Short Beach Pixies Give Up (April 30 - May 4)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.


I've got a biannual Record Fair this weekend and I'm looking forward to picking up a few great records at a bargain price - or a couple of hard to find classics at a premium. If I find anything especially great, I might just rip it to digital and whack it on next week's list. 


This week's list is a little heavy on the indie and the dinosaur rock. I've found a couple of bands I didn't previously know and dug up a Television album I haven't heard. Here's what I have to get me through week ahead. 


After getting quickly addicted to the What A Pleasure EP, I've got Beach Fossils' debut; Songl told me Spectrals were like Beach Fossils, so there's that; I have one of the last Bonnie Prince Billy albums I'm yet to hear; the best of the Pixies; The Postal Service's one and only album; some funky jazz hop from Ninety One; the second disc of Tupac's Greatest Hits; some Iron & Wine and U2's Boy.


Check it out:

• U2 - Boy
• Television - The Blow Up
• Tupac - Greatest Hits (Disc 2)
• Spectrals - Bad Penny
• Beach Fossils - Beach Fossils
• Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Letting Go
• Ninety One - Short Nights
• Pixies - Wave Of Mutilation
• Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
• The Postal Service - Give Up

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Beach Fossils
2. Snoop Dogg
3. Brian Eno
4. Ambulance LTD
5. Ninety One

Song of the Week : Beach Fossils - Face It

I first heard this album (which is really an EP) half way through last year and it just sort of washed right over me. You know, I enjoyed it but it didn’t really make an impact. I think that’s because I wasn’t listening too close and because the music feels like a long lazy swim or somebody scoring your daydreams.


This track is Face It and it’s been stuck in my head all week. Not sure if it’s because we have been thinking about moving to Darlington (and the refrain says “I’d give up the city life”) or because my wife left the country for me (and it says “I’d give up the country life”) but I feel like I can relate to the song and I’ve been constantly singing and humming it. Plus, I’ve played the What A Pleasure EP at least three times since ANZAC night. 


I think if you took the massive reverb off the vocals and crunched up the guitars a little, the whole EP would pretty much rock out. But instead the sound has been filtered through almost a Vaseline lens.


I’ve since grabbed their debut to check it out and that will be on the playlist for next week. If you like the sound of this track, definitely check out What A Pleasure.

Arrivederci

So there you have it. From a personal stand point, not a bad list to take with me on another busy week. Hopefully there's something you haven't heard that you can check out and get into. I'll be at the record fair Sunday, looking for new gems. I'll let you know if I find any.  


Ciao for now. Go Eagles! Hasala malakim.

Playlist : January 30th - February 3rd, 2012

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.


It feels like it's been one long tun of short weeks this year so far, but I have Tuesday off this week too. After a babysitting dilemma, I decided to stay home and take Miss 5 to see Hugo. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Scorsese does with not just the 3D, but his utter love of cinema and the early history of film-making. I can't wait.


For the soundtrack of my working week, I've got the self-titled LP from The Felice Brothers; the debuts of Iron & Wine and First Aid Kit; some James Taylor because I only just discovered Dolorean's Hey Mister, That's Me On The Jukebox was a Taylor cover; Fear Of A Black Planet because I just bought the vinyl; a Lost Highway compilation; classics from The Flaming Lips and U2; my favourite hot summer album, Crazy For You from Best Coast and finally Hilltop's State of the Art because I have a Hoods gig on Friday night.


Check it out:

• Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank The Cradle
• Hilltop Hoods - State of the Art
• Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet
• The Felice Brothers - The Felice Brothers
• VA - Lost & Found Vol. 1
• James Taylor - Mud Slide Slim
• Best Coast - Crazy For You
• First Aid Kit - The Big Black And The Blue
• U2 - The Joshua Tree
• The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Bob Dylan
   
2. Nada Surf
3. Belle and Sebastian
4. Lil' Kim
5. Concrete Blonde

Song of the Week : First Aid Kit - King of the World

I had a tough decision to make between two songs that have stuck with me this week, so I chose the one I think you’ll all prefer. I only just discovered this band First Aid Kit through the NPR stream of their latest LP The Lion’s Roar. They are a duo of sisters from Stockholm who play kind of freak folk style tunes. Wiki says Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom are influences, but I heard a bit of Bright Eyes too. Lo and behold, there’s Conor Oberst on the final track of this album – King of the World.


