The Not-Pop Jukebox

So, Paul Miro's new album is coming out later this year, though you can pay him now if you just can't wait. I have no idea what the rest of it will sound like but I can tell you for free that if it's all as much gritty fun as Borderline Clone I'll definitely be picking myself up a copy.

While the newly-released video is delightful, I'd actually recommend listening to it where you can't see the screen the first time through. Identifying all of the LEGO folks gets pretty distracting and, while relevant to the themes in Borderline Clone, really keeps you from getting the full groove. It's classic rock and roll, well done and just enough on the bitter side to carry an edge.

At any rate, have a listen and a watch and let me know what you think. Even if you aren't a big LEGO or Star Wars geek in on the joke, did you chair dance with it cranked up to eleven? I have to say that my kids were singing this in the car after the third time we watched it so it gets a thumbs up from them as well as from me.

For today, a musical battle of the sexes: I'm a Man versus I'm a Woman. That's a bluesy, Hammond-organ rocker versus a full-on blues shouter, The Spencer Davis Group from the late-mid sixties against Koko Taylor from a couple of years later.

Let me know, my dears, which you find to be a better take on the respective genders. Do you prefer the Spencer David Group admitting to a messy flat or Ms. Taylor claiming she can make love to a crocodile? Personally, I've never been a big fan of Hammond-heavy tunes, with the noted exception of Booker T and the MGs, but I'm not posting this to tell you what to think. I want you to pick the winner!

To be fair, only my eldest really likes Uh. It's something of an earworm for him and he'll burst into guttural song in the least likely of places. Naturally, I join him while the youngest sticks his fingers in his ears and hubby moves over somewhere he can pretend he's never met us.

And so I offer you this evening a great groove from a pair of wacky gents, Fujiya & Miyagi as they're known. If you have a chance to enjoy it publicly, at greater-than-moderate volume, while dancing, so much the better!

I can't hear Elvis bemoaning the postman returning his pleas for forgiveness without wanting to listen to The Marvelettes offer the opposite point of view. Perhaps the evil postman wants one of the glamorous Marvelettes for himself and has been returning Mr. Presley's letters without attempting to deliver them at all. It's a musical conspiracy theory!

Whatever the case, Return to Sender and Please Mr. Postman make a perfect pair in my mind. Have a listen to them back-to-back and let me know if they link as well as I think. And if you've any theories about Elvis Presley's secret love for Gladys Horton, do share! I'm also willing to entertain the idea that I've made up the whole thing, and I'd love other suggestions for songs about getting mail.

I’ve posted sets of mashes before, notably the ever-popular smelly Nirvana hit and the perpetually geeky music of Star Wars, but I can’t resist building a little pile of such combinations. It tickles me to find different takes on the same song from various mashup artists.

It seems most of them have taken a swing at House of Pain’s Jump Around. For today I’m offering eight mashups, from such luminaries as FAROFF (three times), DJ Schmolli (twice), Party Ben, MashMike, and The Bootleague. As usual, those links take you to their respective sites where you can download each mashup for free.

Apparently House of Pain brings out the creative in DJs. We’ve got a klezmer band, AC/DC, Beethoven’s Fifth, Queen, Kriss Kross, Mick Jaggar, and Cee-Lo Green’s cover of Kung Fu Fighting. FAROFF even combined Jump Around with Cab Calloway. And then there are the massive Mash Together with Joan Jett, Cypress Hill, Rage Against the Machine, and The Beatles, as well as Super Bowl Anthem, which pits them against Tag Team, Madonna, LFMAO, Queen (again), the White Stripes, and Metallica. I was only able to find seven on Grooveshark so you'll have to have Jump on the Fifth via Soundcloud.

Note: In my infinite attention to detail, I missed Mashup of the Month day this month. The mega-post is my apology.

Here’s another naughty blues tune for you: It’s 2 AM, do you know where your baby is?  Shemekia Copeland does.  On second thought, maybe you don’t want to know.  Happy Friday, and keep tabs on your significant other when Ms. Copeland is in town.  And if he or she is right there next to you, feel free to get down to this song, secure in the knowledge that she’s cuckolding someone else entirely.

If you ever need to know the reason MTV took so long to come into being, a perusal of the people making the fantastic (and other) music back in the day will explain it clearly. Perhaps no one except Mick Jaggar typifies the reason no one wanted to watch them for three and a half minutes more than Matthew Wilder.

