Songs from the County Hell: The Devil Mixtape

Stay on the other side of the road
'Cause you can never tell
We’ve a thirst like a gang of devils
We’re the boys from the county Hell
--THE BOYS FROM THE COUNTY HELL, 1984

I admit it, I looked at someone else’s devil tape. It’s the only way to explain how Van Halen appears below. Plenty of better artists on that other list, but somehow it inserted that song directly in my head and now I can’t get it out. It’s ironic because that was an embarrassing mistake of a schoolboy album purchase, the first VH LP was, but now it’s come back to, ahem, haunt. Please don’t click the link.

Similarly, “Devil With a Blue Dress On” is included here for one reason only, and that’s the rare mention of a wighat. I’ve only ever come across the term here, in the Cramps’ “Call of the Wighat”, and in Tommy Tucker’s “Hi-Heel Sneakers”. Seems like something the devil would don.

The Pogues like to sing about the devil and about hell. They even use "Straight to Hell" by the Clash as their stage entrance music. "The Boys From the County Hell" could win the Grammy for Best Insult in a Lyric, should it ever be nominated:

At the time I was working for a landlord
And he was the meanest bastard that you have ever seen
And to lose a single penny would grieve him awful sore
And he was a miserable bollocks and a bitch’s bastard’s whore

Robert Johnson was the bluesman who was said to have sold his soul to the devil in return for talent – a talent which included writing at least three haunting tunes about his mythical benefactor. Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a California kid who I found unappealing – the way he looked, the way he sang, and the way he appropriated from Robert Johnson for his band, the Gun Club (pictured above with Kid Congo Powers, seated)—but in "Preaching the Blues," he (along with Ward Dotson on slide guitar) got a truly diabolical result.

"Handsome Devil" is one of the Smiths harder rocking songs; I’m pretty sure it was the B side of their first single. Morrissey would hate being on a mixtape right next to someone like Tricky. I don’t think "Hell is Round the Corner" mentions the devil, but Tricky (pictured, left) does a nice job looking like him in the video, while producing a song that sounds like it's coming from an underworld cave.

The Devil Mixtape

Devil’s Haircut – Beck
Devil Dance – The Devils
Race With The Devil – Gene Vincent
Friend of the Devil – Grateful Dead
Preaching the Blues – The Gun Club
Devil with a Blue Dress on – Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels
The Boys From The County Hell – The Pogues
Whiskey You’re the Devil – The Pogues
Hellhound on my Trail – Robert Johnson
Me and the Devil Blues – Robert Johnson
Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil) – Robert Johnson
Sympathy for the Devil – The Rolling Stones
Makin' Deals – The Satans
Handsome Devil – The Smiths
Hell Is Round the Corner – Tricky
Runnin’ With the Devil – Van Halen

Here’s a link to BD’s The Devil mixtape. I did not look at this list (which has four of the same songs) before I made this tape.

The Pride of Poverty

When they busted my chops over That Summer Feeling, it sent a chilling effect through the site. So cold it got, that I’ve now lost for the first time in several mixtapes. But for what it’s worth, I’m partial to the Rolling Stones’ version of Money, but I like the original too…I wanna thank Jace the Ace Face for a brief flirtation with DC funk in the 1980s, with Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers’ succinctly titled “We Need Money” one of the better examples on record…And finally (so soon?) I remember watching this clip of Elvis Costello when it first aired on Letterman about 26 years ago. In fact, for some strange reason, I recorded it on my ghetto blaster (built-in mic recording output from TV speaker), and kept it on an actual mixtape which is still kicking around the gaff. An embarrassment of riches this aint, but there is a pride in poverty.

The Poor Man's Rich Man Poor Man Mixtape

Money, That’s What I Want – Barrett Strong
The Poor Orphan Child – The Carter Family
We Need Money – Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers
Bankrobber – The Clash
Fortunate Son – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Man Out of Time – Elvis Costello
Poor Paddy on the Railway – The Dubliners
Big Boss Man – Jimmy Reed
Promised Land – Johnny Allan
Sometimes I Wantcha for Your Money – The Milkshakes
I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Everyday – The Pogues
Money, That’s What I Want – Rolling Stones
Do Re Mi - Woody Guthrie

Here is a link to the winning mixtape. Check out some Japanese folkies rocking the last entry from BD’s homeboy.

That Summer Feeling? (Redux)

Blogger deleted one of my mixtape posts. There was a copyright complaint. This is the first time I've been exposed to such a thing, and I assume it was because of the three MP3 files linked to the post. (They don't explain what the particular infraction was, just delete the whole post.)

I'm wary of posting portable versions of copyrighted works (i.e. MP3s). I've only posted stuff that is presumably in the public domain, or came from an obscure non-commercial source, or was out of print for decades because there's no market for it. I only post the odd tune, not whole albums. We'll see if any of my other posts get zapped; I wonder why only this one did.

I'm reposting it again, this time without the link to any portable musics.

Monday, December 01, 2008

That Summer Feeling?

