Dig Your Motherland Circus (July 8th - 12th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

It seems like every week I am having to rush through picking a playlist these days. I've just returned from the usual shopping expedition and have forgotten a bunch of stuff, so I'll be off out again soon. While I am at home though, let's see what we have.

Before Portlandia and Wild Flag, the lovely Carrie Brownstein was in Sleater-Kinney, so check them out. Thanks to my SOTW this week, Raw Power gets a gig. Thanks to Jamie's SOTW from a couple of weeks ago, so does Dave Brubeck's immortal jazz classic Time Out. For a helping of newness, there's Editors and Bliss n Eso. Representing classic Australian rock, I've got the Easybeats only disc of Easy Fever, a tribute album. On old favourite from two or three years ago from Beach Fossils is here. From Hip Hop DJ Steinski, there's a retrospective. Natalie Merchant steps up with an album I haven't heard yet. Finally, what playlist would be complete without a good 80s compilation?

Check it out:

• Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
• Natalie Merchant - Motherland
• Editors - Weight Of Your Love
• VA - Eighties Complete Vol. 1 (1980-1982)
• Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power
• Steinski - What Does It All Mean? (1983 - 2006 Retrospective)
• Bliss n Eso - Circus In The Sky
• The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
• The Easybeats - Easy Fever 
• Beach Fossils - What A Pleasure

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Josh Rouse
2. The Lemonheads
3. Son Volt
4. David Bowie
5. Chelsea Light Moving

Song of the Week : Iggy & the Stooges - Gimme Danger

Last night I went to Opening Night at Rev and watched Burn; a documentary about the Detroit Fire Department. There are something like 80,000 vacant homes in Detroit and parts of it look just like a war zone a la downtown NY in the 70s. There are also a lot of arson attacks in Detroit, on vacant and occupied homes.

My SOTW is a tune the doco makers used in the opening scenes of Burn, to great effect - Gimme Danger by Iggy & The Stooges. Its abrasive fuzziness and the dark bass undertone really went well with footage of firemen standing inside burning buildings, shooting water OUT! These guys love a good fire and the starting salary is just 30k! I wouldn't push trolleys for 30k let alone put my life on the line. And there are dangers I didn't even think of - such as second story floors burning through, dropping giant bathtubs and air conditioners on their heads, or being trapped under collapsed facades.  

I'm sorry I only have a low bitrate version on my iPod of the track off Raw Power as the CD is at home. The only other version I have is from the Iggy Pop Nude & Rude compilation and that's a whole other mix. Somebody polished all the edges up so it sounds hollow. This original version has all the crunch and attack of a five alarm fire. Turn it up!

Paalam

It's almost time to head off out again. If you're in Perth this week, don't forget that Revelation Film Festival is on. There's a bunch of great films, including music documentaries like the one on Big Star and one on Muscle Shoals. Get down and support independent filmmakers, indie cinemas and film nerds like myself. 

Hasala malakim.

Check Smokey's Faithless Knack (December 3rd - 7th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Good evening tunesters. What's the good word? It's Friday night here, spilling into Saturday morning and I've just finished deciding what I'm going to listen to next week. This week has been a weird sort of a week in Australia. For a start, people in Perth are whining that there's too much cold and wind and rain, while people in Melbourne are convinced their car tyres will melt right off their cars. Introduction to the opposites, or what?! Anyway, music time. Let's see what will be keeping my ears company next week.

I have a little bit of Australian representation here with Urthboy and San Cisco. I'm currently reading Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown, and so I have Faithless Street as well as early Ryan Adams punk band, Patty Duke Syndrome. Disc twos for the Stones' GRRR! and Dylan's bootlegs are here, as is The Knack thanks again to Cobain's top 50. Natalie Merchant is here for mellow purposes and Radiohead bring a classic to the party. Lastly, the Beastie Boys fill a  spot I specifically left for Hip Hop.

Check it out:

• Urthboy - Smokey's Haunt
• San Cisco - San Cisco
• The Knack - Get The Knack
• Natalie Merchant - Ophelia
• Patty Duke Syndrome - Patty Duke Syndrome
• The Rolling Stones - Grrr! (Disc 2)
• Whiskeytown - Faithless Street
• Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series Volume 2
• Radiohead - The Bends
• Beastie Boys - Check Your Head

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Bob Dylan
2. DJ Shadow
3. The Rolling Stones
4. Soundgarden
5. Ben Folds

Song of the Week : Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - Picture Window

For some reason I thought Ben Folds was over-represented in my SOTW choices, but I can't find a single instance in the last 5 years. Either way, this song is something I mostly dig for Nick Hornby's part in it - the lyrics.

