them

Playlist #277

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Monday, folks! Summer is officially over; I’m back at school for teacher in-service this week, which means more meetings than you can shake a stick at (why do you shake a stick at something? I’ve never really understood that adage). Anyway, it’s Monday, so here’s a playlist.

  1. Hozier, “Too Sweet”: It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this was a Hozier song. It’s good. Has a Mark Ronson feel to it.
  2. The Mountain Goats, “Candlebox”: The latest album from tMG is apparently a song cycle about 90s grunge artists and the alternative music movement of that time period, and this is an excellent example of what Darnielle and Company have cooked up. I dunno that I’d personally want to open for Candlebox for a summer tour, though if they asked I would probably still say “yes.” Not sure their audience is exactly my audience, mind you.
  3. Phoebe Bridgers, “As Above”: A new Phoebe Bridgers album is always cause for celebration. Most of the songs just sort of float by on this record, but this one stuck out in my mind pretty well.
  4. Lord Huron, “Love Like Ghosts”: Even after having listened to it obsessively for several months now, I still find myself coming back to the songs on Strange Trails. This is a great album opener.
  5. Huey Lewis and the News, “I Know What I Like”: I’m a sucker for Huey Lewis and the News. They sound like that band your dad tried to put together back in the mid-90s with his buddies from work, but they mostly sat around in the garage on Saturday nights drinking beers and playing old Lovin’ Spoonful covers. But that’s, like, not a bad thing.
  6. Ma Rainey, “See See the Rider”: One of the OGs singing a song that has come down through the decades until it ended up as 60s rock number.
  7. Sean Watkins, “Let It Fall”: I’m always going to be a sucker for this song. The vocals are plaintive, the guitar work is flawless, and it’s just really damn good.
  8. Blue Mountain, “Bloody 98”: The banjo solo in this song – a song I would deem very unlikely to have a banjo solo – is top-notch and just rips the roof off the building. Love it.
  9. Bruce Springsteen, “Ain’t Good Enough For You”: I always enjoy Bruce’s hard luck stories; this one is very tongue in cheek and far too much fun to be about a relationship you give more than half a damn about.
  10. Them, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”: One of the best Dylan covers out there. Can’t top it.

Playlist #263

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Folks, it feels like today has been a whole month of Mondays dumped on me all at once. I don’t even wanna get into it. Here’s a playlist for y’all while I go sit in a corner and try not to plan murder.

  1. The Florida Mass Choir, “Storm Cloud Rising”: The song featured on the last couple of episodes of Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again, and I dug it. It’s very moody and atmospheric for a gospel song.
  2. Rage Against the Machine, “Sleep Now In Fire”: For when you need to feel a bit of rage in your soul, there really is no one better.
  3. Reel Big Fish, “Hungry Like the Wolf”: The best version of this song, hands down. It just needed those ska horns.
  4. Alannah Myles, “Black Velvet”: Apparently she didn’t start seeing a dime from this song until rather recently. And that is just absolute bull honkey.
  5. Roger McGuinn & Tom Petty, “King of the Hill”: I do love listening to the Tom Petty Sirius XM station, because his catalog is deep enough that I can still get surprised by a song I wasn’t really aware of like this one.
  6. Them, “I Can Only Give You Everything”: I also get to hear songs like this one on the Tom Petty station. There are so many songs by Them that I just don’t know, because their stuff just wasn’t widely available when I was a kid, and now I’m purposefully seeking it out because why the hell not?
  7. Wilco, “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)”: I love the little repeated guitar figure in this song so much, I don’t even mind that the song is damn-near 10 minutes long.
  8. The Envy Corps, “Story Problem”: A friend I worked with back seventeen, eitghteen years ago introduced me to this song. I still love it.
  9. Frank Turner, “Get Better”: For when I need to try to feel more optimistic, which is challenging today.
  10. Soul Coughing, “Fully Retractable”: For when it is, in fact, fully retractable.

