Another random hour with my iPod

Because the last time was kind of fun, no? Here, selec­tions 4,761 to 4,779 on my still-on-shuffle music machine.

“Factory Song,” Skeleton Crew, Learn To Talk (1984)

Back when this music­al pro­ponent of virtuosity-filtered-through-deliberated-rawness was just the incred­ible two-one-man-bands of Fred Frith (left) and Tom Cora. (They added anoth­er multi-instrumentalist, Zeena Parkins, for their second album, The Country of Blinds.) The sound (and the head) was an amal­gam of art-rock, Eastern European Folk, Woody Guthrie, the Goons, and much much more. No doubt Frith had heard crit­ic Robert Christgau’s com­plaints about his former group Henry Cow’s putat­ive agit-prop being aca­dem­ic; enscon­sed on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for much of the early ’80s, he redefined his music to fit his real­ity while all the time stay­ing him­self. As for Cora, what a pas­sion­ate mad­cap and fount of musical—and comedic—creativity. At one Crew CBGB gig he played cello and a mini-drum kit sim­ul­tan­eously, all the while tak­ing bites out of an apple he had stuck to the hi-hat’s pull rod. Cora died of melan­oma in 1998. Frith sol­diers on, teach­ing at Mills College and con­tinu­ing to make amaz­ing music; his latest pro­ject is the group Cosa Brava, his first rock combo in quite a while, fea­tur­ing Parkins among oth­ers; its debut album Ragged Border is just out and highly recommended.

“Drop That Sack [Common Take]” Louis Armstrong, The Complete Hot Five And Hot Seven Recordings (2000)

If you haven’t heard by now, well, take it from an embittered, pride-hurt you-know-what-critic: Louis Armstrong inven­ted mod­ern pop­u­lar music, and in the ’20s, with his “Hot” bands, is when he star­ted doing it. You can hear him in everything that came after him if you listen hard enough. And besides that, he’s just a joy to listen to for his own sweet self. And he was the greatest trumpeter. 

“Laugh, I Nearly DIed,” The Rolling Stones, A Bigger Bang, (2005)

A rather shock­ingly fine latter-day Stones album, don’t you think? This track in par­tic­u­lar car­ries strong intim­a­tions of the best parts of Goat’s Head Soup. Sure, Jagger does­n’t mean a word he sings any­more, but he’s mak­ing a very pro­fes­sion­al effort. 

“Bang, Bang Rock & Roll,” Art Brut, Bang, Bang Rock & Roll (2005)

“I met a little girl/She sold me a pill/It tasted like shit/and it made me ill./Watch my body twist and jerk/I just wanna find/a drug that works.”

“Clap Yo Hands,” Chris Connor, Chris Connor Sings The George Gershwin Almanac of Song (1957)

I lunched recently with a friend who con­fessed that, as much as he appre­ci­ated that Ella Fitzgerald was great, she mostly left him cold. “And note,” he added, not without frus­tra­tion, “I hate Sarah Vaughn.” “So what do you do when you wanna hear the song­book,” I asked. “Chris Connor?” He con­sidered, and nod­ded. “You could do worse.” Indeed. Connor’s crisp and smokily cool rendi­tions of Georgie’s tunes are sly, witty, affec­tion­ate, nev­er sentimental.

“Bailarcito (Little Dance),” Peter Walker, Echo Of My Soul (2008)

To answer a com­ment­at­or’s ques­tion from last time: well, yeah, I love the gui­tar, and gui­tar­ists, and espe­cially gui­tar­ists who bring new inflec­tions to the stand­ard Western styles. This guy’s been around togeth­er but is a rel­at­ively recent dis­cov­ery for me, an acous­tic mas­ter who blends Spanish and Indian styles into his acous­tic approach, much as Sandy Bull did. But Walker’s a bit more down-to-earth, if you will. Very rich stuff. 

