modest mouse

Playlist #269

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s officially summer (both in that the summer solstice occurred yesterday and I’m finally no longer in school), and that means most teachers are sitting curled up in a ball dissociating for a few days before they jump into whatever summer job they’re doing. I’m working at a summer camp that’s running out of Michelle’s school (though there is no official connection between the two other than the camp is using the Sycamore School’s location to host the camp). All that being said, here’s a playlist to set the mood.

  1. Roosevelt, “Everywhere”: It’s a Fleetwood Mac cover! That really doesn’t do anything all that different than the original. Which always makes me wonder, why cover a song if you’re not going to do anything different with it?
  2. Modest Mouse, “Missing The Boat”: That drum machine beat that kicks the song off always gets to me for some reason. I just really dig it.
  3. Margaret Glaspy, “Jesus, Etc.”: I’ve been compiling a list of songs I want played at my funeral, and this one currently tops that list. Ir’a just so forlorn and heartbroken that it fits perfectly for something like a funeral.
  4. The Mountain Goats, “Up The Wolves”: I like The Sunset Tree. As a transition between the boombox era of the band the fleshed out, full band that appears on Tallahassee and later records, it’s a neat look at how John Darnielle came to grips with working directly with other musicians. Also, it’s just a great song.
  5. The Avett Brothers, “Die Die Die”: Emotionalism remains my favorite Avett Brothers album, and songs like this one – with the harmonies and the stomping rhythm – help exemplify why.
  6. B.B. King, “The Thrill Is Gone”: You can’t beat the king of the blues, and this is hands-down his best song. I still marvel at the idea of adding strings to a blues song. It’s great.
  7. Bruce Springsteen, “Reason To Believe (Electric Nebraska)”: The electric Nebraska demos sound exactly what you think Nebraska would sound like if all the songs were played with bass and drums added in. That said, this song still hits right if you ask me. The rhythm section gives it some muscle and some menace.
  8. Genesis, “Man On The Corner”: I know Phil Collins Genesis is often dismissed as pop pablum, especially when you get to Invisible Touch, but I always really dug the stuff they did when he was the leader of the band. And this song shows that he could ask some big questions about the nature of society and how we treat one another. Also, it’s got a good hook.
  9. HAIM, “Now It’s Time”: Why not take a U2 Pop song (specifically, “Numb”) and reuse it to do something completely different?
  10. The Lemonheads, “Take It Easy”: Another cover to round things out. Again, doesn’t really do much of anything all that different from the original version, though at least Evan Dando’s voice is different enough from Glen Frey’s that it’s got that going for it.

Playlist #75

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It’s a dreary, rainy Monday, but that does not stop the rock! Here’s this week’s playlist, hot off the presses.

  1. John Fullbright, “Paranoid Heart”: Okie singer/songwriter who just released a new album last Friday. It’s pretty damn good. The man knows how to write a song, and his backing band is strong.
  2. Wilco, “Remember To Remember Me”: Speaking of new albums, Wilco released a 20th anniversary edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that contains loads of previously-unreleased stuff, including this early version of what later became “Hummingbird.”
  3. Jonathan Coulton, “Je Suis Rick Springfield”: Aren’t we all, just a little bit, Rick Springfield?
  4. David Gray, “Nemesis”: One of the more subdued songs from Draw the Line, but still a good one.
  5. Bon Iver, “Blood Bank”: Years ago, one of my coworkers asked me to help him record a little demo EP. We did it in my classroom at school. This was one of the songs we recorded (along with a Wilco tune and one by Trampled by Turtles. It was . . . eclectic).
  6. Modest Mouse, “Fire It Up”: Gotta get the blood pumping somehow.
  7. Moby, “Extreme Ways”: “Then it fell apart like it always does.”
  8. The Gaslight Anthem, “Placeholder”: This song is very evocative of the Anthem’s sound and style circa The ’59 Sound, and I am here for it.
  9. The Rolling Stones, “Play With Fire”: Maybe crotch fire. God only knows what venereal diseases Mick Jagger and the boys had back then.
  10. Peter Gabriel, “Intruder”: Hey, we hear you like gated reverb. Have a lot of it.

