Ani DiFranco - "32 Flavors" (forgotten song)

Another song for Danette's birthday!  I first heard "32 Flavors" in early 1998 when Alana Davis released it as her first single off her first LP.  It was a good song and received a good bit of radio airplay, but I soon learned it was originally released by Ani DiFranco, off her 1995 LP.  And although Alana turned in a nice, shorter, radio-friendly version, it does not approach the depth and richness of the original. 

Early 1998 was right before Danette and I got together, and I had a number of significant life decisions to make.  And although Danette never said anything like this to me at the time, I imagined that she did and that's nearly the same thing:

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you're going to get hungry
And eat most of the words you just said

And after 16+ years, I can say 32 is a significant underestimate.  

Ani DiFranco - "32 Flavors" (studio), "32 Flavors" (live)
Alana Davis - "32 Flavors"

Previous birthday songs:

2013: The Green Pajamas - "Kim the Waitress"
2012: The Cure - "High"
2011: Blink 182 - "Josie"
2010:  Dead Milkmen - "Punk Rock Girl"

Let's Active - "Every Word Means No" (forgotten song)

This installment of "forgotten songs" comes from our friend Hillary, who while at dinner with Danette last week mentioned being a fan of Winston-Salem's Let's Active back in the day.  Danette had never heard of them and I only knew that there was a band by that name (probably via Terry). 

I did some poking around and their first real song was "Every Word Means No", from their 1983 EP "Afoot".  The song sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm not sure if I actually remember it or if, sounding like a cross between R.E.M. and The Connells,  it is just representative of the early- to mid-80s college sound.  The connection with R.E.M. is not accidental -- guitarist and vocalist Mitch Easter produced the first two R.E.M. LPs (as well as other bands) for I.R.S. Records.

This is the kind of band that fleshes out a musical scene, even if they are overshadowed by the scene's more central bands.  So is it new, overlooked, or simply forgotten?  In the car collecting world, we'd call this "new old stock".  Enjoy like its 1983.

Let's Active -- "Every Word Means No"

Edit: After poking around some more, I'm pretty sure I remember their 1989 song "Every Dog Has His Day", even though I could not have told you it was by Let's Active.  Regardless, "Every Word Means No" is a better song.

The Specials - "Rock Goes to College (1979)" (concert)

A couple of weeks ago, Mat and I were driving back from DC and searching for common interests on the ipod.  Enter The Specials.   We made it through their first two LPs, both of which I plan to review some day.  In the interim, I found this great concert footage recorded in late 1979 and aired in early 1980.

Apparently the BBC (and NPR-types like myself just love the BBC) had a four year series (1978-1981) called "Rock Goes To College", where up and coming bands played at college venues in the UK.  Few of these concerts are available in any format now (cf. the Pink Floyd 1970 KQED concert), but fortunately The Specials concert exists on YouTube. 

The concert is early in their career, drawing from their first LP,  EP, and single.  The track list:

• (Dawning of a) New Era
• Do the Dog
• Monkey Man
• Rat Race
• Blank Expression
• Rude Boys Outta Jail
• Doesn't Make it Alright
• Concrete Jungle
• Too Much Too Young
• Guns of Navarone
• Nite Klub
• Gangsters
• Longshot Kick de Bucket
• Madness
• You're Wondering Now

This is a fun 1979 time capsule from a great band (check out audience on stage at the end).  And in an interesting cross over with the archival aspect of my professional career, if you study all the other episodes that were broadcast you'll be hoping they surface some time too.  Hey BBC, open up your archives!

St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Live KEXP 2014-04-19 (concert)

Breaking with the metal theme of the last few posts but staying with the NPR theme of the previous post, today I feature St. Paul & The Broken Bones.  The easiest way to explain the sound of SP&TBB is that the ghosts of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the MGs, and the rest of the Stax Records back catalog have found new life, new shoes, and moved from Memphis TN to Birmingham AL. 

I suppose a critic could say they're derivative, but I think it would be more fair to say they're celebrating an established genre.  I mean, Otis died before these guys were born, and I welcome new artists revisiting classic sounds. 

I learned of them a few months ago on NPR's Morning Edition.  That NPR did a feature on these guys should surprise no one.  Joy hooked us up with their debut LP "Half The City" but until I find the time for a proper review, this four song live in the studio set will have to suffice.





BTW  -- The KEXP Youtube channel is simply amazing; tons of good stuff there.

Horseback - "Live at Nightlights 2011-11" (concert)

I came to know about Chapel Hill's Horseback by way of Butch at Squealer Music.  Last week he gave me a pointer about alt-country Mount Moriah (great stuff), and apparently the guitarist, Jenks Miller, also plays in Horseback, a sort of Crazy-Horse-plays-drone-metal band.  I thought I was posting something new and edgy but apparently NPR covered them over two years ago, so once again I'm less than timely.

I've listened to some of their studio material online, but I have to say I like this short concert better (I'm pretty sure there are just two songs).  The music is quite heavy, mostly instrumental, and the cookie monster vocals are further back in the mix and thus less distracting.  The end result sounds more like a 32 minute metal version of "Careful With That Axe Eugene".

I haven't decided whether or not to pick up one of their studio releases, but this nicely edited video is worth checking out.

Motorhead - "Ace of Spades" (spotlight)

Let's keep the Motorhead theme going... Rik Mayall died just over a month ago.  Rik, of course, played "Rick" on The Young Ones.  I'm not even going to attempt to explain The Young Ones, other than to say it was one of the many BBC shows that PBS and MTV imported in the mid-80s that were a breath of fresh air to teenagers, like myself, marooned in an otherwise dull suburbia.

I remember, like it was yesterday, being at Terry's house sometime in high school when this episode came on and Mike looked at the camera and simply said "Music!"  I was already a Motorhead fan, and "Ace of Spades" is probably their most enduring song, but The Young Ones version is especially fun.

Ace of Spades: The Young Ones version, official video

Motorhead - "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." (spotlight)

Tommy Ramone, the last of the original Ramones, died yesterday.  Tommy was originally their manager & producer but drummed on the first three LPs because they couldn't find anyone else. That is the very essence of punk.   I've only reviewed the Ramones once so far, but that has been more of an oversight rather than a conscious decision because their impact and influence cannot be easily overstated.  I remember when Danette and I first learned that Joey Ramone died in 2001 (we were still in Chapel Hill), followed quickly by Dee Dee (2002) and Johnny (2004).

How influential were the Ramones?  So influential that Motorhead wrote a tribute song for them, "R.A.M.O.N.E.S.", which appears on their 1991 LP "1916":

New York City, N.Y.C.,
Pretty mean when it wants to be,
Black leather, knee-hole pants,
Can't play no high school dance,
Fuzz tone, hear 'em go,
Hear 'em on the radio,

Misfits, twilight zone,
R-A-M-O-N-E-S
R-A-M-O-N-E-S
RAMONES

Bad boy rock, bad boy roll,
Gabba gabba, see them go,
C.J. now hit the gas,
Hear Marky kick some ass,
Go Johnny, go, go, go
Go Tommy o-way-o,

Bad boys then, bad boys now,
Good buddies, mau-mau-mau
Keep it up, rock'n'roll,
Good music save your soul,
Dee Dee, he left home,
Joey call me on the phone.

If Motorhead namechecks you... well, I'm hard pressed to think of a higher honor. 

Motorhead: "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." (live), studio
Ramones + Lemmy: "R.A.M.O.N.E.S" (live)
Ramones: "R.A.M.O.N.E.S" (studio)