Music

Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.

Jim Steinman

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A few years ago, the radio at work was tuned into one of the Anchorage “adult contemporary” stations — brainless background work-safe music that I wasn’t really paying much attention to. One song came on that caught my ear, so I stopped to take a closer listen to it. I had no idea what it was or who was singing, but the more I listened to it, the more a certain suspicion grew.

So I called up the radio station.

“Mix 103.1, what can I do for you?”

“I just need to know what the song you just played was — but before you tell me, I want you to check something out for me. By any chance was that song written or produced by Jim Steinman?”

“What? I haven’t got a clue.”

“Could you check?”

“Um…sure, hold on.” The DJ must have thought that I was nuts. A moment later, he got back on the phone. “Actually, yeah, you’re right. Written and produced by Jim Steinman. How did you know that?”

I laughed. “It just sounded like him. He’s the guy who wrote and produced both of Meat Loaf‘s big albums, Bat out of Hell and Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Whatever that song was, it sounded like a Meat Loaf song, only it was someone else singing, so I figured it was probably Steinman.”

“Not bad.”

“Thanks. So who was it?”

“Celine Dion. It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.”

“Oh. Crap, I just liked a Celine Dion song?”

(Sigh.)

So, yeah. There’s one Celine Dion song that I do have to admit to liking. In my defense, though, it has nothing to do with Celine — it’s all about Jim Steinman. Overproduced, bombastic, and very often tongue-in-cheek rock and roll. I love it when Meatloaf’s singing it, and I even like it when Celine’s singing it.

Just another addition to my many guilty pleasures.

(This confession inspired by a MeFi pointer to this list of parody Steinman song titles, which isn’t really as amusing as I’d hoped it would be.)

iTunes “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” by Meat Loaf from the album Bat Out of Hell (1977, 5:05).

Another Music Meme: Cover Me

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Another music meme, this one being started by Terrance: Cover Me.

Here it is. Do these three things, either in the comments on this post or in a post on your own blog that trackbacks to this post.

This one’s not easy, especially given the size of my music library. I’ll try, though…

List your three favorite cover versions of previously recorded songs.

(This is by no means a “final” or “definitive” list. Trying to pin down just three of all the ones that kept popping into my head was difficult enough, and I know that there are tons that I didn’t think of. I’ll be coming up with more and kicking myself for the next week. I’m already coming up with more possibilities — there are a ton of good covers of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, for instance, and I don’t think I’ve heard a bad version of The Temptations’ ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’, not to mention Tom Jones and the Art of Noise taking on Prince’s ‘Kiss’, or Sid Vicious ripping his way through ‘My Way’…argh!)

List three songs you’d like to hear cover versions of, and the artists you like to hear perform them.

  1. Ain’t Goin’ Down ’til the Sun Comes Up, originally by Garth Brooks, re-done by Ministry with Les Claypool of Primus on vocals

I know we’re supposed to come up with three here, but this particular dream has been in my head for so long that it’s the only one I ever seem to come up with. Take a fun fast country song, re-do it with Ministry’s trademark high-speed distortion-heavy guitar work, and throw Les doing his best country bumpkin patter over the top of it. I’d pay good money for this to become a reality.

List three songs you would like to cover, if you could. (Assume you would have the musical abilities to do it well.)

  1. The Pet Shop Boys, It’s a Sin: One of my all-time favorite 80’s tracks, and at times, one that has seemed all too fitting in my life.
  2. Indigo Swing, How Lucky Can One Guy Be?: Great swing, and this is one of my favorite tracks off of an album that I have a hard time picking single favorites from.
  3. Queen, Dreamer’s Ball: Queen just kicking back and having fun with a silly little ditty. The live acoustic version of this is particularly good.

(Again, hardly a definitive list. One of these days I’ll actually get suckered into Karaoke, and then we’ll see what I can actually come up with…)

iTunes “Stagger” by Underworld from the album Second Toughest in the Infants (1996, 7:37).

Not Gallimaufry

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Since I’ve kind of slacked off on my ‘Gallimaufry’ meme posts over the past few weeks, here’s a music meme from Don to play with.

How many songs?

15,293 songs, 69.10 GB, 51 days 11 hours 46 minutes 42 seconds total playing time.

