11_4_1

Getting these together was a cluster, because of my tiny, tiny brain.

Some of you will get a CDs with a zip file written on them.

Some of you will get a CD with a list of songs in this order:

1. Spirit, King Johnson
2. Strollin' With Bone, T-Bone Walker
3. Pray Enough, The Wood Brothers
4. Teen Town, Weather Report
5. Methamphetamine, Old Crow Medicine Show
6. Lester's Dream, Benny Goodman small band, feat. Charlie Christian and Lester Young
7. All I Do, Derek Trucks Band
8. Davy Crockett, Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit
9. Funky Revival, Satan and Adam
10. Congo Square, Sonny Landreth
11. Drunk All Around This Town, Scott Miller

Others will get order (the one I originally intended):

1. Funky Revival, Satan and Adam -- Adam Gussaw was a broken-hearted Princeton post-grad student wandering around in Harlem when he discovered Sterling "Mr. Satan" McGee, a one-man band busking on the streets. Gussaw pulled out his harp, and Satan and Adam was born. This song is from "Word on the Street", a collection of those Harlem street performances. I think of it as urban-blues-trance music.

2. Spirit, King Johnson -- The first of two cuts centered on my old Musicians Institute pal, Oliver Wood. King Johnson was one of Atlanta's most popular roots bands, but broke up when the bass player moved. Oliver's just fine -- he's recorded two albums with his brother, Chris (of Medeski Martin & Wood), under the name The Wood Brothers, and he just finished producing Shemekia Copeland's upcoming album. Shemekia told me Oliver is a genius. By the way, Oliver and I were part of a small group that hung out a lot, but we never heard him sing a word.

3. Strollin' With Bone, T-Bone Walker -- Walker was the predecessor to Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix and Prince. He did splits. He played the guitar behind his back. And he played blues licks that everyone who followed has stolen. Berry, in my opinion, owes at least half his guitar style to Walker.

4. Pray Enough, The Wood Brothers -- More from the aforementioned Mr. Wood.

5. Teen Town, Weather Report -- Jaco Pastorius on bass. Alex Acuna on drums. God's own rhythm section. Pastorius and his fretless bass work laid the ground for many fusion players to follow. He was a drunk and a heroin addict, and was so belligerant at a hometown bar one night that bouncers beat him to death. They had no idea who he was, not that it would've mattered.

6. Methamphetamine, Old Crow Medicine Show -- Brand new music from an old-time band. Songwriter Ketch Secor told me that U.S. 220 is a road from which he draws much inspiration, which in part explains his line about meth's reach "from Rocky Mount to Northeast Tennessee." The rest of the explanation is poetic license. Great tune, great band. They'll be in Roanoke Oct. 25. Ya'all come out, y'hear?

7. Lester's Dream, Benny Goodman small band, feat. Charlie Christian and Lester Young -- Both Young and Christian prefigured bebop in a lot of ways. They were usually at the late-night club sessions that created it. Goodman was a killer clarinetist, but his real strength was finding cats like these.

8. All I Do, Derek Trucks Band -- Trucks is my favorite guitar player right now. He takes it to Mars and back on the ending solo. In between, he and Kofi Burbridge trade fours with guitar and flute, after Burbridge has torn up a clavinet solo. I have a lot of Trucks music, and if you want to hear more, just ask. Or go see DTB at Jefferson Center on Oct. 24.

9. Davy Crockett, Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit -- I almost never hear a song in a record store that inspires me to buy a CD, but this song did that. I was at Tower Records, Nashville, and my life has not been the same since. Hampton is a musical father to Trucks, by the way. On this song, hear smoking solos from Matt Mundy (mandolin), Oteil Burbridge (Kofi's older brother, on bass) and Jimmy Herring (on guitar).

10. Congo Square, Sonny Landreth -- The Neville Brothers scored a minor hit with this song, written by Landreth and Mel Melton. This version is better. If Trucks is my favorite, Landreth is second, or tied with Trucks. In that respect, it's not a coincidence that they're both transcendant slide guitar players.

11. Drunk All Around This Town, Scott Miller -- I believe that everything Miller wrote about in this song actually happened.

Notes to come.

What to do with a tardy Tad...

Hate to play squad cop, friends, but it's come to this.

Mr. Dickens is late. Two days at this point (Friday, 10:19 a.m.).

