Kory
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oof big L
anything off 77 is probably my favorite
Book I read or love has come to town slap
My 100 favorite songs
- Thread starter TownieDeac
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oof big L
anything off 77 is probably my favorite
Book I read or love has come to town slap
OldGouldandBlack
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Do we think Clawson is like a deep deep Talking Heads fan, or does he just listen to Naive Melody on repeat 100 times — I never got a great read on that one.
Like, Talking Heads gets mentioned a lot but I think I saw some other interview where it seemed like that was just a replacement catch all term for that one song. Could be totally off.
Like, Talking Heads gets mentioned a lot but I think I saw some other interview where it seemed like that was just a replacement catch all term for that one song. Could be totally off.
TownieDeac
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4. Radiohead - Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
There aren’t a ton of songs on here where I felt like I was part of the scene. Many on my list are from a completely different era, or they’re a genre I only have a passing familiarity with. I guess Radiohead was huge well before I was into them, I wasn’t anxiously awaiting OK Computer. Hail to the Thief was big for me as I gained both a burgeoning political consciousness and interest in new kinds of music. But the wait leading up to In Rainbows did feel like a moment I was a part of, and I remember exactly where I was when I first listened to it, the very day it came out, and for that reason it remains my favorite Radiohead record today.
I won’t rehash my experience at Bonnaroo 2006 here, but Radiohead were headliners night 1, and seeing them in front of 80,000 people coming down off mushrooms is a top 3 concert experience for me. There There > Bodysnatchers was the opening. I’ve seen reviews of In Rainbows talk about a few of the songs being fan favorites live before the album came out, and I can certainly see why. In the whole catalog of Radiohead, there are lots of different ways you could go with picking favorites. For a long time my favorite was 2+2=5, it felt subversive and catchy to me as a teenager. I had a period where I really liked the more ambient, subtler songs like Hunting Bears or The Gloaming. But I remember what it felt like the first time I heard In Rainbows, and the first four tracks especially have an extremely special place for me, the whole side A really, it’s just perfection.
By then Thom had spent some time with solo efforts, and he could take more of his electronic efforts in that direction, and this record really benefits. You can tell the tracks where Colin and Phil are running the show, and the tracks where Jonny is, and in all it very much sounds like a five person record, an extremely cohesive and tight core. These Basement Sessions videos are a great way to see the songs performed, and I feel like while I like it best when I zone out and listen, watching Jonny and Ed is a trip on a song like this, listening to how tone gets layered on.
Anyway, the house off Coliseum drive I spent a lot of time in latter half of college, of Fleetwood Mac writeup, bit of a shitshow really, but what college house isn’t, that’s where I heard this. My friend Brandon and I had preordered it, smoked a lot of weed after class, sank into the big living room couch, hit play, and plugged the iTunes visualizer into the big screen. I won’t go track by track, though Lord knows I could by memory, but I distinctly remember the immediate impact of this song. It feels like you’re underwater, like you’ve been plunged, the atmosphere of the guitars is like sinking into pockets of bubbles and being lowered into the depths. The lyrics and title add to that as well, but for me there isn’t a song with better, more interesting guitar tone, to convey a feeling and an idea, than this song’s composition and performance.
This isn’t really a concept record, which was the first time you could say that in a while from Radiohead. This was them recording songs they’d written years ago, performed live to acclaim, and mixed and edited and sequenced to utter perfection. Rather than gush on and on I’m gonna just go watch the Basement session again and bliss out. I think Jonny is my favorite guitar player ever, his influence on the back half of the catalog is just so cool. Geniuses.
There aren’t a ton of songs on here where I felt like I was part of the scene. Many on my list are from a completely different era, or they’re a genre I only have a passing familiarity with. I guess Radiohead was huge well before I was into them, I wasn’t anxiously awaiting OK Computer. Hail to the Thief was big for me as I gained both a burgeoning political consciousness and interest in new kinds of music. But the wait leading up to In Rainbows did feel like a moment I was a part of, and I remember exactly where I was when I first listened to it, the very day it came out, and for that reason it remains my favorite Radiohead record today.
I won’t rehash my experience at Bonnaroo 2006 here, but Radiohead were headliners night 1, and seeing them in front of 80,000 people coming down off mushrooms is a top 3 concert experience for me. There There > Bodysnatchers was the opening. I’ve seen reviews of In Rainbows talk about a few of the songs being fan favorites live before the album came out, and I can certainly see why. In the whole catalog of Radiohead, there are lots of different ways you could go with picking favorites. For a long time my favorite was 2+2=5, it felt subversive and catchy to me as a teenager. I had a period where I really liked the more ambient, subtler songs like Hunting Bears or The Gloaming. But I remember what it felt like the first time I heard In Rainbows, and the first four tracks especially have an extremely special place for me, the whole side A really, it’s just perfection.