Sorted by song title, the first and last songs:

Sorted by artist, the first and last songs:

  • Is It You (Scintillating), by :Wumpscut:, off of Born Again
  • Green Crumble, by μ-ziq, off of In Pine Effect

Sorted by album, the first and last songs:

Top 10 most-played songs (Most-played song at No. 1):

  1. Listen, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  2. Precession, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  3. Break, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  4. See, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  5. Live, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  6. Bite, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  7. Jazz, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  8. Play, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  9. Ridicule, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera
  10. Plan, by the Kleptones, off of A Night at the Hip-Hopera

(Um…yeah. I’ve been listening to this a lot recently.)

Last 10 recently played songs (Most recently played at No. 1):

  1. This is a Collective (12″), by Consolidated, off of Dysfunctional Relationship
  2. The Day the World Went Away, by Nine Inch Nails, off of The Day the World Went Away
  3. Somebody Gotta Do It (Remix), by Ice-T, off of Just Say Yes
  4. Erased, Over, Out, by Nine Inch Nails, off of Further Down the Spiral
  5. Phantom of the Opera (’94 Club), by Harajuku, off of Phantom of the Opera
  6. We Care A Lot, by Faith No More, off of Never Mind the Mainstream
  7. It’s A Miracle, by Roger Waters, off of Amused to Death
  8. China, by Tori Amos, off of Little Earthquakes
  9. Sexcrime (Ninteen Eighty-Four), by The Eurythmics, off of 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)
  10. Brian Wilson’s Dreams, by The Who Boys, off of Tales of Townshend and Wilson

Find “sex”; how many songs?

  • Global (title, artist, album) search: 188 songs
  • Song title search: 83 songs

Find “death”; how many songs?

  • Global search: 150 songs
  • Song title search: 54 songs

Find “love”; how many songs?

  • Global search: 830 songs
  • Song title search: 557 songs

Find “peace”; how many songs?

  • Global search: 75 songs
  • Song title search: 30 songs

iTunes ”To Strong (Cosmic)“ by Ultimate from the album Tripnotized Vol. 3 (1996, 6:33).

Laurie Anderson: Mach 20

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SpermLadies and gentlemen, what you are observing here are magnified examples, or facsimiles, of human sperm. Generation after generation of these tiny creatures have sacrificed themselves in the persistent, often futile attempt to transport the basic male genetic code. But where’s this information coming from?

They have no eyes. No ears. Yet some of them already know that they will be bald. Some of them know that they will have small, crooked teeth. Over half of them will end up as women. Four hundred million living creatures, all knowing precisely the same thing. Carbon copies of each other, in a kamikaze race against the clock.

Now some of you may be surprised to learn that if a sperm were the size of a salmon, it would be swimming its seven inch journey at five hundred miles per hour.

If a sperm were the size of a whale, however, it would be traveling at fifteen thousand miles per hour, or mach 20.

Now imagine, if you will, four hundred million blind and desperate sperm whales departing from the Pacific coast of North America, swimming at fifteen thousand miles per hour, and arriving in Japanese coastal waters in just under forty-five minutes.

How would they be received?

Would they realize that they were carrying information? A message?

Would there be room for so many millions?

Would they know that they had been sent for a purpose?

— Laurie Andersen, ‘Mach 20’, off of United States Live

iTunes “Mach 20” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 2:47).

Pigface, Sheep on Drugs, and MY BIRTHDAY

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This is too damn cool.

The Pigface Free For All Tour is going to be coming through Seattle.

Pigface Free for All tour

Pigface and Sheep on Drugs (and Nocturne, and possibly The Damage Manual and The Countdown) in concert — and they’re performing at the Fenix Underground on Tuesday, May 3rd.

My birthday.

I’m so there.

(many thanks to Syren666 for mentioning this!)

iTunes “15 Minutes of Fame” by Sheep on Drugs from the album Sheep on Drugs Greatest Hits (1993, 5:06).

You just can’t sing in the supermarket…

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A couple of days ago, I got this somewhat cryptic e-mail…

Hello…

Something is happening in the produce section of your local Supermarket this weekend:

Jan 29 – 12:30 pm – Ballard Safeway – 8340 15th Ave NW
Jan 29 – 7 pm – University Safeway – 4732 Brooklyn Ave NE
Jan 30 – 12:30 pm – Capital Hill QFC – 523 Broadway E
Jan 30 – 7 pm – Everett QFC – 2615 Broadway

Still,
-jason webley

So, today Prairie and I wandered our way up to the Capital Hill QFC to see what would happen.

