Get the mix here, and/or continue reading… (174MB)

In January, I posted a mix CD called The Bastard Love Child of Punk & Disco; First Singles: The 80s in the 70s, Vol 1. It was, as the title suggests, a collection of first singles put out in the 70s who later became more popular in the 80s. That mix contained 25 songs – all A-Sides. This mix is the flip side to every single one of them.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved B-Sides. They were almost always a bit left of center, strange and usually not available on the album. When I decided to make this three volume mix of singles, I figured that I just had to include the B-Sides.

Talking Heads kicked off the first mix and they kick this one off too. “New Feeling” was the b-side to “Love → Building on Fire” Both songs are strong and either could have been the single. In the case of Devo, the flip side to “Mongoloid” was “Jocko Homo” which later became much more famous. This version is the first and, in my opinion, the best.

There are some great songs here. Check out Tubeway Army’s “Oh! Didn’t I Say.” Brilliant stuff. Also, “Don’t Cry Baby” by The Polecats is a creepy, but really fun song. How about TV Personalities “Oxford ST”? And Peter Gabriel’s “Moribund the Burgermeister” – that one is really weird. You’ll like it. Oh! And Pere Ubu’s “Heart of Darkness” – it’s passionate and crazy. Wonderful stuff.

The Police, Japan and Madness all have some good stuff here. Madness, especially. Or maybe Japan, especially. Know what? The whole thing is good. It’s not like a bunch of second rate songs that weren’t good enough to be the release side. For many of the bands, the b-side was simply the other song they recorded.

Here’s the track list…

How about some sample songs?

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Tubeway Army – Oh! Didn’t I Say

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Devo – Jocko Homo

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Thompson Twins – Could Be Her … Could Be You

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Peter Gabriel – Moribund the Burgermeister

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Pere Ubu – Heart of Darkness

Ok, enough of all this. Go check it out!

Just click on the link and save the zip file to your desktop. Then open the zip file with WinZip (or whatever program you use to open zip files). Add to your MP3 library or burn it to a CD-R. Easy as pie!

Check out my other mixes right here…

Words? Who needs words when the music is this good? Here are 19 songs that would have been ruined by words.

It would have been easy to fill a CD with instrumental jazz or late 50s surf music. True, I’ve got Bud Shank (mid-50s jazz surf music before there was surf music), Link Wray and Dick Dale, but there’s so much more.

We start off with a band I heard in a used record store in Morgantown, West Virginia circa 1995, Hoven Droven. I immediately fell in love with their Iceburn meets Scandinavian folk music. Oven more obscure is Pink Floyd with an early B-side take on the not-yet-classic “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.” Speaking of B-sides, how about Simple Mind’s 7″ B-side “Theme for Great Cities.”

I didn’t want to only be obscure, of course. I wanted some classics. That’s where Link Wray and the Ventures come in. But also They Might Be Giants treat us to a fairly straight rendition of “Jessica” while Zappa goes a bit crazy with “Bolero.” Speaking of crazy, check out Scott Walker’s “Part 2.” Eno and Byrne’s song as well.

Dissent’s “Stress” was the last thing they ever recorded and it’s really a shame. They started out as a basic hardcore punk band and began to evolve into something much more complex. Rush is complex. If you’re cool, you’ll know the song. If you’re not so cool, you’ll recognize the song from the start of Primus’s Frizzle Fry LP. I was of the latter group.

When I was a kid and rap was just started to gain some attention, they’d play Herbie Hancock’s “Rock It” video as an example of what rap was (they’d also play Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”). Pretty lame, really.

And lastly, if I ever made a movie, I’d want the Dead Milkmen’s “Vince Lombardi Service Station” to play over the end credits. Let’s try to make that happen, ok?

1. Hoven Droven – Kjellingen
2. Link Wray – Jack the Ripper
3. They Might Be Giants – Jessica
4. Scott Walker – Part 2
5. Dissent – Stress
6. Pink Floyd – Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up
7. Bud Shank – Going My Wave
8. Mogwai – May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door
9. Dick Dale – Miserlou
10. Frank Zappa – Bolero
11. Weird Al – Fun Zone
12. Simple Minds – Theme For Great Cities
13. Herbie Hancock – Rock It
14. Camper Van Beethoven – Interstellar Overdrive
15. Brian Eno and David Byrne – Two Against Three
16. Ventures – Walk Don’t Run
17. Anthrax – Across The River
18. Rush – YYZ
19. Dead Milkmen – Vince Lombardi Service Center

The cover is a b&w of a photo I took in 2004 of friends Ashley and Nikki on a beach in California. I think it was when we went to Bodega Bay. That’s where Hitchcock filmed The Birds. Interesting, no? The back cover is (obviously) just a little remix of the reversion.

