I'm going to start doing intermittent @mcc style "What I'm listening to today" type toots. I've really enjoyed her recommendations and writeups, and I want more of that kind of thing.
What I'm listening to today: "Let's Pretend" by Labi Siffree (pronounced "Labby Siff-re").
This is fundamentally a protest song, but it's protesting basically everything. It was released 50 years ago, but still feels pretty relevant today.
What I'm listening to today: "Do It Good" by Bill Withers.
This is a deep cut that closes out the A side of his first album. I really like the improvised in the studio energy of this track; the jazzy drumming; and the vocal style that's almost edging into rap territory.
And that "Mr. Jones, Booker T." he mentions in the middle? Yep, that's the frontman of Booker T. and the MGs, who produced it & played guitar and keyboards.
What I'm listening to today: "No Anesthesia" by Stone.
Stone was a successful, short-lived, highly influential Finnish thrash band. This is the title track from their second album, an absolutely epic ten-minute thrash ripper.
None of their albums got significant distribution outside Finland, making them nearly unknown outside their home country, and their music is still difficult to find. They had the chops and timing to ride the same wave that pushed acts like Metallica into the mainstream, but I guess they didn't have the management or label to take advantage.
CW: BDSM
What I'm listening to today: "Contaminant PCB" by Contagion.
This album is a thick slab of early 90s EBM by a relatively unknown band, even by the standards of the niche genre. This kind of raw & in your face industrial is definitely my jam.
What I'm listening to today: Rage Against The Machine - First Public Performance Full Concert (HQ)
This is a fixed-camera video of Rage's first concert, in 1991. For a show that happened before the first album was even cut, performed a few months after recording their first demo, everything is remarkably well-formed. These are some of the Rage songs you already know -- even a nascent version of Killing in the Name, which wouldn't get a complete release for five years -- and they absolutely rock. Rage had the chops from day one. What an amazing thing to just wander across these dudes playing at a college, right as they were on the cusp of superstardom.
What I'm listening to today: "Dead Meat" by Bolder Damn.
This is the closing track from this nigh unheard-of underground Ft. Lauderdale heavy psych garage rock band, and it's an absolutely epic banger.
There's not much info about them, and they vanished without a trace. The little info I've found is that this whole album was recorded live in studio, which tracks.
Fortunately, the album has seen two modern-day CD rereleases, so it's not as impossible to find as it could be.
What I'm listening to today: "Parents" by Budgie.
This is the absolutely incredible song from their third album, Never Turn Your Back on a Friend, which closes the album out and makes up a quarter of its total runtime.
I love the guitar solo on this song so, so much. Just an incredibly sweet guitar tone, great phrasing, really tells a story. Just phenomenal.
Budgie was another of those really influential bands that never made it big.
> Burke Shelley has said that the band's name came from the fact that he, "loved the idea of playing noisy, heavy rock, but calling ourselves after something diametrically opposed to that".
What I'm listening to today: "The Feast" by Noorvik.
An absolutely epic instrumental prog metal banger from this German band. Fifteen minutes really lets this thing breathe its hypnotic, heavy, multilayered Thing straight into your brainholes.
I have no idea how this got onto my Bandcamp wishlist, but I'm glad it did.
What I'm listening to today: "Jams from the 80's: Recreated on Synthesizers"
This is just a delightful, super satisfying video of someone covering 80s synthpop songs on the same models of synths used to originally make them. Highly recommended.
What I was listening to last night: "Songs From Under the Floorboard - OFTS Teaser #1 and Much MUCH More"
This is the archived copy of the weekly post-punk/darkwave/synthwave/sometimes edging into industrial show that airs locally here on XRAY FM; it's one of my favorites, and I try to listen every week. They're all good, but last night's was notably great, especially the second half.
What I'm listening to today: "Harvey Danger - Wine, Women & Song (Demo)."
Remember Harvey Danger? They did that one song? This is another song, also by them.
This song was originally released on the "Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes)" EP, then rerecorded for the "Little by Little" album. I first heard it while rummaging through a friend's music library in 2006, in an album called "SXSW 2005 Showcasing Artists," a MP3-only promotional release of artists who played that festival.
The album version of the song is okay, but the demo is Great. The performance on the demo is perfect: great emotion, great phrasing, clever lyrics. Without drums, it's driven by the rhythm of the piano and melody of the vocals, not quite ballad, but not really a Rock Song either. The only real Production here is a bit of reverb on the piano. The minimalism really emphasizes the vocal performance, which has great tone and emotion. Just a fantastic take, absolutely nailed it.
What I'm listening to today: "The Panacea - Mortal Sin."
