Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Little Boots was mentioned in the Hey Lurkers! thread, and it reminded me of how much I miss the music threads we used to have. So let’s have one tonight!
You pedants can tell me how to best punctuate the thread title so it’s clear that I am asking for a music thread like we used to have – and not asking for an old-time music thread like polkas or Sinatra or Elvis or whatever. Though all of those are welcome!
I thought about titling the post Classic Music Thread, but then I figured you’d think I was looking for classical music. Titles are complicated!
I’ll add a YouTube video up top for one of the first 5 songs that is mentioned in the comments.
Scuffletuffle
Rose of Allendale by the Dubliners
Another Scott
Good topic!
This one always gets to me. Kate Bush – The man with the child in his eyes (2:51)
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Scuffletuffle: I thought this was amazing, came across it last week. I don’t even know who the Three Tenors are, but it’s amazing.
;
WaterGirl
Another one of my favorites.
Another Scott
J and I saw The Feelies at the Black Cat in DC last night. They’re her favorite band.
The Feelies – Higher Ground (4:38).
Good show, once they fixed the sound after the first set. 5 encores. !
Cheers,
Scott.
PaulB
“The Tenors” used to be called “The Canadian Tenors.” For an amusing look at an earlier song they performed, see this YouTube video where they perform “Hallelujah” for Oprah. What they didn’t know is that Oprah had a surprise guest join them halfway through the song. Their reactions are hilarious.
Xavier
Difference between country music and old time music: Country music is three chords and the truth, old time music is one or two chords and a bunch of lies.
funlady75
anything by Barb Streisand is golden….
Another Scott
@Xavier: [ snort! ]
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: How big is that venue?
I had never heard of them, but I like the song and I would definitely see them.
WaterGirl
@Xavier:
LOL. Literally.
billcinsd
@Another Scott: I saw The Feelies in Salt Lake City in like 1986.
For old music I like Leroy Carr — an urban piano-blues guy in the 1930s. He wrote this one just before he died of nephritis caused by his drinking way too much
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og01T5McsFU
Jay
Be Good Tanya’s, Littlest Birds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdIhpkEkC4c
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Google tells me that the main area has a capacity of 800. The show was sold out.
The Feelies has a devoted cult following and inspired a lot of more famous bands. They still rock very hard. :-)
They don’t do much touring – mainly between DC and New England.
Cheers,
Scott.
karen marie
I love me some WMBR on Sunday mornings when Patrick Bryant, he of the mellifluous voice, “[explores] a single song each show, through multiple wild and weird cover versions.”
It’s incredible. A couple months ago he did “Amazing Grace.” Today was “Route 66.” Patrick provides a great music history lesson each episode.
Miss Bianca
@Scuffletuffle:
“Sweet Rose of Allendale”? I didn’t know the Dubliners did that one!
Melancholy Jaques
Saturday was the 51st (OMG!) anniversary of the USA release of David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album.
Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?) is one among several Bowie songs that I’ve never tired of hearing.
Baud
Air Supply, All out of Love.
MattF
Your post title reminds me of an anecdote that Gillian Welsh told. She said that after a concert she was approached by a little old lady who asked “Were those real songs or did you just write them?”
billcinsd
@WaterGirl: Looks like they have two rooms, one holds ~800, the ~550. The Feelies are from the DC area so would probably do well at that size despite mostly being a niche band 40 years ago
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Oh my god, they are so young in that picture!
WaterGirl
@MattF:
I laughed out loud, then figured the artist wanted to punch the person who said that.
Melancholy Jaques
@Another Scott:
Never heard of The Feelies until I saw them open for Lou Reed in March 1989 (the New York tour). At the door, they passed out a cassette with Higher Ground and two covers songs, What Goes On? and Dancing Barefoot. Good luck finding that album or EP or whatever it was.
Anyway, I became a fan, got all their albums, got Glenn Mercer’s solo albums. They are regulars in my rotations.
Jay
Wycliff Jean, The Fugee’s and Stephen Marley, No Woman No Cry,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOmhVEiq95I
Adam Lang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pDGc8xUX94
Lunasa, Morning Nightcap. Some of the best nouveau-traditional Irish music around.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Okay, here are two performances of the same song. One is from early in the band’s career, in the early 2000’s, when the audience still didn’t know the song the band was performing – even though it had already been out for a few years at the time of the show. Yeah, this is a band that took a few years to find their audience.
The second performance is from 2023, same band, same members, performing the same song at the Albert Hall in London, with an audience of seemingly mostly women, the entirety of whom are pogo-ing and singing along, loud enough to drown out the singer, even singing the missing guitar parts at the beginning of the song.
FYI, the lead singer is Kathleen Hanna, whose other bands include Bikini Kill and The Julie Ruin.
The contrast between audience reactions in these two performances is just astonishing:
Deceptacon – Le Tigre (early 2000’s)
Deceptacon – Le Tigre (Albert Hall, 2023)
P.S. Lyrics:
Who took the bomp?
Every day and night
Every day and night
I can see your disco
Disco dick is sucking my heart out of my mind
I’m outta time
I’m outta fucking time
I’m a gasoline gut with a vasoline mind but
Wanna disco?
Wanna see me disco?
Let me hear you depoliticize my rhyme
(One, two, three, four)
You got what you been asking for
You’re so policy free
And your fantasy wheels
And everything you think
And everything you feel is
Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright
I take you home now I watch me get you hard
You’re just a parrot
When you’re screaming and you’re shouting
“More crackers please! More crackers please!”
You want what you want
But you don’t wanna be on your knees
Who does your-, who does your hair?
Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?
Who took the ram from the ramalamading-dong?
Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?
Who took the ram from the ramalamading-dong?
“How are you?”
“Fine, thank you”
“How are you?”
“Fine, thank you”
You bought a new van
The first year of your band
You’re cool and
I hardly wanna say
“Not” because I’m so bored
That I’d be entertained even by a stupid fuckin’
Linoleum floor, linoleum floor
Your lyrics are dumb like a linoleum floor
I’ll walk on it
I’ll walk all over you
Walk on it, walk on it
Walking one, two
(Who? Who? Who? Who?)
Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?
Who took the ram from the ramalamading dong?
Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?
Who took the ram from the ramalamading dong?
“See you later”
“See you later”
“See you later”
“See you later”
BigJimSlade
Did someone say classical music? I just took the headphones off and got up off the couch after listening to Shostakovich’s 5th string quartet. I’ve been going through all the Mahler symphonies (currently on #7) and needed a break:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev4gBdlxBUc
Citizen Dave
Love the feelies. Only time I saw them was late 1980s, think Only Life was out. Similar to the Pixies, I think, as having good initial success, then inactive for a good while, then a second act.
My listening today while doing yard work was:
John Lee Hooker solo album from early 1960s; Neil Young, Chrome Dreams ( not the bootleg but a recent release showing what he would have put out in the 1970s); Hoagy Carmichael Sings Hoagy; and a 100 Years of Jazz compilation.
PaulB
“Cups”, aka “When I’m Gone”, performed by Anna Kendrick. The music video for a song she first performed in the movie, “Pitch Perfect”. The choreography is a lot of fun.
BigJimSlade
@Xavier: I thought the blues was three chords and the truth. And for country music you play the record backwards to get your wife, truck and dog back ;-)
Matt McIrvin
Here’s the oldest-time music (well, as well as it can be reconstructed, which is not very well):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KElPnD-dbkk
glc
Wake up Little Suzie (Everly Brothers)
Not actually my favorite of theirs (I like the style of “All I have to do is dream” better, though the content seems dubious) but it made its mark, and it even got banned in Boston at the time, always a mark of distinction.
Speaking of banning, at another time and place “You’ve got to be carefully taught” (South Pacific) was perceived as “a threat to the American way of life,” as it suggested that racial animosity was not innate.
Citizen Dave
@MattF: Great Gillian Welch story! Love her and David Rawlings. Gillian has written some fantastic songs, and for me Time The Revelator is on the highest level of songs. Interesting given your story that that one is a reworking of a “real song”.
prostratedragon
Pretty darn old: “Nonesuch”.
Kristine
@Melancholy Jaques: IIRC, it was the first album of his that I bought.
Time….
Another Scott
@Lacuna Synecdoche: :-)
Great counterpoint!
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Melancholy Jaques
What some have described as the perfect country & western song.
Last verse:
I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got runned over by a damned old train
billcinsd
A couple of my faves from when I was young
My friends The Connells — Scotty’s Lament
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKSg3zFB2dE
The True Believers, one of Alejandro Escovedo’s bands — Who Calls My Name
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEWLEZU-kTs&list=OLAK5uy_kMU-zsvvy7TsVdCsg45cKFN9sFZySR7nE&index=15
AWOL
Been following them since the ’80s when I lived in Northern NJ, but saw The Feelies for the first time live Friday night at Racket in NYC. Forty bucks, including fees. That’s performing for free and in he nicest-run club in the multiverse. But that’s their ethos. Fucking incredible, and Dave Weckerman makes a great modern-day Anton Fier (RIP). Problem is, I’m an oldster and can’t stand up for hours in clubs. Pain was causing nausea. I could only endure for the first act.
Opened with their hypnotic “When Company Comes.” “In Between,” one of Mercer’s “newest” compositions, was featured and beautifully rendered. They did a wistful version of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday,” and the genius of their percussion duo shone. Other covers included a Velvet Underground tease, The Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide,” and they exploded into pure rock to close the opener with the Stones’ “Paint It Black.”
This is the group that stayed underground despite inspiring REM.
Thank you so much for featuring them, WaterGirl.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Those seem to be The Tenors (whom I don’t know), not The Three Tenors, who were Domingo, Pavarotti, and Carreras.
Mai Naem mobile
@Another Scott: I like Man With The Child but i love Wuthering Heights
https://youtu.be/Fk-4lXLM34g?si=9oyxjO7HLP9voH_o
H.E.Wolf
Carolina Chocolate Drops: African-American traditional folk music. I linked to “Cornbread and Butterbeans”, but pretty much anything they play is worth listening to, if you like their genre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xOxHyTP91c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carolina_Chocolate_Drops
Mai Naem mobile
I’ve always liked this song. Anything with bagpipes is always good – Wings – Mull of Kintyre https://g.co/kgs/25e8y7Q
SkyBluePink
@Another Scott: I think I first saw Kate Bush singing this song on SNL many many years ago. She’s still one of my favorites.
eldorado
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
i was starting to put together a short riot girl list but i’m going to just thumbs up le tigre
prostratedragon
A little newer: “The Dream,” Jesse Pickett; J.P. Johnson, piano
piratedan
if we’re going old school….
Billy Ward and the Dominos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO-zHg3Q_Pc
if you want more, you can follow my Pirate’s Playlist hashtag over on bluesky
prostratedragon
@Melancholy Jaques:
A later version of the following includes what I think is the equivalent quintessial blues line:
This one lacks that line, but the opening guitar solo is priceless: “How Blue Can You Get?” B.B. King, live at Cook County Jail.
blackmtn
A possible thread subject – “Songs that blew my mind the SECOND time I heard them”. I would start with Suzanne Vega’s, “Luka” …
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, I caught that up thread. I can’t fix it though, or the YouTube embed code in that comment will get screwed up.
Scuffletuffle
@Miss Bianca: look for it sung by Sean Cannon…breathtaking!
Mr. Prosser
Motown! Smokey Robinson and the Miracles – Tears of a Clown
Temptations – Ain’t To Proud to Beg
Martha and the Vandellas – Dancing in the Street
Fontella Bass – Rescue Me.
I’m old, sue me.
SpaceUnit
Here’s one of my favorite Kate Bush videos:
The Big Sky
Scuffletuffle
@Melancholy Jaques: the Corries did a short version of that one, it was priceless.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Another Scott:
I just love the contrast, where Hanna is shyly, tentatively, telling/asking the audience to sing along in the first video, asking if they know the words, compared to second video, about 20 years later, where the entire audience is screaming and singing along, enthusuastically, with utter abandon, without any urging at all, even singing the instrumental parts.
It looks and feels like: vindication.
@eldorado: Thank you!
df
I’m old, but I’m not stuck on old-time music so here’s some new music…
He’s a Man off of Bob Vylan’s album Humble as the Sun – grime-punk and scathing social commentary
Cuz I Love You off of Joshua Ray Walker’s album What Is It Even? – fantastic and courageous Lizzo cover
Jerszy
@Melancholy Jaques: Make sure you get the albums they recorded as Yung Wu and as Wake Ooloo – they are excellent.
Brachiator
@Mr. Prosser:
Fun video. Gen Z tries to remember 50s and 60s Motown.
Of course, they barely scratched the surface.
Ken
Pity, I was going to vent about how “oldies” rock radio now means the 1990s. Though the really depressing thing is that “classic” rock radio is sponsored entirely by ads for generic ED drugs, divorce attorneys, and cash-for-gold shops. I guess they know their demographic….
df
@Lacuna Synecdoche and @eldorado: I second Le Tigre and Bikini Kill and The Julie Ruin. Any band with Kathleen Hanna.
Jerszy
@billcinsd: The Feelies are from Jersey/now Brooklyn, but they gained a large DC-area following in the late 80s-early 90s.
prostratedragon
Classical musicians have been onto Bey for years: “Halo,” Beyoncé; Brooklyn Duo with piano.
TBone
I really miss this guy. He got me through some pretty rough Saturday mornings back in the day.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVKsd8z6scw
billcinsd
@Jerszy: Yes, I remember now. Also, the East Coast is all 1 area to me from ~1500 miles away
NotMax
Glad to hear it; the contemporary music scene ain’t my thang.
Tsk tsk. Don’t knock the polka.
There’s always room for patter.
And now for something completely different (but still musical).
;)
Miki
Joni Mitchell, Brandy Carlisle, Anne Lennox tribute to Elton John and Bernie Taupin “I’m Still Standing” at the Gershwin Prize was/is stellar – https://youtu.be/6ydpqCCoaFk?si=d2iV-UQeBWuF3cDu
But Brandi Carlisle and Joni Mitchell at Newport doing “A Case of You” is at least as good – https://youtu.be/9evpH6yjxrI?si=aeN2GH3ahY1nkS6o.
kalakal
The Connells ’74- ’75
The video is a masterpiece
I was driving home from work the other night and they had on Tull’s Thick as a Brick , boy that brought back memories
One that always makes me feel good
Joe Cocker from Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Feelin’ Alright
Traffic Dear Mr Fantasy
And anything by Cream
Splitting Image
I’ve been adding a bunch of new music to my collection recently, so naturally I spent the entire past week listening to all of Pink Floyd’s albums in chronological order.
I actually love that the Spice Girls and Britney Spears are now considered classic rock. It outrages most of the right people. Spears is eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, by the way.
NotMax
@kalakal
A bluer shade of Cream.
;)
prostratedragon
“The Dream Contunues, Sofiane Pamart and Charles Leclerc.
prostratedragon
“El Gran Horacio Salgán,” Oscar Alemán.
kalakal
@NotMax: So good
TheflipPsyd
Anyone familiar with PostModern Jukebox? It’s newish music done in older styles. Their tagline is Today’s Music Yesterday. I like most of it, YouTube their Careless Whisper version.
