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Mixtape Single: April 30th, 2009

Call The Devil My Friend - Frank Bang’s Secret Stash

The devil must be flattered. Frank Bang has a record as long as your leg - in the Chicago blues scene, anyway. Formerly a member of Buddy Guy’s band, Frank now wails on his own turf with his own Secret Stash, serving up hot slabs of chicken-fried rock and roll just the way you like.

Call The Devil My Friend is a little different than the band’s typical Southern-style jam. It is a lumbering swamp giant, reaching way way backwater for one hell of a sound. Scorching guitar and crumbling vocals crown the driving, sinister heartbeat of the rhythm section, achingly slow and tombstone hard. The final sound falls somewhere between vintage Black Sabbath and modern Tom Waits. Hot damn, Frank. Hot damn indeed.

Tijuana Hercules - This Orchard Is Rotten

Captain, beef your heart out.

Any takers?

Some bands truly understand what it means to make a fine mess of things. Tijuana Hercules does nothing but. This live coal from their self-titled album is a testament to what snarling vocals, ragged rhythm, and scraggly guitar can do together. It seems like simplicity itself, shaken up together in a rusty tin can, but the truly twisted make it look easy.
   

Mixtape Single: April 29th, 2009

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Christine’s Tune

Also known as Devil in Disguise. This leads off FBB’s breakout record THE GILDED PALACE OF SIN, and that should tell you all you need to know. When the sweet marriage of country and rock and roll is good, baby it’s GOOD. These well-dressed outlaws paved the way for the Byrds, the Band, and a host of others we could hardly do without.

Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman trade off twanging lonesome verses, then join up for some brilliantly reedy harmonies on the chorus. As for lyrics, seldom if ever has being used hard by a bad woman been better said. Both Parsons and Hillman would touch the lives of other great musicians, though Parsons had a tragically short time to do it. But here, way back in ‘69, they still had a magic combination that may never be beaten.

Jim Croce - Mississippi Lady

A posthumous single, from a career as cruelly short as Gram Parsons. Fortunately it can be found on most Croce collections, not least the double-album THE FACES I’VE BEEN, put out two years after his death. When it came to honest, introspective folking around, Jim Croce was the master of getting right to the core of the human animal. With his odd singing voice and rocksteady acoustic guitar lines, he wove some of the finest poetry of his time.

Mississippi Lady is one of Croce’s most rock-styled tunes, with a dancing beat and (mild) electric rhythm guitar punching up the energy. It moves and shakes, slick with the imagery of seedy Gulf Coast travels. Uncomplicated, exuberant, like a fond memory of a one night stand. Not all of them can be.
   

Beloit College Chaus - April 30th, 2009


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Mixtape Single: April 28th, 2009

Bruce Springsteen - I’m Goin’ Down

When discussing the high point of Springsteen’s career, many are quick to cite THE RIVER or BORN TO RUN, but it is hard - damn near impossible - to beat BORN IN THE USA for consecutive smash hits. For that matter it may be history’s best primal scream album, meaning that playing it at high volume is like a cold shower, a shot of black coffee, and hard punch in the face all at once. Cures the blues and gets your game face on.

It’s definitely among the Boss’s most in-your-face albums, and this song in particular is about three walls of sound in one. Add to that a catchy melody, simple singable chorus (I’m goin’ down, down, down, down… and so on), and you got yourself an enduring favorite). Strings, keys, brass, everything goes at full force. It’s like an optimistic counterpart to Bobby Jean. And I’m not saying it’s all that happy either. The misery of classic American rock and roll never gets old.

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers- Letting You Go

An outstanding selection from an outstanding record, 1981’s HARD PROMISES. The Heartbreakers are bringing it the way their name spells it out, though with his melancholy pleading delivery, he sounds like the one having his heart broken. Even for fans of the band, this one doesn’t pop up so often.

Keyboard man Benmont Tench knows how to use keys, riding a smooth rock organ in contrast to the E Street Band’s punchy piano licks. He really fills out the band’s sound without overpowering — you Doors fans ever get the feeling that Ray Manzarek is trying to shove his riffs right up your butt? A different argument for a different day… Short version: This is a top-shelf love song fallen by the wayside. Sometimes it’s helpful to fall back on the basics.

Today’s post is dedicated fondly to the memory of Sam Hesse, the best Heartbreakers fan that ever was. We’re still having trouble letting you go.
   

Mixtape Single: April 27th, 2009

Coachwhips - Thee Alarm

San Francisco noisy answer to John Dwyers Providence, RI chaotic musical uprbringing. This song is great, and it couples the right amount of garage roughness with barely audible vocals and an ultra short runtime to compete with the great composers of our and past generations.

