120: Everything In Its Right MIX

I have been listening to this mix in the car for a few days, and I think it's done. Now I just have to give it a title!

1. "Cleanin' Up The Town" by The Busboys is from the movie Ghostbusters. The words tell the story of the movie!
2. "Barbara Ann" from The Beach Boys Party, an album recorded to sound like a house party where the Beach Boys are sitting around the living room, jamming on their favorite songs unplugged.
3. "Nutmeg" by John Legend, is a sexy and hilarious song about the ultimate eggnog condiment, from A Steven Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift Of All!
4. "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" My mother listened to a lot of pop-country when I was growing up. One of my strongest, earliest memories of music is this Crystal Gayle song.
5. The Replacements' "Skyway" is about those heated passageways between buildings in Minneapolis, to keep the public warm in the wintertime.
6. I heard "Tulsa County" by Son Volt on my iPod Shuffle All Songs function.
7. I first heard "Guitars, Cadillacs" by Dwight Yoakam in the background of the honky tonk scene in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, where the Terminator acquires his biker clothes at the beginning of the movie. At the same time I bought this song on iTunes, I also picked up his cover of "Suspicious Minds". The review of his Best Of CD said that Yoakam is the first choice of alt-rock hipsters who want to buy some legit contemporary country music.
8. "Here Comes The Weekend" Dave Edmunds
9. "Topaz" I really enjoy the entire B-52's album Cosmic Thing.
10. "Carry On" Maybe my favorite song from Crosby Stills Nash, and Young.
11. "She's My Baby" I have been listening to a lot of the Traveling Wilburys lately.
12. "Love is For Lovers" The Db's were a one-hit wonder; lead singer Peter Holsapple might be more famous for his work with R.E.M. This song was a near-miss single, which I have on the POPTOPIA Power Pop collection from Rhino. Holsapple wrote an extended blog posting about the making of this song for the New York Times.
13. I love the guitar hook on "Rumbleseat", from John Cougar Mellencamp.
14. "Another Done Somebody Wrong Song", My mother listened to a lot of pop-country when I was growing up. One of my strongest, earliest memories of music is this B.J. Thomas song. Thomas's biggest hit was "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head".
15. "Tighten Up" Archie Bell & The Drells
16. "Everything In It's Right Place" Somehow, the structure of this Radiohead song reminds me of the following track...
17. When you hear "Motown", people usually think of fun and good times. "You Keep Me Hangin On" by Diana Ross & The Supremes is as serious as a heart attack! Such drama in the words and the music.
18. I love the super-1980s drum sound on the J. Geils Band's "Flamethrower".
19. The Futureheads' song "Robot" is a leftover song from my mix The Future.
20. "Hip-Hug Her" is an instrumental by Booker T. & The M.G.s, better known for their "pitching change at a ballgame" instrumental "Green Onions".

Yankee Swap 2008: "The Future"

The theme of this year's Yankee Swap was THE FUTURE. I was very pleased when a CD-R of my mix got "swapped" several times around the party!

When I first thought of this idea, all I had in mind was "In The Year 2525" by Zager & Evans, "Mr Roboto" by Styx, and "The Body Electric" by Rush. I had an OK first draft done when I asked my lovely wife for her perspective. She thought it was too focused on robots and spaceships, and she started suggesting songs about "things that will happen someday" which are NOT sci-fi oriented. Her ideas vastly improved the mix, as you will see...

1. Battlestar Galactica Theme: My brother used this song (from the classic 1970s TV show) as his wedding ceremony recessional theme. I kid you not.
2. "1999" Prince: A 26-year-old song, about partying 9 years ago, IS about the future.
3. "Fly Like An Eagle" Steve Miller Band, aka "Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin... into the future!"
4. "Until The End of the World": My wife thought of this one.
5. "Robots [live]" From the Flight of the Conchords CD THE DISTANT FUTURE: 'It is the distant future. The year 2000.'
6. "The Body Electric" Rush
7. "Someday I Suppose" I found this Mighty Mighty Bosstones song because it's next to "Someday, Someway" in my iTunes.
8. "My Science Fiction Twin" Elvis Costello: Another suggestion from my wife.
9. "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" Timbuk 3
10. I found the Leonard Cohen song "The Future", from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, by searching for FUTURE in iTunes.
11. I bought the Flaming Lips song "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" especially for this mix,
12. "Robot Chicken Theme" The show Robot Chicken isn't actually about the future per se, but this Les Claypool instrumental is short and fun.
13. "Pets" by Porno for Pyros song is perfect for this mix. I first heard this song as Beavis & Butthead were watching the video for it on MTV!
14. "In The Year 2525" The words to this Zager & Evans hit are kinda weird!
15. "Robot Parade" There were many They Might Be Giants songs to choose from.
16. "Mr. Roboto" Styx
17. The Jetsons Theme: I could not find the original theme song on iTunes, so I settled for this barely-better-than Casio keyboard recording.
18. "Attack El Robot! Attack!" Calexico
19. "When I'm Sixty Three and a Half" After the Beatles recorded "When I'm Sixty-Four" in late 1966, Paul McCartney, intending to make his voice sound "younger", asked producer George Martin to speed up the master tape, just enough to shift the key of the song a half-step sharp. To undo this change, I have pitch-shifted the song a half-step down (flat), to match the key in which McCartney originally sang it. The tempo has not been changed.)
20. "Someday We'll Know" New Radicals
21. "Someday, Someway" Marshall Crenshaw
22. "My Flying Saucer" Billy Bragg & Wilco
23. Star Trek Theme
24. "Tomorrow Never Knows" The Beatles

