26 November 2012 - The Sonics - Santa Claus

A little late? Yes.

But here is a garage band classic of a Christmas song that everyone should know - especially if you read Totally Covered - but hasn't gotten enough attention by anyone that isn't my 8 year old daughter.  Enjoy!

23 November 2012 - Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops - Sleigh Ride

Christmas begins now.

What better way to celebrate Black Friday than the song that defined the Christmas season for me as a kid, and still does today?  Arthur Fielder's interpretation of Leroy Anderson's 1940's classic - the two often worked together - is both delightful and bombastic, and remains the gold standard for orchestral holiday music to this day.


Even The Gap found this version cool enough to feature in holiday commercials.  Here it is, slightly remixed.

21 November 2012 - The Divinyls - I Touch Myself & Temperamental (& Pleasure and Pain)

In 1991 - I think - I saw the DiVinyls live.  Riverside Park (now Six Flags New England), Agawam, MA.  I went with Heather Deane, and we were right up next to the stage.  Her ears are probably still ringing from that show.  They put on a great one, too! Sure, they were playing all their new songs.... but they weren't all that bad.  Straight-ahead pop rock, and the gravelly vocals of Christina Amphlett really sold it all.  That was great fun with a great friend (who I really should call sometime).

This was the DiVinyls only hit single in the United States, but it was a doozy that everyone - EVERYONE - knows.  We all know what it's about.  It's mildly naughty.



The one thing that bothered me is that they didn't do much of their older catalog - they used a familiar old song during sound check that I heard when I was on the amusement park rides.  They did do one older song, which I was not as familiar with before, but has become one of my favorite songs by them afterwards.  Here it is, performed live.



Update (22 April 2013): Christina Amphlett will be missed.  She passed away over the past weekend from complications from MS and breast cancer.  In tribute, I have added that song they played during the sound check.

Not surprisingly, she sings about getting off.

20 November 2012 - Abra Moore - Four Leaf Clover

Seeing that I posted Jen Trynin and Heather Nova last week, I might as well keep the 90s alternative female singer/songwriter party going. Here's Abra's most well-known song off of 1997's Strangest Places record.

19 November 2012 - Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - What I Am / Mama Help Me / Edie Brickell - Good Times

I remember when "Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars", the debut album by Edie Brickell and New Bohemians, came out.  It was different than anything else on the radio - a little lazy, a little light-hearted.  I had never seen anyone open their mouth as far as Edie Brickell when she sang.  All in all, this brought a new, fresh sound to radio, and it was fantastic.

And, by the way.... it's Edie Brickell and New Bohemians.  If Edie had her way (and many years later, she did), her name would not have been above the title.



By the time their second album - "Ghost of a Dog" - came out, listeners had moved on, and it flopped commercially.  However, the first single from that great album deserves some notice.  They retained their hippieesque sound, while adding a more rock feel, and it worked well.



Well, that 2nd album's failure was enough to bust up the band, and so, Edie went on her own.  She married Paul Simon, too, but that's not important right now. What is important is that she recorded a solo album, the first single of which was a song called "Good Times".  It's a much more adult-contemporary song than anything New Bohemians did.  And, really, it wasn't a hit song.....

...... but it did come with Windows 95.  This video is on your Windows 95 CD.  Go ahead.  Take a look. I'll wait while you dig it out.

16 November 2012 - Cornershop - Brimful of Asha

In 1997, I decided to get a satellite dish. My satellite provider offered MTV2 as an option.  Now, for those who don't know, MTV used to play music videos.  In the mid 90's, MTV got tired of people complaining about how they no longer played videos, so they made MTV2.  Eventually, MTV2 became just like MTV and stopped playing videos, but in 1997, they played a lot of them.  It was then that I discovered Cornershop.  Cornershop were a UK band, led by men of Indian descent.

Turns out, in the UK, there are a lot of corner shops owned by people of Indian descent.  Hence, the irony of their name.

Their name wasn't the only influence that the band took from Indian culture.  From their use of instruments not normal used in the West - like a sitar - to rapid-fire Bollywood pop culture references, they relied heavily on their heritage for their sound.  In particular, this song is full of them, starting with the title - a tribute to Bollywood vocalist (rarely seen, but her voice is in more Bollywood movies than just about anyone else's) Asha Bhosle.  If you care about the rest of the references, read on after the video.



Early in the song, you hear references to someone - saddi rani - dancing behind movie screens.  That phrase is the Punjabi phrase meaning "our queen", and, because Asha Bhosle was rarely seen, she was BEHIND movie screens.  And, as is made clear in the video, many of her song were released on 45 RPM singles.  Finally, concerning her, you notice Tjinder Singh pronounces her name "Asher" quite a bit.  That's not accidental.  It is homage to Indian pronunciation.

There are several other icons of Bollywood mentioned in this song - people like Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar, who also did singing behind the scenes for Bollywood film.  But there are other pop culture references, to All-India Radio, which is India's public radio station where a lot of these songs are played, and 2-in-1s, which were combination cassette player/radio devices popular in India.

There's one other reference I want to explain.  "We don't care about no government warnings, about their promotion of a simple life, and the dams they are building."  These are very specific references to things that were going on in Indian government, and this references makes this something of a protest song.  The Indian government - their culture in general - tends to be conservative, and so not always fond of the "obscene" and grandiose Bollywood movies.  The dams are a reference to a typical corrupt project undertaken by government contractors - to use up tax dollars, the government would order the building of ridiculous dams.

I won't insult your intelligence by explaining why everyone needs a bosom for a pillow.  Single greatest lyric ever written.

And now, your patience is rewarded with a live version of this song.



Norman Cook - AKA Fatboy Slim - was so taken by this song that he did a remix that became a huge hit in the UK.  He loved the song so much, he did it for free.  And he did it well, too.  Here it is, in a fan-made video. Frankly, I found the video creative and well-made, so I decided to feature it here. Enjoy.

15 November 2012 - Jen Trynin - Better Than Nothing

I know it's supposed to be 80s Thursday, but I had a feeling Tony was going to steal this one away from me after my Heather Nova post a couple days ago. He's sneaky like that. And I couldn't let that happen. So we'll hit the 80s cheese again next week.

Like Heather Nova, I was a big Jen Trynin fan. Sadly Jen's solo career only lasted two records before she got sick of the playing the music industry game. She was probably smart to get out, even if I do miss hearing her songs. At least we have those two fine albums which I still play from time to time. Here's the video for her breakthrough hit from 1994's Cockamamie album. I still put this one on pretty much every roadtrip mix I make.