fastball

Playlist #239

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s Thanksgiving this Thursday, or “Thursday” as most of the world calls it. Americans call it an excuse to stuff ourselves silly with turkey and more pies than is advisable under any circumstances. America: We may be obese, but at least we also have shitty health care.

  1. Todd Snider, “Alcohol and Pills”: Only just now discovering this guy’s music is like learning about a great novelist who wrote all these books that you know you’ll love but simultaneously discovering that he’s also dead and there won’t be anymore new stuff from him. Except he plays guitar.
  2. Fastball, “You’re an Ocean”: From the album after their big breakout. It’s a solid song. Does it do anything new or exciting? No. But it’s charming and fun and bouncy and features a nice guitar lick, so it gets a pass.
  3. Marc Scibilia, “More to This”: Dude finally released a whole album, and it’s pretty good indie singer-songwriter stuff, but this is still the best song on the thing.
  4. Florence + the Machine, “Everybody Scream”: I feel like Florence Welch has the right idea here, folks.
  5. Jimmy Cliff, “Many Rivers to Cross”: This man just passed, and I’m listening to his version of this song off of “Later with Joles Holland,” and damn could he sing.
  6. Big Red Machine, “Mimi”: I just like the rhythm to this one, I guess.
  7. Ra Ra Riot, “Ghost Under Rocks”: When was the last time I listened to this band? I need to go back and give them a listen again, I think.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Thankful”: It is Thanksgiving week, after all, and I do have a lot to be thankful for. I’ve got a job and a wife and a car and a place to live, I have all the things I need to do so comfortably, and I own more guitars than a saner woman would let me own. Someday, I may even be able to retire and live out the rest of my days as a curmudgeonly old man who yells at clouds.
  9. The Rolling Stones, “Mother’s Little Helper”: If at least five people reading this don’t feel the need to reach for a bottle of mother’s little helper this week, I don’t know my audience.
  10. Josh Ritter, “Wait for Love (You Know You Will)”: It’s a sweet love song. Sort of.

Playlist #238

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Happy Monday, folks! The air is becoming crisper, it’s a little colder in the morning, and all the leaves have fallen off the trees and are now piled up everywhere. It’s actually feeling like fall! I’m here for it.

  1. Mavis Staples, “Anthem”: Mavis Staples’s latest album includes three straight-up amazing covers at the end, including this one. It takes some guts to cover Leonard Cohen, and to choose a Cohen cover that isn’t “Hallelujah.” Her vocals have the gravity to pull it off.
  2. Lord Huron, “Meet Me In The Woods”: Obsessed with this album still, and especially with this song. I probably listen to it at least three or four times a week.
  3. Dan Auerbach, “Trouble Weighs A Ton”: There’s something about a song that’s just a voice and an acoustic guitar that speaks to something primal in me.
  4. Fiona Apple, “Fast As You Can”: This woman and her music are criminally underrated (see what I did there? Because her best-known song is still probably “Criminal”).
  5. The Police, “Masoko Tanga”: A lyric-less song off their debut that features Sting hootin’ and hollerin’ and carryin’ on with yelps and mumbles and all sorts of vocalizations.
  6. Mark Knopfler, “Speedway At Nazareth”: Just the way this song builds and builds to its climactic coda, it’s just…*chef’s kiss*
  7. Fastball, “You’re An Ocean”: Less well-known than their first couple of hits, but still bouncy and fun and a good listen.
  8. The Like, “I Can See It In Your Eyes”: They do the girl group style up right for the 2000s.
  9. She & Him, “I Should Have Known Better”: If I ever do a Beatles cover, I hope I do it half as well as they did.
  10. Ben Harper & The Blind Boys Of Alabama, “Satisfied Mind”: The Blind Boy’s actual hoots in the verses just send me every time. Love it.

Playlist #107

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It’s yet another Monday, yet another playlist. A rather lowkey playlist for the week, given how lowkey I’m feeling this week.

  1. The National, “Start A War”: NPR sometimes uses a short snippet from this song as a bumper sometimes. They did it this morning, so now this song is stuck in my head. This is not a bad thing.
  2. Neko Case, “Maybe Sparrow”: At some point, I’m pretty sure I’ll have included every song from Fox Confessor Brings The Flood on a playlist. This just puts us one step closer to that eventuality.
  3. The New Pornographers, “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”: Two Neko-sung songs, back to back? Surely I didn’t do that on purpose.
  4. Wilco, “I Might”: Been giving later-career Wilco a chance lately, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the musicianship.
  5. The Wallflowers, “Up From Under”: Breach is still probably the best Wallflowers album.
  6. Michael Stipe & Big Red Machine, “No Time For Love Like Now”: The song title reminds me of something from 30 Rock, which makes me giggle uncontrollably.
  7. Fastball, “Out Of My Head”: It’s everyone’s second-favorite song by a band named after a porno!
  8. Fleetwood Mac, “Everywhere”: Christine McVie was an underrated songwriter, I feel, and never got enough credit for her songs in Fleetwood Mac. This one’s a perfect latter-day example of her craft.
  9. Gillian Welch & David Rawlins, “Jackson”: I sometimes wish Gillian Welch would loosen up and sound like she’s actually having fun playing music. Playing is so much fun, I think. But I guess when you’re in the vanguard of gatekeeping a traditional music structure/style, you feel like you can’t ever let your guard down.
  10. Greg Brown, “Someday When We’re Both Alone”: This dude’s voice just gets me every time.

Playlist #89

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So, first thing’s first…

I have a new album coming out this Friday, January 13th! It’s called Creature Comforts, and I’m super proud of it. My brother, Clif, mixed and mastered the album for me, and helped it sound its best. I can’t even begin to thank him enough.

If you want to join me on the journey to create the next album, you can support me on Patreon. I share new songs as I record them there.

  1. Ray LaMontagne, “Strong Enough”: It’s been a while since I’ve really listened to Ray LaMontagne. He hasn’t really changed, and that’s honestly okay. Dude found his niche and has settled in, releasing albums occasionally with solid songs like this one.
  2. Shampoo, “Trouble”: Snotty British pop from 1993, but it sounds like it could’ve been made in 1987. This sounds nothing like the rest of the post-Nirvana musical landscape.
  3. The New Pornographers, “Sing Me Spanish Techno”: I’ve never really listened to Spanish techno, but they make it sound very appealing.
  4. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “Southern Accents”: So this song is kinda fraught with potential problems, I think. I know Petty came from Florida. He’s a southerner. But he’s also not an asshole. So I let this one slide. It helps that it’s such a well-written song.
  5. Fastball, “The Way”: Yeah, the band is named after a porno. It’s still a good song, though.
  6. Jason Isbell, “Super 8”: “Don’t wanna die in a Super 8 Motel” – A thing said by everyone who has ever stayed in a Super 8 Motel.
  7. Neil Young & The Stray Gators, “Bad Fog Of Loneliness”: If he’d replaced “A Man Needs A Maid” with this song, Harvest would be a perfect album. Well, and replacing “There’s A World” with “Journey to the Past.”
  8. Gotye, “Somebody That I Used To Know”: You didn’t have to stoop so low, y’know.
  9. The Goo Goo Dolls, “Sympathy”: Sure, it’s off the album the Goo Goo Dolls (terrible name) released after their big hit album, Dizzy Up The Girl, but this is one of their best songs, I think.
  10. Grand Funk Railroad, “Some Kind Of Wonderful”: “Can I get a witness?” Yes, yes you can.