Friday Random Twelve

Norbizness has established a baseline for the Self-Audit: Nimoy: Bilbo. 0/10. And you may be forewarned that The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, is, in fact, present on this playlist. Be afraid, be very afraid.

As usual, this is my desktop iTunes, 55 gigs of music, 37.8 days of songs.


1. Waco Brothers - Walking on Hell's roof. Another Mekons side project by Jon Langford; again, one of my favoritest live bands. Often described as Cash meets Clash, and really, what could be better? 8/10 just because they saved the bass player from Jesus Jones.

2. The Figgs - Protocol. Criminally underrated band from New York, these guys have been playing punk/pop since high school, and have most recently backed the legendary Graham Parker live and in the studio (when they tour with him they open as the Figgs, then come back out to play with gp). Another of my personal can't-miss live bands, Last time they visited Milwaukee they played a warmup set at a house party, then played two sets at the club, then played an after-bar in a basement. All told they probably played about six hours. My most distinctive memory is Mike Gent plaintively asking the fervent basement crowd “Is it OK if this is our last song? We want to party too.” 9/10.

3. Bad Religion - 21st Century Digital Boy. 6/10 because they're old school DIY-ers, and Greg Graffin is from Milwaukee.

4. ZZTop - Reverberation (Doubt) Although annoyingly omnipresent in the early days of MTV because of their instant recognizability and humorous videos, Texas's house band does blazing live shows. I saw them in Madison on the Deguello tour before they went all tech-pop, and it was 2 hours of extremely loud blues rock. Side note to Mike: Another three piece band that makes an amazing amount of noise. 5/10.

5. Gear Daddies - Goodbye Marie. Another criminally underrated band, now defunct. Veering from the apparent theme, the Daddies were not particularly notable live; but the songs, and Martin Zellar's gravelly rootsy voice, makes for some excellent alt-country. Plus they do a song about the Dells. 7/10.

6. The English Beat - Whine and Grine/Stand Down Margaret. Original english ska from the eighties. 7/10.

7. The Meat Puppets - Sexy Music. The sole practitioner of Southwestern Punk. Another great live band, they are able to take tough, sinewy, dry guitar songs and vault them into soaring, loping jams that don't get boring; on top of that are peyote laced psychedelic lyrics that defy comprehension. Kurt Cobain's favorite band, it's no wonder that they broke up due to heroin. 8/10.

8. Stan Ridgway - My Way. Former lead singer of Wall of Voodoo, he's been quietly toiling away in the West Alternative music scene; he released two very good albums, The Big Heat and Mosquitos, as well as an amazing psychedelic movie soundtrack called The Drywall Project. This is from an album of standards, and isn't particularly compelling. Sorry Stan. 3/10.

9. Game Theory - Throwing The Election. Hey, this band qualifies as BOTH Criminally Underrated AND a great live band! Scott Miller is an amazing guitarist and a fantastic songwriter; I've seen his work with Game Theory and subsequent work with The Loud Family; he's one of Aimee Mann's favorite artists, which should be all you need to go out and find all of his work. This song is apparently the Democratic Leadership Council's theme song. 9/10.

10. Fleshtones - Ride Your Pony. From Rhino's Just Can't Get Enough Series, New Wave of the Eighties. Screw You, this was my college music. 5/10.

Bonus, because I can:

11. ZZTop - Waitin for The Bus. More ZZ? Well, at least it's early stuff. The only bad thing is that the random play cuts this one off just as it smoothly segues into 'Jesus Just Left Chicago'. 5/10.

12. Dance Hall Crashers. Will Tomorrow Ever Come. Criminally Underrated? Check! New-era ska-punk. 7/10.

12 -1/2 (because it came up on the playlist) Camper Van Beethoven - Heart. Beautiful seque into one of Camper's little ska ditties. I saw them open up for REM in the Oriental Theater. Great Show. 8/10.

There you have it. Apparently iTunes felt like serving up bands that deserve wider audiences. But Hey, iTunes, where's the Mekons? Huh? Bad iTunes! No ram chip!