This is a fantastic drum & bass song. Takes a bit to get going, then cranks the intensity to the max.
This is a pretty rare track from Panacea, I first heard it on the Ad Noiseam label sampler/retrospective. I miss that label, they put out a ton of great stuff.
What I'm listening to today: "Bloodywood - Rakshak."
This is a pretty bangin Indian folk-nu-metal crossover album. I'm really enjoying hearing some new takes on the genre as metal expands and mutates and becomes a more diverse & inclusive genre in the 21st century; this has a lot of that goodness.
Music post containing discussion of accident / severe injury
What I'm listening to today: "The D.O.C. - Return of da Livin' Dead."
The D.O.C. was a very promising Texas rapper, who nearly died in a car crash six months after his first album. The crash crushed his larynx and severely damaged his voice, but he went ahead and released two more albums. This is off the first, which is a pretty odd artifact. It's uneven and has some very weird stuff, but this song is amazing. It's experimental and grimy and hits super hard. His voice is an evil rasp that works perfectly in this context, and the lyricism and flow are astonishing, even before you realize how hard he must have worked to do it. It's a completely unique sound, and I love it.
https://hip-hopthegoldenera.bandcamp.com/track/return-of-da-livin-dead
What I'm listening to today: "Depeche Mode 1982-03-30 Rainbow Club, Oberkorn, Luxembourg (HQ video)."
The quality of this short live set from 1982 set has to be seen to be believed. It's a pro level recording, with multiple angles and audio right off the soundboard. It looks and sounds *incredible*, and captures a strange and important transitional era of the band. Vince Clarke had left, and the band was in the process of recording their second album (A Broken Frame) as a trio. And even though Alan Wilder was in the band (and performing with them here), he didn't participate on ABF, even though it wouldn't be released until the end of the year.
ABF is a terrific gem, one of my favorites, and this is a rare, uncommonly clear look into its era.
This live set also has another connection to the band: it was shot in Oberkorn; around a month later, the B-side of "The Meaning of Love" was a song called "Oberkorn (It's a Small Town)," which was written by Martin Gore as the opening track for the tour this show is from.
I treasure when I find a historical live set with fantastic quality like this. Really going to miss that in the impending post-YouTube era.
"What I'm listening to today" posts to resume shortly.
Since February is Black History Month, I'm going to endeavor to share a song by a Black musician I love, every weekday, for the entire month.
What I'm listening to today: "Martha and the Vandellas - Heat Wave."
An absolute classic, this song is an early example of the popular Motown sound and helped catapult the band -- and the label -- to fame. Heat Wave was an enormous hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard R&B charts and staying there for over a month.
It's far from a deep cut, but it's one of my very favorite Motown songs, and its feel-good vibe feels perfect for a Friday.
What I'm listening to today: "Cybotron - Cosmic Cars."
This is the second single from Cybotron. Along with their first single, Alleys of your Mind, the duo of Juan Atkins and Richard Davis created and defined the early techno sound. Techno music is pretty white these days, but... it came from Detroit in the late 70s and early 80s, of course it was created by Black artists. They were both influenced heavily by Kraftwerk and Parliament-Funkadelic, and both are readily apparent.
One can trace back a lot of the decline of Detroit directly to racism. Extensive redlining meant that 80% of all home deeds had restrictive covenants preventing their sale to non-whites by 1940. In the postwar era, this meant that returning white veterans could use the G.I. Bill to buy new homes, but Black veterans could not. The structural inequality and white flight decimated the tax base and set the city up for failure.
What I'm listening to today: "Black Death - The Hunger."
This is a deep cut from the 1984 self-titled debut of Black Death, a band you’ve probably never heard of. Hailing from Cleveland, they were the first all-Black heavy metal group. While they were active from the late 70s through the late 80s, this is the only album they recorded during that period.
The band was reformed in 2014 as Black Death Resurrected and a different lineup, and released a second album in 2015.
Like a lot of smaller 1980s metal bands, the sound quality leaves something to be desired, but their musicianship shines through -- as you might expect for a band that had been together for around 7 years at the time they recorded this.
What I'm listening to today: "Cab Calloway - St. James Infirmary Blues."
Cab Calloway recorded a ton of different versions of this folk blues standard, and this is a real good one, originally recorded for a Betty Boop cartoon. I’d prefer to see the man himself, rather than the animated version, but this is the only version I can find with this specific recording that I love. Calloway was prominently featured in a few Betty Boop cartoons.
He was a pioneer: The Minnie the Moocher single was the first record by a Black musician to sell a million copies. He was the first Black American to have a nationally syndicated radio show -- in the 1930s. A consummate musician and entertainer for six decades. What an absolute treasure he was.
