Hootenanny

A couple of days ago, I posted a bunch of videos.  No, not the Rush ones, the day after that.  There WAS a theme, and not a hard one;  all the bands were among the many playing regularly in Milwaukee when I moved here.  Many many bands were not mentioned; da BoDeans, Paul Cebar, The Haskells, EIEIO, Snopek, Numb Jitters, Oil Tasters, Ghostly Trio, Liquid Pink, Boy Dirt Car, the Squares.... I can't remember them all.  Every weekend, we'd go see somebody playing some local hole in the wall.  Some of the bands faded, some stuck around longer; some are still around.  But I was young and fed off the vitality.  The scene seemed to be ready to spawn a series of national act, but in any case, it seemed to be the place I had to be.

Fate led me to a time and place and opportunity and  I turned away, sold my guitar and stayed in architecture school.   What an idiot.

So I will celebrate with a Long overdue Friday Random Musical Poop Shoot of Arbitrary Number!!

You can cheer now.  Or not, what the fuck, we're pretty casual here.

So....random songs played from my primary music storage device.  37,500 items, 165 gigs of storage, 101 days of straight listening, if you have a LOT of speed and the drug tolerance of Hunter Thompson.

1. Chaos streams, Son Volt.  chunky guitars and Jay Farrar's wide midwestern vocals.  I always preferred Son Volt to the more critically acclaimed wilco, but the best was Uncle Tupelo.  I have a playlist with all three bands and pretend they never broke up.

2. Grounds for Divorce, the Wolf Parade.  chanted nasally vocals.  I think I prefer Geddy Lee, but who doesn't and like that comes as a surprise.

3.  Save Your Money, The Loud Family.  One of my favorite bands to see live  which is now sadly no longer possible.  Scott Miller was former lead of Game Theory, who nearly made it big in the post - REM college band rush, and then went more obscure/ with proggy elements added to the power pop with the Loud Family, with astonishing results.  To widespread disregard, even though they regularly topped critics polls.  Eventually he retired to work in coding and raise a family, although he popped up recently with a new 'album'.  Their songs are dense, layered, and hummable, even if Scott likes to credit his singing as 'whiny vocals'.  Aimee Mann once said of one of Scott's songs that "it seemed easy but it's got like a bazillion chords.  Still one of my favorite songs".

4.  Especially in Michigan, Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Anthony Kiedis wrote this song for Brando.  I am lonely in my affection for their later work.

5.  Circumstances, Rush.  I didn't rig this one, honest.  This is from the recent Snakes and Arrows live recording, so Geddy's voice is tempered and not so screechy.  still has the embarrassing high school lyrics though.  The interplay between the bass and guitar really shows the amount of time these guys have played together.

6.  Hanged Man, The Meat Purveyors.  And then right to some new school old-timey deathly bluegrass/ newgrass.  Kind of whiplashy, but that's the danger you take when I'm spinning the iTunes.  rocking guitar, mandolin, and fiddle.

7.  Feel Like I'm Fixin To Die Rag, Country Joe and The Fish.  Hippy protest music, that actually flows very naturally from the previous.  " and it's one, two three, what are we fightin for? don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam. And it's five six seven, open up the pearly gates, ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee! we're all gonna die."  Change a couple of words and it's today.  Why isn't there any hippy protest music these days? 

8.  Holy Picture, Sebadoh.  Hey, it's Sebadoh, what do you expect?  Saw them on a recent reunion tour, and they were AWESOME.  Lo-fi before Robert Pollard messed it all up. 

9.  Passage to Bangkok, RUSH!  Ha.  iTunes is taunting the internets today.  Unabashed drug song; the 70s were a weird time.

10.  Mission 1:  Avoid Job Working With Assholes, Atom and His Package.  Crunchy DIY new wavey semi-novelty song.  The whole disc gets a little tiresome, but it is great when a song pops up in a mix like this.  Redefining Music, indeed.

11.  Babe Come Down, Sammy.  two person indie rock band from New York, I loved these guys and never got a chance to see them.  HUGE debt to Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground and such as, but hey, why not?  Laconic vocals and chiming/droning guitars mining the same ground as Galaxy 500 and Yo La Tengo.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

12.  Going To Kansas, The Mountain Goats.  There's a definite lo-fi/ indie vibe going to this Poop Shoot today.  John Darnielle is too cool for words.  He put the Lo back in lo-fi, recording his first efforts on a boombox.  He has to take time off from his job to tour.  I've seen him with his band twice, and always laugh because he starts the show playing his acoustic guitar, and switches to electric when he's busted too many strings to play the acoustic any more.  He's got a great, dry sense of humor when playing live, and a twisted, dark sense of humor when writing songs.  The Mountain Goats KICK FUCKING ASS like ding[1]!

13.  Take Me down To The Hospital, The Replacements.  Speaking of lo-fi; this might better be credited to the Placemats, the whole Hootenanny album feels like a drunken toss-off.  Came before they started to realize they might actually be kind of good at that rock n roll thing.... There were some bad things said about this album in a recent thread at Sadly, No, but there are some great moments  here;  this song, Within Your Reach,  Treatment Bound.... Fortunate enough to see them three times, including one drunken placemats show that Chris Mars played  while dressed as a clown.



That's enough.  I want to watch cartoons now.  I SAID I WANT TO WATCH CARTOONS.