Deltron

Well... I can't say I'm a fan of "Event 2", but this one is decent.




While we're on the topic of Deltron, I have to note that I made a discovery that forced me to reconsider the supposed genius of Dan The Automator. Dig the opening track of the first Deltron album.




Pretty astonishing beats, right? Ah, but consider the main source of the sampled music.




Automator essentially rearranged chunks of the song, increased the speed, and called it a day. This isn't to say that "3030" doesn't improve on the original  — in fact, the changes show careful thought and taste — but is does indicate that Automator wasn't the musical visionary I had supposed thwn I was under the illusion that he, Del and Kid Koala built that song from scratch, or at most discrete samples from a wide number of sources.


On a similar note, here's the primary source of the music behind "Positive Contact".

Still chill out there, oddly enough

Not the best time in the year for early-morning classroom appearances.  Anyways, for those of you forced to venture out into the arctic winds, I've got some cold-weather songs bundled up and waiting after the jump.

Happy new year!

1. Lightnin' Hopkins - Happy New Year
2. Spike Jones and The City Slickers - Happy New Year!!
3. Camera Obscura - Happy New Year
   Sure doesn't sound like a celebratory New Year's song... but it's sweet as sugar, so how can I reasonably resist?
4. Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne
   Oh, I knew it was an ultra-cloying choice, but I couldn't help myself. I remember being around four years old, listening to this song in a car during a rainstorm, and getting my first hints of the emotional complications of adult life.

You know what time it's getting to be...

Starting off, here are three Christmas Eve tunes.

1. Leadbelly - Christmas Is A-Coming
2. Stan Freberg - The Night Before Christmas
3. The Beatles - Third Christmas Record

And here we have 74 minutes of Christmas Day soundwaves. With a few exceptions, I've tried to avoid songs that have absorbed any hint of overplayed-Muzak stench.

On the one hand, this means that there's no appearance of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time" (which I still haven't come to hate), but on the other hand, you won't hear Yoko honking her way through "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".

1. El Vez - Brown Christmas
2. Juan García Esquivel - Sun Valley Ski Run
   I came to associate this song with the Cool Cool Mountain level in Super Mario 64. (And I also associate this song with this GoldenEye 007 level... but I guess that's neither here nor there.)
3. The Sisterhood - Christmas Treat, Peppermint
   Pretty versatile items, those peppermint candies.
4. Kimi and Ritz - Merry Christmas Baby
   Featuring a pre-Rocky Horror Richard O'Brien.
5. Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas
   Couldn't help it.
6. Bathing Beauty - Christmas Tears
   This is just absolutely devastating. It comes to us via WFMU.
7. Freddie King - Christmas Tears
   Not the same teardrops.
8. Rosalie Sorrels - Party Crasher's Carol
   Enough with the maudlin lacrymosity, already!
9. Komeda - Top Star
   In the late 90's, there was a fantastic FTP site called Gameraweb, which turned me on to so many amazing musicians. You have no idea how good it was. Gameraweb vanished one day and I never found out what happened to it, but I never forgot it. This next song was one of the first Gameraweb downloads I snagged, and it's the first Komeda song I heard. Instant love. Thanks, Gameraweb, wherever you've gone.
10. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)
11. Sifl and Olly - Laser Eyes
    Er, well, they mention Christmas lights... Apropos of nothing, I'm convinced I knew the real-life Chester.
12. RUN-DMC - Christmas In Hollis
13. National Lampoon - Kung Fu Christmas
    Features the talents of Christopher Guest, Brian Doyle Murray, and pre-SNL Bill Murray and Gilda Radner.
14. James Brown - Let's Make This Christmas Mean Something This Year
15. Solomon Burke - Presents For Christmas
16. Louis Armstrong - Christmas Night In Harlem
17. Gene Autry - When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter
18. James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight To The GhettoYet another charming track from the hardest working defendant in show business
    
19. The Sonics - Santa Claus
20. Toni Stante - ¿Mamacita, Dónde Está Santa Claus?
21. El Vez - Pancho Claus
    Musically speaking, this is a pretty straight-ahead cover of Lalo Guerrero's 1956's tune, but it's got a wilder, post-punk spirit than the original.
22. Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper - Son of Santa

NSFW - Selections which present an appalling lack of holiday spirit

For those of you that have been caught in retail-drone work or gift-gathering torture, I put together an antithesis of X-Mas Muzak. Most of the selections would be considered objectionable by the family-values crowd, so be judicious in your choice of listening environment.

Total playtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes

It's a bit chill, all right.

Good food, good eats...

Yes, here they are — fifty(!) songs that, if perhaps not particularly suited to the type of Thanksgiving that you celebrate, then are at least tangentially related to getting one's grub on. Good God, let's eat!

There are leftovers, by the by.

Big bucket of Halloween goodies

I didn't plan on offering much on this topic, but as it turns out, I have for you people 2.75 hours of Halloween music, two full-length movies and four trailers for movies that you might consider Netflixing.