What I'm listening to today: "Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - Scorpio."
I have a hard time writing about Grandmaster Flash, because he’s such a toweringly important figure in music that there’s nothing I can say that will capture his staggering influence. So let’s say: I don’t think rap music would exist in a recognizable form without him. He either invented or significantly advanced early sampling, looping, and the notion of the modern party DJ, so you can throw techno, raves, and mashups on that list, as well as anything downstream from those. I’m hard-pressed to think of another individual that’s had such a tremendous impact on our music and culture.
Let’s talk about this song. I could have picked The Message, which is instantly recognizable, but I like to dig a little deeper. So here’s Scorpio, which is a terrific song showcasing the experimental side of the group, and a fantastic early techno banger.
Based on having replayed this song about eight times so far this morning, it really might end up being all I listen to all day. It's just that good.
What I'm listening to today: "Bill Withers - Do It Good."
Okay, it’s Bill Withers. Ain’t No Sunshine. Grandma’s Hands. Lean On Me. Just The Two Of Us. You almost definitely know some or all of these songs, because they were massive, massive hits that have remained very popular for decades.
This is not one of the hits, it's a really lovely track off his first album that got made up in the studio in between takes. It’s irreverent, a little vulnerable, and superbly executed. I like how it showcases Withers’ playful side, since most of his hits are more serious. Everyone in that studio is such a tremendous talent that even a little sub-three-minute track about recording the other songs is just shockingly great. Every instrument is super tight, the drum groove is infectious, Bill’s voice is incredible as always, and it’s an utterly charming, delightful song.
What I'm listening to today: "Labi Siffre - Let's Pretend."
Labi Siffre is a singer/songwriter who had a successful solo career in the 1970s. These days, he’s probably most recognizeable indirectly — Eminem’s Top 40 hit "My Name Is" is entirely built around a sample from the back half of Labi Siffre’s 1975 song "I Got The."
I think that’s a shame, because Siffre’s original work is really great, and I think he deserves way more recognition. He’s a Black, openly polyamorous, openly gay man, an antiracist, and his lyrics are packed with so much love for the good in humanity.
This is "Let’s Pretend," off his 1973 "For The Children" album, and it’s a protest song. It’s anti-war, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and captures his disillusionment with the profound gap between the professed ideals of religion and its leaders’ actions. It’s a savagely critcical song, but takes the high road of love to express it. It’s beautiful, and I’m feeling its message more than ever these days.
If you’d like to read a bit more about Labi Siffre, this interview with him from 2022 is a very good read: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/31/i-had-the-perfect-life-then-both-my-husbands-died-singer-labi-siffre-on-love-loss-and-happiness
What I'm listening to today: "Pharrell Willaims - Happy."
You’ve probably heard this one before, but it remains a favorite of mine. It channels such pure, universal joy that I can’t help but smile and feel a little better when it’s playing. I don’t have the words to capture the cosmic-scale goodness of these vibes, so please just give it a listen and soak them up.
Side note, I’m linking the music video, because it’s just so, so good. Packed to the gills with shared humanity.
What I'm listening to today: "Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Learnin' the Blues."
I’m going to assume y’all are at least aware of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, since they’re two of the most talented and influential jazz musicians ever. But maybe you didn’t know that they collaborated on three albums for Verve between 1956 and 1959.
This song is off the second of those, "Ella and Loius Again," from 1957, and it’s just terrific. It’s got a bit of everything and is a real showcase of their impressive and diverse talents. They’ve got great chemistry on all these albums, and seem like they really enjoyed being in the studio together. Just a lovely song, featuring two amazing Black musicians being amazing together.
What I’m listening to today: "Charles Bradley - Stay Away."
This is an absolutely astounding Nirvana cover, off his 2011 "No Time For Dreaming" album. It’s got such great atmosphere, such great arrangement, and Bradley’s voice is just great. I love the decade-spanning anachronism of it: a 2011 cover of a 1991 song, in 1971 style.
Sometimes known as "The Screaming Eagle of Soul," Bradley spent a lot of his youth doing James Brown impersonations, and his musical career didn’t really get going until he was in his 50s -- something I find inspiring as I careen into that decade of my own life. It’s never too late.
What I’m listening to today: "Zeal & Ardour - Tuskegee"
Zeal & Ardour is a Swiss project led by Manuel Gagneux which mixes black metal with Black spiritual music. It’s a winning combination, and they’ve got a really great sound with a lot more range than the typical black metal band.
I’ve shared a lot of upbeat and joyful music this month. This song isn’t; it’s a song of righteous anger at injustice. The song is "Tuskegee," off their 2020 "Wake of a Nation" EP, and it’s about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, one of the most horrific incidences of systemic racism of the 20th century.
