i'm not the man / they think i am at home

Kate Bush

she packed my bag last night / pre-flight

This song's a great cover of Elton John's classic by Kate Bush that launches itself into a stratospheric calypso rhythm about 45 seconds in. Kate's also unafraid to keep the lyrics unchanged, so the track doesn't suffer from the transposed gender-bending that blight covers the world over, somewhere.

Kate Bush - Rocket Man (Elton John cover)

Jay-Z and Notorious B.I.G. (remixed by RATATAT)

there's always too much / for me to have enough

I'm a big fan of both the RATATAT mixtapes, and this track from the second would be my favourite.

Jay-Z and Notorious B.I.G. - Allure (RATATAT remix)

Paul McCartney


she could be a neurosurgeon / if she's doing nothing urgent

Paul. Solo. Electronica.

Paul McCartney - Temporary Secretary

Lindsey Buckingam

i should ride / on the double

Having gone his own way from Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham pursued a successful solo career culminating in the album Law and Order (which he's posing next to above) and specifically in this single, which features drumming from former bandmate Mick Fleetwood.

Lindsey Buckingham - Trouble

Tom Tom Club

it's ok / i've overstood

Tom Tom Club were a side-project of several Talking Heads members, best remembered for the single Genius of Love. This is a personal favourite of mine, along with the Lorelei.

Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood 12"

Beach House

are you coming home / are you still alone?

Beach House's third album Teen Dream is now available in full and I thought I'd post this song again in its lush album version.

Beach House - Used To Be (Album version)

two / can be as bad as one

Like Radiohead's Videotape, One proves how simple truly great music can be.

Harry Nilsson - One (Is The Loneliest Number)


Pitchfork did a 60's list a while back and I found this there, and have no plans to let it go.

Francoise Hardy - Tout Les Garcons Et Les Filles

You would have heard the synth line on this more times than you think, whether it was interspersed between Relax (Don't Do It) in the final sequence of Zoolander, or coming out of Kenneth Parcell's boombox as he did some street-performing in his neighbourhood.

Herbie Hancock - Rockit

Ain't a damn thing changed

It's my post zero at Cellosun as the first and latest, up-to-datest (single), most expatiated, least precedented unique-George-scented contributor reshackler and expander of musky tabernackle-ah, popping like snap-crackling smack to bring us back from the lack of athletic rhyme attack, sort of — and other shit.

PART 1:

"Plus my voice is fucked, so when I say 'oh!', I want y'all to say 'oh!'"

Phased from your original plan, you deviated,
I alleviated the pain, with a long-term goal,
Took my underground loot, without the gold -
You sold platinum round the world, I sold wood in the hood,
But when I'm in the street, then shit it's all good

Pharoahe Monch @ Meredith Music Festival, 12/12/09
featuring DJ BOOGIE BLIND, Showtyme, and Mela Machinko

For me Pharoahe Monch was pretty much on par with Why? for my 10 hours sleep from 60 at/around Meredith experience, and far overshadowed my enjoyment of the likes of Animal Collective — queue no-name canvas shoes, one speeds and moleskine diaries thrown at my head and missing because the limp-wristed motor skills of hipsters are sapped by the restrictions of jean-like tights and malnutrition.

Not merely a product of some serious delirium, it was an amazing set - despite being 3:20pm - especially with Boogie Blind from the X-Ecutioners (sporting an Obese Records t-shirt), with a seething, jumping fist-pumping, straight shoulder hand-slamming Egyptian-jamming crowd standing - obviously with the most well-known Simon Says as the final track making the hip-hop-headed angels look down upon the Supernatural Ampitheatre and weep with joy. The end of Monch's Australian tour, nice going if you didn't go to Meredith or see him at Prince the night before...typical you.

The X-Factor Boogie Blind, go investigate

Bush-bashing to Falls went horribly wrong for Monchhichi

Pharoahe Monch and Mos Def freestyle:

PART 2:

2/5 of Why? at Meredith

Why? at the East Brunswick Club, Tuesday 15/12/09
with Aleks and the Ramps, and Parking Lot Experiments

My second time seeing my favourite band in four days — Yoni Wolf asked where my karate kid headband had gone...it's not...I don't think of—well, it's not the biggest deal, per se...that he remembered...but, um...you know. My week was still pretty great. I guess.
Their set differed from Meredith's by including a few more from Eskimo Snow and Elephant Eyelash - Into The Shadows of My Embrace was replaced with Eskimo Snow and These Hands, and a few such as Yo Yo Bye Bye, Sanddollars, and Brooke & Waxing, Good Friday, and Gnashville were added.

