Decade End Mix: 25 Songs from 2001

Decade End Mix: 25 Songs from 2001

1. What a Drag! - The Kim Band

2. Hey Sailor - The Detroit Cobras

3. Bullet - Frank Black & The Catholics

4. The Other Man - Sloan

5. Everything Hits At Once - Spoon

6. Know Your Onion! - The Shins

7. Lowdown - My Morning Jacket

8. Jacksonville Skyline - Whiskeytown

9. Good Souls - Starsailor

10. Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright

11. I Might Be Wrong - Radiohead

12. Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground - The White Stripes

13. Glad Girls - Guided By Voices

14. Short Skirt/Long Jacket - Cake

15. Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi - Jim White

16. Boo - Macy Gray

17. In the Waiting Line - Zero 7

18. Digital Love - Daft Punk

19. Hip Hop Thighs #17 - Ike Reilly

20. New York, New York - Ryan Adams

21. Life on a Chain - Pete Yorn

22. Affection - Lost Boys

23. It's Raining (4AM) - The Bicycle Thief

24. Weekend Monster - Diamond Dogs

25. Shut Up and Get On the Plane - Drive By Truckers

1. ‘What a Drag!’ from Girology by the Kim Band. This album was recommended to me by a good friend of mine who was not a fan of the same kind of music I was (“I like angry white guy music, man”). I remember playing him The New Pornographer’s Mass Romantic and he was just horrified I liked it and recommended I check out the Kim Band if I wanted to continue to listen to crap. I did and still do. Thanks Ian!

2. The Detroit Cobras ‘Hey Sailor’ from Life, Love & Leaving is just great rock & roll. Either you like this kind of thing or you don’t.

3. I used to be one of those people who was adamant that Frank Black’s solo career, despite being tremendously longer and richer than that of his former (and current, I guess) band, Pixies, was still inferior. As such I used to give his solo albums only a cursory listen and then move on, until I actually listened to the plaintive arguments of some who strongly argued otherwise. Glad I listened finally. ‘Bullet’, one of many awesome songs from Frank Black and the Catholics’s Dog in Sand.

4. Sloan’s ‘The Other Man’ from Pretty Together is like an anthem for the cuckolder. There are probably hundreds of songs written by the cuckolded male bemoaning his cheating wife or girlfriend, but you don’t get many songs written from the other man's perspective. And here he expresses this behaviour honestly and without explanation or justification: ‘I know he’s a standup guy, but that’s none of my concern’. Okay pally, don’t get killed.

5. Spoon fascinates me. They play deceptively simple music that initially seems hardly worthy of their (relative) fame within the indie music community. There are other bands who do this kind of thing yet are not as fawned over by critics and fans. So what gives? I’m still trying to figure it out actually because it is deceptively simple, but there’s something about it that draws you back when one might like to dismiss it. There’s a spare quality they have, kind of an anti-Broken Social Scene, where they leave out more than they put into a song and that somehow makes it more satisfying overall. It’s also decidedly unemotional, in my opinion. They observe and report. ‘Everything Hits At Once’ from Girls Can Tell is a great tune and I count them among the bands that have become progressively more interesting over the past decade. Although I still find them a bit baffling, I will still listen.

6. Who would have ever thought that some annoying vegan actress could help make such an overwhelmingly bland band like The Shins kind of a Big Deal? This certainly doesn’t sound like life-changing music, but if one was to imagine such a thing, how a song or band could Change a Life, I believe the power of the universe would dictate that it should be HUGE, much like a cataclysmic natural event, a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake take your pick. This isn’t huge music, but not without some small charms, kind of like a piece of chocolate. Not great chocolate either, a Hershey’s Kiss maybe because the songs are short. From Oh Inverted World, 'Know Your Onion!'.

7. I just flat out love My Morning Jacket. One of my favourite artists from this decade and right at the top of bands I need to see in a live setting. 'Lowdown' from At Dawn is a lovely tune. It isn’t one of my favourite records from their oeuvre, if only because it’s a significant undertaking to sit and take in during a single sitting. It’s a Big Album and in my mind can at least gracefully enter that sphere of possibility “Life Changing”. ‘Lowdown’ is a wonderful song. “Chancin', glancin', sho nuff mood for romancin'”.