The local radio station played a set of summery songs the other day, thumbing its nose at the season that’s in it, and in the meantime reminding me of a one-hit job that should be on the Summer mixtape. Len’s (or is it LEN’s?) charming nerdpop illuminated some year or other approximately a decade ago, or at least its one hit “Steal My Sunshine” romp did…At least two tracks here – “Parklife” and “Rockaway Beach” – are included because they put me in mind of a warm summer’s day without necessarily being explicit about it….But it is just the start of winter where I am, and so bracing workouts of “School’s Out” and “Surfing USA” seem just a bit silly right now…

The Undertones are here twice, because despite their dour appearance on the cover of their first LP, here was a band that actually sounded like summer, notwithstanding the one track that namechecks the season. Something about Feargal Sharkey’s high vibrato vocal and two bright rhythm guitars that evokes hot pavement, bright skies, and sweat…Jonathan Richman recorded "That Summer Feeling" at least twice, but here's a live version from a 1983 tape called The Penthouse Radio Show. It's been sitting in my attic for a very long time and needed to be heard again...

The Summer Mixtape

School’s Out – Alice Cooper

Surfing USA – Beach Boys

Parklife – Blur

Summer School – Bucky and the Premiers

Under the Boardwalk – The Drifters

Summertime Blues – Flying Lizards

That Summer Feeling (Live 1983) – Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

BONUS TRACK: I’m a Jerk (Live 1983) – Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

The Trip – Kim Fowley

Sunny Afternoon – The Kinks

Steal My Sunshine – Len

Summer in Siam – The Pogues

Rockaway Beach – Ramones

It’s Up to You – Shop Assistants

June Rhyme – The Stingrays (London)

Here Comes the Summer – The Undertones

Under the Boardwalk – The Undertones

Island in the Sun - Weezer

Here's a link to the original Summer mixtape tracklisting.

Motor Boys Motor: The Cars Mixtape

The Milkshakes (featuring Billy Childish and Mickey Hampshire) were, to coin a term, extra-retro, that is, not simply revivalists or nostalgia merchants, but a group of artists respectful of past traditions who also actually improved on the original. (The original, in this case, being Cavern/Star Club-era British beat.) Kid Vinil in Brazil wrote in his blog about a show he saw where the Milkshakes opened up for Link Wray at the Electric Ballroom in London in the early 1980s. Google Translate mangles his native Portuguese:

But it was there that understand the intent of the sound of Milkshakes "garage" in their smallest detail.

The sound was dirty, the amplifiers were all old vintage, and the voice of Billy was connected to an old valve amplifier that sent you a few boxes of estouradas and voice distorted.

Initially I was disappointed with the technical quality of the sound, as expected at the main stage with all that paraphernalia of light and sound.

Now the originality and authenticity of sound Sixties thing that moment was priceless, it seemed that I was back in time and was seeing a band called the "British Invasion" in the 60s. The show of Link Wray was spectacular, but the brightness of Milkshakes that night was in my memory for ever.

It’s in my memory forever too – I was there, and also at a few other Milkshakes gigs, most memorably at the legendary Hope and Anchor pub in Islington. Listen to their take on Bo Diddley’s Cadillac to hear this sense of respect for tradition without stooping to mere tribute; listen to their own composition – Jaguar – to hear a straight-faced British twist on the long-established American tradition of singing about cars.

Demo Portability X 2:

Check out two (2) demo versions of the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” and also two (2) demo versions of the Beastie Boys’ “Car Thief”.

The Cars Mixtape

Car Thief (Demo) - Beastie Boys
Car Thief (Demo 2) - Beastie Boys
Hot Rod Racer - Dick Dale
[Brand New] Cadillac – The Hergs
Rocket 88 - Jackie Brenston
Gas Money - Jan and Arnie
Jaguar – The Milkshakes
Cadillac – The Milkshakes
Cadillac Walk - Mink Deville
Roadrunner (Demo) - Modern Lovers
Roadrunner (Demo 2) - Modern Lovers
Helen Wheels - Paul McCartney and Wings
Phantom Wheels - Scooter Gil and the Accents
Boss Hoss – The Sonics
2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson Band
Low Rider - War


Here's the original Cars tape.

Dandelion Whine: the Flowers Mixtape

When there’s no future
how can there be sin?
We are the flowers in the dustbin
--GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, 1977

When critics said the Sex Pistols were nihilistic, this must have been the line they were referring to. It's not fair. Nihilism suggests immorality, but with this couplet, John Lydon evokes something more like thoughtful exasperation, and, more poignantly, deep sadness. But at this point, you would be right in thinking: "I thought this was supposed to be a mixtape about flowers?"

A shamrock is a flower, right? Close enough. I've been looking for an excuse to put the Royal Teens, the band behind the original "Short Shorts", on a mixtape. "Sham Rock" would be one of the sleaziest grooves ever made were it not simultaneously so innocent...



Flowers grow where? In gardens -- that's where. In "Beautiful Gardens", the Cramps updated Kim Fowley's cartoon acid trip vibe featured on the last mixtape. The track here is from a cassette bootleg I bought in Camden Market 25 years ago, featuring live versions of most tunes from the Psychedelic Jungle LP...Psychedelic is also the theme of Pebbles Volume 3, the album that brought Chrystal Chandlier's "Suicidal Flowers" to my attention. While the singer featured there provides adequate back-up for Jim Morrison, the Better Sweet is an early Grateful Dead doppelganger on "Like the Flowers", featured on volume three of the Bad Vibrations compilation series.

