Spitball Army

I have the Indian fellow at the local Subway in the habit of adding “lots of black pepper, but no salt” to whichever sandwich I order. Now, he’s moving to Chicago, and I’ll have to train somebody else all over again.

Add that to my list of First World Problems.

Approximate playing time: 60 minutes.

1. DJ Shadow  “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt”  (1996)
2. Sun Kil Moon  “Ocean Breathes Salty”  (2005)
3. Laura Veirs  “Saltbreakers”  (2007)
4. Band of Horses  “The Great Salt Lake”  (2006)
5. Fats Waller  “I’m Gonna Salt Away Some Sugar”  (1940)
6. The Mamas & the Papas  “No Salt on Her Tail”  (1966)
7. Lizz Wright  “Salt”  (2003)
8. Martin Briley  “The Salt in My Tears”  (1983)
9. The Beach Boys  “Salt Lake City”  (1965)
10. The Rolling Stones  “The Salt of the Earth”  (1968)
11. Miles Davis  “Salt Peanuts”  (1956)
12. Jimmy Dickens  “Salty Boogie”  (1954)
13. Vulcan’s Britches  “Vinegar and Salt”  (2001)
14. Procol Harum  “A Salty Dog”  (1969)
15. Bix Beiderbecke  “There Ain’t No Sweet Man That’s Worth the Salt of My Tears”  (1928)

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You can also listen to this playlist in an abbreviated form (14 out of the 15 tracks) on Spotify. Here is the link.

When asked – and sometimes, just voluntarily – I have said that I don’t like the flute. This is despite the fact that I have had good friends who are flutists (not “flautists,” mind you, because those are people who make flautas), and they have all been and continue to be stellar people, as far as I can tell. I suppose that there was something in my past that drove me to hold this judgment against flutes, much like my mother’s relationship with the color yellow [upcoming run-on sentence alert!], which she insisted so often throughout my earlier years didn’t look “good” on me that I almost believed her until I wore my favorite yellow long-sleeved dress shirt in her presence once in my later years and stunned her with my handsomeness so much that she was driven to utter “But I thought you hated yellow!” In short – with regard to the flute – I have been a fool, and that is not an insult to my dear mother.

This playlist was springboarded by my recent fascination with the album Kaputt, by Destroyer. The song, “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker,” is a pop mini-symphony that features a terrific lyrical flute melody, one that I first thought was played out live in the studio, but after thirty or so listens have come to believe is an elaborate loop. I still love it. And the repeated hearings of it made me wonder about other uses of the instrument in popular recordings (as opposed to the plethora of classical and jazz recordings that feature a flute). My preparations for this playlist uncovered enough music to fill several playlists, to my surprise.

I do love the fact that a flute part can be just as effective as an accent to the sonic weave of a song (“So Far Away,” for example) as it can when it is the featured instrument (in this case, “Heard It in a Love Song” and “Goin’ Up the Country” are the first to come to my mind). I also feel that this is one of the strongest playlists that I’ve tossed up here, in terms of listenability, and I attribute that to the flute’s versatility and beauty, which I have maligned for decades.

For that, I apologize.

Approximate playing time: 78 minutes.

1. Jethro Tull  “Living in the Past”  (1972)
2. The Guess Who  “Undun”  (1969)
3. Aretha Franklin  “Until You Come Back to Me”  (1973)
4. Seatrain  “Flute Thing”  (1973)
5. Beastie Boys  “Sure Shot”  (2004)
6. Canned Heat  “Goin’ Up the Country”  (1969)
7. Love  “Orange Skies”  (1967)
8. The Association  “Windy”  (1967)
9. Destroyer  “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker”  (2011)
10. Josh Rouse  “James”  (2003)
11. Simon & Garfunkel  “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”  (1970)
12. Van Morrison  “Everyone”  (1970)
13. Carole King  “So Far Away”  (1971)
14. David Bowie  “Moonage Daydream”  (1972)
15. The Marshall Tucker Band  “Heard It in a Love Song”  (1977)
16. Donovan  “Sunny Goodge Street”  (1965)
17. Cat Stevens  “Katmandu”  (1970)
18. The Beach Boys  “Feel Flows”  (1971)
19. Van McCoy  “The Hustle”  (1975)
20. The 5th Dimension  “Up Up and Away”  (1967)