If you’re not familiar, I strongly recommend you read about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
What I’m listening to today: "Funkadelic - You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks"
Funkadelic is half the P-Funk Collective, featuring George Clinton and a rotating cast of musicians. Funkadelic is the heavier and more experimental of the two bands, fusing classic funk and psychadelic rock. They were hugely influential (and very commercially successful), defined the sound of funk for decades to come, and directly influenced the techno and hip-hop genres. Some of the best and most important Black musicians rotated through one or both bands, spreading the funk far and wide.
This song is off their third album, Maggot Brain, from 1971. It’s the final album with the original Funkadelic lineup before they split, and it’s incredible. Intense, dark, heavy, and of course funky as hell. An iconic album in every way.
The song itself closed out the first side of the LP, and touches on love and diversity bringing people together, and class consciousness. An extremely relevant message, not just for the era it came out — in the depths of the Vietnam war, when most of the public was dead-set against it — but for our own, as well.
Also, did you know Funkadelic is on Bandcamp? Funkadelic is on Bandcamp.
https://funkadelic.bandcamp.com/track/you-and-your-folks-me-and-my-folks
What I'm listening to today: "Nina Simone - Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair"
This is a version of a very old folk song — old enough that its origins are obscure, though it definitely came from Europe, and some believe originated in Scotland. Its modern popularity stems from a version recorded in the 1940s.
Nina's take on this song is sublime, stripping it down to some minimal piano accompaniment (which she plays), and her voice. This works beautifully, because she was an *incredible* vocalist, and her singing washes up and over and carries you clean away. She made this song hers.
She recorded multiple versions over the years; this is the first, from 1959, off her At Town Hall album. This concert, and this recording of it, are the inflection point at which her career took off and she rose to decades of recognition and fame. It was the third album she released in 1959. She was 26 years old.
What I’m listening to today: "Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady."
A lot of musical artists tend to get viewed in a very narrow way, decades of success reduced down to a handful of hits. Aretha Franklin is an extreme example of this; I’d wager that most people can name a handful of her songs and know she was Big Famous, but the scale of her career is downright staggering. Her first album came out in 1961, when she was eighteen years old; her last, in 2014. She released *thirty-eight* studio albums, eight live albums, and dozens upon dozens of singles and compilations. And you just don’t hear all that good stuff unless you go looking.
Franklin put her fame to good use, funding civil rights groups and supporting Indigenous people. I like this quote of hers a lot: "I've been locked up (for disturbing the peace in Detroit) and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can't get no peace."
This song isn’t particularly obscure — it reached #9 on the Billboard Top 100 — but I’d never heard it until recently. This is pure feel-good dance music, combining Aretha’s fantastic gospel style singing with a wicked fun funk groove and makes you want to get up and move.
It’s off her 1972 _Young, Gifted, and Black_ album, which shares a connection with yesterday’s song — the title track is a cover of a Nina Simone song, and the cover is, maybe, a reference to Simone’s _Four Women_, another song well worth listening to.
What I’m listening to today: "The Sequence - Funk You Up."
This is one of the earliest rap songs to get released commercially. As with the origins of a lot of musical genres, history is somewhat murky, but for some context, this was the second rap single ever issued by Sugar Hill, in 1979; the first was _Rapper’s Delight_. This song isn’t the invention of the genre, but it’s certainly the dawn of it. It’s also the first rap record released by an all-woman group, and was produced by a woman — Black women were a critical part of the formation of rap.
The song is both great on its own, and an interesting historical artifact. It’s charming and infectious, with a terrific funky bassline and catchy hook. It’s unmistakably rap, but the influences of funk, soul, and disco are crystal clear. It sounds like they used session musicians for the backing, rather than drum machines and samples. The extended version (which was the B-side) emphasizes these aspects even more.
Going to share both sides of this single, because they’re interesting to compare and I just can’t get enough of this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flG4hOD3wZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBuAH68G8Q
What I’m listening to today: "Body Count - This Is Why We Ride."
Body Count is a metal band founded by Ice-T and Ernie C in 1990, and other than a three-year hiatus in the aughts, have been steadily releasing absolutely ripping albums of socially conscious metal rooted in their experiences growing up Black in the United States.
This song is one of my favorites of theirs; it’s got a great, wistful atmosphere, and examines their experiences of growing up poor and Black and the lack of opportunity and protection afforded to them and the millions of others like them. This is off their 2017 album, "Bloodlust," and it’s one of their very best — if you enjoy this song, I strongly recommend you give it a full listen.