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Thursday, Oct 21 2021, 7AM
On this day in 2000, Radiohead's 'Kid A', the group's fourth album, became their first release to debut at No.1 in the US. 'Kid A' was one of the first major albums to be pirated through file-sharing services, but this bootlegging had no apparent effect on the sales of the record: it debuted at number one in the U.K. and then U.S., becoming their first American chart-topper.
Simple Minds' seventh studio album, 'Once Upon a Time' was released 36 years ago today!
Opening up about “The Grey Commute,” vocalist Ian Devaney says:
In some ways “The Grey Commute” is one of the more upbeat songs of the record, but in truth it’s one that was born out of much more depressing stuff. As I was working on the lyrics I had a kind of fixation on terrible tax policies, our cultural addiction to meaningless consumption, and it all got swept together into this punchy, kind of fun track.
To give a sense of time: the Republican tax plan, under which we’re currently living, was just being passed and it was pretty clear just how mind-bindingly stupid it was. Such deep cuts to the taxes of the hyper-wealthy and corporations were both shocking and not shocking at all, and it was difficult to comprehend that anyone thought it wouldn’t lead to the exacerbation of the inequality and instability that defines our time. But here we are. You can see everything I felt then pretty clearly represented on the page when absent any backbeat and melody, but the rant gets dressed up a bit with some bounciness on the final cut to help serve as a bit of a Trojan horse to hopefully get the sentiment across.
This was inspired by a recurring dream where Gabriel was swimming in a sea of red water. Gabriel explained to Mojo magazine September 2013: "'Red Rain' was written after a dream I'd had about the sea being parted by two walls. There were these glass-like figures that would screw themselves into each wall, fill up with red blood and then be lowered across the sand, as it were to the next wall, where they'd unload the blood on the other side. I used to have these extremely vivid dreams that scared the hell out of me." bit.ly
This is the day (you're welcome) The The released Soul Mining back in 1983. 38 years ago.
Hi! Can you please play starfish & coffee for my brother, Felix?
Alice
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"Starfish and Coffee" - with the Muppets! Check it out here - youtu.be
The verses are sung by guitarist Graham Coxon, who also wrote the lyrics. The song describes Coxon's struggle with alcoholism and the song's video, featuring a sentient milk carton searching for Coxon, won several awards.: www.youtube.com
Hi John,
The man caught up with me and I had to return to a real office. Could use some Aimee Mann. Thanks for all you do - I don't feel alone in this desolate office space.
Angela in Houston
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It's a good day to check out Aimee Mann's 2017 KEXP Live In-Studio Session: www.youtube.com
How about some ENIGMA to go in this soup you are brewing
Raven
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Moby sampled this song by Deep Forest in the previous song, "Flying Foxes."
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Deep Forest were formed in 1992 by French electronic musicians Eric Mouquet and Michel Sanchez. Inspired by the music and culture he observed on a trip to Africa, Sanchez delved into recordings he'd acquired on his trip, and he and Mouquet began sampling the native sounds for use with their atmospheric dance tracks.
Deep Forest's sound has been described as an "ethno-introspective ambient world music". They were nominated for a Grammy Award in 1994 for Best World Music Album, and in 1995 they won the Award for the album "Boheme."
'Little Fluffy Clouds' ranked number 275 in NME's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 40 on their list of the Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s.
They're sampling Herbie Hancock's 1964 song "Cantaloupe Island." Us3 is a British jazz-rap group founded in London in 1992. Their name was inspired by a Horace Parlan recording produced by Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records. Here's an oral history of Us3: www.spin.com
The Barrett Martin Group shrunk to a nearly solo project over the quarantine. Drummer, percussionist, songwriter Barrett Martin spent a year living with his wife in a remote cliff house overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The setting inspired a new book, "Stillpoint: Reflections From A Year On The Cliff," and an album he recorded and produced there, Stillpoint. His fifth "Group" album since 2018, Martin wrote all the music and plays almost all the instruments: piano, vibraphone, marimba, gamelans, mbira, kalimba, steel drum, gongs, upright bass, various African, Brazilian and Cuban percussion and his drum kit. bit.ly
Masked Swedish psych-rock experimentalists Goat haven’t released a proper studio album since Requiem in 2016. But at the end of August, they released Headsoup, a rarities compilation that includes B-sides, standalone singles, and two brand new tracks, including this one, "Fill My Mouth."
