SEVEN SONG CIRCLE #7

It's been an oddly, poppy, psychedelic sort of day today. I was searching the internet for a particular Monkees track to complete this post, while the TV was on in the background. I was half-watching Cash Cab, and I suddenly hear a question about Mickey Dolenze being the voice of Snuggle (the teddy bear from those commercials). How coincidental.

So, I go on about my search. I pause for a moment to check my email, and on the news page that loads while I sign in, the headline reads "Wife of Monkee Mickey Dolenze arrested". What are the odds of that happening today? (For those who already knew about that a week ago, I usually write these things up a week or so in advance)

Now, if I flip through the channels, and find the Davey Jones episode of The Brady Bunch, I'm gonna be seriously weirded out.

In all honesty, yeah, I'm aware it's all just coincidence, but it was strange enough that I figured it was a mildly interesting way to begin this post.

To the music:

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1 Talk Talk - "Does Caroline Know?" (live)
2 They Might Be Giants - "Caroline, No"
3 They Might Be Giants - "Theme from The Monkees" (live)
4 The Monkees - "I'm a Believer" (alternate version)
5 Bob Geldof - "Room 19 (Sha La La Le)"
6 The Wonder Stuff - "Room 512 (All the News That's Fit to Print)"
7 Mark Hollis - "The Daily Planet"

notes:

1 Taken from a bootleg recording of a radio broadcast. The original studio version is on the classic album It's My Life. (buy)
2 Brian Wilson cover from the Indestructible Object EP. (buy)
3 A Monkees cover (as if you couldn't have figured that out). Written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, with help from Neil Diamond. I'm unsure of the date or location of this recording.
4 Written by Neil Diamond, and taken from the remastered album More of The Monkees. (buy) (buy deluxe)
5 Taken from his long out-of-print album The Happy Club. You might recognize the organ riff running through the song.
6 Originally issued on the Artists for Rock The Vote: Say What You Want compilation, and later released on one of the "Hot Love Now" singles.
7 Mark was the lead singer of Talk Talk. I don't know if he meant the title of this track as a reference to Clark Kent's newspaper, but that's how I'm using it here. Taken from his one and only self-titled solo album. (buy) Damn, I wish he'd come out with something new.

A Superman reference to end the series right where it started. I may eventually come up with some new lists, but for the time being, I'll end them here.


A few new releases today that some of you may be interested in:

The Cult - Love (Expanded Edition) (buy) - 'cause you can never have too much Love
Various Artists - New Tales To Tell (buy) - 'cause you can never have too much Love and Rockets
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin (2 LP + bonus CD) (buy) - 'cause. . .'cause it's the Flaming Lips. Isn't that good enough?

SEVEN SONG CIRCLE #6

Ah, that's better. This time the graphic isn't nearly as crappy looking as the last one.

And on top of that, this list is one of the best that I've come up with. Loaded with rare tracks, and filled with some great artists, several of which haven't gotten their due.

. . . with special guest appearance by God! (Now let's see if anyone out there gets that obscure reference)

Here's some music:

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1 Mondo Cané - "Spaceman"
2 Janitor Joe - "What's Going On"
3 Toad the Wet Sprocket - "Janitor"
4 David Hyde Pierce - "You Won't Succeed on Broadway"
5 Ben Folds Five - "Hava Nagila" (live)
6 Fear of Pop - "In Love"
7 William Shatner - "Rocket Man"

Notes:

1 Mondo Cané was a Michigan (and for a time Minneapolis) based band in the nineties. I'm convinced that had they been from New York or Seattle, they would have gotten signed and wouldn't need this introduction. If you've never heard Mondo before, this may not be the best track to start with, for that go take a listen to "Guns". Most of their recorded work can be downloaded from the Music Archive.
2 Hüsker Dü cover from the out-of-print compilation Dü Hüskers: The Twin Cities Replays Zen Arcade. Janitor Joe is, unfortunatley, best known as the band that lost their bass player, Kristen Pfaff, to Courtney Love's Hole. Prior to her departure, the band was comprised of Kristen, Joachim Breuer, and Matt Entsminger (formerly of Mondo Cané).
3 Taken from the out-of-print rarities compilation In Light Syrup. California band Toad the Wet Sprocket took their name from a line in a sketch by British comedy legends Monty Python.
4 From the original Broadway cast recording of Monty Python's Spamalot, (buy) which also features Tim Curry and Hank Azaria. Well worth the price of purchase if you like the Pythons.
5 Cover of a traditional Hebrew song. B-side of the "Battle of Who Could Care Less" single.
6 Fear of Pop was a one-off side project from Ben Folds. The lead vocals on this particular track are by William Shatner. It's taken from their one and only album, Volume I. (buy)
7 Shatner is God. (this is an Elton John cover performed at the Science Fiction Film Awards in 1978)

