Staff Blog
10-Track Mind: Pelusi’s Revenge
Hi, my name is Mike. I write the column Under the Rock for the CP's music section.
Once upon a time, I was an assistant editor at the paper. That was a long time ago, yet my tenure is still subject to historical revisionism. Clearly, the only appropriate forum where I can clear my name is a 10-Track Mind of my very own. Let's do this.
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1. "Time Fades Away," Neil Young Please don't tell Neil I downloaded this! Time Fades Away is one of only two of Young's albums from the ‘70s that have yet to come out on CD. I've heard a variety of reasons: Neil hates this album; Neil hates the sound of CDs in general; the master tapes are missing, etc. So of course the thing is all over the internet. TFA is a live album of all then-new songs, performed by Young while blitzed out of his gourd on tequila. The title track shit-kicks up a storm, with some definite bad vibes. Opening line: "14 junkies, too weak for work."
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2. "Born Slippy (Nuxx)," Underworld I am not a huge electro/techno/dance music fan, but if you were to own one such track, this would probably be in the running, wouldn't it? For us non-dance people, this song is intractably linked with its use in the final scene of Trainspotting. And, probably for that reason, "Born Slippy" has gained a weird status as practically Britpop. Well, it is catchy. You know, now that I think of it, I do have more than one dance-type song on my iPod.
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3. "Good Times," Quasi This song opens with a spooky/trippy loop of gospel singers - pretty good segue from Underworld. This is one of Quasi's almost-optimistic songs, if not the only one. Their last album (which this song is not from) was unfairly overshadowed when Janet Weiss' other band, Sleater-Kinney, broke up and had a big, ballyhooed final tour. On my grumpiest days (don't ask which ones those are) I can easily go through all the Quasi music on my iPod.
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4. "Let Him Run Wild," The Beach Boys This is one of the songs from the period right before Pet Sounds, where Brian was beginning to stretch out as a writer and arranger, and the songs were getting much sadder. The chorus actually swings, like a jazz ballad. The whole indie-rock-worshipping-Brian did get out of hand in the late ‘90s, but this song holds up.
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5. "Cool Summer," Bob Lind Another decent segue! Another melancholy love ballad. Bob Lind was a soft-pop singer in the ‘60s. His biggest hit was "Elusive Butterfly," which I don't think is very well-known now. My favorite band, Pulp, wrote a song called "Bob Lind" on their last album, and I got this track from The Trip, the mix CD that Pulp members Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey put together last year. Oh, and read my Pulp blog, dammit.
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6. "Telephone Line," Electric Light Orchestra Christ, these songs make me out to be a real pussy! Eh, fuck that kind of talk. Jeff Lynne is more of a man than you'll ever be. This is ‘70s space-age radio-pop at its finest - take that, Todd Rundgren! Two years ago, I went as Jeff Lynne for Halloween and I looked exactly like him! And then I lost the film with all the pictures. As good an argument as any for digital cameras. Nevertheless, I'll wear the costume again someday. I promise.
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7. "Sea Shanty," Quasi Another Quasi song, my favorite Quasi song, as a matter of fact. This is the version from the limited-edition Live Shit CD, also underrated, as limited-edition things generally are. On this song, Sam Coomes uses a botched mutiny as a metaphor for the point in your life when you begin to suspect your work, and your life, is truly in the shitter. "Repair the hull, replace the sails/ The monkey wrestles with the ghost/ And a thousand little pleasures form a thin veneer/ Over lack of hope." At some point in your life, this song will mean a lot to you. There's a couple drum fills in here which completely explain every word of praise ever said about Janet's musicianship. Judging from these tracks, most of my collection is wuss-pop or bad-vibes-rock. That's probably right on.
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8. "Some Other Time," X Like Quasi, X also contains a once-married couple. And I believe this is one of their cheating songs. X is my favorite punk band; they seemed more interested in real stuff happening to real people than political rhetoric. I happen to think the real-people stuff is more political than liberal grandstanding. In other words, I'm ready for Rage Against the Machine to break up again.
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9. "Dead End Street," The Kinks Hoo boy. This is not the famous 1966 version. This is a live version from their last album, To the Bone, from 1996. The Kinks - my second-favorite band - were on their last legs by this point, and it was pretty sad most of the time. But To the Bone - in addition to containing some real clunkers - showed some actual signs of life, and this is one of them. They nearly pulled victory from the jaws of defeat, and no one noticed. I think that says a lot about this band, and rock music in general.
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10. "White Devil's Dream," Quasi Come on!
(Michael Pelusi blogs at undertherock.blogspot.com and musicfromabachelorsden.blogspot.com)
“Some Other Time” is not only my favorite X song (with X being one of my favorite bands), but one of my favorite songs of all-time by anyone period. Anyway, great choice!
[...] 9. "Girly Drink Drunk," Swisher (self-titled) Getting a second song from Swisher right after getting a second song from Caterpillar, I considered linking to the YouTube clip of Gob from Arrested Development saying, "Come on!" like Mike Pelusi did when Quasi came up for the third time in his list. I won’t do that for two reasons: (1) That would be a little glib following what I wrote about the first Swisher song. (2) The clip has been removed from YouTube. [...]
[...] 9. "Girly Drink Drunk," Swisher (self-titled) Getting a second song from Swisher right after getting a second song from Caterpillar, I considered linking to the YouTube clip of Gob from Arrested Development saying, "Come on!" like Mike Pelusi did when Quasi came up for the third time in his list. I won’t do that for two reasons: (1) That would be a little glib following what I wrote about the first Swisher song. (2) The clip has been removed from YouTube. [...]