mixed tape

Peter Tosh: Bush Doctor (live 1983)

Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come (1972)

Linton Kwesi Johnson: 5 Days of Bleeding (1978)
I saw dub poet LKJ when I first moved to New York. Was a fantastic concert.

A few Montreal classics from back when I listened to CKGM (the Cage):

The Box: L’Affaire Dumoutier (Say To Me) (1985)
I didn’t realize it, but Jean-Marc Pisapia, lead singer was a member of Men Without Hats (see below).

Safety Dance: Men Without Hats (1982)
Ah, the eighties in Quebec.

Corey Hart: Sunglasses At Night (1983)
Pout for me Corey. Pout harder. That’s better.

Dan’s the guy who keeps LibriVox servers running. He loves Rush. It’s his birthday. So:

Rush – La Villa Strangiato (Live at Pinkpop 1979)

Rush: Limelight

Rush: Fly By Night

This one goes out to Facebook, Google, and the Warentless Wiretap program.

Rockwell: Somebody’s Watching Me (1984)
One-hit wonder.

The Romantics: Talking In Your Sleep (1984)

Hall and Oates: Private Eyes (1981)
I was hoping this one was a 1984 tune as well, but no dice. Incidentally, I seem to have an inordinate amount of Hall & Oates tunes in friday mixed tapes. That’s kind of embarrassing.

I for one welcome our robot overlords.

Kraftwerk: The Robots (1978)

Daft Punk: Robot Rock (2005)

Styx: Mr. Roboto (1983)
Ouch. This is pretty terrible.

Nothing says heartbreak like good country music. Here’s a few about the other woman:

Patsy Cline: She’s got You

Loretta Lynn: Other Woman
The coal miner’s daughter.

Dolly Parton: Jolene
What a fantastic song. What a voice. [Also, check the White Stripes cover version]

They’re called turntablists, and Montreal’s has had some good ‘uns over the years.

Kid Koala: Drunk Trumpet

Dj A-Track: at the ITF

Scratch Bastid: Scribble Jam 07

Glenn Gould: J.S.Bach’s Partita #2

Thelonious Monk: Round Midnight

Jerry Lee Lewis – Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On (1957)

When I was at university, I worked as a waiter at the student pub, Alfie’s. We had DJs, but I used to come in a little early for my shifts, and they let me “spin” a bit before things started up. I usually got around to playing jazzy funky stuff, but I’d often start out with a little bit of the rock, as well as some roll; not big anthems, but those kinds of songs that sort of started you off slow and then got you going. Here’s a trio of wax I remember slappin’ on the turntables.

Led Zeppelin: Over The Hills And Far Away Music (1973)
I love when the big guitars kick in at 1:27 … the rest of the song’s a bit of a let down, but worth it for the big three-chord chop that kicks you in the butt.

Bob Seeger: Night Moves (1976)
Hmm. I’ve never seen this video before, which seems to have been made in the 1990s. Can’t say I like it much. And I’m not sure what I think of this song now, but it’s got a nice gravelly sumpin that works in a stinky bar when you’re setting up before the crowds get there (ps: is that Joey from Friends at 2:05? … I think so … )

The Clash: Jimmy Jazz (1979)
I usually played the studio version from London Calling, but this live version’s got a whole other bit of charm going on (from their 16-night Times Square residency in 1980, I think). A song like Jimmy Jazz is great because you can go in so many different directions from it: punk rock, R&B, jazz, reggae, soul. Man, the Clash was good.

The Astronauts: Firewater (1963)
Looks like a good party. Do you think the guy on the couch is gonna score with that girl? From the movie, Surf Party.

Dick Dale & The Del Tones: Surfing/Miserlou (1962)
Intro is the vocal “Surfing,” followed by the instrumental “Miserlou,” which is a traditional Greek folk song, with versions of it common throughout the Middle East. Here it’s reinterpreted by the legendary Dick Dale, who was born in Lebanon to a Lebanese father and Polish mother. You can hear all those influences in this tune (made re-famous in Pulp Fiction).

The Atlantics: Bombora (1963)
Australia’s best-known surf band. Bombora is the Aboriginal term for waves breaking over rock shelves.