Two Minutes, 42 seconds

As I write this, I am listening to a mix of songs which only have one thing in common- they're all 2 minutes, 42 seconds long. There's this internet "meme" going around which says that 2:42 is a "magic number" for great songs, so I'm putting it to the test. I sorted my entire iTunes library by length (13,000 songs). Then I selected ALL the songs which clock in at 2:42. Then I weeded it down to about 30 songs, down to a small group of songs or bands I especially like. I haven't sequenced this group at all. Here's the result:

• "Under The Boardwalk" The Drifters
• "Streets of Fire" New Pornographers
• "Lighten Up" Beastie Boys
• "Oceans" Pearl Jam
• "September Gurls" The Bangles
• "The Way You Do The Things You Do" The Temptations
• "In My Room" Grant Lee Buffalo
• "Divine Hammer" The Breeders
• "Sheila Take a Bow" The Smiths
• "Revolving Dora" Fountains of Wayne
• "Leggy Blonde" Flight of the Conchords
• "Lovely Rita" The Beatles
• "Poison Ivy" The Coasters
• "May Queen" Liz Phair
• "Come See About Me" Supremes
• "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day" Nick Lowe
• "Don't Worry Baby" Beach Boys
• "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)" Bruce Springsteen
• "Pictures of Lily" The Who
• "I Second That Emotion" Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
• "You Never Can Tell" Chuck Berry
• "Go Home" Barenaked Ladies
• "California Dreamin'" The Mamas & Papas
• "Teen Beat" Fleetwood Mac

Not surprisingly, the mix leans heavily on the early 1960s, and the 1970s and 1980s are barely present!

119: ROCK You Can Believe In

Use of my iPod's "Shuffle Songs" tool continues to heavily influence my song selection: letting pure chance pick out great unknown songs from my favorite bands is paying dividends!

