Hang in there, kitten!

OK, admittedly, my recent morning soundtrack might have been too much for some sensitive souls.

As my friend the Gladman put it, after listening to Portishead:

I don't understand most of your musical postings, but the part of your blog clip that I played sent me running for the Xanax. Tipper Gore was right about warning labels on music, she just didn't go far enough.

Hmmm, well, not everyone's musical tastes are the same or even in sync most of the time, and I shall remain mostly silent on the detriment to my well-being of hearing "lite jazz" played in heavy rotation at a holiday brunch the Gladman threw several years ago, an event I endured on a morning when I had had . . . well, let's just say, too much fun and too little sleep the night before, celebrating the Birth of Our Lord in a less than holy (but more than spiritual) way.

The excellent hosting duties and superlative cuisine made up for Aural Assault by a Deadly Kenny G, but, alas, I'm still scarred in many ways.

Nonetheless, when I posted on my Facebook profile that perhaps listening to Portishead on the walk to work on a gloomy Monday morning might have been a bad idea, one work friend responded to the post, "I'm surprised you made it at all!" And this from a soul who wouldn't be caught facing the Dark Side without wearing a fitted cap, Doc Martens, and rolled-up dungarees, with his wallet held in place by a very long chain. Plus he grew up in McKees Rocks and is a philosophy major. Not to be trifled with!

So as penance--and because the second morning of snow quickly dissipated and, instead, the sun shone most of today, thank you very much--I'm now on a mission to raise the human spirit through song, 3 minutes and 30 seconds at a time.

Please give these a try and let me know if you still need the Xanax.

Basia Balat, "In the Night" (and, no, it's not *that* Basia):



Ayo, "Help is Coming" (I used to hear this on RFI Musique all the time, and now it's been released stateside):



Amadou et Mariam, "Dimanche a Bamako" (yes, as heard on NPR, just another example of my liking stuff that other white people like):



And the aforementioned "Happy Up Here" by Röyksopp, which, really, if that doesn't get your spirit moving, then it's too late, you're already dead:



But wait, only four songs about happiness and twenty songs to kill yourself by? And one of the four is a retread? Isn't that a bit out of balance?

Yes, exactly.

Welcome to my Dark Side, kitten.

Happy up here!

On my walk to work this morning, I started out listening to the latest Portishead album, Third, on my iPod.

Here's a sample, their single, "Machine Gun."

Ugh.

"Single" sounds like such a frivolous term for a song so dour. While certainly a fine example of musical creativity, I generally would not recommended anything called "Machine Gun" (except by the Commodores, which is probably more my style than I care to admit) for easy listening on a dreary, damp Monday morning. I did feature Portishead in my list of twenty songs to kill yourself by ("All Mine"--icy despair, retro style--and you can dance to it!). So I should have known better, but Third even outmiseries the misery of an April Monday with snow in the forecast and a bitter chill in my disposition.

Gone are Sunday's sunny 70s; hello, 50s, 40s, and 30s, and the desire to throw myself under a passing Port Authority bus. Remind me now why I decided to limit my caffeine intake to one cup of coffee a day? And reduce my consumption of chocolate to practically nil? Health concerns? Well, the wheels of the bus go 'round and 'round and seem to have a road-gripping retort to that theory, now don't they?

So, Monday a.m. and Portishead shall never meet again. Instead, for quick relief and a desire not to tie up traffic on Penn Avenue, I turned to a little "Melody a.m.," or at least a Melody a.m. revival in the form of Röyksopp's new single, "Happy Up Here."



So enough of the depression and alienation! There's plenty of time for that in the future--tomorrow will probably be worse anyway! Let's dance and sing and play Space Invaders. I'm sure Torbjørn and Svein would want it that way.

Let it all go

I made no plans for Halloween this year. Not that I normally do, being costume-impaired at the best of times. When I dare to venture down that path, it's usually something too high concept/awkward (an oversized picture frame around my neck--"I'm homoerotic art") or offensive ("Bermuda shorts, brogans, dark socks, Banlon shirt, stupid haircut and mustache--imagine Hitler on the beach in Brazil circa 1946") or worse, much, much worse, as certain friends could attest.

Nonetheless, it was a more active than passive decision to skip Halloween this year. Again, too much and too many requiring my attention. I needed an escape, an outlet, not mindless escapism.

So I walked home. That's it. In and of itself, nothing out of the ordinary, which is no doubt why the doing was so enjoyable. I took the long way around from Homewood down Braddock Avenue, past Forbes, and into Regent Square, more than my usual mile or so to work. On the last evening before the end of daylight savings time, the sun was still out when I left work but sinking, sinking. The air was crisp, the sky clear, and the leaves, still on the trees--despite the snow and wind from earlier in the week--and just slightly past peak color. I needed a sweater, but I didn't have to wear a jacket, hat, scarf, or gloves. I felt unencumbered, by clothes and by life.

The sky became duskier as I made my way home. Kids in costume, accompanied by protective parents, appeared on the streets, trick-or-treating. They wandered where directed, too young to do otherwise, or maybe too addled from all the sugar.