The Flowers Mixtape

Like The Flowers – Better Sweet
The Wildwood Flower – Carter Family
Suicidal Flowers – Chrystal Chandlier
Beautiful Gardens (Live 1981) – The Cramps
BONUS TRACK: Don't Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk (Live 1981) - The Cramps
BONUS TRACK: Primitive (Live 1981) - The Cramps
New Rose – The Damned
La Vie En Rose – Grace Jones
Rose of My Heart – Johnny Cash
Give My Love to Rose – Johnny Cash
Orange Blossom Special - Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs
Blue Flower – Mazzy Star
Sham Rock – The Royal Teens
God Save the Queen – Sex Pistols
Apple Blossom – White Stripes
Blue Orchid – White Stripes
Pictures of Lily – The Who
Dandylion Clock - Wild Billy Childish & the Musicians of the British Empire
Psycho Daisies – The Yardbirds

Here is the track list for BD's Flowers tape.

Together Forever: The Wedding Mixtape

I was ready to concede right away; I just didn’t have much of anything on topic for weddings. Of course I took this literally (I mean, look at what I’m doing with this project – if I’m not overly literal, who is?). There’s Pretty Thing, my favorite Bo Diddley recording, which I would play at any wedding in which I was put in charge of the music (as the bride walked down the aisle, of course)… Bryan Ferry talked about taking wedding vows in Let’s Stick Together… And of course there’s Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups, which Jonathan Richman says he recorded in the 70s only because he heard that Iggy Pop liked the song…

Then I saw that BD’s list had some stuff that was not necessarily about the ceremony itself, just about being married. It occurred to me that extending the meaning could include quite a few more songs about husbands and wives, marriages, being together forever, etc. But a lot of those—like Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, Someone Must’ve Nailed Us Together by Len Bright Combo, and Married With Children by Oasis—are more about unhappy marriages potentially splitting at the seams. As such, I could have possibly held them back for the Divorce theme, which is next on the list, and they might have fit in just as well. Others—including Wouldn’t It Be Nice by the Beach Boys and Semaphore Signals by Wreckless Eric—are simply dreams about the possibility of someday getting hitched. Meanwhile, the 70s funk classic leading off the mixtape is all about not getting married, and getting shacked up instead. Turns out to not be a bad tape at all, but I’m left feeling a little dissatisfied (and, it’s a little too short), so I will take the hit on this one.

The Wedding Mixtape

Shack Up – Banbarra
Wouldn’t It Be Nice – Beach Boys
Pretty Thing – Bo Diddley
Let’s Stick Together – Bryan Ferry
Peggy Sue Got Married – Buddy Holly
Chapel of Love – Dixie Cups
Melancholy Serenade (Honeymooners Theme) – Jackie Gleason Orchestra
Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division
Someone Must’ve Nailed Us Together – Len Bright Combo
Married With Children – Oasis
Wedding Ring – The Stingrays
Semaphore Signals – Wreckless Eric

Here is a link to BD’s winning wedding tape.

Whoa Dad: the Fathers Mixtape

The Vietnam War flick Apocalypse Now did more for Jim Morrison’s career than anything he did himself while he was still alive, bringing The Doors to a generation of teenagers too young to have known their seamier side in real-time, even if they remembered their Top 40 hits from always being on the radio. The oedipal pomp-rock opus that ended the film (“The End”) paved the way for more pop music daddy dissing in subsequent years.


But your dad won’t understand
That our love is true
And I can’t leave you here
So he...can hit on you
--24 HOURS TO VEGAS (1984)

Daddy likes men
--WE’RE A HAPPY FAMILY (1977)

Dear Daddy, I write you, in spite of years of silence
You cleaned up, found Jesus, things are good or so I hear
This bottle of Steven’s awakens ancient feelings
Like father, step-father, the son is drowning in the flood!
--SAY IT AINT SO (1994)

“The Mad Daddy” is the Cramps’ tribute to the Cleveland beatnik DJ and original horror movie host Pete “Mad Daddy” Myers, who debuted on WJW in Cleveland in 1958…Just like in the Notorious B.I.G.s “Big Poppa,” in Ella Mae Morse’s “Shoo Shoo Baby”, references to “papa” and “daddy” are clearly terms of sweetheart endearment. Or are they? The WWII soldier sayanara song never properly resolves this question…Spoonie Gee’s “The Godfather” serves the same purpose as Roxanne Shante’s “Big Mama” (see the Mothers Mixtape), at least in terms of boasting his parentage of rap. His paternal claims came earlier, in 1987, but eight years after the pioneer MC’s first record…

The Fathers Mixtape:

The Mad Daddy – The Cramps
Diddley Daddy – Bo Diddley
The End – The Doors
Shoo Shoo Baby – Ella Mae Morse
24 Hours to Vegas – The Huns (Iowa 1984)
Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag – James Brown
Daddy and Home – Jimmie Rodgers
Big Poppa – Notorious B.I.G.
Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway – Gerry Rafferty
We’re a Happy Family – Ramones
Son of Byford – Run DMC
Listen to Your Father – Feargal Sharkey
The Godfather – Spoonie Gee
Papa Was a Rolling Stone – The Temptations
Whoa Dad – The Trashmen
Gone Daddy Gone – Violent Femmes
Say it Aint So – Weezer

No Xmas for John's Cache

And the Christmas lights, they blew up
Now the leccy's all gone dead
I look like a coal miner
And I've a pain inside my head
--A CHRISTMAS LULLABY (1996)

I’m not gonna dwell on the negative, but this theme is woeful. Both the theme itself and my attempt to make a tape. It’s like the baseball theme – there’s just so few songs on topic that are any good. Two of my favorite artists from the borough of Queens – Run DMC and the Ramones – both made very forgettable Christmas songs late in their careers, leaving a bad taste, so I’m not gonna bother with them. It’s ill-timed too, so let’s just get it over with, concede to BD, and move on.

