I started listening to the radio station KJ104 religiously sometime between 7th and 8th grades. It was quite an education on punk and alternative rock. They played The Clash constantly. Usually it was "Rock the Casbah" or "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" - the mammoth singles from Combat Rock, which was the first Clash tape I bought (from the cutout section at the Plymouth Holiday Plus). I can't remember if The Clash or London Calling was purchased next. I do remember buying them around the same time, and I remember devouring both of them.
I'm choosing London Calling for this list because it has become my go-to answer for many years when I'm asked "What is your all time favorite record?"
It was the album that changed everything. Nevermind changed music for me, just like it did for so many of you. Hell, it changed the world.
I still remember the first time I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I was in my bedroom, listening to KJ104 and reading comic books. I biked to Holiday Plus the next day to look through their tapes, but they didn't have it. It wasn't out yet. It came out the following Tuesday. My mom drove me to Down in the Valley in Golden Valley and I bought this funny tape with the naked baby on the cover. And it changed everything.
It's funny how one can be so diligent about a routine or behavior for so long, and then find it so hard to get back on the horse after one little slip off. That's my excuse for the long and unannounced Greatest Song of the Day hiatus.
Things have been busy. My nights have been full of record label work, tax preparation (finally done with that as of tonight), puppy walking and playing, and fantasy baseball draft preparation. Free time has been spent with my wife whenever possible. Most nights, I have the thought, "Damn, I need to get Song of the Day rolling again," but find myself unable to follow through.
Now I have new inspiration, though. If you're on Facebook, you have no doubt been privy to the "25 Random Things About Me" phenomenon, and all its spawn. One descendant of that trend is the "25 Albums That Changed My Life" chain. After a lot of thought, I have decided to do participate in that one. My catch is that I'm going to be revealing the list one at a time, in chronological order, on Greatest Song of the Day by showcasing a song from each of those 25 albums. Yes, there will be skeletons outed. Expect that to start no later than Friday. There are a couple of things that I need to track down digitally before I can begin.
In the meantime, enjoy the fine title track from Miss Alex White's excellent 2007 album on In the Red Records. My wife is always on the lookout for more "chicks who rock" and I keep meaning to have her give this record a spin. This is for you, Sweetie!
The song that was in my head at the beginning of the day was actually the title track to Television's 1977 debut Marquee Moon. I didn't want to do a ten-minute Song of the Day, though, so after several listens to the album today, I have decided that my other favorite song on the record gets the honor. Timely, too... Venus... Roman goddess of love... Valentine's Day tomorrow...
In 2005, Sleater-Kinney left their longtime record label Kill Rock Stars for the larger Sub Pop Records and hired renowned producer Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Low) to record what would become their final album, The Woods.
While there was some speculation that Fridmann's typical polished and layered sound would take over, thus alienating longtime S-K fans, what the fans actually got was an entirely different and almost completely unexpected type of alienation.
For The Woods, Sleater-Kinney turned the volume up to 11, so to speak. Through a wall of distortion and Janet Weiss' thunderous drumming came the ballsiest record of the year. It was definitely hated by many. I love it. It was my favorite album of 2005. I love it when a band evolves.
This song, more than just about any other I can think of, sums up how I have felt for the last few days. Things have been busy at work with our remodeling and reorganization. Things have been busy for my record label, working on three new releases simultaneously. And, thanks in part to a very energetic puppy, as well as my natural tendency to procrastinate and then do everything at once, things have been busy at home. It's exhilarating and exhausting.
Toward the end of my DJ gigs, while I'm flipping through the records that I brought but have not yet played, I will usually find that I don't have enough time left to play everything I want. In most cases, I simply never found the perfect place in the set to slide in the particular song that I planned on rocking.
The best example from Friday night is the classic single of the short-lived '70s Boston punk band La Peste.
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT: Tonight is my monthy DJ night at the King and I Thai, and given the kick I was on earlier this week, I have decided that I'm going to devote at least an hour of tonight's set to my favorite '90s indie rock.
Therefore, what better choice for Greatest Song of the Day than the band who inspired me to get a tattoo of their logo on my leg the week of my 18th birthday?
The Exploding Hearts' debut album Guitar Romantic came out in early 2003. I was in love. I was listening almost exclusively to The Jam, Buzzcocks, early Elvis Costello, and The Only Ones at the time, and was blown away by this band of early twenty-somethings who had absolutely nailed the excitement and catchiness of that late '70s punk/power-pop sound.
Three months later, the rest of the world knew about the Exploding Hearts, but mostly through the most horrible possible circumstance. Reportedly on the way home to Portland from a showcase performance for Lookout Records, their van flipped near Eugene, Oregon. Three of the four Exploding Hearts died.
Great career move, though. The CD, which had been collecting dust for three months as my "employee pick" at Treehouse, became impossible to keep in stock. The vinyl was originally released only on a German label called Screaming Apple Records. I was so obsessed with the album that I purchased the only copy I could find on Gemm.com for about $35, before the accident. After the tragedy, I saw copies going on ebay for $300 each. I never sold mine, and it has now been reissued on vinyl domestically. One of those domestic reissues came in used to the store on Wednesday, prompting me to throw it on the turntable. I probably had not listened to the album for about a year. Still great.
