Purple Highway Sugaring Trees (October 1st - 5th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Big Saturday today with the AFL Grand Final on and the long weekend under way. I watched the Swans deservedly win an epic football battle and not long after my TV decided that it wasn't fixed any more. So I spat the proverbial and bought another one online. Free delivery in 4 to 5 working days. You have to love the Internet. It's 3D and all, so I threw a 3D Bluray player in for good measure. I look forward to hundreds of hilarious viewings of Piranha 3DD.

I have a whole bunch of new albums this week, namely from Ben Folds Five, Brother Ali, Beth Orton and finally, Mumford & Sons. For something old, there's Deep Purple's monster hit In Rock, as well as Devo's Freedom of Choice. I'm still on my latest Sonic Youth kick, so I grabbed a Thurston Moore solo effort from 2006. Cameron Crowe's grunge era pop culture zeitgeist, Singles, turned 20 last week, so the soundtrack is here. Paul Kelly (for like 2 minutes) on TV for the Grand Final is the reason why Foggy Highway is here. Rounding it all off with a dose of old skool nostalgia thanks again to Art of Rap, a Def Jam compilation from 2001.

Check it out:

• Ben Folds Five - The Sound of the Life of Mind
• VA - Singles OST
• Brother Ali - Mourning in America and Dreaming In Color
• VA - Def Jam 1985-2001: History of Hip Hop, Vol. 1
• Devo - Freedom of Choice
• Beth Orton - Sugaring Season
• Paul Kelly & the Storm Water Boys - Foggy Highway
• Deep Purple - In Rock
• Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy
• Mumford & Sons - Babel

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Sonic Youth
2. Eric B & Rakim
3. Pearl Jam
4. The xx
5. Band Of Horses

Song of the Week : The Replacements - Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out

For my song of the week, I'm going with the hysterically coincidental track from Let It Be - no, not that one, The Replacements' one. I had put Let It Be on my weekly list without remembering that there's a track on there called "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out". 

As you know, my little 'Tommy' got her tonsils out this week too. I am happy to report that they were not "rip rip!" ripped out. The operation itself was over and done with rather quickly, but I'm sure all care was taken. This track is even in keeping with the car theme, because the doctor has his Cadillac running. 

You can hear in this song all the elements of LA Hardcore punk which was big at the time, but of which The Replacements aren't really exponents. I've chosen it for the coincidence and nothing more. I hope you get a giggle.

Onward to Victory

Thanks for stopping by. If you are a Sydney Swans fan (and not one of the Victorian bandwagon hoppers who refers to your team as "The Bloods"), congratulations. Hawks fans, commiserations; as an Eagles supporter, I know how it feels to lose to the Swans in a close one. Please, tell your team to rest on their laurels and not use their hunger for a flag to destroy us all in 2013. Thank you. 

Hasala malakim.

Playlist : August 21st - 25th, 2011

Hello fellow travellers. Welcome to Work Tunes.

There very nearly wasn't a post this week, because I've had all sorts of technology fail culminating in a brand new hard drive and OS install. That of course meant installing all my programs again, including iTunes which made gathering a list a difficult task until the last minute.

So with limited time, here's how it turned out:

• Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation
• Jay-Z - The Blueprint
• Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever
• Deep Purple - Machinehead
• Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Mirror Traffic
• VA - Encomium Tribute To Led Zeppelin
• Primus - Green Naugahyde
• The Autumn Defense - The Autumn Defense
• Telekinesis - 12 Desperate Straight Lines
• Eazy-E - Eazy Duz It

Song of the Week : Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Victim of Circumstance

So that's the whole deal this week. Hopefully by next week I will have settled in with all my programs and my playlists back so I can get a bit more time to make a quality list. This one will serve me well though.

Ciao for now amigos.

Playlist : August 1st - 5th, 2011

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes. Let's get straight to the music.

Two big losses to the world of music this week in the form of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse and Dan Peek of America fame. I had an America compilation on rotation a while back, but I've slotted Winehouse's Back to Black into this week.

Everywhere I go lately, everyone is talking about Elbow, so I've chosen their 2001 debut LP, Asleep In The Back. I might play their most recent effort next week.

Inspired by a question posed online by Harry Allen ("Hip Hop activist and media assassin") about whether Eminem would be considered as great if he were black, I've got Em's breakthrough Slim Shady LP and the whiteboy frat party stylings of Asher Roth, another once-much-vaunted whiteboy rapper.

Finally, amongst other selections, I have one more LP inspired by Revelation - The Best of The Grateful Dead, which I chose thanks to the secret screening on Sunday past - Magic Trip (2011).

But that's not all, so check it out:

• Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
• The Grateful Dead - The Very Best Of The Grateful Dead
• The Donnas - Spend the Night
• Eminem - Slim Shady LP
• Asher Roth - Asleep In The Bread Aisle
• Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
• Deep Purple - Machinehead
• Black Rose Noise - The Manifesto
• REO Speedwagon - Hi Infidelity
• Elbow - Asleep In The Back

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Beck
2. Pentagram
3. Guns N' Roses
4. Midlake
5. INXS

Song of the Week : Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band - Stay Away

Spin Magazine put out a free tribute to Nevermind, since this year is the 20th anniversary of its release. Twenty years! Think about that. I clearly remember the first time I held a copy of Nevermind and I distinctly recall my first listen. I’d only heard Teen Spirit at the time and I thought it was great, but I had no inkling of what the whole LP would come to mean to us all.

The Spin tribute features a stack of bands, but most of them do covers that, while very different to Nirvana, still have the same indie rock ethic. I chose this Menahan Street Band cut, because it’s the one track that completely removes the song from its indie hole and turns it into something else entirely. And the coolest thing about this version of Stay Away, is it sounds just like it’s always been a Soul song. Nothing about the lyrics betray the Soul sensibility the way Charles Bradley sings it. I hope you enjoy it. You can DL the whole tribute LP if you haven’t already, here.

Adeus

In the immortal words of the Beastie Boys; that's it, that's all, that's all there is. I have a date with my wife on Saturday morning to go and see Morgan Spurlock's The Greatest Movie Ever Sold and an outing planned for some second hand vinyl and other bric a brac on Sunday.

I hope your collective weekends are copacetic. As always, asalaam alikum.