Songs and Albums You Gotta Hear
This is really our "Holy Mix Tape" archive, but I'm getting a little anal, so just scan and commit to memory, brethren....
Getting Through the Aftermath 
These have been some dark days, folks. Certain songs have been getting me through 'em--some blasting from the Church speakers, some on a loop in my head. Some are cutting me off from the easy escape of denial, some are carving out a peaceful space to reside in a least for a few moments. If you have some to share, mail 'em to me at sloopage@hotmail.com.
The Reverend Coomers:
1. Bob Dylan: Love and Theft
2. Dock Boggs: "Sugar Baby"
3. John Coltrane: "Alabama"
4. Steely Dan: "Any World That I'm Welcome To (Is Better Than the One I Come From)"
5. Sam Cooke: "A Change Gonna Come"
6. The Killer Shrews: "It's Happening Again"
7. Elvis Costello: "Peace in Our Time"
8. The Beatles: "Help!"
9. Ornette Coleman: "Peace"
10. David Murray: "The Desegregation Of Our Children" (live)
11. Bob Marley: "Redemption Song"
12. Minutemen/Creedence Clearwater Revival: "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?"
13. Husker Du: "Turn on the News"
14. The Pogues: "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn"
15. Stanley Brothers: "Rank Strangers"
16. Albert Ayler: "Ghosts"
17. James Carter: "Trouble in the World"
18. Richard Hell & the Voidoids: "Who Says?"
19. Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys: "San Antonio Rose"
20. Shane MacGowan: "The Snake"
21. Billy Bragg & Wilco/Woody Guthrie: "All You Fascists"
22. Johnny Thunders: So Alone
23. Bascom Lamar Lunsford: "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground"
24. Blind Willie Johnson: "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"
25. Sex Pistols: "Holidays in the Sun"
26. X-Ray Spex: "Let's Submerge"
27. Elvis Presley: "Blue Suede Shoes" ('68 Comeback Special version)
28. Louis Armstrong: "Stardust"
29. Merle Haggard: Same Train, Different Time
30. Lefty Frizzell: Look What Thoughts Will Do
31. Culture: "I'm Alone in the Wilderness"
32. Sly & the Family Stone: "Time"
33. John Coltrane: A Love Supreme
34. The Clash: "Hate and War"
35. Unitas: "Who Are 'They'?"
The first rec I could listen to after the tragedy (3 weeks later) was A Love Supreme. That and "Impressions." Music without words seemed most appropriate when I couldn't find words to express what I was feeling, and Coltrane has always been a good balm for grief and loss. Since then, it's been Luna Live, The Modern Lovers, and 1969 Velvet Underground Live.That and demo tapes of my new band...focusing on DOING THE WORK has helped a lot.
Jesse Cravens:
"Frustration" (Instrumental Version) - The Mirrors
"The Spirit of the Age" - Hawkwind
"Something in 4/4 Time" - Daryl Hall
"Angels" - Albert Ayler
"Baby Strange" - T. Rex
"The Heart You're Trying So Hard to Break" - The Appalachian Spring Rolls
"Brazil" - Tito Puente
"I'm In Love with My Walls" - Lester Bangs & the Delinquents
"On the Losing End" - Neil Young
New Morning - Bob Dylan
The Knee Plays - David Byrne
This is Our Music - Ornette Coleman
Fear - John Cale
Cheetah Chrome:
*Tex and the Horseheads
*Ian Hunter: Rant
*Rocket from the Tombs
*Dimitri Monroe's Demos
*Doing overdubs on music of my own,mixing down .
*The ever-present Sensational Alex Harvey Band
*Tried to listen to We Have Come for Your Children,but it brought me no peace or comfort.
*MC5: High Time
Jason Cafer, uber-DJ, KCOU 88.1 FM, Columbia, MO
White Stripes - all 3 albums
Ryan Adams - Gold
Love As Laughter - Sea to Shining Sea
Oneida - Anthem of the Moon
Lupine Howl - The Carnivorous Lunar Activities of Lupine Howl
AIR - 10,000 Hz Legend
Son Ambulance - Euphemystic
The Strokes
Ricky Rat, fab guitslinger, Trash Brats
I guess music-wise for me in these down days, its no surprize to me that I am listening to a lot "up" music, and trying to stay away from tunes with dark, doomed themes...enough of that going on everywhere right now as it is, huh?
So in reponse to what has been guiding me through in these gloomy hours, lotsa of old Abba and Bay City Rollers lps, two of my all-time fave pop bands. In particular, Arrival (Abba) and Dedication (Bay City Rollers), the whole lps over and over again!
