The Not-Pop Jukebox

As I mentioned, Muddy Water well fits the theme for this month in Fargo. Keb' Mo' sings, “I love muddy water, it's dirty but it feel all right”. Right now, we love the muddy Red River, both because it's settling back again and because, well, it isn't frozen. With the sloppy, slushy snow that's blanketed everything, prettier than the mucky, dead lawns though it may be, we can once again appreciate the muddy water that flows (at great speed, these days) past our little city. Now that the Red has dropped two feet in two days, we can all go back to remembering how frustrating a northern-plains spring can be as we slip and slide in the half-frozen foot-plus of snow. Maybe we can all get back to work and school, soon.

In keeping with the river motif, and the relief of the no-longer rising flood predictions, enjoy Taj Mahal and River of Love. It's a wonderful song, especially for a community that has not only shared a river of love with each other and the hundreds of volunteers who arrived over these past two weeks but who can start to forgive their beloved Red River, as long as it promises to behave itself for another year. With any luck, there will be permanent protection in place by then, and people can go back to enjoying it. (Maybe I'll post Muddy Water from Keb' Mo' tomorrow. I promise, I'll get off the flood theme as soon as they start picking up garbage and letting kids go back to school.)

Apparently the song was taken down from Grooveshark. I've found it on YouTube but this is the wrong album cover. Don't look, just enjoy.

Buy River Of Love

The mood here in Fargo for the last week:

and the mood in Fargo today:

Someday, I will compile a playlist of songs in which men creatively sob and wail over lost love. To my earlier post on Albert Collins’s But I Was Cool, I will definitely add Frank, This Is It from Cliff Jackson with Jellean Delk and The Naturals. I’ve read that the crier in this song was not Mr. Jackson but a preacher who didn’t want his real name used because he didn’t want to be associate with this sort of secular (and sin-implying) music.

I could find very little solid information about the song on-line, except that it’s on two very different compilations: “All Tore Up” which includes songs of love lost and abandoned from 1955-1968 (a relatively narrow range, but a rich one), and “It Came from Memphis” which, I suspect, is linked with Robert Gordon’s book of the same name. But who cares? Enjoy the song.

The sound of the song to the contrary, I could find no indication that someone other than Tim Mahoney sings Piece of You on his 2007 album “Stay/Leave”. I read reviews, searched for liner notes, and watched live videos (in which Mr. Mahoney does not sound quite like the voice on the album version, except when he does). And why, exactly, do I care? Because PolyBore has updated his I, Avatar video to Version 3.9, with a whole new song, Minneapolis-indie-guy Tim Mahoney’s Piece of You.

In honor of our impending local flood, I wanted to include They Might Be Giants's Theme from Flood, but the song lasts a mere twenty-seven seconds. I've been doing a lot of flood-related work, of late, which has been eating my on-line time, but I don't want to neglect you folks entirely! Rather than short-change you, dear readers, and in an attempt to remain at least vaguely politically relevant, I've added the other incredibly short song from the “Flood” album, Minimum Wage. Both songs offer a reminder of, or an introduction to, the wacky sense of humor and musical experimentation for which They Might Be Giants is known.

Buy the Theme From Flood
Buy Minimum Wage

I'm posting on the fly, right now, but if I have time this weekend I'll post a tribute to the local college station that introduces me on a nigh-daily basis to great songs, including this one, and the play list that saves me from removing large clumps of my hair when I catch one line of a tune. In the meantime, enjoy the slightly-creepy The Faint and their take on what the future will look like, The Geeks Were Right. If you like this one, try the much-creepier song about teeter totters, Fulcrum and Lever.

I feel that I could start with a disclaimer that I don’t watch American Idol. I do, however, like many of Johnny Cash’s songs and Ring of Fire in particular. It caught my eye that one of the contestants performed a very unusual version of that song last night and the wildly varying opinions led me to watch the video.

While I wasn’t crazy about the arrangement, the many posts and comments that I read expressing the opinion that Johnny Cash was spinning in his grave made me go looking for even more versions of Ring of Fire. I suspect that The Man in Black would have given the contestant a hearty pat on the back for taking such chances rather than being offended by the unusual interpretation. Of all of the country stars whose songs he could have chosen, I think Cash is the most likely to enjoy such a creative rendition.