8. Listening to Whiskeytown’s Pneumonia and some of Ryan Adams’ early solo songs, you sometimes think ‘maybe he is as good as he thinks is’. Which isn't possible, but when you hear songs like ‘Jacksonville Skyline’, you can almost believe him.

9. There’s no explanation why I should still be listening to Starsailor’s Love is Here in 2009. Britpop albums usually have an expiration date that’s fairly soon after their release. I can only assume it’s something in the air over there, which spoils very quickly on this continent. (notable exceptions being Gay Dad’s Leisure Noise and the first two Oasis records). I guess the reason I’m still listening is because it really isn’t ‘Britpop’ but more of a straight English band playing kind of a jazzy and introspective pop music a la Van Morrison (disclaimer: I am not suggesting Starsailor are cut from the same cloth as Van Morrison). ‘Good Souls’, one of many great songs on this album.

10. I actually used to consume Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk regularly at work as they really were a few of my cravings. Nothing like a smoke and some milk. Rufus Wainwright has a knack for summing up those things we should probably avoid. From Poses.

11. Against all better judgement I put Radiohead's 'I Might Be Wrong' on here. Maybe because it feels like it should be on Kid A and not Amnesiac. I gave that record more than a few chances over the last near decade. I don't quite despise it, but there's more than a few occasions where I've grabbed the remote and said "why the fuck am I listening to this bullshit" and then . It doesn't happen during 'I Might Be Wrong'.

12. I remember hearing about them but for the longest time I just never got the opportunity to hear them (usenet did not provide in this case). Even when 'Fell in Love with A Girl' got popular and then backlashed enough that people would bitch about the omnipresence of the song, I still didn't know what the deal was about this band. I don't think 'Fell in Love with a Girl' is even an album highlight, it was between 'Hotel Yorba' or 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground', still one of my favourites from this band. Over the decade, I've pretty much decided that whatever Jack White does, I will give it a shot.

13. I think I have three albums by Guided By Voices and I'm not sure why. The only song I ever really want to hear from them is 'Glad Girls' from Isolation Drills. Good luck on emptying your brain after hearing it.

14. 'Short Skirt/Long Jacket' from Cake's Comfort Eagle. I will be honest and say that I am not one who enjoys dancing but this damn song always makes me want to get up and shake dat azz.

15. I heard 'Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi' by Jim White on a mix a few years ago. I checked out his album No Such Place. I highly recommend it for some alternative take on alternative country. Great lyrics with some sly beats courtesy of Morcheeba, which is kind of precedes Steve Earle's experiment with that on Washington Square Serenade by quite a few years.

16. I really thought Macy Gray had some bad luck with her album The Id. It was an excellent funk-soul album that had the horrendous luck to have a release date of 09/11/01. No one was really into this album that opened with 'Relating to a Psychopath', which was a shame. It was the soundtrack in the car for quite a while. This is 'Boo'. Highly recommended.

17. 'In the Waiting Line' from Zero 7's Simple Things is just one of many songs on that album that could be lifted and placed on Air's Moon Safari. It's not even subtle, as this song is basically 'All I Need', but fortunately it's all good if you don't care about those things and just love hearing 'All I Need' pt 2. Nice and chill.

18. 'Digital Love' from Daft Punk's Discovery is the odd man out here. Actually track 17 AND 18 are hard to squeeze in but anyway that's how it goes. I have an overwhelming need to derail a mix about 3/4 through. This is it. It also makes an horrible segue to...

19. Ike Reilly's 'Hip Hop Thighs #17. ' A 'play it really, really loud' kind of song, begging to be drunkenly shouted at about 11:21pm once the inhibitions are lowered to dangerous levels and anything is possible. From Salesmen & Racists, an album I somehow resisted for too long and now grab at it for a pick me up very frequently.

20. Gold is a fairly decent Ryan Adams album. Typically when I get a jones to hear him, it's this or Cold Roses I grab for. I like the idea that he's ballsy enough to cut two double albums over the course of 5 years even though overextends a bit too much and I usually don't make it through from start to finish. I still think it's pretty crazy that Ryan Adams filmed the video for 'New York, New York' in front of the New York skyline four days before Sept. 11. He may in fact be the prophet we've always feared. Kind of like Rasputin but with worse hair.

