Category: music

This year on Top Gear, they’re doing a write-in survey of the best driving songs of all time. Since I love lists, and I love thinking about lists, I decided to give it a shot. This is the seriously jet-lagged malaria-pill-induced-hysteria list, so I reserve the right to look at this list in a couple days, call myself a tool, and redo it.\
Before I bust out the list, let’s review what makes a good driving song. First, I’ll tell you what it isn’t – a good coding song. They’re two different things. Coding songs put you in a zonked out place where you can code without getting outside yourself – it pulls you into yourself. A driving song heightens everything. It makes you do everything a little crisper: accelerate, turn, brake, check your mirrors, etc. It also doesn’t have to be about driving… Anyway, here’s the list in no particular order (and feel free to add your own):

• Busy Child – Crystal Method
• Born To Be Wild – Steppenwolf: Duh, come on… this is the original and still king of driving songs.
• Saturday Morning – Eels: Often blaring when Max and I go out to breakfast on Saturday mornings.
• Sledgehammer – Peter Gabriel: Actually, the whole second disc of Secret World could be in this spot, but I said songs, not albums, right?
• Back in Black – Living Colour: The AC/DC version will do in a pinch, but I love the Living Colour cover. It’s balls out, no kidding around, and Corey Glover just runs away with it (you know, actually singing instead of screaming).
• Cowgirl – Underworld: Pick your remix, doesn’t really matter. This song kicks so much ass, it needs a list of its own (you could probably easily do a top ten Cowgirl remixes).
• I See You Baby – Groove Armada: See Cowgirl, all the same things apply. The remix from Boom is especially good.
• Communication – INXS: Good piano riff, good guitar riff, and Michael Hutchence at his finest. Oh, and meaningless lyrics, which is a plus for any good driving song.
• The Mango Song – Phish: A bonus feature for driving songs is length… the longer, the better. Six and a half minutes is just about perfect, and this song nails it. It’s not the hardest song on this list, but it flows so well it’s just a sublime driving song.
• Short Skirt/Long Jacket – Cake: Cake could run over this list if I really thought about it (see malaria-pill-induced-hysteria). For driving albums, they could have the top two or three spots, easily. This song is my favorite. It has catchy lyrics, and a hook to die for. Oh, and rock trumpets kick balls, man (it’s like kicking ass, but it does it head on).\
  An honorable mention goes to Junior Senior for both Move Your Feet and Shake Your Coconuts (a song that needs more mash-ups, come on interweb!). I’m sure there are more, but it’s time for petit dejeuner (hooray, breakfast!).

Jim asked, so I figured I’d try to collect my favorite mash-up sites. For the uninitiated, mash-ups are, musically, a combination of two or more musical works into a new whole. Mostly done by DJ’s (or at least, the ones I’ve found), music editing technology has progressed to a point of simplicity (ie: Garageband) that the “normal human” can create mash-ups with some patience and willingness to learn.\
They’re dubiously legal at the moment, and the debate is ongoing as to whether mash-ups fall under the “fair use” provisions of copyright, or they’re really really infringing. Personally, I think they’re great. They’re a fun look at a known quantity. It’s amazing to see the combinations that people come up with, and some of them are pulled off with amazing skill.\
Enough explanation, here are my favorites:

• The Kleptones – One of my first experiences with mash-ups was their unreal combination of Queen and classic hip-hop: A Night At The Hiphopera. It’s seamless in all the right ways, and done an unbelievable job at combining two genres.
• dj BC Presents The Beastles – The Beatles vs. The Beastie Boys. Need I say more?
• The Party Party – Some of the most amazing voice remixing you’ll ever hear. They make W sing Sunday Bloody Sunday, and many more. Their efforts are kind of uneven, but when they succeed, they’re not only great musically, but hysterical. My faves are the song I mentioned above, Dick Is A Killer, Imagine, and My Name Is Rx
• Pheugoo – Mashes from all over the spectrum, with an emphasis on hip-hop/divas mixed with classic rock. Very good stuff.
• Mash-ups.co.uk – A lot of dance mashed up with trip hop (which you know makes me happy). Slow Angel (Kylie vs. Massive Attack) and Leave It Dirty (Christina Aguilera vs. Living Colour – so much greater than the sum of its parts) are highlights.
• ccc – Revolved – Mashes The Beatles’ Revolver with a lot of different stuff. Other than the less-than-awesome Eleanor Ciccone, the rest are excellent.
• CCMixter – Totally legal, provides a forum for folks to create and mash-up Creative Commons licensed music. Some really good stuff. And, if you don’t have it already, you can get the Wired/Creative Commons remix CD.\
  To get a lot of the whole albums, you’ll need to be proficient with BitTorrent, but that’s a subject for another post. I have to go get my Typhoid shot now.

