Alphabetical music meme
For those so inclined, here’s a music meme.
Take your iPod, or alternative daggy unfashionable non-Apple MP3 player, or even your music collection on your computer.
Pick a song, maybe one you like at the moment, doesn’t really matter which one.
Using the alphabetic list of songs in your iPod/player/computer, list that song and the following 9 in alphabetical order. What do you get?
- Grey in LA — Loudon Wainwright III — I still really like this; the lyrics make me chuckle every time I hear it.
- Grey Skies over Collingwood — Weddings Parties Anything (live) — a more local view. Did they actually write this, or was it a Strange Tenants song first? It certainly suits the Weddoes.
- Grindstone — Hunters and Collectors — another hard working Hunners song.
- Groovin’ Slowly — John Butler Trio — back from when he had a Trio.
- Growing Up (Falling Down) — The Living End — I know this one well, as it’s on my “Loud” playlist at work, for when I want to drown out surrounding noise and concentrate on something.
- Guitar and Pen — The Who — I’d forgotten about this song. Don’t hear it very often. Seems to be about what songwriters go through trying to write good songs. (This MP3 came from a CD of “Who Are You” which is about the fuzziest, lowest fidelity disc I have. Can only hope the remastered version was better.)
- Guitar Flute and String — Moby — a nice little instrumental piece
- Guitar Rag — BB Bronzy — an ancient blues number
- Gun — Weddings Parties Anything — an earlier WPA track that I haven’t heard much. Good stuff.
- Gunnamatta — Paul Kelly — another (mostly) instrumental track, PK’s tribute to the beach
What I find interesting about this there’s a good chance you’ll hear (and gain a new appreciation for) artists and/or songs you don’t play very often, and from a range of artists and styles. You may even find the same song by different artists, as well as possibly songs along similar themes, due to the first name in the title being similar.
Who else will have a go? Leave a comment or trackback.
Pure and utter coincidence
Listening to Radio National (The Music Show I think) and they mention a couple of people my Dad knows (or knew) well, and talks about often — David Malouf and Barry Jones. A couple of minutes later my sister rings up to discuss visiting Dad. Pure coincidence.
Watching Billy Connolly’s Journey to the Edge of the World on Channel 7, and he visits and talks about the Klondike, in particular the gold rush in 1896. Just after that we’re watching a repeat of The Einstein Factor on ABC2 and a question is asked about where the gold rush in Canada occurred in 1896. Pure coincidence.
In the car listening to a track off the Cold Chisel tribute album Standing on the Outside, when another car goes past with a personalised licence plate, something like CHISEI. I guess CHISEL was taken. Pure coincidence — assuming it really was meant to be “Chisel”. And they may have been woodworkers rather than Cold Chisel fans, of course.
I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth
Having had a week when a car window motor broke down (cha-ching, $520 thanks) and my fridge went on the fritz (TBA), it was good to let it all go with a concert on Sunday night,
It’s probably easier to just dump the Twitter posts, with a few extra notes here and there.
18:05. Riding bumblebee tram to Grand Prix. Hopefully will have missed most of car race, but have ear plugs ready if not.
The cars were bloody noisy. And fast. I can’t see the appeal, to be honest.
It took a while to find the concert site. Not helped by the complicated pedestrian pathways, and the maps, which don’t show the bridges over the track.
19:02. Finally found premium concert entry. Would it kill them to have more signs? Dallas Crane on now.
Around this point Tony SMSd to say keep the Twitter updates coming, which I’m afraid just encouraged me.
19:31. A few poms in the crowd reminiscing about their last Who concerts during interval.
19:35. That must be Roger’s mic, lots and lots of tape around it.
19:46. Oh yeah
– Love the instrumental bit of this.
19:50. They call me the seeker.
20:00. Pete joking about their ages. Should buy the new album. Oh yeah, who are you?
– It was something along the lines of claiming their first albums had been released when they were 12, and the latest when they were 92. They also took the mickey out of the Grand Prix, which was pretty funny.
20:14. It’s only teenage wasteland
20:23. I’m out of my brain on the train
– Their gunzel song. Accompanied by sped up vision of old railways. Honestly.
