Pretty simple as far as jazz guitar goes, but interestingly done. I like the shifts between tempo. He has a solid grasp of harmonics, and this really feels like a piece that really sort of loses something in being recorded, in that you’d have had to be there when he was playing to fully appreciate it.
Time for something completely different, then.
Yet Another Grrl Power song, but I find this one is tolerable for now although I’m starting to hear it everywhere and that takes away from it. In fairness, I do think it has a very positive message, I just tend to prefer my singing women a little edgier.
I remember this song from when I was a teenager, but I don’t really remember it. I guess it’s one of those song that’s best felt viscerally rather than intellectually. It’s '90s post-industrial pop rock at its finest, with a clever Beach Boys reference in the bridge, and if I were a few years younger I’d probably hate it for aping Courtney Love’s style, but I’m just old enough that Kurt Cobain didn’t have enough leverage on my young self for me to be really emotional about grunge.
I have never heard a happier, peppier “blues” song in my life and I think the three-part kazoo bridge will back that up. This is what P, P & M did best. Mary always blended well, vocally, with the guys.
Not much more to say about that-classic Zappa doing his usual satirical take on whatever.
So I’ll raise you Frank with The Captain. Brickbats.
Ah, magical Beef! I suspect this would sound much better stoned…Fun to listen to, though.
I don’t think I can top that funkyness but I’ll see your Cap’n Beefheart and raise you…
Incredible guitar work–my hands hurt and I’m exhausted just watching them. And they didn’t break any strings! I’m not sure I want Gabriela any where near me with those mitts of hers; I break easy. People always glorify the lead guitar player, she was working just as hard if not harder.
Time for beautiful and fun vocals.
Lovely voices, but I just don’t care for the accompaniment here - too '80s Casio keyboard-esque. I could dig these girls singing Christmas carols, though.
What a howl Steve Marriott had. His voice is just beyond legit, and here it makes an otherwise merely solid nicking of American blues amazing. Thanks; you’ve just set my YouTube itinerary for the next two hours.
Now that’s some good old heavy metal from its first golden age - raw aggressive guitar, belting blues-influenced vocals, and a powerful Moon-esque drumbeat holding it together.
A track from them I hadn’t heard before, and played with the energy that made the band one of the greats of punk. Good Friday song!
burpo, I’d have no problem with Gabriela getting her mitts on me, I don’t break that easily, however I suspect if SWMBO found out you wouldn’t find enough of me to carry out a dna test…
Soo, Friday punk ,eh?
Hmm, surprisingly tuneful. I like the video of people carrying crosses everywhere.
Ok, so let’s do something in the same general vein: The Dead Kennedys, “Holiday in Cambodia”
One of my ten or fifteen favorite songs of all time, and a complete game-changer for me the first time I heard it at age 13. DK were so musically ambitious and diverse for a hardcore punk band in 1979. East Bay Ray is a god, with his demented surf-rockabilly-punk sound. And the lyrics are fantastic, skewering the very same socially conscious liberals who made up a significant portion of their own fan base.
Iggy and the Stooges, “Search and Destroy” (from Iggy’s 1997 remasters)
I love the way the two guitars are doing almost completely different styles. I don’t know as much of Iggy Pop’s music as I’d like to, but I’ve never heard a track from him that I didn’t love, and this is no exception.
Good pump it up song, I would dance to that! I liked the driving drum beat and the guitar work was complimentary without being overwhelming. Soundwise, they remind me of The Strokes a little bit.
Probably my favorite Shins songs. Love, love love the chord progression and the way the acoustic guitar propels the song. The lyrics have that interesting inscrutability that you get with a lot of their work.
This is… interesting. There’s something quintessentially English about the synth-and-brass (or maybe the brass is synth too?) backing, and I’m pretty sure I heard a bit of “Deck the Halls” in there. I’m not entirely sure the vocals match the music perfectly, but it flows well enough that I can just barely understand the lyrics and the multiple double entendres he’s working in.
A Bowie cover of a Who song-about masturbation. Doesn’t flow particularly well and The Duke’s vocals are off here, but I am unfamiliar with the Who original.
XTC made me think of these guys. Comsat Angels, “Gone”, which is also kind of tangential to the previous song in terms of subject matter…
I love the bass-heavy opening. The instrumentals and the synth-washed vocals remind me of INXS or Depeche Mode. The lyrics are vaguely accusatory - what happened to her indeed?
Ah, another entry in the greatest of rock 'n roll mixtapes: The Songs that Zep Ripped Off. I’ve heard of this but it’s the first time I ever actually sat down and listened to it. I’m always fascinated to come across stuff from '67 that goes against the Summer of Love grain — someday I’ll make my own mixtape, Songs of the Summer of Angst or something — and this is a pretty stellar example. The fact that this guy seems to come to us from some forgotten corridor of history probably makes him seem a bit more distinctive than he might have been at the time (I’m sure there’s lots of stuff from then that’s fallen by the wayside), but still, a fine piece of work.
Bonus trivia: I see that Holmes co-wrote Frank Sinatra’s Watertown, his biggest commercial failure, as well as the Dr. Pepper jingle!