Like The Very Easy Dawn (October 14th - 18th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Just back from a charity breakfast with the Wilderness Society and a spot of shopping. Last week's relaxing day at the supermarket was more than made up for by the mad rush that was today. Ah well, the Universe is in balance now I guess. 

Speaking of balance, I'm not sure if I got this list right, but I'll give it a go. I've been meaning to stick Brother Ali's Us on again for a while and finally have. The same goes for Easy Tiger and Dressed Up Like Nebraska which I haven't heard in some time. A recent purchase from Soul Asylum gets a gig, as does the latest from Pearl Jam. For a bit of a crazy interlude, there's Devo and Pink Floyd. Another volume of Street Sounds Hip Hop is here and I've got some early Justin Townes Earle. Finally, disc one of a two disc set of the Essential Bill Withers will make for some nice soul. 

Check it out:

• Bill Withers - The Essential Bill Withers (Disc 1)
• Brother Ali - Us
• Josh Rouse - Dressed Up Like Nebraska
• Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
• Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates of Dawn
• Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
• Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt
• Soul Asylum - Playlist: The Very Best of Soul Asylum
• VA - Street Sounds Hip Hop 17
• Justin Townes Earle - The Good Life

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. The Lemonheads
2. Justin Townes Earle
3. The Breeders
4. Slackwax
5. Pulp

Song of the Week : The Head and the Heart - Another Story

I had a song picked out on Tuesday and then one turned up yesterday and took its place. This is from the new The Head and the Heart album, which I streamed yesterday. I have their self-titled album (which I think is their first) and it’s far more upbeat and poppy than this song, as is the rest of this new album. This song, Another Story is introspective with a quietly beautiful melody. 

The way I interpret this song is it’s about tragedy and the way people respond to it. Not necessarily personal tragedy, but the abstract, ‘out there’ tragic stories of the day. A car bomb, a neglected child, plane crashes and the like. It’s about how we hear these things, we feel like everything has gone to hell, and then we quickly suck it up and go on. It also puts forth that nothing will change – not the propensity for tragedy to happen and not the fact that there’s also love in the world.  In the Soundcloud app I was streaming from, someone commented that it was about the Sandy Hook shootings. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes sense. I think if it is true, it’s about Sandy Hook as part of a bigger metaphor for big tragedies. 

There’s a video on YouTube that I found and which sold me on this track as SOTW. Firstly because of the landscape and urban images in it and secondly because the lyrics are all over it, which helps highlight their importance. You can watch that here if you like

Farvel

We've decided to break the year long seal on the barbecue tonight and cook up a sizzle with some salad. Looks like it might be too cold to eat it outside yet though. 

And I've just realised you could care less what I have for dinner tonight. Just make with the music monkey man. Nah, just kidding, you're alright. 

Hasala malakim.

Playlist : October 18th - 22nd, 2010

Welcome back to our regularly secheduled program.This week's list seems to have a little funk in the trunk, along with a touch of country twang.

Check it out.

• Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone : Produced by and guest starring Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, this is the latest offering from the always brilliantly voiced Mavis Staples. Just another in the collection of great Soul records being released this year.

• Concrete Blonde - Still In Hollywood : I admit it; I'm a hopeless Concrete Blonde fan. Everything up to and including Mexican Moon, at least. This album of rare songs and b-sides has been missing from my iPod for a long while. Worth it for the covers and for Probably Will.

• VA - Soundtrack - Semi-Pro : For the life of me, I couldn't tell you why I find Will Ferrel so hysterical. By all logic, a self-confessed film snob like me should look down on him. But you can't beat Semi-Pro, Taladega Nights, Step Brothers and even his bit part in Starsky & Hutch for good laughs. Plus, this is one funky soundtrack.

• Queen Latifah - All Hail The Queen : Back in the day, Latifah was a strong, independent female rapper with a militant eye on feminist and racial politics. Now, she's just a strong independent female. Damn you Hollywood. Damn you all to HELL!

• Black Star - Black Star : This has probably been on a couple of playlists by now, but I don't care. It reamins in the upper eschelons of my favourite Hip Hop albums. Jazz sensibilities and Mos Def & Talib Kweli with a positive message and butter smooth rhyme flow always sounds good to me.

• VA - Can't Stop It - Australian Post Punk : I missed it, I'm afraid, but it seems Australia was the place to be for young post-punk bands in the 70s and 80s. High unemployment and prevelant drugs meant there were a lot of bands around. After hearing a great JJJ podcast on the topic, I hunted this album down.

• Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cold Roses : Much as I've been neglecting Whiskeytown of late, I have all but forgotten Radams and Co. Cold Roses is just one of the man's all solid 2005 efforts - and a double album at that. Hard to believe he released this brilliant set, Jacksonville City Nights and 29 all in the same year.

• Kasey Chambers - Little Bird : True story, Kasey Chambers wrote my wife and I a wedding card. We had a mutual acquaintance. Namely, her then partner Corey. I was a big fan of her first three LPs but she fell off for me for a while there. This new set seems to have recaptured some of the fire.

• Menahan Street Band - Make the Road By Walking : An album of funky intrumentals that I fdound out about via a free KCRW iTunes mix. This is like a nice smooth groove of jazz with a funky edge.

• Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited : For some reason, I was surprised by how good Bringing It All Back Home sounded last week. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream became the song of the week because I really enjoyed the rollicking blues rock of 'side one'. I just had to slip this one in as part two of the Holy Trinity.
  

There you have it cats. Stay golden, don't get hung up, peace man, right on, keep it real and all that good stuff.

Hip Hop Appreciation Week Pt 5

Mixtape 5 of 5 Back to the Roots

Finally the end of my set, but certainly not the end of my devotion to all things Hip Hop. While Eminem had got me back into rap with the Marshall Mathers LP, it was a couple of hooligans from Adelaide with a CD called The Calling that I borrowed from the library who got me passionate again. The rise of Australian Hip Hop made me realise there was a way forward - upwards and out of the gangsta quagmire. ...giggidy ;)

• Hilltop Hoods - 1979 : It wasn't til after I had lent The Calling that I discovered Hilltop Hoods and downloaded Matter Of Time from their website archives. This song for me covers everything I've been saying about where rap went wrong and how it can be fixed. Plus, you can feel a genuine passion for the culture in every rhyme Suffa and Pressure drop. "It's not Hip Hop / It's something more sad, sick and seedy / What's popping that Gucci got to do with graffiti?"

• Bliss N Eso - That Feeling : Thanks to my initial foray into Skip Hop, I discovered Bliss N Eso via an iTunes free song of the week. Again, these guys had a love for the culture and were telling their own tales of how they got into it, where it took them and where it's heading. It genuinely felt good to hear people tell stories like my own - much the way I figure Bronx kids felt when Run DMC blew up. It got me all the more passionate about the music and made me rediscover the old school stuff I used to love.

• Pegz - Back Then : Yet another great Australian Hip Hop song about the old days of the culture from an AU perspective. When Pegz says "Who remembers Ice-T was king? Flat tops were in, Swatches were bling" you just try and stop me putting my hand up (with my Swatch on).

• Hilltop Hoods - The Calling: As mentioned, this was really the album that put me firmly back on the Hip Hop track. This song is an ode to the almost religious hold of the culture and being down for the joy of it and not for money, fame or girls. "So from the cradle to the grave, turntable to holy father / I swear I didn't slit my wrists, I've got the Hip Hop stigmata".

• Public Enemy - So Whatcha Gone Do Now? : The first piece of positive flow I had heard come out of America for a while was of course from the great PE. On this track, PE use soundbites from Spike Lee's School Daze from the likes of Laurence Fishburne and Giancarlo Esposito to punctuate Chuck D's rant about what he percieves is a lack of self respect from the men in his race. Chuck spits vitriol at those who are "talking that drive-by $#!&", "that gangsta $#!&" and call each other by the N word. And, like Fishburne's Dap in School Daze says when an arch rival accuses "You're all N----s just like us, and you're gonna be N----s forever." Chuck's point is "You're Not N----s".

• Hilltop Hoods - She's So Ugly : So you can probably guess the importance of the Hoods to me with three tracks in my final ten. State of the Art dropped this year and it continues the great work of the Adelaide trio with rhymes that mean something, that have a tale to tell and do it with impressive flow. This track again touches on what others have been saying about Hip Hop being at a low point - with the great sample "Hip Hop right now she's an ugly b!%#&" At the same time, the Hoods again proclaim how much they once loved 'her'.

