Listing

Listening to: My mixes, of course

A gaudy, unwieldy, grotesquely large post to fulfill my obligations to the mixmaniacs. So, without further ado:

Go to these other places to figure out who sent your mix (if you don't see yours here):
http://whynotlaugh.blogspot.com
http://www.thewordens.org/openup
http://belleonhertoes.blogspot.com/
http://weeklyscheiss.blogspot.com
http://evilmommy.blogspot.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmstar
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~smith60
http://www.livejournal.com/users/saraliz78
http://natsthename.blogspot.com
http://sterfish.blogspot.com
http://avrowife.blogspot.com
http://indemnification.blogspot.com

Now, for my silly mixes:

For the Guilty Pleasures disk - I don't feel like I owe an explanation because these are, after all, crappy songs that I shouldn't like but nonetheless get jammed up in my head and won't quit annoying me. Sending a disk of these songs to someone feels like igniting a bag of dog crap on someone's doorstep and knocking hard; elaborating the list feels like allowing that person to walk across your living room to use your phone.

A3 - Got Myself a Gun
Yeah, we've all waited too long for a very - a very - dismal season of the Sopranos; which should explain the rest of this horse hockey. It's not a bad song, really, it's more the association with something other than music. I used to love Blondie's "One Way or Another" until it was put into a Swiffer commercial...;

Sweet - Action
I dunno, when I was into the Sex Pistols, I was also into this pop crap. Anyone who watches football knows Sweet's bigger and better song but for whatever reason, this thing resonates like the sound of someone hurling violently in the next stall;

Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies
At the risk of aging of me, the second concert I saw was Alice Cooper - on this tour - (I'd saved up all my money from delivering papers; my first concert was Deep Purple, uh hmmmm) and I've never shaken this song from mind, dammit, especially from Alice tossing armless dolls into audience to watch the crowd tear each other's arms off in order to grab cheap rubber toys;

Judas Priest - Breaking the Law
From my surfing-a-lot-and-drinking-heavily period, so you can just draw your own conclusions. A Beavis & Butthead standard;

Spacehog - In the Meantime
Oh, WHAT TOTAL CRAP - and yet, I'll still do the the "woooo ooooh" thing whenever I hear this earwig on the local college station;

Pilot - Magic
No one seemed to like this song in the 70's but me, which makes me wonder how it ever got recorded, except it somehow has some convoluted connection to 10cc (and 10cc has places on this disk I didn't include);

Five Man Electric Band - Signs
The worst kind of 60's self-righteousness expressed in 1973 yet, when I thought about it when I was 12, it seemed profound. It strangely pulls at me now, reminding me of an innocence that was far too brief yet naively expressed in this ditty;

Camper Van Beethoven - When I Win the Lottery
This is all "I'm too cool too stand next to you" alt-rock kind of snobbery but if you know the kind of snobs I know, you'd know why this is a guilty pleasure;

Doobie Brothers - Black Water
This should require no explanation why this made this on the disk, unless you have a mullet and resemble the protagonist of the previous song;

Erasure - Who Needs Love Like That
The bigger question should be, "Who makes crap like that?" The answer seems apparent and you know what? I danced like a monkey on meth to crap like that back in the 80's (sans mullet);

Brittany Spears - Oops, I Did It Again
Oh my, PERFECT POP - if you haven't heard Richard Thompson's versions of this, you need to see if you can download it. From the the same Swedish production team that produced the last song on this disk, a decades long tradition of such travesty;

Everything But the Girl - Missing (Todd Terry Mix)
I know - now you know how suck-y my tastes can get;

Digital Undergound - Humpty Dance
Yeah, I'm a freak (as if that's news) and this is, as far as I can tell, the only song to let freaks like me to get out on the floor and get spazzed out;

69 Boyz - Tootsie Roll
To the left... to the right... slide, slide, dip baby...what else can a freak do?

Eminem - My Name Is
First of all, I've never understood the critic's being enamored by this white-trash hero... then again, I can't ignore a cast-off line like "God sent me to piss the world off";

Ginuwine - Pony
OMG, such wannabe R&B, phony, but it hits it, my pony...

Gwen McCrae - Rockin' Chair
This is, by some estimates, the FIRST disco song, hardly a classic except for its historical significance. Still, I remember hearing this on AM radio in the early 70's and thinking, "This is AWESOME!" and not being able to walk very far without wanting to hear it again;

Hall & Oates - Sarah Smile
Say what you will about supposed blue-eyed soul but sometimes ya' gotta' get yer' R&B wherever it arises. The sound of having gotten to second base and driving home with a burning urge driving the accelerator;

The Carpenters - Close to You
I always wondered why all the girls in town would want to follow some guy all around and want to be close to him. I still wonder, though I'm a little wiser: they were following him around because they were pissed at him killing all those birds. I'm surprised all the guys in town weren't following him around to beat the crap out of him for all the stardust in his hair.

Herb Albert - Theme from Casino Royale
Yeah, it's silly - fuck you, "God sent me to piss the world off";

ABBA - Waterloo
If there's any cut on this CD that's really a "guilty pleasure", this is it, I can't explain it but I've always loved it.