Consider these versions of Ring of Fire, most of which were recorded while Mr. Cash was still alive (and, for the better-known acts, almost certainly with his permission). Try Grace Jones’ reggae-tinged version, Ray Charles’ soulful cover, or Blondie’s punk-country take on it. I’ve included Johnny Cash himself at the end, for a reminder of how it originally sounded. There’s a bit of nasty language in the Social Distortion cover, so if that will upset you then you may want to skip it.

This is my idea of an Irish drinking song: Falling Down Trying from WookieFoot. If you want the lyrics and a video, try this Falling Down Trying lens. (And don’t forget about The Corrigan Brothers and There’s No One as Irish as Barack Obama, while you’re at it.) Otherwise, enjoy and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Some songs absolutely require patience. I make it a rule to listen to at least a minute of a new song before dismissing it. (If the first third of the song only introduces it, how much song could there be?) From the Hips by Cursive requires that patience, as it’s a slow builder. The first minute takes you from a pokey, if interesting, complaint into an uptempo rant, building the lyrics and the music on each other. The song keeps that arc, sliding back again for another run up to an even heavier sound, and then into a howling rant.

Cursive labels itself Indie/Punk, but I don’t really see them as punksters. They do a fair amount of screaming, but many of their songs lean more toward screamo than punk. (And can you be indie and appear on Letterman?) Lyrically, however, they do some interesting things, if you can get past the yelling and heavy guitars. Try So-So Gigolo for another example. I don’t care much for most of their music, but From the Hips, which you can download for free at the Cursive Army web site, seems to me to strike their best balance between the indie spirit and punk aesthetics.

It's a rare day when the first song I hear makes me say, “That's today's post!” Phoenix got me this morning, however, with Lisztomania. The song comes from their newest album, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”, which won't be released into the record-store wilds until May but which has apparently slipped its tether and wanders free about the web these days.

Lisztomania sounds much cleaner than Phoenix's other, fuzzy-guitar-and-synthesizer-heavy tunes. I still haven't figured out the lyrics. Why the obsession with Franz Liszt, or is there someone who shares that name that fascinates? The fact that I still love the song after half a dozen close listens strikes me as a good sign, however. Had the post that introduced me to the band not specified that they were French, I'd have thought they were yet more clever Brits. There seems to be rather a lot of interesting music from Europe (and specifically France) capturing my attention of late. Enjoy Phoenix, and visit their web site if you want more. It takes a bit to load and should come with a seizure warning about the blinking, but you can download the song 1901 for free.

For those of you attempting to figure out the lyrics, consider the 1975 film Lisztomania, which sounds so wacky that I intend to get my hands on it as soon as physically possible. I'm hoping that it explains some "inside joke" sorts of lyrics.

Obviously, you can't buy Lisztomania yet, but you can get the similarly-interesting Napoleon Says from their 2006 album, “It's Never Been Like That”.

Thanks to Mad Margo for introducing me to the Soda Can Generator. Truly, I cannot resist such foolishness. If you want your own bottle (or can) or soda, completely customized with fonts, foreground and background colors, taglines, and the color of the soda and cap. I had a field day playing with this and just had to share the results, whether or not making it has anything to do with actual music. Obviously, I use up my post-writing time playing with this thing. Enjoy!

Real life has been interfering with my posting of late, but I thought it was about time for a Morphine video. Sadly, Mark Sandman died in 1999 so there hasn't been a new album in, oh, about ten years. I posted my favorite of their songs, Early to Bed, months ago, if you want more.

Apparently, Men without Pants has sailed beneath the blog radar, for the most part, both with their initial, self-titled, 2006 release and last year's expanded version of it, “Naturally”. This despite the amazing list of guest stars on that album, including the ever-interesting Cibo Matto, Mooney Suzuki, the popular Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Sean Lennon. The first album is out of print (although you can buy the mp3 version) and “Naturally” isn't even available on Amazon. All I wanted, in looking for information on the band, was to know who sings with them on My Balloon. One blog speculated that Cibo Matto graced the song, but I could find no confirmation or disagreement. Thanks to the comment below from Alex, from Expansion Team Records, however, I can tell you that it is Gillian Rivers. Huzzah!

It seems strange to me that a relatively long-standing project, with well-known members Russell Simins and Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and with such stellar guest members, has received so little press, doubly so when they create such good music. If anyone knows who's singing on My Balloon, please let me know.

