Part of me thinks that Claudar is just another fake foreigner dreamed up by our liberal media. Just looking at him, he seems to be equal parts Cousin Balki and Yakoff Smirnoff. ("In Soviet Russia, records play you!") In fact, the odds are good that the entire Borat Sagdiyev experience is just a rip-off of this earlier, more brilliant incarnation.But, then again, maybe it's legit. I mean, I doubt the Holiday Inns of French Quebec would lie to us, and this album has their stamp of approval. The ears may say "non," but the eyes, mes amis, say "oui."
Anyway, with Claudar, Lord of the Dance, watching over us, it must be time for the Friday Random Ten. Here goes.
1. Kool Keith, "Master of the Game" -- Kool Keith has more personalities than Clinton Portis, and an even better sense of style. This is a great bit of driving, funky rap, a bit of boasting that's strongly influenced by the funk masters from Zapp. 8/10
2. Death Cab for Cutie, "Passenger Seat" -- One of the lesser songs off a great album, their breakout Transatlanticism. Not too bad, I suppose, but it really pales next to the brilliant stuff recorded alongside it. Eh. 6/10
3. The Coctails, "2000" -- To be honest, I don't know much about this band, other than the fact that they seemed to combine '60s guitar pop sensibilities with a nice '90s indie rock vibe. Don't know if that makes any sense, but the song works. 8/10
4. Kool and the Gang, "Give It Up" -- Damn, this FRT has more Kools than a nightclub ashtray. This is a pretty early tune by the Gang, a '60s soul instrumental with a couple bright spots. 6/10
5. Sly Stone, "Crossword Puzzle" -- Sweet Zombie Jesus, I'm on a roll! This is a scorching bit of funk, a terrific song made all the better by the fact that it contributed a key sample to De La Soul's "Say No Go" single. If this isn't a perfect song on the Coolness Meter, I don't know what is. 10/10
6. The Wedding Present, "Kennedy" -- This British band excelled at the wall-of-strumming-guitars sound, an approach which dominated most of their songs, including this one. It's like playing an Unrest song at 78rpm. (If you understood that joke, get back to work at the record store.) 9/10
7. The Breeders, "Drivin' on 9" -- I didn't think the Breeders would be as good once Tanya Donnelly moved on after the first album, but Kim Deal proved to be more than enough woman to carry the whole damn thing. For an album or two. The countryish song off Last Splash, this is fairly sweet, though probably not cool. 7/10
8. Labi Siffre, "I Got The..." -- Well, it's apparently Hip Hop Sample Day here at the FRT. This '70s tune contributed the main beat and the title ellipsis for Eminem's "My Name Is..." But, again, the original stands on its own feet. Nicely funky, if a little lame in the vocals. 8/10
9. Stevie Wonder, "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday" -- I'm a pretty big fan of Stevie Wonder, but I've got to be honest here and admit that this is fairly crappy. From the crappy title to the crappy backup vocals to the crappy lyrics, it's clearly not his best work. Sorry, Stevie. 4/10
10. Buffalo Tom, "Hawaiian Baby" -- Ah, what a nice ending. This is a spare, sweet cover version of a Spinanes song. I used to have a 7" single of the original, but it got lost along the way ages ago. If anyone knows where I can track down a copy of that, seriously, help a brother out. The Buffalo Tom version isn't quite as good, but it's still awfully damn good. 8/10
Alright, that gives me a 7.4 average on the global coolness positioning system. I'm not surprised by that number, since it keeps on coming up week after week. As philosopher-king George McFly would say, it's my density.
Your turn, folks. Drop your own FRTs in the comments below, with or without the coolness self-audit. Or else just launch into random tirades about the music these kids listen to today and how it's not really music, it's just noise and screeching and men in tight pants who look like ladies. Your choice.
28 comments:
I actually like both "Last Splash" and the first Belly album better than "Pod." That split was win-win for me...
1. "Big Train" - Mike Watt Mike Watt, by definition, is "cool" and impresses any record store clerk. 7
2. "Across the Universe" - Rufus Wainright Cover of the Beatles classic from the excellent "I Am Sam" soundtrack. Is it blasphemous to say this version kicks the original? I mean, everyone here admits Wainright has much better voice than any Beatle...right?7
3. "Prophets of Rage" - Public Enemy "I gotta right to be hoss-tile..." One of the "Prophets of Rage" has a political show on Air America, and the other one is on VH-1. What happened to Professor Griff ans the S1W? 8
4. "Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago" - Soul Coughing Condi, even these guys could imagine using planes as weapons...8
5. "The Hardest Button To Push" - White Stripes Is that a bassline? 7
6. "Give Blood" - Pete Townshend Heavy, HEAVY rotation in college. I love this album, this song in particular. 9
7. "Divorce Song" - Liz Phair Vintage Phair. Holds up nicely. 8
8. "Monkey Man" - Stones The Tigers radio producer likes to use this as bump music. I took this as a good omen when it came up on the iPod. It worked.8
9. "Living After Midnight" - Judas Priest This one's for you Thrilhouse. Do I lose headbanger points if I confess I got this CD out of the library? does the Ann Arbor Library at least score points for having Judas Priest? 7
10. "Julie Paradise" - Screaming Trees (pictured) Gotta love a band where the two brothers look like the Guiness Book World's Fattest Motorcycle-Riding Twins 8
7.7 average Though I admit to grading on a bit of a curve today, that was still a strong run.
You know you've hit the big time when Holiday Inn wants to produce your record. I only got as far as Best Western. "Good evenin' folks, we're the Good Ol' Blues...Brothers...Boys...Band all the way from Chicago!"
1. Mr Crowley, Ozzy. And this is how it begins for me this fine Friday. 9/10.
2. Nothingman, Pearl Jam. And this is how it ends this fine Friday: with Eddie Vedder whining. 2/10.
3. We're Gonna Make It, Taj Mahal. Yes we will, Taj. Thanks for the pick-me-up. Even if we have to eat beans every day. 7/10.
4. Here I Go Again, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. No, this is not an original that Whitesnake later remade, but how cool would it be if the Whitesnake song was actually an old blues song? 7/10.
5. Scratch the Surface, Sick Of It All. Awesome New York hardcore. Cool buzzy sound instead of a huge chunky crunch. 7/10.
6. Back In Black, AC/DC. All-time classic guitar tune, recently ruined by that bit on the Bob and Tom show where a comedian "scats" the opening guitar riff. 8/10.
7. November Rain, Guns n Roses. 1/10.
8. Refuse/Resist, Sepultura. I really dug the whole Chaos AD release, and it was the beginning of Sepultura exploring their tribal Brazilian roots music, blending it rather seamlessly with death metal. 8/10.
9. Caress Me Down, Sublime. Meh. Funny and everything, being about a handjob and all, but musically, meh. 6/10.
10. High Speed Dirt, Megadeth. Off of their semi-sellout Countdown to Extinction release. Kinda broke my heart, especially since both Metallica and Megadeth sold out within a few months of eachother to the music industry, dumbing-down their otherwise thunderours works. Still, there are a few cool tracks on this relase, and this song in particular has great guitar work. 7/10.
6.2 for me this week, with a couple of astoundingly weak numbers really killing an otherwise decent average. November Rain??? That's a delete-key waiting to happen later this evening.
It's like playing an Unrest song at 78rpm. (If you understood that joke, get back to work at the record store.)
Yes, sir. I'll start shucking WEA right now.
(Some band is totally going to make the cover of SPIN magazine by lifting Unrest's steeze. Just wait.)
It’s been busy in my life, but I found time to fire up my Motherboxxx and get back in the FRT game. Let’s see what the comeback kid can dish out.
1. Ch-Check It Out - The Beastie Boys. Good way to kick things off, a good tune from the boys, with great lyrics like " ". 7/10.
2. Corrina Corrina (live) - Muddy Waters. I don't own a lot of blues music, but Muddy Waters kind of demands to be part of any good music collection. The song's good, too. 7/10.
3. It's Not Up To You - Bjork. I like me some Bjork, and this song is really pretty, but it's just not doing it for me right now. Good song, yes. Cool song, not as much. 5/10.
4. I Loved You Yesterday - Lyle Lovett. SCREEEECH! There are four cool Lyle Lovett songs. This is NOT one of them. 3/10.
5. Goody, Goody - Ella Fitzgerald. A novelty song is not cool, even if it's sung by Ella. 5/10.
6. Learn To Fly - Foo Fighters. I love Foo Fighters, but their mainstream rock hit is putting the final nail in my cool coffin. 5/10.
7. Risingson - Massive Attack. And like a phoenix from the ashes, Massive Attack comes to save me. Too little too late? Maybe. But this is a fine song from a FINE album. 9/10.
8. Honky Tonk Masquerade - Joe Ely. NOOOOOOO!!!!! 4/10.
9. Bada Bing - Dangerdoom. Okay. Let's just see how cool this is. MF Doom? 3 points. DJ Dangermouse? 3 points. A song about Adult Swim cartoons? 2 points. College kids think this is cool. And that's good enough for me. 8/10.
10. Olympia, WA - Rancid. Wow. Just...wow. I'm so confused right now, I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I dig this song, though. 7/10.
That leaves me with a seriously uncool average of 6. Man, even after some judicious trimming, the bastards get me again. I'm sorry, fellas (and the infrequent ladies). I don't know what's wrong with me this week...
Wow. TOUGH scoring this week. May-un.
If I may, my 10 comments as replacement for the 10 songs I can't write about in my I-Podless, CD Randomizerless world (alas!).
1. I'm with Furious. Pod has "Fortunately Gone" and a weird cover of "Happiness is a Warm Gun," but Belly is surprisingly good, and Last Splash has aged better than its predicessor in me opinion.
2. "Driving on Nine" is good, and it's cool. She sure was pretty . . .
3. This may be the first time I've heard the name "Spinanes" in about 12 years. And speaking of bands with guitar and drums but no bass . . .
4. A 7 for "Hardest Button to Button??? I'm furious, Furious. "He had a toothache/ he started cryin', it sounded like an earthquake." Dude, lyrics like that are worth 3 extra points alone.
Not to mention, Jack out-Planting Robert Plant with the first "uh-oh."
I'm gonna start getting violent if I don't move on here.
5. "Divorce Song" Ever think of the "And it's also true that I lost the map" line while driving with your wife?
As Simmons would say, uhhh, me neither.
6. An 8 for "Monkey Man"! You are tough today.
7. Thrill would give "Living After Midnight" a 12. Since Beavis would give it only an 11, that's saying something.
8. I caught a band at the Carrboro Music Festival in Carrboro NC last week, where one guitarist was fat as a house, but played some mean, flangey, gut-busting gee-tar.
And his brother (I presume), a roadie, was equally fat. Needless to say, I thought of the Trees.
9. An 8 for "Back in Black." My stars, I've never seen such scoring. I think Thrill would give it a 14.
10. I guess with "November Rain" you start at 10 and subtract a point for every minute Slash's wack-off solo goes on too long, and then subtract more for Axl's embarrassing turn in the music video.
I'd give it a -3 by that method, so maybe your way is better.
By the way Furious- Is Mike Watt from the Minutemen?
Man, you people be gettin jiggy early today! Let's see what we've got.
1) One of my turns - Floyd. Meh. 5/10
2) Green River - CCR. Love the guitar on this one. 7/10
3) Zero Chance - Soundgarden. zero is almost right. 2/10
4) Slaves and Bulldozers - Soundgarden. That's more like it! 8/10
5) Faaip de Oiad - Tool. noise; in fact, an insult to noise. 0/10
6) Wake Up - Mad Season. Best song on a great album. 10/10
7) Stairway to Heaven - Zeppelin. I don't even think I'm allowed to give this one a rating. It's Stairway.
