The Not-Pop Jukebox

It's time for another mashup (or two)! Today's first treat comes from the magic fingers of DJ Morgoth, who has bravely combined the cheese that is Rick Astley with the cracker of rock that Nirvana created. Here, I offer the appetizer he calls Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up. For the purposes of creative expression, I'll ignore ending that sentence with a preposition. You can download this, and many other delectable mashups, from DJ Morgoth's blog linked above. You may also wrap your gums around whole meals of mash at his web site, handily packaged in album form.

If that's not enough to whet your appetite, you can try the New-Wavier taste of MadMixMustang's Don't Give up Wanting Me Baby, which replaces crunchy Nirvana with the softer Human League, creating a squishy sound sensation. There's nothing like a Rick Roll to satisfy your musical appetites. M3 has a long list of downloadable musical munchies at his site, as well.

“You think it's a clarion call but it's only semaphore.”

I was thrilled this morning to receive my first direct review request from an artist, but worried that I would hate the album. Happily, Andrew Keese & The Associates soon allayed my fears with some solid indie rock and smart lyrics. I knew things were going to all right when I found myself bopping my head to Transmission while I was reading the blog on their web site.

After that, and the quote above from Blessed Are the Meek, I knew that I could give these folks a positive review. Andrew Keese & The Associates not only have classic indie chops, with the occasional burst of well-played piano and intricate lyrical concepts, but they remind me of the guys I hung around with that had relatively successful bands in college – you know, the ones that recorded one CD that wasn't the cleanest sound, but you were instantly comfortable with the voice and the songs.

If you want comparisons, I'd go back to that era and combine The Cure, The Connells, and add a dash each of Depeche Mode and Joshua-Tree-era U2. Mr. Keese and his Associates also remind me of a band I once knew called Melodious Thunk. I know, I'm reaching back into the 80s, but that's how familiar they sounded to me. I could have sworn that The Burden of Proof was a song that I'd heard before. If you can get the artist so well that you can anticipate lyrics, they're a good match for you. The album mellows out as it goes along, but all of the songs are at least pretty, if not toe-tapping, and the lyrics keep your interest.

Here are the details: download their debut album, “Desire”, released November 1st, from their web site for free, but if you want the album art, the 16-page booklet, and the high-quality tracks you'll have to pay for the songs or get the CD. You can do all of this from the Andrew Keese and The Associates web site. Oh, and they're Australian.

In honor of my new theme, I thought I'd post some David Bowie. Changes was, of course, far too obvious a choice. Instead, I've selected Boys Keep Swinging, a little gem from his 1979 release, “Lodger” with Brian Eno. Since I've spent all of my time over the last few hours fiddling with tiny bits of obscure and (to me) confusing code, I'm not going to write a whole lot more. Enjoy, and thank you for spending a little time with me and my favorite songs. Obviously, I have some bugs to work out. I'll keep messing with my settings, so check back in a few...days or so and see if I've figured it out. If you've got any insight, I'd love to hear it.

Buy Boys Keep Swinging

After a lovely holiday break, I return with a song of friendship...and lobsters. No one would accuse The Aquabats of being predictable or dull. Only they would compare human nature to a bucket of lobsters. Regardless of the unusual nature of the metaphor, Lobster Bucket explains how friends help each other out of tough situations. It's also a fun, bouncy song with a burlesque flavor and some clarinet. You can almost picture the straw boaters and arm garters listening to the song. Imeem doesn't have the full song to stream, but you can listen to the whole of on Last.fm. I'm including the picture, here, because it's so goofy and really gives you a sense of The Aquabats's humor.

I had intended to unveil my new layout for this, my 100th post, but I simply didn't have time to finish polishing the thing. Then again, my first post was all blah, blah, blah and no music, so I'm willing to pretend that it doesn't count if you are. That means that I'm shooting for the new theme with tomorrow's post.