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The band’s anonymous members claim to hail from the remote and cursed village of Korpilombo in northern Sweden, where inhabitants had for centuries been devoted to a form of voodoo introduced by a travelling witch doctor Read more and purchase 'Headsoup' -- goat.bandcamp.com
It’s Theos 7th birthday and he loves Yellow Submarine
Ian
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Paul McCartney wrote the majority of this song. He explained shortly after it was released in 1966: "'Yellow Submarine' is very simple but very different. It's a fun song, a children's song. Originally we intended it to be 'Sparky' a children's record. But now it's the idea of a yellow submarine where all the kids went to have fun. I was just going to sleep one night and thinking if we had a children's song, it would be nice to be on a yellow submarine where all your friends are with a band."
Mandy, Indiana is the experimental project of Scott Fair, Valentine Caulfield and Liam Stewart.
From vocalist and lyricist, Valentine Caufield on "Bottle Episode": "I wanted to build up on the military style of the track, but in a very slow crescendo, and not in a very obvious way. The lyrics talk of men waiting, moving forward; war is never mentioned, yet it is obvious that the men are waiting for death. The song ends with the men almost dancing as the bullets hit them."
www.stereogum.com
The ...EP is out on November 19th!
mandyindiana.bandcamp.com
Teenage Sequence is Dewan-Dean Soomary, a London musician who used to be in bands like King Blues and Bleach Blood. As Teenage Sequence, Soomary makes twitchy, self-conscious dance-rock that evokes the early ’00s. Talking about the song, Soomary says:
“All This Art” is as much about the systemic racism of the UK music industry as it is my own neurosis, as serious about these subjects as it (an attempt at being) humorous–in a sort of “if you don’t laugh, you’d stare blankly into the void wondering what’s the point” way. I never intended for the first Teenage Sequence single to be 6.23 seconds of the same beat (pop career suicide), but here we are!
bit.ly
teenagesequence.bandcamp.com
'Thou Shalt Always Kill' was named NME's track of the week in an April 2007 issue, despite the lyric "thou shalt not read NME" appearing in the song.
Read a tribute to "one of the greatest songs of the era.": medium.com
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And then watch a live performance from Madison Square Garden in 2014: www.youtube.com
The Furry Freak Brothers? Read the lyrics to "Can U Dig It?" to become familiar with all the cultural references (The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers is an underground comic about a fictional trio of stoner characters, created by the American artist Gilbert Shelton.): genius.com
This song features on Black Flag's influential debut studio album, Damaged. This album was ranked at #340 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.
Brooklyn's Bodega have announced their second full-length album, Broken Equipment, which will be out March 11 via What's Your Rupture.
"Sometime on tour near the end of 2019 I found myself reading and watching a plethora of self-help books and YouTube vids,” says the band's Ben Hozie, explaining the idea behind the lyric. “This started from a genuine desire for spiritual and physical improvement, but I soon started noticing how advertisements everywhere were utilising the language of self-help. I was being programmed.
‘You don’t have time to cook dinner tonight because you are too busy crushing it as a doer: You are creating next level content and don’t have time to hang out w/ friends or family this weekend so download this app and have ready-made food delivered to you for 29.99.’ This ideology of constant productivity forces you to treat your own body, mind, time, and friends as products to mine. As a result, the world becomes a smaller, duller place.”
www.brooklynvegan.com
NEW MUSIC from Jack White -- Produced by White – who also plays every instrument on the track – and recorded at his Third Man Studios in Nashville, The track was previewed in a new launch trailer for the upcoming video came "Call of Duty: Vanguard" -- youtu.be
Rolling Stone talked to Jon Spencer about some of his most well-regarded recordings: www.rollingstone.com
"There are two sides to the Cuban artist Erik Iglesias Rodríguez, who performs as Cimafunk. "Cima" is an homage to the cimarrón, a word that refers to Cubans of African descent who escaped enslavement. And "funk," he says, "because you got all the African roots that came to the United States and transformed gospel [and] the blues to get funk."" n.pr
cimafunk.com
Smile—the side project from Joakim Åhlund and Peter Bjorn and John’s Björn Yttling—have shared the visualizer for their new single with Robyn, “Call My Name.” It’s the latest offering from Smile’s forthcoming LP "Phantom Island," which is due out November 19.