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAAs 12:30pm rolled around, there were quite a few people wandering around the produce section. Some made a pretense at shopping, some greeted friends, some just stood off to the side, and some continued on with their normal Sunday shopping. Occasionally a QFC employee would wander through to see if anyone needed any help, but we were all quite content to keep puttering around and investigating the fruits and vegetables.

Eventually, in strolled Jason, guitar case in hand, looking much younger now that he’s clean-shaven and still growing his hair out after his last deathday concert. A few nods, hugs, and friendly hellos passed between Jason and some of the gathered friends and fans, and then he joined us in our purported produce procurement. A few minutes later, Jason raised whatever vegetable he was holding up above his head, as if to get a better look at it in the light from the window. The person next to him raised their veggie in the air. Another went up, then another, then another.

One girl who’d been strolling around listening to a portable CD player started humming to herself, then swaying back and forth, and then singing. First softly, then more and more loudly, she sang along to The Clash‘s ‘Lost in the Supermarket‘: “I’m all lost in the supermarket! I can no longer shop happily!”

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAMoments later, a guy in white shirt, tie, and a tag reading “MANAGER” strolled over to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Miss? Miss? Excuse me, miss, but could you take your headphones off, please? Look, I’m very glad you enjoy shopping here, but you just can’t sing in the grocery store. I’m sure everyone else here would much rather shop in peace. You just can’t sing in the supermarket!”

And then he turned to the people standing around, drew a deep breath — and sang out, “You just can’t sing in the supermarket!”

A girl in a white shirt and white kerchief tied over her hair joined in — “Anyone will tell you so!”

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAJason started playing his guitar. Another guy pulled a clarinet out of his jacket. Three girls nearby joined the song, complete with chorus-line high kicks. Eventually, about half the people that had been hanging around in the produce section were involved in the lineup, waving their hands in the air for the grand finale: “Because if you sing in the supermarket, you will have to go!”

And with the clash of a small pair of hand cymbals, it was over. Jason’s guitar went back in its case, the clarinet disappeared back into the jacket, and, accompanied by much laugher and scattered applause from other shoppers, everyone quickly made their way back outside to the sidewalk.

Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WA“Off to the next one!” Jason cried, and up we all went to the QFC on 15th Avenue.

All told, we hit five grocery stores before Prairie and I had to break off from the group in order to get her back on the road to Ellensburg before it got too late in the day. When we left, the group was heading up to a Trader Joe’s, and we’d heard mention of the QFC at Pike and Broadway — we’re assuming they made it there as we saw them a bit later walking by Dick’s on Broadway as we were heading back from a detour by Twice Sold Tales on our way down the hill to the apartment.

What a blast. This world needs more random silliness in it from time to time, and we had a lot of fun being part of this particular bit of randomness. Much giggling and many smiles from everyone in the group and from whatever customers happened to be around in each store — just the thing for a grey winter day in Seattle.

More pictures of the event are, as usual, in a Flickr photoset.

Update: M. Whybark witnessed Saturday’s revelries.

Update: Accompanying M. Whybark were the not-entirely-mythical Danelope and Jim, who contributes this photo set (which, as he points out, is smaller but more focused than mine — hey, it was my first day with a new camera…[grin]).

Update: Steve Konscek, the “manager” of the troupe (more commonly known as Brandon) has posted his account of the weekend’s fun.

iTunes “Quite Contrary” by Webley, Jason from the album Counterpoint (2002, 3:08).

Gallimaufry 6

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Just a quick run-through tonight — I’ve got dinner and movies waiting for me — I’ll come back and babble more about these later on (maybe). Same deal as always, ten songs at random…

And the bonus track…

iTunes “Angels” by Amos, Tori from the album A Tori Amos Collection – Tales of a Librarian (2003, 4:26).

Gallimaufry 5

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The weekly music meme: ten songs at random from my music collection, plus assorted rambling.

  • The Shamen, ‘Phorever People (Shamen Dub)’, off of Phorever People: The Shamen were one of the early-90’s techno groups that I liked a lot. Not quite as good as Utah Saints, but definitely further towards the top of the heap than many other acts, able to produce entire albums that were listenable, rather than just the odd single here or there. This is a fairly trancy ‘dub’ mix (no vocals) of one of their singles that didn’t quite break as big on the scene. Sounds like something that’d make a good background piece for the soundtrack of a tech-heavy film.