I like The Beatles and respect their musicianship. I do not, however, love them and regard them as musical gods. As proof of this, I offer The Marmalade cover of Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da as an improvement on the Beatles’ original. Both were hits, but this one just seems so much smoother and more danceable to me. I still thank the musical gods that Paul McCartney was moved to write it, though. The rest of the band is rumored to have hated the song, especially after something like sixty pokey takes. Why you would ever consider playing this as a slow song, I can’t imagine. Hooray for John Lennon for speeding it up and hooray for Marmalade for daring to cover it.

ob la di ob la da - the marmalade
Buy Marmalade’s Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da

Normally I wouldn't post two videos so close together, but in working up my page on Feliz Navidad I came across this video from Home Grown. The band is touted as "pop-punk", but here they are simply goofballs. Still, it's a massive bit of holiday cheer for those of you who are tired of the Jose Feliciano version of the song.

I've been compiling a page on Stagger Lee, or Stack O'Lee, and have listened to a few dozen interpretations today. They range from Mississippi John Hurt's blues version to The Fabulous Thunderbirds with their sax and back-up vocals to a Tom Jones lounge-ified croon to Ike and Tina Turner rockin' out. That, of course, means that my posting time has been otherwise spent. In order to show that I still love you, I'm posting a couple of versions of the song that I particularly enjoyed.

Stagger Lee - The Fabulous Thunderbirds

Stagger Lee - Taj Mahal
Buy Taj Mahal's Stagger Lee
Buy Ike and Tina Turner's Stagger Lee And Billy (Amazon doesn't have the Fabulous Thunderbirds's version.)

Today, I celebrate finding a real, independent radio station that streams on-line. Actually, my 5-year-old found it, playing with a clock radio. It made me so proud. (Just a moment, while I wipe away a tear.) At any rate, I’ve already sent them an e-mail, chiding them for failing to post a playlist, after finding myself unable to identify an amazing song that they played yesterday morning. This morning, again, I turned on my radio just in time to think, “What is this? I must blog it!” Happily, the lyrics I remembered were enough for me to identify today’s song readily. Imagine an old-school hip hop song where the bass line is provided by someone saying, “Bass,” and the usual fake clap replaced with someone repeating, “Clap,” in its place. Add somewhat random, day-in-the-life lyrics and you get The Cool Kids and What Up Man.

What Up Man - Cool kids
Buy What Up Man

There are to interesting things about the video for Thrill of It - the pedal steel guitar thing-a-ma-bobber (I don't think that's the technical term) that Robert Randolph plays and the fact that he and The Family Band don't get airplay. This seriously funky song should, by itself, guarantee them a spot on the charts but their only really well-known song is Ain't Nothing Wrong with That. I love that song but Robert Randolph and the Family Band do so much more. Heck, they had Eric Clapton and Dave Matthews in the studio with them. I named these folks as the Music of the Month months ago based on the strength of this album, "Colorblind". Thrill of It reminds me of a few other artists, most notably Terrence Trent D'Arby (in his funkier moments) crossed with Tower of Power, where the power comes from guitars rather than horns.

Buy Thrill Of It

It came to my attention, today, that Such Great Heights is not, as I previously thought, a Pet Shop Boys song. It turns out that it's from Postal Service. I still think it sounds like the Pet Shop Boys, but it's a fantastic song whoever the artist. It's got a nice, synth-pop beat and interesting lyrics. Apparently, Postal Service came to an agreement with the US Postal Service allowing them to use the name if the governmental organization could use their song in ads. I'd say that the USPS got the better end of that deal. At any rate, enjoy the mellow-but-bouncy song and check out more Postal Service if you like it. I don't actually have a second song of theirs to recommend, but I can suggest that you avoid their cover of Phil Collins's Against All Odds. I've included the Pet Shop Boys doing Suburbia, for comparison. Let me know if you think I'm all wet, suggesting that these two bands sound alike.