Bonus: Fear of Pop - "Still In Love"

Bonus bonus: here's the video of the original performance of "Rocket Man"




Bonus x3: A video of "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" can be seen here.

SEVEN SONG CIRCLE #5

Holy crap, is that ever an ugly graphic. Damn. I put these things together myself, you'd think I'd have better quality control.

Don't let the nasty image fool you in to thinking the music is crap. There's some damn good tunes in this cycle. Not as many rarities as I'd like, but even the ones that aren't particularly rare are, for the most part, by acts that I don't regularly listen to, aside from the one track presented here.

Of course, some of them are groups I have huge collections by. And I ain't sayin' which is which.

Anyhow, after that lengthy discourse with no meaning, here's the music:

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1 The Squirrels - "Seasons In the Sun / The Hustle"
2 Steve and Julian Vai - "Ya-Yo Gakk"
3 Neil and Liam Finn - "Two of Us"
4 Trey Anastasio - "Abbey Road Medley" (live)
5 Oysterhead - "Shadow of a Man"
6 Screaming Trees - "Shadow of the Season"
7 Eddie and the Cruisers - "Season in Hell (Fire Suite)"

notes:
1 Terry Jacks / Van McCoy covers, featuring guest lead vocals by John Schmidt, age 10. From the 20 More. . . Explosions! compilation. (buy)
2 Lead vocals by Steve's young son Julian. From the Alien Love Secrets EP. (buy)
3 Beatles cover by father/son team Neil (Crowded House / Split Ends) and Liam. This was released on the Japanese version of the I Am Sam soundtrack. (buy import) The soundtrack was alright, but I didn't care for the movie. Maybe he shouldn't have gone "full retard". . .
4 Beatles cover. Unfortunatly, I no longer remember what show it's from.
5 Trey's "other band", along with Les Claypool (Primus) and Stewart Copeland (The Police). This is from The Grand Pecking Order. (buy)
6 Opening track to the album Sweet Oblivion. (buy)
7 Actually performed by John Cafferty and Beaver Brown. Written specifically for the Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack. (buy)

SEVEN SONG CIRCLE #4

Today is 7/7, so it seems appropriate that I post another one of them 7 song circle things. Of the lists I've created, this one is probably my least favorite.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great tunes on the list, it's just that all but one of the connections are based solely on titles. I prefer to have a bit more variety throughout.

Oh well. I do what I can. At least 5 out of the 7 are non-album tracks.

On with the show:

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1 UTwo - "Boy / Girl" (demo)
2 Iron & Wine - "Boy with a Coin" (alternate)
3 The Guggenheim Grotto - "Girl with the Cards"
4 Charlie Sexton with Shannon McNally - "American Girl" (live)
5 The_Cure - "Young Americans"
6 The Junk Monkeys - "Boys Don't Cry"
7 Blur - "Girls and Boys" (remix)

1 My first ever posting by the mighty band who's name I purposely misspelled in hopes of not attracting the attention of the take-down po-po. This is a demo version of a track from their first EP. A fully mastered version is now available as a bonus track on the re-issue of Boy. (buy deluxe)
2 An alternate version of the track from The Sheppard's Dog (buy), given out free and legally by the man himself on his website.
3 The only actual album track on the list, but then it should be no surprise that I'm a fan of The Grotto, and will feature them every chance I get. From Happy the Man. (buy)
4 A live Tom Petty Cover, courtesy of The Live Music Archive. The sound quality isn't great, but it's not real often I find any of Charlie's stuff. Maybe I should do a post on him someday.
5 A David Bowie cover, which was unreleased for many years, until Robert & Co. put out the rarities box set Join the Dots. (buy) So, it's kind of an album track now.
6 The Cure cover, performed by Detroit's own Junk Monkeys. This was a b-side of their single, "Bliss".
7 A remix of the classic song from Parklife. (buy) I used the remix in order to stick with the non-album theme. In all honesty, I think it's one of the worst remixes I've heard. The original is FAR better.

