From high atop Mount Moses in Hat City comes... well, this YouTube Playlist.
I know real sophisticates put up some Spotify/I Tunes playlist, but that's not the cut of my jib. I still make Luddite mixes and DJ them onto CDS and do jewel cases with marker lettering and Wacky Package stickers and ephmera; and send them to friends or hand them out at parties, sometimes at random to the person next to me pumping gas, if they have a friendly look. Yes, I am 52 years old, going on 14,
Tonight's diversion?
"
Artists and/or Songs You (Prolly) Never Heard Before, That You Will Be Happy to Know Now" featuring the niche, the local, the unexpected... renown artists in other contexts; or brief flare bands lost in holding down jobs as cabbies and soda jerks that made amazing unheralded contributions."
Levels vary...I suggest a system volume of 62.5% and earphones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DgZOyHLTwsYou know this artist from his score for
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, but this atmospheric number is from his soundtrack for a 1968-9 Italian movie about young suburban sophisticates with a dirty secret that rears its ugly head some seasons later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSWUX-uQtucThe classic NYC bar band of the 1970s, a fine regional "working band" who showed consistent writing and playing chops usually meriting more profound, arena-success...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LeAsyqRNTIThe actual solo guy behind the BJM, Anton Newcombe, is his own worst enemy in terms of why you never heard this groovy song, his music or his act. In the 1990's, he was the
arch "l'infant'terrible" of the indie set, among many good choices for that honor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaX7JUnB1wPerhaps our Brits and Euros will quickly recognize The Divine Comedy, but this cheeky, stylish ditty blew through America too quickly for much memory. I think my imaginative writer's quill would say this tune is like Burt Bacharach listening to early Kinks with hashish flavorings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5vPMsni6jkI encountered this tune for the first time Saturday night/Sunday morning watching a Season 2 Peter Gunn episode where the song was featured as Gunn is shaking down a beaten witness in a basement nightclub. How did I not know about this haunting Billie Holliday-esque tune before this...of course it was Henry Mancini.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvgUD9nnXQkThough they had buzz upon their first single and EP, this tune was the demo that allowed to make them to make their first LP,
Murmur, which really launched it all. Recorded in an NLE dinky Charlotte studio that was primarily for gospel and televangelists, they reached a peak which they equaled several times in the next 30 years, but never exceeded. But I'll wager you never heard it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xiL3Kse0SkWe talk about golf courses being set in their natural spots and features. Isn't this so naturally "of it's time"? A little known band called The Free Design. If you like, try the also evocative "Kites are Fun"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rScjBFIIZegI wish I could provide the shorter radio cut of this song, but as compensation I will give you... the finest drummer known to humankind, Brian Viglione, warming up for a tour some years ago, playing to a recording of the song, "Modern Moonlight,"...which I'm betting you never heard. Isn't this guy insane on the skins?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff8UwvPK0G4Of course, we've all heard this song but never like this... I mean are you watching/hearing this? She's doing almost all of the constituent parts! This is maybe one of the most singular performers I've ever taken in (and I have seen some crazy shit in my time)...She is a Ukrainian one-time concert pianist of repute who lives and works through performance, but also by transcribing and arranging (usually) metal/arena rock songs for individuals (for you if you want) on line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqd4_eaaqLESo... I had to put the two of them performing together...doing a Megadeath song...in Iceland. If the 2:40-3:40 mark doesn't give you a little bit of cognitive reverie and talent chills, I'm sorry I put you through this. By the way this IS NOT the girl who plays with Viglone in the Dresden Dolls...that's ANOTHER piano playing female. (Check out "Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" cover from this same video set).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Nev94lRssI can't explain this finale to you in just this post...if you've come this far you'll either give it a chance or you won't. If you're fidgety about a 32 minute song (actually two songs sandwiched and jammed around one another)...then I would try advancing directly:
- the 2:00 minute mark
- the 7:00 minute mark
- the 13:00 minute mark
I was there this glorious night in the Roseland Ballroom December 29, 2001. I foolishly allowed some fellow concert-goer to put a dropper hit of liquid "something" in the set break and my eyes were pinwheels during the peak(s) of this sequence.
We now return you to your lives, as we return to ours.
(((((((signing off))))))))