Monday Mixtape (On a Tuesday) #3

I swear, I had this done last night and then just forgot. I think I should just stop kidding myself that I'm ever going to post one of these on an actual Monday.

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Gimme Some Lovin' - Spencer Davis Group

I've seen Steve Winwood live, couple of years ago at the Arches in Glasgow, and it was a great show, even if I only did know about two of his songs. But while my Winwood knowledge is not up to speed, this is still one of my favourite songs of the 60s (and I like a lot of songs from the 60s). Recently learned that Winwood was only 18 when this was released (and 17 when they did Keep On Running, the other SDG song everybody knows), which makes me feel old, and unaccomplished. At 19.

Well, fuck you, Steve Winwood. You talented bastard.

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Cat People (Putting Out The Fire) - David Bowie

Now, I love Bowie, but really only his earlier stuff and Ziggy persona. Hunky Dory is one of my favourite albums ever. But I've never been able to get into his later stuff, the Berlin stuff, Thin White Duke and all that jazz. But I love this; though, of course, for its place in Tarantino's WWII awesomefest Inglourious Basterds. As a filmmaker myself, albeit a very amateur student one (KILL, KILL, KILL!!), soundtracking is one area I'm particularly interested in when watching movies, and QT is second to none in his eccentric choices. Like....

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Chick Habit - April March

This is a redoing of an old Serge Gainsbourg song, I think I heard, and is played at the end of QT's Death Proof, as Rosario Dawson stomps Kurt Russell's brains onto the pavement. Massively catchy, it's got the 60s style guitaring over the verses, and it just all sounds so very French. I think that should be my next Spotify mission, make a playlist of Tarantino soundtracks.

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Getting Better - Steve Hillage

This is in my 109-song-strong Beatles playlist on Spotify. Funky as you like, and with the added benefit that I can scream Man connection, Hillage having played several gigs alongside Man in the 70s and beyond. Never a massive fan of the original version of this on Pepper (on a semi-related note, my favourite non-obvious song on Pepper is Fixing a Hole, which makes me gutted that the only decent version of it on Spotify is by a soundalike artist) but this is downright awesome.

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Start Wearing Purple - Gogol Bordello

Was recently in London with some friends who went to see Rage Against the Machine, and then buzzed about the support band. "Dunno if you'd know them, what were they called again, Gog... er..." "Oh right, Gogol Bordello?" "Aye, that's it!" Being a big fan of Liev Schreiber's film Everything is Illuminated, starring GB singer Eugene Hutz, I've known the band for a number of years. This is one of the songs used in Illuminated, and still is my favourite GB song, although the version on Spotify is a slower, less bombastic version than the single, which you can listen to here. Please listen to it there.

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Madame Helga - Stereophonics

Been a fan of the Stereophonics since I was 11ish, when JEEP came out, so was very saddened to hear of the death of original drummer Stuart Cable. Not least because the band went shite after he was kicked out, taking themselves far too seriously with frankly inferior musical output (Language, Sex, Violence, Other is just awful, the following two albums are alright but still not brilliant). He just seemed to bring the groove to the band, and though others have disagreed, I always thought the band were at their best with the more groovy, soul-tinged songs like Helga, Maybe Tomorrow, Help Me and Vegas Two Times. If it's got gospel singers, it's awreet by me.

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Last Night on Earth - Broadway Cast of American Idiot

Spotify has this down as Green Day, as it's easier to lump it in with them than make a separate artist page, I'd imagine, but while it is their music it's the recording by the cast of the Broadway musical of AI. This is one of a few songs in the musical that is actually from 21st Century Breakdown, and - with exception to the weird mishmash of Last of the American Girls with She's a Rebel - all the Breakdown songs are much improved from the actual Green Day album. 21 Guns is a lot better for improved harmonies and not rocking out on the first chorus, Know Your Enemy isn't as obtuse, Before the Lebotomy keeps the lovely introductory verses and sticks Extraordinary Girl in the middle of the song rather than the crappy middle section it has on Breakdown, but Last Night on Earth, probably my favourite song off Breakdown, is just sensational, with - as Billie Joe Armstrong put it himself - a lovely Brian Wilson-esque arrangement, with a cracking modulation in the middle, rather than the Lennon-lite arrangement on Breakdown.

