The Not-Pop Jukebox

I'm back on the bang-bang theme, again. This time, some poor woman named Lulu takes the beating, at least, that's what the chorus leads you to believe. Whatever the subject matter, the North Mississippi All-Stars bang the heck out of Bang Bang Lulu. It's just the thing to jump-start your body on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Get up and boogie! Their name may be longer than this post, but these southern boys can really rock some blues.

Edit: Yet again the version I'd included has disappeared. Happily, Grooveshark has a live version that's nearly as good as the recorded version (and includes some "wubba wubba"-ing.

Today we have a perfect, mellow song for lazing about on a gorgeous late-spring afternoon. Here's George Benson, live at the Montreux jazz festival in 1973, offering his take on Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Put your speakers in the window, grab your favorite ice-cold beverage, and listen to this one out in the yard. Ah, yes, it's that good.

Let's go back ten years, to a rollicking, self-referential song from Bouncing Souls, done in the best music-industry tradition of explaining just how awesome your band really is. You might not have figured that out from the title, but that's exactly the topic of ¡Olé!, which has enough Oi! thrown in for anyone's tastes. Enjoy the bouncing.

Here's a fun, almost-pop tune from Wave Machines, I Go I Go I Go, which you can probably find all over the bloggosphere over the past week. I don't care - I like it and I'm posting it anyway. I'm looking forward to hearing more from these folks and I hope that you will be, too.

In restrospect, yesterday's post Bang Bang You're Dead seems a bit insensitive for Memorial Day weekend. To make up for that, today please enjoy Freedom Call, from the genre I like to call “cheese metal”, reminiscent of Manowar. This song, Warriors, offers some great imagery and ought to have been used in many a war movie. Witness the driving percussion, the repetitive guitar, and the blindingly obvious key change if you need convincing that the song fits this genre. On the other hand, it's a song about fighting and sacrifice in war. What more could you ask from a Memorial Day song, if you don't want to start sniveling a bit? Blast Warriors while you're grilling some burgers, have a beer for the fallen, and take a moment to remember those that laid down their lives in battle, whatever your feelings about war in general.

Several months ago, I posted a spate of songs about death. None of these were morbid or emo songs (that's just not my style), I just happened to like them all. Today, I'm revisiting that theme with Dirty Pretty Things and Bang Bang You're Dead, from their 2006 album "Waterloo to Anywhere".

I know that many Libertines fans were disappointed with this album, and I've heard that the song got plenty of air play a few years ago. As an inveterate ignorer of radio, I never heard the song until a short time ago and was never a Libertines fan in the first place. Thus, I was able to approach this song from a fresh perspective and enjoy it for what it is--a brash, fun, indie tune. I suggest that you put out of your mind the folks who comprise Dirty Pretty Things and simply enjoy Bang Bang You're Dead for itself.

I think we’re overdue for a mash-up, and happily I’ve got a great, danceable one for you from Faroff out of Brazil by way of Massachusetts. As you may recall, I’m a big fan of the Peter Gunn theme song. As you can imagine, seeing a mash-up of Peter Gunn with MSTRKRFT and Metallica really whetted my musical appetite. The result satisfied that appetite thoroughly.

You can download the Peter Gunn (Mashup Remix) for free. In fact, you can download a whole mess of old-versus-new mash-ups from him MySpace profile (PG comes first beneath his tour dates). I particularly recommend Heat 'Em Separated and The Brits Are Playing in My House, to get the Beatles, Glenn Fry, LCD Soundsystem, and a few other folks. Have a field day and don’t forget to leave Faroff a note about how much you enjoy the free tracks.

As a hint of what my new lens will celebrate, I’m including today a pile of different versions of It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Swing), including a decidedly weird one from Nina Simone. Naturally, I’ve got Ella Fitzgerald, because she owns the song, but you can also enjoy The Puppini Sisters, Django Reinhardt, Tony Bennett, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, among others. Now get swingin'.

Here's a little ska-rock boogaloo for a Wednesday afternoone. King Khan and the Shrines have a funky, horn-filled souns that isn't quite ska but isn't straight rockabilly. This particular song has the added bonus of teaching you an inventive dance craze that may or may not be sweeping the nation. That is, it may have swept the nation in 2002, when the album, "Three Hairs and You're Mine", was released. We could all have missed it, you know.

