Earworms 12 November 2018

Good morning, I hope you’ve all charged up your love batteries in preparation for another week and a crackling compilation of songs about electricity. If you have an earworm you’d like to share, please send an .mp3 or a link to earworm@tincanland.com, together with a few words about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme will be royalty. Many thanks to all contributors.

Buzzcocks – Love Battery – severin: “I’ve got this crazy current that slips through my underwear, and when it really connects, I come and go everywhere”. Not the best thing to say when the interviewer asks what skills you can bring to this organisation.

Rod Clements – Ragtown-. tincanman: The Lindisfarne co-founder was sitting at home one evening watching a documentary about the making of the Hoover (hydroelectric) Dam during the Depression, and decided to mute the telly and write this song about the harsh, remote workcamps.

Pavement – Trigger Cut – vanwolf: A cert to get me on the floor. Lies and betrayals, fruit covered nails, EEEEElectricity and lust.

They Might Be Giants – Bird House in Your Soul – AliM: There can’t be many songs written from the perspective of a nightlight: “There’s a picture opposite me / Of my primitive ancestry / Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free / Though I respect that a lot / I’d be fired if that were my job / After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts / Bluebird of friendliness / Like guardian angels it’s always near”.

Rival Sons – Electric Man – Ravi Raman: I’m not sure who in the group passed this on but it’s a great, energetic number.

Nitzer Ebb – Lightning Man – vanwolf: You better be careful out there.

Rush – Manhattan Project – Ravi Raman: More Rush. More about energy than electricity as such. Still …

Honolulu Mountain Daffodils – Electronic Alcoholic – severin: Wonky parody of Kraftwerk produced in London by people who, themselves, did a lot more drinking than was good for them. The Robots but with all-too human problems.

Steve Hillage – Electrick Gypsies – AliM: Let’s re-discover the healing sound and ride the psychic surf. From his 1976 album, “L”. 

Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band – Electricity, and The Walker Brothers – The Electrician – Maggie B: Both these tracks were ahead of their time, first, Captain Beefheart with Electricity – complete with theramin and Ry Cooder on slide. Next the Walker Brothers: The Electrician. (Scott Walker was one of my first musical loves). This song had a big influence on David Bowie. Scott Walker’s beautiful voice singing a perfectly orchestrated song with wonderful guitar playing and about an ugly subject – torture and electrocution. Disturbing…

THE SPILL BULLETIN BOARD – SUNDAY Nov. 11th.

You probably all have a basic understanding go what happened in Munich in 1938, Robert Harris has written a fictional book that fills in all the details. Who was involved and all the trivial details re. Who said what to who, the decor and furniture at 10 Downing St plus similar for what was happening in Berlin. It culminates of course with the actual encounter in Munich of Chamberlin and Hitler. Fictional history but of a high order. I’m currently reading ‘Munich’ by Robt Harris,  I chose this because I recently read ‘A Gentleman and a Spy’, also by Harris, it’s the story of the Dreyfuss affair. Both recommended to all who enjoy historical novels.

We now look forward to a Democrat controlled Congress, it should be more interesting than the last 2 years.

Let me include a non-musical note here that might be useful for spillers. For several weeks I’ve been trying to create a couple of posts for the ‘Top 10’ theme, whenever I tried to upload and insert tunes I got a message ‘For security reasons this format isn’t allowed’, in every case the cuts were mp3’s or m4a’s, both on the acceptable list. I finally gave up.

But at the WordPress site I noticed an item, there was a weekly meeting close to where I live sponsored by WordPress, it was for the benefit of users with problems or new users. The feature is called WordPress Wednesdays- see if it’s listed for your area.

When I showed my WordPress attempts to the guy in charge he noticed that I had omitted the dot from .mp3! That’s all it took to be rejected for ‘security’ reasons.

This happened because I copied and pasted all my cuts from my iTunes library and I guess I wasn’t precise enough in copying them.

Everything’s working  OK now and I have several ideas for playlists.

SOME SAXES

Last week we had a taste of some ‘foreign’ sax and it was well received, so I did a quick scan through my iTunes and came up with these. I know there’s many ‘giants’ missing and there’s some repetition but it was a quick selection from a lot of ‘favorites’ folders. Just a note re.the various types of sax, the most common ones used are the soprano, the alto, the tenor and the baritone, I’ll list who plays what on this playlist.

They’re all favorites and I can’t narrow ‘em down any further. As usual Woordpress is acting silly, this week they’re randomly inserting the word ‘amp’ into the titles, can’t get rid of it.

Sonny Stitt – Alto & Tenor.

Lester Young – Tenor

Benny Carter, Alto [and trumpet]

Coleman Hawkins – tenor

Lockjaw Davis – tenor

Charlie Parker – alto

Bechet- soprano

Zoot Sims – tenor

Don Byas – tenor

Paul Desmond – alto

Gerry Mulligan – baritone

Johnny Hodges – alto & soprano

Art Pepper – alto

Ben Webster – tenor

Cannonball – alto

Sonny Rollins – tenor

John Coltrane – tenor.

Ten Tracks – Kadri Gopalnath – (by Ravi Raman)

I just love sax, in blues, rock or jazz. And this guy holds a special place for me. These are all more pop-ish than classical. I thought I would start with JJ Cale but like Ali rightly pointed out you Spillers are less likely to come across Kadri. Hope you all enjoy them.

Earworms 5 November 2018

It seems that not only did I forget Halloween, but also firework night. So, in lieu, here are your songs about smells. In the UK, the 5th of November has its own smell – well at least, it did when I was a lad. Cold nights, bonfires and that slightly sulphurous whiff … I would have said cordite, but having looked it up I’m not sure that’s right. And next morning, the sky was grey from the smoke. My friend and I used to walk around the village watching everyone else’s fireworks. One night we walked through the cow field; cows are very curious and they came to see what we were doing. They had beautiful eyelashes … and one of them ate my scarf! But tonight the weather is mild, fireworks are few, the local cows are in the barn and I digress … If you have any earworms you would like to share, Please send an .mp3 or a link to earworm@tincanland.com, together with a few words about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme will be: electricity.

West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – The Smell of Incense – tincanman: Bob Markley’s band was THE happening thing in San Francisco in the mid-60s, but despite flashes of brilliance mixing psychedelic, avant garde and prog, Markley was a control freak and became increasingly obsessed with girls who weren’t old enough to vote and the band imploded.

The Zephyrs – Perfume – glasshalfempty: The wellspring of pop north of the border has produced a third band with the name The Zephyrs. This latest incarnation knows how to sniff out a wistful love song, and dig that pedal steel guitar.

Lucinda Belle – Smells Like Teen Spirit – AliM: Can’t remember who sent me this Nirvana cover. But it’s rather splendid.

Robert Kimbrough Sr. – Can I Smell You Tonight? – tincanman: Nice bit of stompin’ soul blues from last year’s What I’m Gon’ Do? Where I’m Gon’ Go From Here? Bit of a creepy title though. Robert Sr is the son of Junior Kimbrough, which maybe makes sense in Mississippi.

Loudon Wainwright III – Dead Skunk – and playlist – severin: I can’t seem to find much (anything) in my iTunes that would fit. Do you think this (the second playlist I compiled for R/R) would do as a sort of bonus YT list to complement whatever people send in MP3 format? (Yes, Ed.) I was very pleased with it until two members of the forum decided to rage about a) not being listed due to the cliquey nature of the blog and b) my outrageous behaviour in including some songs that were in foreign. Everyone else was very nice though.

Buddy Guy – I Smell A Rat – Ravi Raman: I’ve a few versions of this but as I’ve never put up Buddy Guy before. Here’s his OTT take. (Also remembered Big Mama Thornton’s cover of Lieber/Stoller).

Type O Negative – Summer Breeze – MaggieB: Great version of the Isley Brothers classic from one of my daughter’s favourite bands. She saw them live once and kept talking about the sheer size of Peter Steele.

THE SPILL BULLETIN BOARD – SUNDAY Nov. 4th.

Here’s a portion of Wiki’s summary of Michael Ondaatje’s latest novel – Warlight, which is currently keeping me totally enthralled. Alex Preston wrote in The Guardian that the novel “sucked me in deeper than any novel I can remember; when I looked up from it, I was surprised to find the 21st century still going on about me

“In London near the end of World War II, 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister Rachel are left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth, their parents having moved to Singapore.The Moth affiliates with a motley group of eccentric, mysterious, and in some ways nefarious characters who dominate the children’s experience early in the postwar period.

10 tunes from Al Green

Having just blogged Al Green on my own site I thought I’d create a wee playlist of the tunes mentioned in that blog plus a wild card or two.  I haven’t counted them but it should be around ten.   He is my favourite singer of all time, and these showcase his immense gift to my ears.

The blog is here : https://magicmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/11/02/my-pop-life-214-belle-al-green/

and how do I do a playlist again ?  try this :