|
|
 |
 |
Green Eyes - Erykah Badu
Clocking in at ten minutes in length, the final track on Erykah's Mama's Gun album is a departure from anything else on the disc. "Green Eyes" is a multi-stage opus, beginning with a scratchy ode to Billie Holiday, singing "My eyes are green/'Cause I eats a lot of vegetables". As the signal comes clean, her foundation changes to a medley of dark piano chords set to a 6/8 swing beat, eloquently textured by a flute. The third stage busts out a layer of soft brass as she confesses "it's too late..." Absolutely brilliant--I'm a fan. |
 |
Fired - Ben Folds
When Ben went solo, his first effort showed HE was the songwriting force behind his trio, the Five. When I first heard this song in my car, I put it on 'repeat' and never got through the rest of the CD. He ends the song with a multi-tracked expletive, and a stadium-rock-your-face-off musical tirade. |
 |
Hold On Loosely - 38 Special
Classic rock seems to be viewed as a guilty pleasure by many people these days, but I have no shame in elevating this song to elite status. It's got that homegrown, sub-prog attitude. Good production, good solos, and lyrics that'll make you think--or will, at least, get stuck in your head. |
 |
Brother To Brother - Gino Vannelli
I heard this on a benefit CD for durmmer Mark Craney, who suffers from kidney failure. He performed with Gino on this live version, which smokes. Another multi-stage jam. Crazy chords, crazy rhythms, stellar playing all around. You don't hear music like this anymore. |
 |
Freelance - GC Peterson
I'm not usually one to toot my own whatever, but this is probably the most honest mix of them all, since I never thought it'd be a serial thing. Speaking of serial, "Freelance" is the theme I wrote to a screenplay I've been working on. |
 |
Where's Sly? - Medeski Martin & Wood
I listened to clips from MMW's Best Of on CDNOW a couple of years ago, and when every track inspired me, I left my job (but I came back) to pick up the CD. This track is a little more inside than some of their straight-up space jams, and it's got a sweet, urbane horn section. |
|
Little Miss Pendleton - GC Peterson
I originally wrote this piece for an athletic video down at Webster, for the "senior goodbye-tearjerker" section, and was so happy with how it turned out that I vowed to resurrect it from relegation to a momentary flash-in-the-VCR score piece. |
 |
The Want Of A Nail - Todd Rundgren
I believe the word used to describe the intro to this song in the liner notes of a recent live album was "orgasmic". Indeed. Todd wails on this track from 1989's Nearly Human, and the recording doesn't suffer from guest vocals, courtesy of Bobby Womack. |
 |
Grey Seal - Elton John
I had heard this on the radio several times, but the title is easily lost in the mix. Nevertheless, the tune smokes, with some appropriately rocket-like piano and a blazing guitar solo as it fades to black. How does it feel to be so wise? |
 |
Cissy Strut - The Meters
Probably one of the better-known (if not the most well-known) Meters jams, I just love the dirt on the guitar that makes it all the more funky, and the simmering organ, just under the surface, ready to boil over at any second. It makes me wanna shake. |
 |
O.K. - Ani Difranco
Following the uber-funky "Ain't That The Way" at the top of the long journey that is Revelling/Reckoning, this song kicks off with a guitar groove and a bass line which uniquely follows the melody. Keyboardist Julie Wolf throws down some wicked Hammond, Ani croons...and then it's over. |
 |
Note Bleu - Medeski Martin & Wood
The second entry from MMW in this mix is a slow minor blues, with Medeski getting fiendishly filthy on his overheated, heavily-treated B3, getting outside the changes enough to make your face contort into inhuman shapes before he kicks the Leslie on and rips your face off altogether. It's three minutes of undiluted acid jazz...just the way it should be. |
 |
Long Hair - 53 Large Men
This is my favorite Steely Dan song Steely Dan never wrote. Renaissance musician Matt Gaskins spearheaded the enigmatic 53 Large Men, and this track is one of my all-time favorite songs. Gaskins' lyrics emphasize the importance of having "long hair/To make it today." The chords during the "what did you say" section still amaze me, because I can't figure them out, and the outro vamp is a seamless blending of jazz-rock-fusion heaven: polyrhythms and major-9 chords. I could listen to this forever. |
 |
Girl Talk - Tony Bennett
Pick, the lead vocalist for my old band Swing Cat Swing! put this song on a tape for me to absorb, as it would become part of our live repertoire. I'd heard an instrumental version before, but I really like the way Tony croons and even chuckles his way through it, displaying his inexplicable ease, tapdancing around such vocally challenging material. The strings are lush--again, why is there no music like this anymore? It's a crying shame, but thank goodness for recordings. |
 |
The Other Me - Joe Jackson
After seeing Joe at the Sheldon in December 2000, I went on a buying spree, snapping up any out-of-print material on the threshold of obscurity and subsequent collector's prices.This disc, Laughter & Lust, was serendipitously perched on a discount rack in a used book store, and it contained this gem. Reflecting Joe's Chaplin-esque guise on the front and back covers, this tune has a theatrical whimsy about it, melismatic enough to have been plucked from a musical. The pizz strings remind me of "Walking On Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox. It works so well, in fact, that I threw it onto the aforementioned "Freelance" soundtrack. Go Joe! |
 |
Scent Of A Mule - Phish
(as I shake my head) This is probably my favorite track from the Hoist album. McCall knew what he was getting us into when he played this song. It's Phish at their absolute looniest--a smoke-cured hoedown, spiced up by Bela Fleck's hummingbird banjo playing, and some truly, TRULY bizarre lyrics ("when suddenly, at the sound of a breeding Holstein"--what-what-WHAT?). Welcome to Tomahawk County...the weather's phine. |
 |
Riverbound - Cutler/Blomberg/Freeman
This is a track performed by a bunch of guys from my high school, and I first heard it on the tribute CD to our old band director, Lance Strickland. Following "Scent Of A Mule" is a hard thing to do, but if there were a track to step up to the plate, it would be this little country narrative. Definitely not what I thought I'd hear from Jesse Cutler and Adam Blomberg, but what can I say? They're musicians--gotta change it up every once in a while. |
 |
18 With A Bullet - Pete Wingfield
This song, of course, played over the end credits to "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels", a truly great modern British heist flick. It's performed by Pete Wingfield, and it's possible the film's soundtrack is the only CD it can be found on. It's a doo-wop piece with an injection of sweet soul-funk about a musician making love to his hit single. The climax comes when the credits begin rolling to the modulation/sax solo. John Shaft, this Bud's for you. |
|