Songs about the man of steel:

Laurie Anderson: O Superman (1981)
OK, not really about Superman, exactly…but still, it’s Laurie Anderson.

Crash Test Dummies: Superman’s Song (1991)
The audio’s a bit soft on this one, and I feel like an idiot, but for some reason this tune and video sorta gets me.

REM: Superman (1986)
REM live in 1987, the video’s a bit of a mess, but the sound is OK. That’s Gary Zekley, writer of the original 1969 version, on stage with tambourine.

In honour of St. Paddy’s day, some Irish jigs & reels:

Thin Lizzy: Dancing in the Moonlight (It’s Caught Me in Its Spotlight) (1977)

Stiff Little Fingers: Alternative Ulster (1979)

U2: I Will Follow (1980)
The band didn’t go anywhere, but the lead singer went on to become a leading figure in modern dance. From their first album, Boy.

In 2001 a new breed of Velvet Underground-influenced, old-aesthetic rock started rolling out of a few bands. It was old and it was new and it was good again. Here are some of the tunes I remember.

The Strokes: Last Night (2001)
OK, so the Strokes ended up being disappointing. We all wanted them to be gritty kids from the wrong side of the tracks who bashed their guitars together to dull the pain of poverty. Or something. Turns out they’re rich Manhattan kids who went to fancy boarding school in Switzerland, and had drinking problems. Well, what can you do? Who else can afford to be an artist these days? (And for the record, I went to a fancy private school). This video makes things worse: the lead singer, especially, looks like the kind of arrogant prick who continues to be mean to unpopular kids even into his mid-twenties.

And let’s forget for a moment that the Strokes probably exhausted their creativity with that first album. And remember instead what a breath of fresh air it was when it came out, and the sounds of pure, good rock n roll, the likes of which we hadn’t heard since Transformer (maybe), hit the airwaves. It was the rebirth of rock, I was living in New York and it was great stuff.

White Stripes: Fell in Love with a Girl (2001)
While I can’t help feeling the Strokes were somehow phony (even if that first album was and still is a winner), the White Stripes were something else: raw and real and creative in ways hard to believe considering their instruments are limited to a little drum kit, a big guitar, and a crazy voice. Fantastic, challenging yet straight music, wonderful songwriting and a great video by Michel Gondry.

Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out (2003)
A couple of years later come Franz Ferdinand. I first heard them when they played this tune live on some British awards show: the looked and sounded so sharp, like a mix of the best of ska and good punk (aka Clash), with a new, precise sound to their chops.

Writer/director John Hughes had a string of movies in the eighties that were definitive for a certain-type of middle class North American early-teen (ie. a type like me). They were usually about angsty high school seniors, rich kids (mostly cool jerks) and their less-well-off school mates (alienated music-lovers with soul), and usually a Romeo-Juliet story of love across class that cannot be. Here are a few vids from those soundtracks (somewhere i have a few of these on tape).

Simple Minds: Don’t You (Forget About Me) (1985)
from: The Breakfast Club (1985)
The greatest (?) of all John Hughes films …

Charlie Sexton: Beat’s So Lonely (1985)
from: Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)
Charlie Sexton was, apparently, a guitar prodigy. He pretty much disappeared from public view after this album, Pictures for Pleasure, but continued working with other artists, including David Bowie and Bob Dylan. He also produced my old Blizzarts pal Peter Elkas’ album, Wall of Fire.

Echo and the Bunnymen: Bring on the Dancing Horses (1985)
from: Pretty in Pink (1986)
Pretty in Pink was probably the most alternative of the Hughes movies, and I owned this soundtrack on tape. It had all sorts of great stuff on it, including the Smiths, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, New Order, Suzanne Vega.

Here are my candidates. Please submit your own. A committee of editors from the Friday Mixed Tape team will review and make an Official pronouncement in one week.

Huey Lewis and the News: Hip to Be Square (1986)

Phil Collins: Sussudio (1985)

Starship: We Built This City (on Rock and Roll) (1985)
The amazing this is that this band was once Jefferson Airplane, who performed this. Someone once said to me, which rings true here: much of the eighties can be explained by waaay too much cocaine.

Hope you had a good Valentine’s Day. Here’s some tunes to make the moments last:

Sade: Smooth Operator (1984)
Another song I loved as a kid, got embarrassed by as a teen. But now I think Sade was on to something. Smooth Operator indeed.

