tracks by The Beatles is like discovering your woman has another hole to stick it in.”

I’ll never forget that line no matter what degree of Alzheimer’s I suffer from or what type of anvil dents my skull.

Elvis Costello – “Tear Off Your Own Head”

The Clash – “Brand New Cadillac”

Blue October – “Into the Ocean”

Led Zeppelin – “No Quarter”

Jimmy Eat World – “Kill”

Injected – “Misunderstood”

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

The Feds – “Face Down”

Stone Temple Pilots – “Daisy”

They’re back. Screw Slash. Long live DeLeo.

And You WIll Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – “Days of Being Wild”

Starlight Mints – “Pulling Out My Hair”

Flickerstick – “Catholic Scars and Chocolate Bars”

Ryan Adams – “The Drugs Are Not Working”

The Flaming Lips – “Free Radicals”

Radiohead – “Sulk”

This was once my favorite song. I tried to remember why this afternoon and failed. The Bends remains one of the ten best albums ever made, even if I’ve divorced “Sulk.”

Uncle Tupelo – “Grindstone”

Wilco – “Hummingbird (live)”

Didn’t care much for A Ghost is Born the first time I heard it. Or the second. Or third. I pretty much gave up on the album for about six months until I heard some bootlegs of the songs live. This was one of them, and it completely changed everything. Now I worship Ghost just as much as the rest of the Wilco catalog.

Led Zeppelin – “The Songs Remains the Same”

Clearly the best opening songs in the history of rock and roll. If you want to argue about it, I’ll sick the hounds on you.

Shuggie Otis – “Happy House”

Rewake – “Homeless Genius”

Stevie Wonder – “You’ve Got It Bad Girl”

Wilco – “I’m Always in Love”

The Fags – “Rockstar”

Paul McCartney – “Only Mama Knows”

Never cared much for Wings, but this song is what I wish they would’ve sounded like.

Golden Smog – “5-22-02″

Breakdown:

27 songs

8 during commute to work (had a morning assignment)

16 at work

3 during commute home

I spent most of the morning with a city sewer worker for a profile story. Once we got all the sewer chatter out of the way, we wound up talking tunes. It was refreshing to hear such a simple man talk so passionately about the music he’s loved his whole life. There wasn’t a bit of pretense or cynicism coming from this guy. He loves music unconditionally. Wish I knew more like him.

 

 

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.