Motown

I wonder where the bursts of creativity comes from for me. There are times that I can make progress on writing here, move a programming project along, contemplate starting a new project, and even get a game moving ahead. And there are times where I do none of that. It’s unclear exactly what it is. Some of it is times of stress (or freedom from stress), of course. But work isn’t noticeably different now than it was six months ago, say. So, who knows?

As long as I’m resurrecting various hobbies and activities, for anybody that is curious, I’ve got a game design that I’ve been working on that’s pretty far along. I’ve been blogging about it on my other site, with the articles available here. I actually just made what I think is potentially a very cool rules change, and I can’t wait to try it out. OK! Let’s crank up the tunes!

Rocket From the Crypt, “Birdman”

For most of the summer, I’ve been listening to a lot of punk and various punk-inflected rock bands. It’s kind of me circling back to one of my forever loves in music, driven by discovering see/saw. It’s a genre that really just kind of thrives on execution, which is funny for a genre with a reputation for sloppiness. But execution doesn’t mean precision, just that the band’s songs, energy, and approach have to be aligned for things to really work.

Bim Skala Bim, “Sunshine of Your Love”

Bim Skala Bim enjoyed covering classic rock warhorses over their career, songs which are really kind of ideal targets for this kind of thing. Any dork who will get upset about a cheeky cover of Cream of Pink Floyd is really showing their ass. Anyway, this is fun, sure, why not?

Upon proofreading, I’m leaving the “Cream of Pink Floyd” typo in there, because it’s delightful. Yes, I proofread these, dammit.

Pinegrove, “Darkness (acoustic)”

After a very good and well-received second album (Cardinal), Pinegrove ran into some serious problems that derailed the band after accusations surfaced about Evan Hall. It was a messy situation that Hall and the band tried to handle head-on, eventually going through mediation with the accuser and leaving their label willingly when another band objected to their presence. Overall, they seemed sincere in their attempts to handle things, and it seems like the accuser was satisfied by their steps. Anyway, all of this delayed the release of their third album by a couple years, and it eventually came out self-released. For all that, Skylight is actually a good album, and it came accompanied with an acoustic interpretation (called Skylight II). That’s where this track came from, and it’s a nice little listen.

James Brown, “I Got You (I Feel Good)”

There’s a certain strange thing that goes on in my head around timelines. This song was first released in an early version in 1964, and it absolutely does not seem like it should be contemporaneous with, say, A Hard Days Night. Or Eddie Holland’s “Just Ain’t Enough Love” to pick an example of what Motown was up to at this time. As a consequence, the timelines for funk and soul are just completely disconnected in my brain from those of rock. I can get the progressions of both straight in my head, within their own milieu, but when I think about what they were each doing at the same time, it just doens’t fit, like a miscut jigsaw.

Stone Temple Pilots, “Big Empty”

I was going to say that this is the only STP track in my library, their contribution to The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack which I bought because it had a new track from Nine Inch Nails and Helmet. Anyway, I was wrong: they also contributed to a Led Zeppelin tribute album, a covers album notable mostly for David Yow getting together with Helmet for a fun “Custard Pie” and not a lot else. Anyway, STP are and always were boring, flannel wallpaper for people who thought that the only thing that the old hard rock hegemony on raido needed was more grunting.

It’s a big day here on Five Songs. Exactly two years ago, I started updating this thing every day. Through vacations, work getting busy, moving twice, dealing with the fallout of a pandemic, I kept hitting my updates. I’m not sure why exactly I decided to do so. More than anything, it was to convince myself that I could commit to a grind like this and keep on top of it. Could I be a daily blogger? Could I keep a creative project going even when it got tough?

Frisk Frugt, “Solhyldest 1. del”

No, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Constantines, “Shine a Light”

A thing that’s cool about this song is how restless it is. They’ve gone through multiple ideas in the first minute of the tune, which is nice to see. This is a very fun album.

Atmosphere, “The Future is Disgusting”

Kind of a throwback here, off of 2020’s The Day Before Halloween. Those sawtooth synths there are very primitive but nice.

They Might Be Giants, “Particle Man (Live)”

Honestly, the reason for me to listen to The Flood Show is mostly for the in-between song banter.

Urge Overkill, “Eggs”

Urge Overkill were a band out of Chicago that were doing big hard rock moves ironically, and in the early 90s, that was enough to attract attention. They would eventually mutate the ironic rock stuff to just sincere rock stuff, end up on a major label, and carve out a career being rock stars at a time when rock stars didn’t much look like rock stars. Or something.

Mary Wells, “My Guy”

We’ve had this one before.

The Magnetic Fields, “I’m Sorry I Love You”

One of the more memorable tunes from 69 Love Songs, probably due to the vocals, but I do like the guitar part on it as well.

Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, “Slave Moon”

Ah, Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard. Say it soft, and it’s almost like praying. Say it loud, and there’s stoner metal playing. Anyway, here’s ten minutes of fuzz, enjoy!