ram jam

Playlist #262

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday, and May the 4th be with you! And all my Lutheran friends say, “And also with you.” Here’s a playlist.

  1. Pat McGee Band, “Bookends”: A student introduced me to this band last week. Pretty solid singer-songwriter stuff.
  2. Nocturnne, “Proximity”: A DIY singer-songwriter (I have a thing for that style) writing exactly what you think a 20-something singer-songwriter would write. It’s not bad, but I’m not sure it’s really speaking to me.
  3. Old 97s, “Timebomb”: A ripsnorter of a song, it explodes out of the gate and blew little grad school Charlie’s mind back in the early 2000s. It remains awesome.
  4. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes, “Man On Fire”: Let us cast our minds back to the far-flung year 2012, when Stomp-Clap-Hey! ruled the airwaves and a band with such an unwieldy name could come to prominence. And then let’s never speak of it again.
  5. The Elected, “It Was Love”: This song (and this band more in general) gives me hope that there’s an audience out there for someone whose voice is weak like mine.
  6. Elton John, “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”: Elton John just makes you feel things sometimes, y’know?
  7. Ram Jam, “Black Betty”: Bam-ba-lam.
  8. Molly Hatchet, “Flirtin’ With Disaster”: Somehow this turned into a Southern Rock playlist without me even trying. But if you don’t find yourself doing 90 down the highway with this song blasting out the windows, there’s something wrong with you and you might be clinically dead.
  9. Marshall Tucker Band, “Can’t You See”: If there is a sadder Southern Rock song out there, I don’t know it, because most rock songs don’t encourage you to “crawl inside and die” in a hole in the wall or jump off the tallest mountain in Georgia (a state totally known for its tall mountains).
  10. The Dandy Warhols, “Minnesoter”: My favorite song about being someone from Minnesota? I’m not sure that’s actually what it’s about. I’m not sure the guy who wrote it is entirely sure what it’s about.

Playlist #127

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

The packing continues unabated. We have electricity and water at the new place. And I have a new playlist for you.

  1. Shemekia Copeland, “Clotilda On Fire”: Sure, I came to this song because Jason Isbell plays lead guitar on it, but I stayed for the absolute baller story of a slave ship burning.
  2. Jason Isbell, “Relatively Easy”: I was realizing over the weekend that Jason Isbell might be my current favorite musician. His songs are just so damn good.
  3. Owen Danoff, “Never Been Kissed”: Haven’t heard much from this guy lately, which is a shame. He’s a solid songwriter.
  4. Ram Jam, “Black Betty”: Bam-a-lam.
  5. Ringo Starr, “Photograph”: It’s easy to crap on Ringo. The dude just seemed happy to be there most of the time. But he’s a fantastic drummer and had a good ear for songs early on in his solo career (the less said about Ringo the 4th, his abysmal foray into disco, the better). It helped that some of the songs, like “Photograph,” were contributed by former Beatle bandmate George Harrison (the same album had songs from John and Paul as well).
  6. Van Morrison, “And The Healing Has Begun”: That spoken word interlude always drives me up the wall. Just sing, Van. Just sing.
  7. The Grass Roots, “I’d Wait A Million Years”: I just love this song. I love the Grass Roots. I wish they’d done even more music than they released.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Men Just Leave”: I still really enjoy the sound and style of Glen Phillips’ first album. I wish he’d pursued this style more instead of the more polished, Toad the Wet Sprocket-esque stuff he did afterwards.
  9. Gillian Welch, “Revelator”: My introduction to this song was the Glen Phillips cover. Her original version is better.
  10. Electric Light Orchestra, “Twilight”: Was still on an ELO kick last week, and ended up listening to Time. It’s still an interesting latter-day ELO album, filled with interesting ideas and quirky musical directions.