Who hasn't always wanted a Robotic Pirate Monkey, with a little eye patch and a hook (on his tail, of course)? Everyone? Just me, then? Pretend I said nothing.
Today, I bring you a banger from Robotic Pirate Monkey just meant for a Friday evening cruising the interwebs, just energetic and engaging enough to get you chair-dancing but not intrusive enough to disrupt your reading and crafty of witty rejoinders.
The Monkeys are masters of the remix, having released plenty of mutations of their own work as well as that of others. If you groove to Rio de Fuego try Word is Bond for something a little funkier or Sizzlin' for a little more heat.
Delbert McClinton brought me to It's Love, Baby (24 Hours a Day) but he was hardly the first person to perform the song. For this Thursday evening I've put together seven versions of the song so that you all can remember for a whole week how much I love you!
Note that Jackie DeShannon removed the "to keep my gay" line and made her go-go version "throughout the day", which is far less entertaining. Toni Lynn Washington has some great horns and a hardcore blues beat going, Louis Brooks & the Hi-Toppers give a fantastic Motown vibe, and Rusty Zinn goes old school in more modern times. I don't know who The Monorays are but the quality of the recording makes them sound native to Victrola times.
I included a second version credited to Louis Brooks without his Hi-Toppers because apparently the lead vocals on the original release with them were performed by Earl Gaines, so the second one may not be. Whatever your favorite style, have a jam to It's Love, Baby. You don't have to listen to it 24 hours a day, but don't miss Delbert McClinton's version at the end. It's still my favorite.
I'm not altogether sure what to say about Unknown Mortal Orchestra except that it took a couple of songs for the sound to really grow on me. Then I listened to Nerve Damage! and decided that I'm a fan. Mostly. The smothered, warped vocals really took a little getting used to for me.
It's the talking guitar at the beginning and end of the song that really caught me, but once the song really got going to realized that I actually liked it. And then I listened to Strangers Are Strange and Bicycle and Unkown Mortal Orchestra really started to grow on me. Like a fuzzy fungus. I felt like I should dislike it but I kept queuing up songs.
Have a listen to Nerve Damage!, maybe a couple of times, and let me know if you think I've totally lost it or if it really is kind of a fun song. There's more on Grooveshark if you're still interested, natch.
I admit, some band names beg me to like them so that I can share them with you. This time, it worked beautifully and I can bring you to Fruition. Y'know, that sounded a lot less dirty in my head. Whatever, just listen.
Fruition or Fruition String Band bills itself as a bluegrass band. All I can say is that all bluegrass should be this fun and not-nasal. Therein lies the key, for me. I actually quite enjoy bluegrass instrumentals but those vocals usually kill the pleasure.
Never Again takes a pretty straightforward sound, mandolin-heavy though with nary a banjo to be seen, and injects a dose of Portland jam-band sensibility. As an added bonus, the band harmonizes beautifully and are clearly talented musicians as the solos at about two minutes show. This is a hippie bluegrass band, not a country crew.
Apparently there are two bands called Fruition featured on Grooveshark, both of them good but with very different sounds. If you click over to find more definitely give both a listen. Never Again and Till You Come (by Here) are by the Fruition String Band. The other guys are more straightforward rock. Maybe I'll post them some other time.
You Can Dance is all that used to be right with pop music when I was a kid, back when massive sound was where it was at. Please, pretend that sentence wasn't a grammar train wreck and pay attention. Months ago I posted another Chilly Gonzales song called Bongo Monologue that sits more on the jazz hop side of the coin.
You Can Dance, on the other hand, gives you an Earth, Wind, & Fire vibe with a layered sound that makes you want to just go ahead and dance, already. It's less typical of Chilly Gonzales's usual style but it's a great tune in its own right. You get looping samples, half a choir, and 70s-style vocal meandering mixes with some lovely piano modernized with a squidgy digitized voice. What's not to love?
I'm feeling terribly lazy and mellow today so here's a great bit of world beat with Peruvian band Novalima and their Africa-infused sound. Go ahead, get down a bit. I don't mind.
To be fair, my kids like the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes version of Country Roads and they tolerate the John Denver original because they already know all the words. Seeing them sing along if it pops onto the muzac somewhere is truly a treat, particularly if there are some older folks around who still remember John Denver as that sweet boy and never realized he was high most of the time.
But I couldn't post Me First without John Denver, and then when I went to get them I bumped into Toots & the Maytals doing a great reggae version. Well, you know I couldn't stop at three so I started finding more.
I apologize in advance for the David Hasselhoff cover. I just couldn't resist (okay, you're right: I didn't try very hard). The Foggy Mountain Rockers have a pretty good groove going but the lead singer sounds like English is his second language, so bizarre is his accent. Heck, for all I know it is.
The jazzy version from Chick Corea et al sounds pretty much nothing like Country Roads, which makes it just about par for the course. The Olivia Newton-John cover makes you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pixie stick, so very sweet it is, while Ray Charles does a pretty weird country version that just leaves you shaking your head and wondering what meds he was on that day.
