everything we crave will be inside

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to comment on my last post. I felt a little dizzy from all the praise, but the consensus was that whatever I’m doing here is working for you folks. That’s nice to know, as I’m too complacent and old to change my ways at this point.

No real theme for today’s posts, just a collection of random thoughts with musical accompaniment.

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Concerning last night’s Grammy Awards:

I’m not a fan of The Police, as I consider them the kind of “new wave” music that my parents would listen to (also see The Eurythmics). However, for all the hullabaloo surrounding their reunion appearance, I was expecting something other than “Roxanne,” a song so overplayed and over-referenced that it has become more of a punchline (Scrantonicity! Woo!) than an actual song.

It would have been nice if, instead of pandering to public expectations, the band came out swinging with something a bit more unexpected and challenging, like this track:

The Police – Synchronicity II (from Synchronicity, 1983) – My love for this song has nothing to do with musical aesthetics, and everything to do with its ability to act as a mnemonic macro capable of calling up all the wonders and terrors of an early 80’s childhood. I don’t know why my brain chose to place a nostalgia trigger in this song, and not a better-loved track from that era, unless it’s somehow linked to the way I associate certain 70’s TV actors with the smells of various deli meats and cheeses.

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Speaking of 70’s TV, some kind soul has uploaded a condensed version of the notorious “punk rock” episode of ChiP's to YouTube. It’s a panic-mongering mainstream take on youth subculture (as pioneered by Jack Webb and countless “educational” films with titles like “Hippies: Smelly Red Dupes”) that would have had me seeing red back in my full on punk days, but now I think it’s hilarious as fuck, and as a bonus features a woman dressed like a streetwalking Raggedy Ann doll. Here’s the first part:



The rest can be found here and here. KEEP ON PUNKING!

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This might be old news to some of you, but Irdial-Discs has made The Conet Project, a four CD set of shortwave number station recordings, available for free (with a .pdf of the accompanying booklet) at their website. I first found out about these mysterious transmissions and other shortwave anomalies through William Poundstone’s Big Secrets, but lacked the means to listen to the actual thing until I stumbled across these recordings. The written descriptions don’t do the genuine articles justice. There is something fascinating and unsettling about these multilingual alphanumeric recitations and electronic blip tones, leaving one with the feeling that they are eavesdropping on the static-distorted conversations of upper band phantoms.

Here are two sample recordings from the set:

The Swedish Rhapsody

High Pitch Polytone

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While I’m digging into my bag of odds and ends, I’d like to put a plug in for The Dents, a local punk band that my wife has been raving about since she caught them during the intermission of last Saturday’s Boston/Philly roller derby bout. The Dents play tight melodic punk rock with some killer harmonies; just the sort of music my wife goes ga-ga for. You find out more about band (and score some sample mp3s) at their website.

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…and finally, because I feel like it, here’s some nifty bubblegum pop and rock courtesy of the Saturday morning cartoon universe.

The Banana Splits – I’m Gonna Find a Cave (from We’re the Banana Splits, 1968) – How is it that four guys in psychedelic animal costumes, fronting for some session musicians (including Al Kooper, Gene Pitney, and Barry White), managed to create music that exceeds the entertainment quotient of current Top 40 artists by a factor of ten?

Josie & The Pussycats – Stop Look and Listen (from Josie & The Pussycats, 1970) – The slightly scatterbrained Pussycat drummer, Melody, was my first childhood crush, along with the girl who played Becky Thatcher on The New Adventures of Huck Finn. “Blondes, always blondes,” says my very dark-haired wife. Hey, it’s not the girl you bring to the dance; it’s the girl you leave with that matters.