Day: June 17, 2005

Big ol’ chunk of Friday Music

Got a bunch of stuff this week, so I’ll get right to it:

One of the annoying things about being into electronic music is that you get into a track, buy the CD, love it, and then 3 months later, it gets discovered by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, and suddenly the track you like is appearing every five minutes in advertising and films. I’m sure many of you will recognize this track: Paul Oakenfold – “Ready, Steady, GO!”, as it has suffered from this phenomenon…as is currently befalling it’s album-mate, “Starry-eyed Surprise”….but I liked ’em first, damn it, ever since I picked up the CD Bunkka in 2002.

Here’s a fun one. Fun Loving Criminals – “Scooby Snacks”. A song about bank robbers using samples from Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs? That pretty much pegs my cool-o-meter. The music is nifty, as well.

Jetting back to the 80s, we have one of my favorite songs from that era: Heaven 17 – “Let Me Go.”. Again, another one of those groups that was way more popular pretty much everywhere else. We were all too busy with our collective heads up Michael Jackson’s ass at the time, I guess. (Yeah, OK–we’ll just assume that everybody makes their own MJ joke here, right? Moving on…)

Sticking in that particular decade, a track that I finally found online after years of searching (literally). I found it last night, and I’m as giddy as hell about it. A bit of background: In 1986, my friend Matt Roskoski and I were at a record store in KC (I can’t remember which one, now), and put our cash together to buy an album, called Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the U.S.S.R. It was a double-album, featuring 4 bands that played illegal gigs. The record producer literally smuggled out cassette tapes that had been recorded in someone’s apartment. It was the coolest thing EVER. No, seriously. EVER. The front cover of the album had a poorly-done photo montage of scruffy-looking band members imposed over a shot of guards marching in Red Square, and the back cover only featured the word ???, which, our eager 17-year old minds discovered, meant both “world” and “peace.” With that album, we discovered proof that the young people of the Evil Empire were pretty much just like us, and liked the same kinda stuff. So, we bought it. Matt made me a casette copy (which was good, since I didn’t have a turntable), which I have long-since lost. Last night, though, I finally found an MP3 of my favorite song from the album. The first song on the first side, which I played over and over again. It’s a track from a band which went on to be fairly famous in Russia, Akvarium – “Ashes.”

Staying with the Russian thing for a bit, here’s another track for Laura’s request of “nifty foreign-language stuff” — this time, Russian hip-hop, from the album Russki Rjep Vol. 8. Apparently, both the song and the group are called “Tochnyj Udar”.

Here’s some great chill-out electronica that I discovered recently: Baby Mammoth – “1”. Apparently, the album, Seven Up came out in 2003. I’ll have to track it down, because I really like this.

More electronica, this time from the soundtrack to the Val Kilmer Saint. Every time they do a remake of one of these old spy/caper shows (The Saint, Mission Impossible, etc.) it seems like it’s a given that they’re going to do a groovy electronic version of the classic theme. Here’s Orbital – “Theme From The Saint”, which is one of the better examples of this trend. Great driving music.

Speaking of spy music, I always thought that the main hook from this song sounded like it belonged in a Bond theme: The Sugarcubes – “Hit”, which was pretty much the last single from the band before Bjork went solo and became huge. (Well, as huge as a tiny little Icelandic woman gets, anyway) It’s got big instrumentation, and Bjork’s even-bigger voice belting away on it. Nice.

…and we’ll close with an opener. Specifically, a song that Robbie Williams often uses to open his shows: Robbie Williams – “Let Me Entertain You.” No, it’s not the classic song of the same name, and yes, it’s a bit heavy on the pop-rock bombast, but damned if it doesn’t get my toe tapping every time I hear it. My favorite line: “I’m the burning effigy of everything I used to be…you’re my rock of empathy, my dear.”

And with that, we’re done for another week. I hope to see some of you at the day-long-and-into-the-night party at The Manor tomorrow.