One of the great feelings in discovering music is when something lives up to the hype.
Remember the old days (which, for me, I mean the late 90's), when we didn't have Youtube, Myspace, or iTunes to instantly check out something that we were curious about? For the most part, we still had to hear it from a friend or roll the dice and buy it. The latter is difficult for a 21 year old without much disposable income. Therefore, a huge perk when I started working behind the counter at Oar Folkjokeopus in 1999 was the sheer volume of music I had access to. Over those first few months on the job, my brain was frying with overstimulation from all the new music I was processing. Not only was my boss Mark turning me on to things I had never even heard of before on a near-daily basis, but I was also getting a chance to check out legendary albums and artists who I simply had not the opportunity to hear.
One such album was The Gun Club's Fire of Love. The debut album from Jeffrey Lee Pierce and company is widely heralded for it's meshing of punk, blues, and glam. It was released in 1981. I heard it in 1999. My expectations were high, but were ultimately exceeded. For nearly ten years now, I've been able to count it as one of my "desert island" albums.
For some reason, though, as much as I loved Fire of Love, I didn't bother digging any deeper into The Gun Club's catalog. Actually, I take that back. There were a couple of reasons. For one, I had been told by numerous sources that the rest of the catalog was not anything special. And for another, I believe that most of the catalog was out of print at the time, making it less accessible to me.
Because of all this, when I saw the fantastic, short-lived Minneapolis band Little Dirt (who's one EP is still available on Heart of a Champion!) cover "Hearts" around 2003 or 2004, I had no idea it was a cover. (That's always an embarrassing moment, too... when you tell your friend's band, "Great show! That last song in particular was fantastic!" "Oh... thanks... yeah, that's a cover.")
And that's my convoluted way of getting to today's Song of the Day. Despite the fact that Fire of Love is their masterpiece, and one of the greatest albums ever, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club did have great moments throughout their history. "Hearts" is one of them.
Speaking of hearts, I would like to thank everyone who wrote me after last Friday's story of my dad's surgery. I'm sorry that I didn't write you all back individually, but your thoughts meant so much to me. I visited him today in the hospital. He was in good spirits, felt pretty good, and was in the middle of some physical therapy exercises when I arrived. If everything goes as planned, he should be on the way home around noon on Friday the 16th.
Portland, Oregon's Wipers, led by Greg Sage, were one of America's greatest punk bands. Ridiculously influential, it's sad they don't seem to get the accolades they deserve.
"Over the Edge" is the title track of their third LP, from 1983. It is currently available as part of the 3 CD Wipers box set on Sage's own Zeno Records. It compiles the first three classic albums and is loaded with bonus tracks (singles, alternate takes, demo recordings, etc.). Get it.
Ron Asheton, the legendary founding guitarist of the Stooges, was found dead in his Ann Arbor, Michigan home this morning at the age of 60. He was one of the true godfathers of punk rock. Rest in peace, sir.
This is a fitting song of the day. I overslept this morning. I made it to work on time, but didn't have a chance to eat breakfast and, most importantly, had no coffee until my co-worker Ian arrived at the store around 1:00. Plus, I'm really sore from the first Friday Night Boot Hockey game of the season.
I've had a pretty busy weekend, which is why Song of the Day has been running a little behind. We'll get back up to speed this week. In the meantime, enjoy this amazing tune from Wire's classic third album 154.
I miss Fugazi. A lot. I thought I was pretty cool when I walked in to my first day of high school in September 1992 wearing my Jane's Addiction "Article 1" t-shirt. I was taken aback, however, by all the punk rock upperclassmen wearing their "This Is Not a Fugazi T-Shirt" shirts like uniforms.
The Fugazi shirts, I would later discover, were bootlegs. The band was opposed to marketing itself. They had no official t-shirts, stickers, hoodies, or thongs. Every show they played was all ages and no more than a $5 cover. Fugazi was the first band I knew of who had their own moral code. I suppose it's no coincidence that they were also the first band whose politics started influencing my own.
I hope you enjoy "Merchandise." If you live in the Twin Cities, I'll also be playing it tonight during my DJ set at The King and I Thai. You should come down and hang out if you don't have other plans!
As we wrap up the first calendar week of The Greatest Song of the Day it seems like a fine time to celebrate my all-time favorite band, The Clash. Besides, seven days of this experiment... "The Magnificent Seven" ... neat trick, eh?
Corny tie-ins aside, "The Magnificent Seven" is an absolutely fascinating cut. The Clash was such a fearless band, never content with one sound. They were desperate to discover new music from all over the world and were always willing to let these new influences reshape their structure.
This was certainly the case when the band took up residence in Brooklyn in 1980 to start work on their everything-and-the-kitchen sink ("warts and all" is how Joe Strummer would later describe it) triple album Sandinista!. The Clash - especially Mick Jones - ended up immersing themselves in the city's burgeoning hip-hop culture. The Clash were always a socially conscious band, so it makes sense that, given the socially conscious nature of most early rap music, "The Magnificent Seven" would have a little bark to its bite. Strummer's fantastic anti-consumerism lyrics are would pushed this song from a fun historical footnote to a modern classic.
For more fun, check out this great performance on The Tom Snyder Show.
25 Albums That Shaped My Life
