Those Drive-By Reality Seeds (December 9th - 13th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Just back from the terror that is holiday season retail. Went to get my sister a present. I knew what I wanted. I knew where it was. I wanted to get in and get out. They of course had run out. I came home with something else for her, plus a bunch of stuff I didn't intend to buy. Seriously, how hard is it, with modern stock control programs, to make sure you have enough stock to cover Christmas for an obviously popular present. Grrr.

Besides finishing the Paul Kelly/Neil Finn and Michael Jackson sets off, I'm grabbing a DBT album I haven't heard. Then there's new stuff from Those Darlins and a live KCRW session from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. A compilation from Inertia called Critics' Choice gets a gig along with a remix of Midnight Marauders. Snoopzilla (*eye roll*) and Dam Funk bring 7 Days of Funk and lastly the soundtrack from probably my favourite film ever is going to ease me through my last full week of work for 2013. 

Check it out:

• Michael Jackson - This Is It (Disc 2)
• Drive-By Truckers - A Blessing and a Curse
• Those Darlins - Blur The Line
• Dam Funk & Snoopzilla - 7 Days of Funk
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Live from KCRW
• VA - Critics Choice
• A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders Revisited
• Neil Finn and Paul Kelly - Goin' Your Way (Disc 2)
• VA - Reality Bites

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Adam Ant
2. Jason Isbell
3. Michael Jackson
4. Graham Reynolds
5. Neil Finn & Paul Kelly

Song of the Week : Artists Against Apartheid - Sun City

A Facebook post about The Specials and music teaching you things is the impetus behind my SOTW. 

As a teenager, it was Rap that taught me about things like the Civil Rights marches, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Malcolm X. We didn't learn any of that in school. Same as we didn't learn about Apartheid and Nelson Mandella. All I knew of South Africa then was a bunch of Australian cricketers got kicked out of the team for going over there to play. It wasn't until U2 and Silver and Gold from Rattle and Hum that I really heard the word Apartheid. Then this song came out and was getting airplay on the Hip Hop show I listened to on Saturday nights - Scratch FM.

I bought the 12" vinyl of this, but the only digital copy I have comes from an 80s compilation. This is Artists Against Apartheid and features Lou Reed, Little Steven, Kool Dj Herc, Run DMC, Melle Mel (hence the Scratch FM airplay), Dylan, Gil-Scott Heron, John Oates, even Miles Davis, Pete Townshend and Herbie Hancock. It's basically the We Are The World of anti-Apartheid songs. 

With the death of Mandella and the Specials post, I thought it was a good time to celebrate the way we learn so much from the music we love - especially the good stuff (not much to be learned from Beiber I don't think). 

Au Revoir
That's all there is to it this week. I'm still dirty about not getting that present I was after. I'm certain the replacement will be well liked too, but that's hardly the point. Never mind. Onward and upwards. 

Vale Mandella. Hasala malakim.

Blackbyrds Clash the Sky Road (February 18th - 22nd)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Well the company website I designed and wrote has launched, so you'd think things would be slowing down for me. But no, now I have a newsletter to make and a conference greedy for collateral to plan.Good thing there's music to get me through the work-a-day grind - which is exactly why I started writing all these lists down.

This week I have quite a few brand new releases, from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Iceage and Beach Fossils. The ACBs who I'd never heard of, gave their Stona Rosa album away for free, so that is here. I just discovered a fantastic band that the recently deceased Donald Byrd had played in, The Blackbyrds. I also have The Hard Road, which I was certain had been on a hundred lists already, but no. There's J Mascis and early Margot & the Nuclear So and So's; as well as The Smiths and classic Ice-T. 

Check it out:

• The ACBs - Stona Rosa
• Beach Fossils - Clash The Truth
• The Blackbyrds - Happy Music: The Best Of the Blackbyrds
• Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away
• Ice-T - Power
• The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come
• Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - The Dust Of Retreat
• J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
• Hilltop Hoods - The Hard Road
  
• Iceage - You're Nothing

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Gil Scott-Heron
2. The Weepies
3. Dinosaur Jr.
4. Wilco
5. Belly

Song of the Week : The Avett Brothers - Live And Die

Yesterday being Valentine's Day, I of course showered my lovely wife with gifts. One of those gifts was a mixtape I threw together on one single premise. We happened to catch a Mumford & Sons clip on Rage last Saturday morning and she mentioned she "liked their sound". So I grabbed a bunch of bands including Mumford and Iron & Wine, Bon Iver and The Avett Brothers and stuck them on a CD to show her there was in fact an actual sound like that going around. I called the mix Folky Hipsters.

Today's SOTW is the track I used to close out the mix. The Avett Brothers - Live and Die which appears on the soundtrack to the film This Is 40. The awfulness of that film being released the year I turned 40 was not lost on me.

The song is pretty upbeat and extra hoedowny with that banjo and the jangly percussion. I thought Mrs Corey J would like it because it is jaunty and she isn't often one for maudlin folk tunes - unlike yours truly.

