Song-a-Day 025: Kate Nash

I'm sick of this song. I still like it, I think. I still sing along with the 'bum ba dums,' but I could go a couple of months not hearing it.

Kate Nash - Do-Wah-Doo (2010)


Can I point out, first, that the words Do-Wah-Doo do not appear in the song? Thank you.

The intro grummy guitar hook goes straight to the part of my brain that's still in love with Bikini Kill. It pops up again in the bridge. I wish the song would go with that feeling for the coda, because what it does is so busy! Piano, horns, the seemingly indefatigable hi-hat that gives way to a tambourine, back up singers. My brain stops trying to catalog what it's hearing and goes, "my my, aren't we effervescent?" What the hell is a dirty little guitar riff doing in there? What it does is pull me back into the song. Good job, Mr. Producer, I'm still listening to your song.

The thing I do like about Kate Nash is her voice. It's all floaty and nice. I appreciate the incongruence but a) her tone makes it really sound like this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black and b) what, did she kill Lily Allen and absorb her power, Highlander-style? At least when Lily Allen goes the jaded ingenue route she still sounds kinda like she might cut you.

Song-a-Day 024: Herbaliser

Found today's track via Oldhat's Mix-a-Day project on 8tracks.

The Herbalizer - 8pt Agenda feat. Latryx (2000)

Song-a-Day 023: Dr. Dog

Dr. Dog - Stranger (2010)

Song-a-Day 021: Gogol Bordello

Gogol Bordello - Start Wearing Purple (2005)

(The video is quite good as well.)

Also, check out this skeletal, progenitive version of Start Wearing Purple from 2000.

Song-a-Day 020: Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God (2008)

Song-a-Day 019: Cinco de Mayo

In honor of the day, here are my two of my favorite Spanish language songs:

Orishas - Naci Orishas (2004)


Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - El Matador (1993) (OH MAN OLD)


Wikipedia tells me Los Fabulosos Cadillacs are together again? Yay to that.

Song-a-Day 018: Rural Alberta Advantage

The Rural Alberta Advantage - Frank, AB (2008)


I am not sure what to make of these dudes, because Frank, AB goes to such a complicated emotional place and has the music to back it up, driving guitars and plaintive vocals etc, but then there's this one, which is has nice strings, but is sort of thin, predictable and safe. The plaintiveness floats over unchallenging major chords, taking the teeth out of it. And the vocals are a little sloppy in the verses, not in a "I'm making artistic choices" way, but in a "go back and record it again" way. It's sad to me, because the subject is a rich one, a great place for the deftness RAA might be capable of.

Don't Haunt This Place (2008)

Song-a-Day 017: Gayngs

So, Gayngs has kind of been on my radar a little while. Somewhere below Courtney McClean and the Dirty Curls (that is until yesterday when she mugged for my camera during the May Day parade (hooray puppets!) and went up quite a few notches) and, say, M.anifest (i.e. local artists who I should probably pay more attention to).

Holy Shit, I should have paid attention sooner. There are approximately nine jillion members, many of whom I already know and love, including the Eau Claire contingent: Joe Westerlund, Phil and Brad Cook, Nate and Justin Vernon (every one of them stellar musicians and much missed by me) and Maggie Wander, aka Dessa.

Also, incidentally, I read the Vernons are organizing a concert and music resource space in Eau Claire at the old women's college, which I had heard NOTHING about. That would be so awesome! That town needs it; it has one of the best university jazz programs in the country and so much musical talent just sort of bubbling away below the surface in so many of the sketchy, sketchy venues I went to in my squandered youth there. Good for them.

Music now.
Gayngs - The Gaudy Side of Town (2010) forthcoming on Relayted in May.

Song-a-Day 016: Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton - First of May (2003)


I saw him perform this live at the Varsity Theatre on the First of May a couple years ago. It was pretty rad.

Song-a-Day 014: Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats - Southwood Plantation Road (2002)

The Hold Steady - Southwood Plantation Road (2009); Live cover recorded in Leeds, UK

This cover is really not Remake Arena material as there's not much to judge. They basically just do it straight up. It's good, and I like hearing Craig Finn most anytime, but they didn't really do anything to it. It doesn't deserve a WIN or FAIL: it's just not a question that it makes sense to ask.