S Cerevisiae
Several of the old rock bands went into the studio during the pandemic and BÖC produced the best album they’ve done in 30 years, The Symbol Remains. The best cut is lifted straight from an HP Lovecraft story, The Alchemist:
https://youtu.be/j4TFfTSUbto?si=fEaaRXaYUVEGwgLU
trollhattan
[Gazes at calendar, multiplies by seven and carries the two. Compile!]
“Old time.”
Dad had the hifi bug but also had mostly horrifying musical taste. Some Ray Charles sneaked in and if I filtered out the Nashville Sound dreck Chet Atkins was the man. How to catalog the Jackie Gleason Orchestra albums, though.
What I can report is that redhead.edu was raised with constant music and while she has her own contemporary tastes that dad has no connection with the experiment worked, and she likes a lot of what I listened to, growing up. And that’s why a 22YO might have, say, a Kinks collection on vinyl.
Music is so vast I can’t recommend anything unprompted any more than I could proffer a sand grain from the lovely beach at Carmel by the Sea and say “you HAVE to try this!”
Bought a streaming player+DAC for the Big Music System and having a blast sampling various on-line radio stations. Because I like absurd contrasts have been listening to a reggae station from Switzerland and a blues station from Germany. Life in the 21st century.
NB run your CD collection [my what?!?] through a modern DAC and see what happens. Boggled.
citizen dave
@TheflipPsyd: I’ve watched many of their videos. Been wondering lately if the lead singer (normally a guest and a woman) is required to sway to the music or that just happens.
Here is something: The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army has 53 million YouTube views; Post Modern Jukebox version, 54 million views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB6HY8r983c
NotMax
@trollhattan
Music to show off your console stereo hi-fi during cocktail parties.
;)
Timill
@TheflipPsyd: Like “All About That [Upright] Bass”?
kalakal
@S Cerevisiae: That really is the best they’ve done for 30 years. Thank you, I’d kind of given up on them a couple of decades ago
Another Scott
@Mai Naem mobile: The young passion in the early version is great, but it hurts my ears.
I much prefer the later version from The Whole Story, myself. But it sounds almost conventional. ;-)
Have you heard about The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever?
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
Gotta love it.
Ruth Brown, If I Can’t Sell It, I’ll Sit on It.
:)
trollhattan
@NotMax: Sigh, yeah, pretty much.
There were “The magnificant, spellbinding world of STEREO!” LPs that would chug steam locomotives through the livingroom and such. Those were easy to dance to.
Heathkit amps, anybody?
citizen dave
@Timill: No offense to Kate Davis (had not seen that version), but you need to check out this PMJ version of All About That Bass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLnZ1NQm2uk
Another Scott
@TheflipPsyd: Don’t cross the streams!!
Post-Modern Jukebox doing Kate Bush’s Running up that Hill
[ rof ]
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Snippet of a parody radio ad from back in the day:
“Other kits require you to use wires of different lengths and even different colors. Not Heapkits — all wires are 16 inches long and green. You can’t go wrong!”
Ramalama
@AWOL: when company comes is such a great song. Despite being a music boaster (I saw a Shite ton of great music live from everybody to everybody) but never The Feelies. Whenever I listen to When Company Comes I always have to follow it up with REM singing Crazy, not the patsy cline song.
Also I know there so few ABBA fans here but Little Boots plays or played in the live ABBA show in London, the Voyage concert with this live 12 piece band with the digital versions of the ABBA peeps. Benny Andersson asked her to be the first member and I believe she chose everybody else to be in the band.
unless there’s a different Little Boots Water Girl referred to in the earlier post. If so…never mind.
what do you do when company comes? Sit around, sit around.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Seriously, knew neighborhood dads who tackled the Heathkit color television kit to avoid RCA prices for, you know, a teevee that worked as sold.
So many tragic outcomes.
TBF a color teevee had to be tech-installed and if you wanted to move it to another room, a tech to realign the color guns afterwards. All for fifteen shows out of a hundred.