Ciao for Niao

Thanks for stopping by. I think I'll be catching Django Unchained this weekend, so maybe look for a review soon on MFNM.

Until then, as always, hasala malakim.

Bad Orpheus Cave Mutations (June 18th - 22nd)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.


Okay, I'm going to come clean. I'm not really "firty-five" tomorrow. I was born in the great year of our Lord (whose name is Rock n' Roll) 1972. Therefore, that makes me 39. Which is where I am going to stay now, thanks very much.


So to get me through the post forty blues, I've upped the level of Funk to EXTREME with James Brown's Star Time compilation (just disc 1 for this week - can't overdo these things at my age). There's some Bad Brains which is ripped from vinyl to remind me that punk rock will never die. I've slipped in some Beck; Radiohead and Nick Cave for a little 90s flavour; plus there's disc two of the Sugar Hill box and some ATCQ for my Hip Hop fix. Lastly there's some 80s post punk from Get Smart! and some new stuff from Violens. .

Check it out:

• James Brown - Star Time (Disc 1)
• VA - The Sugar Hill Story : To The Beat Ya'll (Disc 2)
• Radiohead - Kid A
• Bad Brains - Bad Brains
• Get Smart! - Action Reaction
• Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
• A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders
• Violens - True
• Nick Cave - The Lyre of Orpheus
• Beck - Mutations

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Young Marble Giants
2. Wilco
3. The Triffids
4. Violent Femmes
5. Beastie Boys

Song of the Week : The Ramones - I Don't Wanna Grow Up

I'm off work today and I took Miss 5 to school and hung out in her classroom before the siren. Some strange kid drew a picture of me. I looked pretty suave actually, but I'm not sure she captured my true essence. 3 stars kid.


After the siren, I went to get some fuel and that's when my SOTW came to me. At the bowser next to me, seemingly not interested in pouring fuel, two guys were talking. One of them looked about mid 30s and was wearing shorts, sneakers and a Ramones tee shirt. I was thinking to myself, I need a Ramones tee. Then I thought "Dude, you're f-f-f--firty five tomorrow and you probably should lay off the band tee shirts". Then, thankfully, my rational self kicked in and I thought "Screw that!"


So here is my SOTW. The Ramones' cover of Tom Waits' great song I Don't Wanna Grow Up. Because, damn it, I don't. And I don't care how old I am tomorrow. In the words of Homer J Simpson, I'm going to "keep on rockin' forever.. forever.. forever.. forever :( ..." And damn it, I'm getting a Ramones tee shirt.



Rawk On

Postscript: Some little kid when I went to get Miss 5 from school also had a Ramones shirt. I chose to see that as a sign that you're never too young or too old to rock n roll. Mrs coreyj chose to see it as a sign we needed to have a third child (a boy). I like my version better and so does our accountant. 


Thanks for stopping by, you crazy kids. Pleas pray for Mojo if you're reading this on Saturday. I'll be struggling to come to terms with my age and with just how much time has passed since I was unleashed upon the world. 


I have to admit that I have definitely lived in "interesting times". Only, isn't that an old Chinese curse?


Que sera, sera. Hasala malakim.

Playlist : May 30th - June 3rd, 2011

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes - brought to you without the amazing power of lazer beams!

On this week's playlist, I've got a couple of albums I want to buy on vinyl from U2 and Bob Dylan; an REM classic thanks to @bobearth mentioning it on Twitter, some Black Box Recorder I grabbed because I'm a fan of their Andrew Ridgely track, Gillian Welch because she has a new album out soon, early BDP because of a discussion about where Hip Hop started and Viva Hate because of Ryan Adams and Dave Rawlings' argument that opens Heartbreaker. Plus some other stuff.

This is it here:

• U2 - Achtung Baby
• R.E.M. - Automatic For The People
• Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home
• Eminem - Encore
• VA - Spin Magazine June 2011
• Black Box Recorder - England Made Me
• Morrissey - Viva Hate
• Boogie Down Productions - By All Means Necessary
• Nick Cave - The Boatman's Call (Remastered)
• Gillian Welch - Hell Among the Yearlings

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Anthony Da Costa
2. The Rural Alberta Advantage
3. Tim Easton
4. Seapony
5. Bon Iver

Song of the Week : Anthony Da Costa - Love Is Not Enough

One of my Perth Twitter peeps, who is a massive Whiskeytown/Adams fan asked me last week if I knew Anthony Da Costa’s music. I didn’t. In her words, he sounds like “Heartbreaker era Ryan” She wasn’t kidding. This is almost a case of Radams pretending to be someone else. That of course isn’t a good thing for Mr Da Costa, but I have only heard this one album, there are more. Dylan sounded just like Woody Guthrie on debut, so let’s give Da Costa the benefit of the doubt. My twitter buddy is hooking me up a mix.

This song, Love Is Not Enough, as well as sounding like Grizzly, is pretty well written and features a decent acoustic guitar fill with a fiddle and piano lines. It’s got a catchy chorus that I’d be singing except I’m too busy thinking ‘Damn this guy sounds like Ryan Adams”. Enjoy.