Hailed as the king of the San Francisco underground, Dwyer keeps in mind some of the greats of his past (Black Dice, Lightning Bolt, Arab on Radar, Forcefield) combining their chaos with the northwest art punk and garage sound.

The Jesus Lizard - And Then The Rain

This is a great and most underrated song off their last full release from 1998. Recorded in the post Albini stage, this album was characterized as a departure. Thanks to a few smashing numbers, regardless of the lineup changes, this album stands up with the rest, and hopefully is one the band is happy to call their own.

And Then The Rain is the track you would want them to hit hard with about eighth or ninth song into any good set, this song brings the energy, but not in terms of speed; instead it’s that slow powerful drive that The Jesus Lizard mastered and reinvented every time they played a new song. They’re playing a reunion show at Pitchfork this summer, and there are Chicago dates planned for November, stayed tuned.
   

Mixtape Single: April 26th, 2009

Alice Cooper - Under My Wheels

Opening track of 1971’s KILLER, later a single release that same year, Under My Wheels hearkens to Alice Cooper’s younger days, when a soon-to-be hard giant was just getting a skinny foot in the door, following the breakout smash LOVE IT TO DEATH. It’s a textbook lesson in old fashioned hard rock.

Those who remember Alice Cooper mostly as a visual spectacle would do well to listen to the band’s earlier efforts and remember the sound behind all the blood and mirrors. Guitars SCREAM. Frontman sneers. The beat kicks all asses to the back of the house. This is an old-fashioned foot-stomper with all the mischievous fun and power of being hit by a beer truck. Rock. And. Roll.

AC/DC - What’s Next To The Moon

Why this never became a live standard for AC/DC is a mystery. It belongs on any short list of their best work, in a career that’s still knocking fans senseless. The track comes from 1978’s POWERAGE, which is itself a lost chapter in rock and roll history. It was the last studio album before AC/DC rode a rocket to the top called HIGHWAY TO HELL, and the second to last before the big lineup change and further chartbusting with BACK IN BLACK.

The song is an anthem of grandiose mischief done by a down and out soul looking for love. The Young brothers show off their mastery of the two-guitar partnership. The chorus hooks are especially catchy, the power monumental, and is that… two-part harmony in the third verse? Holy hell. Given the huge transition the band was about to go through, it’s not terribly surprising that a whole album could get lost in the shuffle, but POWERAGE is loaded with killer music, with today’s selection sitting on top, and should not be missed by the discriminating collector.
   

Mixtape Single: April 25th, 2009

The Donnas - Little Boy

Between their Ramones-or-Runaways-type rise in the punk scene and their transition to hard rock, just a little too far on the pop side of the needle, the Donnas cranked out a simply charming record, appropriately titled THE DONNAS TURN 21. The band eventually lost something with such a big style change - their early albums are like a kick in the nuts from the first girl you loved and still remember fondly - but they are in rare form here. Their sound is a lot more polished but still true to the attitude. Songs about partying, beating up boys, and seducing your enemies never sounded so fine.

“Little Boy” is a sterling example of what we’re talking about. “Go and find some other girl to annoy/Don’t you know I can’t be treated like a toy/Cause that’s for me to do to you.” I mean, come on! It gets even more adorably cruel from there. The guitars are obnoxiously loud, the beat is persistently aggressive beat and the lyrics are cleverly impolite. Even though they have put out some worthy material in the following years, “21″ is a kind of farewell to a lost era for the band.

The Groovie Ghoulies - Bring Her Back

Look this band in the eye and tell them they’re not lovable. Unfortunately, as of recently they are no more. This mean little jumping bean comes to us from the 1996 album WORLD CONTACT DAY, and yeah, it’s just plain fun. This is the kind of thing they should still be playing at high school dances, assuming anyone ever did to begin with.

The Ghoulies were one of the most exuberant punk revival acts that ever came along, and “Bring Her Back” is some of the best evidence of how they used to tear it up. Particularly at a time when most of the world spent the mid-nineties hung up on that gloomy alternative trip pretending we were adults or something. If some of our recommendations have baffled, challenged, or depressed you in the past, take a couple like this and call back tomorrow. It’s strictly a “feel-good” pairing today, courtesy of your loving neighborhood band.

   

Mixtape Single: April 24th, 2009

Grinderman - When My Love Comes Down

It’s not every day an artist still doing well for himself starts a garage project on the side just for the hell of it. Particularly with a small section of his own main group. But listening to Grinderman, you can see that Nick Cave (and about half the Bad Seeds) have some artistic frustration to express, and plenty of fully formed musical ideas, which deserve an outlet but just don’t fit the larger band’s catalog.