By then Thom had spent some time with solo efforts, and he could take more of his electronic efforts in that direction, and this record really benefits. You can tell the tracks where Colin and Phil are running the show, and the tracks where Jonny is, and in all it very much sounds like a five person record, an extremely cohesive and tight core. These Basement Sessions videos are a great way to see the songs performed, and I feel like while I like it best when I zone out and listen, watching Jonny and Ed is a trip on a song like this, listening to how tone gets layered on.
Anyway, the house off Coliseum drive I spent a lot of time in latter half of college, of Fleetwood Mac writeup, bit of a shitshow really, but what college house isn’t, that’s where I heard this. My friend Brandon and I had preordered it, smoked a lot of weed after class, sank into the big living room couch, hit play, and plugged the iTunes visualizer into the big screen. I won’t go track by track, though Lord knows I could by memory, but I distinctly remember the immediate impact of this song. It feels like you’re underwater, like you’ve been plunged, the atmosphere of the guitars is like sinking into pockets of bubbles and being lowered into the depths. The lyrics and title add to that as well, but for me there isn’t a song with better, more interesting guitar tone, to convey a feeling and an idea, than this song’s composition and performance.
This isn’t really a concept record, which was the first time you could say that in a while from Radiohead. This was them recording songs they’d written years ago, performed live to acclaim, and mixed and edited and sequenced to utter perfection. Rather than gush on and on I’m gonna just go watch the Basement session again and bliss out. I think Jonny is my favorite guitar player ever, his influence on the back half of the catalog is just so cool. Geniuses.
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TownieDeac
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3. Songs: Ohia - Captain Badass
Four years ago this week we lost David Berman. Five years ago for Scott Hutchison. It’s been ten years for Jason. The depressed and drunken soul as an artist has made a profound impact on how I see the world, I find myself drawn to it in all forms of artistic expression. I tattooed the cover of Magnolia Electric Co on my arm several years ago, and sometimes when people ask me about it, maybe they haven’t heard the record before, and they’ll come back to me and say “are you ok, man?” Mostly I’m great, but I guess that’s not really how depression works.
Another through line of the above artists that resonates with me strongly is vulnerability. Jason bears his soul in his music, there’s little or no veneer there, it’s just the raw juice we’re all drinking. I say this has been a writing exercise for me, it’s also a place where I can be vulnerable and personal. I’ve learned a lot about how someone comes to find their favorite music. I probably maybe definitely shouldn’t be as open and vulnerable here as I already have been, sometimes in ways that I am not with my closest friends and family. I guess you can be a little detached in your writing in ways it’s hard to be with the people in your life you have to confront and speak to face to face, which is isolating in itself. When Jason died I read a lot of heartbreaking accounts of his social isolation, there were so many people who loved and cared about him, but the themes of his music reflected a deep loneliness.
Lots of places try and claim Jason (Northern Ohio, Chicago, Bloomington), but it’s safe to just call him Midwestern. He said “you never run out of ways to talk about that Midwestern grey,” and he never did. He was so incredibly prolific with his recordings, like he couldn’t get it all out of his head, the desperate need for connection to a willing listener, it’s real. And throughout all those recordings there are lines of his poetic lyricism that just hit you like grabbing a downed power line. Much like David and Scott above, there’s a lot of saying goodbye in their songs, which reads as dramatic after they’re gone, but it’s just one of those painful expressions we all have all the time. Farewell Transmission is the most powerful of these for me, it’s the perfect lo-fi 7 minute teary eyed and blustery alt country rock tune of our age.
I’m rambling because I’m a bit scared to come to the point here. I chose Captain Badass as my favorite because I think it essentially captures what Jason was about. It’s a fundamentally vulnerable song. The guitar echoes, reverberates, and the song itself is a prolonged call and response, seeking an affirmation. He uses love as a metaphor here, if you blow it, you don’t get a second chance, but he’s talking about the one life we have to live. I guess it’s my turn now to say that’s what terrifies me the most about this existence. Some day we will die. I guess I’m not so afraid of the death itself but the cosmic joke of existence at all. Why be called into being for such a short time, full of such suffering and self-awareness and complexity and lack of clarity? I write all this not to seek help (I have it) or to be morose (I’m not), but to express maybe that melancholy, secondary to a permanent and powerful existential crisis is probably the central characteristic of the kind of music I favor. If you can find a beauty and peace in that pain, and express it all in a universal way, the way Jason does, you’ve got my heart forever. I think part of what I love too, about this or Neutral Milk Hotel or that ilk is that it’s also not inextricably tied to commercial production; if the question is a big Why, the answer is not “to produce.” It’s so important to say with what little voice any of us have that there aren’t easy answers to sell, and the best artists never try. I can connect so strongly with favoring a fear of success over a fear of failure.
