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.
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