Barry White: Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe (1974)
I knew nothing of the Velvet Voice before this tune was featured on the Simpsons, I think the episode with Michelle Pfeiffer, but not sure. Anyway, after I heard Barry White, nothing was ever again the same.

Marvin Gaye: Let’ Get It On (1973)
This live, lovin performance beat out the slick video for the 1982 hit, Sexual Healing.

I might be wrong, but I don’t think ever in the next couple of generations will we see someone like Fela Kuti, afrobeat legend, rebel, dissident, and one-time Nigerian Presidential candidate. Fela seemed to straddle the harsh present of the sixties/seventies, with something ancient … in a way that no one now would be able to do. With television everywhere these days, there are few if any corners of the world left where ancientness grows naturally – all of it has been touched by the modern. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’m no expert in world culture (and, after all, Fela’s mother was a feminist activist, and his father a Protestant Minister); but regardless, no one making modern afrobeat comes close to this kind of raw power. I’m not sure that there is any musician in the world that has this kind of charisma – brutal, violent charisma, but undeniable (see the second vid, especially).

Fela died in 1997 of AIDS.

Fela Kuti: Army Arrangement
“I have death in my pouch. I can’t die. They cannot kill me.”

Fela Kuti: Live in Calabar
Not sure the title of the song. This footage was filmed for a movie by Cream drummer Ginger Baker (which I believe is the source for the previous clip too). This one is intense, check especially the dancing from about 4′00″ and on.

Fela Kuti: U. Be Thief

I know Mitch has a youtube music video problem, just like me (in fact, I may have given him his first taste of the sweet sonic tonic of nostalgia). Anyway, a while back I asked if Mitch wanted to guest curate a youtube mixed tape session. He said: hells ya. Took me a while to post it, but here it is, straight from the Man in Black (and by the way, if you want to find the gold, a little hint, it’s at the end):

Wednesday Guest Tape: Eighties Hard Rock
Definitely one of my guilty pleasures and the music I grew up on (there is still some shame in this, I admit). Here are a few that might be more obscure. You have no idea how many hours I’ve burned on YouTube reminiscing. I’ve found some gold and cheese while on my journey. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which below…

Slaughter – Fly To The Angels (1990)
While Slaughter came after the eighties hair bands (or more like the tail end), you can’t deny that lead singer, Mark Slaughter, had a crazy unique voice as proven in this recent acoustic version of their power ballad hit, Fly To The Angels.

Whitesnake – Is This Love? (1987)
Singer David Coverdale cut his teeth in a later version of Deep Purple before launching Whitesnake. You probably remember the original videos from that era with Tawny Kitaen.

Can’t Wait For The Night – Brighton Rock (1986)
OK, this is not the acoustic version, but when I found this on YouTube it took me waaay back. I think they were from Niagara Falls…

Hear N’ Aid – Stars (1985)
This was the hard rock scene’s response to Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and USA for Africa’s “We Are the World”. There are some great vocal performances and who can deny how metal Rob Halford from Judas Priest is? (look at how he dressed for the studio – really, the metal world had “no idea”?).

As we head into the 2008 US Presidential race, here are a few videos to inform the foreign policy debates.

Edwin Starr: War (1969)
The song inspired by the original title of Tolstoy’s War & Peace.

Bruce Cockburn – If I Had A Rocket Launcher (1983)
Apparently, someone once asked Eddie Van Halen: “How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world?” And he answered, “I don’t know, why don’t you ask Bruce Cockburn.” At least that’s the story I’ve heard. I had the pleasure of seeing Bruce in concert in Sudbury once, and it was amazing. Bruce is famous for his lefty protest politics, but he’s also a fantastic song writer, and, of course, no slouch on the ol’ guitar.

This tune is about the dirty war in Guatemala in the 1980s (supported, of course, by the US and Canada); but those face and bodies could be in any number of countries today.

Sgt Barry Sadler: Ballad of the Green Beret (1966)
And, lest I be accused of bias against war, here’s the 1966 hit song, that was number 1 for five weeks on the billboard charts.

Some tunes from my days at university.

