SATURDAY SHUFFLE

A lovely summer night -- crickets chirping, night breezes whispering -- time to blast it all open with some rock 'n' roll!

1. This Is Where I Belong / Ron Sexsmith
From This Is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies (2006)
Probably the best collection of Kinks covers I know, with dynamite tributes from Fountains of Wayne, Fastball, Minus 5, Yo La Tengo; best of all, this was the album that first introduced me to the work of Bill Lloyd and of Ron Sexsmith, both of whom have since landed several albums in heavy rotation on my music players. Ron delivers this early Kinks tune with such earnestness, I just had to hear more. And that's how it all started...

2. Next To You / Tim Easton
From Ammunition (2006) 
Here's another bit of serendipity -- I discovered Tim Easton through this track on a New West Records sampler, that I picked up who knows where.  Just goes to show you should always listen to those samplers.  I love his slightly scratchy voice, the harmonica, the loping rhythm of this track; sometimes the simplest expressions of love ("Just let me be next to you / I want to understand . . . ") are the best.

3. Look a Little on the Sunny Side  / The Kinks
From Everybody's In Show Biz (1972)
One of my first Kinks albums, Show-Biz holds a special place in my heart; to me, every track is a winner.  Here we get campy Ray mincing about this bouncy little tap dance (that old music hall influence), innocently (HA!) describing the vagaries of the music business. And I do mean vagaries: "Sing 'em the blues and then they ask for a happy tune / And when you start to smile, they say / 'Gimme the rhythm and blues,' and when you  / Give 'em the rhythm and blues, they simply smile and say / 'We didn't want to hear you play, we didn't like you anyway.'"  Well, that's the Kinks' career in a nutshell, no?

4. Keep This Party Going  / The B-52s 
From Funplex (2008) 
I was really sorry that this recent B-52s CD didn't live up to those great 80s albums.  I can't quite figure out why -- this is a fun number (I bet it's a hoot live), but it lacks that extra wackiness that made them the quirky dance queens of New Wave.  All the elements are here -- Cindy and Kate's almost offkey harmonies, Fred's lounge-lizard rapping, over an insistent dance-party rhythm track -- but it just doesn't measure up. Thank god we've still got The B-52s, Whammy!, and Cosmic Thing...

5. I'll Follow the Sun  /  The Beatles
From Beatles 65 (1965)
Okay, I know this now appears on a CD called Beatles for Sale, the British version knocked out in a hurry for the Christmas 1964 sales season.  But the American album I grew up with was Beatles 65, and I played that baby so much, the album cover is now only held together with masses of stiff masking tape. And this little folker is one of my top tracks from this album, a standard-issue kiss-off song sung with that special tender Paul McCartney charm.  "One day / You'll look / And see I've gone / But tomorrow may rain so / I'll follow the sun."  Those odd climbing intervals, that alternation of short lines with a long fluid phrase, and then he reverses it:  "And now the time has come / When so my love / I must go / And though I lose a friend / In the end you will know / Oh oh-oh oh.."  Sheer instinctive genius.

6. Road Trippin'  / Red Hot Chili Peppers
From Californication (1999)
Proving that even a psych-punk-funk bunch of skateheads from California could turn out yearningly beautiful folk-rock -- with strings, even! -- so wistful it'll break your heart.  I like most everything of RHCP I've heard, but to me this album stands head and shoulders above the rest.  One of my favorite albums of the 1990s. Granted, the 1990s, but still...

7. Love Is an Outlaw / Tom Gallagher
From Age of the Wheel (unreleased)
The early and untimely death of my dear friend Tom Gallagher prevented him from ever getting the audience he deserved.  His unreleased album is full of superb tracks like this, with its lazy, loungy beat, plangent guitar riffs, winsome melody, and sage lyrics.  I'm happy to email this track to anybody who's curious: it's how we keep his memory alive.

8. Big Boys / Elvis Costello 
From Armed Forces (1978)
Another Iconic Album for me.  And this song has so many great lyrics, from that opening "I am starting to function / In the usual way"  through " to "Worrying about your physical fitness / Tell me how you got the sickness" and "I was down upon one knee / Stroking her vanity."  So what if it's more clever-sounding than truly wise?  He's drunk on allusive word play, and to me that tempers the Angry Young Man cynicism with his giddy enthusiasm.  I love the thrusting bass and drums giving him his marching orders, and those Steve Nieve organ riffs? Perfection.

