Build the Underground Temple (March 25th - 29th)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

What's the good word? Everything is a little bit same ol' same ol' around these parts. It is Mrs coreyj and Miss Nearly 4's birthdays next week, so that will be exciting. Among the craft and lego stuff, we got her a KISS t-shirt and her very own inflatable jumpy castle.  Miss Nearly 4, not Mrs coreyj (she's not a huge KISS fan). If the power adapter for the compressor ever gets here, I'll even be able to inflate that jumpy castle. Stupid Australia Post. And on to the music.

Just one new one this time, from Billy Bragg. I have to thank a workmate for In Rainbows this week as he reminded me how long it's been. The second volume of Use Your Illusion is here thanks again to Clay5. Grunge super-group Temple of the Dog pops in for a slab of tracks, as do 70s pioneers The Runaways. And speaking of pioneers, Velvet Underground are here along with an Uncut compilation of artists who inspired Gram Parsons. Beat Street is like a heartbeat - and it's here on my list. That just leaves all the Js - Jamiroquai and Joshua James. 

Check it out:

• Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog
• Billy Bragg - Tooth and Nail
• Guns n' Roses - Use Your Illusion II
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• The Runaways - The Runaways
• Jamiroquai - Synkronized
• Joshua James - Build Me This
• VA - Uncut : Honky Tonk Heroes
• VA - Beat Street OST
• Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Josh Rouse
2. Guns n' Roses
3. Green Day
4. The National
5. Black Prairie

Song of the Week : Stevie Nicks - You Can't Fix This

Recently I got hold of the soundtrack to Dave Grohl's documentary on Sound City music studio. You might remember Paul MacCartney, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear 'reunited' Nirvana for Hurricane Sandy relief on a song called Cut Me Some Slack. That is on the soundtrack, but it's not what I chose.

The song that has blown me away completely is Stevie Nicks' effort You Can't Fix This. It's an angry and brooding song about the perils of rock n roll decadence. The thumping bass drum and the subtle smoldering growl on the guitars are a building indignation while Stevie screams about going too far and never being able to turn back once you bring the Devil to the party.

This for me has got to be her greatest song since Fleetwood Mac. The first time I played the album, I was working away to it and I literally stopped what I was doing about 5 seconds into Nicks' vocal. If you haven't already heard it, I hope it has that same effect on you.

Adieu

I finally gave up fighting with my internet connection and bought a 3G pocket WiFi with 5GB on it to last until Telstra comes and *does their job!*. Our phone line is down, but the net seems to just drop in and out all the time. Of course, as soon as I got home and set up my WiFi modem, the internet stopped dropping out and hasn't gone down yet. Typical. 

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.

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.

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.

Playlist : April 4th - 8th, 2011

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

My playlist for this week features an artist I've only just discovered, the new LP from Snoop Dogg, an eclectic mix from Spin Magazine and Jenny Lewis among others. See here:

1. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
2. David Dondero - Simple Love
3. Digable Planets - Beyond The Spectrum : The Creamy Spy Chronicles
4. Josh Rouse - Under Cold Blue Stars
5. Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
6. VA - Spin Magazine, April 2011
7. VA - Uncut : Hard Drive
8. Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
9. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
10. Snoop Dogg - Doggumentary

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. De La Soul
2. Nas
3. Drive-By Truckers
4. Best Coast
5. Steve Tannen

Song of the Week : Drive-By Truckers - Used to Be a Cop

This week’s track is from the latest Drive-By Truckers album, Go-Go Boots. It’s about a police officer whose life has gone to hell. Thrown off the force for a bad temper and nerves, he’s a one time abused child, unemployed divorced alcoholic stalking his ex-wife.

Feel good track of the year!

There’s a driving bass line and drum track with the scream of some nice lead guitars under some raw vocals. It’s great storytelling and a great performance. Hope you like it. The album as a whole is really interesting. The vocal duties are shared by at least three members of the band, including a female, so it has an eclectic feel while being roughly cohesive. Check it out.

Outro

That's me for the week people. Shouts to my homegirl @Hay2theley who has asked me to impart my knowledge of the old school to her. I knew there was a reason I read all those books/watched all those movies/bought all those albums/painted all those pieces/did all those turtles.