Who knew they still did this, trick-or-treating, especially in cities, where, if one believes the old urban legends, there must be a ratio of 1 razor blade per every 10 apples. But still they do, whole orderly gangs moving from house to house, block to block, for harmless fright and safe, sweet sugar.

I greeted everyone I met, and I think everyone responded in kind, happily, friendly, not gruffly, as too often happens here. I spent last winter, I recalled, not really knowing anyone here, new in town, new to my job, and kind of hungry for someone to talk to. A year later, and I'm full up for the moment on in-depth conversation and ready, despite my general geniality, for some time to myself.

I plugged in my iPod--oops, I almost wrote Walkman--and put on rotation two albums I've been enjoying of late: My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges and Sufjan Stevens's Illinois. Both are fairly quiet albums, especially the latter, at least compared to the stuff I normally listen to on my iPod at the gym. Perfect for a silent, not-quite-twilight night.

* * *

Neither record is what I thought I would be listening to at this point in my life. Me, a guy who thought metrosexual-in-training Martin Fry, the lead singer of '80s New Romantic band ABC, was the epitome of modern manhood at one time, now listening to a grizzled, alt-country gang of long hairs from Kentucky, my Dad's home state. My Morning Jacket is still keeping the alt-country thang going somewhat, but the lead singer also has a fondness for Prince, an appreciation I rarely share, but for which, nonetheless, I've made an exception for this album. Jim James's reaching-for-the-lower-stratosphere falsetto in songs like "Evil Urges" and "Highly Suspicious"--apt titles for Halloween!--makes for a very fun, even kind of sexy record. However, My Morning Jacket can just as easily turn all moody and trippy, such as on tunes like "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream." Below is the video for the abbreviated version of "Touch Me," which underscores the trippy but gives something of a short shrift to the moody, in my opinion.





But, still, those fireflies . . . .

Sufjan Stevens' Illinois keeps the melancholy flowing. It is the second in his "state" series (the first focusing on his home state of Michigan) and takes a mix of musical cues from Steven Reich- and Phillip Glass-styled minimalism, along with alt-pop and traditional, on-the-banks-of-the-Mississippi-and-the-O-hi-o instrumentation. Think banjoes. Think songs with references to Andrew Jackson. Along with songs about John Wayne Gacy, Jr., and a friend who died of bone cancer.

Frightening stuff perhaps, not your standard pop fluff (and guaranteed to make me regret spending so much time, money, and effort on my Kylie Minogue collection over the years), but the album isn't morose or gruesome. At least no more so than everyday American life is--chants of "Kill him, kill him!" and "He's a socialist!" in the background. Perhaps that's part of Stevens's plan, conveying all 50 states through music and song, pride and pain, comedy and tragedy. If anything, the record feels equally joyful (how can you not chuckle over a song title like "Come on Feel the Illinoise"?) and melancholic, the exact musical need for an early autumn evening.

There's a line in his song, "Chicago," that sticks with, maybe even haunts me a little:

I drove to New York/
in the van, with my friend /
we slept in parking lots/
I don't mind, I don't mind/
I was in love with the place/
in my mind, in my mind/
I made a lot of mistakes/
in my mind, in my mind.

It's the last two lines in particular, and the way they are delivered, that shakes me everytime. Such a simple lyric in a song that's about what, exactly? Runaways? It's hard to say. But the simplicity of the realization, "I made a lot of mistakes," and the painfulness of it, it's hard not to relate. Tonight or any night.

As I walk, another song comes to mind, this one not on my iPod yet and more in keeping, at least on the surface, with my dodgy tastes. It's a seemingly innocuous pop ditty called "Romeo" by Basement Jaxx:



Ignore the Bollywood shenanigans for a mo' and, instead, pay attention to the lyrics:

Cos you left me laying there/
With a broken heart/
Staring through a deep cold void/
Alone in the dark/
And I miss the warmth in the morning/
And the laughter when I can't stop yawning/
But the tears on the pillow've dried, my dear/
Gonna let it all go cos I have no fear/

Let it all go/
Let it all go/
Let it all go/

A minor classic, that one. On the surface, one of the most buoyant pop tunes of the last decade or so, I would argue. On top, it's all catchiness and cheekiness, danceable and frothy. But that lyric . . . "staring through a deep, cold void" . . . "I miss the warmth in the morning" . . . we're saved only from utter despair by the singer's admonition to "let it all go." Cry it out, maybe, or just walk away and wash your hands of it all.

All those mistakes. In my mind, in my mind.

A year of change, and, hopefully, of growth. I learned some, and I yearned for more, as well. And some I got, and some I didn't.

But for tonight, I'll heed the latter lyrics, give into the music, and do just as instructed: Let it all go.

Well, shucks, ma'am, maybe not a "great DJ" . . .

Let's take a quick break from politics for a mo'. Although I'm sure I'm developing an aneurysm, so eager am I to vent about the recent Pennsylvania Democratic Primary and various views from the Left side of the street, it's going to have to wait. Just for a little while. At least until I get beyond some travel fatigue and obsessing over what new car I might actually be on the verge of buying, after three years of saying I'm on the verge of buying a new car but not actually . . . well, you get the idea.