Little Saint Nick – The Beach Boys
Christmas Greetings – The Beatles
Merry Christmas Baby – Chuck Berry
Little Drummer Boy – Bing Crosby and David Bowie
Santa Claus is Back in Town – Elvis Presley
No Xmas for John Quays – The Fall
Christmas Episode 1946 – Jack Benny Radio Program
Run Rudolph Run – Keith Richards
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
A Christmas Lullaby – Shane MacGowan and the Popes
Santa Claus – The Sonics
Comanche (Link Wray's Christmas) – Wild Billy Childish & the Musicians of the British Empire
Jesus Christ – Woody Guthrie

Bob Dylan's victorious Xmixtape.

Locked Up: the Jail Mixtape

Back in 1981, someone pointed out to me the macho cartoon aspect of The Clash, mostly in their choice of lyrical content and song/album titles. I wasn’t too interested in that kind of analysis at the time, but I filed away the information anyway. Visual image-wise, of course, they loved dressing up. Sometimes you’d see pictures of the group and they would look like bikers-- other times, they would be cowboys, policemen, soldiers, foppish dandies (is there any other kind?) -- or all of the above. That’s it! The Clash were the Village People!

I’m not sure if they ever dressed up specifically as jailbirds, but they certainly looked liked some kind of prisoners on the cover of their very first single. Some editing was required to get the Jail Mixtape to include only three Clash songs. In Jail Guitar Doors, they sang about real-life musicians who fell foul of the law, including Peter Green, Wayne Kramer and Keith Richards. Stay Free was a sweet ode to a thieving friend. Julie’s Been Working for the Drug Squad was inspired by the bust of a drug factory in Wales, IIRC.

They put him in a cell, they said ‘you wait here’
‘Now you got the time to count all of your hair’

Other jail songs on the tape feature more serious crimes, including at least three murders. You'll have to scroll down, though. Too clever by half with the Jail song table -- there's a big blank space and I can't get rid of it:

Song	Artist	Crime(s)	Sentence(s)
Worried Man Blues	The Carter Family	Went across the river and lay down to sleep	21 years on the R.C. Mountain line
John Hardy	Billy Childish	Murder (multiple)	Death
Jail Guitar Doors	The Clash	Deals of cocaine / gun threat / heroin possession	2 years / institutionalized / out on bail ($25,000)
Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad	The Clash	Illegal manufacture of tablets…in their millions	10-25 years
Stay Free	The Clash	Went on a nicking spree	Three years in Brixton
Jailhouse Rock	Dean Carter	Unknown	Unknown
007 (Shanty Town)	Desmond Dekker	Looting and shooting	Probation
Folsom Prison Blues	The Huns	Shot a man in Reno just to watch him die	Life (implied)
On Parole	Motorhead	Looking for fun / forgot the reason	Forever and a day / parole
Prison Cell Blues	Blind Lemon Jefferson	Nell	Undetermined number of days
The Old Main Drag	The Pogues	Vagrancy	Beaten and mauled at Vine Street lock-up
Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos	Public Enemy	Draft dodging	Serving time in the state pen
The Auld Triangle	Ronnie Drew	Unknown	Death
Your Funeral and My Trial	Sonny Boy Williamson II	Threat of murder	None--yet
Prison Cell of Love	Werly Fairburn	Love	Love
Bad Lee Brown (Cocaine Blues )	Woody Guthrie	Blowed his woman down	Life in the penitentiary

Traditional music features heavily when it comes to the Jail Mixtape, but not everything is pure roots. There's comedy, too, from Motorhead, and from Public Enemy:

I got a letter from the government the other day
I opened and read it
It said they were suckers
They wanted me for their army or whatever
Picture me givin' a damn - I said never

For such an over the top song, I find its opening verse hilarious. Chuck D. deserves credit for inserting humor where you least expect it: there's plenty of wit dispensed throughout his otherwise often angry oeuvre.

Other stuff: I used to see Ronnie Drew around town before he passed away this year, having lived in his parish for the last while...The 80s Huns (not the 70s Texas ones) demoed Folsom Prison in Iowa...I've been to the Vine Street police station, where the protagonist of the Old Main Drag was brutalized "between the metal doors", but only to give a statement as a witness...Dean Carter's performance is the wildest on the mixtape, Desmond Dekker's the prettiest, and Werly Fairburn just has the best name.



Click here for Bob Dylan's Jail mix.