This year, the mixes will mostly feature reversions of photos that I took. I have all these pics, so why not?

So here you go. February’s mix is a mix full of instrumentals. I hope you enjoy such things. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Just click on the link and save the zip file to your desktop. Then open the zip file with WinZip (or whatever program you use to open zip files). Add to your MP3 library or burn it to a CD-R. Easy as pie!

Here are some samples…

Hoven Droven – Kjellingen

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Frank Zappa – Bolero

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Camper Van Beethoven – Interstellar Overdrive

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The Ventures – Walk Don’t Run

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I would like to do more mixes like the road trip mix I did last summer. To refresh your memories, that mix CD was more like a mix tape than anything. It had two tracks, side one and side two, each “side” having ten or so songs on it. The songs were accompanied by little sound bites from educational shorts, noises from cars and general strangeness.

Doing that mix was really enjoyable and I’d like to do it again. I’d probably continue where I left off, making a sort of sequel to the road trip mix.

I’m not really sure how many people actually listened to the first one though. Most folks who are used to CDs or playlists wouldn’t really jump at the opportunity of being “forced” to listen to 40 minutes of continuous music with songs you can’t skip over.

If you haven’t listened to the mix, I’d like you to. You can download it here. Musically, it’s got something for almost everybody. But, like I said, the format (for some) leaves a lot to be desired.

But those who remember making mix tapes will get it.

How you can help is by letting me know what you think of the format and if you think it’s even worth doing another one like it.

So go go go go and download Hot Sun Beating on a Blacktop. You can listen to it on your computer or burn it to a CD. Go ahead.

And while you’re at it, why not check out my other mixes…

Get the mix here, and/or continue reading… (174MB)

In music, and pop culture in general, decades don’t really mean what we think they mean. For example, most of what we call 60s music lasted well into the 70s. Punk rock, generally thought of as 70s music, didn’t really start until 1976 and died out quickly, by ‘78 (take THAT!). Disco started a bit earlier than that and died out a few years into the 80s.

What we think of as 80s music, oddly enough, started along side punk and disco, the same two genres that much other 80s music was derived from.

That’s how trends in music work. Some things will start on their own and then sometimes, those very same things are influenced by whatever else is going on.

Anyway, my point with all of this is that 80s music started in the 70s. And while the title: The Bastard Love Child of Punk & Disco, is true enough, it’s not nearly the whole story.

As you’ll see over the next year and six volumes of proof, 80s music is very much 70s music. Artists like Simple Minds, Midnight Oil, Devo, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, XTC, The Police, Thompson Twins, Human League and many others not only got their start in the 70s, but by the end of ‘79 had released their first single (and in many cases, several albums).

This six volume mix consists totally of first singles (and their b-sides) of bands that had their biggest success in the 80s. All of these songs were released in the 70s. This first volume is 25 of those singles. The next volume will be the 25 b-sides to those singles. And that’s how it will work.

Every other month for the year 2010, I’ll put up one of these mixes. In between those will be other mixes.

As for Bastard Love Child, Vol 1, we’ll start with Talking Heads, go through Devo, Thompson Twins and The Police, winding up with Blondie and The Pretenders. Most will recognize some of the bands by name, but the early sound of some of this music will be basically unheard of.

The Police, for example, sound like a speedy post-punk band, Gary Nueman (Tubeway Army) is heavy on the guitars and missing the synth, a style that was more than reversed a few years later. XTC wasn’t yet the esoteric chamber music they later became, but a fuzz box punk act.

That’s just how it went. As time went by, the bands changed – people changed. But for the next year, you’ll hear these bands, commonly thought of as “80s music” in the early years of their development – the 1970s.

Here are some samples…

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Tubeway Army – That’s Too Bad

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XTC – Science Friction

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Thompson Twins – Squares and Triangles

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The Police – Fall Out

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The Pretenders – Stop Your Sobbing

Get it here! (174 MB)

I’m using a file hosting service called Megaupload. If you have any problems with it, just let me know. It’s easy! Just click the link, put in the little “captcha code,” hit enter and then choose “regular download,” ignore the ads (sorry) and download it to your desktop.

It’s a zip file, so everyone in the universe should be able to open it.

Check out my other mixes here.