Rheostatics: Christopher (1990)
I loved these modern Canadian artrock progsters. I’ve seen them live more than any other band, and I guess I have most of their albums too.

Skydiggers: I’m Wondering (1993)
My roommate Matty used to say, “I don’t get why everyone likes this band, it sounds like girl music to me.” (He liked to smoke hash and listen to Pink Floyd and Sabbath). But I always thought they were the Canadian REM, and their live shows were always great. If you wanted to go to a costume party dressed as a Canadian university student from the 1990s, this would be a good video to study.

Spirit of the West: Home For A Rest (1990)
This is the song that unfailingly got every Canadian human who went university in the nineties out on the dance floor jumping up and down and screaming out the chorus, “I’m so sick from the drink, I need home for a rest … take me home!“. What a weird video … they’re a little bit less rock n roll/pogues than the lyrics would lead you to believe.

This week, TV theme songs.

Greatest American Hero
I can’t really remember this show all that well, but I sure remember the song.

The Littlest Hobo
To meet my cancon requirements. [Also: another shower favourite] … for my international readers, Littlest Hobo was a Lassie-esque show about a dog that wandered around Southern Ontario, solved mysteries, and then, just when the thankful families were about to put out a nice steak for him, they’d turn around … and he’d be gone again.

Knight Rider
Michael Knight & KITT edged out the Dukes of Hazard in the competition, with the Romanian judge awarding Dukes a shocking 3 for technical merit. Dukes is appealing the decision. [On a personal note, I must say I'd forgotten what a bad-assed theme song this show had. No wonder I loved it].

The eighties were a difficult time for the human race: so lost, so confused. This confusion came out in the music, in the dancing, in the haircuts, and most especially in the rock videos. But throughout those dark days, we were always learning new things, learning old things… learning to spell, for instance. This week, three songs to spell by. I consider this something of a musical sandwich: the worst of the eighties with an interesting musical combination from the nineties in the middle, though that 90s tune is of course a throwback to earlier, simpler times.

Every time I take a look at pop culture in the 80s, all I can think is: too much cocaine.

Hall & Oates: Method Of Modern Love
The hair, the videography, the dancing, the lyrics. The spelling. This song has it all.

John Lee Hooker & Van Morrison: Gloria
A serious interlude in an otherwise … difficult … selection for a Friday Mixed Tape. Irish big-lunged boomer, Ivan Morisson, Van the Man, along with one of the greatest, late bluesmen, John Lee Hooker, singing Van’s song.

Freeze: AEIOU (and sometimes Y)
Watching Hall & Oats in the first video, it is hard to remember that they are actually respectable song writers who knew how to craft a tune – even if they seem to have spent more time crafting their hairdos. Freeze, however, is another thing altogether. I am not sure there are any redeeming qualities to this video, except the strange nod to BMX and breakdancing.

In the year 2000, I split up with my girlfriend, and was going to move to New York City in six months, for a new job. I was twenty-six, and I spent many evenings of those six months hanging out, and occasionally dancing into the wee hours at a bar called Blizzarts, owned by my pal Peter. DJ Bliss and DJ T’cha had a Thursday night residency there, whose name escapes me but will come eventually, that was filled with all sorts of good funky tunes, new and old. I hung out at that time with a variety of characters, including Boris, whom I later “met” again thru the net in 2005 (not knowing who he was), “knew” virtually for about six months, before he posted a pic of himself, and I realized that we used to hang out at Blizzarts togther – tho we’d only been hihowsitgoinfineandyougoodcool pals back then.

Here are some tunes I remember from back in the day:

Mr. Scruff: Get a Move On
If you throw a party, and everyone’s sitting down, and you really want them to dance … this is the tune to slap on the hi-fi.

Jurassic 5: Quality Control
Followed by this one.

Amon Tobin: Verbal (2002)
Amon Tobin lived in Montreal for a while (and I’m told he still does, for part of the year). I saw him play a couple of times at Blizzarts.

Montreal jazz legend Oscar Peterson died this week.

Oscar Peterson & Count Basie: Slow Blues (198? ?)
Brilliant, as Oscar and the Count compete to see who can leave more space for the other genius to fill the room with music; and you have to love the spooning pianos.

Oscar Peterson: Noreen’s Nocturne (1969)

Oscar Peterson Quartet – with Joe Pass: Soft Winds (199? ?)

Kim Carnes: Bette Davis Eyes (1981)
This one held up pretty well, I’d say.

Fleetwood Mac (Stevie Nicks): Dreams (1977)
From the incomparable Stevie Nicks.

(Ike &) Tina Turner: Medley (1966?)
This must have just blown the socks off of the kids in this studio. Tina got more gravelly, and more divaish in later life, and finally turned into a caricature of herself; but there’s something about this old clip – rather than the 80s stuff she did – that gets to the real core. Her mentor and wife-beating ex-husband, Ike Turner, died last week.

Whatever you want to say about the sixties, looking back it was a time of the kind of change I don’t think we’ve seen since. All that came before was called into question, and things that came after were different on a scale that has not been approached again. Sometime around 1980, we went into a holding pattern. [note, I think that the networked world will bring the same sort of cultural upheaval, but we haven't quite got there yet]. Here are three videos, all in black & white, where the colour was just bursting thru the tight suits.

Jimi Hendrix: Hey Joe (1967)
Does it get any cooler than this? No.

The Monks: Monk Chant and Oh How to Do Now (1966)
These guys were so far ahead of their time (and it seems from the vid that they were so crazy colour *was* actually bursting out of the B&W). The Monks were doing stuff with pop music – feedback, atonal noise, harmonics and dissonance and other weird musicy stuff that … well … that still sounds crazy. They were five US servicemen stationed in Germany, who shaved the tops of their heads and played pop music that would still make record execs nervous.

The Who: My Generation (1967)
This is a bit obvious, I guess, but the Who made noise like no one before them had. The Who is one band that should have kept the suits. They were much better before they got old. And: oh, Keith, we miss you.

This week, in celebration of the launch of earideas.com, (and the earideas audio challenge) songs about lifting off.

Peter Schilling: Major Tom (1983)
So of course the real song to put here is Bowie’s Space Oddity, where Major Tom first made his appearance. But the Schilling reinterpretation was a big favourite of mine as a kid, and it does have qualities of its own, including a good proto-techo drum/synth track. And the “4-3-2-1 earth below us …” still gives me shivers.

Europe: Final Countdown (1986)
This would get my vote for the worst song in the history of the galaxy.

William Shatner: Rocket Man (Elton John) (live in 1978)
At the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards, Captain Kirk “sings” Elton John’s Rocket Man. A piece of surreal, otherworldly … genius. Art of the highest caliber.

Some of the great tracks from the kid’s show.

NOTE: I just put up fridaymixedtape.com … for those of you who don’t want to have to wade through the rest of my yammering, and just want pure music video goodness.

Sesame Street: Lowercase N
If I had a rock band, I would cover this song in every live show I did. “The wind is very still for… the lower case ‘n’” … breaks my heart.

Sesame Street: Pinball Number Count
You remember this one. For some reason, this is a favourite in my (limited) shower-singing repertoire.

Sesame Street: Number 9 (cutie)

Do you have any Sesame Street favourites?

Bring on the funk.

Stevie Wonder: Superstition (1972)
One of the best openings in rock n roll. (And check out Stevie playing this tune on Sesame Street)

Curtis Mayfield: Freddie’s Dead (1972)
A very jazzed out version of Freddie’s Dead from the all-Mayfield soundtrack to the blacksploitation classic, Superfly.

James Brown: Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (1970)
And the godfather.

Some tunes about books.

The Cure: Killing an Arab (1979/80)
Amazing footage of the pre-make-up-and-crazy-hair Cure, in an intimate live show, singing a raw and moving version of the tune, based on Albert Camus’ existential/absurdist book, L’Etranger (the Stranger). This song is not an anti-arab song, it’s a song about Camus’ Mersault, a young pied noir who shoots an Arab on the beach, and then spends the rest of the novel awaiting his trial.

Kate Bush: Wuthering Heights (1978)
From 1978, comes Kate Bush’s ode to Emily Bronte’s book. Kate was still in her teens when she wrote this song and made the video.