Inevitable this would happen, I guess, people being flawed as they are. We could let him off with a warning, but I suggest to you that if we let the rule of law slide on this, we one day confront anarchy in our little regulated world. What's next, CDs with TEN, nay, TWELVE songs?

We must hold the line and discipline our brother, and do it because we love him, and because we are a squad of laws.

What to do with a tardy squad member...

Require push-ups? Running laps? Too gym class, perhaps.

Pull his pony tail? Too WWE, it would seem.

Perhaps strap him to his chair, tape his earbuds in and make him listen to some of the high quality promo discs he's stooped to part with lately. Can't understand why he'd want to let go of "Words of Love" by Jil Aigrot or "Prism: The Human Family Songbook" by Beth Nielsen Chapman.

And your ideas?




-- Matt

Songs for long-distance lovin'

Seems that no matter how close a relationship you've got to your significant other, you're going to spend some time apart at some point or another.

Music is of course a great way to bridge the gap for a bit.

But long-distance love mixes are fraught with peril. You've gotta vet every song on that mix or risk sending an unintended message. Example: I love story songs. But a lot of them deal with killings, sometimes of loved ones, so those tunes should probably be ruled out.

So with that in mind, here are a few time-tested favorites that come Mason-recommended:

• "This is Love" by PJ Harvey. Classic opening line here: "I can't believe that life is so complex, when I just wanna sit here and watch you undress."
  
  
• "That Purgatory Line" by the Drive-By Truckers. This is a newer song and not what you might expect from the Truckers. Bassist Shonna Tucker kind of reminds me of a low-rent Emmylou Harris or Neko Case. Good lyrical phrasing over an atmospheric sound.
  
  
• "Wait a Minute" by the Seldom Scene. Bluegrass legends take it down a notch to sing about lovers leaving to go "far away again." Sad and muted.
  
  
• "Nothing With You" or "Cheer" or any of the Descendents' pop-punk love songs. They're fun, sincere and help balance out any of the more mournful songs like "That Purgatory Line" or "Wait a Minute."
  
  
• Anything by Barry White. The funk-soul crooner's appeal is obvious: His songs practially drip with sultry sexual overtones. Barry's only flaw is that he's often a bit heavy-handed; one way to avoid that is to go with a cover. Two of my favorites are the Dirtbombs covering "I'm Qualified to Satisfy You," giving it a garage makeover, and the Afghan Whigs covering "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Baby" where singer Greg Dulli dispenses with White's smoothness, opting instead for a desperate howl that sounds like a addict craving something he's missing. Of course, sometimes you want to go for something more direct than a cover can provide. And in that case, don't be afraid to break out Barry.
  
  
• Selected songs by the Twilight Singers or the Afghan Whigs. I love both of these bands (who both include the aforementioned Dulli) for their alterna-soul sound. They say, "I grew up on grunge in the 90s, but I've got plenty of swagger and slinkiness too." They're raunchy but have a sensitive side as well. Definitely stay away from the Afghan Whigs Gentlemen album though. It's great but definitely sends the wrong message for this kind of mix.
  
  
• Selected songs from the Motown and Stax labels. It doesn't get any better than the great soul singers that were showcased on these two labels: Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas and many many many more.
  
  

Just a final note. Not every song has to be love-based, of course. I always like to include something that's relevent to the reason you're separated. If she's away at college, for instance, I might use the Descendents' "Mass Nerder," with its timeless refrain: "Gonna kick their asses in class, gonna get good grades."

The Schedule

Pplz have asked for the schedule.

Sept. 3: Mason

Sept. 10: Meg

Sept. 17: Jared

Sept. 24: Tad

Oct. 1: Beth

Oct. 8: Neil

Oct. 15: Jorge

Oct. 22: Matt

Oct. 29: Pete

Nov. 5: David
Nov. 12: Mystery member Chris Henson

--Pete

Liveblogging "Bros" by Panda Bear

0:00 was that an owl?

0:14 yes it was

0:25 I'm feeling a Phil Spector-Beach Boys collaboration

2:48 I heard someone menace a child in the background

4:34 hypnotic

6:38 the owl is back

6:56 ...and in full effect

7:33 if you play this part backwards they're saying "milk. milk. lemonade."