Frank Posenke, Master of Creative Living, Seattle
(1,2,3,4) uke sheet music for: "spanish melody", "i'll see you in my
dreams", "i'm always chasing rainbows", "don't let yer deal go down"
(5,6,7,8) king louie - "staink foot boogie", "walkin' in the fire",
"walkin' to the light", "jesus loves my one man band"
6. pink floyd - "comfortably numb"
(7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23) willie nelson - "back
tracks"CD
24.lowe stokes - "5 cent cotton"
25.jim beloff -"dog park"
26.uk subs - "i live in a car"
27.hollywood squares - "(i'm a)hollywood square"
28.i spit on your gravy - "my pirahna"
29.AMQA - "cats 'r' neat"
30.coasters - "li'l egypt"
Rick Rose Rude, The Ocala Rock and Roll Flash, currently storming Gainesville
I haven't been listening to anything in particular but most of what I've been listening to has been kinda non-heavy stuff. Lots of 70's glam rock & power pop & more of the carefree punk rock & newer bands from the underground. I suppose if I did need guidance through this I may reach for Big Star's "The Ballad Of El Goodo" or the Stones' "Gimme Shelter". Hell, I know you'll shoot me for this but maybe Oasis' "Live Forever". There could be countless things, but mostly my friends are getting me though this & I'm getting them through it. We've just been going on with day to day life, as fucked up as that may sound. That's always been my spirit. Keep at what you're doing and don't let things get you down. When you do, those who are trying to get you down have one. I'm a winner, so I don't get down. It's a waste of time. You just have to pick yourself back up again. I know this is church, but enough preaching. I'll share a story with you about the day this all happened...
I awoke on 09/11 to my roommate David (at least this is what I THOUGHT he said, in my half-asleep/still half-drunk from the night before stupor) "The martians are here! The World Trade Center is gone! They took it out! The martians are here! They've landed! They're destroying ..." then he went into his fiancee Jessie's room & I hear her turn on her TV & go "Oh my God!" I thought "They're trying to fuck with me." Dave came to my door again & insisted that the Towers really were gone but I heard nothing this time about martians. I went downstairs thinking, "This can't be anything too big." I couldn't believe what I saw. So there I sat, all day, in yesterday's clothes, no shower, all stinky & smelly & unkempt. David was clueless as to what made me think he said "martians," though. Jason & Kasey showed up & they watched in unbelief as well. Then the door bell rang & David goes to answer it. I hear a voice go, "Is my sister here?" I knew at that precise moment that it was Kelly, Kasey's equally beautiful sister who I've heard so much about & have been dying to meet for months. Yes, there she was & I looked like a homeless bum. I ran upstairs to take a shower, but even after that... how do you come on to a girl when thousands of people are dying, familes are being destroyed, devastation is everywhere & no one really knows what the fuck is going on or how to react to it. Hell, I felt guilty for getting drunk that day. I felt guilty for wanting to change the channel or wanting to do anything but stare at the TV all day & hope I could wake up from this insanity or discover it's some really cruel joke or maybe just a movie. Nothing seemed right that day & over a month later, things still don't seem right.
Oh yeah, Kelly left after about an hour so she could go to work & I haven't seen her since. Now, I want Bin Laden's head on a silver platter. No, I want his balls ripped off by vicious pitt bulls & I want him to be forced to watch them eat them as well. I want his penis dipped in honey & gnawed off by fire ants. I want him sodomized by an elephant. Then let the families of the innocent people he had a hand in murdering do what they see fit with the rest of him. Not only because he hurt them & took innocent lives, but also because if not for this fucking bigot bigamist asshole, maybe I could have hooked up with Kelly that day. So, fuck you, Bin Laden. If I see you, I'll kick your ass personally.
Jeff Bale, Editor, Hitlist
As an academic specialist on international terrorism and political extremism, I've been spending lots of time watching news channels and reading up on radical Islamism. (I studied Middle Eastern and Central Asian history for four years at the University of Michigan, and also studied the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish languages.) But despite my roiled emotions, I haven't really been listening to anything out of the ordinary lately - just the usual 60's punk, 77 punk, power pop, garage, beat, and psych stuff.
Samantha Harrison, 8th grader, Columbia, MO
Since the 11th, I haven't listened to anything in particular. I've heard all of the songs dedicated to all of the victims that artists either meant or did to get more publicity and suck up, but I'm really not interested in them. It's not that I don't care about the events that took place on that day, because in my opinion I think the younger generation kind of grew up a lot in that period of time. I myself used to think I was anarchist, and I didn't really care about our country... but after what happened that day, I've realized what America really stands for and how important goverment really is. It's really not as if I don't care, but I'm not going to get depressed and mourn over sad songs and worry, either. I think we should move on with our lives and think positively. So to sum it up, I've listened to the same things I always have:
"The Perfect Drug" - Nine Inch Nails
"Clint Eastwood" - Gorillaz
"You Wanted More" - Tonic
"Undone" - Weezer
"Sober" - Tool
"Possum Kingdom" - The Toadies
"Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zepplin
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
"Wish You Were Here" - Incubus
"Soul Shakedown" - Bob Marley
The One-Word Web Review Guy
Not really a list, but the first music I listened to, 2 days after Sep 11, was what was still on my CD player from the night before the massacre: call me stupid and insensate, but I never realized what a solemn, angry song Deep Purple's "Fools," from Fireball, was (as opposed to just thrilling and rockish), until I listened to it in such a solemn, angry mood.
Other than that, I had recently purchased Curtis Mayfield's Live (from 1971), and that has been in constant rotation in the last 3 weeks. Highlights are the cover of The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," which has opened up entirely new, unimaginable vistas of record-purchasing scenarios to me (I am too young to "know" The Carpenters' music firsthand, but have always heard it scoffed at [probably quite rightly]); Mayfield's new-for-the-live-album song "I Plan to Stay a Believer," which has an almost Band-ish vibe to it; "Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey)"; and "The Makings of You," in its small-band, almost hasty-sounding glory. (Is it just me, or does anyone get the feeling that Phil Lynott was mainlining Curtis Mayfield's first solo album [Curtis] when he was writing and recording Thin Lizzy's first, self-titled album?) The key to the album is that Mayfield recorded it with a small, journeyman band (he doesn't even have their names down when he introduces them to the audience) instead of layering backup singers and strings all over the place. One of the best live albums I've ever heard, from any genre.