In a "wait for it" attempt, I've included his picture at the end of this post. But when you didn't see people gyrating and lip-synching their song every six minutes all you had to go on was the local radio stations and whatever your scraped-together allowances would buy at the record store. And so I confess that I've loved Break My Stride for almost thirty years, since I first heard it as a kid.

Now, I had no idea what the man looked like. Indeed, until I decided to post this, I had never seen him. The moment I did every nostalgic thing I was going to say about the wonderful times in my life when this earworm accompanied me flew right out of my head. Seriously, do you want to see this guy dancing to the song?
If that hasn't utterly ruined the song before you hear it, do give it a listen. It really is a happy, bouncy, dance-inspiring song. I hope you enjoy it and can get this abomination of a man-perm out of your head.

I've listened to a fair whack of Django Django recently and I keep returning the Default. The beat gets me grooving and the stuttered lyrics make me think of faulty androids performing in the rain.

It seems I'm feeling a bit whimsical today but that image is now stuck in my brain alongside this song. Have a listen to Default and, if you missed it, my earlier post of Waveforms. Do tell if you find it apropos, and if you've a favorite track from Django Django I'd welcome recommendations.

A creepy, freaky stalker song that may actually go on my Top Ten list of ominous love songs, Prince's When You Were Mine goes well beyond nostalgia into the territory of somewhat threatening. One person performing it would be creepy enough but I found a few versions of this stalker anthem, including the delightfully mournful ukulele version from Dent May.

I've included versions of When You Were Mine from Tegan and Sara, Cindi Lauper, Ani DeFranco, and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone to round out the list. That makes five full covers and the original Prince tune for your creeped-out stalker enjoyment. The idea that so many people thought this was a love song worth repeating strikes me as a little bizarre, but what are you going to do?

The more I watch the new video for Golden, the more I like it and The Tontons. In part it's my persistence in believing that their name is a veiled Star Wars reference and in part it's that the lead singer--who has a name, I'm sure, though I can't seem to find it anywhere--is so utterly adorable.

Part of the reason I keep watching it is that I keep showing it to other people. Golden is a good song in its own right but the video shows as much witty edge as the lyrics do. Have a watch and let me know what you think. And tell me if you believe, as I choose to do without any evidence whatsoever, that they wanted to name their band The Tauntauns and George Lucas wouldn't let them.

Let’s have a filthy, dirty, nasty pile of funk for this Friday evening, shall we? To be honest with you, I have no idea what Fopp is about but The Ohio Players make it sound positively naughty, whatever it is. I’m generally too busy shaking my thing to pay much attention to the lyrics.

Give it a play and see if you can keep your mind out of the gutter and your toes from tapping and your hips from shaking. And then, for a twist of WTF for your Friday evening, listen to the Soundgarden cover of Fopp. Personally, I like the original better. You?

After the funk overdose yesterday, I just had to keep the groove going. Robert Randolph and the Family Band do a serious boogie on Good Times (3 Stroke). Just as you're settling in to the rhythm they throw you off at a minute twenty and then dive right back in, noodling around for bit and then another off-kilter jam.

Good Times is essentially an instrumental with rudimentary lyrics that basically say, "We're gonna have a good time." Then they do. And, not to beat that dead horse until it cries uncle, but songs like this are the reason I really, really want Prince to play with Robert Randolph. Seriously, can you imagine them trading solos on this piece for an hour and a half? I'd pay to see it, I can tell you that much.

Uh, just have a listen and let me know what you think. That hobby horse never did want anyone to ride it.

Had The NPJ not found an even more appropriate theme song (see the sidebar to your right), It’s Too Funky in Here would have been it. Okay, that’s not really true. It’s just a great song that I wanted to share with you all.

An award-winning lyricist James Brown was not. I prefer to think that his songs were so full of funk that there wasn’t room for a lot of clever lyrics. If you’ve ever seen video of him performing, you know that he was far too busy getting funky to sing much about it.

That makes It’s Too Funky in Here a perfect song for the man. If anyone knows when there’s too much funk in the air, it’s James Brown. Have a listen and hear for yourself. I included a live version because, to me, the studio release was too slow for this level of funk. That's probably the utter limit of the most times I can use the word funk in a single post so I'll just stop, now.

I've got another pseudo-retro band for you all today, the rock Ex Norwegian who almost didn't make this album at all. But they're back together and evolving their fuzzy, indie sound with some pretty clear influences. It's like three decades mashed into a single song!

