A Day In The Life: Melissa's Mix

I took the approach of a radio show with Bobby's mix - good flow for three or four tracks, obvious break, another short sequence, pause, etc. With my sister's mix I made a soundtrack, a possible day, with highs and lows and in-between. So it is very different, but I think works because of the goal I had set.


1. "Hyper-Ballad" - Bjork. Hands down my favorite Bjork track. It has the feel of the time between sleeping and wakefulness, a hazy melange of two very different states. It is the time of day when anything is possible.

2. "Drop" - Cornelius. Water moves, the tempo swells. Cleansing the auditory palate for another's days journey. Yes, I occasionally talk like this in real life.

3. "Close To Me" - The Cure. This is the version from Mixed Up. I feel this is the rare case of a remix adding to the feel of the original instead of remaking it. It's hard not to smile and bounce a little to this, which is a good way to get going as the day awaits.

4. "Bowtie" - Outkast. Big Boi melds Clinton (George) with Crunk and celebrates self-expression with style. It's the sound of a big booty'd peacock, strutin'. The horns call to the sun, daring it to shine in the face of such radiant splendor.

5. "Peek-A-Boo" - Siouxsie & the Banshees. The horns get weird as the late morning starts to ask you why you got out of bed. Sometimes you wonder, and your mind wanders...

6. "Run On For A Long Time" - The Blind Boys of Alabama. A bit of a startling shift, a clarion call to judgment. It's high noon, and where do you stand?

7. "I Cry" - Lamb. The beat pulls, the synth soothes. Over this comes a voice, disembodied, floating. It's an inward song, a song of self. It sounds milky to me, reminiscent of a tryptophanic state of mind. Digestion music.

8. "PMS" - Mary J. Blige. If there is a better song about this particular female condition I don't know it. Plus, Mary rules.

9. "Cure For Pain" - Morphine. The day is long, work drags, the heart and mind want new stimuli, or at least a way out.

10. "Harder To Breathe" - Maroon 5. Silly riffs, poorly played. Under three minutes of a tempo change, as we go to -

11. "The Stroke" - Billy Squier. The workday is done, and the pulse needs shaking. It's a driving home song, crude and simple, easy to sing, easy to nod to.

12. "Darling Nikki" - Foo Fighters. So earnest and true. Dave Grohl sells this with a different kind of dirty than Prince did. It's a sweaty-mechanic dirty, stringy hair and all. Everyone likes to sing along to Prince, and when it's heavy, it's a different kind of fun.

13. "Well Did You Evah!" - Debbie Harry & Iggy Pop. From the seemingly forgotten Red, Hot & Blue, the king and queen of scummy majesty take Cole Porter into gutters and dives in search of the party. Are you ready to go out now?

14. "Hey Ladies (Paul Nice remix)" - The Beastie Boys. Clubbing circa '89 via '78. Just a great dance tune, silly and throw away as all pop should be. Irrelevant and essential, a winning combination.

15. "Informer" - Snow. I'm sorry, but the Snow man once claimed us all. This and Ice Cube's "When Will They Shoot?" ruled my party mixes in 1993. It's my party that I'm playing for my sister, so of course it's dated. I don't get around much anymore...

16."Who's In The Tomb?" - Black Uhuru. Dub version of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" mixed with the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The party begins to slow and wind down, but there's still a little movement left in the feet and hips.

17. "Everything I Own" - Ken Boothe. Bread's treacle recast here as a soulful reggae masterpiece, which lords it over Boy George's weak reggae travesty. Ken Boothe means his words, painfully, skillfully, truly. The party is over, the day nearly done, and home you head with the one you love.

18. "Sweet Child of Mine" - Luna. A G'N'R lullaby to close your eyes and drift away, soft and gentle. Nothing follows but dreams of a new day.

A very different mix, with highs and lows to follow the tides of a day. Not perfect - no day is - but a mixture of different styles and thoughts. Now that these two are done, it's time to get in gear and ramp up for Christmas.

Erik's Lists: 2003 Single Possibilities

I never have been known not to fold under pressure. As more and more people start compiling year end lists, I guess I should let people in on some personal highlights of music from the last ten plus months. Here for your consideration, in not too particular an order, are some singles I've enjoyed.