Finally, some Van Halen!

I don't know how I managed to overlook this performance of Reggie Watts covering that that Van Halen song. But here we go.




I've been sitting on Diamond Dave's "Tokyo Story" while waiting for an appropriate spot to put this. Thanks, Reg!




And I guess this goes here, because Diamond Dave.

Three small strays

Here are Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan, with... some other folks, covering Melanie's Ring The Living Bell (which has become much more captivating than I can remember any Melanie songs ever being for me).




I was recently introduced to this Tame Impala tune...




...and soon found this.

I just wanted some geeky 80's synth tunes

And then it turned into this whole thing.




There's a Part 2? Well, okay, sure -- let's give it a listen. Or pageview. Whatever.




Sticking with the New Traditionalists-era synths, but dialing down the visual complexity...




Bringing visual complexity levels back up to critical capacity...




I'm not a crazed fan of the animation in this one, but the music has a nice Lemon Jelly chill to it.  Turn your speakers down first -- the test pattern tone at the beginning is a bit insistent.

My dad introduced me to Tonio K.

Er, well, okay -- he didn't introduce me to the man, you understand. But he did introduce me to this album.




Weird Al has mentioned that Tonio K's one of his heroes. You can hear the influence here:



That's not the official video. But it's dead on message.


Here's a couple more peas in that particular pod.

A fistful of Devo

Here they are in concert in 1973 at Kent State. They aren't doing the kind of scumbag techno-blues in evidence on the "Hardcore Devo" albums, but they're getting close.




I keep meaning to get acquainted with the Jihad Jerry stuff, but it hasn't happened yet.




Here's Devo and Neil Young.





And, uh... the word "Devo" is in the title of this one.

Dream instructions

I woke one recent morning with the understanding that this video was of vital viewing importance. WHAT COULD IT MEAN?!!




Anyway. Har Mar Superstar. I found out about him via Sklarbro Country. Haven't checked out Nocturnal Emotions yet, but I like this and this and (heh heh) this.




Yeah! It's about time someone brought Eric Clapton down a peg or two.




I once heard this a long time ago on WNCW, and finally rediscovered it a few weeks ago. (Mind you, I could say the same thing about a particular Type O Negative song which I really rather enjoyed back then, but now it kinda just sounds like an under-enthusiastic X-Cops cover band led by a mildly-sedated vampire with Down syndrome.)




And here's this. What really sells it for me is the subtle caricaturistic inaccuracy that was a hallmark of the true Hostess fruit pie comics ads. For those of you wishing to see more of this guy's work, but would like to avoid typing, here's the link.

Leonard Cohen - Austin City Limits 1988

My dad and I saw this performance on a local PBS affiliate in 1998, and were much impressed. I apologize for the lousy video quality, but the only source I can find for this fantastic show is an MPEG of a nth-generation VCR bootleg of a television broadcast. But the small venue brings an appropriate intimacy that's missing in larger venues.

Happy birthday to me!

And to celebrate, here are a small collection of thematically-unrelated tunes! Hooray!

And just a bit more...
















Great! Now, with all that out of the way, I'm on my way to get some freebie birfday boy meals. Can't wait!

Those summer feelings...

I just wanted to hear some rock tunes, but I didn't realize there was an over-arching theme to these songs I picked until I had them all in a visible pile. So don't go making assumptions about the theme. It's just accidental.

Anyway. This:




And on the opposite side of the relationship-song axis...




There's an official video for this next song, but it features a remix that I don't particularly care for. So I'm sticking with the static-image link.

And now we step away from the rock-and-roll room...

A bit of sweetness and light before the heavy business

Shit's gonna get real heavy a couple of posts down, so I'm going to start us off with some comedy, which will get darker in increments until we're all in the same mindset.

First off is Ms. Katie Lee, with a song very dear to my heart.




Next up is the somewhat unfairly vilified Gloria Balsam. Widely regarded as one of the worst singers ever to be recorded, she was fearless in putting everything she had into those notes. And for that, I have an unbounded respect for her. It doesn't hurt that she's backed by some impeccable late-70's production values.




Okay, yeah, I realize that Ms. Balsam isn't everyone's acquired cup of tea. If you need some earwash, go listen to some Judy Henske or Nina Simone, and come back when you feel better. We'll wait for you.


Everybody back? Great. Here we go with the Diabolical Biz Markie and some white dudes, tearing Elton John's classic into unintelligible shreds.




And here we have Van Morrison, proving that contractually-obligated albums are crapshoots at best, and creepy medical tracts at worst.




Next in the sequence, Crispin Glover does an incredibly unhinged cover of that beloved Nancy Sinatra gem.




 Frank Zappa did some appropriately wackadoo love songs in his time. Here's one.

There's an incredible Beatles/Stones/Doors/Hendrix song about the wonders of artificial cheez spread, but I can't get the thing to embed. Here's the link.