Ginger, Baby is the first track on their new album "House Music" and the only one you can listen to in full from it, to date. The album doesn't drop until the 16th of October but you can get a pretty good feel for the band from Ginger, Baby and the Ex Norwegian back catalog at Grooveshark.

I'm curious, though, my dears. Drop me a note and tell me who you think influenced this Florida crew. When you hear the voice and the cadence, do you say, "Hey, that sounds like...!"

I've been listening to a fair amount of Antibalas lately and, as a Manu Dibango fan already, was excited to see them incorporating makossa into their numbers. It took about thirty seconds of Makossa #3, however, before I realized that it was not the ever-talented Mr. Dibango the needed a head-to-head match-up with the New Yorkers. It was Isaac Hayes and the iconic Theme from Shaft.

Normally I'd include both songs in a playlist below, but for some reason the recording of Makossa #3 on Grooveshark cuts off at 1:23. The video below gives you the full, five-minute treatment. And then I figured you'd need a video for Shaft, too, because, well, it's Shaft. Note that the version in the opening credits for the film are a little different, and a little faster, than this one (which is the one I have), but if you haven't seen the film and don't understand just what a BAMF he is, go see it. Now. I'll wait. Can you dig it?

I almost forgot to invite you to tell me which wah-wah pedal you like best. That is, after all, the entire point of You Pick the Winner. Do share, my dears. Do you have a nostalgic Richard Roundtree connection to Isaac Hayes or does Anibalas take that same funk-filtered sound, wrap it around makossa, and steal your love?

Happy Friday, all, and welcome to another super-lazy posting evening. Luckily for you all I've brought a little honky-tonk boogie woogie love song for you to enjoy in lieu of my rapier-sharp wit. Delbert McClinton does a number of things quite well, and in Squeeze Me In he gets George Hawkins, Todd Sharp, Lynn Williams, and Kevin McKendree to help him. Wherever they recorded this they really rocked the joint, I can tell you that. Grab the nearest partner of your persuasion and ask if they can Squeeze Me In.

Vintage Trouble has only been around a couple of years but you'd never guess it to listen to them. The clean production and, yes, vintage soul sound hark back to a day when you could count on a band to sound as great live as they do on vinyl (or, y'know, in bytes). From what I see and hear, appearances are not deceiving.

Much as I like their old-school take, most of their songs tend toward the down-tempo end of the spectrum. When I heard Jezzebella, however, I knew I had the perfect offering for you, my darlings. Have a listen and, if you like it half as much as I do, head over to the Vintage Trouble web site for a slew of videos and a lot more info on the band.

If I told you that DJ Zebra, purveyor of brilliant mashups like Roxanne Should Be Dancing, was about to release an original album, would you be excited? I certainly was. And Plus Rien ne M'arrête made me doubly so.

Zebra and Bagad Karaez have taken a live brass section (well, at least a trombone, according the track details), some great beats, and added percussion, bagpipes, and vocals to make this glorious mess of high-energy fun. Oh, and the lyrics are in French, so you know I'm all over it.

The album doesn't release until October 20th but I'm already impatient for more. Have a listen and click over for Celtic Suckers, the other song they've released for preview.

Bundy is one of those songs that I don't really understand how it came into regular rotation at our house. I believe it was the misapprehension that the leader screams "shut your freezer" in the chorus. That spawns a silly conversation every time it comes on around here.

If I remember correctly the song came to our attention via one video game or another. We jam to the song plenty but somehow I never felt it necessary to find more from such an angry, somewhat creepy band. If you're not familiar with Animal Alpha, would you guess that Bundy is pretty representative of their sound? I'll do some digging one of these days and let you know if it is.

Implicit Demand for Proof is pretty atypical for The NPJ. It's mellow, you see. But as you listen to it something happens. Twenty One Pilots (and damn them for not hyphenating properly) builds from this nice, piano-heavy indie rock sound into a wall of intensity that sort of sweeps you along and then recedes, leaving you wanting more.

That'd be a neat but pointless trick if it only happened once, but, just when you're relaxing and thinking about not listening to their next song, they throw in another peak. You ride the swell and coast back down and then, there you are at the end of Implicit Demand for Proof. What else would you want than to see if they can do it again?

Have a listen, let me know what you think, and then hunt down more Twenty One Pilots. I won't promise all of their songs are this strong but they're definitely worth investing your listening time.