I ordered Nuggets 2 after Sep 11, and just got it a few days ago. Any review of this 4-CD set would be premature now, but songs that stand out include The Misunderstood's wild-ass, really dangerous-sounding "Children of the Sun," The Tages' "I Read You Like an Open Book" (with a spectacular Beach Boys-style break), The Birds' "No Good Without You" (Marvin Gaye cover), and "Save My Soul" by Wimple Witch.
If there's one song I could think of that I've heard since Sep 11 that has a personal meaning in relation to the "event," it would be Black Sabbath's "Hole in the Sky," simply because it's a hole I see every morning when I walk to work along Hoboken, New Jersey's waterfront and look out to where the Twin Towers used to be. The song is not giving me peace or purging any anger. It's just "there," and I'm glad.
Dr. Filth, Whizz Records, Asheville, Carolina
UNSANITARY SANITY
1. Bob Dylan - Love and Theft - "Some things are too terrible to be true." That's one side of it. "I won't come here no more if it bothers you". That's the flip.
2. Love - Forever Changes - As far as I'm concerned "A House Is Not a Hotel" was written for September 11 -- the rage and confusion and hurt in that song, climaxing with the double guitar assault and the screams, is the way I know I felt watching those planes fly into those tall tall buildings again and again and again. "The Red Telephone" seems like a vision of seeing the tragedy from a skyscraper in New York and builds to a terrifying, enigmatically appropriate climax. "We're all normal and we want our freedom." And that line in "Live and Let Live" about "Write the rules in the sky and ask your leaders why" is my personal credo at the moment for trying to keep a balanced perspective. If you don't have this record or are not listening to this record at this moment in time do it. It will make you feel better.
3. The Left Reverend Eugene McDaniels - "The Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse" -
"Jews and the Arabs/Racial pawns in the master game/the player who controls the board sees them all as the same - basically cannon fodder."
4. The Lost Sounds - Articulating the confusion and frustration and fear of the situation in a lovely, barely coherent manner. Memphis goth garage and thank god.
5. She Bang - "Black Road" - "Well your words/said it all/how our love was bound to fall. Look away from that black road. Look away. All our money's down the drain/There's an aching in my brain. Look away from that black road. Look away."
6. The Beatles -- "Dear Prudence" -- prudence \Pru"dence\, n. The quality or state of being prudent; wisdom in the way of caution and provision; discretion; carefulness; hence, also, economy; frugality.
Dear Prudence is best heard in the Brit-only mono mix -- the climax is one of the most beautiful of all moments of Beatle music when it comes out of one speaker. A prayer for guidance and wisdom.
7. Bob Darin - "Harvest" and "Light Blue" - From the Commitment LP - when Bob dropped his "by" byline and mourned the death of Bobby Kennedy and his own political career by protesting everything around him with stunning, gorgeous funk-folk rock . These two tunes are stunningly apocalyptic and "Harvest" in particular is about roosting chickens. "Light Blue" is about fear.
8. Hank Williams - "Wait for the Light to Shine"
9. Starkweathers - BURN THE FLAG
10. Jimmie Rodgers - EVERYTHING, but for some reason "Home Call" and 'Travellin' Blues" are the ones that really bliss me out.
11. Dream Syndicate - "Days of Wine and Roses" - "The word from outside is she's on the ledge again/drawing a crowd and threatening everything/I'm here wondering just where I fit in."
12. MC5 - "Looking at You"
13. John Coltrane - Ascension - Interesting how there's free jazz on lots of these lists.
14. Thee Headcoats - "Troubled Times"
15. Tom Jones - "Worried Man" - an awesome, optimistic version of this song.
16. The Strokes - "New York City Cops" - American release scrapped on CD for two weeks so they could pull this off - insensitive, you know. It just says they ain't too smart -- doesn't say they're not brave. They're not any smarter now that they're dead.
17. the monks - "Complication"
18. Persian Gulf - "I'm So Glad I'm Living in the Free World"
19. Blue Oyster Cult - "Burnin' for You" - Meltzer's rock masterpiece. Don't ask me why.
20. The Rolling Stones - "HIGHWIRE" - Written to cash in on the Gulf War - it vanished off the map because it was released the day that truncated conflict, so essential to the situation we're in right now, ended. Now more appropriate than ever. People should call up classic rock stations and request this strange, rocking studio track off of Flashpoint - it can get on the air because who remembers what it really is? A great strike against the restrictive guidlines apparently laid down by Clear Air's list of unsuitable classic rock. "We walk the high wire/sending men to the front lines/Hoping that we backed the right side/with hot guns/and cold knives."
usually when down or pissed i wanna listen to stuff that's down or pissed or at least SOUNDS that way. here's what's hit the hifi lately...new electric frankenstein, astral weeks, new dylan, new gillian welch (not my normal cup of tea but has a certain FEEL to it that i ain't heard in awhile), the pattern, michelle gun elephant (actually hasn't left since rev coom turned me on), new squeeze best of (i forgot how GREAT some of their stuff was!) and the X reissues. have actually found myself on-line and in front of the tv more than before too. THE best thing i've heard in the last 3 weeks...neil young's take on "imagine" from the telethon. the immediate "OH NO, WHO'S DOING THIS?" went straight to "HELL YEAH" with a camera zoom.
