web analytics

Pop Rock Nation

Category: News

music-news-from-breakups-to-the-lastest-buzz

  • Best of 2012 mix cd’s (discs 4-6): a track listing

    Every year, I design what ends up being a 6-cd best-of-the-previous-year mix. I have several friends who want all six, others who like to receive samplings therefrom. I design one set in February, another in the fall (giving me further time to explore). I’m told, and choose to believe, that I’m very good with track-to-track flow, so in this era of things like Spotify and Rhapsody playlists, I figured I might as well share with you the fourth through sixth tracklists for 2012 in case you want copies (if I know you) or just were curious and wanted to play with these a bit.

    Discs one through three are here; they mostly focus on my 50 Favorite Albums of 2012 list. This set — aside from giving second samples of eleven particular favorite albums, and first samples of late insertions onto that list — is more a tribute to individual songs.

    Noisy Up There, Where the Blind Lead the Blind

    1. Killers, Runaways
    2. Au, Solid Gold
    3. People Get Ready, Orange Grove
    4. Decomposure, Oh Brother
    5. Ned Collette + Wirewalker, il Futuro Fantastico
    6. Tic Tic Boom!, For Feeling
    7. Chairlift, I Belong in Your Arms
    8. Magnetic Fields, God Wants Us to Wait
    9. Heems, Womyn
    10. Roomful of Teeth, Quizassa
    11. Viv Albertine, Confessions of a MILF
    12. Alt-J, Fitzpleasure
    13. David Ramos, Digital Memory
    14. Agony Family, There Again
    15. Ben Folds Five, the Sound of the Life of the Mind
    16. Phedre, In Decay
    17. Darlingside, Still
    18. First Aid Kit, the Lion’s Roar
    19. Standard Fare, Kicking Puddles
    20. Gabriel and the Hounds, the World Unfolds
    21. Verlaines, What Sound is This?

    Goddamned Believers

    1. Eliza Rickman, White Words
    2. iamthemorning, Monsters
    3. Aesop Rock, Crows 1
    4. Billy Woods, the Man Who Would Be King
    5. David Byrne & St. Vincent, I Should Watch TV
    6. Ab-Soul & Danny Brown, Terrorist Threats
    7. Clock Opera, a Piece of String
    8. It Bites, Meadow and the Stream
    9. Sigh, l’Excommunication a Minuit
    10. Between the Buried and Me, Bloom
    11. Future of the Left, Notes on Achieving Orbit
    12. Diablo Swing Orchestra, Mass Rapture
    13. Thumpermonkey, Wheezyboy
    14. Extra Life, First Song
    15. Serj Tankian, Forget Me Knot
    16. Cold Specks, Blank Maps
    17. Why?, For Someone
    18. Cadence Weapon, You Can’t Stop the Machine
    19. Flobots, Stop the Apocalypse

    Stop Pretending Art is Hard

    1. Emilie Autumn, Fight Like a Girl
    2. Bryan Scary, You Might Be Caught in Tarantella
    3. the Fixx, Girl with No Ceiling
    4. ECID, Back from Japan
    5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Thrift Shop
    6. Jim’s Big Ego, 404 Blues
    7. Artichoke, the Market of Farms
    8. James Rabbit, Sing Low
    9. Cosmo Jarvis, Sunshine
    10. Taylor Swift, We are Never Ever Getting Back Together
    11. Amanda Palmer, Ukelele Anthem
    12. Phoebe Kreutz, the Day the Basement Flooded
    13. BidiniBand, Big Men Go Fast on the Water
    14. Jed Davis, I Hear an Echo
    15. Metric, Clone 
    16. Busdriver, Kiss Me Back to Life
    17. Zammuto, F U C3PO
    18. Hundred Waters, Theia
    19. ChauCoco!, Nada Mas
    20. Kaipa, Vittjar
    21. Pepe Deluxe, Riders of the First Ark

    – Brian Block

  • Folk Uke… and the horse you rode in on

    Folk Uke… and the horse you rode in on

    Don’t like my music? Folk Uke… and the horse you rode in on, buddy!

    I trust those of you who didn’t have to work enjoyed the long Labor Day weekend. And maybe some of you who did go to work also enjoyed Labor Day. My husband Bill and I usually plan a little trip for long weekends, especially Labor Day weekend. We didn’t this year, because we just got moved in and things are just getting settled down and routine. Because we didn’t go away, we invited my husband’s mother, Parker, over for a sleepover.

    Parker is a great mother-in-law. We get along really well. Her visits usually involve copious amounts of wine and song. I plugged in my iPod so we’d have some music at dinner and suddenly I heard the familiar strains of an acoustic guitar and a ukelele.

    “Oh, it’s Folk Uke!” I exclaimed.

    “What’s that?” Parker asked.

    “Amy Nelson, Willie Nelson’s daughter, and Cathy Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie’s daughter, have teamed up to make very irreverent music for people like you and me.” I said.

    From there, Bill started telling his mother about some of Folk Uke’s more memorable songs. There’s “Shit Makes The Flowers Grow”, a hilarious ditty about how even things or people who are seemingly worthless have some good in them. “Knock Me Up” is a simple plea for for pregnancy. “I Miss My Boyfriend” is a startling song featuring Shooter Jennings, son of Waylon. In that song, the two sweet voiced ladies sing of missing their boyfriend and hoping a new male acquaintance will beat them up.