Let's turn our attention to what I seem to like to talk about best (or most) of late: pop music. Which I will remind you is not a crime but rather a fantastic plastic distraction from the daily doubleshot of dread and doom, hold the foam, that hisses and sputters from the overheated espresso-maker in this overpriced, down-in-sales coffeehouse known as . . .

Admit it--you'd really rather have me talk about pop music, now wouldn't you?

* * *

First up, my new favorite group--the Ting Tings.

Video #1 is for the first song I heard by them, played on NewNowNext on Logo, the queers-r-us channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPNIYuDZZpU

(You'll have to view this one the old-fashioned way by following the link, rather than using the YouTube embedded player.)

This is as I guess iTunes would put it, the "explicit" version. The band actually sings the word (brace yourself) "high" in the video, referring to some pharmaceutically induced stupor that hippies used to strive for way back in the Sixties but which, like greed and intolerance, has fallen by the wayside in this progressive era. Thank goodness!

On a recent showing of NewNowNext, it sounded as if the censors dropped the word, not quite bleeping it out but erasing it from the soundtrack. Why, I don't rightly know. To prevent impressionable young teens from thinking about drugs? C'mon, they're watching Logo already, the Homo Queerectus Network; if your kid's tuning into Logo, you've got a whole 'nuther set of issues to ponder.

Video #2 is from their, appropriately enough, second single release, "That's Not My Name":



Yeah, they call me Stacey. Maybe Joleesa. It sure beats the heck out of Rap Licious.

This video is embedded for your viewing pleasure. Regarding embedding versus linking, there is no logic to YouTube or the corporate overloads of popular music who sometimes legally supply it with culture fodder--both videos are from the same source, TheTingTingsTV, or, if you prefer, their alternate identity, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (UK) Limited.

Very limited, apparently.

The Ting Tings get my vote for best new group heard in April 2008. Their tunes are very catchy, quite clever, and their look is pretty dazzling, too. Musically and visually, I think they do a good job of paying homage to the 1960s and the 1980s, while not being stuck in those decades, still managing to project a very contemporary image.

Oh, Democratic Party USA, are you listening . . . ?

* * *

Second up, my favorite new singer, Lykke Li, from Sweden:



I was driving home from a party on Sunday and heard this song, "I'm Good, I'm Gone," played on WRCT-FM, the alternative station from the one of those universities in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, which, so far, is a cut above most college stations. No endless hours of angry young man rock-and-roll but instead, truly alternative sounds, from classic, pre-1970 country and western to Southern soul to contemporary indie, the latter label of which definitely applies to little Lykke Li.

I heard this song as I was pulling into my garage after an evening of too much cake and cappuccino at a friend's house. At first, I thought, OK, it's the sugar talking, this song cannot be as good as it sounds. (Forget about the words--I'm all about textured sound. Although good lyrics and textured sound? As good as too much cake and cappuccino.) Rather than slouching toward home, I decided to wait the song out in my car; it was too good not to listen until the end. I figured, too, that the DJ would announce the artist after the song concluded. So I would know, go inside and blow another $0.99 of my retirement fund on iTunes, and sleep a very peaceful sleep.

But nothing doing--the DJ didn't announce the title or the artist, but instead played another tune. Rather than risk carbon monoxide poisoning, a dead battery, and calls to my local municipality's police station by concerned (or nebby) neighbors, I shut off the car and dashed into the house, turned on my computer, went to radio station's website to view the playlist . . . and discovered that, due to technical difficulties, the playlist wasn't available.

Cripes. Why are all the important things in life so difficult?

I maybe remembered may one full lyric from the song, one of the ones starting with "If you say," and something about a phone. After 45 minutes of Googling, I managed to come up with the lyrics, the artist, and then the YouTube video for "I'm Good, I'm Gone," as well as another hit of hers, "Little Bit," one I like almost as much:



So that's why I was late to work (again) on Monday.

Again, it's that whole "the hits of the Sixties, the Eighties, and today" thing with me. Lykke Li is produced by Peter, Björn, and John, another Swedish pop/rock group (who, stupid, stupid, stupid me missed when they were in concert in Pittsburgh last December), which, too, exemplifies that sound I seem to love of late:


Admittedly, that video is a bit Partridge Family-meets-the-gang-from-Scoobie-Doo to say the least. So make that "the hits from the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and today," but thank the gods, no Nineties.

* * *

And finally up, my Electro Funk All-Stars mix has been troubling me for weeks now. I just haven't been able to let it go, feeling that some of the songs didn't blend together very well and that a couple of the transitions were decidedly wonky.

So, as a result, I've spent part of the last couple of weekends trying to give it a new listen and an honest appraisal, which has culminated in my cutting two songs from the mix, adding three more, and trying to make seamless some of the transitions.