“Spider’s Web,” Mission of Burma, The Obliterati (2006)

Critics who dis­miss the reform­a­tion of the Boston-based post-punk clamorers as a mis­placed nos­tal­gia trip aren’t listen­ing very hard. As evid­enced by this disc in par­tic­u­lar, these guys are not only bring­ing the noise as hard as they ever did, but adding new dimen­sions to it. 

“Cotton Crown,” Sonic Youth, Sister (1987)

Their pre­vi­ous EVOL had some in my rock-crit circle at the time won­der­ing if they were turn­ing into some kind of L.A. band; when Kim and Thurston har­mon­ized “New York City is forever kitty” on this track, we knew we had them back. In that dumb rock-crit circle way of “know­ing” things, I mean. 

“Maajan (A Taste of Tangier),” Davy Graham, Folk, Blues & Beyond (1964)

Speaking of pion­eer­ing acous­tic gui­tar­ists who syn­thes­ize inter­na­tion­al approaches and accents…man, this guy, who died in 2008, was the god­fath­er. Without him, there’s likely be no Page and no Clapton on the elec­tric tip, and no Bert Jansch and Paul Simon on the acous­tic. (SImon covered Graham’s clas­sic instru­ment­al “Anji” on his very first solo album.) This sem­in­al album is a mon­ster, each track a gem.

“Subway Heart,” Massacre, Killing Time (1981)

Frith again (he ded­ic­ated one tune to Graham on his recent solo acous­tic album), this time rede­fin­ing the power trio with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher. I heard Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist Flea enthus­ing to Laswell about his bass line for this very track in the base­ment of Maxwell’s back in ’84. As the group name implies, this stuff kills.

“Kew. Rhone.” John Greaves, Songs, 1995

The Greaves/Peter Blegvad com­pos­i­tion fea­tur­ing the pal­in­drome I once had occa­sion to praise on this blog, here voiced by the very great Robert Wyatt, one of my all-time favor­ite sing­ers and musicians. 

“Expendable Productions,” Mordant Music, Dead Air, 2006

Electronic music with a…not quite nos­tal­gia for a bygone day but an obses­sion with the musti­ness of all that was once thought to be mod­ern, influ­enced by old would-be space age jingles, vinyl LPs of lib­rary music, and elev­at­or tones. Very cool!

“Rice Pudding,” The Jeff Beck Group, Beck-Ola, 1969

“A wall-shaking throw­down which puts the ‘men­tal’ into ‘instru­ment­al.’ ”—Charles Shaar Murray, from the liner notes of the CD reissue.

“Throned By Blackstorms,” Immortal, Battles in the North, 1995

Exceptionally pro­fi­cient Norwegian death black-metal, if you go for that sort of thing, which I some­times do. Very silly vocals, though. Guy sounds like Gollum talk­ing in his sleep or something.

“Mrs. Robinson,” Simon and Garfunkel, Old Friends [com­pil­a­tion], 1997

Now that’s what I call fiercely avant-garde! 

“Soup Song,” Robert Wyatt, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, 1975

Ramshackle jazz (not even jazz-rock) whimsy, with the great Gary Windo honk­ing away on ten­or as Robert anthro­po­morph­izes a slice, or slab, of bacon that resents being thrown into a broth. Great stuff from anoth­er, yes, essen­tial record. 

“As You Said,” Cream, Can You Follow [Jack Bruce com­pil­a­tion], 2008

Not one of the super­group’s greatest hits, but an enga­ging pre­curs­or to the knot­ti­er work Bruce would do in his soon-coming solo career; this ori­gin­ally appeared on the group’s second-to-last album Wheels of Fire.

“Bonjour Gioacchino,” Faust, C’est com…com…complique, 2009

Very heavy stuff from Jean Herve Peron and Werner “Zappi” Dermaier, the biggest extro­verts of the German rock pion­eer band’s ori­gin­al lineup. 

“Shakin’ All Over,” Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Rockin Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly [com­pil­a­tion], 2006

This was actu­ally a hit in 1960, but who’s count­ing. One of the great gui­tar licks of all time. I’m gonna teach it to myself one day.