Musical Prozac

For the past few years I’ve seen bits and pieces of press on Girl Talk but shrugged it off until I heard Greg Gillis on Sound Opinions a few months ago. I’ve been dragging ass since I got back from the States this weekend. I downloaded Girl Talk’s new record, Feed The Animals, which can be downloaded for whatever price you want to pay. While I went to catch my bus to work this morning, I felt much better after hearing this on the iPod. Don’t like what you hear at the moment, don’t worry, it will change in seconds. It’s a great way to hear little snippets of favorite guilty pleasures in ways you never imagined. Check it out. You can download for free if you are skeptical. --J

Sound Opinions on Conan

I am a huge fan of Sound Opinions. Since moving to England, listening to the weekly podcast is my Saturday morning ritual. I don’t always like what they have to say, but I love the format, which usually covers a variety of music and also gives time to opposing opinions when they play caller’s sometimes nasty feedback.

They were recently on Conan and it was a very good interview, Conan was awesome! My favorite quote from Conan during the interview was, “You’re just trying to start trouble and see where it goes…I have a brother like that”. The story about Bono calling Greg Kot was great. Other moments in the interview:

The Doors, three heterosexual guys talking about not understanding The Doors does not surprise me at all. They wouldn’t get the sex appeal of Jim.

In my opinion, there was a very obvious topic not discussed, Bruce Springsteen. DeRogatis usually takes every opportunity available to him to trash Springsteen. Just listen to his review of Magic. I wonder if he just thought it was in good taste to avoid the topic in front of Max Weinberg or if he was asked not to mention it. –J

P.S. The interview with GirlTalk on their latest podcast was very interesting.

Spoon on Sound Opinions

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Spoon featured on the latest Sound Opinions episode. I listen to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga often during my weekend commutes and it is by far my favorite album of 2007. Check out the podcast. --J

Congratulations R.E.M.

I heard that R.E.M. was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I was happy to hear this and it got me listening to Document and Green on my latest road trip. But for some reason, the following quote from Peter Buck has stuck with me more than this monumental occasion for the group. He was recently on the radio show Sound Opinions and the two hosts were kissing his ass giving him I guess what they think is their ultimate compliment, telling him that he too could be a most excellent rock critic. He responded with the following:
"The reason I could not become a rock critic is because you quite often have to listen to music you don't like and to me, that is just torture. It's one of the reasons I don't go to dinner parties because someone else has control of the stereo. It's like first of all they're cookin for me and then I gotta deal with that, and then on top of everything else, they always play something I just have to, you know, only a really dumb person would play this record. I just can't say that. It's a physical sensation to me, really bad music just I mean, it makes me really pissed off in a way that just almost nothing else other than traffic and root canal does". Hahahaha! --J

One Train Later - Andy Summers

Having some time off for the holidays and no travel planned gave me the perfect opportunity to read One Train Later and then obsess over early Police records. Even if you aren’t a fan of The Police (I don’t want to know if you aren’t), this book tells the tale of a seasoned musician with way more experience than I had realized. Unexpectedly, I couldn’t put it down. Some interesting points were:

Andy was more interested in contributing something new to the music scene than becoming a British blues guitarists like Eric Clapton who copied the legends of the American South. Eric and Andy traveled in the same musical circles and at one time, after Eric’s ’59 Les Paul is stolen, he hounds Andy to buy his since he has the only other ’59 Les Paul in London and he is getting ready to record with Cream for the first time. He sells it to him and the rest is history.

Hearing his description of meeting and seeing Jimi Hendrix play in his early days was fascinating.

Reading about Sting being totally hoodwinked by a Canadian keyboardist who was trying to wedge his way in as the fourth member into the now successful band was amusing.

This fall I read a book written by the drummer of Semisonic who, in the grand scheme of things, had minor success. I wondered what the inside story would be like if the band had monumental success. Well, here’s the book. While you get the impression that the band did not make a conscious decision to go out on top as they did, instead it was motivated by Sting’s call to the lute, they did just that. Could you turn on the radio in 1983 and not hear a single from Synchronicity? What’s totally refreshing in the end is that Andy is not bitter about the way it ended. As I read the book, I found myself scrutinizing the cover, looking for the name of a ghost writer. There is none that I could find, but this book is shockingly well-written. If you aren’t a reader, but want to know more, check out the Andy Summers interview on Sound Opinions. He distills the essence of the book on the air and also once again, proves what a gentleman he is by not taking the bait and dissing on one particularly famous former bandmate. –J

Death's Soundtrack

I heard about this poll on Chicago Public Radio's Sound Opinions and like them, couldn't believe the results...


I shouldn't be surprised by some of these selections. In fact, if this poll was done in America, some of the Brit artists like Robbie Williams would be replaced by some extremely literal country songs. My mother-in-law died this year and my sister-in-law picked out the music for the funeral service which included a country song where the singer was pleading with the listener to not be sad because they were in a better place. My husband H. was sitting at the front of the funeral home with immediate family and even in that most somber moment, turned to me and gave me a look like, "What the hell is this?"

H. always says that I tend to answer a question with a question but when I was thinking about what I might choose for my funeral, the only thing that ran through my head was, how do I die? Depending on that, the musical selection would be quite different.

What's the moral to this story? James Blunt still sucks and people with bad musical taste die. --J