More Important than R&R: Music. Erick Sermon.

Sometimes I forget the power of poetry-me, and how she needs to breathe.

Whether it's writing or dancing, it comes from the same thing and the answer is always the same...

This is Erick Sermon's Music, one of the best celebrations of muse-ic there is...

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Modest Mouse.

I love how mellow AND punked out Modest Mouse makes me. I chose them for rock and roll Tuesday because they're my favorite, if you want to hear why listen, esecially when the break down starts somewhere around 3:00.

This is Make Everyone Happy/Mechanical Birds off This Is a Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About.

Hell in a Bucket. Grateful Dead.

It's just one of those times that wont come again.

Like 1995 when Jerry died, and the weekend before it happened our downstairs apartment with the baby pool on the front step was open-doored and windowed, and we went back and forth between our place and the girls next door.  The girls next door had the Dead going for 48 hours straight, Jerry died days from that.  It was August, we all called ourselves the ladies of 6th street, there were vigils for Jerry all over the boards and up three streets where the old squatter house used to be.  I still have the ring left from the colorful mushroom-shaped candle I burned.

Here is Hell in a Bucket--the clip is soooo cheesy!!  But worth it:

It's the song that was just starting when I got in the car yesterday to leave Schank and Jotto at MR DUCKS on Talbot Street. Whaaaattt no way I laughed to myself when I heard the first few bars of the live version, and then, hellll yeaaa, bc really.  High sun going down on the bay, south wind and going ASAP to see my grls after leaving the cute boy uptown, and of course each and every one of the grls have cute summer boy tales, too~

...Least I'm enjoyin the ride...

Romeo and Juliet & Pale Blue Eyes.

The serendipity in my life the past several months is absoloutely undeniable.  It makes me feel so impassioned and alive!

On that note, I've heard this first song no less than four times this week. It's so darn pretty. Off Dire Straits "Making Movies".



This second song is Velvet Underground's Pale Blue Eyes, off their self-named album. I was humming it all morning on the beach and then got home today and it played on Pandora, right after Dire Straights....

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Creedence Clearwater Revival. Born on the Bayou.

Not sure if it's Fogerty's signature concrete-scrapey voice or the deep way I always need to move my hips to the incessant rhythm in this song, maybe it's the thick Maryland heat or tomorrow's full moon.  But hot damn this song is dirty as it gets.  And I'm gonna go ahead and say--wordlessly dirty might be my prime requirement--think ACDC here, shaking them all night long--of good, solid rock and roll.

Me'shell Ndegeocello & The Funk Brothers. You Really Got a Hold on Me.

So embedding the song I want to post about today is disabled by youtube, which made me investigate a little. 

First, the song is Me'shell Ndegeocello's version of You Really Got a Hold on Me, which as far back as I can remember first ever hearing it when I was 11 or so has been one of my favorite ever love songs.  It came on my contempo-influenced soul station on Pandora today.  It's just so good, the contained passion of it.  It's soo precise.  Aghghhg god. 

In the meantime what I discovered was a documentary about the band she is performing with, The Funk Brothers, which is what the clip is from, Standing in the Shadows of Motown.  Now added to my summer queue.

Kool Thing. Sonic Youth.

Man, normally I would save this for a rock and roll Tuesday entry but I can't wait. 

Last night this guy said to me you're so lucky to have grown up in the nineties, the music was so good then.  I hadn't really thought about it, but he is so fucking right.  There will just never ever be another Sonic Youth or the Pixies, Janes Addiction, Tribe, Notorious or Pac again.  And I was.  Right there.  When all that shit dropped.  When every single flannel clad firehall-playinig band had their own cover of Smells Like... This is Kool Thing by Sonic Youth.  Off Goo.  I think Kim Gordan (well, and Erin from Bratmobile) those women were soley responsible for my dark-lipped bleached hair punk rock boot and titty tee hotness back then.

This song STILLLL makes my heart race ahhhh!  And my stomach all woozy with how mthrfckng kool it is.

Oh my god.   I was a lucky grl.

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Al Green.

Rock and roll is so stunning because of the big sloppy or clean, obvious or inadvertant conglomerate of American history that it is.  Obviously we've got the bayou and old delta and juke joints in the earliest guitar noise that came out of the south, the chords of blues especially that the our black heritage, its violence and sadness and also hope brought.  But how bout the gospel influence?  Organs and crescendo-ing chorus's, as well as the tradition of folk writing, what a long rich heritage we've got deep in this nation of ours.  Here is Al Green's Love and Happiness, which is one of my favorite all time openings of a song.

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Stevie Nicks.

Would there be rockandroll women today without the lacey, primal voice of Stevie Nicks?  No nope no, there wouldn't be.  And keeping in the theme of going on the road and priming my wild spirit for adventure, today's rock and roll pic is all and total what Stevie is best at, haunting female-heart anthems. Here is Gypsy, which is Fleetwood Mac, followed by Stand Back, because what broken grrrl my age hasn't stood in the middle of her room wailing out the lyrics in our own wannabe whisky-voice?

Gypsy


Stand Back

Paul Westerberg. Can't Hardley Wait.

Hurry up, hurry up aint you had enough of this stuff!?



God does this song make me happy and remind me, though the time was not otherwise synonymous with happiness BUT indeed with MUSEic, of being 15. 

I am going travelling, and woke up this morning with the mythic and lyrical genius of this timeless number in me head...The best part of course, 2:48 after the interlude of only anticipatory crowd noises and the low mechanics of a pause in the musicless club...

Passion Pit. Manners.

So in addition to this being my official "Spring Training" (read=rally) song, it is also fully exemplary of why I LOVE Passion Pit. They're so damn cheery and those lyrics! AND, though I really wasn't in to that whole electronic influence in mainstream alt music that saturated every new sound starting a few years ago (how funny does that sound, mainstream alt music) I guess MGMT changed that for me. And Passion Pit is all about it, which matched my window-down-driving-coastal-highway-while-full-on-dancing-to-the-music last summer in a way that made it so I had options other than the miserable pop-hop here in OC. This is my fave song off their first full length Manners. Check them out.

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Talking Heads.

This isnt a good example (because of the obvi-80's synth and chorus) but the Talking Heads produced some of the finest rock and roll there is.   Maybe it's my imagination or maybe it's just because it's all Brit-rock, but I cant help feeling that everything that was post-punk from the UK shamelessly maintained such awesome punk influence, even though the Talking Heads and Roxy Music were more soft than the Clash or BAD.  Byrne just has such edge and still does, and what he's done more recently with Brian Eno makes me so happy that time slips away when I hear them together.  Anyhow, like I said this and the link are both simple versions not representative of anything I mentioned here other than the unique (read=rebelious) musical aesthetic that true rock or punk is notorious for, but this song was on my mind today so give a listen.

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Down By the River.

I heard this song over the weekend on local-supported radio where I grew up, and again yesterday on a local station here at the beach.  I was driving with the windows down, the sun was shining and the air smelled warm and like salt and three surfers were at the top of 48th at about 1:55 when that fabulous, unreal electric finger-picking starts.  I felt like I was in a movie.

This song kicks my ass.  It rocks the poetry right out of all the dirty untalked crevices in my heart and soul AND the instrumental progression is insane.  I love you Neal Young.  Thanks Brandon.  This is re-released but was originally off his 1969 album Crazy Horse.

Rock and Roll Tuesdays. Best Coast.

I heard LA's Best Coast on a local-supported radio station.  The song they played was off their July 2010 album Crazy For You, and clips off that are all over youtube.  I've been checking out their older stuff though because they are about tunneled garage-band simple hard instrumental sounding as it gets, with a female lead who admittedly tweaks on every old riot-grrrl germ now matured but still rebellious as hell from deep within me. I hear that movement's influence all over Best Coast, thereby granting them designation as this weeks RaRT artist. This is Sun Was High, off their 2009 7 inch.  

Ma Muse. Glorious.

I dont do nearly enough posting about a type music that is so dear to me that it actually is all I listen to sometimes for full days straight.  I call it La Luna, la mama de las estrellas on my Pandora station which equals The Moon, Mother of the Stars.  It is of course female folk music.  I love the harmonies the most, second only to the poetry.  The way poetry and quiet can be at once the same thing, or at least make you infinitely aware of the other.  Today I heard this song for the first time, and the sun is shining I am writing and it was such a, such a, such a goood theme song.  NEW BAND!  Yay!  Ma Muse are two fabulous voices of La Mama out of Chico, CA.  Indy through and through, this clip is off their 2009 debut All the Way.

Born Ruffians. The Ballad of Moose Bruce.

Born Ruffians just make me happy, they're rally music to me.  When a song by them plays on random on my Itunes I always get all revved up inside.  They're Canadian indies that came my way the way that most my best discoveries did last year: my cousin's man Micah.  He's the shit.  This is my fave song off their 2010 album Say It.

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Jane's Addiction.

Hahaha, well, embedding of the video clip I wanted to use for this post was disabled so instead for your viewing pleasure I give to you this magical, mystical albeit admittedly shoddy shot of Jane's Addiction and lots of backs of people's heads at the original Lollapalooza.  I was 14!

Man do I love them.  They still make me feel all tingly high inside with that illustrious poetry light: Perry's tinny voice and mythological story telling, his one-eyed rebel aesthetic (watch this clip of the gorgeous, stunning song Classic Girl) and their gnarly fucking still hear those metal remnants in it crumbly guitar.

Jane's Addiction, Charles Town, WV, 1991

Go here, too, and listen to Ocean Song.  I'm still a little flushed from it....

MGMT. Oracular Spectacular.

I woke up this morning with Pieces of What going through my head and today became the second day this week that Oracular Spectacular played on repeat on my Ipod twice all the way through.  This album is so subtly great precisely because it was not one that I immediately was like ohgod I can't get enough.  Instead, like real good books of poetry two years later it still informs me and makes the experience of listening deeper each time so I'm even more aware of quiet and therefor it and me make each other sort of brand new.

Rock and Roll Tuesdays. The Rolling Stones. Can't You Hear Me Knocking.

Plain and simple, just like this clip: this song is one of the best rock songs there is.  Just relax and have a listen.

The Spring Standards. No One Will Know.

I lived two blocks away from this killer venue last year where I got turned on to all likes of new music.  The Spring Standards, indy folkheads outta Manhatten, are a fine example. I really really loved them live--it was spring, fittingly, when I saw them and their music was upbeat and chirpy and insturmentally full, but with that emotional-dark around the edges that folk influence so often ensures.  And they were good performers, entertaining which if I am seeing a band rather than a singer/songwriter is pretty important to me. Their 2008 EP No One Will Know was a regular play in my car last year, they've released a full-length since but I've not gotten my mits on it just yet. They are playing again this weekend at the same killer venue, and my buddy Sam gets to open for them. Sweet.

The Spring Standards at the Night Cat

Easton, MD  March 2010

Erykah Badu. New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)

Disclaimer: I LOVE ERYKAH.  She reminds me of being a kid, shag carpets and round bottomed charcoal-tinted glass sifters and soul music on the stereo.  New Amerykah One was something, and I sucked in the hardline politico behind it like it was food to my muscles, but it's New Amerykah Part Two that truly and really blew my mind.  I don't smoke herb anymore, but this album, the first time I heard it had me on the couch with a buddy the lights low the music way loud and us jamming, nodding heads and not speaking the entire whole way through.  We looked at each other jaws gaping when we recognized the Biggie nod in this tune.

Woops Wednesday. Rock and Roll Catch-up.

First off, I missed two Rock and Roll Tuesdays in a row, damn holidays.  Second, I am always looking for an excuse to listen to Sound and Vision.  To my liking, I am going to say that David Bowie and Lou Reed are arguably two of the most influential artists to ever impact today's sound assortment of avant-garde in Rock and Roll.  Bowie's Stardust literally used to be one of my most-oft listened to records the year that I only listened to records and didn't have tv, but I have to tell you Low is even better.  Do you think we'd have any of today's emo layered instrumentalist tracks if not for this album??  Or Sonic Youth, would you even know what to do without The Velvet Underground?  This title song off their 1968 release must've seemed like a little bit of a joke when it came out.  Hear that raw dog distort and guitar over the doowap? Yowza.  Just sayin.  Sorry I've been slackin on the posts!