They finished with 21st Century Pop Song by Hymie's Basement, a collaboration of Yoni with Why?'s guitarist etc. Andrew Broder also from Fog - it sounds exactly what it sounds like, pretty good. Then they participated in the East Brunswick Club trivia night. What a band.

Aleks and the Ramps

"I have this recurring dream where Ol' Dirty Bastard comes and teaches me tai chi, this song is about that." - Aleks

...So, I can't remember which song it was, but...still..you know? Man? Okay, just the obvious then:

Antique Limb - Aleks and the Ramps

You may have heard it on Triple J, but the chances of this decrease immediately if you have never listened to Triple J. They were heaps of fun and funny with the whole between-songs-banter thing so for Melbourners, go see them wherever they're playing next.

________________

As Big L said on Put It On: "And I'm out, I'm out, I'm out, I'm out..."

if your shower / has a fair amount of pressure

A Tribe Called Quest


can you let me know / right now

I acquired this thinking that it was an edit by Why? as opposed to being one named after the Carly Simon track it samples. But either way its a vast improvement on the original and a reminder that good things could still come out of 1990.

A Tribe Called Quest - Bonita Applebum (12 inch Why? edit)

Positive K

what's your man / got to do with me?

This is actually an shortened adaptation of the original song by Positive K done by Hot Chip on their DJ Kicks compilation (the one that saw My Piano's debut). Incidentally, their new album isn't far off, but if One Life Stand and Take It In are anything to go by it might fall well short of Made in the Dark. But back to this; a minute or so of rhyming interspersed with pleading that sadly cuts off "peewee herman" at the very end.

Positive K - I Got A Man

Why?

it sounds like a screaming school of fish

I finally saw one of my favourite bands at the Meredith Music Festival, when Yoni Wolf and co. took the stage for an elaborate, foreplay-like soundcheck. Without dwelling too much on just how great they are, here are two of their more unknown songs, both coming before the heady glory of the album Alopecia. A Little Titanic is taken from Oakandazulazylum, while 500 Fingernails is off the Sanddollars EP and also had an airing on Why?'s Almost Live.

Why? - A Little Titanic

Why? - 500 Fingernails

Thanks again to Jack and George who can claim equal credit for introducing me to Why? and especially to George, who is going to be writing on here in the very near future.


Themselves ft. Why? and cLOUDDEAD


watching me fold / any chance you might have had / at a tryst

I would have nearly missed this if it hadn't been for the beautiful hypem, with three of the best signings to the label Anticon collaborating on this song and Yoni leading the way.

Themselves ft. Why and cLOUDEAD -Rappin’ For Money

Blue Orchids

i'm sorry / to bother you

Many thanks to Conway from the great band Toyota War (go check them out). In a review they were likened to The Fall's singer Martin Bramah's band Blue Orchids, and although there are a few differences the most striking similarity of both band's singers stands out. A very appropriate song for that special time of year we call Change of Preference week.

Blue Orchids - Bad Education

Phil Collins


if you feel it / do it

Rounding out this post is an adjustment to a great tune from the Phil Collins album Face Value which featured on a micromix compiled by Geologist (of Animal Collective fame) for Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox. Astute observers will note that the picture above isn't of Phil at all, but a still of Bowie from the movie Real Cool World. If it's still, it's not moving; justification?

Phil Collins - I'm Not Moving (Idjut Boys edit)


Stay tuned for more things from George soon

and neither one / particularly / appeals to me

Beach House

are you not the same / as you used to be?

These two songs are taken from Beach House's forthcoming third album, Teen Dreams; Norway in particular is an especially blissful track. Teen Dreams is out on the 26th of January next year.

Beach House - Norway

Beach House - Used to Be

DJ Shadow

no wonder / the sound has so much body

Credited as the grandfather of underground hip-hop, this song comes from DJ Shadow's breakthrough album Entroducing. It samples heavily from Giorgio Moroder's Tears, taken from Son of My Father.

