A peek behind the curtains here at Five Songs International (a subsidiary of Songsanto): I sometimes write these things ahead of time. Like the weekend ones are usually paved out ahead of time. Still the same rules, though: I pick a time, start shuffle, and write about those five songs. But, in order to keep the flow of quality (?) stuff flowing, sometimes they’re not written on the day that they’re posted. Like, for instance, this was written on Friday while I ate lunch. Doesn’t make the songs any less good (or bad? I don’t know yet!).

After I kept shuffle on yesterday, I got Silkworm, Mono Puff, The Roots - lots of bands I wanted to talk about. It can be agonizing letting stuff like that go away, but rules are rules. Without rules, this whole thing just becomes “Josh writes about music however he wants” and then I’ll probably stop doing it. And then ones of people will be deprived of this scintillating work!

Up in the sky! It’s a playlist!

I’m going to have to make myself an index of these bands in order to keep linking back to previous entries, but I suspect I’ll be happy to have done that in the end.

Look out! Behind you! It’s a playlist!

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, “Laventille Road March”

The Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band is a side-project/alter ego of The Mighty Mocambos, a funk group from Germany. For this album, the band has added steel drums to the arrangements as a lead instrument, giving the whole enterprise a pretty unique feel, while still very much being instrumental funk. It’s a fun project, and works better than it probably has any right to. This album is about half covers and half originals, and is recommended for anybody wanting more funk in their lives.

The Wedding Present was great last night! Nice mix of older material and newer stuff, including playing “Dalliance” (included on the playlist), one of the great songs about longing ever.

We have music sign!

Knxwledge, “onlijournitro”

This is from yet another DJ album, with this one being basically just a collection of beats. Some of them are quite good, they’re mostly pretty short, and this overall feels like more of a collection of ideas than a coherent work. They’re actually pretty ideal to pop up in a shuffle format, honestly.

I’m going to see The Wedding Present tonight! I’m super excited, I haven’t been to a show in a bit, and they’ve been a favorite band for a long time. I’m super tempted to break my own rules to have them come up, but no, I’ll behave! If you’re behaving, you’ll throw on some tunes! Kick out the jams, Google! (Google has never kicked out any jams.)

RJD2, “The Horror”

Here we encounter another artist that is probably most famous for something other than their albums. In this case RJD2 composed the theme for “Mad Men”, which isn’t a bad encapsulation of his style. The track here is the opening from his outstanding debut album Deadringer, which is mostly instrumental tracks but does have some songs with guests rhyming on them. As opposed to DJ Vadim’s that we just heard, there’s personality on every track here, with a variety of moods, lots of great samples, and fun twists throughout. Too often, DJ albums can end up kind of self-indulgent, but this is one of the great ones.

Big day at Five Songs Inc.! We’re…ok, that’s a lie. It’s just me, and I’m just doing the usual. But I have music for you, so I can’t be all bad, right? Not our best playlist today, though.

Eagles of Death Metal, “Bag O’ Miracles”

Sadly, most people will only recognize the Eagles of Death Metal due to the tragic terrorist attack at their concert in Paris. EoDM is one of Josh Homme’s (Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age) side projects, playing a booze-soaked bluesy hard rock with an aggressively skanky edge to things. It’s music that really wants you to have a good time, and by god, it’s going to define “good time” for you! Truth be told, after about half an album, I’m usually done, but it’s fine in smaller doses.

I don’t know about anybody else, but I still haven’t adjusted to new releases being on Fridays. For a long, long period of my life, Tuesdays were just a little more exciting than other weekdays, because it was when new music came out. I miss that. I’m old. But I have music for you!

Craw, “Days in the Gutter/Nights in the Gutter”

Craw was an underground rock band from Cleveland playing music in the vein of bands like the Jesus Lizard, Bitch Magnet, etc. Note my delicate avoidance of the “post-hardcore” label! Note, also, that I still managed to get it in there. At any rate, despite being very plugged into that scene at the time, and even living not far away in Pittsburgh, I managed to completely miss them. However, thanks to a Kickstarter project, their three albums got reissued, and it’s great stuff. It really was a pleasure discovering a new band from that scene and suddenly having three albums of material to listen to. There’s a strong Steve Albini vibe to this track, which is OK by me!

The intro to this series has been pushed off the page, so a brief mention might be in order. I’m writing about five random songs from my collection on a daily-ish basis, and giving everybody a link to listen along. Here’s the intro to the series, and here’s the link to today’s songs.

Prefuse 73, “Tel Aviv’s Gravel Toothbrush”

Prefuse 73 is one of the names that Scott Herren records under, mixing up hip-hop influences with electronic music. He’s at his best when you’ve got stuttering bits and pieces of recognizable hip-hop running through, but broken up in strange ways. When he wanders too far from that into pure electronic stuff, he gets less interesting to me. This is a short piece from Extinguished, which is outtakes from his excellent One Word Extinguisher album. On the whole, you can see why he left this material off the main album, so this record is for completists only. Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives and One Word Extinguisher remain the pick of the litter for him.

I hope people are listening to all of the songs that I’m posting here, including the ones that I’m suggesting are not for me. They might be for you! They might suck! Only one way to find out. Speaking of, here’s today’s playlist. Listen to it all! Or don’t. I’m not your boss.

Richard Lloyd, “Connection”

Richard Lloyd was part of Television, who made one of the all-time great punk albums, Marquee Moon, but I haven’t really paid any attention to any of his solo career. This song comes from an outstanding compilation, Ork Records: New York, New York, which Numero Group recently reissued. It’s a document of the very early New York punk scene, and I cannot recommend it highly enough if you have an interest in that whole era.

Writing these up is a little strange. In the end, it’s a way for me to tour through my music, remember assorted bands, and write down some stories for myself. It all feels pretty self-indulgent, but then again, I’m not really inconveniencing anybody. I guess I’m having fun, so that’s good enough. Links to the music? Why of course!

Skeletonwitch, “My Skin Of Deceit”

Let me just say, “Skeletonwitch” seems like the kind of name somebody would cook up just to mock metal. And the cover art! Are there be-antlered undead things screaming? YOU KNOW THERE ARE! It all seems like a parody act. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell with metal, really.