Tunes!

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If you’re like me – and you should all be so lucky – then writing is a process that involves music.  Lots of music.  But not just any music!  No, you must listen to specific songs or specific styles to help set the mood for your protagonist’s adventures.  Or misadventures.  Or what have you.

I have a constantly-evolving playlist on my phone of the songs I listen to while writing.  Some are on there because they fit a specific scene, while others are more about describing the characters or the mood.  The following playlist was developed while I was writing The Invisible Crown and another novel that will appear later in the series, tentatively called Death and the Dame (that one’s a love story.  Sort of).

1. Anita Kelsey, “Sway”: There have been times I’ve just written to the Dark City Soundtrack.  This is still one of my favorite songs off that collection.

2. Sting, “Perfect Love…Gone Wrong”: On there because of the smoky, steamy city jazz feel, and also the extended metaphor where Sting is a disgruntled dog amuses me to no end.

3. John Mellencamp, “The Full Catastrophe”: Perfect summation of my protagonist, Eddie Hazzard.  His life is a bit of a rolling catastrophe, and there is a minor chance he was accidentally loving your wife while you were loving his.

4. Soul Coughing, “Fully Retractable”: One that’s on there for tone/mood.  There’s a dark undercurrent, a sinister feel to this song that’s just really fitting.

5. Muddy Waters, “Rolling Stone”: Life in a blues song always sounds like it sucks.  I imagine Eddie’s life is much the same way.

6. Bob Dylan, “What Was It You Wanted”: Either the narrator is stuck in a world that makes no sense, or the guy took a shot to the head.  Either way, a Dylan song is a must-have on pretty much any playlist I put together.

7. Gorillaz, “M1A1”: Fight scene song!  Love the energy, the staccato burst of the snare, the spiky guitars…great soundtrack to a fistfight.

8. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Red Right Hand”: Another mood setter.  Creepy, dark alley vibe that I dig.

9. EL VY, “Happiness, Missouri”: Like I said, a lot of songs I stick on these for the general mood they set.  This one fits with the general feel of the city of Arcadia: dark, slightly mysterious, vaguely threatening and sinister.

10. Arcade Fire, “My Body is a Cage”: The contemplative, protagonist considers his actions and his destiny before launching into the story’s climactic scene song.  Love the build of it, the sense of determination and all that.

11. The Dead Weather, “Hustle and Cuss”: Basically the Eddie Hazzard theme song.  He has to be out there hustling, working his tail off, because his enemies are always a few steps ahead of him.  And cussing…well, you have to express your frustration somehow.

12. David Gray, “Dead in the Water”: While The Invisible Crown might be the first of Eddie Hazzard’s cases, it certainly won’t be the last.  I’ve got three other novels already written in the series, I’ve started working on the fifth novel, and I have plans for the sixth.  The core idea for the sixth book came from a short story I wrote a couple years back about Eddie and a particularly disturbing case and a mis-remembering of a lyric from this song.  Expect to see that book in…um…2022 or so, maybe?  I dunno.

13. Adele, “Rumor Has It”: A private detective works with whatever information he can get.  Sometimes, that information is merely rumors.  Sometimes, those rumors turn out to be true.

14. Tom Waits, “Way Down in a Hole”: Tom Waits sounds too ludicrous to even be one of my characters, and I have one antagonist who’s a head in a jar named The Fish.  Honestly, when developing characters, I just ask myself, “What would Tom Waits do?” and go from there.  It’s served me pretty well so far.

15. Modest Mouse, “Bukowski”: This always struck me as driving music, the sort of thing you’d hear on the soundtrack if TIC was turned into a movie/TV series and they had a scene of him driving from the office to an informant or chasing down a lead.

That’s my playlist!  What do you listen to when you’re writing?