BLUES TRAVELER

First off, an addition to yesterday's post on the Haiti earthquake. It has come to my attention that some folks aren't comfortable donating to a charity they're unfamiliar with. These days, I can't blame them.

If you're more comfortable donating to a tried and true charity, here's a link to the American Red Cross. If you can afford it, please give a little something.



Most out there are likely already familiar with jam band Blues Traveler. They had a minor hit in 1990 with "But Anyway", and have had a huge group of loyal fans ever since. Then in '94 they broke through to the mainstream with their single "Run-Around".

While they've never repeated that success (which is probably a good thing), they still maintain a huge following, with particular thanks to their legendary live shows.

Here's a bit of an introduction for the newbs, and a bit of a treat for the fans that only have the albums:

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Blues Traveler with Carlos Santana - "Mountain Cry" (live) Recorded at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on September 29, 1991. Taken from the very limited On Tour Forever EP, which was included in some copies of Travelers and Thieves, which is also the album that has the studio version.
Blues Traveler - "I'm Walkin'" (Fats Domino cover) From the Cool and the Crazy soundtrack.
Blues Traveler - "Diner" B-side of the "Canadian Rose" single.
Blues Traveler - "Escaping" B-side of "Run-Around".
Blues Traveler - "Run-Around" (live) B-side of the "Hook" single. Recorded live on Vh-1.
Blues Traveler - "12 Swords" One of the tracks given away for free at their website. It had been planned for an album called The Sun, The Storm and The Traveler, but the album was scrapped after the death of bassist Bobby Sheehan. Instead, the band released four of the tracks as a free EP. I had planned to link to the download page, as it was still available two days ago, but it seems to be gone now.

Albums:

Blues Traveler, 1990 (buy)
Travelers and Thieves, 1991 (buy)
Save His Soul, 1993
Four, 1994 (buy)
Straight On Till Morning, 1997
Decisions of the Sky: A Traveler's Tale of Sun and Storm, 2000 (free EP)
Bridge, 2001 (buy)
Truth Be Told, 2003 (buy)
¡Bastardos!, 2005 (buy)
Cover Yourself, 2007 (buy) (acoustic versions of older songs)
North Hollywood Shootout, 2008 (buy)

In other news. . . Welcome to Ashley have released a new video. "Nothing But Grey Skies Ahead" also happens to be the first song I heard from them, and now we have visuals to go with the excellent track:

SEVEN SONG CIRCLE #1

Something a little different for me. No real rarities in this batch.

Every once in a while, I come up with these little lists of songs that fit together in various ways. Originally I intended to put them on some sort of compilation. Now, since I have this blog, I figured I'd stick a few of these series up here.

I don't know how long this little feature will last, since I only have a finite amount of these at the moment. If you have a suggestions, feel free to pass them along.

In the meantime, enjoy circle #1:

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1 XTC - "That's Really Super, Supergirl"
2 Crash Test Dummies - "Superman's Song"
3 Grant Lee Buffalo - "The Hook"
4 Blues Traveler - "Hook" (live)
5 Bill Lynch - "This is the Theme to Gary's Show"
6 They Might Be Giants - "Boss of Me"
7 They Might Be Giants - "XTC vs Adam Ant"

notes:
1 From the absolutely amazing album, Skylarking. (buy)
2 From their under rated debut album, The Ghosts That Haunt Me. (buy) Continues the "Super-being" theme.
3 From the truly fantastic album, Fuzzy. (buy) Opening line mentions "I don't believe in Superman."
4 Released as a b-side. The studio version is on Four. (buy) The reason for this one is obvious.
5 The theme from It's Gary Shandling's Show. Another song that lyrically de-constructs itself..
6 From the Dial-a-Song compilation. (buy) Also a TV theme song (Malcolm In the Middle).
7 From Severe Tire Damage. (buy) TMBG tune, referencing the first act on the list. An alternate song that could be put here is TMBG's cover of The Dukes of Stratosphere's "25 O'Clock". (The Dukes being an alter-ego of XTC)

If there's ever been an Adam Ant tune that was used as a TV theme song, that would have made a far cleverer #6, but as far as I know, no such animal exists.

That's it for #1. I'll be back on Friday with some actual rare stuff.