1. "Dropped" Phantom Planet: A great kick-off song. I find a lot of new songs and new artists these days from the soundtracks of TV shows. For example, NBC's action-comedy Chuck includes a lot of alt-rock music on the soundtrack. But where do I go when I want to hear more from the band whose song was featured in that chase sequence? Most popular shows have fansites which list songs from each episode. I love the Internet!
2. "Sarayushka" Andy West, Henry Kaiser, & Michael Maksymenko: This is a faithful cover of the ZZ Top song "La Grange", sung in Russian. The LP is called Crazy Backwards Alphabet. In college, I was the host of a radio show Gyroscope on WERS-FM Boston, which featured world music, plus all sorts of avant garde jazz, and whatever else the college DJs felt like. Having no world music background, I specialized in covers of classic rock: The Gipsy Kings covering "Hotel California" in Spanish, Tito Puente covering "Day Tripper", A polka rendition of "People Are Strange", a bluegrass cover of "Brain Damage", and this nugget.
3. "Wild Rock Music!" is a mashup: Madonna singing "Music" over Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild". Mashed up by smash@mash-ups.co.uk
4. "27 Jennifers": Mike Doughty is the former lead singer of Soul Coughing. The singles off his solo CDs (this song is from Golden Delicious) are decidedly more "poppy" and less "out there" than Soul Coughing (which I appreciate!)
5. "Should've Been In Love" from Wilco's debut album A.M.
6. "Sweet Soul Dream" World Party: All my favorite contemporary bands in high school were heavily Beatles-influenced, including World Party. I found this track thanks to my iPod's "Shuffle Songs" setting.
7. "Nobody's Child", The Traveling Wilburys donated this maudlin track to Nobody's Child, a CD to benefit Romanian orphans.
8. "Debra" An exceedingly silly "white soul" classic from Beck.
9. "Smile On" Deee-Lite
10. "Proto-Pretty", The Wondermints were a one-hit wonder. I found this song on the Power Pop collection Poptopia.
11. "My Bird Performs", XTC: I did not like the XTC album Nonsuch at first, but it's grown on me.
12. "Great DJ", The Ting Tings: I heard this song featured on the podcast of a good friend of mine. Check out Radio Free Jersey.
13. "Something Beautiful": Back in the late 1990s, I was a big fan of Tracy Bonham's first two albums, The Burdens of Being Upright and Down Here, but I had lost track of her over the last decade. I went on iTunes and bought a few more recent tracks of hers, including this gem.
14. "The Twist", Frightened Rabbit: This song (also featured on the TV show Chuck) needs a better arrangement, but it's catchy nonetheless.
15. "Dance Me to the End of Love": All I know about Madeline Peyroux is that she sounds just like Billie Holliday.
16. "Dark Side of Night": Foxboro Hot Tubs are a "secret" side project of Green Day. They're going for a mid-1960s garage rock sound here.
17. "Borrowing Time", Aimee Mann
18. "You Don't Know Me", Ben Folds featuring Regina Spektor: There aren't many artists whose CDs I will buy automatically when they come out. Aimee Mann and Ben Folds are on the list. This Ben Folds song, a duet with Regina Spektor, is insanely catchy. The album, Way To Normal, is hit-or-miss, but the several gems make up for some underbaked dross. I think I mixed too many metaphors there!
19. "Chelsea Dagger", The Fratellis: Also known as "the song from that Amstel Light commercial."
20. "The 20th Century Is Over", Ellis Paul: My wife and her parents are huge Ellis Paul fans. I think he's great too, but I am still getting to know his stuff, including this dark, non-folky track from his album Sweet Mistakes.
21. "Fake Empire" The National: This song was featured on at least one Obama campaign video, including the one played in Chicago soon before Barack stepped onstage on Election Night. My friend Julie heard it and identified it for us. Obama's campaign slogan CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN was the inspiration for this mix's title.

118: I Hear The Bells

1. Aye Davanita - Pearl Jam. I found this brief instrumental from Vitalogy thanks to the Shuffle Songs feature on my iPod.
2. Watch The Sunrise - Big Star. Ditto.
3. Viva La Vida - Coldplay. Another iPod commercial song!
4. Use It (live) - The New Pornographers perform one of my favorite songs of theirs (an iTunes exclusive.)
5. You Can Call Me Late - Paul Simon. I went to a wedding this summer where the awesome wedding band played "You Can Call Me Al" followed by "Late in the Evening." A few months later, as I deejayed a birthday party for a friend, I cross-faded these two songs together, right at the bass solo in "Al." The birthday girl had danced at the wedding, so I hoped she would get a kick out of dancing to these two songs again. It worked!
6. Hanging Upside Down - David Byrne. Another iPod shuffle discovery.
7. Too Much of Nothing - Peter, Paul and Mary. Ditto.
8. Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? - She & Him.
9. Celebrity Sanctum - Dogs Die in Hot Cars. Another iPod shuffle discovery. DDIHC are also known as "That Band That Sounds Exactly Like XTC. Seriously, It's Uncanny."
10. Good Times - Hoodoo Gurus, featuring The Bangles on backup vocals. The Bangles have also contributed backing vocals to a Tom Petty song, "Waiting For Tonight."
11. I Hear The Bells - Mike Doughty.
12. Stars & Planets - Liz Phair.
13. Shine - Tracy Bonham was a alt-rock star for one season in the Alanis Morrisette Era, with her song "Mother Mother". I have two of her CDs, and I am glad to hear she's still making music.
14. High & Dry - Jamie Cullum
15. I Feel It All - Feist
16. I Still Want You - The Del Fuegos. I found the Del Fuegos' LP Boston, Mass. at a hipster's yard sale in Arlington last summer. The Del Fuegos were one of those early 1980s rock bands who got signed to a major label, put out one LP, and were never heard from again. Every local music scene has that band which "shoulda been a contender", but never caught anyone's attention at the national level. The Del Fuegos have become a footnote to lead singer Dan Zanes' successful second careeer as a children's music star.
17. Scare Easy - Mudcrutch. This boring Tom Petty song is from his reunion-ized early 1970s band Mudcrutch.
18. F.N.T. - Semisonic. I read the rock memoir from the drummer of Semisonic. Titled "So You Want to be A Rock & Roll Star", it might as well have been called "Diary of a One-Hit Wonder." I like their music: their hit "Closing Time" might be my least-favorite song of theirs. After reading about the endless touring and promotional interviews for their singles, I felt obliged to buy a few of these songs from iTunes!
19. Sweet Sweet Baby (I'm Falling) - Lone Justice
20. Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen.