Have you been watching Game of Thrones? If yes, good for you! You get a cookie! If not, what's wrong with you? Do you hate good things or something? Go watch. Read this first and all that. But then go. I'm watching you.
The National, the Cincinnati band of the deep voice and the self proclaimed meaningless name, have recorded a version of The Rains of Castamere. The song is from the Song of Ice & Fire book series and tells the story of the crushing of the rebellion of House Castamere by Tywin Lannister. All of which would make sense if you JUST WENT AND WATCHED THE SHOW. But really, the song is gorgeously chilling with Matt Berringer's black velvet vocals gently held up by droning strings.
Now! Here's your cookie. You can download the song here. I'm sure it's definitely legitimate. Definitely. Just don't tell Tywin. Otherwise the fate of House Castamere will be your own.
Beck and Jack White made a thing! It's called I Just Started Hating Some People Today! Let's listen!
The opening of the song (by which I mean the main bit of the song, by which I mean the… y'know… song bit of the song) is jingle jangle alt country made for serious alt head nodding where you look up for a moment as you break into an irony free grin at the cheerfully demented lyrics before noticing no one else is smiling so you close your eyes and smile on the inside as you punch everyone's face like Beck because fuck those guys.
I don't think I can put it much better than that. It's got woozy druggy bass, it's got crunchy crashy drums by White, and it's damn funny. It has a pair of false endings: one fifteen seconds of hardcore, the other quasi P-Funk.
Maybe (stay with me here)- maybe the song is a metaphor for angry sex in it's construction. It's pretty awesome at the start (because sex right?), even though you're pissed off the whole time. Then for a brief moment the anger overwhelms you in blinding climactic fury. But then you've orgasmed and shit... why were you mad again?
Thank you Beck and White for making the country ode to distracted hate sex. There's your cover quote. Where's my money?
If Clint Eastwood were two inches tall and made of grey and angry pixels he would constantly be soundtracked by Glomag's chipped out cover of The Ecstasy of Gold on Roland & The Lamprey.
This song has convinced me we need more digital Westerns. Maybe Westworld wasn't such a bad idea! No, no, no, this is the song talking. Ignore me.
I was trying to find a clever way to summarize Glomag but I like the description of the album from his website too much. It's the perfect blend of cool and stupid pretentious, which is kind of Chiptune in a nutshell in many ways. So I will leave you with his wise words, and wish you all a happy Chuesday:
'Roland had studied the data on the first four cartridges for a very long time, when he realized that the lamprey was hiding a fifth inside it's mouth. Discovered, the lamprey wheezed and sputtered, blowing air through the cartridge in an attempt to make it sound out a tune. Confused and frustrated, it spat the item out into the sand and disappeared into the vast, toxic lake. Roland dried it off, inserted it into the DMG, pressed start and heard the growling waveforms emerge. This sound brought to him the realization that a year had passed in this wasteland and there was now much work to be done.'
Damn if that song doesn't kick like a mule on steroids.
Ball of Confusion, one of the finest singles put out by harmony masters The Temptations and written by Motown mainstays Norman Whitfield and Barret Strong, nearly didn't happen. The band were originally slated to release the anti-Vietnam number War (also penned by Whitfield/Strong), however concerns from on high at Motown mooted the release. The label worried the song's defiant stance would alienate more conservative listeners, and so War was passed on to Edwin Starr. Whitfield and Strong then wrote Ball of Confusion for The Temptations as a replacement and good God almighty thank the lord they did.
The song growls open with a bumping bassline from Bob Babbit, a member of the famous session musician group The Funk Brothers who have played on nearly every soul and Motown release worth mentioning (including Heard It Through the Grapevine, My Girl, and Ain't No Mountain High Enough). As Babbit's bass oozes out of your speakers echoing guitar lines spindle and flux from dark alleyways as The Temptations begin laying the world to rights like a group of harmony loving street preachers. And all that's before we even get to the harmonica solo from a little known musician named Stevie Wonder.
Politics you can groove to. That's what the world needs today.