8) No Attention - Soundgarden. That's about what I pay this song. 3/10
9) Big City Nights - Scorpions. Yes!! Perfect Friday song. 9/10
10) Forest - System of a Down. Good, but man, anything after the Scorps is a letdown. 6/10
Not a great list, but I'm going to have to listen to Big City about 80 times. men in tight pants, indeed!
I actually like both "Last Splash" and the first Belly album better than "Pod." That split was win-win for me...
Oh, I agree. But at the time, I felt like the dismantling of the Hot Indie Chick Supergroup would be a disaster.
What happened to Professor Griff ans the S1W?
The outspoken anti-semitism came to be a bit of an embarrassment and Chuck D. showed him the door. Apparently, he thought the band didn't need paramilitary backup dancers.
Is Mike Watt from the Minutemen?
Yep. And fIREHOSE, his later band, and Dos, the two-bass outfit he did with his wife, the bassist from Black Flag.
When I was a freshman in college, I'd just landed a job working for the local radio station. A week later, I was at a party thrown by some of the DJs, wearing a shirt mocking Jesse Helms. This weird, scraggly-beard dude comes up and says, "Hey, man, great shirt!" and rambled on for a bit. I thought he was another of the odder DJs that I was getting to know and sort of made an excuse and backed away. Only later did I realize he was Mike Watt, in town for a fIREHOSE show. Boo, me.
Firehose, yes!
I had "Flying The Flannel" once, but I have no idea where it is.
Wait, is that Firehouse, or Firehose. Damn.
Faaip de Oiad - Tool. noise; in fact, an insult to noise. 0/10
No joke, TH. I normally groove to Tool, but sometimes their "art" gets a little "artsy" for my taste. Like the Mahavishnu Orchestra: at the end of the day, noise is sometimes noise, and making noise and calling it art is akin to some of the modern art statues I have seen. "What's that huge, 4-story orange piece of twisted iron girder?" "Whatever you want it to be." "Scrap iron, then."
Funny, but I read that last comment right after seeing a photo of the iron-beam "cross" that was found in the WTC wreckage. It's being moved to a local church.
One man's scrap isn't just another man's art, but his religious iconography too.
Thanks. I'm Andy Rooney.
I saw that picture shortly after I wrote what I did. So, before anyone gets all red-faced indignant at my twisted iron comment, I was actually referring to a statue found in down town Grand Rapids. A huge, bright orange........thing.
Mike. I hear you. On both "Monkey Man" AND "Hardest Button,' I was tempted to go higher and felt I was overrating things (ala THouse). "Monkey Man' deserves a 9, and Button at least an 8. I always like this line:
"Now we're a family
And we're alright now
We got money and a little place
To fight now"
And I am administering a John L. Smith self-slap for once again getting hte name of the song wrong.
--
Mike Watt is indeed of Minuteman and fIREHOSE fame. Flyin the Flannel is good but the first three albums (on SST) blow it away. I'll burn you copies of 'em or something if you want em.
I never really got into the Minutemen. I discovered Watt through a roomate in college and fIREHOSE. I did some research on Watt last night since I was going to use him as the artwork at my place. He's playing with Iggy Pop, and has a new solo album coming out. you can watch a video here. "Big Train" is from the solo Ball-Hog or Tugboat.
And Otto, don't think I didn't notice/appreciate the attention to proper capitalization...
I found it. This is what I am talking about. This is the sculpture version of Faaip de Oiad by Tool.
Gotta say, Smitty, I was expecting something worse than a Calder.
I know that Calder is revered in some circles. Just not my cuppa tea. A 3-story orange eyesore. I bet there's someone out there who loves that Tool song, Mr. F!
I have a great story from my brother who is soon to graduate from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. It involves Yoko Ono, a rusted-out train car and Haloween noises.
Smitty-
The best part of that horror show of a picture is the plaque -- ostensibly describing the orange train wreck -- which is dwarfed by the sculpture.
Or maybe I'm the only one who finds it funny. Never mind.