I know that I just posted a song from The Clash a few days ago, but I have been exploring Facebook (check out my fancy new widget in the sidebar!) and thus sucked into Mafia Wars. I pop in once or twice a day and every time I do I end up with Tommy Gun stuck in my head. That’s good, because it gives me a break from Midnight Star. (Be warned: if that one is still stuck in my head tomorrow I will inflict it upon you all with no compunction.)

Although it’s one of my favorites, you can only listen to any song so many times before you want to start banging your head upon your desk. My hope is that, having released Tommy Gun into the wild, I can make room for other gangster-related tunes. If you’ve got any suggestions, other than the French Mafia Theme from “The Triplets of Belleville”, I’d love to hear them. At the very least, I can imagine that other people are suffering the same earworm fate as I every time they check out their inventory.

I had intended to post a completely different song, but in the midst of my compiling videos for my newest lens (about old-school, 80s hip hop and rap, which isn't quite ready for prime time, yet) I ran across the Double Dutch Bus from Frankie Smith. Before I knew it, I'd watched the whole thing and taken three different trips down memory lane. For those of your too young to remember when double dutch was about the jumping and not the flips, start with this YouTube video. From there, you can watch the flashier competitions, if you like. But before you wander off, don't forget about Frankie. Double Dutch Bus can really get you in the mood to dance, if not jump some rope.

Squirrel Nut Zippers keep up the sort of frenetic pace that their furry little namesakes do. They also sport a full horn section and a good sense of humor. Do What demonstrates all of these attributes, with subtle innuendo and a hip-swaying beat. While I'm not particularly fond of their female-led tracks, song like this one cement the band's place on my playlist.

I spent a while listening to various versions of Wang Dang Doodle today, including my favorite Koko Taylor version. I also discovered that Ted Nugent has a perfectly dreadful song of the same name, but I chose not to include it here. I have added an interesting PJ Harvey, a live cover from The Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton with Jimmy Page, Booker T and the MGs, and a little Howlin' Wolf. If that doesn't get your wang dang doodlin', it's no fault of mine. Have a lovely Friday night!

After some rather-theoretically educational training today, I'm posting some classic Clash with an appropriate name. Will this dreary, time-sucking week never end?! Tune in tomorrow...

If you're a regular reader of the NPJ, you likely already know that I'm a big fan of Nat King Cole. I'm not, however, a fan of Natalie Cole “performing with” him. For that reason, I avoided checking out the “RE: Generations” album, as the only song I'd heard was Straighten Up and Fly Right, one of my favorites, in which she stamped sang all over the lovely, original vocals.

To my delight, I heard this version of Calypso Blues on KNDS yesterday and have been forced to reconsider my dismissal of the album. This super-danceable version of the song, with Stephen and Damien Marley, is just the thing to get you over the hump that is Wednesday, with nary a Natalie note in sight (or hearing, for that matter). Do some chair dancing with Nat King Cole and a couple of Marleys, and concentrate on how close Friday is coming.

Let’s have a country-western, zydeco blend for a rainy day. Conveniently, and despite my never having heard of The Felice Brothers, I happened upon such a song today. Run Chicken Run combines some country sensibility with zydeco energy and a sense of the absurd. I was hooked by the line, “Chickens don’t get no life after death.” The song calls up a combination of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and a rollicking bar band. After all of that, how could you pass up a listen?

It seems that a new parodist has emerged, the “Weird Al” of hard rock, Wicked Celtic. When first I received the lovely e-mail inviting me to watch the video for his newest single, I had no clue what was in store. I clicked over and saw a man in stereotypical, cheesy, wannabe-rock-guy facial hair and sleeveless shirt, wearing his shades, yelling, “I don't want to hear your band”. Ah, I thought, it was only a matter of time before some band leapt on the MySpace band hysteria and tried to capitalize on it.

It took me a few lines to realize that Wicked Celtic was, in fact, not just using terms that his target demographic would recognize. He was mocking people, including himself. The whole thing was a set-up! The straightforward rock chords and bass, the silly hair and sunglasses, the attitude, everything. This guy was funny.