It now sounds like so:

1. Morcheeba featuring Big Daddy Kane--"What's Your Name?"
2. Olive--"This Time" (Mel B. has been voted off Dancing with the Stars and now this mix)
   
3. Toni Braxton--"He Wasn't Man Enough" (extended version)
4. Kylie Minogue--"Obsession" (produced by Kurtis Mantronik)
5. Etienne Daho--"Me manquer" (new! besides where would I be without at least one French cultural reference in the things I do)
   
6. Pizzicato 5--"Love's Prelude"
7. Army of Lovers--"My Army of Lovers" (Concrete Ghetto Mix)
8. Vanessa Williams--"Happiness" (samples Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait")
9. Mantronix--"Got to Have Your Love"
10. M.I.A.--"Galang"
11. Peter Brown--"Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me?" (this is a dodgy leftover at best, but who was I kidding thinking that I could stomach a Mariah Carey song for more than two listens?)
    
12. Nu Shooz--"I Can't Wait"
13. Kurtis Mantronik--"Push Yer Hands Up"
14. The Orb--"Little Fluffy Clouds" (Orbital Dance Mix)
    
15. Röyksopp--"Eple"
16. Richard X vs. Liberty X--"Being Nobody" (samples "Being Boiled" by the Human League while featuring the lyrics of "Ain't Nobody" by Rufus and Chaka Khan)
17. Annie--"Chewing Gum"
18. Change--"Change of Heart"
19. Jamelia--"Superstar"
20. The Human League--"Life on Your Own" (again with the Eighties!)
21. Mylo--"Emotion 98.6" (and today--or at least 2005, when I picked up this CD in the UK)
    

It's still not a perfect mix yet; the transition between Etienne Daho's "Me manquer" and "Love's Prelude" by Pizzicato 5 is still a little bit clunky, despite my efforts to sample a note from the latter and repeat it every few bars as a refrain in the former. It sounds good in the former; I'm just not sure it makes the necessary connection to the latter.

Ah well, I'm sure even Picasso and Fatboy Slim have had their off days. I'll go along for a couple of months like this. Then something will happen, I'll hear a new tune or become reacquainted with an old one, and bam, voilà, ándale, gesundheit, I will figure out a fix.

Or it may just be time to let it go and come up with some new inspirations for a mix. Maybe something like the Sixties . . . meets the Eighties . . . and today. Ándale.

Totally funked up: The playlist

And now for a visual representation of my recent "Electro Funk All-Stars" mix.



Ah, once again, the limitations of relying on YouTube for educational purposes. For the life of me, I couldn't find the rather excellent video for Morcheeba's "What's Your Name," so instead, I've included the video for "The Sea," my next favorite Morcheeba song, along with a Big Daddy Kane video, "Smooth Operator."

To make up for this obvious crushing blow to art and life, I've also included the original video for Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love," upon which Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" is based. Really, Mariah Carey. I've got my nerve. There are, however, two Mariah Carey songs that I actually will admit to liking, one being "Fantasy," the other, her 2005 comeback, "We Belong Together." The key here is that she doesn't sing either song as if she were doing the vocal equivalent of a Cirque du Soleil routine. She just plain sings. After those two tunes, she's on her own though.

I would have (and should have) included "Genius of Love" in the original mix, but to burn the mix to compact disc, I can have no more than 118 minutes of music in the playlist. Argh. Foiled by technology once again. When I finally invest in that iPod, there will be no such petty limits to my mixography, other than the 8GB confined space of the "Nano" or the 160GB prison of the "Classic."

Finally (or rather initially, as it's the first video on the playlist), I've included a scene from the British comedy show, The Mighty Boosh, which my new online friend Øresund introduced me to. Øresund responded to my rather loopy post about pop music from a few weeks ago. Since then, we have been having some lovely discussions about music and performers, as our tastes overlap greatly, both the low and the high, ranging from Sheila to The Smiths and all in between.

Marvelous that the video links together two key musical components of electro's heritage: Gary Numan and funk.

"Funk? Jazz's deformed cousin?"

You be the judge.

All mixed up: Electro funk all-stars

I've been at it again, mixing music using Mixmeister Express, the poor man's amateur DJ software. This time, I've come up with an "electro funk all-stars" playlist. Here goes:

1. Morcheeba featuring Big Daddy Kane--"What's Your Name?"
2. Melanie B.--"Feels So Good"
3. Olive--"This Time"
4. Toni Braxton--"He Wasn't Man Enough" (extended version)
5. Kylie Minogue--"Obsession" (produced by Kurtis Mantronik)
6. Pizzicato 5--"Love's Prelude"
7. Army of Lovers--"My Army of Lovers" (Concrete Ghetto Mix)
8. Vanessa Williams--"Happiness" (samples Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait")
9. Mantronix--"Got to Have Your Love"
10. M.I.A.--"Galang"
11. Mariah Carey--"Fantasy" (samples Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love")
12. Peter Brown--"Do You Wanna Get Funky with Me?"
13. Nu Shooz--"I Can't Wait"
14. Kurtis Mantronik--"Push Yer Hands Up"
15. The Orb--"Little Fluffy Clouds" (Orbital Dance Mix)
    
16. Röyksopp--"Eple"
17. Richard X vs. Liberty X--"Being Nobody" (samples "Being Boiled" by the Human League while featuring the lyrics of "Ain't Nobody" by Rufus and Chaka Khan)
18. Annie--"Chewing Gum"
19. Change--"Change of Heart"
20. Jamelia--"Superstar"

Whether this is true electro funk is debatable, in part because I'm only half-sure what electro funk is. According to Wikipedia--as we well know, my chief source for all wisdom--electro funk is commonly referred to as "electro" and is "an artistic musical form in the wide world of electronic music culture."