  • The Prodigy, ‘Diesel Power (Snake Break)’, off of The Fat Mixes: I’m pretty sure that The Fat Mixes isn’t an official album — at least, I’ve never found any official word about it. I downloaded it a long time ago, when I was first exploring the world of Napster (back when the world of Napster was worth exploring). It’s a collection of various remixes of tracks off of The Fat of the Land, some mediocre and some that are very impressive. The one downside is that as I’ve never found a real copy of it, all I have are mid-bitrate .mp3s that don’t sound nearly as good as I wish they did.

  • Sunscreem, ‘Love U More (A Version)’, off of Love U More: One of my favorite songs of all time. Bright, bouncy, and happy (tempered with some occasionally somewhat disturbing lyrics), saying that no matter what happens, “you know you could never make me love you more.” This one never fails to put a smile on my face when I hear it. While this version’s off of the single, it’s nearly (if not entirely) identical to the version on their album O3 — the various remixes on the single were rather boring.

  • Tag Team, ‘Whoomp! (There It Is)‘, off of DJ Bass Mix: Aaah, the joys of having been a DJ…and a DJ who every so often had to cater to popular tastes, even when they weren’t exactly up my alley. Still, as far as 90’s one-hit-wonder hip-hop songs go, this one really isn’t that bad. Best, though, was ending up with an acapella version, which allowed me to run the vocals on top of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult‘s’A Girl Doesn’t Get Killed By A Make-Believe Lover (‘Cuz It’s Hot)‘ — and that worked a lot better than it really should have.

  • The Art of Noise, ‘Dragnet ’88’, off of Best of the Art of Noise: Experimental art-techno group The Art of Noise’s take on the Dragnet theme, done for the 1988 movie starring Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd. I have no memory of whether or not the movie is any good, but I really like Art of Noise, and the samples they’ve sprinkled throughout the song are fun (“You’ve got a lot of repressed feelings, don’t you Friday? Must be what keeps your hair up.”)

  • Mickey Hart and Planet Drum, ‘Indoscrub’, off of Supralingua: Planet Drum is ex-Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart‘s world music project, focusing primarily on various forms of ~~sitar~~ drumming and percussion. Good percussion has a tendency to catch my ear, so I picked this one up on a whim one day when I ran across it browsing at random. Good stuff, though it all sounds similar enough that I’d be hard pressed to tell one track from another by ear.

  • Bedhead, ‘Crushing‘, off of WhatFunLifeWas: A long time ago, I came across a review of this album on the ‘net that was so well-written and so complimentary of the album that I went out and picked it up based solely on the strength of that review. Lucklily, I wasn’t disappointed in the least — while it’s not my normal style of music (strictly guitar, bass, and drums, rather than the electronic-heavy music I tend to gravitate towards), it actually often reminds me of a lot of ambient music: lots of flowing themes, vocals that don’t overpower and often blend right in with the instruments, and very relaxing. A little hard to describe, but highly recommended.

  • VNV Nation, ‘Arclight’, off of Empires: Due to my DJing in Anchorage taking me away from the goth/industrial music that got me started and into more standard dance/techno/pop stuff, I ended up losing track of what was going on in the goth/industrial world for a good few years. Because of this, I’ve only recently been coming across artists that I’m finding I like a lot: Beborn Beton, Covenant, Wumpscut, Velvet Acid Christ…and VNV Nation. Time after time, I’d hear a song at The Vogue, ask the DJ what it was, and it would be VNV Nation. Eventually, I picked up two of their albums (Empires and Futureperfect), and they’re both excellent. This is very much where my tastes lie these days (and as I’m still working on discovering much of this stuff, recommendations are always appreciated!).

  • Pigface, ‘Lost Track’, off of Preaching to the Perverted: The Best of Pigface: I’ve mentioned before that Pigface is one of my favorite groups. This is a short, but very fun little track, one of the many “B-sides” on their recent “Best of” compilation two-disc album. Not much more than percussion here, just a couple minutes of heavy drumming with some odd little electronic bleeps and bloops to spice it up a bit. Sounds like the beginning of a work in progress that never made it much further than what it is.

  • Liam Howlett, ‘Section 7‘, off of Prodigy Presents the Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1: Technically, the stores list this as a Prodigy album — which, since The Prodigy basically is Liam Howlett, isn’t strictly wrong — but as this album is all mixwork and no strictly original compositions, I keep it filed under Liam’s name. It’s an incredible disc, too, letting Liam show off both his DJ skills and his insanely comprehensive record collection, both of which he does handily. This track alone samples LL Cool J, Digital Underground, Uptown, and Cold Cut, and most of the other tracks on the album sample two to three times as many individual cuts over the course of each mix. Good stuff.