Respect. Peace out. In the name of Herc, Bam and Flash, yes ya'll.

Playlist February 28th - March 4th, 2011

Howdy pardners, welcome to what may be the last Work Tunes.

After reading a blog about simplifying your life and finding more time for what you love, I realised that I could probably stop this blog and focus on Make Films Not Movies. Though I do enjoy talking music, I prefer movies and I’m not finding enough time to watch and review them.

There are other things I can cut out of my schedule though, so I have some decisions to make.In any case, for this week I’m listening to :

• Paul Kelly - The A to Z Recordings (Disc 7) : With just two more discs to go, I should probably make next week the last week for Work Tunes. Disc 6 of this epic box contained a humdinger of a ditty in Shane Warne. With a swinging summer horn and calypso rhythm, the track was a great bit of levity in a fairly serious set of songs. This disc features mostly S and T songs, including perhaps two of PKs best known in To Her Door and Sweet Guy.

• Rolling Stones – Rolled Gold (Disc Two) : The second part of the Rolled Gold Best Of compilation features some of the Stones' meatier tracks including Sympathy For The Devil, Wild Horses and You Can't Always Get What You Want. There are more of the early 70s songs here than on Disc One, which had several very early tracks from when the Stones thought they were Mississippi Bluesmen. I prefer this side of the band.

• Dolorean - You Can't Win : After hearing the latest effort from Dolorean last week, I was reminded why I really dig this band. Simple chord progressions, quiet twang and thought out lyrics will always be high on my list of things-i-like-in-music. Dolorean does all of that so well.

• Digable Planets - Reachin (A New Refutation Of Time And Space) : Lately, the Native Tongues style of jazz beats and positive, conscious lyrics has been sounding pretty good to me. I flip out over Blowout Comb by Digable Planets, but this is another great album. If only they were still around. Maybe they could resurrect Black Star while they were at it.

• Thom Yorke - The Eraser : Last week, I slowly but surely became in awe of The King of Limbs, Radiohead's brand new release. One thing I liked about it is the layering of electronic sound, which is the same thing I like about The Eraser. The King of Limbs is superior to Thom Yorke's solo debut, in my opinion, but this is still worth a listen.

• Radiohead - OK Computer : A lot of listeners would agree that OK Computer is Radiohead's finest hour. It has made countless critics' lists of the best albums of all time, or of the 90s of the UK and so on. The critical response to The King of Limbs has been mixed, to be polite. I wanted to play this album this week to get a better gauge on the difference. I bleieve TKOL will someday get a little more love than it does now.

• Sonic Youth - Goo : Goo was Sonic Youth’s seventh release, but got them a good deal of attention from further mainstream than usual thanks to the Seattle ‘scene’ that broke around them. The album after this, Dirty, got even more. Though it was released in 1990, Goo contains much of the sound everybody went crazy for not long after. It is the start of a more cohesive, less experimental Sonic Youth sound and a decently fuzzy and rocking album. The biggest track on the album is Kool Thing. We of course all know how cool Kim Deal is, thanks to the Dandy Warhols.

• Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians - Ghost of a Dog : Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians' 1988 release Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars has always been one of my personal favourites. I have only ever had a cassette copy of this, it's follow up, until recently when I bought the CD. Stand out tracks are the title track and the jaunty Black and Blue.

• A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm : More Native Tongues, which is good for what ails Hip Hop. This Tribe album has two of the groups few hits in Bonita Applebum and Can I Kick It? But you can't go past the smooth grooves of Youthful Expression and the played-for-comedy I Left My Wallet In El Segundo.

• Marcy Playground – Marcy Playground : Remember Sex and Candy? Yeah, me too! But that's about all I ever knew of Marcy Playground. So when I saw this CD on ebay for 1c, I thought "why not?" I haven't listened to it yet. Fingers crossed.

Regardless of whether I decide to give this blog away, I will be making a playlist every week. I may just blog here once a month a list of the albums I enjoyed most and try to review a movie a week for MFNM.

Thanks to those who come to read. If I’m here next week, I hope you will be too.