20:33. You better you better you bet
20:34. Your dog keeps licking my nose
20:48. And I get on my knees and pray, we don’t get fooled again
– Earlier I played this on CD in the car. My kids were remarkably tolerant. It may well be my favouritest song ever.
21:05. Encore. I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth
– Adam replied suitably: I look pretty young, but I’m just backdated.
21:11. He’s a pinball wizard. Townshend is god.
21:21. OMG. They just played the whole overture from Tommy. That was fantastic.
– Wait. Was it actually Underture? Or a mix of the two? I need to dig it out again. And also a bunch of other semi-obscure Tommy songs. I don’t know if all of the crowd appreciated it, but I certainly did.
21:35. And an acoustic number to finish off.
The second song of the new album. A bit of a whimper of a finish to be honest, and the thing with Roger holding a cup of tea didn’t really work IMHO.
Great concert though. They can still play. Zak Starkey does, I think, play drums better than his dad. (No, I didn’t Twitter every song…)
Eleventy billion people stomped off out of Albert Park to the tram stops. I ended up on a tram to Malvern to catch a train home. It’s just a shame most of the PT effort goes into the CBD to the track, whereas people going in other directions get little in the way of extra services. Probably encourages people to drive into the CBD, which is crazy of course. Still got home before too long.
My hearing hasn’t fully recovered just yet. Hopefully soon!
Others who Twittered from (or near) the concert included: Amy Fulton Scott Sutherland Marti Travis White Myf Warhurst Francis Leach Richard Buckley
- Herald Sun: Who’s roaring guitars?
- Brisbane times: review of Brisbane concert
- Newcastle Herald: review of Hunter valley concert and slideshow
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Is going to the Grand Prix just for the post-race concert the equivalent to reading Playboy for the articles? ‘Cos that’s what I’m doing. I don’t know if I’ll bother looking at the cars whizzing round and round, but I’m really looking forward to the music.
And for those living in Victoria, may I just tell you how grateful I am for all of you helping to subsidise my concert ticket. Well, that is, apparently upwards of $30 million goes to the whole event, so I figure at least some of that must be helping to pay for the concert.
It’s certainly the first time I’ve seen banners featuring The Who logo up around town…
And the band came to town earlier this week in a blaze of publicity.
I don’t care if they’re old fuddy-duddies, there’s a bunch of songs I can’t wait to hear live… including Pinball Wizard, Baba O’Riley, and of course the one that started it all for me, Won’t Get Fooled Again.
Who are you?
When I was younger I used to focus on a fairly narrow range of music, heavily influenced by what my peers had introduced me to.
One day circa 1988 Raoul brought over a VHS tape of some band he liked called The Who. It was a compilation called Who’s Better Who’s Best. I remember I sat and watched and was particularly awestruck by the final song on the tape: Won’t Get Fooled Again.
At the end, the lasers swirl around, the keyboard goes mad, Moon goes crazy on the drums, Townshend leaps through the air with his guitar ready to play the final notes, and Daltrey lets out a guttural scream of rage before sounding the warning to all of us: “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”
Those of us who are miffed at Rudd’s position on climate change would do well to remember that.
(Still from the multi-angle feature from the movie “The Kids Are Alright” Special Edition DVD)
I subsequently bought the CD of the same name, and it went on high rotation. At the time a lot of my meagre income went on CDs, and I started buying up their albums as I found them. At the time, many weren’t generally available… I ended up with an imported copies of some.
By about the mid-90s I had just about everything there was to be had, and knew most of the songs off-by-heart. I ended up writing a spoof of The Who’s rock opera Tommy, called Pommy for the then-fledgling Toxic Custard list, based on the pretend heavy metal band Megabogue, an idea of Raoul’s from years before.
I look around at the poverty-stricken nation
Take a walk to the Army of Salvation
Smile and grin at the free food all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like Brian May
Then I get on my knees and pray..
We don’t get soup again!