21. Ah, Pete Yorn if only you could crank out more like 'Life on a Chain' from the perfectly titled 'musicforthemorningafter', which often does hit the mark. It had a couple of great songs on it, but he's someone I wanted to like more than I ever actually did.

22. This might be one of the great songs ever. I'm serious. 'Affection' by Lost Boys, appearing on the Sopranos soundtrack Peppers and Eggs: Music from the HBO Series, and previously appeared on the unreleased album Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive. What blew me away was discovering the band is fronted by none other than Silvio Dante aka Little Steven Van Zandt. Apparently while off from the E-Street Band, he put together a garage band. I think we all need to see this album released based on the insane greatness of 'Affection'. Even the scene where it was featured in the show was fantastic. Tony Soprano is relaxing post-coitus with his current paramour Gloria Trillo. 'Affection' is playing on the radio in the background. She sensually dances to the song and before she turns it up and she asks Tony:

'You like this song?'

'It's all right.'

'I... fucking...love this song'

23. Speaking of true love, this song is also pretty much tops. It’s Rainin’ (4AM) by The Bicycle Thief. This was originally a '99 release but I have the '01 version so on the mix it must appear. This is an incredible song. First time I heard this was on a mix appropriately titled 'Slowcore Monger'. I'm not going to explain what that means.

24. Diamond Dogs are a Swedish band who play rock & roll like it never progressed past the early 70s. So you know, it's really, really great. 'Weekend Monster' from As Your Green Turns Brown is typically awesome, one of those play it loud songs that sound even better when you're getting your load on.

25. Of the 'new' bands I've come to love over the '00s, outside of My Morning Jacket, I generally try to recommend the Drive By Truckers to everyone who asks me about what new music I listen to. Of course I take into account whether they're up for a little adventure. It's not quantitatively challenging in terms of actual music, but overall it's not going to be everyone's particular brand lyrically, especially if you're not up for a heavy, heavy Southern vibe, e.g. a nearly 8 min spoken word piece on three Alabama icons on their genius double album Southern Rock Opera. I thought about putting that song smack dab in the middle of the mix, but this had to close out with 'Shut Up and Get on the Plane', 3:39 of goddamn great rock & roll.

Decade End Project: Mix from 2000

So here comes my big Decade End project, trying to fit 25 songs from each year into something reasonably coherent and listenable. The latter quality is not necessarily a guarantee. In the context of music fandom, this is a decidedly “mainstream” kind of mix, but it’s not purposely so. It’s just the songs I happen to like best and also fit well together out of the 76 songs from 2000 I chose to distill into a final 25. A good many of these songs have strong nostalgic associations for me, as it represented a huge transition period personally (moving from Sudbury ON to London ON) and professional (MSc to PhD). Not surprisingly, just hearing these songs calls up more than a few episodic memory engrams.

1. While I have mainly trafficked in the "classics" around here (Bruce, Stones etc.) or shared those that aspire to such terrible ideals (Four Horsemen, Quireboys), I have somehow decided to kick off the year 2000 mix with a nearly 8 min downtempo acid/jazz tune, 'After' by dZihan & Kamien from their 2000 debut Freaks & Icons. I'm not sure why, but it seemed that it had to be the leadoff track. I’ve never really been a huge electronic(a) music fan and with few exceptions I usually stay on the straight and narrow of basic rock & roll. A few albums can grab me in the right spot (Underworld, DJ Shadow, Chemical Brothers etc) but they're few and far between. I know I snagged this off a usenet group back in the day (a constant theme), and I for the life of me, cannot understand why I decided to download it but I’m glad I did. When I do data analysis, I enjoy this kind of music and so this became a staple of my PhD years.

2. Radiohead’s 'Everything In Its Right Place' from Kid is probably one of my favourite opening tracks of the last 10 years. In fact, it’s one of my favourite albums of the last 10 years. Like I said above, I'm really not a huge fan of the strange and electrostylings of some modern pop bands, the artistic experimentation, the exploring the boundaries, etc. but this appealed to me immediately, but really turned a lot of folks off and understandably so considering how far away they’ve turned from their traditional sound. This song (and album) is kind of chilly and strange but oddly comforting despite its supposed apocalyptic them. If it’s supposed to be pretentious nonsense, I’ve succumbed to its heightened artistry but was basically lost with all their other albums, save for a moment here and there.