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Garage Heaven
Since brevity is the soul of rock and roll, I allotted myself only a 60-minute tape for the following comp, which is sure to stir up some argumentation from Garage Nation (they're a feisty lot). Don't just sit and stew--send me your own mix list, punko!
1. "Good Times"--Beasts of Bourbon/Nobody's Children
2. "Complication"--The Monks
3. "Pushin' Too Hard"--The Seeds
4. "96 Tears"--Question Mark and the Mysterians
5. "Strychnine"--The Sonics
6. "Five Years Ahead of My Time"--The Third Bardo
7. "Don't Tread On Me"--The Nomads
8. "Double Yellow Line"--The Music Machine
9. "What a Way To Die!"--The Pleasure Seekers
10. "You're Gonna Miss Me"--13th Floor Elevators
11. "The Little Black Egg"--The Nightcrawlers
12. "7 and 7 Is"--Love
13. "Slave Girl"--Lime Spiders
14. "I'm Not Like Everybody Else"--The Kinks
15. "Primitive"--The Groupies
16. "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White"--The Standells
17. "In Motion"--The Lyres
18. "Moulty (Don't Turn Away")--The Barbarians
19. "The Witch"--The Sonics
20. "I'm Stranded"--The Saints
The Rev's Home Jukebox Heroes, Summer 2001
Getting me through this summer's musical depression:
Local H: Ham-Fisted, As Good as Dead, and Pack up the Cats (Island)--If I can't have Nirvana, then I'll damn sure take the boys from Mt. Zion. They've apparently taken some slagging--and I don't even know if they're still a going concern--but I doubt they've taken it from anyone who's seen 'em live (where they'll loosen your front teeth if you try to deny 'em) or REALLY listened to these records. Their sound consists solely of Scott Lucas' two-in-one steamroller guitar and Joe Daniels' whomp, but they generate the force and volume of a Seattle 5-piece. And Lucas, though he writes a more linear song than ol' Kurt, shares his heart: if there's a better song about the youthful rock audience than "All the Kids are Right" out there, I don't know about it. Inspirational Verse: "All your cred won't save you from the kids/They saw what you did."
Little Charlie and the Nightcats: "My Next Ex-Wife," "I'll Never Do That No More," "Dog Eat Dog," "I Could Deal With It," "Me and My Big Mouth," "I'm Just Lucky That Way" [from Night Vision and Straight Up! (Alligator)--Minstrelsy never dies, especially the sly kind. Play these tunes back to back with Emmett Miller (King of the Minstrels), the Coasters (orchestrated minstrelsy), and early Beasties (shit-smearing minstrelsy), and you'll reckon that these cats aren't just your garden variety white blooze boys. Gifted with brains, chops, and a career hustler's sense of humor, they beat anything else on Alligator--and anything the Stones have waxed in 20 years.
Lonesome Bob ponders escape from Nashville.
Lonesome Bob: Things Fall Apart; Paul Burch & the WPA Ballclub: Pan American Flash (Checkered Past)--The folks at San Francisco's Checkered Past really know how to put together soulful and smart roots records, and--forget Johnny Dowd--these are their two best. Lonesome Bob (the author of the Waco Brother's better-known version of "Do You Think About Me?") sings with a resonant, flexible baritone and writes about the nooks and crannies of heartbreak with more precision and less mendacity than anybody in Nashville (even John Prine). He's got some things to say about religion, too, and fellow songwriter Tim Carroll makes like the Robert Quine of country rock on six-string. Burch, who sometimes drums for Lambchop, outdistances anything his other employers have ever done on this 1998 release, his first for the label; he sounds like Nashville Skyline-era Dylan, sweet, smoky, and strangely sexy, with the WPA Ballclub a bunch of swinging Drifting Cowboys behind him. Ain't a dud in the batch, either; Burch wrote 'em all, and--in a better world--"Loser'sWay To Get Along," "Your Red Wagon," and "Downhill and Shady" wouldn't be just some precious future relics for a musicological dig in 2020--they'd be timeless fucking standards. I shit you not: try 'em if you think I'm lying. (www.checkeredpast.com)
John Anderson: "It Ain't Easy Being Me"(from Nobody's Got It All)--Written by the unsung Chris Knight, whose Decca album you could do worse than to own, this song's the ultimate asshole's self-comeuppance. Anderson delivers it, as is his wont, with utter conviction, wrapping his irresistible drawl around lines like "There oughtta be a bridge somewhere/They could dedicate to me/I'd show up at the ceremony/With a can of gasoline...."
Cheap Trick: "Hot Love," "Elo Kiddies," "Surrender," "Stiff Competition"--Had this shit on heavy rotation in my car 8-track Summers '78-'80, but, my gawd, has it kicked in different in the midst of the musical drought! My teen ears didn't hear how Nielsen's guitar and Zander's wild Lennonesque vocals were perfectly matched, and I sure didn't notice how nasty
and clever the lyrics were. Made a comp that's on its third time around in the truck.
Alvin Youngblood Hart: "Tallacatcha"(from Territory)--Classic Western swing...written and played by a thirtysomething black man with dreads. Hart's also covered Beefheart, Skip James, Black Oak Arkansas, and the Cornelius Brothers, as well as writing a couple of the best Stones songs since the Stones wrote decent songs, on his last two albums.
