Primitive Radio Gods
"Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand"
I still remember the first time I heard this, in the back seat of a Honda Accord on a rainy day, stopped along a country road beside a fruit and vegetable stand with the radio going and the driver out buying a bag of apples. 1996; not a particularly good time in my life, and the flattened out, hallucinogenic melancholia of this track made it stick in my head like chewing gum; apparently I'm not the only one who experienced this effect. When Napster first appeared (years before iTunes and legal mp3 downloads) and I had my first computer that could actually burn real music CDs (!!!) this was the very first track on the very first mix disc I made.
Dream Academy
"Life in a Northern Town"
From my college years, which was a strange time for music, mostly bad, when a lot of video-based innovation led to the popularity of a lot of questionable material, but (like most people my age) I can't see past the nostalgia factor and I become like a grandparent grooving on some unspeakable big band crap as if it's any good. Actually, the eighties were a time of major failure in all the arts except music, it could be argued: I like to say that everyone did their worst work in the eighties (Garry Trudeau, Stephen King, Woody Allen, everyone) but it's not really true. Like television after Twin Peaks, the immediate post-MTV era encouraged a vibe of experimentation and cultural schizophenia very different from the crisply-defined guitar-rock and superband and new-wave that immediately preceded that time, and (if you overlook the preponderance of strange haircuts, mopey brits, and shamelessly bad synth) you can find some real gems, like this.
17 comments:
Thanks for the tracks grandpa!
At the end of these two weeks, we wait for the next person who says they have eclectic musical tastes, show them this playlist, then tell 'em to fuck off....
"What are you, like, eighty?" (referring to myself)
And, for the record, I generally listen to music that was released in the last five years or so; others will vouch for this. Look, I could have put up some Who or Velvet Underground, but that would have made me "great-grandpa," right?
Cool. I remember liking that Primitive Radio Gods song but I forgot how it goes.
(Secretly I was actually hoping you would pick the Who. I've resisted getting into them my entire life but recently discovered how influential their 60's stuff is.)
first time i heard the PRGs track i thought it was the most boring piece of tripe i'd ever heard.
then i was walking down telegraph one day and someone drove by and i caught the lyric, "could money pay for all the days i lived awake but half asleep?" and i fell for it instantly. my life (and i hardly think i'm special in this regard) has been an incessant struggle to awaken to what's around me. sometimes i think i've gotten it, but i've merely found a pocket of contentment which isn't usually the same thing.
now, it's twelve years later and it still gets regular play on my iTunes. it's fabulous solitary night music and as "moonlight spills on comic books and superstars in magazines," is a regular visual motif in my apartment, it suits me to a T.
i applaud your brazen love of what everyone forgets about, jordan.
So that leaves JPX and AC. (Julie likely has more important things on her mind.)
Chop chop!
Not everyone, apparently!
We're obviously going to have to do more of this...
Welcome Marc! I was hoping you'd join the experiment. We could all benefit from your perspective as someone who really understands music.
JSP, could you put up a full post asking the rest to post today? (since you can't wait for your bro) Although you may push poor AC over the edge if she has to pick today....
i really want to get into this. i've got my two tracks and i was in the middle of typing, but the triplicate task of finding links and pics and having something to say about them is taking longer than i have before heading to work. when i come home at the end of the day, i promise.
Jordan, I LOVE "Life in a Northern Town!!" That is definitely one of my all time favorite songs.
And as I said before, I really do mostly listen to stuff from when I was in college and HS even. Just figured I didn't need to bore everyone with Cure songs...
I actually got a subscription to Entertainment Weekly mostly for the 80s compilation disc that came with it, mostly because the disc contained Life In A Northern Town.
Later I cancelled the subscription based on one EW journalistic choice -- they dash out their swears. S---. F---. If Keith Richards says "fuck," I want fuck!
I want fuck too!
I I've always liked that PRG song as well, although I never knew what he was saying. I thought he was saying, "I've been down harder days" and only recently realized he was saying, "I've been downtrodden, baby"
It's a sample. The whole song's built around a sample that's in a slightly different time signature; it's stretched a bit to fit the beats of the song.
I love the part at the end when he, the PRG guy, finally sings it himself.
me too. it hits the same spot as that part in the Poe song "Haunted" when, after the sampled refrain "Buddah-bah-bah" has been hitting us the whole song, Poe belts it out as part of a sung line at the end.
I haven't listened to or thought about Poe in awhile. Thanks for the remind Marc. I remember bunking work to see Poe play a free concert at the park and of course I kept running into people I worked with and had to hide. This is why we should always tell the truth.
I used to have this book written by Poe's brother. I read the first chapter and had this insanely intense nightmare. Logically, I knew it was just coincidence and not connected to the book, but I couldn't chance ever having a nightmare like that again, so I never picked up the book again and it's probably packed away in a box with my gazillion other books either that or in some completely illogical spot. I have poor organizational skills. JPX is the king of organization and I’ve been hoping his skills would rub off on me, but sadly they haven’t.
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