DJ Shadow - Organ Donor

The Lovin' Spoonful

back of my neck / getting dirt and gritty

A song for all time. It might just be me, but the guy on the bottom left looks scarily like Michael Palin.

The Lovin' Spoonful - Summer in the City

The Specials

why must you record / my phone calls?

I foolishly ruled out two-tone ska like this from music for next year's play. You're left listening to this and wondering what might have been...

The Specials - Gangsters

The Smiths

and if the day came / when i felt a natural emotion

I realize The Smiths are a bit of a recurring feature here but decided to share my favourite song of theirs regardless; the Peel Session version of Nowhere Fast. 1.50 minute mark...

The Smiths - Nowhere Fast (Peel Session '84)

i've been down so long / it looked like up to me

J Dilla

can't you see / it's me that loves you

Another song from one of J Dilla's 3 Beat Tapes, this track sampling the Supremes heavily for a breathless minute and a half.

Track 04 - 3 Beat Tapes #1

Diva

Diva is one of my favourite films, even if its extremely hard to track down. I won't destroy this film du look classic by a plot synopsis but will prvovide this song, the recording of which drives the plot in absurd and beautiful directions.

La Wally - Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez

Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood

she reassured me / with an unfamiliar smile

A reissued vinyl of this duo's LP is one of my prized possessions. I've shared Some Velvet Morning before and after acquiring a more portable mp3 version of the album I've been devoting a lot of my time to Ladybird and Summer Wine.

Nancy Sinatra surely needs no introduction - not only is she the daughter of the ultimate Stranger in the Night, but also the singer on the Billy Strange-arranged Bang Bang. Strange also arranged the songs on this LP, another notch in a belt that has spanned most of the 20th century (most notably including a writing credit on Little Less Conversation). Hazlewood's work with Sinatra is much less maudlin than his profligate solo output but this is every bit as good as what I think is his finest work in isolation, My Autumn's Done Come.

Summer Wine - Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood

Billie Holiday

i long to try / something i never had

Kerouac mentions this beautiful song amongst the coruscating rhythms of jazz and bop that punctuate On the Road and Holiday's truth and sadness stands out, even in such Beatific company.

Lover Man - Billie Holiday

The Smiths

take me out / tonight

I wrote a 3000-word document on music of the period in which Alan Bennett's play The History Boys is set for the director of next year's Autumn Production, accompanied by two cds. On the first The Smiths featured heavily, alongside The Cure, New Order and Joy Division, while the second was a much more ostentatious exercise in showing off the eclectic (Zoolook etc.)

My favourite Smiths song is the John Peel '84 session of Nowhere Fast - the section after 1.50 should be showcased next year - but this is almost as special.

The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

all mine / all mine / all mine

The Triffids

David McComb

come ride / come ride / this pleasure slide

In the first half of this I'll be throwing you in the deep end of the swimming pool that is Australian post-punk, indulging in a lot of Triffids, before trying to balance that metaphor with the circus-style, literal balancing act of Canadian husband-wife italo-disco. And if you think focussing on Australian music is bad, be thankful I'm not including any Essendon Airport...this time.

The Triffids' lead singer, David McComb, died in 1999. Even if the complications from a car-crash injury that eventually killed him, he had spent many years gradually tipping himself over the edge through alcohol and heroin abuse, to the point where he needed a heart transplant at the age of 34.

It's so easy to overlook this branch of Australian music and its influence across the world, even while bands like The Saints are far more acknowledged. It's a strange fate suffered by post-punk bands like the Triffids but overwhelmingly like Gang of Four, to be immensely influential, loved by today's most famous artists (U2 and Chilli Peppers for Gang of Four, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave for the Triffids) but now largely ignored, and also telling that the Triffids record label, Domino, is now host to artists like Franz Ferdinand. Incidentally, as a hypocritically responsible digital citizen I've started including links to places where you can buy albums that songs featured are taken from. But either way:

This first song was recorded by the legendary John Peel for the Field of Glass EP; its certainly longer than many of the band's other works but is easily one of their best. McComb shows here why he was held in the highest regard by artists like Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, and established himself alongside Cohen, Dylan, and Morrissey as one of the best lyricists of the 20th century.