9. On a Promise / Fine Young Cannibals 
From Fine Young Cannibals (1985)
The hoarse soulful voice of Roland Gift, matched with the English Beat's David Steele and Andy Cox -- well, Fine Young Cannibals had all the right elements lined up, that canny mix of R&B and ska and New Wave smartness. "She Drives Me Crazy" is IMO one of the best songs of the 1980s, but it was a pretty solid debut album all around, as this brooding track attests....


10. If I Said  / Colin Blunstone
From Echo Bridge (1996)
So what was Colin Blunstone doing all those years between being in the Zombies and being in the Zombies again?  Lots of things, but this solo album is perplexingly lovely -- it should have been a big hit.  This guy has one of these greatest voices in pop music; it's just heartbreakingly beautiful (yes, and sexy as hell).  Sure, he loads it up with reverb and romantic production values, all strings and maracas and a sax solo in the middle eight. It should sound cheesy, but it doesn't, because Colin Blunstone can sell wistful yearning like nobody else in the biz.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Another week older, and yet no wiser....

1. "Pictures in the Sand" / The Kinks
From The Great Lost Kinks Album
Ray Davies in music hall mode -- all he needs is a straw boater, striped blazer, and cane.  No wonder this catchy little bit of nonsense ended up on The Great Lost Kinks Album, a collection of odds and ends that Ray never intended to be released. (He even had to sue the record company to get them to withdraw it from the stores.) But we Kinks fans are nothing if not completists; TGLKA is a must-have in any Kinks Kultists kollection.  

2. "People Are Talking" / Alan Price
From Travellin' Man (1986)
Again, I am outed for my music geek obsessions -- yes, I did buy this obscure Alan Price vinyl LP on eBay and transfer it to digital. Wanna make something of it? It's a lovely romp, full of old rock 'n' roll covers and new songs that sound like old rock 'n' roll covers, and Alan is clearly having a blast. "People are talking / About me and you  / The things they are saying / Are making me sad and blue" -- fill in the gaps with boogie woogie piano and you've got the idea. 

3. "I Saw Her Standing There" / Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard
From Last Man Standing (2006)
Well, at least we're getting to a well-known song, though not the obvious rendition. But that's the point of this duet album, giving all these classic songs fresh life in the hands of Jerry Lee and a surprising roster of collaborators.  This track is an irresistible example -- once you've heard Little Richard's trademark yelp after the line "How could I dance with another?," it'll never again sound  right without it.

4. "Scar Tissue" / The Red Hot Chili Peppers
From Californication (1999)
Man, do I love this album. That lounging funky rhythm, the drawling vocals -- "With the birds I’ll share this-a lonely view" -- existential poetry married to a soaring rock riff. This song always gets me where I live, and I have no idea why.

5. "'Till We're Nude" / The Replacements
From All For Nothing/Nothing at All (compilation)
Existential? Soaring?  Nope, it's just the Replacements, blasting out angsty punk-ish rock and roll in their grungy basement. "Me and you, we ain't through / We ain't through until we're nude" -- sometimes that's as much of a social contract as you need.

6. "A-OK" / Motion City Soundtrack
From I Am the Movie (2003)
I refuse to call these guys an emo band. It's true that most of their songs consist of Justin Pierre parsing and probing the fine shadings of his own neuroses.  So what? With that thrashing beat and the hyperkinetic guitars, it's impossible to feel mopey. "Someday you'll understand / That everything is A-OK" -- so she insists, but he's not buying it.  

7. "Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)" / Monsters of Folk
From Monsters of Folk (2009)
When I first got this heady album, I pored over it, trying to pin down which song sprang from which musician in this "super-group" -- M. Ward? Yim Yames (a.k.a. My Morning Jacket's Jim James)?  Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst? But this swirly, synthy first track made it easy -- they each sing one verse!  


8.  "It's Alright" / The Kinks
From The Kinks (1964)
Jump back 45 years in time (!!) to this early Kinks track, stripped-down and primitive rock and roll. (In glorious mono!)  The Kinks never were quite convincing as a blues band, but it's fun to hear them give it a go, wheezy mouth harp and all. 

9. "Oxford Comma" / Vampire Weekend 
From Vampire Weekend (2008)
Back into the indie world, with a vengeance. Something about these guys I've loved since my first listen....

10. "American Pie" / Don McLean
From American Pie (1971)
Might as well end the evening with the entire history of rock and roll, packed into one grab-bag of pseudo-cryptic lyrics -- a fluky classic, but a classic nonetheless. Scroll down here to get the lowdown.

THE WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

This one's for Ginny!

1. "We Should Be Making Love" / Huey Lewis & the News
From Hard at Play (1991)
Totally a fangirl thing, my Huey Lewis crush. Though the 80s retro-pop groove they'd carved out was running thin by the time of this album, I'm very fond of this track, with its kicky blues beat and a sort of When Harry Met Sally plot line. That little bit of hoarseness in Huey's voice? Ssssshivers up my spine.

2. "Up Above My Head" / The Wood Brothers
From Up Above My Head (2009)
Hey, Oliver and Chris Wood! How dare you sneak out a new album last year without letting me know? I just discovered it on line and am only beginning to explore its gospel-meets-bluegrass-meets-jazz vibe. It's a mystery to me why these guys aren't better known, but clearly they need new PR folks.

3. "Hey" / Red Hot Chili Peppers
From Stadium Arcadium (2006)
Oh, play that funky music, white boys! Why do I just about always like every song I've ever heard from this band? I don't "follow" them, the way I follow so many other bands; but then a track like this cycles up and I'm instantly transfixed. That jazzy rhythm, the insouciant vocals, the nimble guitar lines -- who listens to the lyrics?

4. "Lies" / Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
From Once (2007)
Plaintive song from the utterly charming Irish film -- I refuse to be critical.

5. "Billy's Blues" / Laura Nyro
From The First Songs (1973)
How arty and sophisticated I felt, listening to this jazz-infused folk-soul when I was 17 years old. It was like Nina Simone for prep-school girls. Let others listen to the mainstream covers of Nyro's songs by the Fifth Dimension and Blood, Sweat & Tears; I felt so in-the-know, listening to the originals instead.

6. "It Makes You Happy" / Bill Jerram Band
From Bill Jerram Band (2005)
Spirited, tuneful, jangly power pop from a fellow Kinks fan down in Texas. Dig that organ riff! What a sad music world we live in that catchy bands like this don't get enough (or any) attention. But hey, these guys are on iTunes; check out their songs there, or on Bill's MySpace page.

7. "Rene" / Small Faces
From Ogden Nut's Gone Flake
Cockney humor percolates through this wicked little softshoe number, which gradually devolves into a psychedelic bluesy ramble. I wish I'd discovered this classic 60s concept album back in the day -- it's probably best appreciated in the herbally altered frame of mind in which it was written.

8. "Baby of Mine" / Alan Price
From England, My England (1978)
Despite the 80s overproduction (someone lasso that sax!), this tender little pop song hangs onto its charm. True, it lacks Price's biting social satire, or his trademark blistering organ riffs, but there's a phrase or two of his best heartbreak-husky vocals to make up for it.

9. "Peaceful" / Georgie Fame
From Superhits
Sometimes I do think the shuffle has a mind of its own -- why else would it so often follow up an Alan Price song with a Georgie Fame number? I first knew this Kenny Rankin song through the 1968 Bobbie Gentry version, then Helen Reddy's 1973 hit version, but now that I know Georgie's 1969 cover, I'll never listen to anybody else's. He takes it in a jazzy swinging direction that is infinitely more relaxed and, well, peaceful, than the others'.

10. "Business Time" / Flight of the Conchords
From Flight of the Conchords (2008)
This New Zealand folk-comedy duo absolutely cracks me up; the plus is that their music is actually musical. On this one, Jemaine Clement out-Barry-Whites Barry White. "You know when I'm down to my socks it's business time / That's why they call them business socks." Was anybody else here hooked on their HBO series? I hated to miss an episode.