Java Jive: The Coffee Mixtape

John’s Cache 3, Bob Dylan 2

After going undefeated in the first three, the gap is now closing. That’s right, it’s been a competition all along, and how can you not win when you’re your own DJ? By not having the tunes, that’s how. These last two themes have been junk, to be sure, and it’s the only way BD can win (I think). But I admit, with Coffee, this is the first time I’ve had to go fishing outside my own collection and knowledge, just to fill up half a tape. To counter that unfortunate decline in standards, I’ve also included two very personal selections that are unique to my collection—a couple of audience recordings—one of which I made 25 years ago.

~

Well, it’s, FIFTY CUPS OF COFFEE and you know IT’S ON

So announces Adam Horovitz at the start of the Hello Nasty LP, pretty much summing up the Beastie Boys’ approach to music-making. “Super Disco Breakin’” isn’t about coffee, but the hyperactive MC-ing that rips through the first two minutes and seven seconds of the band’s fifth album—their second-best—exhibits the over-caffeinated methodology that has been a trademark throughout their long career. No one else on the mixtape is quite as embracing of the stimulating properties of the bitter bean—bouncing off the walls, rocking, joyful.


Except Bal Croce, that is, spastic singer with the Stingrays (the 80s, psychobilly/folk rock ones from London, not the 90s surf rockers, 21st century cruise ship entertainers, or various 60s garage incarnations). “Another Cup of Coffee”, one the tracks on the B-side of the group’s debut “…On Self-Destruct” EP, was one of the few ‘rays originals co-written by Bal with main songwriter Alec Palao. On the original recording, it’s hard to make out what words his highly amped and sometimes guttural motormouth is spewing besides the title refrain (“another cup of coffee, and everything’ll be all right…”), but my understanding has always been that it’s about a spoiled rich girl with a drinking problem (intelligible words include “your daddy’s car,” “down another pint on the way to the bar,” “bourgeois ways,” and “mom’s expectations”). I'm not completely sure those are accurate, but good luck making out the lyrics from this exclusive live version which I recorded on my old ghetto blaster at Mike Spenser’s original Garage club in Brixton, south London, on March 19th, 1983. Extra bonus track from same gig: "My Flash on You" (cover of the original by Love). [photo: The Stingrays on stage at the Garage]


Other coffee songs? In my groping around for filler, I was pleased to learn about The Mods, a Japanese punk band formed in 1974. Listening to a snippet of Espresso, I hear echoes of the Godfathers and the Sid Presley Experience, hometown contemporaries of the Stingrays. The last of the truly wired tracks on the mixtape is "Mug A Joe" by Mug A Joe, a short-lived teen band that played about a dozen gigs in the Dublin area in 2004. The live recording is very likely from this gig. The other songs all namecheck coffee but are mostly smooth or at least less frantic, recognizing that caffiene can, actually, be taken in moderation and be quite calming.

Here is the track list for the Coffee tape:

Black Coffee - All Saints
Super Disco Breakin’ – Beastie Boys
Black Coffee – Black Flag
Java – Bob Crosby and His Bobcats
One More Cup of Coffee – Bob Dylan
The Coffee Grind – Charlie & the Jives
One Cup of Coffee and a Cigarette – Glen Glenn
Cappuccino Bar - Jonathan Richman
Cappucino – MC Lyte
Espresso – The Mods
Iodine in My Coffee – Muddy Waters
Mug A Joe – Mug A Joe [MP3]
Black Coffee – Peggy Lee
Another Cup of Coffee – The Stingrays [MP3]
BONUS TRACK: My Flash on You -- The Stingrays [MP3]
Coffee in the Pot – Supergrass



Click here to see Bob Dylan's Coffee mixtape selections.

Lame Ballgame: the Baseball Mixtape

Baseball has had a measurable impact on popular language and culture, at least in the English-speaking world. Right now in Ireland, for example, a country where nobody plays or watches baseball, I guarantee somebody is speaking in a business meeting about their company needing to “step up to the plate”, or that the latest projection for next month’s revenue is only a “ballpark figure”. No one will think about baseball when saying or hearing it, nor even realize there is a connection.

In terms of popular culture, one needs to look no further than Hollywood, where a new baseball movie begins production every three weeks. I made that statistic up, but here’s a real one: the phrase “baseball movies” returns 207,000 hits on Google. (“Rugby movies” is good for only 9,510.)

Baseball + Language = :-)
Baseball + Movies = :-)
Baseball + Internet = :-)
Baseball + Hot dogs = :-)

Baseball + Music = :-(

Baseball hates music

It’s partly because of those movies that the global language has absorbed baseball-derived idioms beyond the borders of FOX’s MLB franchise coverage map, and definitely not because of popular music. Baseball hates music, and vice-versa. I defy anyone to come up with a baseball mixtape that anyone wants to listen to. Sure, I’ve seen lists of baseball songs before, but they’re full of maudlin dross that reduces fine songwriters to sophomore philosophers. John Fogerty’s “Centerfield”? MORsville, no thanks. Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days”? I heard former major leaguer, broadcaster and amateur guitarist Bob Brenly on WGN this year say that no one “inside the game” has ever used or would ever use the term “speedball”, as featured in the Boss’s otherwise inoffensive ditty. It didn’t take long to find corroboration for my thesis that music/baseball hates baseball/music:

“…baseball is only a .180 hitter as a songwriter’s game. It has seldom secured substantial links with commercially successful music. During the past three decades, in fact, the decline of baseball-related lyrical imagery is staggering. The Billboard-charted tunes of Simon and Garfunkel, Meatloaf, John Fogerty, Bruce Springsteen, and The Intruders are really anomalies to a dismal showing for contemporary baseball tunes…Since 1960, baseball tunes have simply failed to attract substantial national interest.”