Sometimes my wife will tease me if I’ve got Jason’s music on, ask me if I’m going through something, as if chronic lifelong depression ever really goes away. I’d never really give it back to her when she’s pumping Bright Eyes or Brand New or whatever, but we’ve got different stuff going on. She dragged me out of the deepest hole I was ever in, she gave me a life and a family and a future, and her Type A anxiety works very well with my slacker calm. Agh. There’s no good way to end this post. Jason knew he would try, he knew whatever he’d try that he would be gone, but not forever. In fact he’s here forever. To quote another artist of JM, “we have your sweet tunes to play.” RIP Sparky.
Four years ago this week we lost David Berman. Five years ago for Scott Hutchison. It’s been ten years for Jason. The depressed and drunken soul as an artist has made a profound impact on how I see the world, I find myself drawn to it in all forms of artistic expression. I tattooed the cover of Magnolia Electric Co on my arm several years ago, and sometimes when people ask me about it, maybe they haven’t heard the record before, and they’ll come back to me and say “are you ok, man?” Mostly I’m great, but I guess that’s not really how depression works.
Another through line of the above artists that resonates with me strongly is vulnerability. Jason bears his soul in his music, there’s little or no veneer there, it’s just the raw juice we’re all drinking. I say this has been a writing exercise for me, it’s also a place where I can be vulnerable and personal. I’ve learned a lot about how someone comes to find their favorite music. I probably maybe definitely shouldn’t be as open and vulnerable here as I already have been, sometimes in ways that I am not with my closest friends and family. I guess you can be a little detached in your writing in ways it’s hard to be with the people in your life you have to confront and speak to face to face, which is isolating in itself. When Jason died I read a lot of heartbreaking accounts of his social isolation, there were so many people who loved and cared about him, but the themes of his music reflected a deep loneliness.
Lots of places try and claim Jason (Northern Ohio, Chicago, Bloomington), but it’s safe to just call him Midwestern. He said “you never run out of ways to talk about that Midwestern grey,” and he never did. He was so incredibly prolific with his recordings, like he couldn’t get it all out of his head, the desperate need for connection to a willing listener, it’s real. And throughout all those recordings there are lines of his poetic lyricism that just hit you like grabbing a downed power line. Much like David and Scott above, there’s a lot of saying goodbye in their songs, which reads as dramatic after they’re gone, but it’s just one of those painful expressions we all have all the time. Farewell Transmission is the most powerful of these for me, it’s the perfect lo-fi 7 minute teary eyed and blustery alt country rock tune of our age.
I’m rambling because I’m a bit scared to come to the point here. I chose Captain Badass as my favorite because I think it essentially captures what Jason was about. It’s a fundamentally vulnerable song. The guitar echoes, reverberates, and the song itself is a prolonged call and response, seeking an affirmation. He uses love as a metaphor here, if you blow it, you don’t get a second chance, but he’s talking about the one life we have to live. I guess it’s my turn now to say that’s what terrifies me the most about this existence. Some day we will die. I guess I’m not so afraid of the death itself but the cosmic joke of existence at all. Why be called into being for such a short time, full of such suffering and self-awareness and complexity and lack of clarity? I write all this not to seek help (I have it) or to be morose (I’m not), but to express maybe that melancholy, secondary to a permanent and powerful existential crisis is probably the central characteristic of the kind of music I favor. If you can find a beauty and peace in that pain, and express it all in a universal way, the way Jason does, you’ve got my heart forever. I think part of what I love too, about this or Neutral Milk Hotel or that ilk is that it’s also not inextricably tied to commercial production; if the question is a big Why, the answer is not “to produce.” It’s so important to say with what little voice any of us have that there aren’t easy answers to sell, and the best artists never try. I can connect so strongly with favoring a fear of success over a fear of failure.
Sometimes my wife will tease me if I’ve got Jason’s music on, ask me if I’m going through something, as if chronic lifelong depression ever really goes away. I’d never really give it back to her when she’s pumping Bright Eyes or Brand New or whatever, but we’ve got different stuff going on. She dragged me out of the deepest hole I was ever in, she gave me a life and a family and a future, and her Type A anxiety works very well with my slacker calm. Agh. There’s no good way to end this post. Jason knew he would try, he knew whatever he’d try that he would be gone, but not forever. In fact he’s here forever. To quote another artist of JM, “we have your sweet tunes to play.” RIP Sparky.