Song-a-Day 013: The Avett Brothers

I like this one for two quirky reasons:
A) Lyricised stuttering
B) Though it's pretty smooth-sounding, head-bobby pop, the singer is screaming! More of that yes. Good friction.

The Avett Brothers - Kick Drum Heart (2009)

Song-a-Day 012: Weebl and Bob / Justin Timberlake

First and foremost: I generally don't believe his music should exist. For a long time, I would have shot it into the sun if I could have. In fact, the Weebl and Bob version was the only one I acknowledged for years.

(Also I gave you some good stuff earlier today. I only feel a little bad now.)

Weebl and Bob - Pastry (2008)


But, due to some unknown and unasked for shift in my brain chemicals, I can now stand the original and get it stuck in my head periodically. I should be glad, because if I couldn't actually stand it, I'd have plucked out my eyes long ago. Also, the estrogen or whatever tells me he's attractive now? WTF, brain. WTF. If I didn't need you for my goddamn bones, estrogen, I would shoot you into the sun as well.

Justin Timberlake - SexyBack (2006)


(I will admit that the fact that the title is glommed together with a mid-word capitalization still makes me want to rip a cow in half with my bare hands.)

Song-a-Day 011: St. Vincent

Here's that St. Vincent I promised:
St. Vincent - Now, Now (2007)


St. Vincent - Your Lips are Red (2007)


She performs live with two microphones, one of which goes through a pedal that makes her sound like the sexiest 1940s radio-hour hostess you have ever heard, with that gorgeous bell-like sense of space and crackly edge of static.

Song-a-Day 010: Spoon (Live)

Spoon - Written in Reverse (2010) performed and recorded live in St. Paul, MN on 2 April 2010.


Now, all browsers seem to have recently decided to hate my computing resources, so watching video has been an issue lately. For those of you in the same boat, here's a plain mp3.
Spoon - Written in Reverse (2010)

You may note that they sound basically the same. What's the point? Well, I do like having a face to put on music. You may not agree. That's OK.

Here's the radio segment from that day in The Current studios.

I think Written in Reverse goes really well after yesterday's Tighten Up, playlist-wise.

Black Keys Followup

I told you I would look into the Black Keys and try to overcome my personal failing in not appreciating them. So. Until this afternoon sometime, there was a video on the youtube of a dinosaur puppet singing this song. That video has been pulled, which is a sad, sad thing. It was a pretty good dinosaur puppet. But this is a track from their forthcoming Brothers album that I like. This may have something to do with it being produced by Danger Mouse.

Black Keys - Tighten Up (2010)

Song-a-Day 009: Lykke Li

Lykke Li - I'm Good I'm Gone (2008)


This is also good:
Lykke Li - I'm Good I'm Gone [Black Kids Remix] (2009)

Song-a-Day 008: Black Keys

Black Keys - Strange Times (2008)



Bella suggested to me a bunch of other songs from their discography, and they're all fine songs, very back-to-basics in their way, but they seem to be missing something after Strange Times. I view my lack of appreciation as potentially a personal failing and I'll give them another go soon.

Song-a-Day 007: Estelle [feat. Kanye West]

I post this more for its potential - as the kernel of a song, I think it deserves to be alive. This suprised me about as much as it probably surprises you.

BUT. It desperately needs some kind of remix. Some kind of sure-handed, old-school, disco-preserving, non-BPM-accelerated, four-on-the-floor, self-respecting remix. Not any of those bullshit, homogeneous blur-of-sound, pitch-shifted, auto-tuned abortions of remixes some goddamn DJs try to pass off as actual music. And as soon as I can find or make one, you will hear about it.

Estelle - American Boy [feat. Kanye West] (2008)

Song-a-Day 006: Manu Chao

Manu Chao - Bongo Bong (2000)

Song-a-Day 005: Metric

Metric - Help I'm Alive (2008)



I like songs whose titles sum up the human predicament.

I also quite like the acoustic version: