A Friday morning musical miscellany

Friday is fun because it’s about music. With links and playlists. Today, a whole bunch of music that’s been on my mind lately…

Someone sent me this ^ early this morning. And I felt wonderfully seen. This is so deeply relatable. And, also, I really want to find this CD! (No jokes, I really do rate John Powell - he’s one of those journeymen film composers that I’ve discovered over my last 2-3 years of deep OST listening). Boy, what a way to start the “fun” music newsletter; the end of the week one, the last before I’m officially “on holiday”.

Right now, I’m listening to this:

I’ve had my eye on this for a few months - it’s been tempting me. Yes, another soundtrack album. But, wait. Come back…this is just a fiesta of funk and soul-jazz. The Dynamite Brothers is a fun, clunky, wonderful martial arts/exploitation jam of a movie from the early 1970s. And you could watch it. Sure. But even if you have no interest in it ever you might dig this music. It’s not on Spotify, hence me eventually deciding I had to have the CD. But you can have a sample from YouTube. Charles Earland was a sax player and keyboardist. He was a bandleader who played with Pat Martino and Lou Donaldson and tutored Grover Washington Jr, among others. This swirling jazz-pit movie-score is like an amalgam of Miles Davis’ On The Corner and that chaotically wonderfully Santana live album, Lotus. So, do have a hoon…

I have been listening to the brand new album by Mitski - which is just out today. I stayed up late to catch a first full listen of it. It’s wonderful. I’m a huge fan of Mitski. Her dynamic performance at Laneway back in 2018/19 was one of the last great live gigs I remember from the old days (pre-COVID). So whether you’ve heard her before, or you’re new to her on this recommendation, give the album a spin today…

Last night I wrote a piece about Moe Tucker - it’s for a series I’ve been writing over the last decade (occasional pieces) about great drummers; players I admire. And, yeah, of course I’d love you to read what I wrote, sure, but really I wrote that piece as much to share a single YouTube clip. It’s an unofficial documentary, more a fan’s love-letter. Cam Forrester, a multi-instrumentalist, has recreated Moe Tucker’s drumming style, and plays through the Velvet Underground tracks, showing how she would have approached each song in the studio. The care and love he pays is amazing. And the innovation of Tucker is extraordinary.

So if you don’t want to read the thing, which is fair, do watch this video:

Okay, now I’m listening to the other CD I’ve been coveting for months. Way back, when it was released in the mid-90s, I owned this album - because I owned everything there was to own by Robbie Robertson. Back then, apart from The Band’s catalogue (towering and glorious) there was a couple of soundtrack albums and two brilliant solo records. After his Music For The Native Americans - a soundtrack album that seemed to standalone as ‘album’, not just as score - it’s fair to say that the last couple of Robbie Robertson albums weren’t really up to much. Nice to catch up with an old friend, but nothing vital.

However, that seems crueller to say now, given the recent passing of this legend. Maybe, that’s why I’ve held off on collecting this album the last few weeks. I didn’t write a eulogy piece for Robbie (I should have - but figured the mainstream press would have that covered). I didn’t write a Friday Substack newsletter about him - and I probably should have. All of that rich, wonderful music. But he was a difficult personality, and he grew into a strange privilege. Marty Scorsese’s coke-buddy, basically. He had that shit-eating grin all through The Last Waltz, like he really thought he was the only one doing the work. Unfathomable to think anyone could believe that when they were in a band with Rick Danko and Richard Manuel and Levon Helm. Right? (And no, I didn’t forget Garth Hudson. I’m just not sure anyone ever told him he was actually in that band, he was just loosely hovering nearby).

Robbie’s first three solo albums, and I’m counting this one as the third - as both album in its own right as well as documentary soundtrack - are worth your time. Or worth re-exploring if, like me, you left them on the shelf for some time.

It was sad waking to hear that news a month or two back. He was 80. But he was sorta ageless, it had seemed. He died the same day as Rodriguez. And even RNZ made the announcement that “the star of the music documentary Searching For Sugarman” had died. And did not mention that Robbie Robertson, guitarist for The Band, backing musician for Bob Dylan at two vital times in his career, soundtrack composer, songwriter, producer, arranger and champion of Native American music had passed too. A shame.

I always loved that song Mark Jchi. As a hopeless devotee to new age and easy listening music I still adore that compilation album, MOODS, and this Robertson track is one of the highlights. Even now, just listening to it while writing these words, the hairs on my arms prickled a little to the creep of the groove, as soon as those voices wafted into place. Can’t ask for much more from music than that, can we?

