Try This Move Out, Justin

(repurposed from a post made on the YesAnd message boards -- hey, I'm packing for my move people)

I saw Peter Gabriel live on the So tour in 1986 at the Cap Center in DC. I went with my good friend Greg Turner who was into much more avant garde music than I; stuff like Japan and Ofra Haza and who knows what else. But he was a big time Peter Gabriel fanatic.

When they started to play this song, with its mellow beginning, most of our section sat down. Except for Greg. He knew what was coming. He was getting yelled at to sit down, so he turned to the people behind him and said "In three minutes you are about to see the most amazing thing a performer has ever done at a concert. Stand the fuck up!" Some did. Most didn't. And sure enough he was right. When the song ended, he turned to those behind him, spread out his arms and said, "Well???"

No one sat in our section the rest of the night.

I still say that Peter Gabriel's Us tour in '92 was the best concert I ever saw. He didn't do this song on that tour, partially because the staging wouldn't really allow it, but partially because after doing it at every show for 2 straight world tours, the crowd was ready for it and the wow response had lost its effect.

Still, the biggest level of trust between performer and audience for a concert of this size. I can't imagine too many performers who could pull this off. You can fast forward to about the 3:00 minute remaining mark if you'd like.

Always Gets A Question

This one came up on my shuffle this morning. K's Choice "Not an Addict". Just an awesome, nearly forgotten song.

Since many songs trigger one distinct memory in my life, for this one, it's getting home from DJing a couple years back, and pulling into the garage parking space of our apartment building at about 2:25 in the morning, and this song coming on the radio, and me sitting alone in my car, in the garage, playing this song at mega volume with the windows rolled up in my little cocoon of decibels.

I sometimes play this early in a night when I spin, and always have somebody come up and ask me who sings it.

Fun & Games on The Company Dime

Today, my office is having our summer outing at a bowling alley. I am wearing my FNX Kingpins bowling shirt. I have been named the captain of my team. Much frivolity may occur. No work at the office will occur. Only one song could possibly be song a day today.

My Chemical Hoople?

Just realized that I have only spotlighted one new song since I started this thing. Felt it was time for another one.

I wouldn't say I'm a My Chemical Romance fan, especially most of their latest album. But the song "Teenagers" is a frickin' glam rock revival masterpiece. Chewy hooks and loud, singalong, clapalong choruses. I really want this one to blow up commercially so I can play it when I DJ. Sure, I could play it anyway, but it's always better when the kids know the song.

See for yourself if you agree.

Take Off My Clothes and Drag Me To the Sea

Yesterday's song a day mentioned my Hobo Humpin t-shirt. When I worked in radio, I never lacked for cotton tees. Record companies were always sending promo shirts for new bands in an attempt to entice music directors to listen to songs (let alone add the songs to the station's playlist).

One of my favorite shirts had the title of this post written on the front in a pseudo-handwritten script. It was a lyric from the song "Twisted" by the band Fretblanket. 99% of the alternative music listening public of the mid-90s would not know this song by name, but it was and still is a pretty fierce track. I started this blog to help publicize some of these lesser known tunes. Here's one for today.

(EDITED to add - if the video won't play in your browser, click the word Fretblanket under the video screen and it will take you to a page where you can click on the Twisted video)

Music Video: TWISTED -Fretblanket

I Did Not Have the Meatballs

Well, I missed my first day yesterday. Sorry.

It was a busy day, with the majority of it taken over by a shopping excursion for furniture needs for the new home at IKEA. So, in honor of that trip yesterday, I present my favorite Swedish one-non hit wonder. Whale's "Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe"

I had a shirt with the song title on it from my radio days. The woman behind the counter at a Burger King once asked me what language it was. Honest question.

Next Party You Go To...

Check out where you spend a lot of your time. The kitchen, right? I think partly because often this is where the alcohol is kept. But still, all the house parties I went to over the years, the kitchen was often the center of the action. And it was also a great place to hang because eventually pretty much every other guest came through, so you met and saw everyone in attendance.

This weekend in Massachusetts, it's the tax-free holiday, meaning 5% off any purchases. Normally, I have no interest in this day because the malls will be jammed and the stores will often having sales in weeks prior or later that actually are a better deal than the saving of 5% from not paying sales tax.

But, we just bought a house. That needs a lot of work. And Sears was having a 10% off appliances sale (ending today). And some other specials if you got a Sears card when you bought. Given that we just bought the house, we don't care about FICO scores anymore (at least for a while). Plus, we can pay for all this stuff in 12 months when we have more money that isn't being spent on other housing needs.