JohnC
I like this one very much: “The World Is Outside” – Ghosts
JohnC
I still find this performance miraculous: Heart – Stairway to Heaven (Live at Kennedy Center Honors) [FULL VERSION]
Heart performs the song for Led Zeppelin, who are receiving the honors (Jason Bonham on drums, enormous chorus of singers). It’s astonishing. Plus audience glimpses of Yo-Yo Ma and Bonnie Raitt savoring it.
prostratedragon
Been listening to a lot of soundtracks in recent months. Tracks from some of the favorites:
“Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga (Main Title),” Get Out, Micheal Abels
“The End of Clive and Jerrica”, Candyman (2021), Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe
“Telling Tales,” Vera, Ben Bartlett
“Oliver’s Monologue,” Only Murders In the Building, Siddhartha Khosla
Steve in the ATL
1. Love the Feelies!
2. They are from Hoboken, NJ.
3. Saw them at lesbian bar in the Fan (Richmond, VA) in the late 80s. Fun show!
Steve in the ATL
This is pretty old:Larry and the Blue Notes
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Unexpected theme from a movie about mid-20th century labor in a troubled factory.
Noel Mewton-Wood, Chance of a Lifetime
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: So 60s!!! It’s taking me back.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Pretty grand — guess one can tell it’s still much in the shadow of WWII. Too bad about the composer.
jame
Mountain – Nantucket Sleighride
Warren Senders
Teaching a “World Music Survey” course at Emerson College in the early 2000s, I played the 120 or so students a recording of Japanese Gagaku music, noting that it was the oldest continuously maintained orchestral tradition in the world, with repertoire going back to around the year 800.
A student wrote in a post-class response, “I’m totally blown away. I had NO IDEA they had recording technology in the year 800.”
mvr
@Melancholy Jaques: Mick Ronson is one of the best rock guitarists around, or was one of the best rock guitarists around.
mvr
@Melancholy Jaques: Steve Goodman! Used to go see him back in the day when the bar (Charlotte’s Web) would let us 17 yr olds in if we didn’t drink.
Melancholy Jaques
@jame:
Twice went to see Mountain, both times they cancelled while we sat there in our seats. Did get to see West, Bruce & Laing though. One of the loudest concerts I ever heard.
mvr
@trollhattan: I’ve rebuilt/repaired a few vacuum tube Heathkit hifis in my time. They’re a lot simpler than the solid state variety but the voltages are higher. Sound is better too.
mvr
@mvr:
After 4 comments in a row replying to various and sundry earlier comments, is it hard to tell that I really love commenting on a dead thread?
frosty
@trollhattan: Yep. My dad built his Heathkit stereo. And our first color TV.
ETA I didn’t know that about the hassle of moving it around. My dad was an electronics engineer so it was just another day at the office for him.
wjca
“Not dead yet….”
billcinsd
Another odd one, New Order’s Blue Monday on 1930s musical instruments by Orkestra Obsolete
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHLbaOLWjpc
billcinsd
There’s also the Recycled Orchestra from Paraguay who make their instruments from their city’s trash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDQ6c_bLr2o
Warren Senders
@Melancholy Jaques: I saw Mountain twice, too! Once at Boston’s Orpheum Theater on a double bill with Black Oak Arkansas. Now there was a truly stupid band.
prostratedragon
@Warren Senders: 😥
Attempted Chemistry
@Warren Senders: LOL
My son, 17, told me, 44, that he had found this great old band and wanted to know if I had heard of them. Yes, son, I’ve heard of The Offspring.
AWOL
@Steve in the ATL: They come from Haledon, NJ, near William Paterson University. Hoboken was where Maxwell’s was, the famous club back when where they often appeared.
Paul in KY
@df: Saw Bikini Kill at Riot Fest a few years ago. Great set by the girls!
Paul in KY
@Splitting Image: Ms. Spears will never make the Hall.
Paul in KY
@Attempted Chemistry: Jeezus! Glad he ‘discovered’ them, though!