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The Blues are Still Blue - Belle & Sebastian

Got into B&S at the start of last year, with If You're Feeling Sinister as my entry point. Also gave Tigermilk and The Boy With The Arab Strap a go, but to be honest it was mostly Sinister I listened to. Didn't listen to Dear Catastrophe Waitress or The Life Pursuit at all. Fool. They marked the shift in the band from low-key, fey pop to their fuller pop-rock sound, and it's properly Dark Knighted* Sinister for me. This is now probably my favourite B&S, it's got a great T.Rex feel, and just grooves.

* to Dark Knight - to produce something so good that it renders previously acclaimed work obselete. For example: Batman Begins was a fantastic film, but the Dark Knight was so much better that every time I was BB it feels empty, like there's a big, Joker-sized hole in the narrative. Similarly, Sinister is still a great album but it just feels so lightweight now.

So yeah, I make up my own lingo. Yes, I am cool.

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No Good Time - Graham Coxon

This was going to be a spot for a Blur song, but I couldn't choose between For Tomorrow and Best Days, so I chose a Coxon song instead. I still haven't tried listening to his earlier solo stuff, which I heard is rather difficult to listen to, but Happiness is Magazines is a terrific album. In hindsight I probably should've went with Bittersweet Bundle of Misery here, as it sounds a lot like Coffee & TV, thus it could've been Blur. Oh well. This is still a belter of a tune.

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Obligatory Supergrass Song
Time

Yes, so if I had got these going like I had planned originally, it would've become obvious I was going to stick in a Supergrass song every week, but I never really got going with it, did I? From now on, I'll be sticking an obligatory 'Grass song on the end of every playlist, usually without explanation (who needs one?). Still buzzing from the final Supergrass gig in Glasgow last week, just sensational. They played fucking Eon too, which was surprising. No Roxy though, which was disappointing, but what're you gonna do? I'm not a big fan of their first album but this is another song I'd have liked to hear live, though wasn't expecting them to at all. A more breezy pace than some of their other punky songs on the album, and a sign of the sort of stuff you could expect from them from then on. Farewell, Supergrass, you lovely rascals.

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Linky: Monday Mixtape #3

Ciao for now.

Monday Mixtape (On A Tuesday) - The Beach Boys

Yes, a day late again, but given that I was actually doing something yesterday other than procrastinating or generally being lazy then I have an excuse (I was climbing trees in Kelvingrove Park). I had a more general mixtape made up, with a solitary Beach Boys song in there but then I couldn't stop listening to them and decided to make another list that I've been sitting on for a while: a Beach Boys mixtape, though a pick of my favourite B-sides and album tracks rather than the usual hits.

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I'm Waiting For The Day (Pet Sounds)

Pet Sounds is, without a doubt, the greatest album ever - for me, anyway. No less than a masterclass in pop music, and the main inspiration for Sgt Pepper. Having had the Beach Boys played around me pretty much all my life, this is one I remember as being a major favourite of mine as a young thing, but unlike Agadoo or Yellow Submarine, it's one that's survived as a favourite since then. I would say it's my favourite song on Pet Sounds, but probably not - that most likely still goes to God Only Knows, but it's so bloody generic to say so.

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Slip on Through (Sunflower)

Sunflower was an album that really surprised me. Before I was fully educated on the matter, I had thought that after Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys were in shambles and really, their only good songs were the old Brian ones they found and recycled. But no: Sunflower, while still having a number of Brian songs (and one that features below), is a terrific album with contributions from the others, most prominently, Dennis, who wrote and sang this song. An absolute stormer of a song, it would be my favourite Dennis song if not for the other Dennis song from Sunflower, which also features below.