Last night I watched Pink Floyd The Wall for the first time in years. I honestly don’t remember the last time I really sat down with it. Probably high school. I remember showing it to my cousin, Josh, who really didn’t get it. I’m sure I didn’t really get it either, but it was weird and I liked it because I liked weird things (same year as my Eraserhead kick).

That’s what’s neat about being young and a little off. When you’re that age and you like weird movies or strange music, people think you’re deep and intelligent. But really, you’re just a weird little kid who likes weird stuff. That was me.

So when I started to watch The Wall last night, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The music holds up, of course, but what about the weirdness? Some things don’t age well. Take Chris Elliot, for example. When I was a kid, I loved his show, Get a Life, but seeing it later on, I couldn’t even make it halfway through an episode.

As it turns out, The Wall was much more powerful seeing it as an adult than as a kid. Maybe over the years I’ve been desensitized, but I didn’t find it particularly weird. This time around, I saw the “weirdness” as a medium for telling a very sad story of loss and alienation.

My childhood, like Pink’s, was mostly a good one. But I had no idea what the future held for me. In the movie, Pink was a little weird, just like me. He felt alienated and alone, just like I did (just like every teenager does). Would those voices in our heads continue after high school, into adult life? Would I end up building a wall around me with the bricks of my own oddities, fears and ignorance? I had no idea then. Maybe I’d end up crazy, just like Pink.

Of course, I really didn’t end up crazy and I never built that wall around me. But I could have. Somewhere, I made the decision not to. I think we all come to that crossroads at some point in our lives. We could become isolationists, locking ourselves behind our walls, or become somewhat normal people.

It was nice to see The Wall transforming, for me, from a weird movie I watched as a kid to a powerful and meaningful experience. One of the scenes that really effected me was right after Pink shaved off his eyebrows and opened the bathroom door. Another was at the end, when Pink yells “STOP!” Both scenes really shook me. Others did as well, enough so that the whole movie became something more to me.

I’m not going to give you some big analysis or even tell you the story. See it if you want, but if you do, really try to watch it. It’s not a difficult movie to get, really. Yes, it relies on some major sensory overload to get its point across. This is a complaint of many (including Roger Waters). For some, that makes it hard to become a part of the movie. I can definitely understand that. But for me, it worked. Maybe it’ll work for you too.

Oddly, some things that I liked as a kid, didn’t work for me now. The animation, for example, seemed out of place. Of course, the animation is one of the most famous and important parts of the whole Wall concept. As part of the concept, it works. With the album and the live show, it worked just as it was supposed to. But in the movie, I’m not sure that it did.

The best time to see Pink Floyd The Wall is probably around 9th grade. You won’t get it and that won’t matter. It’s just weird and that’s all you need. Apparently, the best time to watch it again is in your early 30s.

Merry merry, dear ones!

Click here to get the whole mix.

And/or you can read a bit about it.

As per tradition, the Christmas Mix CD is now also available as a download!

So let’s just hop right into it and tell you the songs. The songs are arranged in the order of their acceptance into the Union. Delaware is first, Pennsylvania is second, Wisconsin is thirtieth.

Disc One
1) Drop Nineteens – Delaware
2) Polkacide – Pennsylvania Polka
3) Red House Painters – New Jersey
4) Clayton McMichen – Georgia Wildcat Breakdown
5) Impossibles – Connecticut
6) Arlo Guthrie – Massachusetts
7) Mountain Goats – Going to Maryland
8) Charlie Johnson – The Charleston
9) Matt Pond PA – New Hampshire
10) Ed’s Redeeming Qualities – Virginia
11) Valparaiso Men’s Chorus – New York Girls
12) The Devil Makes Three – North Carolina
13) The Softees – Holiday in Rhode Island
14) Billie Holiday – Moonlight in Vermont
15) Sparks – Moon Over Kentucky
16) Arrested Development – Tennessee
17) Johnny Cash – Banks of the Ohio
18) Hank Williams – Jambalaya (Louisiana)
19) The Jackson Five – Goin Back to Indiana
20) The Proclaimers – Sean (Mississippi)
21) The Handsome Family – Giant of Illinois
22) Jerry Reed – Alabama Wild Man
23) Rudy Vallee – The Maine Stein Song
24) Ted Herold – Das Haus Am Missourik

