What's In Your Ears?

Loved reading your book as I drifted around mu swimming pool. In a few days and hours of being adrift I read the book from cover to cover. Before I parted with some of my records I would guess at one time or another I had in excess of 3,000 vinyl albums, hundreds of cassettes, still have 484 8 track tapes, over a thousand of CDs, hundreds of downloads and yes 45's inside a juke box plus plenty of extras. So I guess this qualifies me as a drooling fanatic. Thanks for turning me on to some artists I have missed through the years and also for sharing mutual admiration for some others. My desert island playlist will contain one from my favorite all time band (the allman brothers) and the others would be a bit more unknown.

Gorilla Manor - Local Natives
Boxer - the Nationals

I find myself listening to these two albums non-stop at this time in my life...I'll be turning 45 really really soon.

Your book, which I'm currently reading is well, manoman, accurate... I find myself laughing and nodding in agreement. I was the geek who'd bring my vinyls to school and spend my lunch period listening to them in the library... particularly David Bowie's Low (b-side)..

Loved the book! If anyone is a runner or likes to workout w/ music, you know how tough it is to find "decent" music that is fast paced. I try to focus on the bpm (beats per minute) of songs to match your running pace. I then look for songs that are inspirational, about running, or at least are fun w/ great beat (no "19th Nervous Breakdown", "Loser", "Blister in the Sun", etc.)

Here's some favs:

Tick Tick Boom - The Hives (137)
This Year - The Mountain Goats (140)
Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken - Camera Obscura (145)
The Way We Get By - Spoon (152)
Take a Minute - K'naan (156)
Joker and the Thief - Wolfmother (158)
Niagara Falls - Harlem Shakes (159)
Slight Figure of Speech - The Avett Brothers (165)
Salute Your Solution - Raconteurs (165)
Jigsaw Falling Into Place - Radiohead (167)
Australia - The Shins (171)
It's Okay - The Kings (165)
Getting Down - The Kills (150)
Trashcan - Delta Spirit (166)
Penny on the Train Track - Ben Kweller (140)
What Do All the People Know - The Monroes (143)
Lust for Life - Girls (152)
Me and Mia - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (150)
over 25 hrs of more here: http://www.remanents.com/blog/bold-pace-music

Love your book. Laughing out loud, and recognizing myself all the way along. Really, really great.

My brain is constantly full of old friend like The Who, Prince, Ween and the Flaming Lips.

But for two years now, I keep coming back again and again and again to two things:

Soulwax: live cuts from Part of the Weekend Never Dies, the best live performance of club music ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYFLa1BQWWY

TALC: Ween + Steely Dan + Chicago. Two brilliant UK session guys employ solid, smooth chops, humor and wicked horn charts. And a lot of vocoder.

http://talconline.com/music/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfvoR6aqcws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbYy1oqvbo

My old college radio show became a podcast, and is currently on hiatus. The rickety old website still lives on though.

Chuck Tomlinson
chuckt@stumpthedj.com
http://cosmicslop.com
http://chuckt.tumblr.com

A SHOUT OUT to Nick Drake, wherever you are:

Your wonderful music now graces AT & T commercials. I don't know whom owns the rights to your songs, but "From The Morning" remains as breathtaking as it was in 1973, when I bought your album.

The commercial was one of a very few that gave me a chill.

Thank you, Nick.

Please give a hug in Heaven to John Martyn, Syd Barrett and Cat Stevens (semi-deceased), not to mention the great Sandy Denny, whose wonderful music will live on.

Last ten fave cuts:

"Black President" - Brenda Fassie
"Honolulu Hula Hula Heigh" - Sol Hoopii
"Drunk Girls" - LCD Soundsystem
"A Church, A Courtroom And Then Goodbye" - Patsy Cline
"Father Of Mine" - Everclear
"Postcards From The Sky"
"Pay Bo Diddley" - Microwave Dave & The Nukes
"Psychedelic Shuffle" - Tempted By Trolls
"Strasbourg/St. Denis" - Roy Hargrove Quintet
"Golden Age" - TV On The Radio

Favorite obscure musical acts:

Jim Pepper
Garland Jeffreys
John Fahey
Eberhard Weber
Willis Alan Ramsey
Luna
Joni Mitchell (post 1980)
Michael Kamen
Craig Leon
Sainkho

Hey - everydog2000

Billy Joel has at least six WONDERFUL songs. He probably doesn't belong in the RockHall.