Nirvana: "Serve the Servants"--Goddam I miss this band. However big a fuckup Kurt was, he had vision and he sang with passion. Who now? Who?
Lynryd Skynryd: "Gimme Back My Bullets," "Things Goin' On," "Saturday Night Special," "That Smell," "A Song for the Bad Man"...hell, everything--Another tragic loss. Ronnie carried a pot belly, didn't wear shoes on stage, and had bad hair (Cobain woulda hated him--so much for misfit solidarity). He also wrote tough, smart, funny songs that he sang in one of those commanding voices that at first listen (like Doug Sahm's) doesn't sound like much, until you find yourself craving it. I guess it's called credibility. Like I said, who now? Don't say Steve Earle.
Taj Mahal: "Little Red Hen" (from Progress & Motion), "My Creole Belle" (from Avalon Blues: A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt), "Soul of a Man" (from Maria Muldaur's Richland Woman Blues)--Taj's powerful enough singing in his own voice, but his miraculous, loving "inhabitations" of (respectively) Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, and Blind Willie Johnson just shiver my short hairs. Only a guy who's been lost for hours, days, weeks, months, and years in the music of the originators can pull this trick off without it being just a trick. Reminds me of Hag's so-long tribute to Ernest Tubb at the end of The Way I Am. Respect, love, but a willingness to fuck with and needle tradition: maybe that's what's missing today.
Neckbones: Souls on Fire and The Lights are Growing Dim (Fat Possum)
The nastiest, hardest-rocking garage band of the late '90s already belongs to history. "Hit Me (I'm 21)" and "Cardiac Suture," juxtaposed with say, the "best" of the Soledad Brothers or the "Immortal" Lee Country Killers, reveal just how low standards in the primitive community have fallen lately. Even disregarding the magnificent dirt guitar, Dead End Kid vox, and surprising writing, the goddam drumming alone can carry you over the hump.
Bob Dylan Songs We've Slept On
Congrats, Bob!
Looking America straight in the eye from the Oscar stage (I'll try to get a better picture later...if you want one. Meanwhile, click on the picture to see and hear the performance on Real Player, courtesy of the most excellent tvtalkin.com.)
1. "Bob Dylan's 113th Dream"
2. "Jokerman"
3. "Up to You"
4. "Tell Me That It Isn't True"
5. "Restless Farewell"
6. "Cat's in the Well"
7. "Black Crow Blues"
8. "Sign in the Window"
9. "It Takes a Lot to Laugh (It Takes a Train to Cry)"
10. "Obviously 5 Believers"
11. "Just Like a Woman" (Concert for Bangladesh version)
12. "Going, Going, Gone"
13. "Isis"
14. "Clean-Cut Kid"
15. "If Dogs Run Free"
16. "Dear Landlord"
17. "Get Yer Rocks Off"
18. "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"
19. "John Brown"
20. "TV Talking Blues"
Dimitri Monroe:
"tangled up in blue" and "she belongs to me" completely knock me out
everytime..lyrics i've lived in.
Dr. Filth:
Side One: Halled Tales and Taul Ashes
1. Buckets of Rain
2. Please Mrs. Henry
3. Spanish Harlem Incident
4. In the Summertime
5. If You Belonged to Me
6. Dirty World
7. Handy Dandy
8. Silvio
9. Black Diamond Bay
10. Day of the Locust
11. Changing of the Guard
Side Two: The Last Fire Truck from Hell
1. Shooting Star
2. License to Kill (Letterman TV show version)
3. Trouble
4. Trouble in Mind (b-side of Gotta Serve Somebody)
5. When You Gonna Wake Up
6. When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky
7. Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)
8. Temporary Like Achilles
9. As I Went Out One Morning
If you need filler for side two, add the Hard Rain version of "One Too Many Mornings" and maybe treat yourself to Sheryl Crow's version of "Mississippi" as an uncontextualized bonus track -- this great, uptempo tune would have really added flavor and humor to Time Out of Mind, from whence it sprang, and although variety of tempo and humor from outside the gallows were obviously not ingredients required by the painter for his latest masterpiece I do look forward to hearing how he approached this number. But really, you'll mess up your tape if you don't let the last words be "I'm sorry for what she's done" Live in some of those lyrics for a while and it'll really get you out there. P.s. Picked out twenty songs before I split them up onto tape sides for ordering purposes so I don't know why there's this virtual balance between homey, kind of horny Bob and the doom saying prophet of dissolution that so often needed to hit the light switch. For me, the sleep on balance I babble about above pretty much goes:
Buckets - I slept on that one, pretty much letting Shelter from the Storm end side two of Blood in my mind, until one day I started hearing the gorgeous, fragile guitar figure he plays. Also: Ain't no monkey, but I know what I like.
Mrs. Henry - Never slept on this one -- but seems like loads have -- including Bob, who should play this, esp. since he is a thousand years old and a generous bum. "now I'm startin' to drain, my stool's gonna squeak/if I walk too much farther my crane's gonna leak." It could be an ad for Dylan on adult diapers if it weren't so unabashedly sexual
Spanish Harlem -- More Dylan physicality -- I woke up to this one when I heard this line: "The night is pitch black/come and make my pale face fit in the place of peace." Is Bob muff diving here or what? All the lyrics have great sexual innuendo to them, the sort of thing I was supposed to be impressed about in classic poetry like "The Flea" while I was in school.