Yttling said: “‘Call My Name’ is a quite simple song about unconditional love, and the will to try and protect the one you love from a chaotic and threatening outside world.”: bit.ly
Dena: The GoGos!! I'm passing my house to listen loudly!
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Go-Go's guitarist Jane Wiedlin wrote this with the British musician Terry Hall, who was lead singer of The Specials. In a Songfacts interview with Wiedlin, she told the story: "In 1980 we were playing at The Whisky on Sunset Strip, and The Specials were in town from England. They came to see us, and they really liked us and asked us if we would be their opening act on their tour. I met Terry Hall, the singer of The Specials, and ended up having kind of a romance. He sent me the lyrics to 'Our Lips Are Sealed' later in the mail, and it was kind of about our relationship, because he had a girlfriend at home and all this other stuff. So it was all very dramatic. I really liked the lyrics, so I finished the lyrics and wrote the music to it, and the rest is history. And then his band, The Fun Boy Three, ended up recording it, too - they did a really great version of it, also. It was like a lot gloomier than the Go-Go's' version." bit.ly
In 1983, Terry Hall's band, Fun Boy Three, released their version of "Our Lips Are Sealed". Issued as a single, the track became a top ten hit in the United Kingdom. The recording by the Go-Go's, while a bigger hit elsewhere, only made No. 47 in the UK.
The 1985 song is said to describe the frustrations of a woman with an affection for "a boy who likes boys", with songwriter Ted Ottaviano adding in a 2016 Village Voice interview that the song was "written about Boy Bar, which was a very exclusive gay club in the East Village."
youtu.be
Altered Images were performing at the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen and vocalist Clare Grogan borrowed a pair of her sister's shoes, which were 2 sizes too big for her. She stuffed them with toilet paper but halfway through singing this song, it had worked loose. As she sang, there was a long trail of white paper following her around.
You can see her singing (without toilet paper) in the official video for this song: www.youtube.com
British band Re-Flex's biggest hit. It has been featured in several films over the years including Firstborn (1984), Edge of Seventeen (1998), and Atomic Blonde (2017).
Songwriter Nick Heyward does a nonsensical rap in this song, which was trendy in 1982 thanks in large part to Blondie's "Rapture." A sample of Heyward's rap:
Go number one
Stick a honeybun
Your mind begins to flop
Good morning
It's got to be Happy Hour somewhere, so can you play Happy Hour by The Housemartins.
Thanks
Dave in Seattle
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Norman Cook a.k.a Fatboy Slim, was the bassist for this band prior to his electronic career.
Bronksi Beat's commitment to tackle issues facing gay people around the world were reflected in songs like "Smalltown Boy" and "Why?" -- with videos addressing homophobia, violence, and descrimination. The 12" vinyl single for "Smalltown Boy" even featured the telephone number of the London Gay Switchboard, a service providing support for gays and lesbians in the greater London metro area, etched into its inner grove.
Nick Laird-Clowes recalled to Mojo magazine in a 2011 interview: "The song was created in a Southgate bedsit where Gilbert Gabriel had a room. We wrote it while sitting on a floor. Just two guitars - one nylon strung with just three strings on it, while the other was the same guitar that was on the cover of Nick Drake's Bryter Layter. We had the idea, even before we sat down, to write a folk song with an African-style chorus. We started it and when we got to the verse melody, there was something about it that reminded me of Nick Drake, who I had been turned on to in 1972 by Roundhouse DJ Jeff Dexter. It was Jeff who first informed me what a brilliant record Bryter Layter was. He claimed, 'I know where that guitar is and one day we'll get hold of it.'
I was working at the RCA record factory in Ladbroke Grove at the time and bought Nick Drake's guitar for £100. When the single was completed I dedicated it to Nick."