It's sunny as all get out this week in London. I have an affliction that tends to become quite pronounced in warm weather: I uncontrollably listen to enormous amounts of cheesy pop music- and it doesn't get much cheesier than Centerfold by The J. Geils Band. But damn it! If I'm going to listen to this stuff then SO ARE YOU.
Centerfold has one of the most memorable organ hooks in pop music. A bit bluesy, a bit americana, a bit glossy eighties pop rock, and every inch an unstoppable ear worm. The song may or may not have been written about lead singer Peter Wolf's at the time girlfriend, actress Angel Tompkins- it's never been totally confirmed but seems to fit.
Either way, allow this bouncing pop rendition of one man's mental anguish over his childhood sweetheart's Playboy debut to soundtrack your sunny afternoon out. Or in. Whatever. The hook is taking over my braiNAH NAH NAHNAHNAHNAH NAH NAH NAH NANANAHNANAHNAH
Today expect high amounts of Louis Prima coming in from the east and casting it's glow over the whole week. Get outside and find a way of blasting the Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody Medley from Prima's Wildest!
The first in a new series: we will do our best to let you know the weather in London via a song that matches it. Scientifically. We're using weather balloons with guitars attached to them and all sorts.
Today we have the heavy delta heat of slide guitar master Bonnie Raitt duetting with the gravel voiced Maria Muldaur on It's A Blessing.
Mike Compton is the mandolin. I first became aware of him and his incredible virtuoso flourishes in the Down From the Mountain concert film, which was an evening celebrating and performing the traditional music found in O Brother Where Art Thou.
In 2006 Compton and fellow mandolinist David Long put out an album of traditional blue grass numbers titled Stomp. The album is a celebration of bluegrass music with large sections of the album built out of the duelling instrumental melodies of the two performers. There's a particular focus upon the songs of Bill Monroe, the American musician widely credited with inventing the bluegrass genre (the name of the style comes from Monroe's band the Blue Grass Boys).
And so we have todays Best Song Ever: Compton and Long's powerful reading of Monroe's 'Evening Prayer Blues.'
It's a wonderfully sunny Tuesday in London, so what better way to celebrate the mood than with El Scorcho by Tugboat!
The track is a Weezer cover (though I find the original to be infinitely less interesting), and is part of a wider chip-weezer cover compilation which can be had for the price of zero money here: http://www.ptesquad.com/more/pte018.html
I always thought this would be what Mario would put on at a beach party. Anyhow, stop reading this, get outside, and enjoy your digital sunshine. See you again tomorrow.
A short sharp shock today. Screamin' Jay Hawkins is widely regarded as one of the first Shock Rockers because of his use of gothic props and theatrical costumes in his stage shows. If that's not enough for you though, read on.
Hawkins was also a Prisoner of War during World War II. Accounts vary of exactly what happened to him during this period. However Hawkins himself said (in the documentary I Put A Spell On Me) that upon his liberation he taped a hand grenade into the mouth of his chief torturer and pulled the pin.
I was first properly introduced to the band via the bouncingly brilliant rhythm game Frequency which used a remix of their single 'Funny Break' as part of its soundtrack. Frequency was a fascinating experience because it forced the player (or should that be listener) to break down a song into its constituent parts (bass lines, drum rhythms, guitar licks, vocals etc) and rebuild as they saw fit. Granted you would only do really well if you managed to rebuild the entire song, but the most interesting moments came from finding ways to strip the track into something new.
'Funny Break' was my favourite song to mess around with. I think it's largely because of the vocal line. Getting the drum loop to drop out of the mix at just the right moment allowed Naomi Bedford's auto-tuned belters to soar off on crackling digital wings, and in that moment of musical control and creation I'd be flying right along with her.
But still I didn't go listen to Orbital. Not really.
It was another video game that brought the brothers Hartnoll back to my attention: Lumines Electronic Symphony, a sprawling technicolor love letter to electronic music. Q Entertainment's rhythmic masterpiece, produced by music obsessive club owner-turned-journalist-turned-producer James Mielke (who you should be following on Twitter) has an enormously diverse soundtrack of electronic artists- a (mostly) complete playlist of which can be found here.
One of the final additions to the mix was the track 'Never' from Orbital's latest album Wonky. It's melancholia you can dance to. It's wistful and funky. It was this song which finally got my ears to perk up and admit I should probably listen to Orbital.