TownieDeac
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Could talk about him all day. I can’t find the write up, but there was an amazing oral history of the production of Magnolia Electric Co out there once.
Listen to the difference btween the demo and the final versions of Farewell Transmission:
As the story went, he played the song once through as a demo, just him and a guitar, and then the other dozen or so musicians all crammed into the studio, talked about the composition, and produced the final version in a single take. When the song was getting too loud or too soft, producer Steve Albini just went and opened or closed doors of the room they were in. I can’t fathom what it would be like to experience something like that coming together in real life.
I was listening to William Friedkin talk about his preferred documentary style of setting up cameras for shots, asking the camera operators not to cut, to just keep filming, and to prefer fewer takes to many, leaving in the accidents and the imperfections because they’re real, they’re more like life. I feel that so strongly with Jason’s music. There’s a quality on a lot of songs where we’re getting this as ephemera, warts and all. But not like it’s careless unrehearsed or unthought out, because it’s desperately planned and intentional too. Like some of the scenes in The Exorcist took 2 days to set up the lighting for, and then filming actually lasted like 15 minutes. You have to painstakingly craft a context out of real life to make something so fleetingly imperfect and beautiful.
Fuck! Legends!
Listen to the difference btween the demo and the final versions of Farewell Transmission:
As the story went, he played the song once through as a demo, just him and a guitar, and then the other dozen or so musicians all crammed into the studio, talked about the composition, and produced the final version in a single take. When the song was getting too loud or too soft, producer Steve Albini just went and opened or closed doors of the room they were in. I can’t fathom what it would be like to experience something like that coming together in real life.
I was listening to William Friedkin talk about his preferred documentary style of setting up cameras for shots, asking the camera operators not to cut, to just keep filming, and to prefer fewer takes to many, leaving in the accidents and the imperfections because they’re real, they’re more like life. I feel that so strongly with Jason’s music. There’s a quality on a lot of songs where we’re getting this as ephemera, warts and all. But not like it’s careless unrehearsed or unthought out, because it’s desperately planned and intentional too. Like some of the scenes in The Exorcist took 2 days to set up the lighting for, and then filming actually lasted like 15 minutes. You have to painstakingly craft a context out of real life to make something so fleetingly imperfect and beautiful.
Fuck! Legends!
I listened to Songs Ohia a little bit back in 2002 maybe. The name of the band connected with me because of my time in Hawaii trying to save native birds and habitats. (Also, my high school friend and band mate had a music project called Burd Early and he toured with Songs Ohia in Europe at some point in the early 2000's.) I think I found a download of the black album or a few of the songs anyway. But, I lost track of them/him. You and maybe Kory got me to relisten and I really love this music. Thanks for getting me to re-engage.
freakadeac
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Looking forward to the next write-up
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TownieDeac
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2. Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing
Today is gonna be the complete opposite of yesterday's post. I don’t know shit about Dire Straits if I’m honest. A handful of songs perhaps. And rather than that song forging a deep personal connection that I’ve tied up in my identity, this song just fucking rocks. If yesterday was superego, today is gonna be pure id. (@Kory did I do that right?)
When I think about this song I think about my Nissan Pickup I drove for about four years in and after college before it gave out on me. I bought the title off my dad for $500, learned how to drive stick over thanksgiving break, and then drove it a harrowing 8 hours in a blizzard immediately after learning how, with a mattress covered by a tarp and a couple sandbags in the bed. It was a steel body, white with awesome body decals, and I was taller than it. It looked like this but in way worse shape:
The reason I bring this truck up is because I associate it with the time I was dating my girlfriend (now wife) long distance for a few years while she lived in New York and I lived in Hershey and then Philly. About once a month I loaded up the truck and drove to her in NY. I moved her three times across Brooklyn in those three years as Barclay’s Center steadily gentrified that part of town further and further. Those car trips were freedom in that dumb, beautiful truck. I’d roll the windows down, turn the radio as loud as it could go, fire up a cigarette, and go as fast as that thing could go (about 55 mph if it was a nice steep downhill). Driving in it on the Jersey turnpike made a man out of me, that or fixing a flat and replacing the spare from under the car on the Verrazano Bridge.
I swear to you, more often than not, Sultans of Swing came on the radio every single Friday night I left town after work. There’s not a better song to listen to in the world than this song, in a truck, with the radio on, windows down, barreling towards your sweetheart, in the thick of your youth. The song is about a bar band trying to make it (or not). It has one of the finest guitar runs in music, a chorus that was constructed by the Devil himself to get stuck in your head, and enough playful energy to be appropriate any time of the day.