In the Summertime -- A gorgeous song, probably about faith he already felt failing, a goodbye song to god (Ain't that just like a deity, perhaps) -- only makes musical sense on this side, so don't really listen to the words. Gets really good when its slight mournfulness segs well with the jaunty spryness of If you belonged to me -- Lost (on a largely crappy and horrifically produced LP) Wilbury trifle puts us back amongst the bawdy tunes, worth it for the harmonica and the line about the "rosey pimp". Great recurring odor imagery and surprising energy make this one of the best Wilbury songs without the word Monkey in the title.
Dirty World -- And while we're at it, this unique number (I once heard it was Dylan doing his imitation of Prince) is the ultimate in the very dangerous car/sexuality metaphor rock and roll sweepstakes pretty definitively exhausted by Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the 50s. Killed lesser lights (The Cramps' Bend Over I'll Drive) and greater (The Stones' Brand New Car) in the 90s but Bob, not someone particularly noted for celebrating the virtues of female sexuality in the last 20 years, comes through this one smelling like a rose. She loves your parts and service indeed.
Handy Dandy -- Another one I did sleep on and got when I realized that it was a delightful, affectionate but self deprecating in a non Lotharial way ode to self from Mr. Dylan. I heard this one was a Prince meditation as well once, which makes you wonder why Bob was thinking so much about Prince in the late 80s/early 90s and why he didn't elect to collaborate when he did. Anyway, 'snot about Prince at all -- ''s about Bob, in the same way Watching the River Flow is. Yep, I'm kinda not doing what I'm born to do, but my muse tells me I got all the time in the world so why should I give a shit? Drunk, eccentric as hell, waving guns around like he was Jerry Lee or something, but confident that there's life in the old horse yet, this is one of the most charming Dylan penned tunes of the 90s. I've ashooken the "soft white silky skin" he's talking about. Can't figure out how he keeps it that way, considering all the guitar he plays. Must not do ANYTHING else. Great mumbles abound on this one, but especially in the outro. "OW!"
Silvio - Used to resent it whenever he'd play it in concert but then came to realize it stood for everything that 90s touring Dylan, the budding crowd of Dylaniacs that make up the Expecting Rain community (people cheer that line in Desolation Row now because of that website. Is this a weird world or what?) and me going to see 90s touring Dylan whenever he was within two hours stood for. "Stakin' my future on a hell of a past." Is honesty. "Pay for your ticket and don't complain." One of the boldest commands a performer has ever given his audience. For a while I dreamed of putting that line on a t-shirt, with fake dates. May still.
Black Diamond Bay -- Reads like Pynchon, or maybe that's Elmore Leonard. Sounds like the worst hotel in history. Bob sees it all fall into the sea on TV and then shuts it off. One of the most bizarre arrangements for a Dylan song ever. How many times did they have to play this one, the 18 or whatever there were in that room?
Day of the Locust -- We are full fledged into our tall tales portion of side one (have been pretty much since Handy Dandy) although really we are well and truly into the camp of "what the hell did that just mean?" This is certainly one of those. Thanks to Bob Downing, who pointed this one out to me. It truly is one of my first discovered 'Bob Dylan slept on songs' and is one of my favorites. Is Bob escaping the hallowed halls of academia for the low profile loserhood of Nathaniel West? Does metaphorical realism call him away from the path the diploma put him on or did he just reread Catcher in the Rye and write a song about it?
Changing of the Guard -- Now I really have no idea what this is about but I do love the way the drums sound and the way Bob sings and occasionally even the girls although I am never sure about that saxophone. Portentous, but in an amusing way. Basically a very ominous way to tell you to flip the tape.
Shooting Star -- Woke up to this one when I heard him sing it in Columbia 1994 -- the way he handled the middle eight (so nice he did it twice in concert) brought the meaning of the lyrics or at least their beauty as spoken word home in a way the album version hadn't, until I had a slightly different context. Simply a wonderful song, well structured, with some lovely harp playing. It should in fact be noted on this list that Oh Mercy has some of the most controlled, effective, well deployed harmonica of any Bob Dylan album ever.
License to Kill -- The version of this song performed on Letterman '83, with the Plugz California Punk Ensemble, is so great as to be another musical entity entirely. Jokerman is the same way. These versions not only eclipse the originals, they render then irrelevant. The greatest rock and roll on TV since the Dolls on Kirshner and hasn't been topped still, and I'll take that all the way to anybody's bank. The way he sings "All He Believes Are His Eyes and His Eyes They Just Tell Him Lies", well, you won't believe yours -- pure truth, over the TV airwaves? Every ten years or so, something gets through. Too great to describe in four to seven lines -- So we'll just do it like this: Noise maker. Spirit maker. Heart breaker. Back breaker. Leaves no stone unturned.
Trouble -- Shot of Love is itself a sleeper, but I only allowed two songs and while I love Property of Jesus for its hilarious rebuke of Jagger, I actually heard this one recently and it knocked me out -- "Night clubs of the broken hearted/Stadiums of the damned. Legislature, perverted nature, doors that are rudely slammed. Look into infinity, all you see is trouble." In its lilting, Stonesy, rockish way, that shit actually comes across as pretty funny. The way he says "Stadiums of the damned" is genius.
