1/7
2012
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“Harden My Heart” by Seafood Mama
The group was formed by merging two popular Oregon bands, Seafood Mama and Pilot. Continuing under the name Seafood Mama, the band originally released the picture-sleeved single “Harden My Heart” on local private label, Whitefire Records, in the spring of 1980 (with the B-side track being “City Of Roses”). “Harden My Heart” was a big hit on Portland radio stations and got the band a one-hour TV special, Seafood Mama In Concert, on KOIN on June 5, 1980. “Harden My Heart” would later be rerecorded by the band after they renamed themselves Quarterflash.
(Source: youtube.com)
1/3
2012
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In 1982, May Booker, a 70-year-old grandmother from England, wrote producers at the BBC. The subject of her letter was her favorite band, Thin Lizzy, hard rock’s biggest act at the time. “How nice it would be,” she wrote, “to play with them.”
Recognizing a golden opportunity, producers reached out to the band. Lead singer Phil Lynott, raised by his paternal grandmother in Crumlin, Dublin, agreed to share the stage with Booker, who “played” an Oberheim OB-X synthesizer on the band’s pre-recorded performance of “Hollywood.”
9/19
2011
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Jud Jud “Fast Song”
“Shit was stupid cool and we were killing it. All my bros knew the words and we all had our own moves. That crew was mad tight and the girls liked our look. Now we’re the best and dudes watch out.”
I genuinely feel that at one point in time, this was how a good number of Long Island and, later, Boston kids talked and acted. So then when a gimmick like Jud Jud came around, it was possible that both the sides of this cringeworthy divide could unite and laugh at the shitty music we devoted most of our attention to. A win/win courtesy of Jud Jud.
- Has been played 0 times.
8/24
2011
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Country Teasers - Black Change
I’ve emboldened all the most important lyrics to this song. As you can see, Ben Wallers makes economic use of his 90 seconds. I say if you can listen to the first twenty seconds of this pseudoxenophobic ripper and still have the power to turn it off, then you’re a stronger man than I.
In the year two thousand/I’m the first white citizen/I get injection/Black change operation/My dick went long/My hair went fuzzy/My lips and eyes/Bigger than my little tummy/I traded in my white friends/For pretty white ladies/My new black body/Drove them crazy/Yep/Black change
Two thousand and ten/I’ve gotta go back again/There’s too much trouble/From those envious white men/Go back to the surgeon/Another injection/Reverse operation/I’m a clean white citizen again/My wife won’t touch me/I can’t score no crack/”Once you go black,” she says/”You never go back”/Yep/Black change/Black change
- Has been played 0 times.
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Bonnie Raitt - Something To Talk About
When I was ten, I didn’t know another ten year old who didn’t know every lyric of this song by heart. That included the boys, because around that age every boy enters an ambiguously gay stage where it’s a coin flip whether they’ll return to the perennially popular hetero wonderland that is modern American life or to a soul crushing identity fuck that is pre-outed-gaydom. Now that the choice is behind me, the song remains a favorite of karaoke viewing and Lite FM radio browsing. Though I’m seeing the actual music video for the first time right now and can’t vouch for whether or not it will hold up.
Just finished the video. It does not hold up.
(Source: youtube.com)
8/6
2011
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The Barracudas - Summer Fun
The lip syncing is atrocious, the song barely breaks the two minute mark and is mostly composed of bop-bop-bop. But the singer is wearing a varsity jacket (Ten Yard Fight precursor? You tell me) and is absolutely RIPPING IT THE FUCK UP. And thusly do I now see the lineage that spawned the Carlton Dance. That this band performed this song in England in 1980 must mean they were feeding their American Graffiti obsession with an unending Ramones playlist, broken only by repeated viewings of The Juicy Fruits performing Goodbye, Eddie, Goodbye from Phantom Of The Paradise. Give it thirty seconds and you’ll buy the whole damn thing.
9/8
2010
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Frida Hyvönen - I Drive My Friend
I have no imagination when this plays. I surrender all narrative thought and invest nothing in to what this song is about except that somehow I am in shotgun and Frida Hyvönen does not fear me. Have you ever seen a picture of this woman? Google Image her and save all and have the photos fade into each other in an hour long loop and then start to work out in vain. Also, finding that umlaut took more time than writing the rest of the entry. Also, sorry about the long absence, this format burns me out pretty fast.
- Has been played 0 times.
10/27
2009
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Wailers “Concrete Jungle”
Quite possibly my favorite album opener of all time, when Chris Blackwell/Island Records took Marley & co. mainstream. Unsatisfied with the recording sessions in Jamaica (too black-sounding!), Blackwell hired a pair of American musicians to shred all over and whiten it up. Fucked in theory, but melding both sounds means “Concrete Jungle” came out positively sinister. Listen to that fucking intro! I dare you not to oil down your good machete.