King of the World sounds more like a Bright Eyes song than a First Aid Kit song, almost like Conor co-wrote it, but I don’t think he did. It’s a very wordy track with that rollicking hoedown style that Bright Eyes sometimes does (never, ever stop in the middle of a hoedown!). See what you think anyway. I dig the band a lot and will be checking out their debut album next week.


Enjoy. 

Congé

If you get the chance, check out the new Nada Surf. The song Teenage Dreams was almost my Song of the Week. They don't sound much like the guys who released Popular all those moons ago.


That's it for this week. Try and stay cool and happy for the rest of the week. I'll see you back here next week, no doubt still buzzing from the Hoods. Congratulations to Gotye on the most unsurprising JJJ Hottest #1 since Oasis - Wonderwall. It really is a great track and deserves all the attention it has had all year.


Hasala malakim.

Playlist : September 19th - 23rd, 2011

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

In a really tiresome task, I am still dealing with transferring my music from my iPod, CDs and dodgy hard drive onto my shiny new 2TB drive alotted just for tunes. Not having access to everything is limiting my lists more than is ideal. Regardless, I've grabbbed a stack of tracks and they should see me right.

I'm continuing on with Left of the Dial, with disc 3 up next. There's a few new ones from old favourites Wilco, Tori Amos and Blind Pilot; plus a few I haven't heard in ages like Silverchair's debut. I'm spinning random Ryan Adams side project Sad Dracula, because I'm so excited about Grizzly's new album out soon. Ice T gets a guernsey because I have that classic rap album on order in nice shiny wax form.

Check it out.

• VA - Left of the Dial : Dispatches from the 80s Underground (Disc Three)
• Tori Amos - Night of Hunters
• Wilco - The Whole Love
• Talib Kweli - The Beautiful Struggle
• Ice T - The Iceberg / Freedom of Speech (Just Watch What You Say)
• Blind Pilot - We Are The Tide
• Sad Dracula - Fasterpiece
• Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo – Songs of Mirth and Melancholy
  
• Iron & Wine - Around The Well
• Silverchair - Frogstomp

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Concrete Blonde
2. Whiskeytown
3. Shonen Knife
4. John Lennon
5. Kidz in the Hall

Song of the Week : Shonen Knife - Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

Today’s SOTW is brought to you by those kick ass little ladies from Japan called Shonen Knife. It comes from their latest release Osaka Ramones : A Tribute to the Ramones. I’ve always enjoyed Shonen Knife’s brand of high energy pop punk and on this album, sprinkled liberally all over 13 great Ramones tracks, it is even more amazing than usual.

The best thing about this tribute album is it instantly gives me an all-girl group doing accessible, mostly family-safe songs for my girls to enjoy. I chose Sheena Is A Punk Rocker because the Ramones version is already one of their favourites. They often sing it as Daddy is a Punk Rocker. I like that.

Bye

So that's another working week done and dusted with the weekend in the bag. If you're a West Coast fan, you'll want to be at the game or in front of the tv tonight cheering on the mighty blue and gold. If you're not, you probably want to watch anyway and seethe with bitterness while willing them to lose. Either way, bring it on.

Until next week, don't get hung up man, stay cool. Hasala malakim.

Once again, asalaam alikum brothers and sisters.

Playlist January 31 - February 4th, 2011

Hello and welcome to another Work Tunes. I trust we've all had a HUGE Australia Day and we're ready to get back to work and do the hard yards.

To get me through my working week, I've got a list with a few Australian artists both pop and rap, a touch of folk and another 90s classic. It looks like this:

• Paul Kelly – The A – Z Recordings (Disc Three) : Three discs in now and I am really enjoying these live and sparsely instrumented cuts from the master's songbook. Highlights of the Kelly magic on Disc Three include God Told Me To, the timeless political anthem From Little Things, Big Things Grow and the greatest Australian Christmas song ever - How To Make Gravy.

• Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean : I was a little late to the Iron & Wine party. I know now that their earlier stuff was a little quieter than it is now and didn't have the instrumentation of this album. Some songs, such as Godless Brother In Love still have the sombre ebb of earlier cuts, but others have a new noise, at times even a groove. Either way, I like what I know of them and this is the latest.

• Babes in Toyland - Fontanelle : Following on from last week's 90s obsession, I have another classic grunge era set I'd like to hear. Forming in 1987 as a punk band in Minneapolis, Babes In Toyland eventually became a large part of the 'alternative' scene of the early to mid 90s. Fontanelle was their first and best selling full length album. Strange, arty and angry background vocals/voices and dirty guitar fuzz driven by a crunchy bass is what you'll get for your money.

• Edie Brickell - Edie Brickell : Dropping a self-titled album for your ninth release seems rather a strange thing to do. I suppose when you haven't had a lot of success sales-wise since your double platinum effort in 1988 (Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars), you might as well give it a shot. In 1988, 'Rubberbands' was a staple listen for me and then again a few years later at first year Uni, it became a sort of soundtrack. Apart from that, Brickell's Good Times film clip shipped with Windows 95 to show off it's awesome video capabilities (*chortle*). This CD I haven't played yet, but given 88s release is such a timeless classic, Edie's latest deserves a listen.

• VA - Dazed and Confused Soundtrack : Richard Linklater's film about high school in the 1970s took great pains to get everything right. From the clothes to the cars and the little paper cups the kids drink keg beer from, Linklater wanted to capture the vibe and the look of the 70s. One way he did that exceptionally well was the soundtrack. This collection of rock classics includes Cherrybomb by The Runaways, Kiss' Rock n Roll All Night, Black Sabbath's Paranoid and Alice Coopers' School's Out. Conspicuously missing of course is the Led Zeppelin song from which the film takes its name and the excellently used No More Mr Nice Guy by Alice Cooper.

• The National - The Virginia EP : After Bloodbuzz Ohio made #31 in a rather disappointing JJJ Hottest 100, I was speaking with my boss about what bands were at least decent in the list. The National was my first choice. I put him on to some early stuff and it made me want to hear some National too. This is an EP of demos and outakes released in conjunction with a tour documentary DVD (A Skin, A Night) after breakthrough album Boxer and before their latest effort High Violet.

• Pearl Jam - Ten : Another conversation raised by the Hottest 100 was about how in 1992 it was impossible to get Pearl Jam tickets. That led to talk about this album and how I haven't heard it in some time (preferring instead to reach for Vs or Vitalogy). I remember clearly a time when I'd play Ten over and over again all day for days.

• Bliss n Eso - Running On Air : The latest platinum selling disc from the Sydney skip hop duo. I first heard these guys via a free track on iTunes. I'm not sure what song that was, but it was off the brilliant Day of the Dog album and I've been a fan since. With guests such as Xzibit and samples as unexpected as Kasey Chambers, B&E are at their peak right now and blowing up fast.

• Muphin - More Than Music : Some more Aussie Hip Hop (thanks Australia Day), this time from one half of the Muph n Plutonic duo. Muphin always takes the laid back and chilled down verses on the M&P albums, so it's no wonder this solo effort is full of such songs.

• Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band – Outer South : Conor Oberst has apparently released 5 solo albums, but of those I have only heard the self-titled release from 2008. As Bright Eyes I am a big fan of Oberst's brand of self-referencial, tongue-in-cheek morbid dirges and lo-fi techniques. The self-titled solo album is just as morbid but a little less cheeky. I am yet to hear this set with the Mystic Valley Band and I am looking forward to it.

If you hear just one of these albums, make it Paul Kelly. There are some songs on there that have been entered into the national psyche and are as much a part of our shared culture as The Man From Snowy River once was. It might only be a financial services advertisement, but now everyone knows From Little Things, Big Things Grow.

That's it from me. I'm going to get through a weekend of forecasted humidity around a bajillion percent any way I can. I hope you can too.

Peace man, right on.