And this week’s bonus track…

iTunes “Sir Psycho Sexy” by Red Hot Chili Peppers from the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991, 8:16).

Gallimaufry 4

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Same deal: ten songs at random…

  • Amii Stewart, ‘Knock on Wood’, off of the Hot Tracks 15th Anniversary Collection: Gotta love the 80’s, and it’s fairly obvious that I do, given how many 80’s-era one-hit-wonders pop up in these lists. Another promotional dj-only remix from Hot Tracks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any appropriate links on the iTMS.

  • Eurythmics, ‘I Need A Man‘, off of Eurythmics Greatest Hits: I’m a big Eurythmics fan, but this is one of my all-time favorites of their songs. I’m not quite sure if I’d definitively call it my favorite, but it’s definitely in the top three (along with Love Is A Stranger and Missionary Man).

  • Front 242, ‘Headhunter (Xingu Hill)’, off of Headhunter 2000: Headhunter 2000 is a two-disc collection of remixes of the classic Front 242 track. Some of the mixes are really good — this one, while not unlistenable, isn’t one of my favorites. It strips away too much of the melody, leaving little more than a series of distorted bleeps and bloops over chopped up samples of the original vocal track.

  • Random, ‘Rock Me’, off of Technorave 3: Technomania: I’ve got to admit, I’ve still got a fondness for early-90’s techno — back when techno was techno, and it hadn’t split up into the many different styles of electronic dance music that collectively fall under the ‘electronica’ label these days. Very simple and very repetitive, but somehow much of this stuff still works quite well for me (though, admittely, this one goes on a bit longer than it really needs to).

  • Lo-Fidelity Allstars feat. Pigeonhed, ‘Battle Flag (Radio Edit)’, off of How to Operate With A Blown Mind: The Lo-Fidelity Allstars team up with Pigeonhed to udpate Pigeonhed’s single. This is one of my all-time favorite dance tracks — and, in an unusual situation, is one of the few songs where I like the radio edit better than the album edit. Where the album track says “motherfucker”, the radio edit, rather than backmasking or just dropping the volume levels of the vocals for that word, electronically stretches out the first letter of the next word in the song. It makes for a really cool effect, and a radio edit that for once doesn’t sound emasculated when compared to the unedited album track.

  • L.A. Style, ‘L.A. Style Theme’, off of L.A. Style: More early-90’s techno. L.A. Style’s one big hit was James Brown Is Dead (which at one point could be found on nearly every single techno compilation ever), though they did have a couple more minor hits with Baloony and I’m Raving. I’ve got a very fond place in my heart for this album, as James Brown Is Dead is actually the first real techno track I can remember hearing, and it started getting me into the techno rave scene.

  • Marmion, ‘Schöneberg (John Acquaviva)‘, off of The Sound of Superstition Vol. 5: Modern European techno from the Superstition label. I picked this compilation up solely because I’ve found over the years that for some reason, Europe (especially Germany) seems to be the only region where “old-school” techno is still in vogue, and much of their electronic music still has strong roots in the early-90’s techno styles. This track isn’t anything special, but isn’t bad background, either.

  • ‘I Love Cats’: I have no idea who does this or where it came from. I do know that it’s sick, wrong, and very funny. Lyrics and download are available on this post from last March.

  • Sonia Dada, ‘Paradise‘, off of Sonia Dada: I first heard Sonia Dada on one of Seattle’s local rock stations, 103.7 The Mountain, where they were giving ‘You Don’t Treat Me No Good‘ heavy play. I really enjoyed that song, so went searching out some more of Sonia Dada’s work. This is a band I really need to pick up some albums by, rather than just the few tracks I have downloaded so far — musically they’re definitely good, but it’s the strong singing and harmonies that really catch my ear.

  • Jason Webley, ‘Pilgrim II (Live)’, off of The Halloween Special 2001: Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of local Seattle artist Jason Webley. This is a live recording from his 2001 ‘Deathday’ show of a song which became ‘Counterpart‘ on the album Counterpoint. While Jason hasn’t officialy released any live albums, he doesn’t seem to mind the distribution of the bootlegs that have been recorded so far — you can find the ones I’ve collected so far ~~on my server here~~.

And this week’s bonus track:

iTunes “Haunted When the Minutes Drag” by Collide from the album Vortex (2004, 7:43).