Furious & Otto - Agree re the capitalization. I, too, geeked out and grabbed a rock encyclopaedia and felt the admiration for Otto's precision. I like how the dude who formed fIREHOSE with Wayy & the other guy is "Ed fROM Ohio"
What's your brother studying at CCS?
What's your brother studying at CCS?
Mr. F: He's in the craft school, studying furniture (and thus industrial) design. He's got a bunch of pieces in some galleries around town. He designed and built my son's crib too. He stuff is amazing. Thanks for asking!
1. All Night Radio – “Sad K.,” from Spirit Stereo Frequency
Perfect band name. Parfait for one of them all night sit-around-el-crib hanging out gatherings. I’m not saying there’s necessarily illegal substances at said gathering, but—what was I talking about? 8/10
2. The Beatles – “Twist and Shout,” from Please, Please Me
This song is my earliest Beatles memory, which counts for something, but they didn’t write it. The notion of John and Paul sitting around a room and saying, “I don’t think our songwriting talents are up to snuff. Let’s play this,” is utterly ridonkeylious. 6/10
3. Evens – “Until They’re Clear,” from The Evens
I got nothing done at work while this song played because dammit this stuff is cold chillin’ in effect. 8/10
4. Pink Floyd – “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2),” from The Wall
I’m inclined to echo the “Stairway” call and not rate this. It’s a song so everywhere it’s ceased to be just a song on an album. I don’t remember ever not knowing this song. But, alas, that’s what makes it so huge. 9/10
5. Blonde Redhead – “Elephant Woman,” from Misery is a Butterfly
I’m not one to kiss and tell, so instead I’ll kiss and tell lies: I kissed BR’s frontgal. Not really, but I would. Sexy voice. She was preggers at one of the BR shows I went to so the venue issued a one time only no smoking policy. 8/10
6. U.N.K.L.E. – “Outro,” from Psyence Fiction
My feeling on intros, outros, preludes and qualudes is well documented. 2/10
7. Stevie Wonder – “Blowin’ in the Wind,” from At the Close of a Century
Is Stevie Wonder dude’s birth name? If so, it’s perfect… except they forgot the –ful! 7/10
8. George Harrison – “Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let it Roll),” from All Things Must Pass
I love, love, love Lennon, but this is an easy choice as best Beatles solo album. Grossly underrated. And two discs. 10/10
9. Porno for Pyros – “Packin’,” from Porno for Pyros
Jane’s was the first band I loved to break up and form splinter groups. Needless to say I was grossly disappointed by PfP. What happened to the rockin’? Average song on an average album. 6/10
10. Weezer – “Hash Pipe,” from Green Album
A grade-A workout album for months. That’s a very flattering comment. 8/10
A perfect 100!
Damn, I wish that was true. 72. Apparently U.N.K.L.E. is an uncle of the molestation variety.
I hope that's not the kind of uncle you are, Milty.
Otherwise, our weekend date is off.
In a stunning coincidence, it looks like the S1Ws are back in the news.
OM, that link is hilarious. Or should this goofy white boy just say, It's Da' Bomb.
Yeah, that's some pretty inspired stuff.
"In order to come to the aid of the hip-hop nation, we must regrettably ask those men who heroically served the Black Planet to once again don their fatigues and take up their plastic arms," S1W Chief and Public Enemy Minister Of Information Professor Griff said. "We have no more options. It's not as though we can simply call 911. That would be a joke."
I was knocked over by this one:
"I am proud of my service to Public Enemy," said retired S1W Roger Chillous, 41. "I was right there in the front of the stage for the First London Invasion tour of duty right before I retired. But I can no longer effortlessly execute the complex choreographed maneuvers that were once required of me. I wasn't called up for the East Coast–West Coast conflict, so I don't understand why I was for this."
I liked this one:
""I got a letter from the P.E. the other day," said James Bomb, 46, also a former S1W. "I opened it, and read it, and said they were suckers. They want me for their army or whatever? Picture me giving a damn—I said 'Never.'"
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