Song Of The Day 005

Heya. What's good?

I've got a series of year-end good-shit lists coming shortly, but in the meantime here's a random one (and accompanying video) for you. I never really felt The Fall too hard until I heard this song. Currently listening to it for the 7th time this afternoon. Too killer.



The Fall "Smile" (from Perverted By Language, 1983)

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Back again.. hopefully things will continue like this.

My girlfriend listened to a lot of The Clean back when we started dating and for the most part, they didn't really do much for me. The exception to this was one song on their 1982 EP Boodle Boodle Boodle: "Point That Thing Somewhere Else". I'm a sucker for the Apache / Motorik beat wherever it pops up and "Point That Thing.." borrowed it to great effect. Sounding like a cross between straight ahead 4/4 Krautrock and Yo La Tengo's more propulsive moments (though YLT and their own adaptation of that sound obviously came later on) it was right up my alley at the time. Much later now, noticing a nice vinyl reissue of The Clean Compilation (which gathered most of their early work) floating around, I've revisited the early EPs. At this point I'm down with most of their material, but "Point That Thing.." still stands out, offering their best example of Velvet Underground-style repetition and escape from traditional song structure. 1982 seems a bit wrong for a song like this - the era of post-punk, full-blown hardcore, early Industrial, etc., but as with a lot of the best music, the wrong time was totally the right time.

The Clean "Point That Thing Somewhere Else" (originally from Boodle Boodle Boodle, 1982; reissued on Clean Compilation, 1986)

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Lately I've been feeling a lot of trashy, primitive, blown out, lo-fi stuff on one hand, and a lot of Krautrock (still.. always..) on the other. San Francisco psych-rockers Wooden Shjips are a natural fit, bringing the fuzz along with zoned out repetition and minimal grooves.

This track is from their recent Volume 1 collection on Holy Mountain, originally from a 2006 10" EP (right now I prefer the older material to last year's self-titled album). A lot of their songs hover around 4-5 minutes in length, maybe due to the restraints of releasing 7" EPs, but this one sees them stretching out a bit and it works beautifully. It's one of many songs I had to axe from my already bloated muxtape..

Wooden Shjips "Shrinking Moon For You" (from Volume 1, 2008)

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Big Country "Wonderland" (from the Wonderland EP, 1984)

On the strength of The Crossing and the Wonderland EP alone, Big Country are one of my favorite bands ever. No foolin. While rock history may paint them as a one-hit wonder pop act with pseudo-bagpipe guitars, dudes created some of the most incredible anthems of our time. Lumping them in with the transient, novelty- and image-driven groups that plagued the 80s is most unfair. Here's a bonus instrumental demo version, along with the video..



..and, yeah, sure, why not?

In other news, a fifth and a sixth human foot washed up along BC's coast.. oops sorry, forget that sixth one, Barack Obama enlisted a war criminal to advise on foreign policy, Blackwater requested to be tried under Sharia law, and there's a psychedelic berry that makes everything taste really wonderful (complete with accompanying industry conspiracy). What a week.

Song Of The Day 001

Right now:



U.S. Maple "Dumb In The Wings" (from Purple On Time, 2003)

After eight years of meandering, stalling and getting lost in so-called "deconstruction", Chicago's U.S. Maple finally allowed themselves to rock out a wee bit. Who knew they had it in them? It's like listening to a completely different band but I love it just the same.

Incidently, there's a documentary in the works.