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Some notes on the songs:

• Practically any Jethro Tull song could have been included here, as we all know that the group’s front man Ian Anderson is a flutist. “Thick as a Brick” would have been my second choice.
• Listening to “The Hustle” while preparing this post, after many years of Disco-free bliss, inspired me to pen the following #CNFtweet: “The Hustle” on MP3: 99 cents. The irreversibly grounded sensation one gets while dancing to a disco song as it fades out: free.
• I don’t usually do this (pointing), but I’d like to point out the snaking tango performed by the electric guitar and the flute in “Feel Flows,” by The Beach Boys. It’s not at all a sound typically expected of that band, and it’s a stunner of a moment.
• Now I’m hungry for some flautas.

You can also listen to this playlist in a slightly different form (Seatrain’s “Flute Thing” is featured there in a 7:53 version, instead of the much shorter 3:21 version that’s featured here) on Spotify. Here is the link.

A change (slightly for the better) in my employment status this week got me thinking about the rather obvious theme for today’s playlist. I was somewhat overwhelmed to find nearly two hundred songs in my collection with direct references to work, jobs and pay. Guess it’s always on folks’ minds.

Approximate playing time: 75 minutes.

1. Sondre Lerche  “It’s Our Job”  (2004)
2. Tennessee Ernie Ford  “Sixteen Tons”  (1955)
3. ABBA  “Money, Money, Money”  (1976)
4. Bruce Springsteen  “Man’s Job”  (1992)
5. The Contours  “Do You Love Me”  (1962)
6. The Flying Lizards  “Money (That’s What I Want)”  (1979)
7. Hank Ballard & the Midnighters  “Work With Me, Annie”  (1954)
8. Laverne Baker & Jimmy Ricks  “You’re the Boss”  (1961)
9. Eric Essix  “Hard Work”  (2009)
10. Boz Scaggs  “Payday”  (2001)
11. Lady Sovereign  “9 to 5″  (2006)
12. The Moody Blues  “Lunch Hour: Peak Hour”  (1967)
13. They Might Be Giants  “Boss of Me”  (2001)
14. The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company  “When a Felon’s Not Engaged in His Employment” (from Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance)  (1990)
15. Culture Club  “Time (Clock of the Heart)”  (1982)
16. Merle Travis  “Payday Comes Too Slow”  (1963)
17. Tom Paxton  “A Job of Work”  (1964)
18. Jimmy Reed  “Big Boss Man”  (1960)
19. The Bear Quartet  “I Had a Job”  (2000)
20. Talking Heads  “Found a Job”  (1978)
21. The Silhouettes  “Get a Job”  (1958)

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You can also listen to this playlist in an abbreviated form (17 out of the 21 tracks, and two substitutions) on Spotify. Here is the link.

The Movies mirror life, yo.

Sometimes there are cartoons before the drama; sometimes all you’re left with is a few rocky kernels of popcorn in the bottom of a cardboard box.

Approximate playing time: 73 minutes.

1. Carl Stalling  “Porky in Wackyland (1938) / Dough for the Do Do (1949)”
2. Johnny Mercer & Martha Tilton  “If I Had a Talking Picture of You”  (1947)
3. The Olympics  “Western Movies”  (1958)
4. Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey  “Widescreen World”  (2009)
5. Ed Harcourt  “Silent Film”  (2007)
6. Great Lake Swimmers  “Moving Pictures Silent Films”  (2005)
7. Merle Haggard  “It’s All in the Movies”  (1976)
8. David Mead  “Only in the Movies”  (2001)
9. Paul Simon  “That’s Why God Made the Movies”  (1977)
10. Steely Dan  “Everyone’s Gone to the Movies”  (1975)
11. Nada Surf  “The Film Did Not Go ‘Round”  (2008)
12. Sunny So Brite  “The Screen Actors Guilt”  (2004)
13. Sloan  “In the Movies”  (2001)
14. Sugar Minott  “Exit Music (for a Film)”  (2006)
15. The Moody Blues  “The Actor”  (1968)
16. Josh Ritter  “The Bad Actress” [solo acoustic]  (2008)
17. Adam Snyder  “Actress in an Airport”  (2001)
18. Hot Butter  “Popcorn”  (1972)