    Now, lest anyone be offended by these songs, I will freely admit that they cover some controversial material. Maybe we shouldn’t joke about domestic abuse with songs like “I Miss My Boyfriend”. The more twisted side of my personality then shuts down my reservations with the realization that most of these songs are pretty damn funny regardless of their potential to offend. Of course, part of the reason they work is that when Amy and Cathy sing sweet harmonies, somehow you know that their songs are intended to be taken very much tongue-in-cheek.


    Folk Uke sings “I Miss My Boyfriend” live. Shooter Jennings isn’t around to do his part, so Amy fills in.

    How would I describe this music? Well, it’s definitely folk… and a little country… and a little alternative… and very acoustic. Actually, when Amy Nelson plays guitar, I am really reminded of her father. She seems to have inherited some of his technique.

    I found Folk Uke right after I discovered Willie Nelson’s “children’s album”, Rainbow Connection. Amy Nelson helped her dad out on that project with a couple of songs. I love the way Willie Nelson sings “Rainbow Connection”, though he seemed to have lost interest in the “children’s album” aspect of his recording about halfway through the project and included a couple of songs that seem out of place on a recording for kids. Anyway, I liked Amy Nelson’s voice enough to see what else she’d done. That’s when I found her on YouTube, singing sweetly with Cathy Guthrie, the daughter of another musical legend, and a fine musician in her own right.


    Amy and Cathy sing “Knock Me Up”. Sadly, I actually know a few women who should adopt this song as their theme song.

    When I heard them singing “Shit Makes The Flowers Grow”, I knew I had to buy their 2005 self-titled album. And then I automatically bought their 2011 follow up, Reincarnation, which features the very clever song “Blessed and Cursed”. This is one you can sing along to.


    Folk Uke sings “Blessed and Cursed”.

    Reincarnation sounds like Folk Uke is coming up in the world. The production quality is better. Or maybe I have just become a fan of their warped senses of humor. Their music is a winning combination of delicate melodies, feminine vocals, and shocking lyrics. That’s perfect for someone like me.


    Remember kids, “Shit Makes The Flowers Grow”… Looks like Amy’s dad Willie joined in on this one. I think he likes this song.

    My one criticism about this duo is that their songs often sound very much alike. The lyrics are unfailingly witty, but the melodies lack variation. On the other hand, when Folk Uke pops up on my iPod, I almost never skip to another track. So that tells me I like ’em anyway, even if some of their songs sound like they could use a few more chords. In any case, I’m glad I started today off with a little Folk Uke. Guess I’ll ride off now and do some housework.

  • Thinking of Tom Lehrer…

    I’m thinking of Tom Lehrer today for the strangest of reasons…

    This morning, the plumber came to my new home to fix the sink. For some reason, his visit made me think of the following clip from the PBS classic kids’ show, The Electric Company…

    As a kid, I spent many hours watching The Electric Company. I’ve always been a reader and I love music, so that show was always very appealing to me. It turns out that Tom Lehrer, singer-songwriter, mathematician, pianist, and satirist extraordinaire, composed several songs for the old educational show that taught so many of my generation how to read. But besides teaching kids reading, Lehrer’s songs also taught math. He used music a lot to get his point across. Most of the time, his melodies were original compositions, though he did write a song called “The Elements” which used the melody for the “Major-General’s Song” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance.


    “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer. I could have used this song when I was studying and barely passing chemistry in the 11th grade.

    Of course, the songs Tom Lehrer wrote that affected me most were songs like “Silent E”…

    and “LY”…

    Even thirty-five years after I first heard these songs, they stick in my mind like highly tenacious earworms. I still enjoy them immensely, too. I’m sitting here smiling as I listen to Tom Lehrer singing so expressively. What a gift he has for teaching. My mind boggles when I think of how many people learned new things because of this man’s genius.

    Why, he even made up a clever song for math students… another subject where I could have used some serious help back in the day…


    I grew up in the era of “New Math”, but I don’t remember learning it. I have that in common with Cliff Huxtable, Bill Cosby’s famous dad character on The Cosby Show.

    And to think I started on this topic because the plumber came by to fix the sink. As it turns out, there was nothing wrong with the sink. I thought we got no hot water down there and so did the plumber, at first. But it turns out it just takes forever for hot water to reach the kitchen.

    Tom Lehrer is also known for black humor and wasn’t averse to tackling controversial subjects like religion.


    Here he is singing his song, “The Vatican Rag”.

    And he has always been a realist, coming up with some very clever lyrics for the aging. I can’t believe I’m now old enough to appreciate this song.


    “When You Are Old And Gray”

    I realize Tom Lehrer is not quite a current pop star, but I am certain that his music has influenced and inspired many current pop stars. Indeed, Randy Newman, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Dr. Demento have all cited Lehrer as a guy who inspired them in their work. And heaven knows that all three of the aforementioned have done great things for pop music and comedy. Though as a child of the 70s and 80s, I was listening to quite a lot of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s music– how could I miss “Eat it” and “Like A Surgeon”?– as an adult, I have come to really appreciate Randy Newman’s genius. Newman’s music is custom made for commercials, but he also wrote a funny musical version of Faust as well as countless songs for soundtracks. His own songs are often poignant or witty and call on a tremendous gift for twisting words and meanings to say things you’d never expect. It’s pretty cool to think that Randy Newman was as inspired by Tom Lehrer as so many school kids learning how to read were when they watched The Electric Company back in the day.

    Tom Lehrer, so far as I know, is alive and kicking, though he hasn’t performed live in many years and has given up teaching. At age 85, I figure he’s earned a rest… Hope he’s not spending his time “Poisoning Pigeons In the Park”.

    Have a nice weekend everyone.