One Song: Talking Heads - Burning Down The House

(Cross-posted at JamsBio)

I had just transferred to a new high school. Not far, geographically, from my old one, but it may have been another country.

My former school was known for being somewhat "arty," at least by catholic school standards. The theater kids were cool and our football team -- did we even have one? Anyway, the new school was much more conservative and traditional, with a plainly obvious "work-study" aesthetic. Despite feeling weirdly out-of-place, I liked my new school. I wasn't the token poor kid. Plus I lucked out and got the hot teacher for homeroom.

He subbed our gym class once; it must have been raining because we were inside in the weight, a place underclassman dare not tread without a chaperone (like a hottie teacher). Someone turned on a radio, the station tuned to the classic "RAWK!" station. Lots of fist pumping and fingers doing the devil horns went along with the usual grunts of scrawny sophomores pretending they're pumping iron.

Teacher McDreamy walks in and changes the "RAWK" station to a proto-alternative one, the kind of gonzo modern rock station in the days before the alternative explosion of the nineties where you'd hear anything from early eighties Krautrock to the these from "Green Acres." Very few people knew about. I thought it was my dirty little secret.

(You have to remember I grew up in the not-so sophisticated Midwest and we're easily impressed. Looking back, that station wasn't all that cutting edge, but you take what you can get.)

I hear a familiar rhythm. I look around and McDreamy is in rock out mode. The rest of the class is missing their Motley Crew and just looks flummoxed.

"Don't you guys know who this is?" McDreamy says.

"The Talking Heads?" I offer.

"Hey, a heads fan. Cool." He gives me a thumbs up.

I was cool for one day.

Album of the Week: Only Ones - Special View

Most music fans, if they've heard of The Only Ones at all it's because The Replacements (among others) have covered what has become their most well-known song, "Another Girl, Another Planet." It's a great song, really. One of the best that rarely makes those "Top 100/500/1000 Songs Of All Time" lists, but it's not all they've done. On the strength of "Another Girl..." I picked up Special View, the only album of theirs I could find at the time, and was pleasantly surprised. It's very British and new wave-y, but doesn't sound at all out of place alongside today's 80s-influenced bands.

Son Of Roadsongs

Another road mix. (Sample songs here.)

"Knockin On Mine" - Paul Westerberg
"The Thanks I Get" - Wilco
"Poor Poor Pitiful Me" - Warren Zevon
"8 More Days Til The 4th Of July" - Ike Reilly Assassination
"Onions" - Heartless Bastards
"Somerville" - Pernice Brothers
"Hallelujah" - Ryan Adams
"Drunken Angel" - Lucinda Williams
"Placemat Blues" - Slobberbone
"Drank Like A River" - Whiskeytown
"Silver Lining" - Rilo Kiley

How well do you know your MMMBop?

Or your "Electric Avenue?" Take these 80s and 90s lyrics quizzes and find out. (Courtesy of the MWT board).

I'm truly a child of the 80s, scoring a 96%, but apparently lived under a rock throughout the 90s. I scored a pathetic 25%.

New Releases: May 13, 2008

For all the indie kids out there, Death Cab For Cutie's new one, Narrow Stairs, hits shelves today. It's already #2 on Amazon's charts.

Also new today is the Old 97s seventh album, Blame It On Gravity. According to the press for the record:

" The album finds the band turning up the amps and returning to the satisfying crunch with a mix of rock, punk, pop and classic country that defined the band s sound on earlier albums."

Sounds like a good one.

Video: Meat Puppets - Up On the Sun

I've been craving this song lately...

One Song - Murder or a Heart Attack by The Old 97s

(Cross-posted at JamsBio)

I had yet to see a picture of the band, but my favorite song the summer of 1999 was The Old 97s "Murder Or a Heart Attack." It was all over the radio. Well, at least in my little world. By then I had fully weaned myself off commercial radio -- what was left of it, anyway -- and was fully ensconced in the world of community radio. These were the days before the internet would become everyone's favorite source of new tunes, and I didn't have a computer back then anyway.

These guys came to town to play some beerfest or another. It was free, and so was I, so off I went. It was July, 90-plus degrees, and oh yeah, the Old 97s were to take the stage around the same time an air show was scheduled.

It was nasty.

The show was great, but the band would periodically stop playing as planes doing loop-de-loops drowned out their sound. When they did managed to get a few songs in, Rhett Miller, the lead singer, whipped around like a wet muppet (I didn't know this was his usual stage moves), and at one point I though he was going to pass out from heat exhaustion. At one point I thought I'd pass out from heat exhaustion. My car actually did pass out on the way home, but I had a new favorite band to add to my arsenal.

Tom Waits tickets, finally.

According to Annie Zaleski's blog this morning, we now have official word on those Tom Waits tickets.

And they're steep. As high as $102.50 and a bargain basement price of $70. Yikes. The tickets for the June 26 show go on sale May 16 at 10 a.m.

(Check Metrotix for details.)

Album of the Week: Bash & Pop - Friday Night is Killing Me

I have the most intense sense of deja vu. I'm convinced I've dubbed Bash & Pop's Friday Night Is Killing Me album of the week before, but maybe it's just because I'm so constantly telling people to snatch up a copy of this if you see one. I did, for the whopping sum of $1.50, marked down from three bucks. Kind of sad, really, that so many great records end up in the cut-outs. Friday Night is Killing Me is one of my favorite post-Mats records.

A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock 'n' Roll

A mix I made with bits and pieces I had stashed here and there. Oh, the vaguery.

"Wayfaring Stranger" - Neko Case
"Wonderful Copenhagen" - Paul Westerberg
"Talk On Indolence" - The Avett Brothers
"Miracle Drug" - A.C. Newman
"Train From Kansas City" - Neko Case
"Loretta" - Neko Case
"Cruel" - Calexico
"Left On Laura, Left On Lisa" - The Avett Brothers
"The Town Halo" - A.C. Newman
"16 In July" - The Avett Brothers
"Letter to Bowie Knife" - Calexico
"This Littel Light" - Neko Case
"Train From Kansas City' - Superchunk
"Die Die Die" - The Avett Brothers

(Listen to samples here.)