3. Badly Drawn Boy's 'The Shining' from The Hour of Bewilderbeast was another usenet find I downloaded because of the British Beck comparisons and also on the recommendation from a friend in the UK who saw him live in a club said I would really enjoy it. I did enjoy about the first quarter of his debut album and I still like this song a whole lot. It’s a nice end of the year, AM kind of song. I like the cello.

4. U2's'Beautiful Day', from All That You Can't Leave Behind, is probably the most overplayed track on the mix, so feel free to skip it but when it comes on, I always turn it up because it still does it for me. Their return to the Big Rock sound after their electostylings in Pop. While I never really got into the album a whole lot (it’s all right, but the overall gestalt didn’t hit me), they definitely soar on this song.

5. 'Dancing in the Moonlight' is Toploader's version of the 1973 King Harvest classic. I really fucking love this song, as anyone who's spent time with me would be hard pressed not to hear this at least once over the course of an evening in the early ‘00s. A really fun song that appears on a really terrible album Onka’s Big Monka.

6. I'm a fan of latter day Modest Mouse, not caring as much for the tuneless meandering of their earlier albums and preferring actual songs like 'Gravity Rides Everything' from The Moon and Antarctica. They’ve progressively gotten more interesting and probably bland in the opinion of their real fans.

7. In contrast to my Modest Mouse opinion, while I don't mind the albums Doves have released over the last decade, none still hold a candle to songs like 'Catch the Sun' from their debut Lost Souls. This always reminds me of a conference in St. Paul.

8. Similarly it's hard to believe when I listen to the current songs from the Dandy Warhols that they could still write a catchy pop song like 'Bohemian Like You' from Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia. Compared to how much I enjoy their first three albums, I can’t fathom how they’ve become so horrible. I hope it’s calculated because I could almost respect a conscious decision to destroy themselves one album at a time.

9. Actually as I write this, I wonder if I could separate out into groups, those artists that I think have 'gotten better' and those who have 'gotten worse' over time. Stephen Malkmus' 'Black Book' is from his self-titled debut album and seems to be his most Pavementy track (and album in my opinion, it's the only one I own) and I've grown considerably weary of everything he's released since. I really like this song and a few more from this album.

10. 'Lake Fever' from the Tragically Hip's Music At Work is probably my favourite song on what I think is there weakest album, which is to say I like it a great deal but don't love it. I’m not a big ‘lyric’ guy, where the words can make or break a song. The words to 'Lake Fever' I really like though:

We can take a bit of a breather

We can skip to the practical part

We can skip to the time of neither

When we're together, even when we're apart

Tell you a story about the Lake Fever

or we can skip to the coital fury

You didn't say yes or no neither

You whispered...hurry

We can take it a little bit further

We can skip to the after-effects part

Not trying to make you a believer

Don't want a little piece of your heart

Just telling you a story about the Lake Fever

or we can skip to a neutral fury

You didn't say yes or no neither

You whispered...hurry

Wanna be a nobody without peer

Wanna be a thought that's never done

Wanna shake your faith in human nature

Wanna break the hearts of everyone

Wanna be your wheezing screen door

Wanna be your stars Algonquin

Wanna be your roaring floorboard

Wanna break the hearts of everyone

and cause discontent

Until they, ceasing their investigation

bring back the days' events,

good citizens and time well-spent

Till we're talking in whispers again

You whispered...hurry

11. One listen to this Marah’s Kids in Philly and you wonder why it never caught on with people who like regular old Pettyesque rock & roll. Of the many songs one could select (Faraway You was another)I like ‘Barstool Boys’ a lot, "It’s a time clock/With a late block/Screamin’ walk that walk/Or else you’re all talk/And it’s eavesdrop/And it’s hard luck/Put ‘er in fast/And never don’t stop/Up in a weightless sky/(ooh baby) where no one flies…". I think Marah has gotten better or at least maintained the static (except for their mainstream grab Float Away with the Friday Night Gods which is weirdly awesome).

12. The Maker's 'Star Power' from their album Rock Star God is some kickin' glammy rawk and roll. Since hearing this album I've grabbed more of their albums but none hit as hard as this song (or perhaps '(I’m Just Lookin’ for a) Supergirl') from that album.

