MP3 Player Shuffle-a-gogo

10 songs on shuffle with real time commentary....

1 the GODFATHERS - Sticks and Stones - a helluva tune from Hit By Hit, an album that kicked my ass when I first heard it.
2 TRAFFIC - Feelin' Alright - a long time favorite from a band I didn't realize how much I liked until I picked up the double disc hits collection 7 or 8 years ago.
3 PETE TOWNSHEND - Let My Love Open the Door - This song came out right at about the time I was really starting pay close attention to music and I used to just wait for it to come on the radio.
4 KRAFWERK - Computer World 2 - Hearing this just makes me want to listen to all of Computer World
5 SQUEEZE - Another Nail in My Heart - 45's and Under is, for my money, one of the most perfect greatest hits album ever. nd yet, for some reason, I hardly ever play anything else by Squeeze.
6 FELT - Rain of Crystal Spires - Finally one I had to look at the screen to see what the hell it was. At first I thought it might be Tom Verlaine. This is from the Creation Records Soup boxset, which whenever anything from it comes up on shuffle I have to look to see what it is, but I'm always pleasantly surprised. Great jangley guitars and organ. Now I'm thinking I need to buy a Felt album or two.
7 PLACEBO - Black Eyed - I don't think that Placebo have gotten their due - they have a killer catalog and are always trying new things while not deviating from what made them so great in the first place.
8 THIN LIZZY - Don't Believe a Word - One of those songs that don't ring a bell for me by the title, but the second that guitar comes in I remember what a great song it is.
9 NEKO CASE - Lions Jaws - This isn't one of my faves from Fox Confessor, but it's still a great song. At first, when this came up on shuffle, I was a bit bummed becasue it wrecked the flow of some great bouncy melodic songs. But once her voice kicked in I just didn't care.
10 bis - Sale or Return - Outside of the Beasties, this is probably my favorite record to come out on Grand Royal. Too bad after two albums they lost all sense of fun and became incredibly bland.

Mix Disc Covers: single artist best-ofs

In the pre MP3 player era I used to make lots of single artist mix disc best-ofs to play in the car and office. Many of these often got so much play that I tended to not return to the artists' full albums anymore.

[ CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE ]

ABOVE: Big Black and Green Day

BELOW: the Velvet underground (which I couldn't keep to a single disc) and the Fall Outs

ABOVE: the Move

BELOW: House of Love and the Shazam

 

I've made several XTC best-of discs over the years, done rarities collections, a double disc Colin Moulding overview, and yet I still felt compelled to make more. So here are two collections, each focusing on faves from 4 albums. 

more pictures around Chicago

[ CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE ]

 

 

ABOVE LEFT: WHen you get off the elevator and walk up to the cigar shop in this building on Wabash you're hit with the one-two punch of the overpowering smell of cigars and the creepy stare of this cigar shop greeter.

Mid 60's Chicago area home ads and articles

Looking through some old files from my Dad I found these ads and articles for Chicago area homes in the mid 60's. [ CLICK TO ENLARGE] 

the Office Phone Graveyard

While we were closing down the Chicago Branch of my old office there ended up being large piles of various office wares. Computers stacked up in the conference room, several offices full of furniture, piles of file folders and in/out bins, etc etc. Here are a few pictures from the room with the pile of phones. I see a Radiohead "Hail to the Thief" sticker on one of the phones in the middle picture.

Shuffle-a-gogo

1) X – Painting the Town Blue – From one of my all-time favorite albums (More Fun in the New World). This isn’t one of my favorite songs on the album, but it still sounds great.
2) Bad Religion – Struck a Nerve – I prefer the major label Bad Religion over the less melodic early stuff. But for some reason, at this moment, this song sounds sort of pretentious and plodding.
3) Balancing Act – Generator – Folky pop from the greatly under rated Curtains album. I keep waiting for this album get a belated resurgence, but almost 20 years later it still hasn’t happened.
4) the Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue – Yeah, Mick’s falsetto makes me laugh, but that rhythm section sounds so damn cool.
5) Jonathan Richman – Stop Your Sobbing – From the Kinks tribute album. This is one of those great covers that actually pays tribute to the original while also fitting in with the repertoire of the new artist. If I didn’t already know this song, I would have sworn it was a Jonathan original.
6) the Who – It’s Not True – Pretty much anything from those first four Who albums is going to put a smile on face. And I love the line “I’m not half Chinese either and I didn’t kill my Dad”.
7) Doves – Snowden – When this song started I didn’t know it was and didn’t recognize it by name, but once the vocals started and the lush melody started building I remembered why I put it on the MP3 player. This sounds great with headphones.
8) Depeche Mode – Stripped – It’s sort of obvious and easy to mock, but I’ll be damned if this song isn’t a little sexy.
9) XTC – Desert Island – I could have sworn I deleted this song when I tried to whittle down my XTC to under 100 songs on my MP3 player since they were (deservedly) dominating shuffle, which was no easy task. But I’ll never complain about an XTC song popping up on shuffle.
10) Echo and the Bunnymen – the Killing Moon – I’m sort of new to listening to music on headphones, but this song sounds incredibly great with headphones. I was a little too hyper when Ocean Rain came out in 1984 and was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t as rocking as their earlier album. It took me a few years to really warm up to the whole album, but this song hooked me from the first listen.

MP3 Shuffle-a-gogo

1) The SONICS - the Witch - One of the greatest garage riffs ever - a nice first selection.
2) DEPECHE MODE - Rush - Not one of my favorite DM songs, but I guess it made the cut when choosing songs to put on the MP3 player. Up until about 5 years ago I absolutely hated DM, and then through hearing the right combination of songs via my wife, I gave them another chance and became a fan.
3) PINK FLOYD - Bring the Boys Back Home - The Wall was one of the few entire albums I loaded onto the player, and now that this song has come up, it's making me second guess that decision.
4) EMITT RHODES - With My Face On the Floor - My favorite part of shuffle, is when this type song comes up. I haven't listend to this album in ages, and now I want go back and listen to all the Emitt Rhodes I have.
5) UTOPIA - Hammer in My Heart - This was the first Utoptia song I ever heard (actually, it was the video), and it's still a fave. From the the self titled album and a half, which I love as much now as I did in highschool when it came out. Although if I could only have one song off that record, I'd have to go with Libertine. I missed the brief window that this was on CD, but a friend burned it for me.
6) LOUIS JORDAN - Caldonia - Like a lot of people of my generation, I got into Louis Jordan via Joe Jackson's covers. For many years Louis Jordan was probably the only pre rock and roll artist that I loved and regularly played.
7) BOOKER T & the MGs - Green Onions - I hesitated putting this on the MP3 when I was picking songs off the Stax box, but now that I'm hearing it on shuffle I'm glad it made the cut.
8) CHEAP TRICK - Hot Love - There's a lot of Cheap Trick loaded, but for some reason they don't come up often on shuffle.
9) CROWDED HOUSE - I Love You Dawn - I didn't even remember picking this song when loading songs, and when it came up I didn't even recognize the title. But it's an awfully nice gentle Neil Finn song from Afterglow.
10) JESUS and MARY CHAIN - Blues From a Gun - Yeah, I thought Psycho Candy was cool as shit when it came out, but for my money, Automatic is the killer start-to-finish album in the J&MC catalog. And 15+ years later it still sounds fresh, cool, and a little dangerous.

Well, that was painless. But I really haven't loaded many guilty pleasures yet. I'm surprised XTC, Beatles, or Stones didn't pop up, since they seem to dominate my MP3 player.