As a video game fan, if not a “gamer”, I was introduced to Kerli via Creepshow on the Burnout Paradise soundtrack. I quite like the song, but it wasn't really representative of her other music at the time. Although I was going to post it here, as a stand-alone favorite, I thought I’d take a listen to more of her songs, as they have become more readily-available for streaming on-line.

I was happy to discover that her music has evolved past the mostly-emo, slow-drag music (albeit featuring her lovely voice) and that some of the album, “Love Is Dead”, consists of more up-tempo, harder-edged songs like Creepshow. Kerli has broadened her musical horizons and found even more interesting things to say. In the spirit of that expansion, I’ve decided that Up and Up would be a good song for a spectacularly-bad-weather Monday.

I was working on my lens about Kirsty MacColl's In These Shoes? yesterday and the song has been stuck in my head ever since. That happens to me every time I listen to it, so I thought I'd share the enjoyment with the rest of you. The Cuban swing, the horn section, and the saucy lyrics all combine to make this an earworm that you won't mind hearing over and over. Beware, though. You may catch yourself moving your hips while reading labels at the grocery store when you've got In These Shoes? exerting its evil influence.

You can't buy In These Shoes? on its own at Amazon, but you can get the Kinky Boots Soundtrack which includes the song, as well as some other great music like Whatever Lola Wants, Mr. Big Stuff, and I Put a Spell on You.

In listening to Keb' Mo' and his song, Soon As I Get Paid, I was struck by how many more people can sympathize with this song than would have a few years ago. I thought I'd post it, for those of you suffering from the economic downturn. If you don't like the song, you can put a clip of it on your voice mail for the benefit of collection agencies who don't seem to understand that, “I have no money,” means, “I cannot pay you today or tomorrow (or any of the other seventeen times you will call me over the next week).”

For those of you who just like a good, bluesy jam and have not found yourselves between an electric bill and a hard place yet, Keb' Mo' is just a great musician and songwriter. In fact, that holds true even if Soon As I Get Paid does remind you uncomfortably of some recent conversations.

Buy Soon As I Get Paid

I find the great majority of club-type, bass-heavy songs to be repetitive in the extreme and thus as dull as can be after about a minute and a half. I’m happy to share with you an exception to that rule, HeavyFeet’s We Gettin’ Crunk. It’s got enough variety to sustain nearly four and a half minutes with very few words, a retro synth-line, and some bass. This track would have gotten me on the dance floor, in my bar-hopping days, with enough bounce for dancing and a simple enough sound to allow conversation. Were I to have a rent party, this one would definitely make the play list.

Since I don’t do those things any more, I’ll be listening to HeavyFeet and dancing around the living room with my children. So, too, can you enjoy the beat-infused sound for free. HeavyFeet has offered a thumping pile of free downloads on their MySpace profile, including We Gettin’ Crunk and a bunch of remixes. Scroll down and look under the “Sounds Like” section on the left side of the screen.

My first introduction to Miles Mosley and his terrific band was their Voodoo Child video. I've seen that one posted and tweeted, and I was suitably impressed both by Mosley's skill on the upright bass and by the energy of the horns. In truth, I thought there was a bit more showboating than was strictly necessary, in all of the videos in this series. I still like the sound and the energy, however, and I love how much fun everyone appears to be having in this one, Photograph. I wish I could have found a "music video" for a single, but mostly what I saw were live shows with horrid sound quality, so do yourself a favor and listen to some Miles Mosley.

No sooner had I selected my Music of the Month than I discovered yet another band that has been almost completely ignored: Teeny Grownups. The name caught my attention, but the sound kept it. They're sort of post-punk indie, despite the descriptions bandied about and the various indie band names thrown at the sound in an attempt to define it. Belle and Sebastian, a very "indie" reference, shows the jangly potential of Teeny Grownups, but not the fuzzy guitar found in some of their other songs.

Not that I could find many other songs for the band. Their MySpace profile offers four songs and a quick run through my usual resources shows me a band that's been around for several years and has only 42 plays on Last.FM and naught but two live videos of crappy quality on YouTube. Amazon offers only one song, John, on a compilation album. That seems almost unbelievable, to me. So take a listen to Teeny Grownups's Belle and Sebastian, Smile, Merry Ferry, and whatever else you can find, then go buy some of their music and make other people listen to it. Alternatively, you can post a comment telling me that I'm full of hooey and that Teeny Grownups stink. I can take it.