13. Rancid's 'Radio Havana' is just another excellent tune from a band that to me is impossible not to like, unless you’re one of those purists with exaggerated ideals who feel that this type of music should never be practiced outside of a certain era. Remarkably unremarkable and still hangs with you after it's gone.

14. But for hanging with you after its gone, almost nothing on this list can even remotely compare to the truly awesome power of 'Kathy Fong is The Bomb' from Tsar's self-titled debut. It's like they decided to just go for broke and cram as many hooks into a 10 three min pop songs. If you're not smiling during this song or at least semi-content with the world after hearing it, then I don't know what to tell you.

15. I think I was ignorant of the existence of the Weakerthans until 2003 or so, but better a few years late than never (thank you Janet…), I do love ‘Aside’ from Left and Leaving a lot especially the line about alcohol and irony. Also I think it's odd that this was over the closing credits of ‘The Wedding Crashers’.

16. Again in the musical geekery world when it is often ponderously debated which artists that have gotten better or worse over time, one polarizing argument is: Have the New Pornographers gotten better or worse since their debut? I tend to prefer the clatter of songs like 'Letter from an Occupant' from Mass Romantic and think the smoothing of their rougher edges over the decade has weakened them slightly but not fatally. This is yet another song I don't know if I can possibly ever get sick of hearing especially the call and response part at the end, with Neko hollering 'fortheloveofagodyousayyyyyyy' and 'notaletterfromanoccupanttttttt'.

17. All I have to say about Outkast’s ‘B.O.B.’ is that it's kind of impossible to hate or perhaps it's a perspective thing. Maybe if you really love hip-hop you're almost obligated to hate this because of the crossover appeal of Stankonia. Not being a real hip-hop fan (at least I’m not post-’95 or whenever that Master P. stuff flooded the market), I don't know. It's just a fun song with massive energy that still sounds incredibly unique at a time when that’s a rare commodity.

18. But if I had to pick an all time favourite here from 2000, it's got to be the Strokes’ 'Last Nite' from Is This It?. The album was supposed to be the biggest thing in the whole goddamn world based on the hype around their first EP (Stop the presses, NME just named it Album of the Decade…). And while it wasn't Nickelback seismic, it was a great, great record. Short, fun, punchy rock and roll.

19. Similarly, one might say the same about Mr. Ryan Adams who hasn't really delivered on his own self-absorbed genius. I'm supposing that because anyone who fires out that many albums in such a short period of time must think they're something special. His Heartbreaker album is in fact pretty good to great. Similar to the New Pornographers, his anonymity in the real world is hilariously contrasted by his hugeness amongst the geek/hipster set (or at least it was a few years ago, the guy has slowed right down in pace and quality) who can get positively verbal regarding whether he has sucked since the demise of Whiskeytown or just Heartbreaker.

20. Sleater-Kinney were critical darlings who really didn't change stylistically all that much (perhaps why they were so critically beloved, I don’t know) except for their final grungey & Horsey 2005 album The Woods. Frankly, I loved 1999's The Hot Rock and their next All Hands on the Bad One. In fact when I put together some of my favourite singles in big slush pile, I had four songs from that latter album. It's good stuff. I went with the title track practically on whim, I like them all equally.

21. I can't recall precisely when I heard Phoenix's United for the first time but it was definitely in 2000 or thereabouts because I remember walking around London playing this French disco-AM pop a lot. 'Too Young' has popped up in a few movies over the years (and they couldn't be more different, 'Shallow Hal' and 'Lost in Translation'). Like that Sleater-Kinney album, I chose more than a few songs off United as my favourites of the decade, 'On Fire' was really, really hard to cut.

22. Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is a quiet and pretty record, 'Saturday' being one of my favourite songs from it. It's a grown-up album for sure, miles away from some of their past noisy moments. Definitely a very late in the evening or very, very early in the morning kind of album.

23. 'Didn't Cha Know' from Erkyah Badu shares both a mature similarity with the latter Yo La Tengo album, as both it and Mama’s Gun share extremely long 10 min+ closing tracks. Again, I’m not really much of a hip-hop fan but I really liked Baduizm and her work with the Roots (‘You Got Me’) and have continued to enjoy her work through to her latest releases.