Oh dear. That sounds like a much loftier concept than my playlist warrants.

The article goes on to describe a music I barely recognize--"vocals are delivered in a deadpan, mechanical manner," "rhythm patterns tend to be electronic emulations of breakbeats, with syncopated kick drums, and usually a snare or clap accenting the downbeat"--although it does make mention of the likes of Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, and Mantronix, a triple threat of favorites of mine. That sound was what I was after with this mix: Funked up versions of electropop that the likes of Afrika Bambaataa and Mantronix generated, using Kraftwerk samples as backgrounds and key components of more hip hop- and R&B-oriented fare.

See, we really can all just get along.

This isn't a true electro mix, whatever that may be. (Only a real DJ or a British club kid might understand the nuances of various electro styles--certainly not peu vieux je.) There are a variety of pop styles in the mix, with "This Time" by Olive being more trip hop (or trip-pop) than anything, a musical style now more than ten years old and one, obviously, I never quite got over. M.I.A., who made an appearance in one of my "cod reggae" mixes, is one of my favorite contemporary pop musicians, although I would be hard-pressed to classify her sound. Mel B.'s "Feels So Good" is simply 1960s mutton dressed up as very tasty Y2K lamb. And some tunes, such as Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait" and Change's "Change of Heart" are just pure '80s pop/r&b/dance/party music. Electro funk before electro funk was cool.

The only two songs that I think serve as exemplars of electro funk, at least insofar as I understand the genre, are the Kurtis Mantronik/Mantronix and Richard X vs. Liberty X tracks, which couple a certain crunchy, electro rhythm (consistently clocking in at under 110 bpm) with a funky bass and a soulful vocal. The Mantronix track, "Got to Have Your Love," was released around 1990 or so; the Kurtis Mantronik track, "Push Yer Hands Up," was recorded in 1998; and the Kurtis Mantronik-produced "Obsession," performed by Kylie "Ive Since Lost the Plot" Minogue, was recorded in 2003. The Richard X track was recorded in 2003, but is based in part on a song by The Human League recorded in 1978, as well as a song by Rufus and Chaka Khan from 1983.

So there may well be nothing new under the sun, at least from 1978 onward.

When I listen to this mix, I can't help but think of Washington, D.C., where I lived through much of the 1980s. Funny that, as I've spent a fair amount of my adult life trying not to remember my years in Washington. I was young, in my 20s then, and practically fresh off the farm, a small-town Southerner living in a very elite Eastern city. Lots of social faux pas, lots of stupid choices, lots of twisting myself into a pretzel of logic and culture while trying to fit in and not look the rube, only by 1991 or to say "fuck it," chuck it, and get back to my roots.

Any similarities between the me of 1984 and the me of 2008 are purely coincidental I can assure you. However, it's still painful to think about those days, to recall my goofiness, ineptitude, and, yes, even heartbreak. Nonetheless, in retrospect, maybe the times weren't as bad as I recall. If nothing else, I have happy memories of being in a city filled with good music--classic "quiet storm" R&B, '80s electropop, early hip hop and rap on WPGC, and splendid alternative music like The Smiths, The Cure, and everything else that WHFS used to play, at least when it was still an independent radio station.

Ah, the dreams of a middle-aged, middle-class, Anglo hip-hopper into obscure genres of dance music. Just call me DJ Funky Fresh Market, which is a joke only a North Carolinian might understand.

* * *

Acceptable in the '80s

Speaking of the 1980s, my current fave song is "Acceptable in the '80s" by Calvin Harris, which was released sometime in 2007 but has only recently bubbled up into my consciousness. You can watch the video here via the magic of YouTube.

I'm not sure I can fully explain the video, by the way, except to think it's some sort of wannabe commercial for The Body Shop or the Anti-Vivisection Society. That or someone gave a video camera to a gaggle of drag queens and said, "Here gals, do your best. I'll give you an hour."

I think this song may be as good an example of electro funk as anything, although, personally, it kills me that this guy Calvin was born in 1984, way too young to even remember the decade. His other stuff leaves me a little indifferent--it's just all a little too "laddy" on the loose with a mix console and his parents' record collection. As far as Anglo-Saxon funk goes, I much prefer the likes of The Streets or Just Jack.

Still, it's such a good tune, especially with that metallic "wow wow" hook after nearly every verse, that it may just have to make an appearance in Electro Funk All-Stars 2.

So coming soon . . . another mix.

Come on, you didn't think you were getting off that easily, did you?

Cod reggae #1

The playlist, more or less, now available through the magic of YouTube.



This isn't a perfect solution to the Mixaloo or Finetune conundra, of course. Ideally, if I were truly in the now, I'd use iTunes to create a playlist, but, if I'm not mistaken, you have to buy all your music through iTunes in order to create a public playlist in the iTunes player. In other words, you can make your own playlist but to share it with others, you need to have spent $0.99 each on songs you already have in your own collection. Ah, capitalism.

