Coursing #20 -- recorded before a live studio audience
First, some thoughts from a couple Saturdays ago...
1. Why can't Saturday Night Live assemble a real musically-balanced soundstage? I realize there have been cutbacks, but they really can't handle mixing a real band for the television audience. Vocals seem to be buried and thin ever since the Ashlee Simpson incident ... if that's the way to prove that people are singing for themselves, then bring back the tapes, please.
2. During the Arcade Fire set that got me riled up originally, I was curious about the message on Win's guitar (before he shattered it at the end of "Intervention") -- "sak vide pa kanpe." Turns out it's a Haitian proverb, literally translated as "an empty sack cannot stand up." I know there are more nuances (as with any idiomatic expression), but the phrase does fit into all sorts of ideas about cores and peripheries, Potemkin villages, rotting from the inside out, appearance and reality ... perhaps not all that profound, but still a reasonable indictment of contemporary society ...
OK, now onto the main course -- yet another playlist from my infrequent visits to WPRB. This show, from February 22, 2007, was frustrating as I'd wanted to play lots of MP3s and yet my computer and the control board just weren't communicating well. I got a few across as intended, a few others in oddly phase-shifted versions, and then there were the tracks that got so mangled that I just had to bail out.
Additional comments:
- The new Long Blondes' EP is solid, but damn did they cop out at the end of "I'm Coping" ... instead of sticking with the dirty walking groove, it takes a massive turd-plop into an abandoned phrase from "Once and Never Again." Seriously, a simple fade out or even a gear shift would have been better than the way this song ends... and yet I will keep listening to it because that bass line is so sharp...
Listen to "I'm Coping"
- I like Lily Allen. Really. And "Smile" (this time in a special Mark Ronson remix) is far from the guiltiest pleasure aired during this excursion.
- Sky Larkin has begun the transformation into something special, as witnessed by "Molten," recorded live on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery a couple months back. Soaring and brittle and powerful all at once.
Listen to "Molten"
- I'll be revisiting "King G and the J Crew" another time... for the folks who went on to form Crain and Rodan and June of '44 (among other mid-90s Louisville stalwarts), that is one funky (and effed up) record.
- Regular visitors have already shared in the goodness of the Strange Idols, F-Models, and Velterelles -- others can catch up now.
Listen to the Strange Idols -- "It's No Fun"
Listen to the F-Models -- "It's Not Right"
Listen to The Velterelles -- "Shut Up The F***"
- And if you hurry on over to the Malt & Barley Chronicles, I've got some more drinking songs to share with you (as part of the aforementioned judging gig), including the Polkacide ditty.
| Artist | Song | Album | Label | Comments | New / Request / Comp |
| The Fall | Kimble | Kimble EP | Strange Fruit | ||
| Strange Idols | It's No Fun | 7" | self-released | Named for the Felt album... | N |
| King G and J Crew | Bass: The Final Frontier | Indestructible Songs of the Humpback Whale | Hell 'N Ready | Louisville an-gu-lar rawk stars | |
| Tullycraft | She's Got The Beat | The Singles | Darla | R | |
| The Good, The Bad, and the Queen | The Good, The Bad, and the Queen | The Good, The Bad and the Queen | Virgin | N | |
| Jacques Dutronc | Je Suis Content | mp3 | Fuzz bass goodness | ||
| The Long Blondes | I'm Coping | Giddy Stratospheres EP | Rough Trade | N | |
| The Long Blondes | All Bar One Girls | Giddy Stratospheres EP | Rough Trade | N | |
| Jermaine Stewart | We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off | 7" | Arista | Guiltiest guilty pleasure of all time. | |
| The Rock-A-Teens | I'm Your Puppet | self titled | Daemon | ||
| Lily Allen | Smile (Mark Ronson Puppet Remix) | Alright, Still | Capitol | ||
| This Kind of Punishment | An Open Denial | A Beard of Bees | Xpressway / Ajax | ||
| Camera Obscura | If Looks Could Kill | EP | Merge | N | |
| Josef K | It's Kinda Funny | The Only Fun In Town | Postcard | ||
| F-Models | It's Not Right | T.M.I. 015 | T.M.I. | The pride of Kent, OH | C |
| Thirst | Unknown | Riding The Times EP | Rough Trade | Former members of the Fall and Blue Orchids | |
| Kocani Orkestar | L'Orient Est Rouge | Electric Gypsyland 2 | Crammed | N, C | |
| The Velterelles | Shut Up The F*** | n/a | self-released | ||
| Polkacide | In Heaven There Is No Beer | Polkacide | Subterranean | ||
| Black Elk | Eyebone | Black Elk | Crucial Blast | whoa... brutal | N |
| Glen Campbell | Words | The Wichita Lineman | Capitol | Yes, an early Bee Gees cover | R |
| Sky Larkin | Molten | n/a | n/a | Recorded live on BBC 6Music | |
| Mick Harvey | Come On Spring | One Man's Treasure | Mute | Scientists cover | |
| Television Personalities | Girl on a Motorcycle | Chemical Imbalance 7" | Chemical Imbalance | Purchased it for the Pavement song, kept it for the TVPs | C |
| Pounding Serfs | Calling Colleen | Pounding Serfs | K | ||
| Joao Gilberto | O Pato | O Amor O Sorriso e A Flor | Deon | ||
| Spare Snare | Thorns | 7" | Prospective | ||
| Lavender Diamond | Rise In The Springtime | The Cavalry of Light | Matador | N | |
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