Rockin' Lost Daybreak Dreams (October 28th - November 1st)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Lovely day for it. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them - as is my understanding of these things. No matter what else, I'm still making pointless Simpsons references, so everything is normal. And so, to the music.

There's mostly older stuff this week. I finished Just Kill Me, my punk history book and I've grabbed some X-Ray Spex. Some old favourites in a Lost Highway records compilation and Ben Folds' Rockin' The Suburbs are getting a spin. Even more old favourites this week are Reckoning from REM and Beyond from Dinosaur Jr. There's albums from Veruca Salt and 50 Cent that I haven't heard, plus Go-Go Boots from the Drive-By Truckers that hasn't had a play in a while. I have a Hip Hop album from The Cancel and I'll be bringing it's follow up in next week. Finally, because I'm still in awe of her most recent song for the Real to Reel compilation, I've got a Stevie Nicks album to give it a go.

Check it out:

• VA - Lost Highway: Lost and Found 1
• Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams
• Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
• Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs
• REM - Reckoning
• The Cancel - Daybreak
• Dinosaur Jr - Beyond
• 50 Cent - Curtis
• Veruca Salt - Resolver
• X-Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Nirvana
2. Brother Ali
3. Jason Isbell
4. Bill Withers
5. Sonic Youth

Song of the Week : Best Coast - Fear Of My Identity

I had a hard time picking a song this week, and then I chose this one in a sort of protest. I don’t want to rant, but you've all probably seen that JJJ took over the digital radio station ABC Digg in an attempt to recapture the 30+ demographic that is being lost to JJJ. The gist of their press release was that 30+ year olds have left JJJ because they don’t follow new music anymore. The freakin’ nerve right?  I have a bunch of 2013 releases in my possession and not just from established rock acts like Bowie. I’ve jumped on releases from California X, Teenanger, Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils, Iceage, Telekinesis, Surfer Blood etcetera etcetera this year. So I kind of took exception to the implication that us “oldies” don’t listen to JJJ because of new music. I just don’t think they play very good new music. At least not when I last listened a few years ago. 

So when reaching for a SOTW I just picked one off of the newest set I brought to work this week – Best Coast’s new EP, Fade Away. I picked this particular track Fear of My Identity because I have dug it all week and also because it is sort of relevant with the “You taught me that my heart would grow old’ refrain. Best Coast are a relatively new band with their debut LP released in 2010 and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. Having said that, there is a lot of the aesthetic of 90s rock about them and that is the “sound” that the JJJ run Digg seems to think we all want after a certain age. I have to say they are probably right about that. When I first checked out the new Digg, they were playing Cherub Rock and it felt good, man. So maybe these bands I’ve discovered the last few years are just tapping into that 90s sound. 

Nostalgia may feel comforting, but there is always room for new sounds, or new artists who reinterpret those old sounds (I’m thinking of how ‘old’ Fitz and the Tantrums or She & Him sound). I mean, wouldn’t we all kill for the next Nevermind to come out and take music in a whole new direction? I think if the new Digg is going to play a good mix of those old JJJ staples and the most innovative of the newest artists (and not mainstream synth pop songs) it could be a terrific thing to have around, plugged from my TV into my hifi (I don’t have any other digital radio source!). 

Toodle-Ooh

I just bought a $4.95 DVD copy of Running On Empty. No, not the River Phoenix film, this one! Australia, bogans, 1980s, muscle cars, Deborah Conway acting. How fun is that?! Last time I watched it would have been 1986 on VHS. Funnily enough, I watched Rock n Roll High School last night. Must be a nostalgic week ahead, what with the old films and the old favourite sounds I selected. Plus, don't forget JJJ has retooled ABC Dig to sucker in old folks like me who miss the days when JJJ knew about good music.   

C'est la vie. Hasala malakim.

Platinum Radio Wax Renaissance (August 19th - 23rd)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

It's late Saturday night and I am just sitting down to write. It's been another long day. I got all negative test results today, so that's positive... ha ha. The doctor asked me today if I had any compulsive behaviours; alcohol, food, biting my nails etc. I told him about the only thing I was addicted to was making playlists on my iPod. And here's another one for you.

