jake blount

Playlist #112

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Wednesday, folks. I was at the beach on Monday with family, and spent yesterday recovering from the beach, so you get a playlist today and you’ll like it.

  1. Spoon, “Sugar Babies”: These guys manage to stay creative and innovative even a couple of decades into their careers. It’s inspiring and awesome.
  2. X Ambassadors, “Renegade”: I think I’ve been writing songs like this lately. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
  3. Tom Waits, “Looks Like I’m Up Shit Creek Again”: You an’ me both, Tom.
  4. Kris Orlowski, “Go (featuring Glen Phillips)”: I am just a sucker for any song that features Glen Phillips.
  5. Them, “Gloria”: G. L. O. R. I. A.
  6. Jack Johnson, “If I Had Eyes”: What if a regular ol’ Jack Johnson song, but with an electric guitar instead of an acoustic?
  7. Jake Blount, “Didn’t It Rain”: A modern take on a classic number from ol’ Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The electric guitar in this one makes the song feel much more eerie than the original ever did.
  8. Counting Crows, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”: It’s epic in length and bittersweet in scope. It’s like the song was written just for me.
  9. Norah Jones, “Don’t Know Why”: How does Norah Jones crank out these beautiful little nuggets of pop brilliance?
  10. Drive-By Truckers, “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”: Cadillacs are made out of fiberglass now, so maybe it’s time to give it up.

Playlist #78

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Wednesday is the new Monday, am I right?

  1. Vaydra, “Talk To God”: The new single from the lady who sings with my brother, except it’s not the band they’re in together but a different band she formed that plays psychedelia. It’s pretty good. Check ’em out.
  2. Jake Blount, “The Downward Road”: Heard this guy on a Vox video talking about the importance of the banjo in historically black music. The song itself is pretty cool, drawing from traditional African American folk music and contemporary rap and hip-hop. I dig it.
  3. Glen Campbell, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”: Glen Campbell died in 2017 from Alzheimer’s, and he wrote and recorded this song just before that happened. It’s a stark look at what Alzheimer’s and dementia do to a person, erasing their personality and memories until there’s nothing left there. But it doesn’t really hurt them, it hurts the people around them who watch that person erode. It is one of my greatest fears that I’ll get dementia or Alzheimer’s and become a burden to those I love and not even know it.
  4. Rilo Kiley, “The Moneymaker”: I hadn’t listened to this album since the year it came out (which was . . . holy crap, 2007?!). This song holds up, I think, though the More Adventurous album is still my favorite of theirs.
  5. Stevie Ray Vaughn, “Pride and Joy”: Sometimes, you need some low-down, dirty, Texas blues (or “blooze”). This is one of those times.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Straight Into Darkness”: Tom Petty is one of those guys who, even when he put out a mediocre album, it still has great songs on it. ‘Cause a mediocre Tom Petty song is better than about 70% of everything that comes out.
  7. Aimee Mann, “Looking For Nothing”: If you told me the only musician I was allowed to listen to for the rest of my life was Aimee Mann, I would not be entirely disappointed with that. You could do much worse.
  8. Drive-By Truckers, “Everybody Needs Love”: They do.
  9. Brian Fallon, “If Your Prayers Don’t Get To Heaven”: This dude absolutely loves the early ’60s girl groups and doo-wop and I am freakin’ here for it, yo.
  10. Led Zeppelin, “Fool In The Rain”: I love the drumming on this one.