Such Great Heights - The Postal Service

Suburbia - Pet Shop Boys
Buy Such Great Heights
Buy Suburbia

Posting on the fly, let me just say that, although I’ve listened to many versions of I Fought the Law, The Clash cover remains my favorite. Sure, Bobby Fuller had an enormous hit with it, and even the Stray Cats recorded a cover version. But this one has that joie de vivre that simply can’t be matched. Enjoy!

I Fought The Law - The Clash
Buy The Clash's I Fought The Law

For those of you unfamiliar with Nuclear Rabbit, or whacked-out joker punk in general, consider this a representative holiday introduction. Green Jelly (their first album, before they had to stop using the name Green Jell-O) and Mr. Bungle were gentler versions of this jangly, hyperactive, screaming band. In Santa Claus Is Selling Crack, you actually get a mellow song, for Nuclear Rabbit, and one that clearly shows the band's influence on Mr. Bungle. I wanted to post Supermarket, but imeem didn't have it and I'm feeling lazy because of the local blizzard. So instead, Happy Holidays, and enjoy the punk spirit of the season.

Santa Claus Is Selling Crack - Nuclear Rabbit
You can't buy the individual tracks, but you can get "Vicuna", the album with both Santa Claus Is Selling Crack and Supermarket, not to mention Chernobyl Hamster, Secretly Meaty, and twenty-three other fun-loving tracks.

While I don't agree with the label "New Wave Revivalists", I do actually like some of Dragonette's synth-pop, especially when it's more synth and less vocal. Many of their songs begin, like Marvellous, with promising introductions and even first verses, but then turn into P!nk songs. Black Limousine, however, keeps its spoken word verses throughout and turns into a combination of P!nk and Madonna from her Material Girl phase. I was introduced to Dragonette through their cover of ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man, but I was unable to find a version to embed here, more's the pity. That song was more a combination of P!nk and The Flying Lizards creating a robo-party-people sound that completely remade the song. You can listen to them on the HypeMachine, including that cover.

Black Limousine - Dragonette
Buy Black Limousine

As a rule, I prefer studio versions over live performances. Rodrigo y Gabriela’s Diablo Rojo, however, is the exception that proves the rule. I don’t know if it’s the energy, the audience, or just the sheer enjoyment you can feel with every slap or strum, but this song absolutely blew me away. It reminded me a bit of the Al Di Meola-Paco De Lucia-John McLaughlin sound on “Friday Night in San Francisco”, my favorite live acoustic guitar album of all time. (Were those enough qualifiers for you, or should I add a few more?) You can listen to the album version here, and you can download the live version for free from http://www.spinner.com/2008/12/03/rodrigo-y-gabriela-diablo-rojo-live-free-mp3-of-the-day/ Spinner, where it was the mp3 of the day on December 3rd. Either way, Diablo Rojo works as an excellent antidote from the sappy, sluggish holiday hits you’ve probably heard more than enough times this season.

Buy the Live Version

I was updating my page on the song Summertime, which I consider to be the single greatest cover song of all time, when I came across this video of Jill Scott and George Benson absolutely setting fire to the song. I still think Billy Stewart performed the best version of Summertime ever recorded, but this one comes a close second.

You can't get the track individually, but you can get a terrific album, Great Voices, Great Songs, that includes a Jill Scott/George Benson duet of Summertime.

Every once in a while, I get a hankerin’ for a mash-up. When I do, I really go on a tear, enjoying new ways of hearing old songs. And with Roxanne Should Be Dancing, DJ Zebra shows those of you new to mash-ups exactly how they ought to be done. He takes a mournful and rather strange song about a guy in love with a prostitute and turns it into a snappy disco tune. Behold, the power of mash. The Police have the sting taken out of Roxanne (if you’ll pardon the pun), when the Bee Gees arrive to explain the problem - not enough dancing. I was torn between laughing and really hearing the lyrics to Roxanne for the first time in years. You can download Roxanne Should Be Dancing (and more) from DJ Zebra’s web site.