24. A lot of people really, really loved the Avalanches’ Since I Left You, I think it was electro-pop album with a mixture of different styles a la Beck and Beastie Boys. The album never really worked as a cohesive whole for me, but I did love a few of the tracks on it, and it was between 'Tonight May Have to Last Me All My Life' or 'Two Hearts in 3/4 Time'. I went with the former, as I really like the Nancy Wilson piano-stylings in it.

25. The final song here is 'New' from No Doubt's 2000 album Return to Saturn or from what I typically associate it with, the 1999 soundtrack to Doug Limon's movie Go. I decided that since I associate it with '00 it belongs here. I really dig the song, although the actual album it’s on is a kind of a bloated mess at 15 songs. In general this band’s album are always edited kind of badly because they wear out their welcome over the course of an hour. Still, ‘New’ is good new wave fun. Also the lyrics ‘And you're consuming me violently\And your reverence shamelessly tempting me\Who sent this maniac?\'Cause I never had this taste in the past." Taste?

Decade End Mix: 2000

1. After - dZihan & Kamien

2. Everything in Its Right Place - Radiohead

3. The Shining - Badly Drawn Boy

4. Beautiful Day - U2

5. Dancing In The Moonlight - Toploader

6. Gravity Rides Everything - Modest Mouse

7. Catch The Sun - Doves

8. Bohemian Like You - The Dandy Warhols

9. Black Book - Stephen Malkmus

10. Lake Fever - The Tragically Hip

11. Star Power - The Makers

12. Barstool Boys - Marah

13. Radio Havana - Rancid

14. Kathy Fong Is The Bomb - Tsar

15. Aside - The Weakerthans

16. Letter From An Occupant - The New Pornographers

17. B.O.B. - Outkast

18. Last Night - The Strokes

19. To Be Young - Ryan Adams

20. All Hands On The Bad One - Sleater-Kinney

21. Too Young - Phoenix

22. Saturday - Yo La Tengo

23. Didn't Cha Know - Erykah Badu

24. Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life - The Avalanches

25. New - No Doubt

Live in the Shadow, See Through the Shadow

This is a must hear for even a casual Stones fan, and for all the bootlegs I have from this band, it's probably the most essential. The background to this set comes from the accompanying nfo file: Necrophilia- How this title was even granted a catalog number - AB4224 - is a mystery. However the never-released album from 1971-1972, the planned follow-up to Hot Rocks was pressed on a few acetates, some of which were sold, and....surfaced on bootleg CD after a while. Much like the legendary unreleased 1966 Stones LP Could You Walk On Water?, this set was to have featured 15 previously-unreleased tracks including alternate takes or different mixes of "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby" "Heart of Stone", "Out of Time" and "Pay Your Dues" - the original version of "Street Fighting Man". Apparently Andrew Loog Oldham and Allen Klein had a major disagreement on the track selection - more specifically on the extremely vulgar "Andrew's Blues". It would have been unprecedented at the time for such a song to be released to the public, but not as far-fetched an idea by the 1980's if you consider that "Lonesome Schoolboy Blues" [aka: Cocksucker Blues] was included for a limited time in an official 1984 German albums boxed set. This title would be replaced by the friendlier More Hot Rocks but fans fear not, as nine of these selections later appeared in the 1975 LP Metamorphosis. Not surprisingly, "Andrew's Blues" has since become a popular bootleg track. As on that latter bootleg, several of the songs features Jagger, Richards and studio musicians, and not the other Stones members. Quality is perfect and artwork is included. I personally loved "Have You Seen Your Mother" which I understand hasn't been played live by the band since 1966 (?!) yet I recall from a 90s doc on the Stones that it's one of Mick's favourite Stones songs. Download this immediately particularly if you haven't heard Metamorphosis.

01 Out OF Time

02 Don't Lie To Me

03 Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow

04 Think

05 Hear It

06 Something Just Stuck In Your Mind

07 Aftermath

08 I'd Rather Be With THe Boys

09 Andrew's Blues

10 Pay Your Dues

11 Let the Good Times Roll

12 Heart of Stone

13 Each & Every Day of the Year

14 (Walkin' THru The) Sleepy City

15 Try a Little Harder

16 Blue Turns to Grey

17 We're Wasting Time

It Ain't What You Do (It's How You Do It!)