Playlist #222

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy last Monday in July, folks! August will be here at the end of the week, which means we’ve reached the time of year when I don’t have a paycheck coming in (why the school system still only does teacher paychecks over 11 months instead of 12 is beyond me). So, if anyone wanted to buy a book or a CD to help a guy out, now would definitely be the time!

  1. Tom Lehrer, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”: Man, Tom Lehrer died over the weekend. In other news, holy crap, Tom Lehrer was still alive. Go poison a pigeon in his honor.
  2. The Move, “I Can Hear the Grass Grow”: It’s not hippy-drippy hearing the grass grow, it’s muscular, bottom-heavy rock hearing the grass grow. There is a difference.
  3. Mission of Burma, “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver”: I came to this song through Moby, of all people. The album is from 1981, and sounds like it could’ve come out in 2005 or anytime in between.
  4. Black Sabbath, “War Pigs”: I will forgive this song for rhyming “masses” with “masses,” because even though they are the same exact word, it’s a different meaning in each instance, and it doesn’t feel like Ozzy is rhyming a word with itself.
  5. Big Country, “In A Big Country”: It’s pretty ballsy, naming your biggest hit after your band name, but Big Country manages to pull it off.
  6. The Rolling Stones, “Let It Bleed”: There are just some things we can all agree that we need, including someone we can lean/bleed on. Mick Jagger knew it, and you know it.
  7. Them, “Here Comes the Night”: It’s too loud and nervy to be wistful, too wistful to be punky, and too Van Morrison to ignore.
  8. The Kinks, “Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy”: Everybody clap as fast as you can! No, faster!
  9. Yael Naim, “New Soul”: Remember when this song was used in an ad for the iPod? Remember when there were dedicated music players, separate from our phones? Good times.
  10. The Both, “No Sir”: I’m just a sucker for anything involving Aimee Mann. I’ve come to terms with it, as should you.

Playlist #134

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving Week, everyone! Well, to everyone except those of you who don’t have to go to work this week. You guys suck.

  1. Iron & Wine, “About A Bruise”: Started listening to the live album Who Can See Forever this morning, and it’s pretty damn solid. The version of “About A Bruise” from that one is excellent, but so is the the original studio recording from Beast Epic, which I’ve included here.
  2. Elvis Costello, “Blame It On Cain”: We seem to forget, because he just seems like an amiable old fart nowadays, but Costello was a firebrand and a troublemaker back in the day, and this song is a good reminder of that.
  3. Dolly Parton, “Long As I Can See The Light (Featuring John Fogerty)”: Dolly finally released her long-threatened rock’n’roll album, Rockstar. It’s alright. There are some great tracks on there (like this one and her rendition of “Purple Rain”), though most of it feels too slick and over-produced for my tastes.
  4. Them, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”: Who doesn’t love a Bob Dylan cover first thing in the morning? Nazis, that’s who.
  5. Thom Yorke, “And It Rained All Night”: Thom Yorke’s first solo album, The Eraser, is weird. It’s all electronic squiggles and squelches and super-processed drum loops and for some reason I can’t stop listening to this particular track from it.
  6. Townes Van Zandt, “Racing In The Streets”: I always like hearing Townes interpret someone else’s song. This Bruce Springsteen cover is a good example of why.
  7. XTC, “Senses Working Overtime”: I just love the transitions between verse and chorus on this song.
  8. Leo Sayer, “More Than I Can Say”: 70s soft rock called, and it said, “Whoa, whoa, yay, yay.”
  9. Kenny Wayne Shepherd, “Everything Is Broken”: Two Dylan covers on one playlist? Is he mad? Doesn’t he know what horrors that might unleash?
  10. Kendrick Lamar, “DNA.”: This one is just on here to throw you off at the end of the playlist and get you ready for your racist uncle at Thanksgiving Dinner telling you everything was better before they came to the US.

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.