I won’t ruin it any more with any of my words, just find your blissful breezy road trip vibe and crank this song as loud as it can go.
Today is gonna be the complete opposite of yesterday's post. I don’t know shit about Dire Straits if I’m honest. A handful of songs perhaps. And rather than that song forging a deep personal connection that I’ve tied up in my identity, this song just fucking rocks. If yesterday was superego, today is gonna be pure id. (@Kory did I do that right?)
When I think about this song I think about my Nissan Pickup I drove for about four years in and after college before it gave out on me. I bought the title off my dad for $500, learned how to drive stick over thanksgiving break, and then drove it a harrowing 8 hours in a blizzard immediately after learning how, with a mattress covered by a tarp and a couple sandbags in the bed. It was a steel body, white with awesome body decals, and I was taller than it. It looked like this but in way worse shape:
The reason I bring this truck up is because I associate it with the time I was dating my girlfriend (now wife) long distance for a few years while she lived in New York and I lived in Hershey and then Philly. About once a month I loaded up the truck and drove to her in NY. I moved her three times across Brooklyn in those three years as Barclay’s Center steadily gentrified that part of town further and further. Those car trips were freedom in that dumb, beautiful truck. I’d roll the windows down, turn the radio as loud as it could go, fire up a cigarette, and go as fast as that thing could go (about 55 mph if it was a nice steep downhill). Driving in it on the Jersey turnpike made a man out of me, that or fixing a flat and replacing the spare from under the car on the Verrazano Bridge.
I swear to you, more often than not, Sultans of Swing came on the radio every single Friday night I left town after work. There’s not a better song to listen to in the world than this song, in a truck, with the radio on, windows down, barreling towards your sweetheart, in the thick of your youth. The song is about a bar band trying to make it (or not). It has one of the finest guitar runs in music, a chorus that was constructed by the Devil himself to get stuck in your head, and enough playful energy to be appropriate any time of the day.
I won’t ruin it any more with any of my words, just find your blissful breezy road trip vibe and crank this song as loud as it can go.
OldGouldandBlack
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That first album is amazing. One of the all time great debuts. I like the first few, but really really love that one.
IAppreciateIt
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Hah, something I've also been curious about. I've asked him about Talking Heads at two Deacon Club events (which he appears eager to discuss), I think most recently asked him if he preferred Stop Making Sense or the studio versions of songs and IIRC he said something along the lines of listening to Stop Making Sense while looking at film, or something. When I pressed him on it later, he said he liked Byrne and had seen his show on Broadway. But he had no idea who St. Vincent was when I followed up with that, which I believe was the point he started getting annoyed (I'm pretty sure I was noticeably drunk) and excused himself.
IAppreciateIt
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Related question, studio or Hammersmith/Alchemy live?
funny thing for me about this version is that it's probably my dad's favorite live performance and he always plays it when i visit back home. he loves talking about how the two guitarists are brothers, not realizing that this performance is after david knopfler left the band and the rhythm guitarist here is the replacement. i haven't seen the point in correcting him, don't think i ever will.
funny thing for me about this version is that it's probably my dad's favorite live performance and he always plays it when i visit back home. he loves talking about how the two guitarists are brothers, not realizing that this performance is after david knopfler left the band and the rhythm guitarist here is the replacement. i haven't seen the point in correcting him, don't think i ever will.
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freakadeac
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It’s one of the rare songs where getting overplayed doesn’t take away from its appeal because it’s just that fucking good
freakadeac
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I’ll give it another listen, I feel bad for the other songs going against Sultans of Swing
I think it was WRS who mentioned the opening 3 songs on Making Movies are incredible (Tunnel of Love / R&J / Skateaway) and I agree
RedSoxFaithful
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I'm more than a little bummed that these write-ups are ending today
2&2 Slider To Leyritz
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Well goddamn. I read your write up on #3, who I'd never heard of, on Wednesday and was running through the list of great bands that you continue to leave off in favor of more whining emotrash, and the last thing I thought was "this motherfucker doesn't even have Dire Straits in his top 100, that has to be the least controversial inclusion of anyone". And I'm not even a big Dire Straits fan. When I thought that, I was thinking Money For Nothing (which I'm assuming is now cancelled for PC reasons??), but Sultans of Swing is great too. At least you somewhat redeemed yourself with this pick.
OldGouldandBlack
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Down to the Waterline, Water of Love, Six Blade Knife, Sultans, In The Gallery, and Wild West End are all great cuts. I love that album.
Their Rockpalast around that time was super tight, too, though they do Sultans twice I think because he chunks the solo or something, I need to relisten. Pick Withers!