6.29.2005

mp3 Morning: highlights from a lame, short run

Today is music day at Barrelhouse, and tonight is meeting night, which usually means that I try to get up early and go for a lame, waddling jog, since I'll be drinking many brooklyn browns tonight as we navigate the winding, drunken road that is the Barrelhouse Meeting (a glimpse behind the cheap plastic curtain: we meet in bars; well, a bar).

So last night I loaded up my mp3 player for a morning jog. I like to do this like Star Jones' first run at an all-you-can-eat buffet, grabbing anything that looks remotely interesting and stuffing it away with no regard to genre, taste, or the Nick Hornby rules for making a mix tape (which are, by the way, absolutely correct). Highlights from today's mix include:

Cold Gin, by KISS
I just downloaded this, I think after a few too many Pacificos on my patio. Man, its still a really good song. It's actually kind of interesting that KISS really was a heavy metal band. You kind of forget about all that, with the make-up and the posturing and the corporate rock dinosaur yearly "farewell" tour thing they have going. Some of those early songs are pretty heavy. And this one is basically about a couple that's only thing in common is cheap gin, if I remember correctly. What the hell where we doing listening to this shit when we were ten?

Cold Roses, Ryan Adams
Okay, so in another life (which we can call "college") I was kind of a deadhead, and I admit that I really liked the first two Ryan Adams records. Well, maybe I should say I really liked songs from the first two, mainly the ones that sound like Whiskeytown or the Band, but also some of the ones that sound like generic, jangly alt-country. But who knew he was such a deadhead? This is definitely his Dead Song (and the album has maybe five songs that could be outtakes from Jerry Garcia's cleverly named "Garcia"). Nice song, once you get used to the fact that Ryan Adams wrote a Dead song and then recorded it exactly like the Dead would have in 1970, with a guitar hook built for spinning, spaces in the middle for live nooodling and twirling and bong hits and veggie burritos and the whole scene.

Gangsters and Thugs, the Transplants
So this is Tim from Rancid, Travis from Blink 182, and some heavy metal rapper kind of dude. The first album was pretty great, kind of like Rancid songs (circa "Out Come the Wolves," big hooks, more Clash-y, less hardcore) with some slurry rapping in the middle every now and then. This one seems a little watered down, a little more poppy, with less slurry rapping and more whisper-y rapping. Maybe they all sobered up. Maybe Travis is too busy getting high and planning his wedding on that terrible MTV show, and Tim went introspective after Brody Armstrong left him for that redheaded dude from Queens of the Stone Age. Maybe when they sold one of the best songs from the first album -- Diamonds and Guns -- to Garnier Fructis shampoo everybody just said, ah, what the hell, let's just be a pop band with tattoos and a pedigree. I dont know. It's not a bad song, and the chorus -- "some of my friend sell records, some of my friend sell drugs" -- is pretty solid. All in all, I miss the guitars. I really miss the guitars. I guess this is Tim Armstrong's Sandinista period. Let's hope he gets through it and goes back to his London Calling period.

What's Golden, Jurassic Five
In a just world, Jurassive Five would be wildly famous and the Black Eyed Peas would be asking if you wanted extra foam on that grande skim cap. This song is fantasic -- funky and old school, but with enough of an edge to keep the Five from being some kind of Kurtis Blow revival act. And the best line I've heard in a long time: "we're tight like dreadlocks, or Redd Foxx and ripple."

Feel Good, Inc, by Gorrillaz
Goddam catchiest song of the year. Just try to get it out of your head. Go on, I dare you, try it.

1 comment:

Mike Ingram said...

Man, I love that J5 song. And I admit to liking Ryan Adams too (well, some of his music; the man himself seems like a royal prick). On the one hand, I can see why it would be annoying to people that he wears his influences so plainly on his sleeve (okay, this is me channeling Paul Westerberg, this is me channeling Thom Yorke, etc.). But a lot of those songs are still really good.