1. "Ignition (remix)" - R. Kelly. Easily my favorite R. Kelly song ever (though the remix of "Feelin' On Your Booty" is mighty fine), here he really seems to be having fun. There just isn't enough fun in music anymore. Every release seems so calculated, with just the right guest spot or hot video director or what-have-you. I like fun. I love how he slyly begins, "Now, usually I don't do this, but..." I like fun.

2. "Harder To Breathe" - Maroon 5. Utterly derivative, catchy and, again, fun. Plus the drummer sings a falsetto harmony during the chorus, and it's actually not very well done. Maybe I just like white-boy guitar funk. Something about it strikes me as Jamiroquai jamming with "Detroit Breakdown"-style J. Geils Band, except it's good.

3. "In Da Club" - 50 Cent. I'm not a fan - I pretty much hated the album, but this song is undeniable. Just a party definite for years to come. That "techno stab" keyboard with the hand claps is just another Dr. Dre masterpiece. Plus 50 manages to keep to the rhythm for an entire song, which is undeniably a record for this cut rate Biggie wannabe.

4. "The Laws Have Changed" - New Pornographers. The return of the Canadian indie-pop supergroup, which is comprised of every Canadian indie rocker not in Sloan. Pure power-pop in a head-shaking 4/4 every hipster can sway to. A song a liked better the first time I heard it, but it's still a head nodder months later.

5. "Crazy In Love (crazy Chinese version)" - Beyonce f/Vaness Wu. I need to thank Matthew for this - it kept the song fun long after Jay Z ruined the original for me. Again, my criticism of Jay Z is his inability to keep a beat, and, based on 50 Cent and others, it appears to be contagious. He's not on some sort of Kool Keith rhythmic meta-plane either - he just sounds lazy and disinterested. But Beyonce, buoyed by the drums (as Thomas and I discussed, it is the fact they accelerate when the choral horns kick in that makes this so amazing), soars like the big-booty diva she desperately wants to be.

6. "Ghettomusick" - Outkast. The craziest single by a major artist that I can remember. At least three different songs are merged into this genre busting techno/soul/rapalicious spectacular. Nothing prepared me for hearing this song for the first time - Stankonia, masterpiece that it is, did not clue me in to this possibility. It scares me when I think that the two subsequent singles, "Hey Ya" and "The Way You Move", are further ahead than any other mainstream releases this year. Go to Outkast.com and help pick their next singles. If "Bowtie" and "Prototype" get released before New Years, you could almost argue for an Outkast top five. That is scary.

Vol. 1

Query: what do you think of when you see Vol. 1? Honestly, now. A book series, some archive of information - audio, visual, other? When I see Vol. 1, I think Wilburys, the Traveling kind. I am assuming you all know of The Traveling Wilbury's, the 1988 super-duper-group of George Harrison (Nelson), Jeff Lynne (Otis), Roy Orbison (Lefty), Tom Petty(Charlie T. Jr.) and Bob Dylan(Lucky). If not, there's your introduction.

Last spring I was poking around in my local library's CD collection and came across this long-forgotten gem. Being the upstanding RIAA loving citizen I am, I quickly checked it out and made a copy. But before anyone's undies take the north road to cracktown, I own the cassette so I have duly paid for this music. Of course, my mom abducted my Wilburys back in '94 in my last stint at home so it has been Traveling without me.

This afternoon, as I was browsing through the latest news, smiling quietly to myself about the atrociously bad tongue-twister I left in a comment thread somewhere, and generally just pissing about, the Wilburys traveled (I promise that's the last time I play off the Traveling part of their name. Okay, maybe promise is too strong a word, but we can all hope), or should I say shuffled, their way into my random-playing MP3 software and "grabbed me from behind." (That's a lyric quote from "Dirty World", by the way. Please continue) I had once again, as in 1988 and the spring of 2003, been pleasantly surprised by the smiling benevolence and exuberant joy that is Vol. 1. Maybe it's just the fact they wrote and recorded a song a day; that Bob Dylan actually is having fun in a non-vitriolic or cynical way; that the Jeff Lynne/George Harrison combo that made the last great Harrison record Cloud Nine got to continue riding that wave; that Roy Orbison was flush with his rejuvenated career; and that Tom Petty was pulled up by his ears to a level where he wasn't embarrassed playing with his idols. Yet Vol. 1 is a joy I can't share. I can't say, "go get a copy now!" for, alas, the album is out of print. The last I heard, the widow of Roy Orbison wanted some astronomical licensing fee for the rights to his vocal contributions. And without Lefty, you get the better left unmentioned sequel Vol. 3.