Naturally, Willie Nelson does a lovely job, as does Dolly Parton, at least after the shrieking banshee opening that she either stole from or inspired in Olivia Newton-John. And then there's Rednex. Yup, there they are, like Mannheim Steamroller taken over by hillbillies. Enjoy, all!
If only all of Delbert McClinton's music gave me rockin' horns, a chorus of backup singers, and the rest of the fun that Hammerhead Stew offers I'd have posted him a dozen times by now. The trick with Mr. McClinton is that you never know what a song is going to sound like when you give him a listen.
Sometimes it's country, sometimes more cajun-flavored, and sometimes a great semi-soul, rock-and-roll romp like this. But keeping someone guessing is a great way to keep them trying your music, right?
If you're not familiar with Delbert McClinton, have a listen to Hammerhead Stew and do search out more from him. And if you're already a fan, give me some more fun recommendations, would you?
I had something else entirely planned for the Mashup of the Month when, in looking for a link, I bumped into Rock of Ages on DJ Schmolli's site. You'll just have to wait until next month because, let's be honest, 23 amazing hits crammed into a single, five-minute sing along trumps a whole lot of other stuff.
And so I bring you the whole, rockin' mess complete with video that not only demonstrates how bad hair has always been in music but how much goofiness there's always been in videos therefor. The link above takes you to the post where you can download the song for free and fill your day with even more of DJ Schmolli's mashup goodness. Yeah, you're welcome.
Once upon a time I thought Blue Oyster Cult invented Kick Out the Jams. The concept of cover songs hadn't occurred to me, at that tender, naive musical age. When I heard the MC5 original I thought it was a cheap rip-off of a band I loved. Then I discovered that they'd done it first.
To tell you the truth, I'm surprised anyone bothered. I'm just not a fan of the original. But the song was so iconic that it's been covered many, many times with all sorts of various changes to the lyrics. Naturally, I feel the need to share with you all, my darlings. I like to bring you nice things.
To that end, I'm bringing you not only the MC5 original Kick Out the Jams and the Blue Oyster Cult version, but Moguai, Henry Rollins, Rage Against the Machine, The Presidents of the United States of America, and, much to my surprise, Africa Bambaataa. That last is a great cover so if you don't feel like enjoying the whole list do at least listen to it and Moguai who took the song in a whole different direction.
Langhorne Slim lands somewhere between indie and bluegrass on the genre spectrum. Is there such a thing as alt-bluegrass? Whatever the label, I was introduced to him via The Way We Move and thus I expected him to stay much more on the banjo-and-horns, indie side of the coin. This is the sort of song that makes you get up and dance, barefoot in the grass, at a backyard barbecue.
Sadly, that scratchy voice doesn't translate well in a lot of songs. It tends toward a nasal, bluegrass-y sound that I don't particularly like. Langhorne Slim does, however, do a fair few songs that give you that "get up and move" vibe nearly as well as The Way We Move does.
If you like this one, try I Love to Dance and Rebel Side of Heaven, which offers the bonus of an interesting take on the afterlife. If I'm missing some other great songs, drop me a note and recommend them, would you dears?
It came to my attention recently that I had a number of songs with the same name, namely Oh No. Naturally, I had to make a playlist and find more. Thus it is that I can bring you Nada Surf, Gogol Bordello, Dr. Dog, and Frank Zappa all on one post.
Note that not all of these songs are great. They are all, however, not bad enough to make you say, "Oh, no!" If you stick with it that far, you can enjoy Chico DeBarge and Camper Van Beethoven mixed with Haypenny, Zeds Dead, and Mooney Suzuki. I think I got them all, but have a look at the list below if you want to make sure. I left off Andrew Bird's Oh No as I've already posted it but if you're still hungry for more after these ten do click over and have a listen.
Instead of a two-fer today I have a quad: four versions of That's a Pretty Good Love. We'll start with the romping, rollicking Big Maybelle herself, rocking the original. Then we'll go to a really mush-mouthed version from Charles Brown and a great rockabilly take on it by Little Feat. Finally, we'll round out our celebration of understatement with Roomful of Blues and their cover of That's a Pretty Good Love. For a Monday night, that's a pretty good line-up.
Here's a pop quiz: if you cross the Violent Femmes, Jane's Addiction, and Queen, what would you get? As I've already given you the answer I'll just pretend you all said, "I don't know. What?" You get Sleeping in the Aviary and Aviary, who aren't the same band despite the confusion of some person who uploaded them to Grooveshark.
For proof, I offer you--in no particular order--I Should Have Known from Aviary's "Ambition" and Things Look Good from "Expensive Vomit in a Cheap Hotel" by Sleeping in the Aviary. The trick here is that the vocalists sound just enough alike to let you believe that they are the same band, albeit one that sounds like its completely changed its sound and instrumentation between albums.
I couldn't find any indication that the two have anything to do with one another. After listening to the two all mixed and mingled, however, I can say that they go well together for an afternoon's listen. Enjoy and let me know what you think, my dears!