Someone at work has some of the best mash-ups I’ve ever heard, and they have no idea where they came from. Google doesn’t know anything about them. I’m turning to you, dear interweb, to help me track down the creators of these little masterpieces. They are:

• Fatboy’s Love Shack – A fun mix of Funk Soul Brother and Love Shack.
• 3000 Gonna Rock You – We Will Rock You mixed with a bunch of stuff I don’t think I’ve heard before, but it’s awesome. Some fun acoustic guitar over Freddie’s vocals. Might be Black Eyed Peas, but I really don’t know.
• Twist & Sex Laws – Beck and the Beatles. This one’s not as good as the first two, but still solid.
• Hella Good Mash – No Doubt and some disco-y number. Good stuff.
• Elvis Conversation – No idea, but it’s awesome. A little Elvis, a little backbeat, some bass, some amazing sprinkle of something else. May be my favorite of the bunch.
• Feeling Satisfaction – Annie Lennox (the song with “take these wings and fly” in it), and Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. Sounds goofy, but it’s SWEET.
• It Wasn’t Me, Let It Be – Let It Be and some guy with a kind of high voice singing about a girl, a Jamaican rapper, and Lennon and McCartney. Yeah, baby.
• Are You Gonna Be My Dirrty -I don’t know why, but I can only stand Christina Aguilera when she’s been mashed up. Mixed up with a great guitar stunner that I can’t place, but I’m sure I’ve heard before.
• Hate To Say I Milkshake – I’m pretty sure that’s Boston in the background, but I can’t say which song. And, of course the “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” song that EVERYONE mashes, remixes and kanoodles with. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard the original.
• Get Your Music Runnin’ – Steppenwolf vs. Can’t Stop The Rock (or is it Don’t Stop The Rock?) vs. some other stuff I’ve never heard before. This one will blow your headphones off.\
  Please help, oh internet. These mash-ups deserve the respect of having them associated with their creator. They’re excellent.

Don’t do anything else. Go out and get this album right now. It’s amazing. It’s gorgeous. It’s better than anything he’s ever done before. It’s better than any Soul Coughing album (although individual Coughing songs are stellar, their albums were wholly uneven affairs). Every song on this album cooks with an intensity that was missing from most of Skittish and Rockity Roll. This album has some songs that match and exceed those stellar Coughing gems, and some that will stick in your head forever.\
Busting Up A Starbucks is angry, raw, bluesy and powerful. Mike reaches deep, and drops his voice to a growl. The driving drums propels each verse to the hypnotic and kick-ass chorus, where the Morphine-esque sax kicks in and whirls your head around.\
Tremendous Brunettes is a ton of fun. A beautiful piano line driving the song forward, with an unexpected, but perfect, guest appearance by Dave Mathews rounds out the fun. Yes, the song is as funny as the title would lead you to believe. It’s great fun. It sounds almost like a sea shanty, is as much fun, and will keep you singing along at the top of your lungs on the way home.\
His Truth Is Marching On is a better anthem than Move On (and I friggin’ love that song). This one is larger, a personal plea to a higher power for that connection that’s missing. The lyrics are rock solid, punching and will take you in. It’s good stuff.\
Thanks to Jodi Chromey for letting me know the album was out. Go get it. Go. Now. I mean it.

I’m not one to rush out and buy an album the day it comes out. There are a few folks I make exceptions for, and Ben Folds is one of them. His new album came out 4/26, and here I am on 4/27 reviewing it.\
It’s very good, better than The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner and not quite as good as Rockin’ The Suburbs. It doesn’t have the one kick-ass rocker on it like Suburbs does, but the songs are all good, with three or four great ones.\
Landed is my favorite song of the moment. It has the poignancy of Brick, but rocks a little bit harder in the chorus and bridges. It’s an amazing piece of work. It’ll rip your heart out while you’re tapping your foot.\
Give Judy My Notice is an homage to 70’s ballad rock that hits its target square in the face. This being Ben Folds, it’s better than any of its source material, and gets is some good lines even though it’s a breakup song that sounds oddly like a sitcom theme.\
Go out right now and get it. You won’t be sorry.

The Delgados’ Everybody Come Down makes me think of little kids running around, uncontrollable in their joy and energy. It builds tempo, has those great jangling guitars, and relentless beat. It reminds me of Max when he gets beaned up (or Tim).\
It also sounds a little like The Breeders Cannonball, but better and more fun.\
The rest of the album (Universal Audio) is great too. Very well put together pop rock, with some really punchy lyrics.