On a side note - of course this whole thing has no point so is really just a big side note - I have some inklings about what happened to the missing Vol. 2. With Lefty's death falling a mere six-weeks after Vol. 1's release, the remaining 'Burys got together in New Orleans and celebrated a full "ragin' cajun" funeral celebration with the Meters. The recordings made that night were quickly swapped for a pair of galoshes and three corn cob pipes (Charlie T. Jr. was afraid the tobacco would ruin his beautiful teeth), and somewhere near Hannibal, Missouri, were given by a shoeless riverboat gambler to a drunken, vest-wearing Tom Waits bootleg trader. This same man - some called him Eustis - hopped the rails and took the master tapes to Tucson, Arizona, where a Sino-Arabian smuggling operation (transporting Alsatian puppies across the border, through Mexico and Latin America, into the underground Alsatian markets of Lima, Peru) agreed to take the tapes if Eustis would also give them the first knuckle from his left thumb. Realizing that he was being hornswaggled, Eustis lit on out for T. T. LeGrandes' dental floss ranch in Bongo, Montana - but never made it. Outside of a little all-night joint in One Horse Town, Colorado, Eustis met his end in a bizarre bobbing-for-apples incident best left to the imagination. The tapes? Why, I don't rightly know where they went from there. Traveling, I guess...

Erik's Lists: The Complete Stax/Volt Singles

1) "The Hawg, Part One" - Eddie Kirk
"Root! C'mon root baby!" Eddie Kirk, an old-time country blues artist does the harmonica grunt with the Stax band of the MGs. It's Howlin' Wolf doing "The Dog" a la Rufus Thomas. It's the sound of forty people in a one room shack with 8' ceilings. Sweat, musk, cigarettes and whiskey. Jubilant glory at 45rpm.

2)"After Laughter (Comes Tears)" - Wendy Rene
Her biggest hit (really the last of The Drapels, but only Wendy gets the credit). It's not the talent of the singer- she's occasionally flat, and is only okay at best - it's the delivery, supported by the opening organ's "bup-bup." It's a Timbaland riff, slowed till sultry, organic like only a Hammond can sound. It's got that "wet lung" sound that modern computer synths will never capture. I alternate between this and "Bar B-Q" as my favorite Wendy Rene tracks.

3)"Outrage" - Booker T & The MGs
Hands down my favorite Booker T track. I want it as the music behind the beginning of the movie of my life. On screen I fumble with the alarm clock, hop in the shower, fall over putting on my pants, grab toast and coffee on the way out the door. As I get in the car, you see I'm wearing only one sock as the song fades away and I shut the car door. Of course, the above scene has never once occurred in my life.

4)"Tramp" - Otis & Carla
The King and Queen get everything but medieval on each other, and Otis coos quietly "mamas, grand-mamas", ad-libbing the path Andre 3000 would follow to great acclaim. Better than Carla, better than Rufus and Carla, and dare I say, better than Otis? Sloppy and free (but in a good way) - the sound of Otis toeing the line but squirmin' on the balls of his feet.

5)"Soul Finger" - The Bar-Kays
Another song from the soundtrack of my movie - It's party time, and the freaks and weirdos are now cool (thank you for it all, Mr. Kurt Cobain). My mohawk is spiked, but soft at the top 1/4", the blonde tips like stamen waving with each shake of my head. It's the sound of Boone's Farm meeting Olde English with Camel chaser, everyone smiles and answers the trumpet: "Soul Finger!"

6)"Sophisticated Sissy" - Rufus Thomas
The Godfather of Memphis' dances, the Lord of the Dog, as it were. "They were doing the sissy/Sophisticated sissy/Everybody's doing the sissy/Sophisticated sissy." Man, in a perfect world the B-52's covered this with tongue firmly in cheek. It grooves through and through - carried by the barrel of the baritone sax.

7)"A Tribute To A King" - William Bell
One of the greats, singing the glory of The Man Who Was Otis. Released just months after Otis died, Bell gives one of his greatest performances. If you don't know the song, imagine "Nightshift" (the Commodore's tribute to Marvin Gaye) sung to the tune of "Midnight Train To Georgia" at a Baptist funeral. Than imagine how great that would be, and weep.