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Who knows where we’d be without the back-up singer? Well, I do, for one. We’d be stranded in a world without harmony. Chew on that for a moment.

The first seven tracks on today’s playlist are by six very famous artists (and Valerie Carter), who all got their start in the music biz as backing vocalists for other folks. The most famous instance of this is, of course, Sheryl Crow’s early stint supporting Michael Jackson. Valerie Carter, incidentally, has had quite a lucrative career as a supporting vocalist for James Taylor.

The remaining tracks (8 through 17) feature some well-known singers supplying vocals behind their colleagues. There are tons of examples of these – I could go for weeks renewing such a playlist. I, however, will not.

Approximate playing time: 70 minutes.

1. Elton John  “Let Me Be Your Car”  (1973)
2. Whitney Houston  “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”  (1987)
3. Sheryl Crow  “Members Only”  (1998)
4. Phil Collins  “Another Day in Paradise”  (1989)
5. Valerie Carter  “Cowboy Angel”  (1977)
6. Cher  “Lay Baby Lay”  (1969)
7. Mariah Carey  “Vision of Love”  (1990)
8. Carly Simon [with Mick Jagger]  “You’re So Vain”  (1972)
9. Peter Gabriel [with Kate Bush]  “Games Without Frontiers”  (1980)
10. Rockwell [with Michael Jackson]  “Somebody’s Watching Me”  (1984)
11. Eric Clapton [with Dolly Parton]  “Lay Down Sally”  (1977)
12. Hootie & the Blowfish [with David Crosby]  “Hold My Hand”  (1994)
13. Indigo Girls [with Jackson Browne]  “Galileo”  (1992)
14. Neil Young [with Linda Ronstadt]  “Heart of Gold”  (1972)
15. John Denver [with Olivia Newton-John]  “Fly Away”  (1975)
16. Sam Cooke [with Lou Rawls]  “Bring It On Home to Me”  (1962)
17. David Bowie [with John Lennon]  “Fame”  (1975)

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Some notes on the songs:

• Not too many people could get away with altering the lyrics to a Bob Dylan song like Cher has done with “Lay Baby Lay.” Do you think she should get a pass?
• I can’t hear David Crosby in the Hootie track, but I’m told by a reliable source that he’s definitely in there, buried beneath fifteen layers of Darius Rucker vocals.
• John Lennon is unrecognizable in “Fame,” but that’s him singing “fame, fame, fame, fame,…” at the end, his voice manipulated to sound like an electronic Chipmunk.
• This has nothing to do with backing vocals, but I still contend – as I have for years – that Carly Simon’s rhyming of ‘yacht’ with ‘apricot’ is utter brilliance.

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“Fifty Two Stations” (1982) from Groovy Decay by Robyn Hitchcock

Where do the days go? Work, work, work, work and work, and soon two to three months have passed and you realize that you haven’t posted a thing on your blog…but change that “you” to “I” and here we are.

I found myself stuck behind the desk at home paying bills on my first day off in a long while, and let the iTunes take a musical holiday, jumping all over the map on a random spree – not that different from what I usually listen to, but enjoyably unpredictable, nonetheless. Here is a bit of what I heard.

Approximate playing time: 80 minutes.