This is not to say that musicians don’t like baseball. On the contrary, look at Billy Corgan, Nils Lofgren, Eddie Vedder, or Johnny Ramone. Bing Crosby owned 15% of the Pittsburgh Pirates for over 20 years. Emmylou Harris, it turns out, is a baseball fanatic (“As soon as the show is over, I get on the [tour] bus and watch [ESPN’s] ‘Baseball Tonight.’ ”). And the players love music too: Roger Clemens’ favorite group is Led Zeppelin, Bronson Arroyo has his own band that plays in the clubs in Cincinnati, and Kerry Wood shills for Gibson guitars. None of this has resulted in a thing called “good baseball music”.

Bob Dylan’s baseball mixtape seems over-populated with novelty songs and olde time stuff. To fill up an hour-long show, he was forced to include two versions of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”—perhaps one of the worst songs ever written—with one of them performed by himself. This tune--used constantly in the background-- almost ruined Ken Burns’ nine-part documentary on the history of the sport, and it has taken on a grotesque level of over-importance at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where celebrities beg to lead the crowd in singing it during the 7th inning stretch so that they can also plug their latest project during in-game interviews on Cubs’ TV and radio telecasts.

But at least BD could come up with a tape. I feel like I got "caught looking," with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I think I might need to forfeit on this one, and “take one for the team”. Because this is all I got:

· 2 promotional jingles for the Cubs: “Hey Hey Holy Mackerel” by Johnny Frigo, circa 1969, and “It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame” by The Harry Simeone Songsters, dating back to 1960 and used on broadcasts by the Cubs, Dodgers and Mets intermittently ever since. There’s also the cheesy “Go Cubs Go” by Steve Goodman, recorded in 1984 as a radio promo and currently the team’s victory song, but I don’t like it and would not put it on a tape. Don’t much care for Goodman’s more serious “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request”, either.
· I’m a Little Airplane (“I fly in the dark…over the baseball park…”) – Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
· Beat on the Brat (i.e., “with a baseball bat”) – Ramones
· Brown-eyed Handsome Man (“2-3 the count, nobody on, he hit a high fly into the stands…”) – Chuck Berry
· Mrs. Robinson (the Joe DiMaggio references) – Simon and Garfunkel
· 10 different songs by the Beastie Boys with throwaway references to baseball, including teams (Yankees), players (Mike Piazza, Rod Carew, Phil Rizzuto, Sadaharu Oh), stadiums (Shea), pitches (curve) and bats (Wiffle).

Seriously, that’s all.

Here’s a link to BD’s baseball mixtape on Amazon.com. Its sales ranking is not provided. No customer reviews yet. Be the first.

I'll Quit Tomorrow: the Drink Mixtape

The Los Angeles-based “cowpunk” bands of the early ‘80s felt some kinship with more hardcore types, several of them appearing on the second volume of the Hell Comes to Your House compilation series. Driven by malt liquor and amphetamines, their slide guitars and hollering fit in somewhere between Tex Ritter and the Gun Club. Ritter, the 1930s cowboy country music pioneer, had an influence beyond mere style, lending his name to Tex and the Horseheads, while another band called itself after his famous song “Blood on the Saddle”. Along with the Screamin’ Sirens, these groups brought a boozy roadhouse vibe to a scene that raged briefly on the periphery of more successful acts like X, Los Lobos and the Blasters. Ritter’s jerky, hiccupping “Rye Whiskey” sets the standard for this collection of songs which includes a few that aren’t about drinking as much as naked alcoholism.

Jack o' Diamonds, Jack o' Diamonds and I know you of old
You've robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold
It's a whiskey, you villain, you've been my downfall
You've kicked me, you've cuffed me, but I love you for all

It's a whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry
If I don't get rye whiskey, well, I think I will die

~

The subject of Blood on the Saddle’s 1986 entry in the Drink Mixtape (“Colt 45”) made a memorable appearance more than 20 years earlier in the Pleasure Seekers’ ode to underage drinking, “What a Way to Die”. The all-girl garage band from Detroit featured 15-year old Suzi Quatro, latterly of Happy Days fame, on vocals.

You’ve got the kind of body
that makes me come alive
But I’d rather have my hands around
A bottle of Colt 45

Baby come on over,
come on over to my side
well I may not live past twenty-one
but WOO!
what a way to die

~

As a Pogues fan, there was a danger that the Drink Mixtape would be taken over by the erstwhile drunken Celts, so after coming up with six relevant Shane MacGowan songs within about 10 seconds of not really trying, I decided to disqualify them from inclusion. One of the folk standards in their set list shows up here from an unlikely source, though. Never been a fan of Metallica in any way, really, except for their half-decent take on “Whiskey in the Jar”. I have to think it was some kind of tribute to Thin Lizzy, the Irish pop-metal band from the 1970s that first brought the 350 year-old number to a wide rock audience.