My choices:

"Just The Way You Are"
"River Of Dreams"
"Keeping The Faith"
"You May Be Right"
"My Life"

"New York State Of Mind" certainly defines guilty pleasure.

"Of Rivers And Religion" - John Fahey
"Revolver" - The Beatles
"Remain In Light" - Talking Heads
"Sunrise" - Elvis Presley
"Mysterious Traveler" - Weather Report
"That's The Way I Feel Now" (music of Thelonious Monk) - various artists
"Songs For 'Drella" - Lou Reed & John Cale
The Soundtrack From "Memento"
"Filigree And Shadow" - This Mortal Coil
"The Pines of Rome/The Fountains of Rome" (Respighi) - your choice

exile on main street

When I was a kid, other kids made fun of me when I would say "I love Billy Joel." The called me "fag," and I guess I know why. I was different than all of them. I knew a girl that wore a Barry Manilow T-Shirt. I think I was the only one who picked on her.

Now those kids who called me fag are paying high dollar to see Billy live, often touring with the most noble "fag" of all time, Sir Elton John.

I haven't listened to Billy in qutie a while. I guess the reason why is that I'm angry, maybe a bit disappointed.

It's just that I miss that feeling of hearing Cold Spring Harbor for the very first time. It's one that I've known time and again, each song has marked the romantic moments of my life, guiding me at crossroads.

I miss the fire I felt when I was eleven years old, alone in the dark rec room, dusted with smokey white light from the window. On HBO, Billy, in a suit coat and tie, banging away on the piano, singing My Life. It was the Nylon Curtain tour. I ran upstairs so share my elation with Mom and Dad. I had met and been blessed by my Saint of Rock N Roll, They were in the midst of a heated fight. I returned to the dark and danced in the smokey dust of summer light. I wasn't alone.

My first year of college, I was the only guy I know talking about the release of Storm Front. I waited at the record store door that September morn.

First year out, a grill cook at a sports bar, the boys in the kitchen, long-haired and all about sex, drugs and their own idea of rock and roll, smirked when I'd say "turn it up, that the new Billy tune." River of Dreams, 1993.

I've been angry at Billy for a while now. There's nothing wrong with classical and Broadway, but there's nothing that has come close to that night, on my Technic record player. He had a way of turning me around and inspiring me to hear the falling of the rain.

I've been angry with the guy for a number of years. It's just that I miss his music. I don't proclaim to know what Billy needs or that he even wants anything more than what he has achieved. What I believe is that a man who had whatever it is one needs to create something as beautiful as Cold Spring Harbor and as extraordinary as the music that followed, is a man with a indistinguishable light. He's guided me through the most profound moments of my existence, and I hope to hear from him again.



Some Rock and Roll Saints who have guided me along the way thus far:

Bruce.

Damien Rice, Gary Jules, The Hold Steady, The Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, My Morning Jacket, Josh Ritter, Ray LaMontagne, Neil Young, Rocky Votolato,

Bob Schneider, but I much prefer "I'm Good Now" over "Lonely Land."

Donovan Frankenreiter, Avett Brothers, Ryan Adams, Shawn Mullins, Elephant, The Walkman, The Strokes, Razorlight, Jackson Browne, Jeff Buckley, Lucero, Meatloaf, The Killers, Kings of Leon, Simon and Garfunkel, Vic Chestnut, Wilco...

Some forgotten, others to present themselves along the way.

Loved your book. I have been a DF for years and did not realize there was a term for a music-obsessed non-musican. Anyway here is a partial list of some of my favorite albums of all time. And Styx made a number of great albums including Pieces of Eight and Grand Illusion as well as Paradise Theatre!!!!

Echo and the Bunnymen- Ocean Rain
XTC-Skylarking
The Beatles-Rubber Soul
Warren Zevon-Sentimental Hygeine
REM-Murmer
A Tribe Called Quest-Low End Theory
The Cars-1st Album
Guided By Voices-Bee Thousand
Thomas Dolby-The Flat Earth
Patty Griffin-Flaming Red
Van Halen-I
Rush-Permanent Waves
Stereophonics-Performance & Cocktails
The Db's-Like This

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I'm ashamed, or maybe proud, that I've been on a three-year Sun Kil Moon (Mark Kozelek) jag. It sucked me in. First I realized that Mark was singing about places I grew up and knew. Then I got suspicious that his musical references put him at about my age. Next I researched him and found out that Mark and I were born the same year and that he lives in the Bay Area and that's where I'm from. I've bought everything he's released--which is more than I can say for my other musical obsession (*shudder*), Pink Floyd. The ONLY thing good about this is that Mark's not good looking enough for me to have a mancrush on him. That's reserved for David Gilmour circa 1971.

