Digital domination

Ben Folds – “Fred Jones Part 2″

Bizarre way to start off the day. There’s a lot of doom and gloom talk in the newsroom I work in about “the future.” Cost-cutting. New missions. Solutions. Transformations. These are all corporate psycho-babble terms for layoffs and putting the veterans out to pasture and such. I shivered a little when this song about a guy getting fired from a paper started playing. I’ll just let some lyrics talk:

Fred sits alone at his desk in the dark
There’s an awkward young shadow that waits in the hall
He’s cleared all his things and he’s put them in boxes
Things that remind him: ‘Life has been good’
Twenty-five years
He’s worked at the paper
A man’s here to take him downstairs
And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones
It’s time
There was no party, there were no songs
‘Cause today’s just a day like the day that he started
No one is left here that knows his first name

Lucero -”What Else Would You Have Me Be?”

First Lucero song I ever heard. Played a 30-second clip of it on iTunes and was hooked. Still my favorite song they’ve done.

The Fags – “Rockstar”

Big Star – “Thirteen”

Valve – “Part of the Catch Phrase”

What the hell happened to Casey Diiorio, anyway? I heard he was helping Zac Maloy engineer records, but that’s all I’ve heard. Ah, Google says he has a studio in Fort Worth. Cool. His old band (Valve, for those who don’t know) is one of my favorite DFW bands of all time. This song and “Upper West Coast” are legendary to a few dozen of us, I’m sure.

The Jayhawks – “The Eyes of SarahJane”

Head Automatica – “Lying Through Your Teeth”

Shuggie Otis – “Not Available”

Pete Yorn – “Committed” 

RAWK SAWNG OF THE DAY / BEST BAND YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD: J Roddy Walston and The Business – “Rock and Roll the Second”

The night before SXSW 2008 kicked off, this band knocked us on our asses at Andy’s in Denton. I was drowning Amstels with caffeine king Matt Holmes downstairs when we decided to labor up the staircase to see who was making all the noise. We were met with what sounded and looked like Angus Young rocking great balls of fire with Jerry Lee Lewis. Two dozen faces were melted that night. Band name is hot, too.

Travis – “Safe”

Bush – “Letting the Cables Sleep”

Don’t hate.

Jeff Buckley – “New Year’s Prayer”

So good it’s scary. I don’t like listening to this song in the dark. Not one bit.

Sloan – “Step on it, Jean”

Paul McCartney – “Feet in the Clouds”

Breakdown:

14 songs

all during commute (dropped someone off at airport during rush hour. Idiotfest on the highway)

So I bought The Magpies CD at their gig Tuesday. Today I put it in the Powerbook, imported the songs and put the disc back in its sleeve. Then I stared at the sleeve for a few seconds, picked it up, stared at it some more and put it back down. Then I stared some more.  I sighed and dropped a depressed F-bomb when it hit me that I’ll probably never pick that disc up again. After years of resistance, I’ve been dominated by the digital revolution. The hundreds of CDs on the rack in the living room just collect dust. No use for them anymore. I really don’t know what to think about it. I mean, I once managed a damn CD store. I’ve had thousands of CDs manufactured for bands I’ve worked with. Sold them all across the country. Now it’s all obsolete. I’m reminded of the wise words of a hillbilly philosopher: “Tough titty, said the kitty, but the milk is still good!”

Weekend starts when?

Hey Mercedes – “Our Weekend Starts on Wednesday”

Jay Farrar – “Damn Shame”

The Clash – “Clampdown”

The Clash – “Lost in the Supermarket”

The Feds – “Tonight Inside”

Jay Farrar – “Vitamins”

Ryan Adams – “29″

The Fags – “Greatest Movie Ending”

RAWK SAWNG OF THE DAY: Big Wreck – “The Pleasure and the Greed”

Kenna – “Out of Control (State of Emotion)”

The Used – “Sound Effects and Overdramatics”

The Coral – “Spanish Main”

U2 – “Trip Through Your Wires”

BEST BAND YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD: Elbow – “Not a Job”

Best song on this band’s second record, A Cast of Thousands. Patient, moody Brit-rock. Anyone who can make a harmony out of dreary lines like this gets my respek: “The dream again nobody understands / Walking through the long grass on your hands / It’s not a job to do today / Sleep it off.”

Kill Radio – “Do You Know (Knife in Your Back)”

See below.

Kenna – “Hell Bent”

Strange pairing of Kenna and Kill Radio. A couple years back, some major label types convinced the band I once worked with to drive out to Los Angeles for a showcase at The Viper Room. Being the naive little bastards we were, we accepted and blew all the money we had to get out there. The band Upside played with at Viper Room was Kill Radio. The other act Upside’s manager at the time managed was Kenna. Both went largely unnoticed, but are two of my favorites to this day. Another strange connection: the guy who signed Kill Radio to Columbia Records was former MTV VJ Matt Pinfield, who seriously considered signing Upside to Columbia after the band once again blew all their money to make a trip to New York to showcase for more label types at Knitting Factory. A good line from the Kill Radio song in today’s playlist: “In the night they stole it, left you skin and bones and a knife in your back.”

Bernard Butler – “Smile”

The Stills – “Changes are No Good”

Sloan – “Back Stabbin’”

Queens of the Stone Age – “Do it Again”

Queens of the Stone Age – “Go With the Flow”

Spoon – “This Book is a Movie”

The Arcade Fire – “Crown of Love”

Bloc Party – “Banquet”

Islands – “If”

The Thrills – “Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?”

Ben Kweller – “Family Tree”

Built to Spill – “The Weather”

Ryan Adams – “Magnolia Mountain”

First time I saw Ryan Adams at Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas, this was the only song he played that could’ve passed for an actual performance. The man was a complete and utter disaster. I couldn’t listen to him for months. Luckily, Daily Tuneage comrade Redbee and her man convinced me to see him again at Cain’s a few months ago. Like night and day. I can’t even remember if he played this song. I just remember everything was perfect.

Breakdown:

29 songs

3 during commute to work

25 at work

1 during commute home

Short on time. No diatribe today.

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.