Sorry these have been too few and far between, but here's the first Friday 5ive / Sonic Jihad for 2009. Below, the link to download the Pointcast. Below that, the notes.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY'S POINTCAST
The Friday 5ive
01 Gravity - Rilo Kiley: An unknown/forgotten gem from the second pressing of the self-titled CD (Rilo Records 2000), which was a reissue of the first pressing of the self-titled CD released a year earlier. Both are long out-of-print but occasionally detonate on eBay at about $150. The first three RK releases have nearly identical cover art. Known as Self-Titled (first pressing), Self-Titled (second pressing), and The Initial Friend EP are a fanboy's trifecta: hard to find and puzzling to unravel all the song-swapping, track sequencing, and alt versions. The first
pressing has eight songs (The Frug / 85 / Glendora / Papillon / Teenage Love Song / Asshole / Sword / Steve) plus a hidden track RK fanatics call "They Say It Rained The Day Your Mother Gave You Away." This is the only disk on which exists.
Pressing number two adds songs "Always" and "Gravity," subtracts "Steve," has an alternate version of "Teenage Love Song" (with keyboard solo), different track order, and the hidden track here is a 22-minute monster of narcissistic fluff called "Troubadours + The Annoying Noise of Death"
The Initial Friend EP (Rilo Records, 2001) omits "Glendora" and "Teenage Love Song," includes "Troubadours" but deep-sixes the noise of death part. Initial Friend was re-released in 2007 as The Rilo Kiley EP.
All this info is out there on fan sites, with jpegs and whatnot, but oddly Rilo Kiley's official website disregards the 1999-2001 releases (and about a dozen of the band's singles) entirely.
Blake Sennett and Jenny Lewis, 03/16/01: Photo by John Perry
02 I Can't Wait - Luna [Lunapark]: To some it's a supergroup: When they recorded this album, they were hardly a cohesive band. They were just the singer/guitarist from Galaxie 500, the drummer from the Feelies, and the Chills' ex-bassist. Their studio sessions guitarist was from Mercury Rev. If all you know about the Galaxie 500 split is Damon and Naomi's account in the liner notes of the box set, check out Dean's memoir. His side of the breakup seems more valid, in my opinion.
03 Bum Bum - Trio: I ripped this from the German import 45. The English-language version, "Boom Boom" is slightly more well-known, I guess. Or better yet, you probably know "Da Da Da, Ich Lieb Dich Nicht du Liebst Mich Nicht (Aha Aha Aha)," which was a 1982 cult hit in English as "Da Da Da I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me Aha Aha Aha." In 1997, it turned up in TV commercials for -- of course -- German cars.
"Bum Bum" reminds me of driving to Carvel with my high school pal John every Wednesday to get buy-one-get-one-free ice cream sundaes. We'd listen to WLIR on our powerful after-market car stereos and if we were lucky we'd hear something fucking great like this or, say, "Get Out of London" by Intaferon. (Jesus!)
(For a reason that I'll never remember, we referred to the ice cream as "F.B.S." for "fat bastard sundaes." Of course, it was Yonkers, NY, so we pronounced it "fat bas-tidd sundaes.")
04 Love Is Like A Bottle of Gin - The Magnetic Fields [69 Love Songs]: Some of you have written and asked why MagFields/Stephin Merritt popped up on Friday 10s with such regularity, maybe more than any other artist. My answer is always: I don't know. Looking at my iTunes as of this morning, MagFields accounts for 82 out of the 9500+ songs in the library. Not complaining. 69 Love Songs is like a book on how to write songs. Merritt released Distortion last year, it landed at #6 on The Sticking Point's albums of the year.
This song? It's in 21/8 time. Wild.
05 Laughing - R.E.M. [Murmur]: That's the 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Murmur that Brian Last Stop sent me the other day. I A-and-B'd the original CD vs. the new mastering, and the new one wins. That's not always the case with remasters, as you know, but luckily it is here; Murmur is an exceptional album, it deserves a perfect mix. You could tell R.E.M. and producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon had a Stax-like sound in mind: organic-toned instruments, clean guitars, a heavy drum groove carrying the vocals. Listening back to the original CD release (I.R.S. 70014), the mix sounds watery to me now. The new one polishes all the reverb and atmospherics without sounding digital. Does that make sense? Probably not. Anyway -- thanks, Brian.
"Laughing" was always one of my favorites on Murmur. Love that Stewart Copeland-style rhythm on the rototoms. And back in those days, back in my day, when Stipe unfurled this lyric referencing Laocoön, you can bet the fact-finding fieldwork took me 5000 times longer than it'll take you, today.
The Sonic Jihad
01 Phobias - Love As Laughter [#1 U.S.A.]: From my "If Only They Knew..." iTunes playlist. I found "Phobias" first on a great (GREAT) Rough Trade comp, loved it immediately. Not much on the #1 USA album can hold a candle to this, but still: wow... this. The band is still out and about. Info at loveaslaughter.net.
02 The Perfect Me - Deerhoof [Friend Opportunity]: If I could have, I would have. I would have gotten this song in your ears long ago. I wish I'd started doing these Pointcasts sooner and more often.
Dialogue excerpt from "The Facts of Life."
03 Fresh Cut Dynamite - Squatweiler [New Motherstamper]: Another group (along with Love As Laughter) that some of you probably haven't heard. Worth your hard-earned to get your hands on this one or Horsepower.
04 Moons of Jupiter - Scruffy The Cat [Moons of Jupiter]: One of the all-time great bar bands. Just flat-out and real. I think a dream gig for me would be a night with Scruffy, Del Fuegos, and Too Much Joy on the same bill.
05 Harder Than You Think - Public Enemy [How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?]: They lost the plot between 1993 and 2006, so I didn't expect much from How You Sell Soul... in 2007. Good to have 'em back. P.E.'s tenth studio album, and they land on it like a ton of bricks. Call it "Son of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back."
* No Fun - The Stooges [The Stooges]: "Come on, Ronnie..."
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Get off your ass and do it for yourself. Put your digital jukebox or mp3 player on "shuffle all songs," and use the comments section to tell us the first 10 tracks out the chute.
Tommy Himself page at LastFM
[posted with ecto]
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