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.

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.

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.