On an unrelated note, there are a few re-issues coming out today that visitors to this blog might be interested in:

Screaming Blue Messiahs - Gun Shy (buy)
Screaming Blue Messiahs - Bikini Red (buy)
Various Artists - Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt (buy)

SEVEN SONG CIRCLE #3

Here's one of the funkiest mixes I've put together. Well, actually, it's split between legendary funk and lesser known alternative.

There was one incredibly funky track that I tried to fit in, but couldn't make it work. I put that one separately at the end of the post, 'cause it's way too good to let go.

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1 Dinosaur Jr. - "Freak Scene"
2 Rick James - "Superfreak"
3 Jude - "Rick James"
4 Big Audio Dynamite - "James Brown" (remix)
5 James Brown - "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (Part 1)"
6 Funkadelic - "Hit It and Quit It"
7 Mike Watt - "Maggot Brain"

notes:
1 From the album Bug. (buy)
2 From the album Street Songs. (buy) Unrelated trivia: Rick and Neil Young were roommates for a time in the 60's. They were also in a band together called The Myna Birds. They recorded an album, but it remains unreleased to this day.
3 From the tragically underhyped, and out-of-print, album No One is Really Beautiful. Pick it up if you find it.
4 Original version was on Megatop Phoenix, but that's out-of-print. It can be had on some of their best-of's, though. (buy)
5 One of the longest titles ever for a song. Also one of the best songs, though. A longer version of this was released on the album Sex Machine. (buy)
6 From the amazing album Maggot Brain. (buy) In my book, this features the best backing vocals ever. How does this one connect? The last lines of the JB tune the precedes it are "Can I hit it and quit it?" repeated several times.
7 A Funkadelic cover from Ballhog or Tug Boat. How does this one relate to the first track? The amazing 10+ minute guitar solo is performed by J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. (The organ, by the way, is played by Bernie Worrell, who also played it on the original)

I tried like hell to fit in Cee-Lo's song "Closet Freak" (buy) somewhere, but couldn't find a way. I'm giving it to you anyway, 'cause it's a fantastic song.

SEVEN SONG CIRCLE #2

Not exactly a huge response to the first circle I posted last week. No big deal. I'm just posting 'em for the fun of it.

Most people don't comment when they drop by anyway, even if they do like the music. That's never bothered me much. I'm a pretty shy person by nature, too. It's rare I comment on any of the blogs I frequent.

Anyway, whether you like it or not, here's number two:

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1 Tom Jones - "A Girl Like You"
2 Tom Jones - "I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor" (live)
3 Arctic Monkeys - "Diamonds Are Forever" (live)
4 Propellerheads with Miss Shirley Bassey - "History Repeating"
5 Pearl Jam with Neil and Tim Finn - "History Never Repeats" (live)
6 Mookie Blaylock - "Just a Girl" (demo)
7 The Smithereens - "A Girl Like You" (Strip Club Version)

notes:
1 A Wolfgang Press cover from the out-of-print album The Lead and How To Swing It, which also features a fantastic Rise Robots Rise cover.
2 Arctic Monkeys cover recorded at the Princess Diana tribute concert. (buy)
3 Shirley Bassey cover recorded at Glastonbury in 2007.
4 From Decksandrumsnadrockandroll. (buy)
5 Split Ends cover (with 2 of them guesting) released on one of PJ's Ten Club singles. (join)
6 Mookie was Pearl Jam before they took their more famous name. A re-mastered version of this is on the new Ten. (buy) (buy w/DVD) (buy w/vinyl) This copy is from a much lower quality bootleg. (And, yes, I did pay the money for the official high quality re-issue - it's worth it.)
7 Originally issued as a b-side (then titled "A Girl Like You: Part Two"), and later on the now out-of-print compilation Attack of The Smithereens.

Hey, I actually fit in a bunch of rarer stuff this time around. Yeah me.

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.