Yowsa

Music intelligence quiz

Take it here.

Amazon customers' top-100...

Their favorite CDs.

A great album

Listen online to partial songs from this album by the Trucks. I love it. Sleater-Kinney meets, uh...I don't know. Just listen.

Linkateria:

-Audio review: The Trucks Debut With Abundant Attitude (Fresh Air)

Favorite albums (or CDs)

Favorite:

Beatles album - Abbey Road
Beach Boys album - Pet Sounds

B52s - Cosmic ThingNick Cave - Mercy Seat
De La Soul - De La Soul is Dead
Bob Dylan - Desire
Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
The Clash - London Calling
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
Elton John - Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy
Elvis Costello - Imperial Bedroom
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Frank Black - Teenager of the Year
Frank Zappa - Freak Out
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
Kinks - Kink Kronikles
Lou Reed - New York
Neil Young - American Stars 'n Bars
Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Pixies - Trompe Le Monde
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Randy Newman - Land of Dreams
Replacements - Let It Be
Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street
Roxy Music - Country Life
Sly & The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On
The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come
Sonic Youth - Dirty
T. Rex - The Slider
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
They Might Be Giants - John Henry
Tom Waits - Blue Valentine
Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Willie Nelson - Over the Rainbow
X- Wild Gift

Richard Thompson's Iraq song

The legendary folk-rocker sings "Baghdad's Gonna Kill Me."

Pt Final: Songs requiring that when I hear them I do a small dance..

• Voices Carry (Till Tuesday)
• Baby Universal, Goodbye Mr. Ed (Tin Machine)
• We Gotta Get You a Woman (Todd Rundgren)
• What's New Pussycat (Tom Jones)
• Tango Till They're Sore, Blue Valentines (Tom Waits)
• Wild Thing (Troggs)
• I See a River (Urinetown)
• Gloria (Van Morrison)
• Walk on Bye (Vanilla Fudge)
• Walk on Bye (Isaac Hayes)
• Sweet Jane, Candy Says (Velvet Underground)
• Country Death Song (Violent Femmes)
• Let's Go (Wang Chung)
• Why Can't We Be Friends (War)
• My Shit's Fucked Up (Warren Zevon)
• My Wife, Behind Blue Eyes, I Can See For Miles, We're Not Gonna Take It (The Who)
• What Is This Feeling (Wicked)
• Theologians (Wilco)
• The New World, Breathless, Adult Books (X)
• You're a Better Man Than I (Yardbirds)
• She's Not There, Time of the Season (Zombies)

phew.

Pt III: Songs requiring that when I hear them I do a small dance...

• Mary Anne (Marshall Crenshaw)
• Sick of Myself (Matthew Sweet)
• Piss-Bottle Man (Mike Watt)
• Academy Fight Song (Mission of Burma)
• All the Young Dudes (Mott the Hoople)
• Stranded in the Jungle (NY Dolls)
• Sleeping Annaleah (Nick Cave)
• Cruel to Be Kind (Nick Lowe)
• Serve the Servants (Nirvana)
• Try a Little Tenderness (Otis Redding)
• Hey Ya, Roses (Outkast)
• Flashlight (Parliament)
• We Three, Frederick (Patti Smith)
• Venus and Mars/Rockshow (Paul McCartney)
• America/Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkle)
• Silence Kit/Elevate Me Later (Pavement)
• Slit Skirts (Pete Townsend)
• Walk and Don't Look Back (Peter Tosh)
• Alec Eiffel, Letter to Memphis, Motorway to Roswell (Pixies)
• Night in My Veins (Pretenders)
• Little Red Corvette, Int'l Lover, Starfish and Coffee (Prince)

Pt II: Songs requiring that when I hear them I do a small dance...