Ciao for now.

Playlist February 21st - 25th, 2011

Hey hey kids! What's news in your worlds?

Let's get right into the music shall we? This week I'm excited to be listening to the latest Dolorean release and I'm spinning a few albums that I recently bought on second hand vinyl. Apart from that, I address a shocking Grammys snub and name drop on a signed CD.

Here's what it all looks like:

• Dolorean - The Unfazed : After (happily) rediscovering Dolorean last week, I was going to spin their third album You Can't Win (2007). Coincidentally though, Dolorean happen to release a new album The Unfazed just this year. I have deliberately laid off listening to any of it until I play it this week. I did enjoy Not Exotic a lot last week though; so much so, I played it several times at work and at home. You can download the title track from The Unfazed for free on the Dolorean Store.

• Paul Kelly - The A - Z Recordings (Disc Six) : Disc Six in Paul Kelly's not-even-complete A - Z catalogue contains the fictional reflective South of Germany, the tent boxing tale Rally Round the Drum and the reverent ballad Shane Warne. It's a mark of the man's brilliance that he can release a box set of 100 very solid songs and still have lots left in the bag.

• Guru - Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 : Because Guru was horribly snubbed during the Grammy Awards memorial segment, I'm listening to Jazzmatazz. Personally, I think it's a little foul of the music industry to ignorantly neglect to mention the death of a pioneer in a musical genre that has dominated it's sales for the last 15 or more years. In the words of the great Chuck D, another rap pioneer, "Who gives a fuck about a God damn Grammy?".

• Gully Platoon - The Great Divide : Mr Tirren Staaf aka Pegz recently held an impromptu Twitter competition to guess which 70s rock band bass player his name was inspired by. I guessed right (Tiran Porter of the Doobie Brothers btw) and was sent three signed CDs. One of them was this 2009 Gully Platoon release. I haven't heard it yet and wasn't even aware it existed, despite being a massive fan of Pegz' solo stuff. I expect good things.

• Rolling Stones - Rolled Gold (Disc One) : I've been going on about getting some Rolling Stones vinyl for a while now. Last Sunday, I found this double LP compilation at the Melville Markets and snapped it up. It’s jam packed with Stones classics from As Tears Go By to Wild Horses. So jam packed, in fact, that I'm going to split it up and bring in disc two next week.

• Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career : I first checked out Camera Obscura on the recommendation of Sarah Silverman. They are a melancholic, sweetly-crooning three piece Scottish band formed in 1996. My Maudlin Career was released in 2009 and is their newest release. Standout tracks are definitely Careless Love and Away With Murder.

• Josh Rouse - Home : Josh Rouse has for some time been my overall top artist on last.fm. Partly that probably has something to do with how well his music suits the whole family (and so he gets a good spin on the weekend as well as during the week), but it's also indicative of how many really enjoyable albums he has cranked out. This one is one of the best. Hey Porcupine, Laughter, Parts and Accessories and Afraid To Fail are all outstanding.

• Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan : Another Melville Markets vinyl purchase. I bought this CD when I first got into Dylan in the mid 90s. This is the album that features the monumental Blowin' In The Wind, Hard Rain's a'Gonna Fall and Masters of War. I haven't played my record yet, but I am looking forward to it. This will tide me over.
  

• U2 - The Joshua Tree : Along with Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Love and Hate, this is the last of the vinyl I bought on Sunday (not counting Miss 4's gatefold copy of Thriller). Like much of the world, Joshua Tree was when I really got into U2. With massively popular hits like Where The Streets Have No Name and Pride (In The Name Of Love), it was touring this album that led to Rattle and Hum and U2's subsequent rocket through the stratosphere of fame and fortune.

• Radiohead - The King of Limbs : The latest release from the UK rock Gods has already received mixed responses across the Interwebs with some calling it 'gorgeous' and others unimpressed. A lot of the unimpressed seem to be those upset that it wasn't free like In Rainbows, but I haven't heard it yet so I'll reserve judgement.

*Puts on Molly Meldrum hat* Do yourself a favour and check Dolorean out. Their Not Exotic and You Can't Win albums are excellent.

Until next week, may you have the music in you. Peace.