At uni, some of my friends had similarly one-track minds when it came to music: Brian S was (and still is) a rabid Church fan; Peter B was known for loving Queen. The other one in our tight-knit group, Stuart H, to his credit, seemed to have a much wider musical taste, as I recall it.
My tastes eventually got wider too, and while my CD collection has pretty much stopped growing these days, the music in it is much more diverse. But while some older CDs have been cleared out, all of those Who discs are still in it — towards the end of the A-Z sorted shelves, you’ll find an awful lot of Ws.
Given they’re a band that peaked in the early-70s, and two of the original quartet have passed on, one could certainly argue that they’re past it. Over the years I played the discs less and less.
Then came September 11th, 2001.
Out of the terrorist attacks, came the Concert for New York City. I caught some of it on late-night TV. The Who performed four songs to an emotional crowd of NYC police and fire-fighters and their families. It got me all enthused again. Okay, so they were past their peak, but still rocking.
To my surprise, those songs are still ingrained in my brain. Who Are You, Baba O’Riley, Behind Blue Eyes, and Won’t Get Fooled Again.
They did play here in 2004, but I didn’t feel inclined to go. It was after bassist John Entwistle had died, and as Raoul commented at the time, “Who’s left?”
But I still love the music.
In March this year however they’re playing the Grand Prix. And this time around, I thought bugger it, I’m going.
$99 for general admission, with Grand Prix admission included. Not that I’m that interested in car racing.
Then I saw premium tickets were available, at slightly exorbitant prices. And I thought bugger it, if I’m going, and realistically this may be the only time I’ll ever see them live, I’m going to do it properly.
So I splurged. $175 for a guaranteed spot near the front. A Christmas treat to myself.
It’s certainly the most expensive single concert ticket I’ve ever bought. I’m looking forward to it. I expect to go hoarse singing along.
myTunes
iTunes has changed the way I buy music, at least to a certain extent. I’m still buying the odd CD, but if I know I want just one particular song, I’m buying just that. For $1.69, you can’t go wrong, can you?
(Though given in the US the price is US$0.99, and the exchange rate is almost at parity, it’s fair to say we’re being gouged. Economist Joshua Gans has calculated an iTunes index, similar to The Economist’s BigMac index… or the PTUA’s train ticket index!)
On the up side it’s certainly cheaper than buying whole albums, and I’m no longer in the situation where I end up with a whole CD otherwise full of songs I don’t really like. On the down side, it’s reduced the chances of discovering that I really like lots of a particular artist’s other songs. (Example: Ocean Colour Scene, which I found after wanting July, used on a TV show.)
Not that I’m buying heaps of individual tracks. Maybe one every few weeks, when I feel a particular urge to own a track, though that chocolate for tunes scheme saw me get five in a week.
Here are some individual tracks I’ve bought recentlyish.
American Pie, Don McLean — this is almost as old as I am. I grabbed it on Friday, after reading Kathy’s terrific blog post about using it as a jumping board for teaching her daughters about 60s culture, music, politics, and even a bit of spiritualism. It’s that kind of song, and having been brought up on the music and ideas of the period has me appreciating the many references immensely.
Is there an equivalent song covering more recent events? (No, Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire doesn’t quite do it.)
The song also takes me back to a long taxi ride through Sydney, from Frenchs Forest to the airport, where this song on the radio seemed to run the entire length of the trip — though it probably didn’t really.
Grey in LA, Loudon Wainwright III — heard this on the radio months ago. A great satirical song about Los Angeles, with some commentary on current issues that I’m somewhat sympathetic to:
And I suppose
Laurie David sure knows
All those cars we drive heat up our earth
And sea temperatures rise
And those constant blue skies
And brush fires can sure curb your mirth
She’s a Rainbow, Rolling Stones — I’d love to tell you some great and deep and meaningful reason why I nabbed this song, but in truth I think I got hooked on it again after hearing it on the Sony Bravia TV advert.
Take Five (The Russians Are Coming), Val Bennett — a great reggae track, perhaps better known as the theme tune from the TV series The Secret Life of Machines. After finding it for free (legal) download, I watched this series with the kids recently, and we’ve all ended up with this song on our iPods. Apart from on iTunes, it’s also available on one of the Trojan Records box sets — I plan to track some of them down at some stage, as there is some terrific reggae on them.