This lead me to Wonky and finding what is now my favourite track by Orbital and a candidate for one of my favourite electronica songs- 'One Big Moment.'
It samples and chops philosophical ramblings into an opener that slowly morphs into a conversation being held around the world. The chiming synth bells groove over digital car horns before crashing into a galactic bumping beat that is equally at home amongst the stars as it is on the pavement. It's excellent and you should be soundtracking your life with it.
So now I've listened to Orbital (thanks to some digital pushing from Frequency and Lumines) and I'm glad I did. Really.
PVC pipe ...Xylophones? Malletophone? Paddlewhackypipeorgan? Things. Have been around for awhile, made particularly well known by the antics of The Blue Man Group.
Snubby J builds PVC instruments at home, he has named this particular gargantuan RimbaTubes. This video of Snubby performing a medley of popular hits at the DRS Talent Show went viral in late 2010 but the fun and musical awesomeness remain, and is firmly in the spirit of Kitchen Sink Music- making melodies out of things which have no dang business making melodies.
The Queen of Disco, Donna Summer, has died at the age of 63.
Summer defined the sound of disco, becoming especially well known for her erotically charged performances and recordings. The BBC famously banned her 1975 hit Love to Love You Baby from the airwaves for its intense aural-gasms and because it was just too damn FUNKY (probably). They went so far as to count the number of orgasms (for Science of course) and found that there were twenty three instances of ladies having too much passion in their lives. Scandalous.
This was of course just in the five minute radio edit. The album included a seventeen minute disco sexathon (before you ask- YES I've tried counting the orgasms in this version, the jury's still out) which we present to you in celebration of The First Lady of Love.
Of course it's not really the song that's angry, but I have to assume that the giant hot dog was pretty miffed about SOMETHING if he's going to eat a whole town. I think he's just dealing with the frustration over being so delicious and not being able to eat himself, a problem hot dogs often have.
Anyhow this non-angry song about an angry hot dog is by children's music entertainer and educator Bob King. Bob made his musical debut in the wonderfully named band Kornstock in the seventies before gravitating towards family entertainment and educational albums.
Amongst his other works are a collection of songs about small towns and cities on the Canadian prairies and the novelty hit 'Sandwiches Are Beautiful.' He now mainly does work with the children's record label Casablanca Kids while wearing amazing hats.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn passed away yesterday (May 13th) in his sleep after finishing a double show in Tokyo. Duck was one of the most influential soul and R&B bass players in the history of pop music. He played on an enormous range of Stax records releases throughout the sixties and seventies including Albert King's 'Born Under a Bad Sign,' Otis Redding's 'Respect,' and most famously as part of the organ fried Booker T. & the M.G.'s. While he joined the M.G.'s after the release of their well known song 'Green Onions,' he helped define the bumping and shaking instrumental grooves the band would go on to explore, creating rhythms still built upon and sampled to this day.
Duck, nicknamed after Donald Duck by his father when he was a kid, was a largely self taught bass player. Rather than take lessons or learn specific lines to practice he would play along with records and fill in what he felt was the missing sound in the rhythm. As a result his playing is a relatively unique mixture of fluid lines, hard jazz and grooving funk that fills in the melody of a song as much as it provides a rhythm. It never draws too much attention to itself, but creates a fuller and richer sound for the song over all- the mark of a truly great bass line and player.
We've pulled out a triple bill song selection to celebrate Duck and his contribution to pop music.
The first is the title track from Melting Pot, Booker T. and the M.G.'s 1970 instrumental R&B opus.
Next the final track of McLemore Avenue, the four part instrumental reworking of The Beatles Abbey Road. The track comprises of a medley of Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window and I Want You (She's So Heavy).
And finally from the soundtrack to Michel Gondry's 2008 film Be Kind Rewind, a rendition of standard I Ain't Got Nobody which reunited him with M.G. members Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper and Al Jackson Jr.
Today enjoy the long cool stride of Los Locos Del Ritmo.
They were one of the first major Mexican rock and roll bands to form in the late fifties, going on to become the first Mexican rock group imported back into the states (as seen in an appearance on the Ted Mack hosted Original Amateur Hour).