1. Hank Mobley  “Soul Station”  (1960)
2. Ry Cooder  “Poor Man’s Shangri-La”  (2005)
3. Johnny Cash  “I’m Going to Memphis”  (2003)
4. The Stone Roses  “Elephant Stone”  (1989)
5. IV Thieves  “Mother’s Dilemma”  (2006)
6. Guy Van Duser & Billy Novick  “Sondra’s Blues”  (1994)
7. Arthur Russell  “Make 1, 2″
8. Television  “Friction”  (1977)
9. John Prine  “The Sins of Memphisto”  (1991)
10. Diana Ross & the Supremes  “I Guess I’ll Always Love You”  (1967)
11. The Electric Prunes  “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night”  (1966)
12. Cowboy Junkies  “One”  (2005)
13. David Gray  “Wisdom”  (1993)
14. David Mead  “The Only Living Boy in New York”  (2004)
15. Laura Nyro  “Mercy on Broadway”  (1969)
16. Werly Fairburn  “Good Deal Lucille”  (1954)
17. The Temptations  “Psychedelic Shack”  (1969)
18. Howlin’ Wolf  “How Many More Years”  (1951)
19. Beck  “E-Pro”  (2005)
20. Steve Wynn  “Resolution”  (2010)

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At the start of this year, I began compiling a list of films and other entertainments that I viewed either in the theater or via disc and cable. My Mom does this and, while I can’t say that she necessarily inspired me to take up the habit, I’ve enjoyed going back to the list and reviewing it on occasion. What caused me to begin this list was an article in The New York Times, dated April 29, 2003, that alphabetizes “The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.” I printed it out, went through it – checking the ones I’d seen – and decided to subsequently start watching the ones I hadn’t. That, and a bit of a clean-sweep through some boxes of DVDs that I had piled in the corner of a closet to eventually view and pass on, propelled me to this geekiest of list-making endeavors.

Here are the films that made the top tier (9.0 to 10.0) on my 10-point rating scale, organized in ascending order by rank and the alphabet. Incidentally, it was the first time I had seen any of these fifteen films, ever.

9.0
America, America (1963)
Little Fugitive (1953)
My Mother’s Castle (Le Château de ma Mère) (1990)
Wit (2001)

9.1
Buck (2011)

9.2
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
The Wave (Die Welle) (2008)

9.3
The Descendants (2011)
The King’s Speech (2010)
Margin Call (2011)

9.4
East of Eden (1955)
Incendies (2010)

9.7
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
The Quiet Man (1952)

9.8
The Tree of Life (2011)

Of films released in 2011 (with some carry-overs from 2010 that didn’t make it to me until this year) – besides the four listed above – I also really enjoyed And Everything Is Going Fine (8.2), A Better Life (8.3), Biutiful (8.3), Captain America: The First Avenger (8.9), Certified Copy (8.0), 50/50 (8.2), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (8.4), Hugo (8.4), The Ides of March (8.3), In a Better World (8.2), Midnight in Paris (8.2; second viewing 9.1), Moneyball (8.0), Pearl Jam Twenty (8.2), Poetry (8.6), Rabbit Hole (8.4), Rango (8.8), The Way (8.5) and Winnie the Pooh (8.0).

Oh, and this: I have a part-time job as a film projectionist at a local multi-plex. I might have previously thought that might afford me an opportunity to watch more current films, but that’s the Grand Misconception. Such opportunities never arise. Thus, the relative imbalance between new and older films on this list – not a bad thing, in my opinion.

Card is titled: “600 – Skyline Drive from Stony Man Mountain, Virginia. 45509″

Text of written message:

7/5/42
Sunday

Dear Mom, Paul & Julia

Received your letter saying you got the $20.00. I’ll be writing for some of it – by the end of the wee. Also received swimming suit and sewing kid – Got suit yesterday and went swimming last night 20c to swim with suit – other wise 55c – took and hour to get out of camp – bus so crowd and not many cars leaving camp they have 10 buses here and they are always packed. Big 4th of July here – you would know it was the 4th – Town was crowded with soldiers. May go swimming again this afternoon. Still working in office and was it hot there yesterday afternoon but I’d rather be there then outside working.

Regards, CKarsen

Publishing information:

Published by Asheville Post Card Co., Asheville, N.C.

Exhibit 9: Slint.