Lovin' Fanfare Saturday Aftershock (November 18th - 22nd)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

No list last week because I was off work for two out of five days and I just shuffled my phone and streamed some album previews. I haven't had much of a chance to put this one together, but I'm squeezing it in before swimming.

Thanks to some recommendations, I'm checking out the latest from Of Montreal and some very old Tom Waits. I got hold of the 94 East album featuring Prince and thought I'd give that a spin. The recently released Marshall Maters LP II and a new one from Young Dro are my rap selections. There's a little bit of heavy grind with new albums from Motorhead and Fuzz. I realised the other day that I have no Offspring, so I remedied that with the Greatest Hits. I read good stuff about Johnathon Wilson so I'm giving Fanfare a listen. Lastly, I stumbled across the soundtrack to the very brilliant This Is England (the film, not the equally brilliant This Is England '86 and '88 TV series).

Check it out:

• Jonathan Wilson - Fanfare
• Motorhead - Aftershock
• Of Montreal - Lousy With Sylvianbriar
• Young Dro - High Times
• Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP II
• 94 East - Lovin' Cup
• VA - This Is England OST
• Fuzz - Fuzz
• Tom Waits - The Heart Of Saturday Night
• The Offspring - Greatest Hits

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Dolorean
2. Indigo Girls
3. Pearl Jam
4. Ryan Adams
5. Pink Floyd

Song of the Week : Evil Eddie - Hungover Again

I didn't have a song picked out because I wasn't paying attention for the three days I was at work, just shuffling my phone all day. I am going with what I woke up with in my head. 

Last night being Thursday, I wouldn't normally drink, but as I'm off until Monday, I figured why the hell not. It's not like I had too much, but I woke up with Hungover Again by Evil Eddie in my head and it won't go away. I wasn't hungover, but I was probably a bit guilty with myself for putting 3 beers down on a school night :)

The song is about a much bigger binge than that. I was never much of a drinker even in my late teens, but I have had a few hangovers in the distant past, so I know the feelings being spoken about. The song itself is pretty melodic as far as raps go. The music behind it too is not the usual beats and samples, but more like a band with a guitar, bass and drum brushes.  The lines that haven't left me alone all day are after the 'apology song' line:

But I can't even write myself a rap
Like this line is crap
Doesn't even rhyme...
And that.

There is no film clip for Hungover on YouTube, so here's a Spotify link:

Bye

There you have it, short and sweet again. I really get a lot of use out of the recommendations of friends, so I hope there's something here that can get your musical groove moving. 

Hasala malakim.

Real Silver River Ace (September 16th - 20th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Let's make this quick, shall we? I think I want to play some GTA IV while the kids are in the lounge watching The Little Mermaid for the hundredth time on a squally post swimming Winter's day. 

There's a bit of noise this week; firstly from Motorhead, then from Kim Gordon's Body/Head project and finally from psychedelic lo-fi rock band Sebadoh. The last two albums are new releases. Also new is The Silver Gymnasium from Okkervil River. For some albums I haven't spun in a while, I have Things of Stone and Wood, Real Estate and Eminem's Encore (picked because the new Eminem album is coming soon). Another rap album added to the list is one of my top 10, Brother Ali's The Undisputed Truth. Last of all, because I've been reading all about their exploits in a Punk history book I have, The Velvet Underground and The Stooges are here. 

Check it out:

• Motorhead - Ace Of Spades
• Things of Stone and Wood - The Yearning
• Brother Ali - The Undisputed Truth
• The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
• The Stooges - The Stooges
• Body/Head -  Coming Apart
• Real Estate - Days
• Eminem - Encore
• Okkervil River - The SIlver Gymnasium
• Sebadoh - Defend Yourself

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Nine Inch Nails
2. Van Halen
3. Dolorean
4. Belle and Sebastian
5. Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek

Song of the Week : The Velvet Underground & Nico - Femme Fatale

This week's song could only have come from one ragtag mix of artists and visionaries - the gang at Warhol's Factory. I'm reading Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk and the seeds of punk music as we know it were sown by The Velvet Underground. I have a smart playlist on my iPod which randomly picks Velvets, Stooges, Bowie, Dylan and Lou Reed songs for a Factory vibe and that's all I've been hearing at night lately.

Andy Warhol, lovable kook that he was, told the Velvet Underground that they needed a girl singer. Someone that the audience could fall in love with. Someone with an idiosyncratic voice that nobody could forget. He chose Nico. My SOTW is her and the Velvet Underground with Femme Fatale. I have seen footage of her looking gorgeous, but in this clip I don't see it.

The song itself is one Lou Reed wrote about Edie Sedgwick at Warhol's request. The irony being that Sedgwick was Andy's golden girl until Nico took that muse mantle from her - and to hear the others tell it, Edie just quietly disappeared from the Factory crowd until in 1971 she died of a barbiturate overdose. 

This is a classic melody and probably should be considered one of 'those' songs - you know, in the univeral lexicon of pop tunes. I've heard it covered a dozen times but you can always tell which is Nico - so I guess Andy got that bit right.

Auf Wiedersehen 

Whatever you're up to this weekend, I hope the weather where you are is more hospitable than it is in Perth at the minute. If you're a Perthie then yeah, good luck with that. 

Hasala malakim.