Ciao For Niao
That's all you get this week kids. Thanks for playing. May the tunes you love be fruitful in the belly of your headphones... or something.

Playlist : March 28th - April 1st, 2011

Hey there Work Tunes peeps. This week I have got a couple of new albums (Iraho and Go-Go Boots), an old favourite or two (Let Love In and Pretty In Pink OST), an album by a band I've been meaning to hear more of for a while (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and a recommendation from a trustworthy Twitter source (The Felice Brothers). What it all looks like together is something like this:

• Awesome Dre - Can't Hold Me Back
• Iraho - Iraho
• VA - Pretty in Pink OST
• Justin Townes Earle - Good Life
• The Felice Brothers - Tonight At The Arizona
• Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty
• Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
• Nick Cave - Let Love In
• Steve Tannen - Stopped at a Green Light
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz

Top 5 Artists

1. De La Soul
2. Uncle Tupelo
3. Bright Eyes
4. Mr. Bungle
5. The Velvet Underground

Song of the Week : The Buggles - Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)

I stumbled across this album last week and my first thought was “OMG they had a whole album?!” ‘They’ being The Buggles, he one-hit-wonder extraordinaires who wrote Video Killed The Radio Star.

The other tracks on the album are fairly diverse. Sometimes they sound a bit like Madness, others you think it’s The Cars, but generally nothing else sounds like Video (which I still maintain is a superb pop song).

I thought I’d make a track SOTW just so you could say you’ve heard more than one The Buggles song. I chose this one because it’s about Astroboy and he’s pretty mint.

Adios Amigos

That's it for now. I will try and narrow down the whole month's list to maybe 5 albums for a proper review later in the week. Until then, keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.

Playlist : October 25 - 29, 2010

A new artist (for me), some old favourites and a couple of classics make up this week's list. It's probably just a tad funkier than usual with the compilation and some roots rap on board.

Here's what will be playing in my ears;

• A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders : A little bit of Native Tongues always goes down a treat. A friend told me she'd been hearing a bit of rap lately and it was full of the F and N words. Groups like Tribe and De La Soul were always and still are against that sort of garbage. Long live true Hip Hop.

• The Roots - Phrenology : More positivity to go with Tribe. It was great to hear The Roots as a full on Funk and Soul band on the recent John Legend collaboration. I'm going back to The Roots (haw haw) to keep up my fix, otherwise I'd just keep playing Wake Up! (the Legend collaboration) over and over.

• VA - 70s Funk n Soul Classics : A really great compilation which dishes up exactly what it promises - classics from the 70s. Some of the best tracks include The O'Jays - Love Train; Curtis Mayfield - Superfly; Kool & The Gang - Jungle Boogie and The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself. Get yo funk on.

• Something For Kate - The Official Fiction : It's been quite some time since I heard this album. It was the first I had heard of SFK. It's a solid set with stand outs like Deja Vu and Light at the End of the Tunnel. They probably should have done an Australian Classic Albums doco on it. I think it's in that lofty company, anyway.

• Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Jacksonville City Nights : I've decided to play each of 2005's Radams releases. Last week I played the brilliant double that kicked off the year in Cold Roses. JCN is a lot more traditional country than Cold Roses. It's got a lot of pedal steel and it sounds more like a drunken moan in some bar.

• S.O.U.L. - Can You Feel It : With the rise of new Soul this year, I have been wanting to relisten to all the old stuff I have. SOUL are a sort of jazzy half instrumental collective heavy on the flute and the sprawling solos with some honey smooth vocals and a bit of politics for good measure.

• Paul Kelly - Live May 1992 : PK is the man. Since I'm not going to see him when he plays here soon, I'm going to listen to and enjoy this double LP live set from 92. This is the album I used to get my wife into Paul Kelly. We played it at our wedding. It came with a VHS of the concert that I still have somewhere at home. I really enjoy it, every listen. If you're Australian and you haven't heard it, be like Molly and 'do yourself a favour'.

• Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde : As the final chapter in the holy trinity, I had to give Blonde a spin this week. Last week's Highway 61 Revisited was a blast. Blonde features what I consider one of the best, lyrically, songs ever in Visions of Johanna, as well as the tracks everybody knows Just Like a Woman and Rainy Day Women Nos 12 & 53 (even if a lot of people call it Everybody Must get Stoned after the refrain).

• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call : This album was a last minute inclusion on this list because a clever twitter friend (*waves fondly at @a_musedly) quoted (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For? this morning - reminding me of one of the main reasons this is my favourite Nick Cave release.

• Fyfe Dangerfield - Fly Yellow Moon : The first I had heard of Fyfe Dangerfield was this week when I came across the Billy Joel cover (Always a Woman). I quite liked that, so I went looking for the album. The cover is not on this set, but it's all I could find. Fairly dreamy indie pop.

I hope something there turns you on to a new musical journey. As always, be excellent to each other and remember the words of Edward Furlong's Danny in American History X : "Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time."

Peace man, right on.