Room at the Top, Tom Petty — I remembered this one from way back when it was released. Truth be told I’m not really sure what it’s about, but it sounds positive. I just like the music.
I Don’t Like Mondays, Boomtown Rats — another oldie; what sparked finding this was hearing it at the primary school concert last year! They used it during the traditional (and generally very funny) teacher’s performance at the end.
(As an aside, why are all the lyrics web sites so overrun with ads? Talk about taking it to extremes.)
What songs have you sought out to hear again?
The scheme
How’s this for a scheme?
1. Buy discounted Kit Kat Chunky chocolate bars for $1.29 at Safeway. (On special only until closing time tonight; normal price $1.88)
2. Eat bar.
3. Use code inside wrapper that gets me a $1.69 song from iTunes.
4. Profit!
I like chocolate, and I already have an iTunes account.
And in fact I’d been planning to buy a few songs, such as a couple of those David Bowie tunes used on Life On Mars (wasn’t the ending utterly brilliant!) including the title track, and Starman, also used to good effect on Torchwood. It’s cheaper to buy once-off songs for $1.69 than splash out and buy whole CDs full of other tracks I don’t really want. (How come the David Bowie best-of I already have didn’t include these two anyway?!) Even cheaper at minus 40 cents.
So what’s the catch here?
- According to the terms and conditions, you can only do this up to 5 times per iTunes account. Damn.
- They’re Nestle bars. I’ve long boycotted Nestle. But the costs of the discount and the promotion are likely to be borne by the manufacturer, which hopefully means they’re earning nothing at all, or even losing money on the deal.
- I have to eat the chocolate. Bummer. (I’ll pace myself.)
Life On Mars trivia: Sam Tyler was named after Rose Tyler from Doctor Who.
Billy and Mick and Emily
At The Prince Of Wales, St Kilda, Wednesday night.
Emily Ulman was okay. Support to the support. Polite clapping. Justine bemoaned that she rarely gets out to see live music, but twice recently she’d got Emily. It’s like rarely flying, then taking an overseas trip and getting the same movie twice. No matter how good it is, it would have been nice to have more variety.
Mick Thomas and the Sure Thing — Mick’s a genius. Superb. Why can’t all support acts be this good? Some new songs (You Remind Me was especially good — and new to me, at least), some old Weddoes favourites (such as Monday’s Experts, the ever-emotional-for-parents Father’s Day, For a Short Time), and a version of Our Sunshine (co-written by Mick with Paul Kelly) with a bit of a Spanish flavour. I must get me some more Mick Thomas CDs.
And then Billy Bragg came on at about 10:30, brandishing a cup of tea. Gigs can be made or broken by the crowd. He got a great reaction, and gave back in spades. Plenty of political chatter, some quite inspiring, urging people to get up and take action. The Yarra Song got a play, as did a bunch of oldies and some songs from the upcoming album.
A choice for the crowd between a Dylan and a Carpenters song… and the vote was for the latter. Later a version of Pinball Wizard done as Johnny Cash to the tune of Folsom Prison Blues, very funny stuff.
One… two… three encores — he just kept going, with both he and the crowd getting more enthusiastic as he went. By the time things wrapped up with a chorus-crowd-sung A New England just before 1am we were thoroughly satisfied.
It was also the first pub gig I’d been to since the smoking ban came in. Woo hoo, such a pleasant change to not have to automatically wash all your clothes and hair to get rid of the stink. Though two annoying smelly-breathed smokers did the thing where they come through the crowd behind others carrying drinks, then stop dead to claim a space where there wasn’t really one to claim, a little too close for comfort. Grrr. So I made sure to stand with my elbows pointing in their direction. After a while they went away.
But that didn’t detract from a great night.
And my plan for getting home worked a treat, too: the second-last tram (they go until 1:30am from there) to Caulfield, then the car, so I was falling into bed about 1:30, just wishing it wasn’t a school night.