I think I need to start a new playlist for songs that make you feel like you’ve just snorted two eucalyptus cough drops. You know the ones… make you wake up, no matter what state you’re in. They make you tap your foot, bounce your head (either up and down or side to side), and feel that rush of blood through your body. You’re alive as soon as that song starts, and awake until the final power chord.\
My latest addition to that list is Saturday Morning from Eel’s Shootenanny!:

Saturday morning.\
Who’s going to play with me?\
Six in the morning, baby.\
I got a long day ahead o’ me\
…\
Nothing’s ever going to happen ’round here,\
unless we make it happen.\
Sleep away the day if you want to,\
But I got something I gotta do.

You will get up and shake it, whether you got it or not. To round out this particular list:

• Uh, Zoom Zip – Soul Coughing
• I See You Baby – Groove Armada (Fatboy Slim Mix) – There are a whole bunch of Groove Armada or Fatboy songs I could put in this list, but I won’t.
• Back in Black – Living Colour’s cover of the classic.
• Breathe (like an Aphex Twin) – The remix of Prodigy’s techno heinie-shaker, without the slightly annoying lyrics
• That Song from Kill Bill – You know the one, where Ren is walking down the hall with her posse. It’s too darn short, but boy, it’ll wake the dead.
• Super Bon Bon – Soul Coughing (again)
• Shake Your Coconuts – Junior Senior – I could have put Move Your Feet in here, but this song cracks me up every time I hear it (and I go into conniptions when Max sings along).
• No Sleep Till Brooklyn – Beastie Boys – Another conniption song. When Max was learning how to talk, he’d sing along with the chorus. There’s nothing funnier than a two year-old, at top volume, from the backseat: “NO SWEEP TILL BWOOKWYN!!!!”
• Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day – Morcheeba – Starts a little slow, but the porn-bass is really really catchy.
• Rockin’ the Suburbs – Ben Folds – Come on, how can you not hop up and shake your pale ass to this one? Another great conniption song. Max knows this whole album… “WOCKIN’ DA SUBURBS!!!”\
  Ok, enough of this fun. You can get all of these songs from from the Apple Music store if you’re too lazy to look ’em up. Really, you can.

Pain sucks. New music doesn’t. Here are some mini-reviews to keep you happy until the pain goes away and I can think up something worth posting:

• Eels: Shootenanny! – Wow. I love Souljacker, and this one doesn’t disappoint either. From the driving riff on All in a Day’s Work, to the racing jingle and humor of Dirty Girl, to the wonderful soaring strings and raw sentiment of Somebody Loves You, it’s all here. The album never disappoints, no matter how far afield it goes.
• Luna: Rendezvous – If you like them, you’ll like this album, there’s no doubt about it. If you’ve never listened to them, this is a good album to start with. The Own & the Pussycat has grown on me. It’s a wonderful twist on the nursery rhyme. Astronaut kicks some serious tail, and Buffalo Boots is one of the best road songs I’ve heard since Dire Straits.
• Massive Attack: Danny the Dog – This one snuck up on me. I usually try to keep up with them, and since their albums are usually years and years apart, I don’t miss one. How this one slipped by, I’ll never know. It’s a soundtrack, and it shows. I need to listen to it a few more times, but if you like the laid back, trippy version of the band (Blue Lines, Protection, Teardrop), this isn’t the album for you. It’s more industrial and electronic than 100th Window (which was more of both than Mezzanine – my all-time, hands-down, no-close-second favorite album), and has fewer vocals. But, it’s Massive Attack; how wrong can you go?\
  I’ve got some more to review, and will get to them eventually. There’s also a book review coming that I’m having a hard time writing (of a book I really wanted to like, but really really didn’t).

I have a new favorite song: Bonnie & Clyde from Luna‘s Penthouse. The “Wooo-hooo-hooo” bits just make me smile, the beat, violins and cooler-than-thou sultry French lyrics (about Bonnie & Clyde, and Jesse James being dead) are just heaven to my ears.

Luna is a recent discovery, and they’re just peachy. They’re jangly, punchy and poppy, without overdoing any of it. They strike the right balance (with few exceptions) between pop and moody alternative. The lyrics are fun without being overly introspective, and the beats are always toe-tapping. If you’ve never heard of them, go pick up Bewitched, Penthouse or Romantica. You won’t regret it.

And completely unrelated to anything, someone found my site today while searching for “dudepants”. What did they find? They found one of my all-time favorite posts: Captain KangerDude. I love finding stuff I’ve written that I’d totally forgotten about…