Trouble in Mind -- "Ask Lot what he thought when his wife turned to stone." Biblical inaccuracy aside, "Ask Lot what he thought" is classic Bob -- This peculiar little b-side sounds like Dylan trying to argue himself into or out of his new Christian position -- instead of Satan tempting Bob (as in the song) it seems like more Bob trying to tempt himself. The bluesiness of the guitar and the way the band, choir and Bob dig into the chorus is what I really love, though. Along with When You Gonna Wake Up -- the most urgent and weird of the Christian Rant Attacks. Just what is Henry Kissinger's philosophy anyway? That's the line that woke me up to this one. Figured it was required in a list of slept on Dylan songs.
When The Night Comes Falling (Bootleg series version)-- Obviously this version woke me up from the interesting sounding but wrongly keyed and electrobeated song on Empire Burlesque. An infectious, exciting performance with a couple of Springsteen's boys, who know how to anthem right (esp. back in '84).
Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat) -- If only there could be a version of this that doesn't have the girls on it, I'd be a happy Dylan bootleg junkie. As it is, one of his most chilling, like something out of Poe. In fact, isn't that whole twin thing straight out of William Wilson? Did I just steal those observations or make them up? Anyway, great melody, great overheated overpassionate lyrics, positively goth street.
Temporary Like Achilles -- Back down to earth from the steadily rumbling apocalypse built up into Dark Heat -- back looking around for a little girlie action, the inversion of epic using an epic character, and one of the most swingin', gentle tunes on the most beautiful rock album of the 60s. Absolute, floaty magic that doesn't sound hard at all.
As I Went Out One Morning -- Meant largely as a warning to the faults of Dylanology. Dylan is meant to be Tom Paine and doofs like myself are his voracious, feral chick "Rights of Man" who come along to ruin the fun of songs and lists with too much thought. Dylan comes on stage at the very end of the tape to apologize for these relentless personal contextualization and, with his gentle, closing harmonica, suggests we all go back to bed.
Jazz Albums to Convert the Hardcore Rocker
Lockjaw Davis, Buddy Tate, Coleman Hawkins, Arnett Cobb: Very Saxy (Prestige)
Four brawny tenors let loose in tandem on this '59 recording that most definitely rawks.
David Murray: Shakill's Warrior (DIW)
What if the greatest tenor saxophonist alive joined the MGs...?
Ornette Coleman: Body Meta (Verve Harmolodic) and Of Human Feelings (Antilles)
Coleman's enough of a genius to tempt you by himself, but the twin axes of Bern Nix and Charlie Ellerbee free the funk (and even the good ol' Bo Diddley "shave-and-a-haircut" riff) with wild rhythmic improvs on both these records. Ain't nobody followed this path since (hint hint).
Sonny Rollins: G-Man (Milestone)
With Smitty Smith's sticks driving him on for 15 relentless minutes, Newk takes a gutbucket blues riff and runs it through about 100 variations, none quite the same and most wired with either humor or jaw-dropping chopsmanship or both. Breathtaking--it's been said before, but this is really Hendrix transferred to the saxophone.
Sonny Sharrock: Guitar (Enemy) and Ask the Ages (Axiom)
The inventor of chainsaw jazz two different ways: on the former, wreaking havoc with his overdubbed self on a set of beautiful ballads and blues (nothing but six-string, which with Sharrock is to say, nothing but wrecking balls knocking down skyscrapers), on the latter, communing with fellow free jazz vets Elvin Jones and Pharoah Sanders on an album of Coltrane-like themes that redefines the term "blowing session." Check out our man Ken Shimamoto's profile of Sharrock!
James Carter: JC on the Set (DIW), In Carterian Fashion and Layin' in the Cut (Atlantic)
In his brazen sexuality (his tone makes Madonna seem a middle school librarian) and his total confidence with every kind of music, JC reminds me of, yep, I ain't kidding, Elvis Presley. As I've written elsewhere in these pages, Carter's in love with nasty, dirty, ugly, ecstatic, whoopin', hollerin' noise, and there's nowhere better for the rock and roller to get a taste than on these three raucous albums. It's been too damn long since the tenor has asserted itself on the rock and roll scene, and since this god-in-the-making's proven he can do damn near everything else, maybe it's time he essayed an exploration of the bar-walkin' days of titans like Big Jay McNeely, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, and Joe Houston, complete with simple bass, guitar, drums, and 88s.
Miles Davis: Soundtrack to the film Jack Johnson and Agharta (Columbia/Sony)
John McLaughlin conjures an electric storm of loud, brutal blue licks as the former opens, until Miles hits back with the hardest playing he'd unleashed in years. 20+ minutes of sustained rock and roll--no apologies. Though Miles barely makes an impression on the latter, an album recorded live in Japan, Pete Cosey, late of the mid-'60s Chess house band, skronks, squeals, moans, and creates noise I don't have the verbs for in a six-string display that changed Robert Quine's life.
Count Basie: The Complete Decca Sessions (GRP)
If it starts anywhere, the basic bass-drums-guitar algebra that bore rock and roll starts here. The contrasting tenors of Lester Young and Herschel Evans, Basie's plinking piano, and Jimmy Rushing's amiable shout are the attention-getters, but Walter Page, Jo Jones, and Freddie Green lock into that rhythm and stoke the coal in the band's engine room like they're in...the Rolling Stones. Betcha Bill, Charlie, and Keith would agree.