Sarah Polley: Courage (1997)

This is a version of the Tragically Hip song, the original title of which includes the parentheses (for Hugh MacLennan). The song reflects some of the themes in MacLennan’s novel, The Watch that Ends the Night; Polley’s version is from the soundtrack to the “Sweet Heareafter,” Atom Egoyan’s (wonderful) film interpretation of the Russel Banks book.

Youtube just launched Youtube.ca (which resolves to http://ca.youtube.com). So in honour of this annoying announcement (here’s what I think of it), this week we present to you fridaymixedtape.ca:

Chilliwack: My Girl
I actually had no idea that this song was Chilliwack, and hence Canadian. Actually a snappy little number. That’s the nice thing about fridaymixedtape.ca … you’ll always get the best Canadian content, without all that other stuff getting in the way.

Gowan: A Criminal Mind
Ah … Gowan.

Platinum Blonde: Crying Over You
Canada’s most embarrassing hair rock band.

Stan Rogers: Northwest Passage
Try to listen to this without getting all teary-eyed. Sung not by Stan Rogers, of course, but the St. Patrick’s Regional Secondary Chamber Choir Men, in Vancouver.

Gordon Lightfoot: Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald

Tragically Hip: Nautical Disaster

I loved these three tunes when I was a kid, in the early-to-mid-eighties. I remember them getting lots of play-time on the morning radio station my parents listened to (the stodgy talk radio station, CJAD). So, here were some of my top music choices from ages eight to ten:

Joe Dolce: Shaddap You Face (1980, age 6)
Made it to #1 in Australia & UK, not sure how it did in the US (or Canada).

Taco: Puttin’ on the Ritz (1982, age 8)
Not strictly a gimmick, this is a remake of a Irving Berlin song, but still … well a gimmick as far as the charts go. Made it to #4 in the US charts.

Weird Al’ Yankovic: Eat It (1984, age 10)
A revelation. Reached #12 in the Billboard Charts in the US. Here’s the original Michael Jackson vid, which was also a revelation.

Bessie Smith: St. Louis Blues
Queen of the 20s blues, in the 1929 film St. Louis Blues.

Billie Holiday: Fine and Mellow
Along with sax great Lester Young, the band here features an all-star line-up of luminaries: Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge, Doc Cheatham, Vic Dickenson, Danny Barker, Milt Hinton, Mal Waldron.

Nina Simone: Ain’t Got No…I’ve Got Life
Not strictly the blues, but great tune/performance by the great Nina Simone.

This week, some guys who look like they might burst a few blood vessels.

Bruce Springsteen: Lost in the Flood
This one is fantastic…what a build-up.

Van Morrison & The Band: Caravan
Check those moves!!

Joe Cocker: With a Little Help from My Friends

After all the rock n roll lately, i thought i should, well try to get some booty on the floor. So this week, three of the big dance anthems from the late 80s/early 90s, when my own distinctive dance style was just coming into its own. These tracks all share an added characteristic: the egregious use of day-glo backgrounds in their videos. Same director?

Technotronic: Pump Up the Jam
What’s in that pouch, I wonder?

Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance

Dee Lite: Groove Is In The Heart

Normally Saturday Night Live music performances are pretty terrible (don’t know if the show’s even still on? do they still have bands?) … But I’ve seen a few good/impressive ones.

Sugarcubes: Birthday
This was the first time I’d heard Bjork, and I thought what the hell is this? I’d never heard anything like it.

Neil Young: Keep on Rockin In the Free World
Normally SNL performances were insipid affairs, but check out how Neil just rips it up on this one, just gets more and more intense, till that solo at the end. Man. That’s Rock n Roll. And he was an old man even then (sometime in the 90s I think).

Soundgarden: Burden in My Hand
I was hoping to find the Butthole Surfers, and then Pearl Jam’s crazy performance where Eddy Vedder climbs all over the amps and makes a pro-choice speech, but couldn’t: here’s Soundgarden instead!

The Who: Acid Queen (Tommy)

Frank Zappa: Watermelon in Easter Hay (Joe’s Garage)

Pink Floyd: In The Flesh (The Wall)

Sorry, this is a couple of days late…

Hilly Kristal, owner of the famed CBGBs, where punk rock was born, died last week. In tribute:

Talking Heads: Warning Sign (197?)

