Thursday Morning Music Shuffle – Crying for You Mix

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Having come of age musically speaking in and around Nashville in the late 80s, it would not surprise anyone that last night’s show featuring Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks, Bill Lloyd and his fantastic band, Warner Hodges and his fantastic band, and the newly reunited Government Cheese would be an exciting thing for me to see. I think what impressed me the most was that it wasn’t all or even mostly about nostalgia or looking back.  I mean sure, I got a certain thrill when Webb did Poolside from It Came From Nashville – his first album. And there were significant memories stirred in the Nashville Jam finale – when everyone returned to the stage to do the late Tim Krekel’s “I Can’t Help Myself” (a song that Jason and the Scorchers recorded). The most significant aspect of the evening was that everyone had newer material and seemed to be looking forward not back.  Government Cheese has a brand new album after decades apart. And Warner Hodges, I dare say, rocked the Music City Roots stage about as hard as it has even been rocked. 

On to the shuffle…

“Rufus Baker, Mermaid” by Atticus Floyd

From the album Russell Stover Stole My Baby.  Some awesome experimental noise rock  stuff.  I could not find any videos of Atticus Floyd so since Atticus Floyd is a member of Circus Propaganda, I posted a Circus Propaganda video instead.  Check out Atticus Floyd, though, y’all.

“Tree” by Grumsling

From A Church, On a Boat, In the Sea… The Oakland, California based Grumsling are back in the shuffle with another highly original, cool song.

“Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer” by Old Crow Medicine Show

For the record, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary closed in 2009.  Old Crow Medicine Show are truly Nashville musical treasures. This song is the lead track from the band’s ninth studio album, Remedy which was released about a year ago.

“Hitler’s Tears” by John Wesley Harding

Only a master songwriter could write a song like this… Another from the fabulous Why We Fight?

“Tinsel and Lights” by Tracey Thorn

Another from the World Café sessions.  It is always refreshing to have a Christmas song in the shuffle in early June.  Even better when said Christmas song is by a member of Everything But the Girl. From the 2012 holiday album of the same name.

“Foot of the Hill” by Boxed In

Boxed In is Oli Bayston a producer and former member of the band Keith. This song his from the self-titled debut album which was released around the first of this year.

“Low” by [debut]

Another swell sounding Electronic/Indie song from the album Postcards from Berlin.

“Coney Island” (Live from the City of Brotherly Love)  by Good Old War

The Philadelphia band have a sampler out on Noisetrade that includes songs from the latest Good Old War album, Broken Into Better Shape.

“North Country” by American Scarecrows

We close out the shuffle with another song from the Yesteryear by this awesome Minnepolis rootsy rock band.

VIDEO PLAYLIST

Monday Morning Music Shuffle – Sunflower/Locomotive Mix

I am not a morning person.  It seems important to say that because I post a daily Morning Shuffle which features music I listen to between 6:45 a.m. (or so) and 7:15 a.m. (or so).  I just wanted you to know that I don’t do a morning shuffle because I am a morning person, but rather by current necessity, I have to be up and about by this time, and being a non-morning person, I need a soundtrack of cool music to keep me moving….  This is my soundtrack for Monday morning January 5, 2015.

“American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

What a great song to start the soundtrack.  It’s like I’m heading off to work, and everything is just about okay at least for the first scene.  Everything may well go to hell in scene two, but at this point, everything is swell.  This was the second single from the self-titled debut by TP and the Heartbreakers. 

 

“Hip Hop Thighs #16” by Ike Reilly

So, apparently, there are many other versions of this song????  I found #17 in my search and some that were not labeled with a number… I don’t really know the history of this, but I know a cool song when I hear it.  This one got me through the awkward transition scene where I am on the road and maybe credits are still flashing… From Poison the Hit Parade.

“I Can’t Help Myself” by Jason and the Scorchers

There was a certain reckless country soul to the seminal music of Nashville’s Jason and the Scorchers.  People like to throw around the term CowPunk, but I have always hated that term.  It was raw, fresh high-energy rock and roll music that was only punk in sense that many early 80s Nashville punk kids really got into their music.  In a different universe, Jason and the Scorchers are one of the biggest bands ever.  In the universe they are one of the best.   Some high-energy aggression to help me navigate the passive-aggressiveness of Nashville drivers.

“Bulletproof” by J.R. Wyatt

At this point, the frenetic part of my drive is over and I’m just easing into downtown roadways and making my way past delivery trucks on 2nd Avenue partially blocking lanes of traffic, but what do I care? I’m Bulletproof.  Another great tune from The Empty Room Sessions.

“Firewater”  by Old Crow Medicine Show

By now, I’ve just about made it to my parking lot.  Our third Nashville artist in a row. Legendary Nashville string band Old Crow Medicine Show with this track from their 2014 Remedy album pushes my that final 1,000 feet or so through Bicentennial Mall.

“The Sunflower Sutra” by Allen Ginsberg

And then I begin my walk.  It’s a cold morning, but I don’t care.  I may be just another schmo dressed how I don’t want to be dressed and trudging through life, but in my ear buds is Allen Ginsberg, and I feel subversive in the midst of my conformity. And I am transported somewhere, San Francisco, and I am thinking I should have been a Beat Poet, if I had been born in a different era. And, I should have been a Beat Poet anyway, and I should be a Beat Poet anyway, and I will be a Beat Poet anyway…

“Are You Ready for the Country?” by Jason and the Scorchers

And there isn’t really a good way to move from Allen Ginsberg to Jason and the Scorchers stunningly powerful cover of the Neil Young song which had already been covered by Waylon Jennings, but which the band made their very own…. I grabbed this off the now out of print CD named for this song which compiled the bands first two EMI recordings with some b-sides and rarities.  I begin my long ascent of capitol hill to this song…

“Rock Hard” by Alex Chilton

Like Flies on Sherbert is a broken, shattered masterpiece of an album. Alex Chilton was a mad wrecked genius of man, and Jim Dickinson was the alchemist who held this crazy thing together.  At this point, I’ve reached the summit, and I don’t necessary like what I’ve found there, but I can still appreciate that I have made it.

“Bitchin’ Camaro” by The Dead Milkmen

I don’t know how many times I heard this song on college radio back in the day or how many times I heard it once I bought the album Big Lizard in my Backyard.  With it’s ridiculous spoken introduction which may well be longer than the song itself (it has to be longer) and which includes an offensive cover version of Love Me Two Times… to the break-neck nonsense of the song itself… which for no reason but some rhyme, name drops Tony Orlando and Dawn…  The fact that I (to date) have never gotten tired of this song says something about the song or about me… probably me…

“Down on Up to Me” by Soul Asylum

And I reach my office, and the vast soundtrackless day awaits, but there is one final scene of riding the elevator… From Hang Time…

VIDEO PLAYLIST

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