• Brother Ali - Watcha Got : I don't recall how I found Brother Ali, but he has quickly become my favourite US rapper. The hulking albino with a cheeky grin and a whole swag of arrogance has no time for the empty rhymes and disrespect for women and Hip Hop pioneers so prevalent in much of rap in the early 2000s. This track spoke right to me from the opening line "I came in the door 1984, paint on the wall got chased by the law / Once got stole in the face for the flow, was never given a zone, had to create my own." It's like Ali grew up in Perth in the 80s too.

• Nas - Hip Hop Is Dead : Featuring wil.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and samples from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Apache (the latter fittingly among Hip Hop's earliest and most iconic tracks) Nas proclaims the death of Hip Hop from over-commercialization and the pursuit of conspicuous wealth. Meanwhile, he reminds us what is right about the culture with talk of its pioneers and its roots - proclaiming he's "on my second marriage; Hip Hop's my first wifey."

• Nas - Carry On Tradition : As well as declaring Hip Hop as we know it DOA, Nas offers advice on how to revive it on his 2006 LP Hip Hop Is Dead. Despite some dubious antisemitic statements, this song is a protective hand over the culture demanding that up-and-comers show it respect or get out. As Nas spits, there's no point calling yourself Hip Hop if you can't even quote Daddy Kane.

• Double Dee & Steinski - Lesson 3 History of Hip Hop : Winners of the 1983 Tommy Boy Records remix contest, Double Dee & Steinski were turntablist pioneers who layed down in 3 lessons the bare essentials of just about every iconic cut in Hip Hop history, ever. I have included Lesson 3 as a celebration of the fourth element (DJing).

And so that is my full set of 50. It has been an enjoyable experience writing about the songs that have kept me in Hip Hop's grasp or pulled me back in through all these years. For anyone who read this, I hope you learned a few things and maybe want to go out and hear some new tracks. If you read this and you lived it all too, I hope you felt a little of the joy that reminiscing about all this brought me.

Now throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care... Yes, yes ya'll. And it don't stop.

Hip Hop Appreciation Week Pt 4

Mixtape 4 of 5 Bling & Remebering

Welcome to part 4 of my tribute for Hip Hop Appreciation Week. At this stage in the game, I wasn't what you'd call a fan. I was off listening to Dinosaur Jr, Nirvana, Hole and Soundgarden etc, wearing flannel and 'slacking'. It's also when I got into folk and Dylan for the story telling. But when Eminem dropped Stan, something that I had forgotten somehow resurfaced as I realised rap told many a great tale. It was just that now most of the tales seemed to be of little importance.

• Snoop Dogg - Still A G Thang : With the popular G-Funk style of synthesized melody and deep bass lines reminiscent of the 70s funk stylings of Sly, Parliament et al, Snoop Dogg told tales of the life of a G and his harem of 'bitches' and yards of bling.

• The Notorious B.I.G. - Things Done Changed : Cali may have been the in sound, but the Bronx kept a stamp on rap in the form of Biggie Smalls, aka the Notorious B.I.G., real name Christopher Wallace. Biggie talks here of how the streets aren't the place they used to be with kids punching on over territory. Using a sample from Dr Dre's Lil Ghetto Boy, BIG exerts "Remember they used to throw? But now they blast, right?" This is the violence and nihilistic attitude of gangbangers writ large

• Nas - N.Y. State of Mind : The West Coast v East Coast rivalry was in full effect by now and East Coast rappers had a penchant for burrough checking. Nas was very firmly in the East Coast camp having come up in Queensbridge. This song talks about the escalating violence of gang culture, as B.I.G. had, but without the swagger and with an added touch of disillusionment.
  

• Jay-Z - Izzo (H.O.V.A.) : An anthem of sorts with not much more to say than "I'm Jay-Z and I sell a lot of records but I used to be a drug dealer." A long way from the positive message of rap's 'founding fathers'. Famously, Jay-Z was involved in a feud with fellow NY local Nas and was later Nas' boss after he signed him to Def Jam in 2006.

• Eminem - My Name Is : Marshall Mathers aka Slim Shady aka Eminem burst onto the scene with this, for the time, controversial track which again had not much to say. It did later cost Eminem almost US$10M when later his own Mother sued him for the claim that she 'does more dope than I do'. While Eminem has a staggering talent for rhyme that helped suck me back into rap, he only occasionally has something important to say with his impressive tongue.
  

• 50 Cent - In Da Club : Many people may disagree vehemently with me, and that's fine, but as little as I paid attention to this kind of track, I think the new faux R&B / Rap reached its most vacuous low around about here. I have heard 50 Cent drop some tremendous flow, but this isn't it - and the dance track backing makes it all the worse. The backlash had to come, and it's coming still.