- Has been played 10 times.
10/21
2009
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Antelope - “Wen Ho Lee”
Just wiki’d Wen Ho Lee. Turns out he was a Chinese-born scientist accused of spying by the US government about ten years ago. Yes, people still spy. It’s about the stuff that some guy, presumably Wen Ho, wants, specifically “something entire.” (I guess this is an instance where those words can be grammatically correct. Fair enough.) I don’t pretend or aspire to know too much about Antelope—they’re Dischord alums and their apples fall not too far from the Q And Not U tree—but this song makes me want to cross deserts. See the mountain. Be the mountain. If shit like that raises yr hairs, get into this song. It’ll cost you three minutes but you’ll be rewarded one hundred gold coins.
- Has been played 11 times.
10/10
2009
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Rival Schools “Travel By Telephone”
Another scorching album opener (I assume someone out there is doing a song review blog of just album openers. Killer idea, Someone.), this time from creepily handsome Walter Schreifels, who has been in more good bands than Paul McCartney and who has doubleplus scene cred. As far as I’ve been told, the rest of the album doesn’t hold up nearly as well. I’ll take the world’s word, since I’ve only gotten a few seconds into the second track and never heard the rest of the album. Nothing can follow this. It is the most perfect example of its genre, that being Quicksand-Influenced Post-Hardcore Rock Groups With Polished Radio-Ready Hits. You can even see how well Schreifels stacks up against everyman Nate Fisher in the composite photo below.
- Has been played 15 times.
10/9
2009
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Bracket “Circus Act”
It is fun to remember a time in early high school when every recorded song wasn’t available at my fingertits and some mid-roster Fat Wreck Chords band could prompt two or three of us to travel six hours round trip to the city. I don’t remember much about seeing Bracket. It was at Coney Island High and was not even half full; Furious George was one of the openers (I vividly recall the singer wearing nylon tights or some such nonsense); Bracket’s second guitarist looked like a meathead, like a weight room attendant or something. And I remember there was some acid casualty who was gyrating and tasting the rainbow for most of the set. But I do remember that we all left satisfied. Their latest full length at that time would’ve been ‘4-Wheel Vibe,’ which has awful cover art but starts off with this mostly great song, marred only slightly by the bridge’s brief digression into Nirvana-ish caterwauls and doggerel. Sixty seconds too long? You tell me.
- Has been played 5 times.
10/8
2009
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Townes Van Zandt “Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold”
I imagine that in Texas in the early 1970’s, Led Zepplin was too “faggoty” for shit-kicking roughnecks who were secretly desperate to satisfy their inner-most cravings for Tolkien-esque tales of palace intrigue, epic battles and widespread ensorcellment. So Townes relaxes ‘em with a down-home dirty joke and then takes them away to a magical land where those cards they play with every day have hidden lives. I’m willing to wager that most songs about poker are completely worthless. Not this one. Bake ‘em away, toys.
- Has been played 40 times.
10/7
2009
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Gordon Lightfoot “Sundown”
This is Gord’s “Stop fucking my wife or I’m going to kill you and bury you with the refuse” song. I first heard it on the wonderful ‘Gord’s Gold’ greatest hits collection, which I’ve owned in cassette, vinyl and compact disc formats. I thought it was way tough when I first heard it in 5th grade, though my post-AlAnon father managed to twist the lyrics to be about depression and alcoholism. He used the word “inebriated” in explaining his take on the song. The whole affair felt pretty adult.
- Has been played 7 times.
10/5
2009
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At The Drive-In “Picket Fence Cartel”
Didn’t think I’d ever have any use for the pre-In/Casino/Out ATDI releases but lo and behold this song always made me walk a bit faster (a good sign!) and it still sounds pretty urgent. Let’s skip over the fact that until I just read the lyrics exactly a minute ago I thought he sang the phrase “pig infested hell” in the opening stanza (refer to the song’s title if you are curious what he was actually singing), which means that I get to use the lyric “pig infested hell” for my invisible band. When life hands you a putrid colander full of sadness berries, you gotta meticulously remove the poison stones within and wring the wilting fruit for tears of cloying yet vinegary sweetness to make a batch of tepid consolation tea!
- Has been played 8 times.
10/4
2009
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Ray Charles “Hard Times”
Ray Charles is literally blind. Or was. He’s dead now. It does not get harder than dead or blind. Plus his mom’s dead and he had to sell his clothes, at least in the song. As far as I can tell from these lyrics, life will only get worse. RIYL if you like sorrowful Ray Charles dirges about overcoming hard circumstances beyond being without the gift of sight. Or of life. Gifts go away. This song will not. It will be on my hard drive forever until it crashes.
- Has been played 8 times.