It may have helped that I took a look at “the band's” other song titles. They include such gems as iphone Is an Awesome Phone and Wii Fit (For as Long as I Live), as well as the pseudo-power ballad Born to Be Wicked and Wild. As far as I can tell there's only one guy, with a tripod and some background music. Some of the videos are amateurish, with less-than-stellar sound quality. That doesn't detract from the snicker factor. I Don't Want to Hear Your Band, however, has a slick video wherein the Wicked Celtic punches the profile photos of others. All of this goes by way of explaining why I'm posting two videos in a row. Have a laugh for Mothers' Day (I be you though I'd forgotten!)

Thanks, again, to aningeniousname, I've got something unusual and terrific to share with you today. Blufunk Is a Fact doesn't really represent Keziah Jones's usual sound, but it's such a fun video that I wanted to share it. I wonder if he's ever played with Robert Randolph? Now that would be a sight to behold (and a sound, to be sure)! I promise that I'll post any indication of such a collaboration here for you to enjoy, as well. In the meantime, enjoy Blufunk Is a Fact and check out some of Keziah Jones's other videos, while you're there. Trek over to his MySpace profile as well.

For a get-down Friday, here's a get-down song. Rock out to the swingin' sounds of The Brian Setzer Orchestra playing The Dirty Boogie and get in a weekend mood.

As it’s the first almost-summer day of the year, here, today would be a perfect day to lounge about in the back yard with a pitcher of iced tea, an enormous book, and a cigarette. In honor of that lovely idea, I’m including the dreamiest version of Smoke Rings, from the velvet-voiced KD Lang. The song appeared on her album “Drag” which was filled with songs celebrating smoking, with some bonus coffee loving thrown in for kicks. It was likely the least politically-correct album released in 1997, as the US tobacco settlement fights were reaching fever pitch before the agreement in 1998. I don’t care what kind of music you usually like, you can’t deny that KD Lang has a beautiful voice, perfectly suited to torch songs like this one.


By the way, I just noticed that this is my 200th post! Had I realized, I'd have prepared something a little more celebratory. In lieu of that, please accept my, "Woo hoo!" and my thanks for your readership and comments. This has been a lot of fun and I look forward to keeping it up for hundreds more songs to come.

In hearing swine flu prevention steps (or ought I to say H1N1 spread-reduction measures?) I repeatedly hear an admonition to folks to cover their coughs and sneezes. Naturally, that brings to mind the song Respect Yourself, becuase therein is hidden the following lines:

Put your hand over your mouth when you cough
That'll help the solution

These days, they recommend that you use your elbow rather than the hand with which you're going to touch 15 other things, but the concept is the same. Stay healthy out there, and enjoy several versions of Respect Yourself, including one from Bruce Willis.

Here's a feel-good piece of unnoticed fluff from Jellyfish to cheer up your Monday. I don't have anything deep to say about it. Just let Baby's Coming Back raise your spirits and get your feet tapping. It's Monday - who needs something deep? And please note that Grooveshark is back in the groove.

Thanks to The Vinyl Villain, I've been listening to The Jam today. (No thanks to Grooveshark, who are down for server relocation, much to my musical distress.) I've been forced to resort to imeem for today's track. I considered merely posting their cover of the Batman Theme, because it was so great that my kids made me play it twice so that we could dance around the living room, but decided that folks should know that The Jam was a great punk band who did so much more.

Thus, I've chosen Strange Town, which gives you a taste of the non-screaming nature of punk in the 70s as well as the railing against the sheep that judged everyone on their clothes, their hair, and their way of speaking. Why else would people choose multi-colored liberty spikes and safety-pin jewelry? Consider them both a thumbing of the collective nose at people's assumptions. I suspect that's enough pontificating for one day, so I'll just let you enjoy the sound.

I've been listening to Kinky for a few days, now, but when I saw the video for Sister Twisted, I knew I'd found the right song for the NPJ. Not only does Kinky make a danceable song with intriguing sound bites, but you can hardly stop watching the lonely, dancing cowboy surrounded by an alien invasion. Don't miss the surprise ending!

When you're done with that, you might want to meander by my Music of the Month recommendations lens and see who I've got on tap for May.
Buy Sister Twisted

Hooray - finally a song on a holiday that actually relates to said holiday. Happy May Day, all! Enjoy a little Elvis Perkins, and a little spring/fall weather as the seasons turn. Tune in tomorrow for something new, and a link to my May Music of the Month.