Picture Window is a little vignette into the life of what seems to be a Mother with a terminally sick child in hospital bed on New Year's Eve 2008. The room overlooks Parliament Hill through the picture window and the fireworks go off at midnight. But all the Mum can think is how pathetic it is to have such a pretty view from the room where her child is dying; and how she doesn't want to let go and enjoy herself.  

It really is like a sad short story written by a novelist in Hornby. The carefully chosen, sparse details paint the most vivid picture. I don't think many actual songwriters could do the same thing as well as Hornby has. The music is a simple enough piano riff pretty much throughout and a string section that swells over it like any good melodrama. The way Ben Folds delivers the melody is angry and desperate. And in the end when the Mum gives in and lets her spirits rise, the delivery mellows and sounds sad rather than frustrated.  

It's quite a powerful song and very well delivered. A lot of Ben Folds fans seem to have slept on this collaboration, but Hornby's words are amazing on every track. It would be great if more "proper" writers made rock songs. So enjoy this little story poem with a nice soundtrack. 

Adieu

It's Saturday afternoon now (oooh, magic) and I've just come back from the Maritime Museum in Fremantle. Along with a bunch of fascinating displays on everything from deep sea diving to the spice trade, Australia II was on show. For the non-nautical, that is the winning yacht from the 1983 America's Cup. I have to say, I was quite surprised at how humbled I felt standing beneath that sporting behemoth. Here's a happy snap.

That sail is around 40 feet high and Wikipedia says the sail area is 175 square metres. It's huge; as large as it's own place in Australian folklore. I really enjoyed seeing it. Get on down if you're in Perth.

That's all for this week. Be good, kids.

Hasala Malakim.

The Bonus Port of Tigerlily Anthology (March 26th - 30th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.


Big day at the office today, but it's Friday night while I write this and the weekend is here. Hooray! Picnic on Sunday for Miss 2's 3rd birthday and the wife's (redacted) birthday. Miss 5 lost her first tooth and scored $2 from the Tooth Fairy. She said tonight she wants to go to an Op Shop and buy a record. I'm so proud *sniff*. [Edit: It's Saturday now and she actually bought a hardback copy of Little Women. Still very proud!]


Also proud to say I managed to collate another list worth hearing (for me). I've got some Belle & Sebastian because I was late to that party; the gangsta classic from NWA; a Toy Box Scholars set; another Phil Collins classic; Natalie Merchant's criminally underrated Tigerlily thanks to @BZB; Pablo Honey because I recently discovered my copy had gone missing and bought a new one; some early Creedence; the new one from the Shins; a Hoodoo Gurus compilation and finally, the exhaustive and tremendous Uncle Tupelo Anthology.


Check it out:

• Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
• NWA - Straight Outta Compton
• Toy Box Scholars - The Bonus Years
• Phil Collins - Face Value
• Natalie Merchant - Tigerlily
• Radiohead - Pablo Honey
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Willy and the Poor Boys
• The Shins - Port of Morrow
• Hoodoo Gurus - Gold Watch: 20 Golden Greats
  
• Uncle Tupelo - 89/93 An Anthology

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. George Harrison
2. Ghostface Killah
3. Counting Crows
4. MC Shan
5. Phil Collins

Song of the Week : Bruce Springsteen - Racing In The Street

Back when Springsteen started releasing albums, there were a lot of comparisons to Dylan. At their very best, Dylan's songs have phenomenal musicianship and brilliant lyrics, while his voice is a mere conduit to carry those words to us. At Bruce's best, the words and the voice are so captivating that the music kind of disappears, no matter how loud or intense it gets.


This song, Racing in the Street, is from start to end like a complete film. A couple of guys race cars that they make for money on the New Jersey streets. One day they meet a girl and one of them settles down with her. Life goes on and racing cars for fun with no responsibilities gives way to day to day grind and the couple loses their freedom and spark. Until one day, at the end of the film, they ride off into the sunset.


I've been watching The Promise which is a doco about the making of the Darkness on the Edge of Town LP. Springsteen himself used cinema analogies to explain all the songs. He said for instance that if the whole album was a film of a romantic couple at a picnic, the song Adam Raised a Cain was a quick cut to a dead body.

It's a long song and it feels like an epic story of love and honour and friendship and class and loss and hope and everything else. It's a large chunk of blue collar New Jersey life peeled open and laid out bare.

Tah Tah

As always, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully something here will inspire you to listen to a record you really enjoy - even if it's not on the list. Be good to each other, don't get hung up, man. Be cool.


Hasala malakim.