• Stacked Actors (Foo Fighters)
• Baby I Need Your Loving (Four Tops)
• Big Red (Frank Black)
• Camarillo Brillo (Frank Zappa)
• Fix Me Now (Garbage)
• Paper Late (Genesis)
• Little Green Bag (George Baker Selection)
• This Song (George Harrison)
• Uncle John's Band (Grateful Dead)
• Official Ironmen Rally Song, Not Behind the Fighter Jet (Guided by Voices)
• Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat (from "Guys and Dolls")
• Brotherhood of Man (from "How to Succeed in Business...")
• Stop! The Love You Save (Jackson 5)
• Breathless (Jerry Lee Lewis)
• Many Rivers to Cross (Jimmy Cliff)
• Gimme Some Truth, Instant Karma, Mind Games (John Lennon)
• I Was Dancing in a Lesbian Bar (Jonathan Richman)
• Dancing in the Moonlight (King Harvest)
• Victoria (Kinks)
• Can't Stand Me Now (Libertines)
• Brandy (Looking Glass)
• Waves of Fear, Sweet Jane) Lou Reed
• Oh Marie (Louis Prima)

Songs requiring that when I hear them I do a small dance...

if only a simple leg shake or two, or even only in my head, no matter where I am it could even be in bed or sitting on the can:

• Don't Stop Me Now (Queen)
• For You (Bruce Springsteen)
• Surrender (Cheap Trick)
• I Don't Like Mondays (Boomtown Rats)
• I Had a Dream, Joe (Nick Cave)
• The Bitterest Pill, Beat Surrender (The Jam)
• No Reply (The Beatles)
• Rip Her to Shreds (Blondie)
• Rainy Days and Mondays (Carpenters)
• Got to Be Real (Cheryl Lynn)
• Know Your Rights (The Clash)
• Watch That Man, Everyone Says Hi, Scream Like a Baby (David Bowie)
• Miss America (David Byrne)
• Little Fury Things (Dinosaur Jr)
• I Touch Myself (Divinyls)
• Alabama Song (Doors)
• Love Grows Where Rosemary Goes (Edison Lighthouse)
• A Distorted Reality is Now Necessary to be  Free (Elliott Smith)
• Mr. Blue Sky (ELO)
• Bitter Fingers, Tower of Babel, I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That (Elton John)
• 13 Steps Lead Down, You Tripped at Every Step (Elvis Costello)
• Kentucky Rain (Elvis Presley)
• '97 Bonnie and Clyde (Eminem)
• Sweet Blindness, Wedding Bell Blues (Fifth Dimension)

TO BE CONTINUED

Post your own.

Springsteen and September 11th

Yesterday I commemorated September 11th as I always do: By listening to Springsteen's The Rising. I have often been suprised to find this album in bargain bins or stacked back-to-back in used CD stores. Still, not much of a problem to make an educated guess as to the reason. I can't listen to the September 11th-inspired songs, myself, without crying. I try to avoid all direct reminders of that day because I find them so traumatic. And after all, you can't really open your eyes in the morning without stumbling across the after-effects of the event within an hour or two, anyway.

What with all the hoopla surrounding the five-year anniversary, and what with the politicization of the disaster by Karl Rove and his minions, listening to the first-person stories of loss on The Rising is the only dignified way I can think of to remember the punching out of my hometown's two front teeth, to mourn the loss of so many people sacrificed to the random cruelty of history, and to lament the loss of one generation's innocence as it watched flesh and blood people instinctively flapping their arms while forced to make the choice between being burnt alive or jumping out of windows  a quarter mile up in the air. Any President with a shred of humility would feel nothing but shame presiding over the biggest security failure the country has ever suffered -- but not Bush.

Every time that robotic nincompoop utters the phrase "September 11th," it's like two chubby fingers are being forced down my native New Yorker's throat.

---

Click on these links to read lyrics from The Rising:

• Lonesome Day - those left behind
• Into the Fire - from the point of view of a fireman's widow
• Waitin' On a Sunny Day - a widow's lament
• Nothing Man - sung by a dead man
• Countin' On a Miracle - the people who put all those "missing" posters up after the attack
• Empty Sky - I still haven't been to Ground Zero
• Further On (Up the Road) - " Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring/
  My lucky graveyard boots and song to sing"
• You're Missing - " Coffee cups on the counter, jackets on the chair/Papers on the doorstep, you're not there
• The Rising
  
• My City of Ruins