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You're So Good to Me (Summer Days)

There are any number of classic pop songs from the band's earlier period that I could choose, but this one has especially been lodged in the brain for the past couple of weeks. Before listening to it again though, I had thought it was this song with the naff age-counting, but that's The Little Girl I Once Knew, so that was that to one side. A lot more simple than some of Brian's other songs at the time (I was playing it earlier and it's just C, D7, G and occasionally F - I think) but effective nonetheless.

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Let the Wind Blow (Wild Honey)

A song where I knew the "don't take her out of my life" bit but didn't know what song it was from until I did an album review of Wild Honey for the Brian Wilson website I used to maintain (it's still online if you want some lols, I obviously didn't like this song when I was 15). Its loose, un-busy production does make it sound like some of the dodgy pisstakes of songs that were on Smiley Smile (such as She's Going Bald, and what they did to Wind Chimes was criminal) but while it's a fairly lazy sounding song, the old sense of melody is still there.

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Feel Flows (Surf's Up)

Not having done a review of Surf's Up on the old Brian website, I hadn't fully listened to it until a number of months ago, and oddly had still assumed it was one of the weaker Beach Boys albums in that period, even after my initial rejection of albums like Sunflower and 20/20 was quashed. While it's still not my favourite album, it does have several classic songs, the title track and Til I Die being the obvious ones, and the latter being one of my favourite Beach Boys songs, but I love this too for its smooth, psychedelic textures. Also, it featured in Almost Famous, so extra kudos for that.

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Girl Don't Tell Me (Summer Days)

Listen to this song. Just listen to it. It's fucking Ticket to Ride. It's also quite unashamedly Ticket to Ride, as the story goes that Brian wanted to write a song for the Beatles to record around the time Ticket to Ride came out, and this is what he came up with. That being said, if you can forgive shameless plagiarism (not something Brian dabbled in too often) then it's still a fun song and typical of the growing maturity in Brian's songs at the time. Also notable as one of Carl's first vocals, and the only Beach Boys song apparently to have no backing vocals whatsoever.

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Here Today (Pet Sounds)

As much as I hate Mike Love, he still sang on some of the best pop songs of the 60s. This is not one that usually gets touted, and is one of only two lead parts he gets on Pet Sounds (the "first Brian Wilson solo album in all but name"). Expertly building up the verse and releasing it for the chorus, it was my favourite Pet Sounds song for a good while last year, and is still one of my favourite choruses. The ascending bass line at the end of the instrumental middle section is fantastic, and a great bassline on one of the best bass albums ever. Brian Wilson doesn't get credited enough for composing some truly innovative bass parts, well... except from McCartney, who does say that it showed him the bass could lead a song, and inspired much of his work on Sgt Pepper.... ah, I'll take anything I can get, wont I?

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Our Sweet Love (Sunflower)

Brian could obviously shit melody before breakfast and one after lunch too, and this is another lesser known song that is just, well... so sweet. Another of Sunflower's non-Dennis highlights. Not much else to say about the song except that it's lovely.

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Never Learn Not to Love (20/20)

The Charles Manson song. I used to think it was all his, melody included, but it turns out Dennis just took his old lyrics and changed them slightly (pissing off Manson to no end). Still, beyond that, it's a compelling song, and the "come in, now closer, closer..." is a great euphoric moment. Though slightly creepy when you think the words were written by a jailbird hippy cult leader-turned-mass murderer. Another thing I remember about this song is the rather funny performance of it, with Dennis up front and the band at the back - with Carl doing his best impression of a drummer.

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Forever (Sunflower)

It's a bizarre notion, that I am such a big fan of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, two bands with their much-lauded songwriting geniuses, yet my favourite song by the former is Something, a George Harrison song, and the latter, a Dennis Wilson song. Namely, this Dennis Wilson song. One of the saddest songs ever, in hindsight at least. Only something without a heart doesn't tear up at "so I'm going away.... but not forever". Some may joke about songs they want played at their funeral, but this is seriously it for me. Unless we enter into some techno-apocalypse where funerals are rendered useless because everyone just gets vapourized.

Well, it wouldn't be a blog by myself if I didn't mention the apocalypse at some point, now, would it?

Monday Mixtape #3 - Beach Boys

Ciao for now.