~

Fast forward from the 17th century to the 1990s, and a band—Oasis--that dumbs down drinking songs to new level. On “Cigarettes and Alcohol”, the Gallagher brothers are at their gloriously stupid best, raiding the great British pop mini-bar of various classic, musical refreshments, including T-Rex’s guitar sound, Johnny Rotten’s vocal phrasing, and—at least in the accompanying video-- the Jesus and Mary Chain’s visual style. The Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk to Fuck” is positively sophisticated by comparison, but not nearly as pretty.

Here is the full track list for the Drink Mixtape:

Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel) - Andrews Sisters
Six Pack - Black Flag
Colt 45 (Liquor Store) - Blood on the Saddle
Tequila - Champs
Rudie Can't Fail - The Clash
Too Drunk to Fuck - Dead Kennedys
One Bourbon, One Scotch, & One Beer - George Thorogood & the Destroyers
My Bucket's Got a Hole in It - Hank Williams
Drinkin' C V Wine - Howlin' Wolf
Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) - Looking Glass
Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind) - Loretta Lynn
Whiskey in the Jar - Metallica
Cigarettes and Alcohol - Oasis
What a Way to Die - Pleasure Seekers
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Screamin' Sirens
I'll Quit Tomorrow - Tex and the Horseheads
Rye Whiskey - Tex Ritter


Two songs are the same on BD's drink mix, but only one with the same version:


Ain't Got no Money to Pay for this Drink - George Zimmerman & the Thrills
Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee - The Electric Flag
Don't Come Home A-Drinkin - Loretta Lynn
Daddy And The Wine - Porter Wagoner & The Wagonmasters
I Drink - Mary Gauthier
I Drink - Charles Aznovour
Sloppy Drunk - Jimmy Rodgers
I Ain't Drunk - Lonnie The Cat
It Ain't Far To The Bar - Johnny Tyler & His Riders Of The Rio Grande
What's On The Bar - Hank Williams
One Mint Julep - The Clovers
Rum And Coca-Cola - The Andrews Sisters
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - John Lee Hooker
Who Will Buy The Wine - Charlie Walker
Buddy Stay Off That Wine - Betty Hall Jones
Whiskey You're The Devil - The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem

Mum's the Word: the Mothers Mixtape

No more drama:

“Save all the drama,” intoned the older, but not yet wiser Roxanne Shanté in 1992, “cause here comes the Big Mama.” At that point, eight years after her debut at age 14, the Queensbridge native proceeded to destroy all challengers in a lyrical firestorm of brutal intensity. Although the song “Big Mama” was not about Shanté’s own, real motherhood, it did have as its theme her self-perceived maternal position—as one of the first ever female rappers--in the extended hip hop family (e.g., sampling her signature line from an earlier record: “I gave birth to most of them MCs”). She was always from the old school of boasting rhymes, but this was a diss record of epic proportion, and a truly grand (or rather, grandiose) finale to her underappreciated music career (which, in unlikely fashion, gave way to an academic career culminating in a PhD in psychology -- not bad for a teenaged mom from the projects). Indeed, it seemed the grown-up Shanté went just that little bit too far on Big Mama, and on the last album (“The Bitch is Back”), trying too obviously to reinvent herself as a female gangster, pandering to the commercial tastes of the times. In the end, rap records in the 1990s were bought by boys and she could never fit the right mold; long-time fans recognize more of the clever 14-year old Roxanne in modern day interview clips as Dr. Shanté than they did in the cover of “The Bitch”, which depicted a blinged-up, gun-toting, uh, ho.

Melodrama:

A couple of other records about mothers, or which invoke mothers, exude not just drama, but supreme melodrama. When Morrissey calls out for his mummy in The Smiths’ “I Know it’s Over”, it’s because he’s sure he’s half-buried in his grave already: either his relationship or his life has gone inexorably (and theatrically—hey, it’s Morrissey) down the tubes. Sidetrack: for a hilarious look at how his ego is as big as his sense of drama, see this first person account of a crew member who was fired after the first day on the job... I notice that Mary Weiss’s 1965 hairstyle is in style at the moment (in Dublin, at least), and that new bands like Glasvegas (this year) and the Raveonettes (last year) are again name-checking the Shangri-La’s, whose “I Can Never Go Home Anymore” might be the only pop song more tragically melodramatic than “I Know it’s Over”. Like Roxanne Shanté, Weiss is also from the borough of Queens and grew up as a tough-girl performer, but in her music she—unlike the Queen of Emceein’--was able to show her vulnerable side, too.

I’m gonna hide
If she don’t leave me alone
I’m gonna run away

True life drama:

The teenaged Mary Weiss had not been speaking to her mother for a few years at that point and she was in tears during the recording, so this was not just a case of drama for the sake of performance… Two more on the Mothers Mixtape come from true life. Tricky called a whole album (Maxinquaye) after his mom, who committed suicide when he was five years old, and reportedly said he felt her singing his lyrics though him. As in the track Aftermath, maybe?