And this isn't the entire Cod Reggae #1 playlist either. I couldn't find a video for The Brothers' "Sing Me" (it's pretty obscure, even though it was a Top Ten hit in the UK in 1977 or so) or even any songs by them. I also couldn't find videos for The Kongas' "Jungle" or Midi, Maxi, & Efti's "Masenko," although in the latter case, I included a video for their song "Ragga Steady," which should give you an idea of what this Ethiopian-Eritrean-Swedish pop group from the '90s sounds like.

I did a similar thing for Serge Gainsbourg's "Aux armes et caetera." There are two "homemade" videos for this tune in YouTube, one which has a warning before you watch it about "adult images." I watched only part of it, and as best I could tell, the so-called adult images include shots of Vladimir Lenin and Abu Ghraib's excesses, which . . . well, the latter need more exposure, although the former, the snaps of Lenin, seem positively quaint in this day and age, my snide remarks about capitalism notwithstanding. Perhaps later we could don our Young Pioneers uniforms, join hands, and sing "The Internationale" or "The Red Army is the Strongest in the World." Just for fun.

The other video doesn't have any warnings but probably should: It features a beautiful Asian nymphette in a bikini running a bath (for herself, one would assume). I decided not to use that video either (and turned away before, perhaps, I was scarred for life by what was to follow), which, in reality, is pure Serge Gainsbourg, but then so is the one of Abu Ghraib. Instead, I opted for a homemade video of the dub version of his reggae number, "Lola Rastaquouère."

I did, however, choose the "skin option" for Timmy Thomas's recording of "Why Can't We Live Together," the homemade video featuring some scantily clad babe gyrating rhythmically to the tune. What she has to do with a song about world peace, I'll never quite fathom, but I can see how she might relate to the theme of "world piece" instead.

Enjoy . . . or whatever . . . while you can. This approach doesn't necessarily resolve the copyright issue, but to be sure, if anything does impinge upon someone's copyright, YouTube will take action, remove the offending video, and, thus, seriously interrupt my studies in mixology.

But fear not: Cod Reggae #2 is coming soon to a YouTube near you.

Cod reggae #2

As promised, mix #2. Funnily enough, my tastes seem even cheesier, one might say even more Velveetastic, in visual, rather than merely aural, form.

Neat, hunh?

Pop music is not a crime

Another song about dancing/
I know you’ve heard it all before/
If i wrote a song about more serious things/
Would you want to hear some more?/
It’s just that i really like to dance/
I guess that sounds pretty trite/
Would you dance to a song about dancing?/
Guilty pleasures feel so right

Freezepop, "Pop Music Is Not a Crime"

* * *

I like to think that my musical tastes would make your mental mixtape exhausted and confused, or, worst case, give you a tension headache and causing you to lie down in a dark room for a few hours. That tape might include a tracklist like so:

• Something from an avant-garde composer such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Arvo Pärt
• A little modern and classic jazz from the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, the Cinematic Orchestra, and Eric Truffax
• Worldbeat sounds like North African rai, Bollywood, Arabic-language pop, and Brazilian samba and jazz
• Contemporary guitar-based Britpop by the likes of Keane, the Kaiser Chiefs, and Peter, Bjorn, & John (even though the latter are actually Swedish, but who's counting?)
• '70s soul and disco, including Barry White (and lots of him), Cerrone, Silver Convention, and both Thelma Houston's and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' versions of "Don't Leave Me This Way"
• '60s Merseybeat and "girl" singers like Dusty Springfield, the Dave Clark Five, and Sandie Shaw
• Anything French, particularly Etienne Daho, Air, Mylène Farmer, and especially Serge Gainsbourg
• All those trip-hop groups from the '90s like Portishead, Olive (the first album only), Mono, and "Six Underground" by the Sneaker Pimps
• Guilty, dance-around-your-bedroom-in-your-underwear-singing-into-a-bottle-of-Brut-aftershave (not that I've ever done this . . .) pleasures like the Spice Girls, ABBA, and Kylie Minogue
• Maybe some Joni Mitchell to mellow you out a bit while simultaneously making you moody, or some Carly Simon so you can see how angst-ridden and long-suffering the upper classes in our fair nation truly are
• And, lately, even a little bluegrass and classic, pre-1975 country; consider it an homage to my Dad

I will listen to the occasional opera and have even found myself liking a little hip-hop--most definitely Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot, as well as Common, Talib Kweli, and Kurtis Mantronik. I draw the line, though, at almost all contemporary Top 40 country and pretty much every last bit of gangsta rap. In both cases, I just don't think I'm either suburban enough or white enough for it to speak to my tortured soul. In the latter case, too, I just can't relate to the street-hardened billionaires who make it. You earn all those Benjamins (as one says . . .) and you blow it on an Escalade? We are *definitely* worlds apart. What about a nice Mini Cooper? You can still trick it out, though admittedly it's a bit of a challenge to fit all your entourage in the backseat.

