Music – Page 15 – The Designer Monologues

January 3, 2018January 3, 2018

30 Day Song Challenge, Days 1-3

This meaningless bit of fun was intended as a Facebook thing (and that’s where I discovered it) — but I’ve been looking to make more use of my blog, so I decided that for this “30 Day Song Challenge,” I’ll put the entries up here, and just link to them on social media.

Anyway, I’m a massive music nerd, so this should be fun for me, if nothing else.

Obviously, I missed the first two days of January, so this entry is my catch-up, where I’ll be answering the first three challenges.

First: A song by fave PUNK ROCK band.
I don’t know if they qualify as my favorite punk band, but this is definitely one of my favorite punk songs, so I’ll go with that:

Second: A favorite song by a BRITISH INVASION group.
I’ll assume that they mean the first British Invasion of the 60s, and not the second British Invasion of the MTV-era 80s. I’m not going to go with the obvious choice of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones (although I like songs by both), but rather a true favorite of mine:

Third: Your favorite DISCO or FUNK song.
ARGH! I have favorites in both categories! Damn it. Guess I’ll have to choose one. Funk it is, then.

OK, now I’m caught up. I’ll be posting a new one of these every day, for the rest of the month.

September 6, 2017

Walter Becker, R.I.P.

So yeah. I drifted away from the site for a bit there. Gave up on #RPGaDay.

I was offline when it was announced that Walter Becker had died. I wanted to note it. Bear with me.

Steely Dan was the first band I was an obsessive fan of — Discovered via the record collection of a friend’s college-age brother, left behind while he was at school. I was 11 or 12, & knew some stuff from the radio, but this was the first group I dove into that wasn’t in my parent’s albums.

Everybody has that moment where their own artistic tastes are established. This was mine. I dove through “bargain cassette” bins, and collected until I had every one. The 1st band I’d ever do that with.

Walter Becker & Donald Fagen are, with no hesitation, my all-time favorite songwriters. Songs which were more like short stories than any I’d ever heard before. So I’ll close with one of my favorites, a perfect slice of noir fiction in song form. Thanks, Walter. RIP.

April 24, 2017April 25, 2017

Awesome Mix

Dave Chapman came up with this over on his blog, inspired by the release of the Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix, Vol. 2. It looked like fun, and I’m taking a lunch break, so I decided to give it a go.

The rules:

1) Select 12 songs that have an emotional meaning for you – remind you of your childhood, your parents/guardians/friends/family.
2) The first 11 must be songs that you listened to before you started buying your own music.
3) No duplicate artists.
4) Compile them into a list – an Awesome Mix – think carefully of the running order.
5) The final song on your Awesome Mix should be the first single you ever bought for yourself, not bought for you.

So, without further ado, here’s my Awesome Mix:

1. “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band” by MECO.
Come on. “Remind you of your childhood”, right? This is me. I saw STAR WARS for my 8th birthday. This *is* my childhood.

2. “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty.
Will forever remind me of the smell of blacktop parking lots, sand and sea air, on the beaches of Long Island.

3. “Brother Louie” by Stories.
Mid-70s, living away from Long Island for the first time, upstate New York.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT-NrJKHwas

4. “Reelin’ In The Years” by Steely Dan.
Reminds me of getting into Steely Dan via a friend’s older brother’s record collection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bwHK1xkgJA

5. “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John.
In 1976 in America, it was impossible to escape the bicentennial.

6. “Dirty Low Down” by Boz Scaggs.
Another track that reminds me of AM Radio in NY of the late-70s.

7. “Chuck E’s In Love by Ricki Lee Jones
A lot of these are heard from the mental perspective of the back seat of my family car (A Chevy Nova, then a Citation beginning in 1980).

8. “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” by Barbra Streisand & Donna Summer.
Disco was everywhere… and some of it was really, really good.

9.”A Little More Love” by Olivia Newton John.
Olivia Newton John was also inescapable… and pre-adolescent me didn’t even WANT to escape.

10. “Underground” by Men At Work.
My favorite track from “Business As Usual”, which I got for Christmas.

11.”Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) by David Bowie.
A birthday present from a friend.

12. “New Frontier” by Donald Fagen.
Fagen’s debut solo album, “The Nightfly” was the first album I ever bought for myself (was never a purchaser of singles) in 1982.