~

The back story of the Sex Pistols’ aural essay on abortion, Bodies, was always that the protagonist Pauline from Birmingham, “who lived in a tree”, was a mentally ill groupie who wrote to John Lydon and eventually turned up at his door in London. Only 18 years later in his memoir did he reveal another event—this time from his childhood--that inspired one of the band’s most powerful songs, and yep, it had to do with his mom (and a miscarriage, and an outhouse). Lydon’s Irish immigrant mother makes a second appearance on the Mothers Mixtape, as the focus of PiL’s Death Disco…

Here’s the full track listing for the Mothers Mixtape:

Mamma Mia - ABBA
Blues In The Night – Dinah Shore
That's All Right Mama - Elvis Presley
Mother Popcorn, Pt. 1 - James Brown
Harper Valley PTA - Jeannie C Riley
Mother Queen of My Heart - Jimmie Rodgers
Mama Tried - Merle Haggard
Welfare Mothers - Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Death Disco - Public Image Limited
Mama's Boy - Ramones
Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing in the Shadows - Rolling Stones
Big Mama - Roxanne Shanté
Bodies - Sex Pistols
Mother Mo Chroi - Shane MacGowan and the Popes
I Can Never Go Home Anymore - Shangri-Las
Mama Used to Say - Shinehead
I Know It's Over – The Smiths
Aftermath - Tricky

Only two of the above overlap with Bob Dylan’s mixtape:

Mama Don't Allow It - Julia Lee
Daddy Loves Mommyo - Tommy Duncan
Mama Didn't Lie - Jan Bradley
I'll Go to the Church Again With Momma - Buck Owens
Mama Told Me Not to Come - Randy Newman
Mama Get the Hammer - Bobby Peterson Quintet
Mama Talk To Your Daughter - J. B. Lenoir
A Mother's Love - Earl King
Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean - Ruth Brown
Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way - Carl Smith
Mother Earth - Memphis Slim
Mother in Law - Ernie K-Doe
Mother in Law Blues - Little Junior Parker
Mama Tried - Merle Haggard
Gonna Tell Your Mother - Jimmy McCracklin
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby Standing in the Shadows - Rolling Stones
Mother Fuyer - Dirty Red
Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J

My Mixtape Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Bob Dylan has a mixtape radio show – it’s on Phantom FM here in Dublin. I like Dylan a little, and I used to love mixtapes. I can’t say I’ve been a faithful listener, but I did catch his holiday theme show last December. He played a bunch of obscuro Christmas records and spewed a surprising lot of between-song patter. Like Joe Strummer during his vanity gig as a BBC World Service DJ, Dylan seemed to be getting off on some kind of midnight hipster Wolfman Jack fantasy. It was a good show, but his shtick did get a little tiresome. Anyway, I like the choice of themes he has used for his shows (“Weather,” “Coffee”, “Trains”, “More Trains,” etc.). So I guess I’ll post my mixtapes using the same themes, and throw in some links where possible. First up is Weather.

Looks like I overlap with BD on three songs, but on two of them, it’s not the same version (see BD’s list at the end of the post)... For all those who still fail to understand that Elvis Presley was once a performer full of only innocence and no artifice, listen to him on I Don’t Care if the Sun Don’t Shine, or any other song on the Sun Sessions LP... The White Stripes are the perfect modern band for the middle aged dude who went through Led Zeppelin, Muddy Waters, Kinks, Buzzcocks and Cramps phases in the 70s and 80s... Epicycle was a band at my high school back then, and props to them for not sounding like Foreigner, whose sampled Cold as Ice chorus is chipmunkized on M.O.P.’s gangsta rap hit, the other redeeming feature of which is a truly monster bass line... Archive.org--a.k.a. the basement of the Internet--has demos from the Warlocks, the precursor to the Grateful Dead... And finally, there are times when I would agree with Youtube user prolo67, who says A Rainy Night in Soho is the best love song ever written. Shame the video features the extra slick 1991 remix (added strings and horns), not the raw, original Poguetry in Motion version.

The Weather Mixtape

300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues - The White Stripes
Four Strong Winds - Johnny Cash
California Sun - The Ramones
Keep on the Sunny Side - The Carter Family
Have You Ever Seen the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday
Life is a Breeze - Epicycle
Cold As ICE - M.O.P.
Johnny Thunder - The Kinks
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall - Bob Dylan
Hurricane - The Collins Kids
I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine - Elvis Presley
Storm Warning - Mac Rebennack (aka Dr. John)
Who Loves The Sun - Velvet Underground
Rainy Days and Mondays - The Carpenters
Early Morning Rain - The Warlocks
A Rainy Night in Soho - The Pogues

For reference purposes, here’s Bob Dylan’s Weather tape:

Blow Wind Blow - Muddy Waters
You Are My Sunshine - Jimmie Davis
California Sun - Joe Jones
I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine - Dean Martin
Just Walking in the Rain - The Prisonaires
After the Clouds Roll Away - The Consolers
The Wind Cries Mary - Jimi Hendrix
Come Rain or Come Shine - Judy Garland
It's Raining - Irma Thomas
Didn't It Rain - Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Raining in my Heart - Slim Harpo
Jamaica Hurricane - Lord Beginner
Let the four Winds Blow - Fats Domino
Stormy Weather - The Spaniels
A Place in the Sun (song) - Stevie Wonder
Summer Wind - Frank Sinatra
Uncloudy Day - The Staple Singers
Keep on the Sunny Side - The Carter Family