And yet we frequently do. Music is our soundtrack to everywhere. I’ve got back into listening to music when I walk now - for years the default has been podcasts or audiobooks.

Lately, though, I’ve been blasting Dinosaur Jr and Natalie Merchant, and the first four Peter Gabriel albums. These artists are high on rotation. But of course there are others.

Out of nowhere, just yesterday, I listened right through to I Am An Elastic Firecracker by Trippy Daisy. And thought, geez, here’s an album I never absolutely adored, and probably hadn’t heard in 25 years. And yet, right then, in that moment, it was as good as it’s ever been. There are some great songs there. I Got A Girl is catchy, and probably the best example of the hooky-ness of the band, but I always best loved that song Piranha. It reminded me of a long lost Ozzy Osbourne solo track. And only in the very best way. Cool video too, from memory. Let’s see if I’m right:

Both the video and song are so 90s but what are you going to do. That’s when they were made. That is where they live. Maybe all my Dinosaur Jr listening is what got the algorithm to recommend Tripping Daisy, but it was odd that I took the bite. I ain’t mad I did. That’s all I’m really saying there.

A while back I wrote about the 20th Anniversary of my first iPod. I still dig myPod out now and then and give a whirl, not that often though. It’s fun for a bit - the fact that it’s got a lot of music from 2012/13/14 on it. Music I would never search for on Spotify, or YouTube, music I never owned - or no longer own - on vinyl. But the nostalgia of it didn’t really take. I think it’s largely because of Bluetooth headphones - and that whole thing. I can’t really get myself connected back to wired-up earbuds eh. I just can’t do it. One more tangle at the post office or in the queue to buy my oat milk and I could go all Falling Down.

But one shot of nostalgia that has been absolutely sending me this week is this shot of a discman in a museum.

Never mind that bogus “anti-skip” technology, which is the absolute target of this meme, I just got all soppy and dopey about the Discman. My first was a present for my 21st birthday. I had been a faithful Walkman user from the late 1980s all through the 90s. Even as I jettisoned tapes for CDs, I kept enough cassettes for my walks. And then, on my 21st birthday, I got a discman and the CAR KIT! And that was me. The car-kit never quite stuck - literally. So on solo trips I’d be changing CDs while lighting a cigarette, the covers and discs strewn, the Discman sliding across the passenger seat - never mind texting being the real killer. I somehow survived. And I’m pretty sure everyone driving the other way did too.

I bought a cheap Discman in the early/mid 00s and Velcro-taped it to my desk with headphones. Like a little listening station. I had a better stereo, but this was the backup, and my way of going under headphones to give my wife a break from all the noise. I was reviewing CDs almost around the clock back then. Music all day every day. And the Discman on the corner of the desk with a set of headphones permanently attached was about as Rolling Stone Magazine as I ever got. Actually it was more migraine from listening to The Rolling Stones. But whatever.

I’m thinking of getting a Discman again. And retiring my smartphone when walking. Turning it off. Putting it in the bag. Taking one CD for the walk (or maybe two). That’s it. Finite choice. Get a juiced-up Discman that connects to a Bluetooth soundbar and makes CDs a possible first choice. That’s today’s dream. It too shall pass.

Finally, or very nearly, here is a playlist I made for summer drinkies. So you might like to give this a hoon over your weekend, or in the coming months.

And if that isn’t your thing, we have the latest volume in the regular weekly playlist. This one is - spoiler alert - all female, all country vibes. I reckon it’s one of the very best I’ve made. But then, I would say that.

See anything here you like? Anything you want to listen to further? And what’s on your iPod or phone or stereo this Friday morning? If you still have a Discman (you lucky fucking devil) what are you loading up into it? David Bowie’s Low I should hope, or Suzanne Vega’s Nine Objects Of Desire. They were two of my Discman faves! Anyway, any tips for current music faves below welcomed and appreciated. And I hope you have a great weekend.

Oh, one final playlist. We (Katy, me and Oscar) are off for a trip to the Bay this weekend. So we have this new playlist routine, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned here before. We each choose the same number of songs - 23 in this case, I think. And we put them on one playlist, then hit shuffle. That way it’s equal distribution. What a random playlist we have here, but at the same time you can pretty much guess who has chosen what. If you’re at all curious have at it.

And here below is my final CD for the morning. Love this soundtrack. Adore this film.

Happy listening. Happy weekend!