Oh Hey There

Paperclip People - “Throw” (1994)
#musicdairyprojectmooooo 

At some point while playing a shitload of unfamiliar KLF tracks this morning, I gave up on actually logging every track I play this week for the music diary proj, so maybe I can just talk about some of them, like this 15 minute house music drone. Besides maybe it would be useful for me at least if I interrogated why I listened to something, instead of merely recording what I listened to.

I added “Throw” to my “current favorites”/default running playlist last week after reading this James Murphy quote last week:

As he told Artist Direct in a 2007 interview, “I like a lot of Detroit techno, where it’s lots of really short disco loops that really cut quickly. But I also don’t like it when it’s all just boring loops. If the loop itself is not a focus, then I’d rather play it, because that gives a little more life to it. But if the loop itself is the focus, then sometimes it should be left the way it is. Like listen to ‘Throw’ by Carl Craig [aka Paperclip People]— it’s obviously a loop and it’s really magic as such, and you wouldn’t want to have some dude putting some ‘feel’ into it.”

I like these loops when I’m running; in fact, I’ve ran a few times listening to E2-E4 which is more or less a 60-minute loop! Maybe it’s the rhythm, the physicality of something like dancing across a tiring distance; maybe it’s because I don’t want to feel time pass by in noticeably chunks—then wouldn’t no music be optimal? no that would be overwhelmingly dull—or maybe it’s the repetitive motion of the whole affair, locking into a single pace and trucking along. I actually don’t like to listen to most music very closely; I use it mostly for blocking sounds and replace the distracting external noise with a pretty beat to read/run/think along with. I pick up the gross and fine details of most of my favorite songs only after many many inattentive listens. 

Oh wow, doing some research on “Throw” I discovered a couple a weird “loops”. “Throw” was the throwaway” b-side to a single, the a-side of which is a remix (“Remake Uno”) of E2-E4, which if you read that LCD piece you would know provided a vague inspiration/touchstone for LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33 (see the checkerboard on the cover). Okay, not quite a loop, so much as a pretty clear musical lineage from Manuel Göttsching to Carl Craig to James Murphy—LCD also covered “Throw”.

The Smiths - Stretch Out and Wait [alternate vocal]

postpunk:

This version of “Stretch Out and Wait” recently made the rounds in my circle of Smiths-appreciating friends. It’s not a drastically different version: just some slight lyrical changes and some melodic variations. It’s quite lovely how the song rocks back and forth like a kind of angsty lullaby—stretch out and sleep! I’m not sure if Morrissey is talking about getting it on (“ignore all the codes of the day / let your juvenile impulses sway”) or not getting it on (“stretch out and wait”) or some other forces of nature pushing us around. But it doesn’t matter; for me it’s all about that swaying, oscillating carelessly between meanings and images, this way and that way, this way and that way.

it’s an icy cold hands, eskimo blood in yr veins, concrete and clay, general decay kind of day today

This Heat - Horizontal Hold (Peel session, March 1977)

somesongsconsidered:

“Rock ‘n Roll Dreams’ll Come True” – Ted Leo
(Words: Tom Sharpling and Jon Wurster, Music: Ted Leo, recorded on WFMU 3/13/2007)

New Jersey free form station WFMU is in its annual fundraiser this week, and tonight is the marathon’s flagship event when Tom Sharpling’s The Best Show on WFMU takes to the airwaves to solicit funds to fuel the station.  I’m out of range (by a couple states) to listen to WFMU in the car, but I’ll occasionally check out the live stream on their website to enjoy their eclectic mix of shows, but generally it’s to hear The Best Show.  Sharpling, a funny man in his own right, brings in hilarious guests on a regular basis (John Hodgman and Patton Oswalt are among regulars), and when the show isn’t deep in inside jokes (or if I follow the joke, at least), it’s an entertaining bit of live radio.

Ted Leo, a friend of Sharpling (Sharpling wrote the liner notes to Leo’s new album The Brutalist Bricks), has appeared on his show several times, including playing odd requests and covers in exchange for donations to WFMU’s operating fund.  His covers range from stellar (“Brass in Pocket” and a WFMU-modified “That’s Entertainment” in 2007, Blondie’s “Union City Blue” in 2008, among others) to ridiculous (Sharpling and Leo performed Streisand & Neil Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” as a duet, for instance), including “Rock ‘n Roll Dreams’ll Come True,” a Best Show inside joke.  The song comes from a bit between Sharpling and his comedy partner (and Superchunk drummer) Jon Wurster where Wurster called in as an aged rock star with very specific requirements for casting his surefire hit band The Gas Station Dogs.  During this call (which appears on the Sharpling-Wurster disc New Hope for the Ape-Eared and is worth the listen, if only for Wurster’s obsession with details), Wurster’s character Barry Dworkin performs this song, one that only has lyrics and a melody and took nearly two decades to compose.  The Sharpling-Wurster bit explains why these lyrics are inane and, well, awful, but Leo manages to make it into a catchy little tune (and even turns it into a riotous stomp on a Chunklet 7” single he split with Zach Galifinakis).  It’s catchy enough on its own, but even more ridiculous knowing why Leo committed all of these absurd words to memory. 

The Best Show airs tonight between 8-11 PM, so if you’re hanging around with nothing to do, give a listen and see what sort of odd mayhem Sharpling, Wurster, and Ted Leo have in store to try to earn operating capitol for a terrific independent station.

More on Ted Leo: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

Fuck Buttons - “Flight of the Feathered Serpent”

HEALTH - Triceratops (Acid Girls Rmx A)

I picked up the Health remix album HEALTH//DISCO on the strength of this track which I heard at a party last week. I’ve never heard any proper non-remix Health music, but I’m really digging DISCO. As a follow-up to the band’s debut LP, there’s obviously not much original source material and indeed we have three remixes of “Triceratops” and two of “Heaven” and “Lost Time”. But this works to the album’s benefit as the multiply remixed tracks serve as points of reference and return as the album develops. Thus, the whole thing plays more like an smartly curated DJ setlist. I’m a sucker for abrasive dance music—see LCD Soundsystem’s “Yeah”, Daft Punk’s “Rock and Roll”, the Justice and Crystal Castles albums—so your mileage may vary.

New Order - Every Little Counts

Low Motion Disco - Things Are Gonna Get Easier

An unlikely favorite from this week. “Low Motion Disco” is a fitting band name, since it’s too slow for dancing but you still want to luxuriate in the groove. The song samples The Five Stairsteps’ “Ooh Child”. The disparity between the two is striking. The original tells me “don’t worry, things are gonna get easier!” while this song suggests a better future but leaves the details to my imagination.