Because I dug on In The Street for SOTW last week, there's Big Star. I've been meaning to play some Stevie Wonder, so one of his best is here. Kiss add another 70s dose to my list, Bob Dylan reps the 60s and Hank Williams takes us back into the 50s. For relatively new stuff there's the soulful R&B of Valerie June and something else from Joshua Radin. My weekly serve of Hip Hop comes from 50 Cent and Q-Tip. Last of all I have the soundtrack from one of my favourite films, Waking Life, which is a sort of classical requiem for a dream.

Check it out:

• Big Star - Radio City
• Hank Williams - Best Of Hank Williams
• Bob Dylan - Biograph (Disc 3)
• VA - Waking Life OST
• Joshua Radin - Wax WIngs
• Kiss - Double Platinum
• Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
• Q-Tip - The Renaissance
• 50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin'
• Valerie June – Pushin’ Against A Stone

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Orgone
2. Bob Dylan
3. Prince
4. The Handsome Family
5. Blind Pilot

Song of the Week : Big Star - In The Street

My song this week comes from the soundtrack to a documentary about Big Star. You’ll be familiar with the song if you ever watched an episode of That 70s Show; they use it in a modified version for their theme song. 

In The Street is rock song about bored kids. It has that feel of bored, lost and nihilist teens. That’s an odd thing, given its from 1972 and (in Australia at least) the post-60s hangover was still around. I don’t tend to equate slacking with the 60s kids, who seem over earnest and naïve as opposed to cynical and bored – if the way Hollywood portrays them is to be believed. The attitude on show in In the Street seems like it belongs a good 5 years later in ’77 with the punks. It’s a feeling I knew as a teen in the 80s, a uni student in the 90s and sometimes a cynical old man in the Two-Tens! 

Musically, there is a lovely bit of cow bell in there to go with a few killer guitar licks and a whole lot of noise. Alex Chilton sings in a whine like a brat and it all makes sense. I think it was gold that the used it for That 70s Show, but I noticed they changed the line about the joint to “We’re All Alright!” Much like the show tiptoes around its drug use. 

I chose the documentary mix just so you’d get a different version of it. The difference seems to just be in the polish. I can imagine this mix would sound better in a theatre than the original because the original is a bit more abrasive in the high end. 

Goodnight

It's time for me to watch the latest Futurama and then go to bed with Brett Easton Ellis. Fun times planned tomorrow. A fuse blew in our FM transmitter though, so I may be forced to make a mix CD for the car tomorrow. It's like living in a developing nation in a way. 

Hasala malakim.

Sunday Public Asylum Massacre (July 2nd - 6th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.


A week of all work and no play make Corey J something something. Go crazy? Not quite, but it was touch and go there for a while. All enjoyable stress of course, but it does take its toll. Skagboys is going well. One good thing about being tired from work is getting to bed earlier and getting to read every night. Renton and Co. have just had a couple of tastes of Heroin and the book is mainly concerned at this stage with the rampant unemployment of Thatcher's Britain in the 80s. That's not a book report, that's just me making conversation. Okay, okay shut up monkey boy and make with the music. 


In this week's bag of treats, I have the kick-ass soundtrack to a cheesy 70s teen melodrama I just watched, Over The Edge; there's the Sonic Youth and Public Image Limited albums I bought courtesy of a carton of Becks; your funky education continues with disc 3 of Star Time; I threw in some 50 Cent and Cypress Hill coz I is well gangsta innit?; do you remember Soul Asylum? Dave Pirner dated Winona Ryder. You don't remember Winona Ryder? Me either. Queen are good though eh? For new sounds I have some old sounds by Silver Jews and the latest from Japandroids that some well-respected Twitter critics have raved about. I haven't heard them since Post-Nothing and I wasn't overly fussed on that album. I do trust my Twitter critics though, so we'll see.

Check it out:

• Japandroids - Celebration Rock
• VA - Over The Edge Soundtrack
• 50 Cent - The Massacre
• Sonic Youth - Washing Machine
• James Brown - Star Time Disc 3
• Public Image Limited - Public Image Ltd
• Cypress Hill - Black Sunday
• Soul Asylum - Grave Dancers Union
• Queen - Queen's Greatest Hits
• Silver Jews - Early Times

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. James Brown
2. The Cure
3. Eminem
4. Circle Jerks
5. The Police

Song of the Week : Wax Audio - Disturbing Practices (Overboard)

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Initially I was going to pick a vitriolic Elvis Costello song about Thatcher just to highlight how great some songs can be when they're so nasty. Then I remembered a song far more closely related to our own mess and just as nasty - only this time, the politicians' own words are used to hang them out to dry.


This is Disturbing Practices by Wax Audio, a remix of political propoganda from the time of the Children Overboard fiasco. The fact that people forgot Howard and Costello's lies and voted them back in, just illustrates how too many Australians have the derp derp deyturkarejarbs! mentality.


Problem is, the majority of voters seem to still be conveniently forgetting that people have died as a result of this veiled White Australia Policy, this attempt to rile up rednecks and make them feel 'secure' from those nasty desperate people. I'm disgusted in The Ranga for still playing the games with people's lives that got Howard elected. I can say with pride that I voted Greens and kept offshore processing out of the Senate.

I'm 5000

Thanks for stopping by. It is my nephew's first birthday bash this weekend. It's a pirate themed party. So I thoroughly intend to burn copies of all my sister and brother in law's DVDs. Yaaaar! 


Be good to one another. Don't worry about a thing, because damn it, if you're reading this it means you have an internet enabled device and a connection. That's already put you in the richest 30 or so percent of people in the world. Share the wealth a little hey? 


Go Eagles. Hasala malakim.

Playlist May 2nd - 6th, 2011

Well hello there tunesters. It's been a massive break for me over Easter. After the first weekend was spent working day and night, I tried to make the most of every day I had left. It was an excellent break.

And so on to the music. This week's list contains a number of new ones, from The Waifs, Okkervil River and Drapht. Plus I'm trying to hear some classics I haven't heard in a while (Blondie) or at all (50 Cent). Here's what I've got:

• Blondie - Parallel Lines
• Okkervil River - I Am Very Far
• Drapht - The Life of Riley
• John Mayer - Battle Studies
• The Strokes - Is This It
• JEFF the Brotherhood - We Are The Champions
• 50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin'
• John Mellencamp - No Better Than This
• The Waifs - Temptation
• VA - Spin Magazine April 2011
  

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Tori Amos
2. Beastie Boys
3. Ryan Adams
4. Bob Dylan
5. Neko Case

Song of the Week : Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink

One of the things I managed to squeeze into my holidays was a 20 minute visit to a record fair in Vic Park. We were running late with everything we had to do that day, so I only just got there in time. I managed to pick up three great records for a total of less than $20. Madonna’s debut, Van Morrison – Moondance and the Pretty In Pink soundtrack.

I think I’ve mentioned before that Pretty In Pink was the first soundtrack (besides Grease) that I remember everybody my age (about 14 at the time I think) having. I wasn’t even really a fan of the film, beyond Molly Ringwald, but the soundtrack is superb. It has a pretty obvious euro vibe with New Order and The Smiths and OMD. Even Suzanne Vega sounds more English than American. Probably because she’s Canadian (I think, eh?).

I chose the Psychedelic Furs title track to the film, which inspired the film itself. I can’t tell you how 80s geeked out I was when I got this pristine condition vinyl ($9 thanks!) home and put it on the turntable. I had it on cassette back in the day, because I had my own ‘boombox’, but hearing it on wax was transporting. I played it twice in a row that day and I’ve spun it twice since. This is what the 80s sounded like. Enjoy.

Until May

I was going to resurrect the old style Work Tunes for May, but I got so busy on the holidays that I've changed my mind.

Until next week, may your mornings always be hot buttered toast with cartoons and your nights forever be cocktails and moonlight.