Playlist: July 26th - 30th, 2010

Hey cats, what's shaking? I'm on a post-Revelation come down this week. I saw a bunch of really great films and you can read how great they were over at MFNM The only bummer with this year's festival (and I really shouldn't complain about it) was that attendances were up 40% It felt like it too. It's great to see more Perth people getting along to decent cinema, but maybe leave the bourbons and beers at the bar hey?

To the Music!

• Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I : Maybe its the new full beard, but my mood has been increasingly 70s of late. Ok, so this cut is from 1969, but I wanted some Zeppelin. Led Zep I got me into University. Along with Pink Floyd - Obscured by Clouds, it was the only thing I listened to while I studied for the TEE (the second time at Canning College - there was no studying at Kwinana HS).

• VA - Jazz of the Beat Generation : It's no secret that I'm a beatnik sympathiser, if not a card carrying member. This exploitative compilation is a bunch of bebop tracks with a sprinkle of novelty songs. Every song sounds like it came straight out of a 50s afternoon matinee movie.

• America - The Complete Greatest Hits : More sweet 70s honey-dripped aural magic from sound-too-stoned-to-rock-out America. I have always had a very big soft spot for Sister Golden Hair and Ventura Highway. Expect more classic 70s rock next week.

• VA - Brooklyn Radio 1987 : An online streamed mixtape of classic hip hop tracks from 1987 compiled by Brooklyn's own Rub Radio. In little more than an hour, this excellent mix throws in Eric B & Rakim, Public Enemy, Doug E Fresh and a stack more first class acts from back in the day.

• Cowboy Junkies - Lay It Down : Among my favourite bands, Cowboy Junkies have been turning out great albums since the 80. This LP contains Bea's Song (River Song Trilogy) which with Sun Comes Up... is also my favorite CJs song.

• VA - Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine : Embarrassingly, the first I knew of John Prine was Evan Dando's cover of Sam Stone, even though I had seen him performing in footage of Newport and some protest rallies where I was watching for Dylan This compilation is a bunch o John Prine covers but doesn't include Dando's terrific cover. It does however have Old Crow Medicine Show, Conor Oberst, Lambchop, Drive-By Truckers and other notable indie, country-friendly acts.
  

• U2 - Zooropa : A long, long time has passed since I listened to this album religiously with Achtung Baby; headphones jammed in my ears on the three buses from Leda to Mt Lawley. I'm interested to know if it's held up well. I do still recall when U2 were kings of the world.

• Whiskeytown - Rural Free Delivery : Yes, I'm a total Whiskeytown tragic and if I could I would spin an album every week. This time though, Ive gone with something rare; the band's earliest limited release LP which features embrionic trcks that were later rewritten and some that were discarded. For me there is no bad Whiskeytown song. But I'm tragic, as mentioned.
  

• Sound Providers - Looking Backwards: 2001 - 1998 : A jazzy mix of horns, beats and breaks with some soulful rhyming and a squeeze of mellow. Yep, that's Jazz Hop all over.

• John Coltrane - Lush Life : To paraphrase the lovely Ms Dorothy Parker, I love bebop because its a bebop kind of town. Actually, Perth is very far from a bebop kind of town, but I wanted to make the Parker reference (which I can't make anymore without seeing Jennifer Jason Leigh drunk, sipping cocktails). Seriously though, I love bebop, you dig? And Trane is the boppiest. Wail man. Right on.
  

Until next week, let me leave you with piece of advice I've been giving myself lately :

Don't get hung up man. Stay cool.