I sometimes/often sound defensive whenever I talk about music--for example, in my previous post on the Spice Girls. Ah, paranoia, man's best friend, at least this one's. It's just that I think I'm always ready to be blasted for my curious and sometimes downright dodgy musical preferences. Consider it coming from a family of four kids who were always very passionate about their tunes and who staked their claim early to some of the best popular music on offer at the time--my sister, Beatles (enough said); my brother, the Honorary Curator of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Memorial Museum, the one-man champion of Southern rock; and my other brother, the Romeo of Duchess Lane, who first brought Bruce Springsteen home (in album form, that is), as well as a slew of '70s senstive singer-songwriters like Emitt Rhodes, all the better (I suspect) to appeal to the feather-haired, blue-eyeshadowed girls that lived in our subdivision.

School for a gay kid, at least in the '70s, was pretty much a never-ending turmoil of hiding all too poorly one's differences, and one great source of tension between the Third Sex and the Rest of Teenage Humanity were lunchroom discussions of our record collections. There were three listening choices for any "normal" American boy in the '70s--Kiss, Aerosmith, and Led Zeppelin, with maybe a pass for Deep Purple or Yes, and, seriously, maybe even for Queen, who could be forgiven all manner of eccentricities because they were British. Interesting that these bands almost always featured long-haired, flamboyant singers, some with make-up and some singing in falsetto and at least one of whom was gay. Nonetheless, they sang about chicks, cars, and partying, so they had to be straight, right? Don't confuse the issue, boy, with your homoerotic subtexts!

Meanwhile, the Lone Homosexual at the table tried to stuff his mouth full of tater tots and whole milk before anyone could ask him about his tunes. They talked about Kiss; I thought about the weekend's shortwave radio listening--namely, the pop music programs from 208 Radio Luxembourg and Radio Nederland, and wondered if Boney M would make it to number 1 on the BBC Top 20. They played air guitar alongside of Led Zep; I dreamed of attending an ABBA concert (who interestingly enough ended up recording "All of My Love"--the only Led Zep song I really like--in ABBA's studios in Stockholm--so, ha, take that pimply bullies of the '70s!) and somehow befriending the band and maybe stealing Benny (the bearded one) away from Frida or at least helping Agnetha pick out her next hairstyle. They rocked out to Aerosmith, and I funked around the living room to Parliament and Bootsy Collins in heavy rotation on my parents' console hi-fi.

To further underline the point, two of my earliest music purchases were 1) a 45 of "Waterloo" by ABBA, fresh from their win at the Eurovision Song Contest, and 2) an 8-track tape of the soundtrack to Shaft by Isaac Hayes. That pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

Musically and pop culturally, I've just never fit in--I couldn't if I tried, and I recognized that early on and went my own way, but kept it all very sotto voce, at least until adulthood.

And still . . . it's hard to fess up to these squirrelly, non-progressive tastes. The older I get I guess I'm supposed to like more serious stuff, and sometimes I do, but just as often I don't. I mean, ferchrissakes, I am 46 years old and went to a Spice Girls concert. WTF? Just call me Old Spice. I will also accept Mid-Life Crisis Spice as an alternate designation.

I'd like to think absolutely nothing is weird about that, but you try convincing a potential boyfriend otherwise. I speak from experience: I spent three years with a guy who regularly raided my Björk and ABBA collections but just as regularly ridiculed my then-fascination with Kylie Minogue and '70s soul. It was tough going, and in the end, when the going gets tough, the boyfriend is just so much extra baggage to be tossed over the side.

However, I am thinking of making the Spice Girls the Love Barometer for all future relationships. If he doesn't wrinkle his nose when I sing along to "Wannabe" on the car radio, maybe he'll get to second base on the first date (even though I'm not really sure what second base is and for gay men, most likely it's the sharing of a post-coital cigarette). If he can appreciate the '60s pop stylings of Emma Bunton's Free Me album, then there will be a few more dates. And if he toe-taps along with Mel B's hit, "Feels So Good," my favorite Solo Spice effort, then it's you + me = love, I believe.

Sounds fair, doesn't it? And most logical.

* * *

Cod Reggae: The Playlist

There really is no accounting for taste, mine or anyone else's. I get tired of defending mine, mind you, but then I haven't always been generous in my appraisal of other's tastes either. Those screaming divas from the '90s make my ears bleed; the Carpenters, especially during the holidays, make me want to set snowmen on fire and kick elves in the nuts, bless their hearts; and I've never forgiven Shakira for recording all those Latin pastiches for the English-language market, when she did perfectly good rock en español for the rest of the Western Hemisphere. But, hey, that's me.

It should be noted, though, that I am a frustrated DJ at heart. I've always forced . . . uh . . . shared my music with others through homemade mixtapes. Recently through Facebook, I've played with the Mixaloo and Finetune applications as a way, in theory, to create online mixtapes to share with friends, but which, in reality, come up far shorter than my aspirations.
Mixaloo lets you put together a compilation of up to 15 songs. You choose tunes from their library, and you can choose as many from a particular artist as you like--as long as you don't go beyond 15 songs. The choices can be limiting, though. Recently, I tried to make a compilation entitled A Gainsbourg Family Album, which featured tunes by Serge, his former squeeze Jane Birkin, their daughter Charlotte, and others who have recorded or worked with them or have been inspired by them in some way.