What did we get? A new fridge, microwave, oven, and dishwasher, plus 2 window AC units. Overall savings - about $550 when all was said and done and everything added in (delivery charges and such). So at our next party, you might choose to hang out in our kitchen. The rest of the room will eventually need to be remodeled (trust me, it needs it), but the appliances will be nice and shiny.

Hence, the inspiration for today's song choice: Jona Lewie's "Kitchen at Parties," a lovely slice of 1980 British New Wave, as featured from a time capsule clip from a Top of the Pops performance.

Pure Pleasant Pop

I love pure pleasant pop. And a perfect example of that is a song that came up on my iPod shuffle this morning. Trashcan Sinatras "Obscurity Knocks". I could write more about it, but like a picture is a worth a thousand words, in Song a Day Blog Land, a music video is worth 100 or so words.

Closing Time

In a little over an hour, I will begin signing legal documents on the largest purchase of my lifetime -- our new house. And because Lisa's in NYC, I will need to sign thrice for each "sign on the X" -- once for me, once for her, and once more for her as her power of attorney. I expect to have a sore arm when all is said and done.

There can be no other song for today than "Our House" by Madness. Oh sure, I could have picked Crosby Stills Nash and Young's "Our House", but I love Madness. One of the bands that I would absolutely violate the reunion clause to go and see live today. Speaking of which, why the HELL have they not done any shows in the US??? The clip below is the band performing last year in front of thousands in Argentina of all places. Dammit, come to Boston, Madness. I have a brand new couch you can crash on!

On My Own

No, I will not be choosing the Patti LaBelle / Michael McDonald ballad as the song of the day, despite the title of the post (although it was one of the best karaoke moments ever when my friend Jeff sang both parts by himself). My wife, Lisa, is in New York City for a Pilates convention (she owns her own studio).

In honor of her being there, I have chosen Ryan Adams "New York, New York" as the song of the day. It's still a tad creepy that this video was shot 4 days before the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. And I also sometimes wonder if the song would have been as big a hit if not for that fact. (And would Five For Fighting have had a career as well, given that "Superman (It's Not Easy)" became a pseudo anthem for the firefighters and policemen of NYC.)

But enough of that. Here's the 8/8 tune:

Original Plan Not As Expected

As I said last Thursday, the wife and I are buying a new house. We close on Thursday. And sometimes my Song a Day choices will reflect what's going on in life. This week for example.

I felt I would have a couple of song's selected surrounding the sale (ooo, sibilants, fun!), but what I thought I'd choose isn't really relevant anymore. See, I pretty much feel we're go for launch and other than signing my name a bazillion times (power of attorney, I'll explain tomorrow), things should go as expected. Last week I thought I'd be choosing Warren Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns and Money", but not so much anymore.

However, I do still want to pick today's song even thought I'm not. Not what? Feeling stress. And the song is by a band called Stress. Flowers in the Rain These guys were pseudo psychedelic rockers, African American, too, so let's lump them in with the first Lenny Kravitz album fellow pigeonholers, shall we? FNX played this song, which is how I know it in the first place. Allmusic.com said the album came out in '88, but we played the song in '91. Hmmm....

Anyway, enjoy. And I'm nowhere near as stressed as I was last week. That may change in the next 48 hours, of course.

Dream Job

I made a friend via the Internet back in 1994 or 1995. Her name was Heather and she lived in Chicago. We met via eWorld, which was the nascent, AOL-esque portal for Apple owners. Although I did fly out to meet her (she lived in Chicago and I had always wanted to visit there), we did not hook up. [I state this because everyone still thinks it was an interstate booty call. It was not. Had it been proffered, well, then, yes, perhaps. But I did not fly to Chitown thinking I was John Cusack in the The Sure Thing.]

At the time, Heather worked for a company that produced tractor pulls and similar type of big loud automotive events around the country at big venues like the Pontiac Silverdome and such. Gas fumes, mega-decibel engine revving, testosterone. One of the parts of her job was to put together video clips with music that would play on the Jumbotrons between activities. Seriously, a dream job for me at the time (okay, maybe not for Monster Trucks, but you gotta start somewhere).

One day I saw the video for Ned's Atomic Dustbin which was shot with the band in a car competing in a demolition derby (one of the features of Heather's company's events). I told her she had to use the song and the video and intercut actual demolition derby footage into it; the crowd will love it. She said otherwise -- usually the music used was straight and narrow classic rock -- Skynyrd, Seger, etc. No one would know the band let along the song. But, but, but, I protested, it would ROCK!

Alas, I lost the argument. But you can decide for yourself if you think this song and video would have made for Jumbotron excellence. (side note - I also think the music lead-in of the song would make for an excellent entrance for a sports team, wrestler, improv team, board meeting, stripper dance,....)

