Nation of Ulysses

Been a while since I’ve done a special, so let’s do this. For those who haven’t seen them, I usually pick a word, search the library for that word, and then randomize among those songs. Today, I’m going with “school” in honor of the kids going back to school. Let’s see what we get!

The Nation of Ulysses, “Cool Senior High School (Fight Song)”

Oh fuck yeah, good start. This urgent tune comes to us from the first Nation of Ulysses album, 13-Point Program To Destroy America, which is probably my favorite of the two just by virtue of being first. But they both rule, the sort of post-hardcore that actually ends up shading just back into hardcore. The drive and energy of this album is palpable.

The Nation of Ulysses, “Cool Senior High School (Fight Song)”

Back in the day, there were troglodytes on Usenet that hated the Nation of Ulysses for being too arty, too pretentious, just too much. How stupid is that? This shit rocks, people are dumb.

Death Cab For Cutie, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark”

OK, you’ve all heard this song a billion times, on radio stations, as various crappy covers, and as the background music to a weepy scene on a middlebrow TV drama. So, whatever. What I want to talk about is this bit from the Wikipedia entry on the song, which I went to go look at to see how high this thing charted (which I no longer care about).

Alejandro Escovedo, “Chelsea Hotel ‘78”

Escovedo is one of those artists that has had a long recording career, and someone whose name I’d seen in a bunch of places, but I didn’t really know anything about him. I picked up what was, at the time, his latest record…and still don’t really know much about him. It’s good, but didn’t really grab me all that much either.

Wilco, “One and a Half Stars”

Ode to Joy is the latest Wilco album, from 2019. It comes after two solo Jeff Tweedy records, which I thought were better than the previous couple Wilco records. So, is it more like Warm (good) or Star Wars (bad)? More good than bad, I think? It’s not top-tier, but it’s a solid record.

Felt, “Bass For Your Truck”

Repeat!

The Smiths, “Is It Really So Strange?”

I really need to get to the point where my kid can have visitors again, because I really want to try and mortify them by singing along to the Smiths really loud.

Belle and Sebastian, “Electronic Renaissance”

It’s tracks like this one that really demonstrate that Belle and Sebastian were still very much learning how things worked with their first album, Tigermilk, which was literally a university project. Luckily, they didn’t convince themselves that this sort of thing was their future.

Frederick Knight, “Trouble”

Hell yeah, that’s the stuff.

Front 242, “Gripped By Fear”

This is from a remix EP called Mixed By Fear, containing remixes of songs from Tyranny For You. It’s every bit as forgettable as that sounds, and is incredibly inessential.

El Michaels Affair, “Easy Access”

This is a repeat! It smokes, but we’ll do a sixth song today.

Mombu, “Stutterer Ancestor”

We just had a Mombu track the other day, so enjoy another track of their chaotic drum and bari sax styling!

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, “Got A Thing On My Mind”

More from Miss Sharon Jones! This is the first proper song on the first Sharon Jones album, and my goodness, what a way to announce themselves. This is one of the albums that really got Daptone rolling, and it’s a great record.

The Nation of Ulysses, “Shakedown”

A thing that is pretty incredible about the Nation of Ulysses is that Ian Svenonius was able to keep up this kind of shredding vocals for any period of time. Impressive stuff!

Flamingosis, “Those Eyes”

Discogs describes Flamingosis as “chillwave” and “disco”, and, sure, whatever. There’s some synth pop here, some electro-funk, some straight up pop - the sort of thing that sounds nostalgic without actually really evoking anything specific. In this song, there are actually some Soul II Soul vibes going on here. Which, in turn, brings me to two memories of Soul II Soul. The first is that they were weirdly one of the contemporary (at the time) bands that my dad and I both really liked. He bought his own copy of a couple of their albums, we used to listen to them in the car, it was great.

Future Of The Left, “Chin Music”

The bass tone for Future of the Left always sounds like a million bucks. And they wisely make sure that it stays up front plenty so we can all enjoy the hell out of it.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, “Bells of Creation”

This album, The Century of Self, marked the point where I kind of lost track of Trail of Dead. Not because I stopped liking the music - they’re still their normal bombastic selves here, making huge, emotional tunes - but just because sometimes we just fall off of bands. I think that maybe I wasn’t hearing a lot of evolution in the band, and I kind of had heard what they had to say. That’s maybe unfair, but there’s not a lot separating this from the previous three records.

New year, same old flaky schedule! My apologies, we here at Five Songs were on the road intending on keeping the rock going, even lugging our laptop all over the place. But, alas, Plexasaurus Rex back home decided to die, and needed a reboot, and nobody was around to push the button. So, a bit of a break. We’re back! We’re ready to rumble! HIT IT, PLEXASAURUS REX!

Green Day, “Minority”

I was playing Rock Band with the kids the other day, and a couple of Green Day tracks popped up. The kids declared that all Green Day songs sounded the same, and I’ll be honest, I thought I had a couple more years before they started roasting my taste in music. Disheartening! I grounded them for a decade.

Nation of Ulysses, “The Sound of Young America”

I need more art punk in my life. Nation of Ulysses was unafraid to just go for it, with their over-the-top political polemics, the atonal honking of the trumpet, the odd song structures, or whatever other pretensions they were willing to put on. They also carried it off with straight faces, which just helped carry things. As I get older, I’m happier with bands that staked out their own territory. Nobody really sounds like the Nation of Ulysses, and that’s really valuable.