The Triffids - Field of Glass

Domino Records - Beautiful Waste and Other Songs

The following don't do the same justice to the singer's voice or even to the band itself, but are of interest in terms of watching the band's development throughout their early years. The tracks are all ripped from cassette tapes released by the band and as such the quality leaves much to be desired, but they're still great even if you're unfamiliar with the Triffid's work. Instead of giving you a link to somewhere you can buy them all, because there isn't one (unless you count here), go and check out Vagabond Holes and Beautiful Waste, two books recently published, the first a collection of essays and other writings about McComb and the other a collection of his poetry.

And bless whoever was obsessively kind enough to put all the pictures of the tapes themselves alongside track listings on Wikipedia.

Tape #2

you're such an authority / and all

The Triffids - I'm Not Losing Sleep

Tape #4

she thinks she's a natural / but i think she needs tuition

The Triffids - Actress

Tape #5

there's a six-car pile up / on memory lane

The Triffids - Pile Up

Tape #6

now the orderlies / take your elbow

The Triffids - The Marrying Kind

The Triffids - No Desire

Lime

a moment / like forever

This should be what you need if you've been driven into a state of high maudlin by West Australian melancholy. I could really go for one of those lime spiders right now...

Lime - The Party's Over

Lime - Greatest Hits

Panda Bear

tried to tell me / how to do it

Hopefully the shark won't get him before Meredith and AC will play Comfy in Nautica as part of their set...

Panda Bear - Search for Delicious

Panda Bear - Person Pitch

Television

i remember / how the darkness doubled

Ten minutes of brilliance from 1977.

Television - Marquee Moon

Television - Marquee Moon

i cannot say for sure the reasons for his decline

- David McComb, "Tender is the Night"

i'll be your mirror / reflect what you are

The Flaming Lips

she keeps wishing / for a secret society to call

The Flaming Lips are releasing their album Embryonic in the near future (already tipped by some as their White Album equivalent, slightly sad we had to wait for their 12th until this happened), and if the three songs they've released are any musical litmus test then it should be very good indeed. Here's one of them, getting a lot of airtime on JJJ at the moment.

The Flaming Lips - Silver Trembling Hands

Moby

don't speak to me that way / don't ever let me say

Moby is headlining this year's Falls Festival alongside the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (I would love to see them both, but bearing that in mind I'd even rather see both Animal Collective and Why? at Meredith, but that's another saga in a sentence...), and I include two songs of his latest album below, as well as Alice from Last Night, which I have a tendency to overplay on my earphones while wandering around, absently tapping the rim of my coffee cup, before performing.

Moby - Mistake

Moby - Walk With Me

Moby - Alice

J Dilla

anyone could see / you're the one for me

There are a lot of very dedicated J Dilla fans out there who would happily devote their entire lives to reconstructing his immense back catalogue. I'm a bit different: I hate his pure hip-hop. What a heretic! But hear me out.

His sample-driven work - most notably the album Donuts - is sheer brilliance, and the extent to which it is immensely, superlative-most-heavily good, just emphasises how shallow a grave his other work digs in the disco-topography. These very short song snippets below are by no means well-known, as I had to get them from the musical-acquiring equivalent of "the back of a truck": short (all a minute or less) sample-heavy songs from tape recordings which showcase his immense talent. Track 27 from 3 Beat Tapes in particular is quite special: enjoy!

J Dilla:

Track 7 - MPC 3000

Track 12 - MPC 3000

Track 27 - MPC 3000

Track 3 - 3 Beat Tapes #1

Track 4- 3 Beat Tapes #1

Track 38 - 3 Beat Tapes #1

Hot Chip ft. Robert Wyatt and Geese

what is it i don't remember / made my being so much better

I spoke about touching coffee cups earlier, Rob took it to heart...Hot Chip re-imagined several of the more quiet songs from Made in the Dark with the aid of Robert Wyatt and the interspersed remixing talents of Geese on a four-song EP. According to their Twitter their newest and keenly awaited album is "in a brown paper bag on two USB sticks"; yet another reason to love the interweb.

Hot Chip ft. Robert Wyatt - One Pure Thought (Geese remix)

i really want to watch diva again