But I ended up frustrated--there was very little Jane Birkin to select from in the library, including practically nothing from her excellent Rendez-vous album of duets; there was no Etienne Daho, including the duet of "If" he did with Charlotte Gainsbourg a couple of years ago; there was no Mylène Farmer; and there were only a few remixes of Serge Gainsbourg tunes, although they did include an exceptional Vibrators adaptation of "Je t'aime . . . moi non plus." So at least there was that to appreciate.

Finetune was even more frustrating to play with--you could select up to a very generous 45 tunes for your mix, but only *3* of them could be by the same artist. Three Serge Gainsbourg tunes out of a body of work that spanned at least three-and-a-half decades. Sacre bleu! And there was also the issue, as with Mixaloo, of not a lot of availabilty of non-English-language music, which kind of runs contrary to the point of A Gainsbourg Family Album mix.

So I'm back to basics with my mixtapes, making them at home on a computer, the old school way.

I have started, though, to move beyond the standard one-song-after-the-next mixtape. Last year, I invested in some music software, MixMeister Express, that lets me actually make the mixtape a mixtape, that is to say, let's me mix the tunes together, match beats per minute, and add sound effects if so desired.

The first mix I did was entitled Cod Reggae. I'm not a huge reggae fan, but with what the British call "cod reggae," that's OK, I don't have to be. "Cod" in this case is short for "codswallop" or, in other words, rubbish, junk reggae. Reggae for the non-purist. In short, pop reggae. Just my size.

So, below, I present you with Baby's First and Second Remix Albums, Cod Reggae 1 and 2. In MixMeister you're limited in your mix only if you plan to burn it to a CD; then you have to limit the number of tunes to fit on a standard-sized CD-R. No surprise here, I had more tunes than I had space for (and still could have included several more--what? No Elvis Costello and "Watching the Detectives"? No UB40?). So I broke Cod Reggae into two mixes, and I was fairly pleased with both of them, if I do say so. Let's see what you think:

Cod Reggae 1

Jimmy Sommerville—“To Love Somebody”
Agnetha Fältskog—“The Heat Is On”
Althia and Donna—“Up Town Top Ranking”
Dawn Penn—“You Don’t Love Me”
Third World—“Reggae Ambassador”
Boney M—“Brown Girl in the Ring”
The Brothers—“Sing Me”
Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley—“If I Had Words”
Steely Dan—“Haitian Divorce”
Culture Club—“Everything I Own”
Dollar—“Who Were You with in the Moonlight”
Timmy Thomas—“Why Can’t We Live Together”
Tom Browne—“Funkin’ for Jamaica”
Kongas—“Jungle”
Midi, Maxi, and Efti—“Masenko”
Marta Sánchez—“Desesperada” (extended version)
10cc—“Dreadlock Holiday”
Aswad—“Shine”
Bob Marley and the Wailers—“Could You Be Loved”
Serge Gainsbourg—“Aux armes et caetera”
C. J. Lewis—“Sweets for My Sweet”
Señor Coconut y Su Conjunto—“The Robots”

Cod Reggae Mix 2

ABBA—“One of Us”
Gorillaz—“Clint Eastwood”
Marta Sánchez—“Arena y sol”
Allen Toussaint—“Yes We Can Can”
Maryam Mursal—“Lei Lei”
Blondie—“Die Young, Stay Pretty”
Lily Allen—“Smile”
Ace of Base—“Don’t Turn Around”
The Police—“The Bed’s Too Big without You”
Apache Indian—“Lovin’ (Let Me In) (Bhangra Flava)”
Kirsty MacColl—“Mambo de la luna”
Bob Marley and the Wailers—“Jamming”
Manu Dibango—“Soul Makossa”
Boney M—“Hooray! Hooray! It’s a Holi-Holiday”
Bananarama with Fun Boy Three—“It Ain’t What You Do”
The Specials—“Ghost Town”
Scritti Politti—“The Word Girl”
M.I.A.—“Bucky Done Gone”
Roxy Music—“Love Is the Drug”
War featuring Eric Burdon—“Spill the Wine”
The Chakachas—“Jungle Fever”
Grace Jones—“My Jamaican Guy”
The Clash—“Guns of Brixton”

See what I mean about my pop diet? My cheesiness is showing ("If I Had Words" by Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley, "Who Were You with in the Moonlight" by Dollar), as well as my eclecticism (ABBA mixed into Gorillaz! A cha-cha-chá version of Kraftwerk's "The Robots"! Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa," which isn't reggae in the least!).

I wish I could legally put these online so you could hear these, but, alas, I can't interpret international copyright agreements in any way imaginable so that I can do so, and I'm all about being a law-abiding citizen of our fair-to-middlin' republic, as I'm sure we all well know.

But, friends, you never know what might end up included in a future birthday box, stuffed into a Christmas stocking, hidden in your yard by the Easter bunny, or baked into a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

Mmmmm, and what could be more appetizing for the holidays than a little cod mixed with pumpkin . . . .