• Black Star - Definition : In 1998 two then little known MCs, Mos Def and Talib Kweli formed Black Star and released a self-titled debut. Much of their rhymes focused on reconciliation between the West and East coasts. This track talks about the inherent dangers of being a rapper and of life on Brooklyn's streets, while it takes a subtle swipe at the up and coming wannabe gangsters with "What a pity blunts are still Fiddy cents...".

• Missy Elliot - Wake Up : Just as guilty of the phony R&B but none-the-less starting to get on the positivity train, this track sees Missy Elliot and guest star Jay-Z reassure rappers and ghetto youth that "If you don't got a gun it's alright..."

• Common - I Used To Love H.E.R. : Telling the tale of a woman he once knew, Common lays down some soulful lamenting of how she went from a sweet young girl to a militant activist and eventually a drunken, crack-smoking gangster whore. The woman is of course Hip Hop. This was perhaps the most vitriolic track spat at Hip Hop culture up to that point.

• The Roots - Act Too...The Love Of My Life : The disillusionment turns to nostalgia and a longing for the long gone days of pure Hip Hop for the sheer joy of it. The Roots were proclaiming, it seemed in this track, that they would breathe life back into a dying art.

That's it for part four. In the final part, I'll take a look at how the ascendancy of 'Skip Hop' really sprung from the same thread of disillusionment that seemed to be running through much of the most important Hip Hop music coming from the States at the time. But it wasn't just Australia who wanted Hip Hop back, there were a number of Americans with the same idea.

Adios Amigos.

Hip Hop Appreciation Week Pt 2

Mixtape 2 of 5 : Golden Age

The second lot of ten songs on my list covers rap's so-called Golden Age with artists like Run DMC and the Beastie Boys making a massive impact on the world stage.

• MC Shy D - Rap Will Never Die : Having already released this song, Shy D rerecorded and rewrote it to cover the history of the genre; with shout outs to Kool Herc, Arika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash and just about every notable artist all the way to Run DMC. This was an anthem to me. All I have for this remixed version is an mp3 I made from a tape off the radio in 1987.
  

• Run DMC - Walk This Way : When my best friend from Primary School came back from Bali in the summer of 1985/86, he gave me a tape and told me it was 'breakdance' music. At the time, B-Boying was deader than the Charleston so I scoffed. That tape was Raising Hell. Within months, Walk This Way was the biggest Hip Hop hit ever, at the time, and remained so for quite some time afterwards. Rap now had true sway with the industry.

• Beastie Boys - The New Style : Def Jam's stab at the white boy market started life as a trio of 'beer-drinking, breath-stinking' spoiled brat middle-class kids from Brooklyn. Mixing rock guitar with beats and cuts the way Run DMC had so successfully with Aerosmith, the Beastie Boys' debut Licensed To Ill was a Billboard #1 hit.

• Eric B & Rakim - I Ain't No Joke - The smooth and serious baritone of Rakim Allah and the masterful mixing of James Brown soul and Hip Hop's hardest beats by Eric B set a bar for rap albums on Paid In Full that is rarely matched. I must have played my dubbed copy from imported vinyl as a 15 year old a million times. I purchased the CD as soon as it made it here, but rap got no love from Perth in 1987. I can still play this album from start to finish and then play it again. Absolute masterpiece and a treasure of the genre.

• Public Enemy - Bring The Noise : With Paid In Full, PE's debut Yo! Bum Rush the Show was like a twin talisman of everything I loved about rap. But Bum Rush sounded like PE had been mucking around when It Takes a Nation of Millions dropped. "Too black, too strong." With Nation, Chuck, Flav, Griff and the S1Ws really brung the noise.

• Ice-T - High Rollers : When Ice-T tells you he is the OG, you better freakin' believe it. I hadn't even heard Six in the Mornin' from Ice's debut Rhyme Pays when I first bought Power, but this for me is where gangster rhymes began; released before Straight Outta Compton dropped - and Rhyme Pays had already done it. Good use of sampled sounds and beats and Ice's hardcore intensity with a moral make this my favourite Ice-T track.

• NWA - Fuck Tha Police : Oh didn't we like to blast this one from our cars on P plates in 1989. This was violence and disrespect for the fun of it - just the way adolescent boys like it. There's a direct line from NWA to Big and Pac and 50 and Jah Rule et al. And of course, without Dre, rap would be a whole different beast by now.