Cecil Taylor Segments II (Orchestra of Two Continents): Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants) (Soul Note)
OK, I'm totally full of shit, but where Taylor's concerned, the music's too alive and explosive and creative to stay inside of a form, and form's part of why few of us are getting a rise out of rock and roll today. Doing it his way with an 11-piece band, he here blacks both your eyes, bloodies your nose, and blows both sides of your brains out with his sui generis total expressionism. I dunno--sounds, feels, and seems like rock and roll to me.
John Coltrane Quartet: A Love Supreme (Impulse)
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (Columbia/Sony)
Thelonious Monk: Brilliant Corners (Riverside)
Charles Mingus: Blues 'n' Roots (Atlantic)
No tricky thinkin' or silver-tonguing about here: these are JAZZ--that's it. But they are of such powerful flavor and spirit as to leave any sensate human with heart a-flutter and blood-engorged, and ears turned inside-out. I know: it happened to me.
The Ultimate George Jones Compilation
We're talking a 90-minute tape here. You don't agree, bitch to the Reverend at sloopage@hotmail.com and he might just stand corrected.
1. "No Money in This Deal"
2. "Color of the Blues"
3. "One is a Lonely Number"
4. "I'm Ragged But I'm Right"
5. "Dadgummit, How Come It?"
6. "I'm Gonna Burn Your Playhouse Down"
7. "Take the Devil Out of Me"
8. "Into My Arms Again"
9. "You're Still On My Mind"
10. "The Last Town I Painted"
11. "Mr. Fool"
12. "The Window Up Above"
13. "The Warm Red Wine"
14. "Brown to Blue"
15. "A Good Year for the Roses"
16. "Things Have Gone to Pieces
17. "A Day in the Life of the Fool"
18. "The Race is On" (Epic remake)
19. "Where Grass Won't Grow" ('90s duet with Dolly Parton)
20. "My Favorite Lies"
21. "Bartender's Blues" ('70s Austin City Limits version with Johnny Gimble)
22. "He Stopped Loving Her Today"
23. "I'm Not Ready Yet"
24. "I've Aged Twenty Years in Five"
25. "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)"
26. "A Picture of Me Without You"
27. "A Drunk Can't Be a Man"
28. "Stranger in the House" (with Elvis Costello)
29. "I Gotta Get Drunk" (with Willie Nelson)
30. "Say It's Not You"
31. "White Lightnin'"
32. "Who Shot Sam?" (Live at Dancetown USA version)
33. "I Always Get Lucky with You" ('80s Austin City Limits version)
34. "Taggin' Along"
35. "Burn the Honky Tonk Down"
36. "Still Doin' Time"
Bona-fide, Standin' on the Rock Gospel
Blind Willie Johnson: "John the Revelator" (from Sweeter as the Years Go By)
Dorothy Love Coates: "99 1/2 Won't Do" (from The Best of...Volume 1)
Bob Dylan: "Every Grain of Sand" (from Shot of Love)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: "That's All" (from Live at the Hot Club)
Del McCoury: "Get Down on Your Knees and Pray" (from The Family)
The Swan Silvertones: "Mary Don't You Weep" (from Get Right with....)
Duke Ellington: "Come Sunday" (from Black Brown and Beige)
Johnny Bush: "Wine into Water" (from Lost Highway Saloon)
Elvis Presley: "Tryin' to Get to You" (from '68 Comeback Special)
James Carter: "Trouble in the World" (from In Carterian Fashion)
The Golden Gate Quartet: "Shadrach" (from Swing Down, Chariot)
Fairfield Four: "Four and Twenty Elders" (from Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray)
George Jones: "Taggin' Along" (from Rock It!)
David Murray: "Amazing Grace" (from Spirituals)
Al Green: "The Spirit Might Come" (from Higher Plane)
The Velvet Underground: "Jesus" (from The Velvet Underground)
The Staples: "This Could Be the Last Time" (from Pray On)
Miscellaneous Mastery
Nat "King" Cole: The Complete After Midnight Sessions (Capitol)
P-Funk All-Stars: B-Side of Urban Dancefloor Guerillas (Columbia)
Steve Earle: "The Truth," from Free the West Memphis 3 (Koch)
Pretty Things: Latest Writs--The Best of Greatest Hits (Snapper)
Nelly: "St. Louie," from Country Grammar (Universal)
Hank III: "Atlantic City" (from SubPop's Badlands Tribute)
Johnny Cash: "The Mercy Seat," from A Solitary Man (American)
Beatles: "Every Little Thing," from Beatles for Sale (Parlophone)
Moby: Play (V2)
Kim Deal: "Fucking Hostile," from Free the West Memphis 3 (Koch)
Leadbelly (with the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet): Alabama Bound (RCA)
Milton Brown and His Brownies: The Father of Western Swing 1932-1937 (Texas Rose)
Johnny Bush: "Drinkin' My Baby Right Out of My Mind" b/w "Green Snakes on the Ceiling" (RCA)
Johnny Bush: Sound of a Heartache (Stop)
The Congos: The Heart of the Congos (Blood & Fire)
Lightnin' Hopkins: The Legendary Herald Recordings, Volume 1 (Collectables)
Born Bad, Volumes 1-6 (Born Bad)
Biz Markie: All Samples Cleared (Cold Chillin')
Coleman Hawkins: The Bean--The Be-Bop Years (Giants of Jazz)
Elvis Presley: Reconsider Baby (RCA)
Gutterball (Mute)
Staple Singers: Pray On (HOB)
John Coltrane Quartet with Eric Dolphy: European Impressions (Bandstand)