8)"Able Mable" - Mable John
Don't fuck with Mable. She'll kick your ass and make you like it. Donald "Duck" Dunn gives Mable's menace teeth, the slow walking bass like knuckles rolling into the palm to make a fist. The only response is, "Yes, Ma'am!"

The Essential Ultimate Greatest Top Best Of All-Time Collection

Are collections a boon or bane? I've been pondering this a bit lately, mulling it over, turning it about in my mind, so to speak. Last week Billy Bragg released Must I Paint You a Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg, a first ever "career retrospective." For me, Bragg has always been someone to enjoy on college radio and to borrow from college roommates. So I'm not a huge fan (I do have the two Mermaid Ave discs, and an nice old Peel Sessions CD that Strange Fruit released back in the early nineties. It's an eighties-greatest-hits-played-poorly collection), but I liked enough of the singles over the years to want to pick this up. I did, and ... it's too long. You would think a 20 year career would have enough for a 40 song set, and yet, you would be wrong. There would be songs missing off a one CD hits collection, but it makes me wonder. In the light of Billy Bragg, or the recent yet-another-repackaging of The Eagles (this time it's The Very Best of The Eagles; 2 CD's and 33 songs. The Greatest Hits was only 10 songs, and Greatest Hits vol. 2 was another 10. Mathematically, there are 13 of their Very Best that were not Great Hits. So is Don Henley blaming the record company for these 13 failures, or what? I guess when you can live off the residuals paid by car commercials you don't have to care anymore. This is a rather long parenthetical side-trip, but I would be remiss if I failed to get in a jab at Don Henley/Glenn Frey and the assorted other Eagle wankers), are the rash of Ultimate and Essential Collections a plague or a gift to fans everywhere?

I'm not going to argue that artists should or should not put out collections. After a certain career point, there needs to be a good introduction and starting point. For an artist such as Bob Dylan, collections that focus on covering a span of time are crucial - if you look at the track list of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, it's ten tracks everyone knows. A true greatest hits from his first 7 albums. In 2000, Columbia released The Essential Bob Dylan, a nice two disc set that covers forty years in 30 songs. 24 of the songs are from the first 14 years of his career. The summation of the final twenty-six years is six songs, only two of which are from the last 11 years. I'm sure Dylan doesn't feel that these recordings, that comprise the bulk of his career, are less "essential". At least Bragg chose his set, and is responsible for the flotsam and jetsam that litters the two discs. And the idea that Bragg has more essential songs than Dylan is both farcical and ludicrous (not just one or the other).

Still I am torn. I like the Essential collections - the Johnny Cash one is a great companion to Love/God/Murder, which was Cash's chosen career retrospective. The Leonard Cohen double disc - chosen by the sartorial sage himself (can't you just see him, standing barefoot in black slacks and a black turtleneck, hand on grizzled chin, looking at his albums spread across the floor as so many i-ching sticks, pondering whether to include the original or live version of "Dance Me to the End of Love"? Okay, maybe not) is great - it allows you to see the evolution, the steps and missteps along the way. I don't feel I need another Cohen album.

And that's the problem. Leonard Cohen has chosen a collection that makes every single other album irrelevant to me. I have no need for back catalog whatsoever. The same is true with so many of these Essential collections. Willie Nelson? Check. Stevie Ray Vaughan? Check. Earth, Wind & Fire? Check. I hate to say it, but for most people, The Essential Clash and the Essential Sly & The Family Stone will be more than enough. Two discs of Kenny Loggins? Well, it does have the Loggins & Messina masterpieces. Even the 20th Century Masters and Ultimate collections are often enough. I'm still waiting for somebody to buy me Black 'N' Blue's Ultimate Collection so I can think of Kyle as I rock out to "Bombastic Plastic."

So do these collections serve the best interest of the artist or the consumer, both, or neither? I won't buy any back catalog from Leonard Cohen or Billy Bragg. But would I have otherwise? Doubtful, but I eventually might have decided, "Damn it, I need to hear 'Tower of Song' or the full band version of 'She's Got a New Spell'." (If anyone knows if Springsteen ever fulfilled my spring dream, I'd love to know) It's a tough question, one I toss around and around and seem to never satisfy myself with an answer.