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My 100 favorite songs

Strickland33 said:
Do you mind retelling? I missed it.
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sure--
RedSoxFaithful said:
the night ended with my shit faced aunt taking a real bad fall on the last dance (a slow dance! Farewell Transmission! the DJ referred to it as a circle of love! for three and a half minutes it was lovely and everyone was very into it as a Moment!) and getting an ambulance to the hospital (she fell on her face and went unconscious for a couple minutes -- thankfully no fracture, but a real bad bruise around her cheek/eye, though I also haven't gotten a ton of updates today so)

she was really the only extended family there for me, since she was flying in and facilitating stuff for my 91 year old grandma, who was absolutely tearing up the dance floor all night

it did lead to maybe the funniest moment of the night, with grandma yelling "what the hell are you doing on the floor, learn how to walk" at her when she came to
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(she's fine now)
 
Kory said:
hmm i think today I will listen to some Dirty Projectors

Swing Lo Magellan is so fucking fun to play/sing on guitar
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god, I love Swing Lo Magellan. that whole album is so good.

I associate it a lot with Akron/Family's S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT, probably because I was still listening to a ton of that when SLM rolled around. Structurally though, they feel very similar-- both albums take these weird sort of detours halfway through to try some weird shit, and they both lead to some lovely little melodies bookended by (controlled) chaos. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing-- "Faust Arp" is one of my favorite Radiohead tracks for the same reason-- but a song like "Impregnable Question" or "Cast a Net" really sneaks up on me in the flow of their respective albums.
 
Making a quick edit to my list

95. The hold music the IRS plays when you call them and they tell you there’s a 88 min wait time to speak to a representative
 
95. Mission of Burma - That’s When I Reach for My Revolver

This is cringe, but I first heard and truly connected with this song on Guitar Hero. In the decade plus since then I’ve at least sought out Signals, Calls, and Marches and put it in rotation. Academy Fight Song is another strong candidate for this list, but how can you not love Revolver?

Thinking about writing this today made me think about punk and underground and authenticity. I went to a handful of punk shows when I was struggling financially after college, living in a south Philly shithole apartment with bedbugs and mice and a cokehead slumlord whom I shared a wall with. I rode a bus for 40 minutes or walked for an hour to get to my job in a shiny, fancy high rise building where I had to wear a nice ironed button up shirt and worked with really formal people and be on and corporate all the time even though it was a nonprofit and I was making ~$30k. My student loans were more monthly than my rent payment, and my beer and concert budget was pretty unpredictable, so the free or $5 shows at Kung Fu Necktie or tiny clubs like that were a respite.

I felt like an outsider to the scene no matter what, though I tried on the costume and lifestyle variously for a while. That’s kind of how I feel about certain genres like punk or hip hop or jazz, like, I wasn’t there when it was all coming together, I’m not who the music is “for.” Same deal for stuff from before I was born, what access should I have to it?

But at the end of the day you end up liking what you like, and fuck authenticity and all that. I read the chapter about Mission of Burma in “Our Band Could Be Your Life” and heard them characterized as a band’s band, and that definitely makes sense to me. I dig the layered and changing vocals responsibility, the harmonies on the later chorus, and how tight and self-contained this is while still feeling expansive and rock-like. Each line is short and simple, which allows the music to propel the very fun to sing words forward. In a way it’s what makes it a fun Guitar Hero/Rock Band song, you can imagine yourself as part of the DIY band.

With all apologies to proper scenesters for not going deeper than this cut, this song always hits, no matter what. Crank the volume and let it ride.
 
I appreciate that you can write about music in a way that it actually communicates something about the music, whereas most music critics tend to have some kind of shorthand of metaphors that communicate nothing to the casual listener while simultaneously making me want to punch them.
 
TownieDeac said:
95. Mission of Burma - That’s When I Reach for My Revolver

This is cringe, but I first heard and truly connected with this song on Guitar Hero. In the decade plus since then I’ve at least sought out Signals, Calls, and Marches and put it in rotation. Academy Fight Song is another strong candidate for this list, but how can you not love Revolver?

Thinking about writing this today made me think about punk and underground and authenticity. I went to a handful of punk shows when I was struggling financially after college, living in a south Philly shithole apartment with bedbugs and mice and a cokehead slumlord whom I shared a wall with. I rode a bus for 40 minutes or walked for an hour to get to my job in a shiny, fancy high rise building where I had to wear a nice ironed button up shirt and worked with really formal people and be on and corporate all the time even though it was a nonprofit and I was making ~$30k. My student loans were more monthly than my rent payment, and my beer and concert budget was pretty unpredictable, so the free or $5 shows at Kung Fu Necktie or tiny clubs like that were a respite.

I felt like an outsider to the scene no matter what, though I tried on the costume and lifestyle variously for a while. That’s kind of how I feel about certain genres like punk or hip hop or jazz, like, I wasn’t there when it was all coming together, I’m not who the music is “for.” Same deal for stuff from before I was born, what access should I have to it?

But at the end of the day you end up liking what you like, and fuck authenticity and all that. I read the chapter about Mission of Burma in “Our Band Could Be Your Life” and heard them characterized as a band’s band, and that definitely makes sense to me. I dig the layered and changing vocals responsibility, the harmonies on the later chorus, and how tight and self-contained this is while still feeling expansive and rock-like. Each line is short and simple, which allows the music to propel the very fun to sing words forward. In a way it’s what makes it a fun Guitar Hero/Rock Band song, you can imagine yourself as part of the DIY band.

With all apologies to proper scenesters for not going deeper than this cut, this song always hits, no matter what. Crank the volume and let it ride.
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I love this song and this band, but I was first introduced to it and them by Moby covering it :couch:

It goes hard though. I like how Mission of Burma had a member who did the live mixing/manipulation on stage during shows, kind of like Eno in Roxy, I guess, just more punk.

Anyway, the Moby version is pretty faithful and sounds not bad at all upon revisiting 20-ish years later.

 
I love this thread Townie, thanks for sharing.

I first heard of MOB when I read Our Band Could be Your Life. Great book, great band. I read that book because I was into sonic youth, dinosaur Jr. and meat puppets but I picked up a lot of bands after reading that book, like Husker du, MOB, beat happening, and minute men. MOB reunited and put out some new music in the mid 2000’s, so it is sort of contemporary and definitely meant for you. However, one of my favorite bits from that book was when, I think it was the minor threat chapter, the guys had just come back from their first small tour and had a tiny bit of money and when deciding what to do with it, rather than buy food or pay rent or even get new amps, they decided to “preserve” their music by recording their first 7”. Those guys wanted future punk kids to hear it so they preserved it.
 
I wasn’t so enamored with that book, unfortunately, as it got a little repetitive for me after a while, but I did enjoy multiple chapters, especially the Mudhoney/Sub Pop chapter and the Butthole Surfers chapter.
 
TownieDeac said:
I wasn’t so enamored with that book, unfortunately, as it got a little repetitive for me after a while, but I did enjoy multiple chapters, especially the Mudhoney/Sub Pop chapter and the Butthole Surfers chapter.
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You should have read it before reading "Sellout." It's the same format but the bands are way better :couch:
 
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