I've always love Nat King Cole's voice, and after writing a lens about the Ten Creepiest Love Songs, I needed to return to my favorites to remember that love doesn't have to need a restraining order. Thus, after yesterday's post about Martin Sexton's Diggin' Me, I'm turning to another of my all-time favorite songs. Until I started thinking about love songs in general, I didn't realize what a sap I am. I really enjoy a good love song, especially one with some horns and an up tempo. And so, I'm posting today the beautiful L-O-V-E from Nat King Cole. I'll get to some more recent music, and some holiday themes, this week. For now, enjoy.

Buy L-O-V-E

Today, I'm sharing one of my most favorite of songs. It was my first introduction to Martin Sexton, and what a fabulous way to meet a new singer/songwriter it is. Diggin' Me is jazzy, with a some steel guitar and a terrific muted trumpet impression just before the two-minute mark (on the album version, anyway). When first I heard it, I assumed that it must be quite old, until the verse about meeting at the ATM. It has the feel of a song that's been around forever, lovingly performed.

Diggin' Me is one of the few songs that can make me say, “Awww, that's sweet,” without being cloying and overly-effusive. It's a lovely little love song more about enjoying someone's company than creepy obsession. I've posted the lyrics for Diggin' Me elsewhere. It makes me smile every time I hear it.

While you can't buy the individual tracks, you can pick up the album, The American.

Here, where winter has finally settled in with wind, snow, and near-zero temperatures, it’s perfectly natural that a band name The Hot Toddies, with an album titled “Smell the Mitten”, should catch my attention. Most of the songs on the album, much to my chagrin, are pop to the core. There was one song, however, (and one only, despite the entertainment value of Seattle) that I promptly added to my wish list: Photosynthesis. It’s a bouncy, chicka-chicka-ah song that entertains my inner geek much like They Might Be Giant’s The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas does. It’s educational fun! Of course, The Hot Toddies share some relatively detailed information about photosynthesis, but they’re so enthusiastic about the concept that you can’t help enjoying the song.

I couldn’t find a place from which to embed the mp3 here, but you can listen to the song on Here Comes the Flood, which is where I first heard it. If you want more, I’ll include Seattle, here.

Buy Photosynthesis
Buy Seattle

You shouldn’t confuse Ben Vaughn’s I Dig Your Wig with Buddy Guy’s song of the same name. While Buddy Guy wrote his version first, he didn’t even use the words in the recording that I’ve heard (nor do they appear in the Scott Holt tribute version, which I quite like). Ben Vaughn, on the other hand, turned the song into a bizarre symphony of electronic keyboards, rockabilly guitar, harmonica, and horns as a tribute to an enormous pile of fake hair. I wish I could have found an mp3 to include here, but the songs remain relatively obscure, regardless of their entertainment value. At least you can get Ben Vaughn’s I Dig Your Wig on its own. To get the Buddy Guy version, you’ll have to buy an entire album. The only videos of the song I could find were live bootlegs of The Boogie Ramblers, covering the Ben Vaugh version without keyboards or horns.
Buy Ben Vaughn's I Dig Your Wig

Rather than post a particular song, today, I wanted to recognize World AIDS Day (and BloggersUnite). Thus, I’d like to draw your attention to (RED)WIRE, a new on-line magazine designed to let musician support AIDS research and treatment in Africa, in a very public way. Of course, U2’s Bono is at the forefront of the venture, but you can find videos from such folks as Coldplay, John Legend, Sheryl Crow, The Police with Elvis Costello, and Death Cab for Cutie. The idea is that such prominent musicians can draw attention and money to a cause that could not be more worthy – the elimination of AIDS in Africa.

For $5 a month, you get a music player that works with the free weekly tracks, exclusives from the participating artists, and inspiring videos and slideshows about the progress of AIDS treatment and research. Check out their web site for details, and consider investing a small amount of money with this worthy cause. The returns go beyond merely getting bonus music. They include the pride of knowing that every month you literally save the life of someone suffering with AIDS when you pay your subscription fee.