• The Stop The Violence Movement - Self Destruction : Hip Hop and rap's Live Aid. Iconic artists from PE to Heavy D got together and decided to make a song about gang violence. This was rappers with a conscience trying to do something positive amidst the cries from the media and government that rap was violent. Forever all I could get of this song was a recording from the radio (Perth's first rap show Scratch FM on 100FM Fremantle) I have since purchased it online and recently bought the 12" vinyl.

• De La Soul - Say No Go : Hall and Oates in a rap song about drugs and poverty. How did that work so well?! Prince Paul you are a genius. This is more positive attitude from rap with Native Tongues members De La Soul releasing the ever-brilliant 3 Feet High and Rising (a cassette for which I paid $50 to import when it was released in 1989).

• Salt-n-Pepa - Push It : At this stage in my life as a head, I wasn't impressed with Salt-n-Pepa. They were girls, for a start and not Roxanne Shante, and everyone seemed to love this song - especially people who claimed to hate rap. I had already heard The Showstopper which was simply a dis to Doug E Fresh's The Show and that was the other reason I disliked them. But I have grown to enjoy their early work, particularly My Mic Sounds Nice

So that's another 10. I really would like to post the mixtapes so anyone bothering to read this can hear what I'm rambling about. I wish I had hosted space; but alas...

See you for part 3 soon.

Song of the Week 7/05/2010

Malcolm McLaren & the World Famous Supreme Team - Buffalo Gals

This week's SOTW came with a story. The story was told by Malcolm McLaren about walking around Manhattan and spotting an enormous black guy with a Nevermind the Bollocks... t-shirt. Nervous but curious, McLaren crossed the street to ask the man about his Pistols tee. The guy told him how much he loved the Pistols and invited Malcolm to a club that night to see him DJ. The guy's name was Afrika Bambaataa. It was 1980. Almost like the late 70s (Punk) crossed the street to hand the torch in preparation for the late 80s (Hip Hop).

This song is a stereo mix done by DJ Cut. The original was mono as far as I know. All I remember of the song when it came out was the big graffiti wall and thinking that Malcolm McLaren looked like a nut job. But that wall looked 'mintox'. I remember his strange kind of dance like he was made of rubber. Looking back, I think he was probably trying to breakdance.

I chose this song because I found a tribute album with present day rappers and legends of the game covering and remixing McLaren songs. It was made while he was still alive as a way of reminding people that he played an important role in taking Hip Hop out of the Bronx and into the rest of the world. This song is still good to listen to as electro too.

Enjoy. And in the words of my mate Mr Falzon - Duck duck duck.

Playlist : May 3rd - 7th, 2010

Welcome to another week of tunes. It's Saturday lunchtime and it's blissfully quiet at my house as the girls nap and their Mother watches Gray's Anatomy. So I've been compiling my weekly playlist. I'm really looking forward to tucking into a couple of these - especially Malcolm McLaren.

Here's the whole list.

• The Waifs - Up All Night - Western Australia represent! A bit of Fremantle style folk for May Day.
  
• Nizlopi - Make It Happen - I was introduced to Nizlopi with the sparklingly sentimental JCB Song via @_pants_ when my first child was pending. I only just heard about this 2008 LP and can't wait to hear it.
  
• Bright Eyes - Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998 - 2005) - While it doesn't contain my very favourite Bright Eyes rarity, Lua (feat. Gillian Welch), I am still excited to give this a spin.
  
• Melissa Etheridge - Fearless Love - I was once an unashamed ME fan. I saw her live in 1996 and her Unplugged set got me to start playing guitar again. Then she went a little pop. Then she was diagnosed with Leukemia and went (understandably) a little perky and sappy. From the cursory scan I have had of this LP, it sounds like a return to more tight musical rock stylings. Fingers crossed.
  
• Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded - This album was the soundtrack to all Hip Hop culture in 1987. Songs like 9MM Goes Bang and South Bronx were the first taste of 'gangsta' rap most of us (in Perth anyway) ever heard; and Scott La Rock was the first Rap artist we heard about getting shot and killed. It doesn't get anymore classic than this for the Old Skool.
  
• Richie Cunning - Night Train - A recommendation from a Hip Hop Jazz blog I follow. This is warm brass, wet streets, cold air and train tracks in the dead of night.
  