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I'll disclose I'm well over 50. Brothers McCann is a newish Boston based band that we're in love with. They appeal to all ages, have great original music, are tight, and wonderfully upbeat without being saccharin. Their live shows get folks up and dancing in no time. Well worth a trip to their website!

Mumford and Sons album Sigh No More is worthy of the attention its getting.

All of the Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros albums kick ass. (He would have continued to put out some phenomenal stuff).

And to jam in your car (or, in my case, rope in an 8 yr old daughter to the 80s, much to the chagrin of my wife): ABC's Lexicon of Love.

What's in my ears this week is my interview with Steve Almond on 'Tell Me Something I Want To Hear'. We discuss music, candy, fucking and fucking up. Epic. www.hellodylanwise.com

For years I agonized about the idea of getting a tattoo that said "My life was saved by rock and roll" but felt it was waaaay too lame especially since I am not a musician. Now I know there is a name for what I am, and that I am not alone. But I am still glad I never got that tattoo.

Anyway, my musical explorations died out a little after having kids. (toddlers don't like the record store, no matter how many cheerios you give them) Though I still try to keep up, the discs/songs that keep creeping back after all these years are:

1. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea/Neutral Milk Hotel
2. Half Dead and Dynamite/Lifter Puller
3. Axis bold As Love/Jimi Hendrix
4. Siren/Roxy Music
5. Blue and Court and Spark/Joni Mitchell
6. Here Come the Warm Jets/Eno
7. Joy Division/whatever album
8. Le Tigre/Le Tigre
9. Lonesome Crowded West/Modest Mouse
10. Bob Dylan/all of it

But I see this doesn't even begin to include what I would consider essential. For a full list you'd have to split (at least) a twelve pack with me, be dragged into the basement and forced to listen to vinyl for six hours and NO you can't pick a song, and WHAT you don't like Chicago? then I don't think you've ever properly listened to their early stuff, and HEY I said not to touch the volume. Sounds like fun eh? May God have mercy on my friends.

Peter Case – Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John

Best album of 2007 (and my sole desert island disc from this century) - Seriously, if someone made a better one that year I haven’t heard it. Peter Case produced an eleven song set that stands as one of the top achievements in songwriting and acoustic guitar craft since….well, since I’ve been listening anyway.

Although the album is largely performed solo, the first song, “Every 24 Hours” features Richard Thompson on guitar and backing vocals and upon first listen the virtuosity of the Case/Thompson duo appears to overwhelm the song. Upon repeat listening the interlocking acoustic lines actually underscore the song’s themes of travel, time and dislocation. This isn’t a cutting contest although each musician is playing his ass off – it’s ultimately way more effective and makes the song come to life.

Case goes it alone on “Million Dollars Bail”, a take on the Phil Spector murder case that comments on the “two kinds of justice” that divide our society but “eternity is longer than one night inside a box” and even the rich will have to pay in the end. The finger picked guitar accompaniment on this one is absolutely exquisite – intricate but not a note wasted.

Carlos Guitarlos lends vocal support to “Underneath the Stars” a touching without the usual sappiness look at homelessness – think Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London” set in L.A.

It just gets better. After another excellent finger picking excursion on “Just Hangin’ On” Case takes a look back (but not too far back) on the cold war era (is it really over?) in “I Ain’t Gonna Worry No More” and “Palookaville” before a full out roadhouse blues rave up on “Get Away Blues” the album’s sole cover.

“The Open Road Song” and “Some Bright Morning Blues” hanker back to a day when you could hop a train or stick you thumb out, “seek (your) fortune in the wide world” and leave it all behind

Duane Jarvis joins Case on electric guitar (or is it Case on electric?) for “I’m Gonna Change My Ways” that starts as a giddy romp through the euphoria of lust at first sight and its promise to “start over with a brand new soul”. Oh yeah – two guitars and some foot stompin’ – it rocks!

Case returns to finger picking mode accompanied by Norm Hamlet for the album’s closer “That Soul Twist” as he urges us to carry on – “if it’s not too late it’ll never be”. The tune ends with a beautiful Case/Hamlet jam that without a word underscores the album’s message of hope and perserverance.

The songs on this album are timeless and have an almost eerie familiarity to them – after one or two listens it’s as if you’ve always known them. The accompaniment, usually just Case and his guitar, is brilliant with not a note wasted. This man is not only at the top of his game – he’s at the top of the game.