world series of pop culture

anyone ever seen vh1's World Series of Pop Culture? i know jason has. anyway, i joined a team with a coworker and his baby's mama, we applied to the show and have a "test" on friday, feb. 9. if everyoine on our team passes the test, we move on to the regional final the next weekend. and of course, when we win, we'll go to new york to be on the tv.

err...

so much for letting it happen "organically."

thursday:
song: Hollywood Nights
artist Bob Seger

friday:
song: Solid
artist: Ashford and Simpson

you all know how i feel about Bob Seger, so it must be karmatic retribution for calling him "big 'ol baby." so much for starting anew. who did i kill in a former life that i deserve this?

then there's "Solid." i love Ashford and Simpson. but wouldn't it just figure that my least favorite (and argubly their biggest hit) would factor into this list.

something else has come out of this, though:

saturday:
song: Kayleigh
artist: Marillion

i love Marillion. as far as prog rock bands go the band is tops. i was turned on to Marillion in the early ninties by a bandmate. he named his daughter Kayleigh. we used to do a cover of "Sugar Mice." then, seperately, a couple of coworkers who were former college radio djs told me the long, boring sotry about the band. all i remember of it was Fish left the band and they aren't the same any more.

i forgot today's song. i mowed the lawn instead of blogging. where are my priorities?

reinventing the blog

here's what's been happening:
i wake up with a new song stuck in my head every morning. lately (since i started this blog) it had become the first thing i think about. even before the song was actually there. i'll wake up and think: what song is it today? it added a lot of pressure to this experiment and that led to, i think, false data. i needed to let it happen organically. so i took a break. durring that break i let several good songs go undocumented. songs by Dressy Bessy, Outkast, and PiL, for example. so when i woke with today's song it seemed appropiate.

Song: Skills Like This
artist: Guided By Voices

check out these lyrics:
Reinvented nightly. Wake up with skills like this. And do you want me in your head? ... I want to reinvent you now

seems like this would be a good place to restart this list. rest assured that there will be more posts here, but it may not be every day. i have to let it...happen.

been a while

i've been on the road a little and working a lot since i came home. i was able to continue to catalog the voices--i mean music in my hed first thing in the morning. here's the list:

6/13: Don't Close the Door by Geggy Tah
6/14: Such Great Heights by The Postal Service
6/15: I Dig Your Voodoo by The Naughty Ones
6/17: We Love Deez Hoes by Outkast
6/20: Die All Right by The Hives
6/22: Freak Me by Silk (watch the video)
6/24: The Word by The Beatles
6/26: Don Camero Lost His Mind by Guttermouth
6/26: Never Tear Us Apart by INXS
6/27 Human Behavior by Björk

whew. here starts volume 2 of the 1st thing in the morning playlist. the gaps in the dates represent either a repeat after i listened to the playlist or waking up with nothing that day. here is a quick rundown of the selections:

Geggy Tah's biggest hit was 1996s "Whoever You Are" off the album Sacred Cow. the title track is awesome.

The Postal Service is Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello. they mailed CD-Rs back and forth to each other to create tis album, hence the name (and subsequent lawsuit): The Postal Service.

"I Dig Your Voodoo" is the only song on their album that The Naughty Ones wrote. that is not a desparaging remark, just stating a fact. it's good, though. the whole album is good, as i've stated earlier.

"We Love Deeze Hoes" is one of about 5 songs on the album Stankonia that is not available for download on iTunes. WTF, Apple?

The Hives are supposed to put on the best rock show EVAR!!1!1 but i wouldn't know because i stood outside of Emo's for two hours trying to see them during SXSW a few years ago.

Silk's "Freak Me" is my favorite song right now. i crack up every time i listen to it. watch the freakin' video.

then there's The Beatles song. good stuff, of course.

the Guttermouth song is from a great album i have called Short Music for Short People. it's an album of 30-second songs. there are 100 tracks on this album. this is Fat Mike's (Fat Wreck Chords, NOFX) brainchild.

i have one thing to say about INXS: the new, who-wants-to-be-a-rock-star INXS is BOGUS. old-skool INXS or nothing as far as i'm concerned.

i misidentified the Björk song as a Sugarcubes song when i woke up this morning. wishful thinking, i think.

ok, so i'll get back on track now.
xoxo
--joey

never stop

every day i wake up with a new song in my head. today i believe my operating system crashed.

song: Start Me Up
artist: The Rolling Stones


remember when i posed the question: Remember when the Stones were good? i pose that question again with today's song. many of you will remember when Windows 95 came out. what song was on the commercial? "Start Me Up." you couldn't watch tv for 10 minutes without seeing this commercial and hearing this song. Microsoft forever ruined it for me.

breakin' rocks

i wake up with a different song in my head every morning. i woke up with today's song three times this morning.

song: Chain Gang (The Work Song)
artist: Nina Simone

i stand corrected. according to her website, it's Dr. Nina Simone.

i feel just like this song today. i was working out in the yard in the hot sun all day yesterday. i felt like i was breakin' rocks for the man. but in this case "breakin' rocks" was putting mulch in the flower beds and "the man" was me. so ok, maybe it's not the same thing but it sure felt like it yesterday.

damn, i love Nina Simone. she has that voice that you just know that she's singing the blues and she feels every bit of it. every time i hear her sing i get the chills. no matter what she's singing. that voice just gets to me. i can feel whatever it is she's feeling. say what you will about Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday, but for my money, Nina's blues are where it's at.

it ain't pretty

another day, another song stuck in my head first thing in the morning.

song: A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off
artist: The Magnetic Fields

Stephin Merritt is a busy guy. he's in four bands. five if you include his solo works. he writes movie soundtracks as well as soundtracks to books. the upcoming 13th and final volume of the Lemony Snicket series will be released in conjunction with a soundtrack album by The Magnetic Fields this october.

today's song was released on TMF's hugely successful album "69 Love Songs." this 3 disc set is exactly what it claims to be--69 love songs. the song is poppy and upbeat, though the album runs the gambit of slow ballads to electronica to folk to chamber music. his wit and humor are represented in many songs (as is evident in today's tune), as is his serious side when dealing with matters of the heart. in short, The Magnetic Fields are worth picking up if for no other reason than to broaden your horizons with good, honest music.