Sitting at the opposite end of the album from their well-recognized singles, “When My Love Comes Down,” is a tenacious little stomper with questionable motives and a maddeningly catchy beat. Warren Ellis, the wild-eyed, wild-haired violinist and general engine of the bizarre, wields a strong creative hand here with ominous heavily distorted strings overlaying the raw driving rhythm. The song is a sort of downbeat litany, building gradually to a high pitch as the hook line repeats again and again. With this track and others like it, Grinderman can make you feel weird about love in all-new ways.

Lou Reed - This Magic Moment

A thoughtful and inventive cover can cast new light on a song you didn’t care much about to begin with. Lou Reed is in rare form on this cut from David Lynch’s LOST HIGHWAY soundtrack, reworking an oldie you will scarcely recognize.

A little context may help – this song accompanies one of the hottest love-at-first-sight sequences put to film. But on its own the music still has a rare quality completely alien to the moldy pop standard you probably recall (with all respect to Doc Pomus). As with most of Lou Reed’s best work, the song is more or less a duet with his steady but laid-back guitar. Bass and drums provide a mild dramatic build, but don’t intrude. All in all it’s more sex anthem than love song – simple, no frills, all the more attractive for not trying too hard. It’s a song that looks (sounds?) good naked.

   

Mixtape Single: April 23rd, 2009

Samhain - Archangel

This track came very close to being a song by the Misfits – indeed, most of an original version survives from 1981 - but was saved from the tortured end of that original incarnation by Danzig’s launch of Samhain. Though it never achieved the legacy of projects that came before or after it, this new band took a more thoughtful and experimental approach to horrifying listeners.

“Archangel” caps off INITIUM, Samhain’s 1984 debut, and in the years before his bluesy, testosterone-loaded solo efforts hit the scene, Danzig graces us with one of his most heartfelt works to date. The lyrics are imploring and desperate, and the beat behind it is solid rock and roll. Samhain comfrotably bridges the gap between what the Misfits were and would Danzig would later become, without once sounding like a side project. Their sound was versatile and volatile, but confident musical direction seems to have governed all the twists and turns. It’s a largely overlooked but crucial transition, that for the record stands very well on its own.

Gang of Four - Glass

Where punks and other cheeky young bastards sneer, Gang of Four broods. This is a scathing and creepy number off their celebrated LP ENTERTAINMENT! It’s a peculiar song, taking its aggression out a little more slowly but with no less energy than the others on the album.

One tactic of being a smart band is knowing when to take your time, and this track is in no hurry to resolve itself. Centered around an eerie melodica riff, the song builds to full force at a deliberate pace while the lyrics wax vivid about what’s on the television screen. And it’s no pretty picture. Take that, six o’clock news.

TIP OF THE DAY: for those of you in the habit of playing mostly A sides of records, take a week and only listen to flip sides. It’s a good way to discover things you might never have otherwise. It works for CDs, too. Just count halfway down.

   

Mixtape Single: April 22nd, 2009

Eddie and The Hotrods - Get Across To You

Looking for some straight-ahead rock and roll? Try this hot little number, leading off the band’s LP TEENAGE DEPRESSION. Simple, aggressive, saucy. That’s what it’s all about. For a morning eye-opener or the courage to kick in your sweetheart’s door late at night. A song for the weekend.

Eddie and the Hot Rods have the rare privilege of straddling pub rock and punk rock, and it’s really shameful how few people remember them for it. If you lined the rock and rollers up these blokes would probably stand right between Dr. Feelgood and the Damned. You will hear traces of each here, sounding quite comfortable and compatible together. A word of advice — if you dig this opening track, go ahead and spring for the whole record. You’ll probably be the first on your block and certainly the coolest.

Nine Below Zero - Eleven Plus Eleven

The truly cultured will remember this one from the pilot episode of the BBC series THE YOUNG ONES. In addition, it opens Nine Below Zero’s album THIRD DEGREE, a bewildering fusion of New Wave and blues. You haven’t heard everything strange about the 80s in Britain until you’ve heard it with high-octane harmonica riffs piled on top.

This song, among others, may support accusations that the band is more or less a poor man’s version of the Jam, but is that so bad? This track is well worth a listen, energetic and fun. Nine Below Zero set out to do something different, and definitely succeeded. The beat twangs out insistently, and the harmonica flat-out smokes. A passion for the blues shines through the heavy mod stylings, creating a nuanced sound you won’t hear just anywhere.

   

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