I hope you've enjoyed my explanation of the aural equivalent to Catatonic Psychosis. Honestly, I could have made 10 disks of that dreck. However, it was easy (because, frankly, who cares?) and a reflection of bad taste is much easier to illustrate than what is supposed to be our defining music. All the emails I got from bloggers wanting to participate this round stated that the Guilty Pleasures would be a skate, that the Island Disk would bust balls. Indeed it did, Id vs Superego. So, I submit the Superego:

John Coltrane - My Favorite Things
Heh, for anyone who took my last list seriously - gosh, isn't this a nifty first cut? For everybody else, yeah, there's a thousand other cuts by Coltrane that I could have chosen from but this was my "Island Mix" (AND mixmania), right? Kind of narrows thing down, doesn't it? Shaddup, then;

Talking Heads - Swamp
Whoa, if you're going to send a psycho off to an island (like me, I swear, I'm not dangerous but fergodsake DON'T DO IT) with one disk, you'd better give that whacked-out motherfucker this album (the most danceable ever made) and this song:

Click click- see ya later
Beta beta- no time to rest
Pika pika- risky business
All that blood, will never cover that mess.

If you can figure out what Byrne is saying, please tell me. I don't think it means anything but whatever it is, it ain't good;

Funkadelic - One Nation Over a Groove
If that island is going to be my little dictatorship, this will be the first item in its Constitution, its Bill of Rights, its "You Gotta Do This Or We're Sending You Elsewhere" rule. "Here's a chance to dance our way out of our constrictions," should be the rule of law for every nation;

Toots & the Maytalls - Time Tough
I've lived on an island (Oahu) and felt isolated and this man - this album - has taken me out of that, time and time again. The first song from a reggae masterwork that puts the needle into the grooves for the rest;

Desmond Dekker & the Aces - Israelites
"When I was a little boy, I could feel, feel, feel it (see the last song)" - this song haunts me from my childhood, I can't remember when I first hear it but it's shanked hard in my bones, I gotta' have it. Unfortunately, the Leslie Kong collection I had on vinyl is long out of print and unavailable;

White Stipes - Blue Orchid
If I'm going to take some White Stripes with me to that island (and I bygod will), it's going to be the most danceable - this is the best;

Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK
Well, hell, as long as we're dancing, thrashing, this is the best of the second best punk band ever... and a reminder of how shitty my little island could become if I decide to become a dictator;

Television - I See No Evil
Despite my Dead creds, I haven't included any Grateful Dead here (and I have them and I won't). If there's a guitarist comparable to Jerry Garcia, Tom Verlaine is it and this cut is all the Jerry Groove I need;

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
Do I need to justify this song? I do? Jeez, I'm sorry... Before I got into punk in the late 70's, The Who was, for me, The Greatest Rock n' Roll Band in the World (sorry, Stones).

Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver
I recall the exact moment I heard this song and the moment of transcendance it created. I have no doubt it will continue to give me that, no matter where I reside;

Radiohead - Electioneering
"Transcendant" will be pretty much overused in this post but I can't think of another adjective to describe this song or the album it's from, transcendental in it's gloom;

The Doors - Back Door Man
I have a love/hate thing with The Doors and obviously, this is where they sneak in and win me over. Ersatz blues, sure, but rock in its finest form;

Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy
I must have been 7 or 8 when I became enthralled with the Chess version of this song, the hardest thing I'd ever heard up to that point in my young life. This is a later version (recorded with and produced by Johnny Winter) and it rocks harder than any version cut, even The Yardbird's version. If I wake up and crank this song, watch out - it's going to be a wicked day for me if my soundtrack begins with me playing this at a volume that shakes the pictures off the walls;

The Clash - The Right Profile
If I had a choice of 10 CDs, London Calling would one of the ones I'd bring with me, without a second thought but this is the song I include on this mix. Not that I'm a huge fan of Montgomery Clift - I just love how this songs sounds;

XTC - Knuckle Down

Knuckle down,
Love his skin,
It doesn'’t matter what colour skin he'’s locked in,
Knuckle down,
Knuckle down and love that skin.
Knuckle down,
Love his race,
It doesn'’t matter if you win or lose a little face,
Knuckle down and love that race.

One bright morning the world might end with a big bang,
And you'’ll never get yourself another chance.
Put aside the hoodoo and some of the voodoo,
A’bout people being different,
TheyÂ're not so different.

Take them by the arm and run to the street,
Take a little drum to supply the beat,
Soon the whole world will be up on it's feet and dancing.

This song makes me cry because, really, it is really THIS FUCKING SIMPLE. Shiites and Sunnis, Israelis and Palestinians, Us and Them, STOP IT PLEASE, let's just dance, love, there's pretty much not enough to go around any more anyway so we need to learn how to share. I know George Bush and his diminishing followers don't believe any of this but they're about to be post-dated and pushed aside; they got theirs and they'll realize how little it is in the long run, so let's allow their karma to take hold and we can move along. Really. It's that easy, it really is that easy. For God's sake, put your knuckes down, PLEASE.

Van Morrison - Jackie Wilson Said
Given the the lack of what was quoted above, I'll take YOU smiling - the journey of ten thousand steps...

A blessed "Gracias" to my angel Mamacita for helping me out with this round of mixmania! - the grandest angel of them all, my dearest is.

Tomorrow I'll give details of the next mixmania! so please tune in. Mahalo.