9:03 the child has been fully menaced

9:27 "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

10:55 a lady bug just landed next to my computer, perhaps responding to some primitive rhythms from the Panda Bear percussion section

--Pete

Stalking by mixed tape

This talk of mixed tapes puts me in mind of weird experience I had when I first started working here. I think everyone in the squad, save Beth, will be too young to remember this, and few actually know about it.

I started working here in 1993, and very soon after that wrote a column -- my first real story for TRT -- about what a drag it was to have a masters degree and still need three jobs to get by. A day later, I got a vaguely threatening message on my answering machine at home in a distorted voice.

I promptly changed my phone number and made it unlisted.

A few weeks after that, I got an obscure padded envelope in the mail. It was a mixed tape, a Maxell full of 90-minutes worth of songs of which I can't remember a single title. It wasn't awful. There was no identifying information, but I listened to the tape out of curiosity to see if there was something on it that might indicate who it was from.

Near the end of the first side, I think, there was an interruption by a voice that resembled, more than anything else, that of Cookie Monster. The voice said, almost like a chant, "Lisa, Lisa, who's your boyfriend now?"

Creepy.

Soon after that, I got a call from a woman who lived in Raleigh Court named Lisa, who happened to work in the backshop at the paper. This was in the days when we had a backshop and still put the paper together with Exacto knives and hot wax. She wanted to know why I had sent her some weird mixed tape. She had received a package like mine, with my name and home address as the return address. (I'm not sure, but I think mine may have had her address, too.)

We talked, she trusted that I hadn't in fact sent the tape, and the only connection we could make was that we both worked at the paper.

It remained a mystery. Some other things happened. I got some more weird mail that was usually about people who worked at the paper. I remember one reference to then-Editor Frosty Landon as a "menacing troll."

As it turned out, I wasn't the only one being harassed. The others were mainly women, at least one of whom still works here in the news department. Unbeknownst to me, they had complained of weird behavior by a certain Manpower employee who worked in the backshop. His name was Scott. That triggered an investigation, and one day the guy, whom I recognized instantly, was escorted from the building.

Thus ended my initiation into the weirdness that working for a newspaper invites.

--Matt

Eleventeen by Jared

1.) All This Time by The Heartless Bastards
You can't beat the line "Since you took my breath again, would you share your oxygen."

2.) Cindy Incidentally by The Faces
Everyone needs to own a copy of their album "Ooh La La."

3.) Free Tonight by Dri
Straight out of Lawrence, Kansas. She makes dance music for stoners.

4.) You Make Me Feel Good by The Zombies
This song was in heavy rotation on the jukebox at the bar I frequented back in Lawrence. It took me a year to figure out who played this song but I could sing a long without missing a beat.

5.) Bros by Panda Bear
So...what if it's a twelve minute song. It feels like I'm on a walking tour of a water colored fishing village in Portugal during the spring with a Brian Wilson impersonator as my guide.



6.) Proofs by Mates of State
I like organs.

7.) Let's Get Out of This Country by Camera Obscura
I enjoy listening to this song in airports or any mode of transportation.

8.) Diamond Ring by The Rosewood Thieves
When I'm sick of all my music I can always come back to these guys.

9.) Outta Mind (Outta Sight) by Wilco
There are two versions of this song on Wilco's Being There album. The other version may have been on Vanessa's mixtape.

10.) Prank Calls by Kelly Stoltz
If someone decides to make a movie about me I'd love for this song to be in the "feel good wrap up section" of the film. This song makes me smile.

11.) Queen Bitch by David Bowie
I don't claim to be able to read music or understand chord changes but I will say that this song is played in the key of fun. It makes me we want to cause trouble but in a good way, like that kid in Home Alone.

--Jared

The Wackness

In "The Wackness," now playing at the Grandin, two characters exchange mix tapes. (It is 1994, so the technology make sense.) And shortly, a scene ensues that every mix-tape maker hopes for:

Ben Kingsley, playing a middle-aged psychiatrist and classical music lover, puts on the tape, sparks a J and improbably nods along to the De La Soul song "Can I Kick It?"

That's worth at least 50 points on the mixmaking scoreboard. It is -- and here it means introducing someone to a new genre, artist and song that they immediately decide they like -- a great pleasure of playing mixologist.