• Malcolm McLaren & The World Famous Supreme Team - Buffalo Gals : Back To Skool - A tribute to the often overlooked contribution that Malcolm McLaren made to New York Hip Hop back in the day. Featuring legends like KRS-One and Rakim, and made while McLaren was still alive, this is a fitting memorial for the crazy geezer and iconic 'ranga.
  
• Branford Marsalis Quartet - Music from Mo' Better Blues - Bebop bliss from Spike Lee's jazzy joint Mo' Better Blues (starring Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes) written by the cooler of the Marsalis brothers.
  
• VA - What It Is : Funky Soul & Rare Grooves Vol. 1 - Funk and dusty Soul from well known as well as some obscure artists from 1967 - 1977. Part of a four disc set, I'll be adding one volume to each of my next three playlists.
  
• Editors - The Back Room - Another band I picked up on via Twitter, from @bronwen of Twitterati fame, this Editors album has a very UK 80s indie pop sound but with louder guitars - like the Smiths collaborating with Oasis.
  

So that's me done for the week. If you're reading this and you know and love any of these albums, or are going to check some out, feel free to comment or turn me on to some different sides.

Playlist : April 27th - 30th, 2010

Another short week. Do we really have so many crammed together? Maybe we should space some out. Move the non-important ones like Queens Birthday. I'll talk to Parliament.

Speaking of parliament (the government, not the awesome Funk band), there appears to be a bit of a political theme running through this week's list. I put that down to watching Chicago 10 last week, followed by some Black Panther produced documentaries and listening to Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets.

This week's list:

• Billy Bragg - Back To Basics : Conscious tunes from the darling of UK left-wing socialism and heir to Guthrie's throne.
  
• John Coltrane - Giant Steps : I've been enjoying bebop via iTunes radio while working lately. I figured I better bring in some of my own. To say Trane is a genius is a ridiculous understatement.
  
• The Roots - Things Fall Apart : Another political leaning album, this time from the ghettos of Philadelphia.
• The Staple Singers - Soul Folk In Action : More politics of civil and human rights from the sweet 60s Soul of The Staple Singers and the always amazing voice of Mavis Staples.
• Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes : I think it was @crich who tweeted "Whatever happened to Fleet Foxes?" last week. Turns out their second album has been delayed by touring demands. It's due later this year. In the meantime...
• VA - Judgment Night : Music from the motion picture Judgment Night (1993) - a thriller about some boys in the wrong hood. The soundtrack consists of some unintentionally humorous pairings of rappers and rockers.
  
• Natalie Merchant - Leave Your Sleep : The latest offering from the 10,000 Maniacs former lead singer. This double CD is a collection of newly composed and anciently inspired children's folk songs.
• Sly & The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On : If The Staple Singers are sweet with their soulful political determination, Sly & Co. are polar opposites. This is a raised left fist and a funky chicken dance in one.
  

During the week I will also be listening to the latest The National LP, High Violet via the New York Times. Click the link to read Nicholas Dawidoff's profile of the band as well as stream the new album.

Happy listening. All power to the people.

Playlist : April 12th - 16th, 2010

I have foregone watching a film tonight to get this playlist done. I will most likely pop over to The Mixtape Club during the week in addition to this list. Speaking of lists;

• Jazz Liberatorz - Clin D'oeil : Some Jazz Hop that will no doubt go down well on Friday.
• Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville : Phair's answer to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street and a whole mess of sass and snark.
• Tim Easton - The Truth About Us : Funny enough, the artist from this week's Song of the Week turned up with a second hand CD for $2 at an Op Shop today.
• Palace Music - Viva Last Blues : WIll Oldham with an album critics have been recommending for years.
• Tim Rogers - What Rhymes With Cars and Girls : Saw Tim on a Spicks & Specks clip show on Easter Sunday. Made me realise this LP wasn't on my iPod. Personal favourite. All about broken hearts and booze.
• Various Artists - Beat Street OST : Started reading And It Don't Stop tonight; a book of journalism on Hip Hop through the years. It instantly made me want to listen to some Old School.
  
• Hole - MTV Unplugged - Thanks to @sunky 's SOTW, I have chased down this interesting gem.
• Prince - Sign O' The Times : Today I bought the accompanying concert film for this classic double LP at the Op Shop for AU$1. Check the link. It's on Amazon for US$95.95. Bargain...?

Happy listening. Stay tuned for reviews.