Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash, “Cocaine Blues”

If you’ve got a blog, just a-read it to me.

Ivy Sole, “You Don’t Know My Name”

Ivy Sole is out of Philadelphia, and this song comes from her excellent debut Eden. I came across this record thanks to one of the Bandcamp spotlight emails, which are always a good source of learning about artists.

Ernie Hines, “Electrified Love”

Ernie Hines’s Electrified was a somewhat forgotten album released on Stax in 1972 until it was resurrected by hip-hop producers, which brought it to new audiences. It’s a fine album, and this lead track gives you an idea of what you’re in for.

clipping., “Nothing Is Safe”

There was probably a time in my life when I would have regarded clipping. askance. I’ve long been OK with noise in my music, having picked up an affection for industrial as a teenager that continued forward with noise rock, various gnarly forms of punk, etc. And, of course, hip hop has been a staple of my listening for even longer. But for a long time, I thought I didn’t like pretension in music. It led me to avoiding things like prog rock, various forms of art rock, all kind of ambitious music for a long time. Or, at least, things that were ambitious in particular ways that set me off.

SIX SONGS

Buck-O-Nine, “Tear Jerky”

I often wonder at the functioning of the human brain. I frequently have trouble using the correct “M” name for the various folks and dogs who live in this house with me (in my defense, I’ve never used the dog’s name for one of the humans, but that time is probably coming). But I can still whistle along to the horn lines of forgotten ska records. Good use of gray matter there!

Back to the usual thing around here, with our usual random playlist.

Johnny Cash, “Darlin’ Companion”

I engaged in my self-flagellation about my Johnny Cash collection last time, so I’ll spare you all. This is from Live at San Quentin, and is a lovely duet with June Carter Cash.

Discordance Axis, “The Inalienable Dreamless (Complete)”

I have a friend who says The Inalienable Dreamless is one of his favorite albums (maybe his favorite), so I ended up giving the band a try. It’s very extreme and virtuosic grindcore, which means it’s incredibly fast and the changes come at whiplash speed. Just to make things more confusing, this song is NOT from that album, it’s from Our Last Day, which was a compilation of odds and ends of related projects. And just to make things even MORE confusing, this is a cover of the entire The Inaliable Dreamless album by Merzbow. So, you know, buckle in for sixteen minutes of total noise freakout! I, um, understand if people skip this.

I’ll often leave shuffle running for a little while after doing one of these things, and sometimes I get these fantastic runs of songs and artists that would make for some great writeups. I have a lot to say about Operation Ivy! But, alas, that would be cheating. The way I’m doing things is that I decide I’m going to write about songs, and then start up the shuffle machine to see what I get from that moment forward. No retroactive choosing of shuffle runs for me! Luckily, there’s almost always something worth talking about. Listen along with me, won’t you?