The Beatles

HELLO FROM THE FUTURE

It’s time to get ahead on writing this blog. Gonna try and keep a strong update pace. There’s a virtue in steadiness and predictability, which will help me build an audience. Which I will absolutely fail to do because the blog is ofputting and strange, the music is unappealing, and I am blazingly inept at self-promotion.

HIT IT PLEXASAURUS REX!

Man or Astro-Man?, “U-235/PU-239”

A relative rarity here, with mostly instrumental surf/sci-fi rockers Man or Astro-Man? turning in some vocals. But it’s all reverbed out and the drums are echo-y, so it’s all good with me. I also just learned that they put out a record in 2013, time to go check that one out.

Pavement, “Texas Never Whispers”

Time for a deranged opinion! Specifically: Watery, Domestic, the 1992 EP that Pavement released between Slanted & Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is, pound for pound, the best Pavement release. Four songs, all killer, and from their peak period. These tracks would end up on various collections, re-issued, re-packaged, re-packaged, but I think it dulls the impact a little bit when they’re just mixed into a compilation or are bonus tracks to an anniversary re-release or whatever. You don’t necessarily realize that these were all in one place originally. Anyway, it’s fantastic, make a playlist of the four songs and have a go or pull it up specifically on Spotify or whatever.

The Beatles, “Let It Be”

When I find myself with no ideas / struggling to write a blog / I fall back on dumb jokes / mail it in

TWRP, “Only the Best”

OK, I don’t love those lyrics there, but in the spirit of of mailing it in, I’m not going to take another run at them. Pulling aside the curtain a bit here at Five Songs Agglomerated, I pretty much just write these entries in stream-of-consciousness as I listen to the music, go back and just do a quick edit pass to fix typos or any really duff wording, and then call it good. Revising the joke goes agains the spirit of the thing, I think.

The Miracles, “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”

Even over the course of just a few years (this is from 1962), the Motown sound evolved very rapidly. That’s not to say anything wrong with this, it’s delightful, but Motown moved really fast, and by 1965 they would be in a pretty different place. I mean, “Nowhere to Run” is from 1965.

The Beatles, “Good Day Sunshine”

Man, Revolver was really revolutionary! (For the record, this is from 1966, after that Martha & the Vandellas ripper.)

Cobalt, “Gin”

Gin, that’s a very good idea.

Television, “Friction”

Forever the song before “Marquee Moon”.

The Beatles, “I Me Mine”

We’re skewing old today, which is fine, because I am old. So old.

Fine, I’ll say something more: Let It Be has some memorable songs, but there’s a lot of wankery on it and it’s kind of a shame that their discography ends with this instead of Abbey Road.

The Beatles, “I’m So Tired”

Big same, Beatles.

DJ Krush, “Jikan no Hashi 2”

Do I need to hear “Jikan no Hashi” for this song to make sense?

Abstract hip-hop artist DJ Krush’s 1996 MiLiGHT featured a bunch of collaborations, resulting in a bit of an uneven record. But at the heart of it are always his jazzy beats, so it’s still a pleasant listen.

The Skunks, “The Chairman”

Well, that’s pointless.

Melkbelly, “LCR”

LCR is also the name of maybe the worst board game that has achieved any substantial success. I don’t know how many copies it has sold, but LCR is an embarrassingly bad game design that has been successful enough to appear in stores for years and years. Just appalling shit.

Zeke, “Rid”

Around here, we have a love for pure, hard-charging garage rock that cannot ever be sated. There is no quantity of fast riffs and shouted vocals that will slake our thirst. So, add Zeke to the pile of bands that have attempted to satisfy our hunger, but we need more.

Gas Huffer, “Crooked Bird”

As Gas Huffer moved into the middle of their run, they added a little touch of sruf. A little more reverb takes us in a slightly different direction on their garage rock. Still very recognizable as Gas Huffer, mind you, but they didn’t just keep re-making Janitors of Tomorrow either.

Jr. Walker & the All-Stars, “Shotgun”

Goddam, listen to that recording. The compression on everything just adds so much to the urgency of the track. It’s so sweaty!

Can, “Mother Upduff”

I still kind of lament Unlimited Edition being the first record I ever heard from Can. It’s so scattered, as befits an outtake compilation, that it’s hard to really appreciate it without the context of already loving the band. I decided to just ignore Can for another couple decades at that point, and I could have been listening to them that whole time. Big mistake!

Knxwledge, “kometostai.aintreallynootherwaytoputitro”

Yes, I copied and pasted that from Plex. I ain’t typin’ all that!

Chaos A.D., “Generation Shit”

Chaos A.D. is an Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher), releasing a miscellaneous pile of tracks from his early years. It doesn’t show the same kind of sophistication of his later recordings, and honestly, it’s an easy skip. This is probalby the worst track on the album, though, so don’t totally judge on this song.

The Beatles, “Dear Prudence”

One of my simultaneously dumbest and proudest moments in Rock Band was five starring this song on the drums and vocals and the same time…except I whistled the entirety of the vocal track. Not bad!