Disc Two
25) Jerry Garcia – Arkansas Traveler
26) Judy Garland – I Wan to Go Back to Michigan
27) Butthole Surfers – Moving to Florida
28) Guy Clark – Texas 1947
29) Polvo – Snowstorm in Iowa
30) The Dead Milkmen – I’m Living in Wisconsin
31) Paddlefoot – Shelf Life (California)
32) Weird Al – Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota
33) Loretta Lynn – Portland, Oregon
34) Jelly Roll Morton – Kansas City Stomp
35) Spike Jones – I Wanna Go Back to West Virginia
36) Billy Joel – Stop in Nevada
37) Groucho Marx – There’s a Place Called Omaha, Nebraska
38) Johnny Paycheck – Colorado Kool-Aid
39) Six Cents and Natalie – Christine, North Dakota
40) Andre Williams – The Only Black Man in South Dakota
41) Frank Zappa – Montana
42) Young Fresh Fellows – Aurora Bridge (Washington)
43) Yonder Mountain String Band – Idaho
44) Roy Rogers – Oh Why Oh Why Did I Ever Leave Wyoming?
45) Camper Van Beethoven – The History of Utah
46) Bob Wills – Good Ole Oklahoma
47) Texas Tornadoes – Guacamole (New Mexico)
48) The Sugarplastic – Arizona

+ Two bonus songs!

Here are some samples…

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New Jersey

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Virginia!

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New York!!

For the liner notes, I decided to say something about each song and something about each state. It’s much too long to put here as text. So here’s a scan of it (somehow I deleted the work and print files for this one… ugh. I do this a lot).

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Illinois

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Wisconsin

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West Virginia

Go ahead, click it and read through it. It’s fun, I assure you.

Click here to download the whole thing in one big zip file.

This will take you to a site called MegaUpload where you will enter a little “captcha” code and click “download file.” There are also some ads. If you had the AdBlocker plugin for Firefox, you would not see them.

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North Dakota

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Wyoming

Also remember, in 2010 I’ll be doing a downloadable mix CD once every month. That’ll give you 12 mixes next year!

Click here to go to the rest of my mixes.

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Missouri?

As a few of my more recent posts will reveal, I’ve come down with a bad case of wanderlust. As far as I can tell, there’s no cure for this ailment, once you’ve got it, there’s no getting rid of it. The only recourse is treatment, which is wandering.

You’d think that traveling would cure this problem, but when wandering from place to place, the wanderlust is still not satisfied. In fact, the more you wander, the more you need to wander.

Of course, the opposite isn’t true, either. If you think that once bitten by this bug you can simply settle down and it’ll just go away, you don’t understand the drive of someone who needs to travel, needs to be on the open road logging mile after mile of endless beauty.

There is no destination for the wanderer, just as there can be no real home. The journey does not end in some far off town, just as it doesn’t begin where he last laid his hat and kicked off his shoes. For this rambler, life is one long, wonderful journey.

So often before, I’ve told you to travel and see the world. Now, however, I’m telling you to not travel, because if you do, you might catch this bug and never want to settle down. This is true, if you catch it, you won’t be able to settle down. Even if you get yourself a fine job with good pay and benefits, a nice house with a yard, you’ll soon feel that tugging, that itch and the temptation to scratch it will be too strong to resist.

And one scratch, one short stretch of two-lane will lead to another and then another and soon you’ll be crossing state lines and you’ll have no recollection of where you started, let alone where it’ll end.

You know… that reminds me of a song by my good friend, Roy Acuff, called “Railroad Boomer.” Why don’t you take it from here, Roy?

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Railroad Boomer by Roy Acuff

Come and gather all around me,
Listen to my tale of woe.
Got some good advice to give you,
A lot of things you ought to know.
Take a tip from one who’s traveled:
Never start to ramblin’ ‘round.
You might get the wand’ring fever
And never want to settle down.
And never want to settle down.

I met a little gal in Frisco,
I asked her if she’d be my wife.
I told her I was tired of roaming,
That I’d settle down for life.
Then I heard a whistle blowing;
I knew it was the Westport train.
I left her standing by the railroad.
I never saw that gal again.
I never saw that gal again.

I’ve traveled all over this country,
Guess I’ve traveled everywhere.
I’ve been an every branch and railroad
And never paid a nickel fare.
I’ve been from Maine to California,
Canada to Mexico.
I never tried to save no money:
I’ve got no place to go.
Got no place to go.

Now listen to a boomer’s story,
And don’t forget the things I say.
I hear another train a-coming,
And I’ll soon be on my way.
If you want to do me a favor:
When they lay me down to die,
Dig my grave beside the railroad
So I can hear the train go by.
So I can hear the trains go by.

So you folks take warning, stay at home, ok? There’s nothing to see out here, just turn on the Travel Channel and that should take care of you just fine.