Keepers:
Sunday Morning
I’m Waiting for the Man
Femme Fatale
Venus in furs
All tomorrow’s parties
Heroin
There she goes again
I’ll be your mirror
Archive for August, 2009
The Velvet Underground & Nico
Monday, August 31st, 2009
Stack-O-Records
Monday, August 31st, 2009My dad used to bring home duplicate 45s from the radio station he worked at. As he usually got home long after I had gone to bed, he would leave a little stack of singles on my portable record player for me to find in the morning when I got up.
I spent a good portion of my life playing records on that little machine, but the only thing I remember about it now is the blue fabric with metallic threads on the front. Even though it had a spindle on the turntable so that you could stack records up and play a bunch of them one after the other, I preferred to listen one at a time, A-side first, B-side second. I felt that it was my duty to the records (and, I guess, my dad) to listen to both sides of all of them. I even had a rating system and would stack the records I liked into the order that I liked them. Whenever I played a record, it would move up in the stack so that my favorites always stayed on top.
After a while I knew that it was pointless to listen to yet another Bert Kaempfert or Jackie Gleason Orchestra single, but I did it anyway just in case it happened to be something I’d play again. We got in a lot of 45s from Decca and Capitol, so I was always one of the first people in America to hear anything new by the Beatles, Beach Boys and The Who (among others). The really fun part of the whole endeavor was telling my dad which ones I liked and he would play those on the radio instead of some of the typical top-forty stuff. Other DJs were probably getting paid off to play certain songs, but my father played songs just to make me happy when I listened to him at night.
I still think deep down in my heart that “I Can’t Explain” by The Who was played for the first time in America on WICY in Malone, New York by my father, at my request.
Cramps-Songs the Lord Taught Us
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
Keepers:
Garbageman
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Mystery Plane
Strychnine
Sunglasses After Dark
Tear It Up
TV Set
The Move
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
Keepers:
Fire Brigade
Flowers In The Rain
I Can Hear The Grass Grow
Kilroy Was Here
Mist On A Monday Morning
Night Of Fear
Useless Information
Walk Upon The Water
Wave Your Flag And Stop The Train
Explaining the Album-a-Day Project
Friday, August 28th, 2009A few months ago I took an inventory of all of the music I have floating around: lps, 45s, cds, mp3s, cassettes, 78s, 8Tracks… and figured that if I listen to one album each day (average 12 songs) it would take me close to 50 years to hear everything. My first thought was that I’d be dead before I finished it all. My second thought was that I’d better get started.
And so I have.
I listen to every note of every song of whatever album that I choose for that particular day, and when it’s over I say goodbye to it forever. Some albums I don’t feel too badly about never hearing again (Byrdmaniax comes to mind), but what about Pet Sounds, Revolver, Kind of Blue, Shake Some Action or Lark’s Tongue in Aspic? Knowing that I’ll never experience this music again is forcing me to really listen, and hearing for the last time is turning out to be just as rewarding as hearing for the first time. Every song seems to have a memory attached to it, and every memory links to other memories and, of course, other songs. I’m now mind-surfing most of my waking hours… I highly recommend it.
I’m keeping folders full of mp3s of all songs that I think are important. If anyone wants to know anything about me, it’ll all be in those folders. In the meantime, I’m going to post an album every day here and list the songs I consider to be the essentials so you can make your own folders full of great songs. Maybe you’ll post in the comments section to tell me that I missed a song, and tell me why – maybe I’ll have a reason to go back and listen again!
Most of these posts will be pretty straightforward – just the album and a list of the songs I like – but if I feel that I actually have something to say that hasn’t already been said a thousand times before, I will.
This is really going to be fun, and we’ve still got 50 years to go!
Bye for now,
Shane
Nilsson-Pandemonium Shadow Show
Friday, August 28th, 2009
Keepers:
Cuddly Toy
Freckles
1941
Without Her
Pandemonium Shadow Show/Aerial Ballet/Aerial Pandemonium Ballet
Beatles-Please Please Me
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Keepers:
Chains
Do You Want To Know A Secret
I Saw Her Standing There
Love Me Do
Misery
P.S. I Love You
Please Please Me
There’s A Place
Twist And Shout