"This..this is one of those groups who are going to keep it going a long, long time, they've got a great sound, the J. Geils Band!" so it is proclaimed by Bill Graham himself to begins this fantastic show from the Fillmore East in 1971. I found a blurb about this particular show from Wolfgang's Vault: "Going onstage after Mountain and before the Allman Brothers was certainly no easy task, but this set finds the J. Geils Band more than capable of rising to the occasion. According to Graham's autobiography, this group was among his favorites ever presented at the Fillmore East, and this set captures them performing with a ferocity few bands could match." Covering songs from their excellent debut album The J. Geils Band and their even better follow up The Morning After they kick the show off with a raucaus 'New York City Breakdown'and and keep up a pace that can only be described with a a few more f-adjectives, 'frentic' and 'furious' and finally culminating with an absolutely fucking killer version of my favourite song of theirs "It Ain't What you Do (It's How You Do It!). Highly recommended this be played at a near ear-splitting volume.

Tell Me Son, What's Your Kind Of Thing?

The Quireboys, or the London Quireboys as I first got to know them, were one of my favourites in the early 90s. Between A Bit of What You Fancy and The Black Crowes' Shake Your Moneymaker I scarcely listened to little else circa '90-91. If one were to inspect the photographic evidence of that time period it was black jeans, untucked pin-striped shirt and jacket with the occasional headband. That album cover might have been the single most influential thing on my sense of style. Whether that was a good thing or not is certainly debatable.



This is a live set from 1990, recorded at the Town & Country in London. Quality is excellent, kicking off with an all time favourite: 'Man on the Loose'. The latter song, '7 O'Clock' and the Crowes' 'Twice as Hard' fairly accurately showcases the first few songs that started off about 800 of my mix tapes in the early 90s. They also do the Stones proud on 'Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)'. It's a fun set, good exhuberant rock and roll that pairs well with your second Jack & Coke, your third rum & coke or possibly a 4th gin & tonic. These are merely suggestions you are free to test this out with your own variations.

1. Man on the Loose
2. Whippin' Boy
3. Roses & Rings
4. Long Time comin'
5. Sweet Mary Anne
6. I Don't Love You Anymore
7. Sex Party
8. Take Me Home
9. Hey You
10. There She Goes Again
11. 7 O'Clock
12. Mayfair
13. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
14. Please Me
15. Hoochie Coochie Man

HOWYAFEELIN?ALLRIGHT??!!!!

The first time I ever heard Slade was via their early 80s comeback hit 'Run Runaway' from Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply, which still kills me and is turned up to full volume whenever I hear it. I still haven't heard that album, which I should probably remedy soon. Of course the 80s covers by Quiet Riot were also inescapable. I also like this one story about Slade from Danny Sugarman's almost certainly fictional 'autobiography' Wonderland Avenue. In it he's riding in the front of a limo to go and see Iggy Pop or something and Slade are in the back practically raping a young fan who as it turns out was Mackenzie Philips. Danny the hero tells them to knock the shit off and somehow Slade listens to them. Bullshit of course, because Slade probably would have pulled 15 year old Danny back in there and passed him around for dessert. Still, a great story. As for this bootleg from '73, it's been getting some serious play. Sound is great and the shit he yells at the crowd here is beyond belief, literally ordering everyone to MAKE..SOME..NOISE!!!! ENJOY YOURSELVES!! ALLRIGHT??? Nobody talks like that anymore, especially in the modern era, with the silent and ambivalent performer who typically ignore their audience. Not Slade. They tear it up here, some pure ol' rock 'n roll with excellent versions of "Gudbuy t'Jane" and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now".

Something's Gonna On...

John Fred & his Playboys tend to be remembered mainly for the hit'Judy in Disguise', one of my favourite singles from the late '60s. Sadly ignorant of his actual albums I went looking and usenet kindly provided, as it usually does. 34:40 of John Fred, their second album, was released in 1967 (iTunes suggests it might more accuractly be titled called 34:20...) the year before he hit big with that aforementioned hit. There's a few covers on the record (Otis Redding, Animals, the Beatles), but they deliver well enough. This album was evidently a flop back in '67, which perhaps might not be too surprising considering the other notable albums released that year. This is fairly straight forward rock and roll. Highlights are 'Sun City' and 'Down To The Boogalo'. Definitely worth checking out.