I've got a two-fer for you all today, the 70s hit Jeans On from David Dundas and what Fatboy Slim did to it a few decades later in Sho Nuff. The original song is cheery and inoffensive enough, with a bit of groove to keep you interested. But I defy you not to get all of the way down when the latter starts.EDIT! I found this lovely addition from MashMike today and couldn't help but add it to the post. You can download this one free from his SoundCloud page, linked below.
For this, my 1,000th post, I thought I’d share some thoughts on what the heck I think I’ve been doing here for four years. To that end, I’ve been considering why I blog and music bloggers in general.
The entire point of blogging is to get your opinion in front of other people. That holds even more true for sites that offer reviews and recommendations. The reason for wanting to do that, however, varies widely.
For me, blogging about music is an outlet for a long-standing habit: telling people about the weird songs that I love. I hardly fancy myself a tastemaker (my recent joining of the Tastemaker X site notwithstanding). My motives are purely selfish.
I’m hardly angling to be influential in the music industry or to make a pile of money from selling my opinion to the most-popular bidder. Were I pursuing that angle this would be the All-Pop Jukebox, after all, wouldn’t it?
Here’s my reasoning: if I put the music I think is great out there and more people hear it more people will buy it. The more people that buy it the more encouraged (and financially able) the musicians I like will be to make more. With a modicum of luck, they’ll have noticed my humble efforts here and send it to me to share with you all and then around the circle goes again.
Lacking a circle of friends interested in every great new band I had just heard, I started posting here looking for feedback from like-minded fans and open-minded listeners. What I found was that few people give me much on the posts but that everywhere else I spend time on the web has turned into a place I find a few other rabid music lovers (except Google+, where I’ve found an entire community of hundreds of them). Their comments and recommendations in response have fueled The NPJ at least as much as my own findings over the years.
I may never be a big-name music blogger on an international scale and I’m certainly not ever going to make a living here. That’s just fine with me. You, my darlings, quiet though you are, keep me wanting to find and share more wonderful songs and artists and to keep digging into the ones I already own. I won’t lie and say it’s all for you but without readers and interaction, wherever it occurs, a blogger tends to get discouraged.
Much as I enjoy blabbing and gushing and occasionally chastising here at The NPJ I doubt I’d have kept on if you all hadn’t been willing and sometimes eager to tell me what you thought. For that I thank you, dears, and offer you one of my favorite songs of all time which I’ve been saving for just this occasion. If you’ve been around for more than a couple of posts you’ll be unsurprised at its being Oingo Boingo.
Try to Believe also counts a Jukebox Roots post, as it's one of the first songs I posted. I’ll shut up now and let you listen to the song. Tomorrow I’ll be back to my briefer self.
While I wouldn't say I'm a fan of Dr. Dog, they definitely do some things that I like. I can't pretend to understand the lyrics to Heart It Races but the "boom dat da da da" parts do get stuck in my head pretty effectively.
That's about all I have to say about that, plus I thought you all might like a really short post before the wall of text I've prepared for my 1000th post tomorrow. Enjoy Heart It Races and let me know what you think.
I don't know why I don't listen to more Herbie Hancock. It seems half the time I hear him somewhere I enjoy it but I never seek him out for an extended listen. That's just foolish!
Stitched Up is an excellent case in point. I half-heard it in a noisy restaurant, managing only to catch two lines near the end. Google obligingly offered up the name of the song and I immediately listened to it three or four times, dancing with hubby and generally loving the song.
And so, as I embark on a long-delayed gorging on Herbie Hancock's catalog I'll just leave Stitched Up here for you to all enjoy. Get your toes ready for tapping before you hit play.
I've put together a little trio of songs for you all today, one that starts with some classic 80s Hall and Oates and then wanders a decade or two toward today. We'll move from I Can't Go for That to De La Soul's Say No Go, based on the song. In between I've sandwiched Tech N9ne with No Can Do, in the spirit of following the lyrics.
Be warned that Tech N9ne says a naughty word or three and lifted the intonation of "no can do" from the original Hall and Oates song. That's what qualified them for the list, after all. You should hear some of the songs I banished! Well, in point of fact, no, you shouldn't.
Whatever the case, have a listen to this genre-spanning set and do share any other I Can't Go for That-based songs you might know. I'd be frankly shocked if you have any but I do enjoy surprises.
I've never understood why Margaritaville is more popular than Pencil Thin Mustache. I suppose one makes a better jukebox song at a bar but I can happily hoist one to the idea of that fabulous 'stache. I mean, Errol Flynn had one. Little Richard had one. Clark Gable sported one as part of his smouldering appeal.
Prince had a pencil-thin mustache for a while, as did half of DeBarge. Chuck Berry rocked one, too, and, as you most certainly already know, Jimmy Buffet sang about them. They are all that was once right with men's facial hair: little of it and well-groomed. It was suave sophistication and debonair panache. And the song is fun.
So happy Friday to you all and enjoy a little romp through the stylish mustache of yesteryear. I couldn't find much for covers except Jimmy Buffet cover bands so if you know of one that takes a different tack I'd love to hear it!