Blondie: A Girl Should Know Better (1975)

And, of course:
The Ramones: Blitzkrieg Bop (1977)

Tom Waits: Take Me Home

Randy Newman: I Think It’s Going To Rain Today

Elton John: Tiny Dancer

When I was a kid I spent summers at my uncle’s farm in Ontario. All my cousins are older than me – and the youngest was Moira, so she spent the most time with me I guess. In 1980 I was 6 years old, and Moira was probably in her late teens, and I remember memorizing (some of) the words to the Billie Joel tune, Still Rock n Roll to Me, which played on the radio all that summer. Later, in 1983-84, another cousin from Ontario, Rose, lived with us for a year in Montreal. When she left, she gave me two tapes, the first I ever owned: David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, and Queen’s The Works.

And so, here are some more musical memories from childhood:

Billie Joel: It’s Still Rock n Roll to Me.

David Bowie: China Girl
[Note: I think this is the stranges video I've ever seen. UPDATE: and that's stevie ray vaughn on guitar, by the way]

Queen: Radio Ga Ga
[Note: as I write this, the radio tells me that guitarist Brian May was awarded his doctorate today in atstrophysics, from Imperial College London, with a dissertaition titled: "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud"]

In honour of how unhappy I am with Bell Canada for cutting off my phone for a week, telling me twice it would be reconnected without reconnecting, charging me for a long distance plan I did not order, disabling my call answer, and requiring calls to 5 different departments (customer service, credit, technical and repairs, billing, and collections) on 5 different occasions (many departments getting 2 and 3 calls from us, without ever allowing us to get back to the person we were originally talking to – often making us wait, again, in the good old “all our agents are busy” queue … etc etc …), and then having the gall to offer 20 fri**ken dollars for all the headache they caused. Did I mention I am not happy with Bell Canada and their dismal customer service? By the way, today after all the bloody mess they tell us, “Oh the problem is that we are changing billing systems, and half of your account is in one system, and the other half in the other.” Yeah. Thanks for telling me that after a week and a half battling with your idiotic customer service system which insists on telling us that we are at fault. Thanks Bell.

Anyway, here is my heavy metal mix … starting with Hells Bells, in honour of their Customer Service system, and then getting a bit off topic, I guess, but imagine all that Heavy Metal angst focused like a laser beam of pissed offedness directly at the Vice President of Customer Service of Bell Canada, whose name, not surprisingly, is not so easy to find online. But I will find it.

Anyway. Enjoy:
AC/DC: Hells Bells

Iron Maiden: Run to the Hills
(here I like to substitute “Bell Canada” for “White Man”)

Black Sabbath: Paranoid

(for a cheerier mixed tape, Kara did an all-OK-Go mix)

Get your porkpie hats, your stovepipe pants, skinny ties and a nice pair of heavy-frame glasses, and start skanking. Two-tone rules.

The Specials: Gangsters

Madness: One Step Beyond

The Beat: Mirror in the Bathroom

Bit late for the Friday Youtube Mixed Tape, but here it is anyway. Tacky tearjerkers from mid-eighties, that are still fun to listen to (for a while anyway):

Foreigner: I Wanna Know What Love Is

Corey Hart: Never Surrender

And, of course:
Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of the Heart

This weeks theme: genderbending.

Rough Trade: High School Confidential

Lou Reed: Walk on the Wild Side (Live, Brussels, 1974)

The Kinks: Lola
(Check out how excited the drummer is to be playing. It’s all he can do not to yawn!)

LL Cool J: Mamma Said Knock You Out
(east coast)

Ice T: I’m Your Pusher
(west coast)

Maestro Fresh Wes: Let Your Backbone Slide
(north coast)

This week: British 80s new wave/synthpop

Ultravox: Dancing with Tears in My Eyes [link]

Flock of Seagulls: I Ran [link] …(watch for the lead singer’s mad keyboard skillz)

Gary Numan: Cars [link]

This week’s theme: 70s Proto-Grrrl Rock.

Pretenders: Brass in Pocket

Patti Smith: Gloria (live)

The Runaways: Cherry Bomb

Canadian 80s new wave:

Canadian 80s garage rock:

Canadian 80s arena rock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_2m-4e4tyA (embedding disabled!)