Other mix points

+ 20 points :: an obscure pop song from the late '70s that no one has heard and everyone immediately likes

+ 15 points :: a song by R. Kelly that is later played at the mix recipient's wedding

+ 5 points :: a song everyone has heard before,  but in the context of your mix makes people reconsider it and ultimately decide they like it more

+ 0 points :: a song with the words "Love is like..." 

- 25 points :: Kid Rock's "All Summer Long"

Meanwhile, here is "The Wackness" soundtrack.

--Pete

Indecision 2008

I've got the first song selected for my edition of the 11 club. In fact I've had it in my head well before Mason's disc was burned, sleeved, and shared with the group. The closing song could go a couple different ways depending upon how the mix comes together but I've got a few options. So, I guess that's the question I'm attempting to answer right now on this Monday night.

I'm at a fork in the road or several.


Do I try to weave together a story with each track, hoping that the listener picks up on the subtleties of each song to understand the whole narrative arc of the mix? Maybe, I rewind to '96 and recreate the compilation I passed to Vanessa Bohaty after third period. Or do I try to make an all star selection of beer jams that completely rock the party? The obscure is often admired, maybe a collection of Finnish grooves. Since it's an election year I could go all political and really try to make a statement through some crunchy tunes.

But, really I think I'll just overthink it, say the hell with it at the eleventh hour and just hit burn on the last 11 songs on my iPod's "Recently Played" list.

--Jared

Make it a dozen

We have a new (mystery) member of the 11.S.C.D.S. His name is Chris Henson and he's not in the newsroom. He's a buddy of Matt's (and Beth's, too). 

Matt explains:

...I was telling a friend of mine, Chris Henson, about the whole deal. Long and short, he wants in. Like me, he's looking for ways to find new music.

If it helps, he's got terrific taste.

But you don't have to burn an extra CD. Matt said he'll handle it. And for the record, I'll put Chris down for Nov. 12.

--Pete

RetroPost: Mason's Picks

11’s #1: Mason

1) Concrete Jungle – The Specials

I chose this song to lead off the mix because I like the "Blitzkrieg Bop" (Ramones) tease by the crowd and band at the beginning.

2) Rudy a Message to You – Dandy Livingstone

This is from a two-disc mixing of old Trojan ska tunes by DJ Spooky. There's not much change from the originals, other than he cleaned up the sound and emphasized the bass a bit.

3) Step Right Up – The Pietasters

This is the band I learned to drink beer to and the band I learned to dance to. They play Roanoke sometimes and are worth seeing.

4) Nice Nice – The Kingstonians

Also from the DJ Spooky thing.

5) Carry Go Bring Come – Justin Hinds and the Dominoes

Love the pairing of the horn melody and beat in the first few bars.

6) Judge Dread – Prince Buster All Stars

I really like "judge" songs in the ska & rocksteady genre. Probably my favorite was the bits done by the Specials in "Stupid Marriage" but I only have that on vinyl and not on CD.

7) Jumpin’ Beans – The Beans

Not much to say, other than this is a sort of complement to the Pietasters song.

8) Hey Leroy – Honey Boy Martin

This one cracks me up: "Call your mamie!"

9) Too Much Pressure – The Selecter

It's only in the past year or two that I started to look at second-wave ska beyond the Specials and the English Beat. The Selecter is a really good, underrated band and I had a tough time picking whether to go with this song, their version of "Carry Go Bring Come" or another one or two of their tunes.

10) Bankshot – Operation Ivy

Some of these guys went on to form Rancid. I like this instrumental b/c it's peppy and short.

11) Asshole Dub – Minor Threat

This early 80s Washington DC band is known for its hardcore punk (which is aweome) but this is a really good dub song, especially for a band not used to playing that style. The original punk version, by DC punks Government Issue (GI), is a great song and worth seeking out too.

--Mason

RetroPost: Mason's CD

Mason started things for the Squad last week, with some easy skanking:

[...] It's a little more genre-based than I thought my first effort would be, but that's the kind of stuff I've been listening to lately. My next offering will be a little more eclectic.

Enjoy!

It was a lot of new material for me. Though, from my Sublime-heavy adolescence, I recognized the "stop your messing around" riff on the song "A Message To You, Rudy." Sublime teased it in their song "DJs" (hit the 3:00 mark on the video below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72m3mmyD4PM

As you listen, put on a pair of JNCO's, grow a 19-hair goatee and pretend you drive a VW Fox. Now you're pretty much me in high school. Whazzup, Pete.

--Pete