Not Live, Not Memorex, Either

For whatever reason, this summer I've soured on the concept of reunion concerts. Am I really interested in seeing all of these acts 20 years down the road as middle aged rockers? Is the nostalgia pulling me hard enough? Do I want to hear the worst sentence in the English language, "We'd like to play something from our new album"?

I think The Police reunion tour was the spark of it all. I was lucky enough to see them in 1983 at Foxboro Stadium on the Synchronicity Tour. And while the reviews were for the most part positive, I wasn't sad that I didn't see them at Fenway. Saved a boatload of money, too.

There was one reunion tour I did want to see. Tonight at Harborlights, Crowded House will be live in concert. I never saw them first time around (one plus for seeing them this time) and I still listen to and like most of their music. So why are Lisa and I staying home tonight? Because I bought their new album. And while it's good, it's quite mellow. Like recent R.E.M. level mellow. And to me, Crowded House is jaunty and peppy. (At least musically; certainly some of their lyrics don't qualify).

I understand that the new CD is has the suicide of original drummer Paul Hester hanging over it. But its shadow looms too large. Which is too bad. But I will continue to buy Crowded House CDs should they release any more. So today's song a day is the first new song I've selected. The first single from the recent Crowded House album, one of perhaps two uptempo numbers. And after listening to this tune and having me call it uptempo, you'll know what I mean about the CD being mellow.

J9

One of my favorite bands is Soul Coughing. And I had the pleasure of getting to be friends with them when I worked in radio. Got to see them about 20 times in a number of different states, too. At lunch today, "Janine" came on my iPod. It's the last song on their first album, and has become a favorite singalong for the crowd at live concerts put on by Mike Doughty, their now-solo lead singer.

An example below:

Pucker Up

I haven't figured out a routine yet for "Song a Day". I know I want to post daily and I'd like to post during a morning routine so I don't forget to post. But I don't have any preconceived notion of what song will be chosen for the day. They won't all be old, either. If I hear something new I like, that's what I'll focus on.

But today's song is nostalgic. It came up on my iPod on the way to work. It was the song that was playing for my first kiss. Her name was Paulette. We went to the movies (I think it was "Sixteen Candles" although, honestly, that could have been the second date). Then we went to Friendly's for ice cream. Then it was in her driveway saying good night. I was nervous as all hell, and I had no game (still pretty much don't to this day, but had enough game to get married, I guess) but right before she got out of the door, I went for it. Other than it being a first, there was nothing memorable about it. Quick and done.

We had a couple more dates, then when I asked her to the prom, considering it to be a mere formality, she told me she was going with someone else (someone I don't think her mother liked... ah, teen rebellion). There were no more kisses after that.

So, now the song on the radio from my first kiss inside a 1981 Chevy Impala:

No embedding on this one, so you'll have to click right here

Dunkin's Version of the Coffee Shoppe

My wife and I are in the middle of buying a new house. It is a complicated business transaction with multiple stress factors coming from many angles. I won't go into the details at this time. However, I am sure that there will be future song a days that will be inspired by that. I already know two that I expect to be using in the coming week or so.

But my song for today became apparent as I got my morning coffee at DD. The radio was pumping out "Dont'cha" by thePussycat Dolls. This is not the song of the day.

At the corner table was, shall I say, a neighborhood character. He looked a little like Gene Hackman after the worst bender in the world, was wearing a plaid shirt and a black baseball hat with PDQ on it. In his hands was a paperback book (I couldn't see the title) that had many pieces of paper stuffed into it at random points.

As I was waiting in line, he began speaking at a moderate level. I couldn't tell if it was talking to himself speak, or talking so that he could be heard by others speak. I do know that myself and the others were doing our best to ignore him.

When I placed my order he was still speaking, and I suddenly heard a phrase I recognized. In a sing-songy cadence that was more talking than singing but had enough of a singing tone to it that it seemed as if he was "reciting" I heard him say, "When a man named Al Capone / tried to make that town his own."

Yes, local character was reciting Paper Lace. I smiled to myself and knew I had my song for the day.

15K

So, today is Wednesday, August 1st. It's also the 15,000th day of my life. (You can do the math yourself if you want to figure out how old that makes me.) I like the fact that 15K hit on the first of a month; nice and round number-y.

Why a blog? Why not, honestly. All the cool kids are doing it, right? Actually, I've been thinking about this for a while; a place to write about music and songs and some of my favorites, but also how they relate to what's going on in my life.

And today is 15 thousand. The only two songs I could think of that have anything to do with that number are "TVC15" by David Bowie and "10:15 Saturday Night" by The Cure, which coincidentally already came up on my iPod shuffle. Sometimes, the iPod just knows.

Which I guess is life's way of telling me that the first song a day should be The Cure. See you tomorrow.