Pedro Pistolas is a deadly cool piece of surfabilly, the sound is pure convertibles cruising down the boulevard with a hot leather interior and the dead eyed killer intent of a shark. All in a tidy two minute package!
Jumbo are not a retro sixties underground band, though they are from Mexico. Their sound however is undeniably retro. Kind of like poppier Doors mixed with surf punk. This can be seen at it's most bombastic and holy-cow-gotta-dance-now best in today's Best Song Ever, Dia.
Jumbo were part of the avanzada regia music scene which poured out of Monterrey in the mid nineties. They started out as a humble classic rock covers band called Blueswagen, however cooler heads persevered and the band renamed themselves after an overweight baby named Jumbo. Of course.
Enjoy the pounding beats of Dia with it's wonderful Mariscal-meets-anime video by Mexican animator Vinnie Veritas.
Los Apsons have been cited by Carlos Santana as one of the best bands of the sixties. The group were founded by Arturo and Francisco Durazo, brothers who grew up in Agua Prieta a town in far northern Sonora which stands on the border between Mexico and the United States. As a result the brothers were constantly bombarded by a mixture of American and Mexican media cultures, with a particular emphasis on the new Rock and Roll music drifting down from the States. Their embracing of the sound, alongside several contemporary bands, started what became known as the Northern Invasion.
The band travelled and picked up members, and had particular early success (as many sixties bands did) with covers of currently popular songs. This can be seen in today's Best Song Ever: Los Apsons rendition of the Stones classic Satisfaction.
The song is a fairly straight cover, though the recording has a wonderfully woozy quality to it. The drums have low slung machine echoes rippling off of each snare smack while the guitars spindle and twang through the murk. However I feel particular love should be paid to the vocals: simultaneously aping Jagger while feeling far more run down. I believe Los Apsons can't get no satifaction more than I believe Mick Jagger can't get no satisfaction.
Sixties garage punks from Mexico play The Monkees. That sentence makes me way happier than it should. MARY MARY!
This will be the first of a few entries looking at underground sixties Mexican musicians, but to set the stage and get you shimmying in your seat with anticipation enjoy Mary Mary by Los Ovnis!
Neil Innes is a prolific songwriter who you've heard before, though you may not have known it. He penned an enormous amount of songs for Monty Python (including all of the songs in Holy Grail) alongside performing in/writing a few of the sketches (ever wondered who the lead head bashing monk was? Now you know). He is one of only two non core Python members to be credited as a writer on Flying Circus (the other being Douglas Adams for the same episode).
Prior to the Pythons he was a member of That Song Blog favourites the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He co-penned the majority of their material with glorious eccentric Vivian Stanshall, including their biggest hit The Urban Spaceman. He has continued to work with the remaining members of the Bonzos in various guises over the years.
How Sweet to Be an Idiot is a Nilsson-esque piano ballad laced with black humor, gentle satire and a surprisingly warm delivery. You may have heard a bit of its famously pilfered melody in the Oasis single Whatever, which resulted in Innes gaining co-writing and royalty credits on the song.
In recent days Innes has been working in a new group called The Idiot Bastard Band, made up of a number of musicians and comedians including Adrian Edmondson and Phil Jupitus. They have a gig coming up this Monday at the Half Moon in Putney for a tenner, which is one hell of a bargain and worth snatching up if it hasn't sold out.
So today is STAR WARS DAY! How do I know it's STAR WARS DAY? Well everyone is saying it's STAR WARS DAY because you can make a pun with May the Fourth and THAT'S all the reason I need for it to be STAR WARS DAY (which really should be everyday).
So for all you fresh faced young rebels and imperials of tomorrow, here are three cool cuts of Star Wars music mayhem. And no John Williams in sight!
RUM TUM DUM DUM DAHDAHDAAAAHHHHHH it's the Cantina Song! A capella! By Sixteen Feet, the Swathmore College based vocal group that do tons of amazing covers of your favorite songs. Want barbershop re-workings of Blink-182 (your FAVORITE!) or The Muppets? They have you covered.
This remix of the Imperial March by Fader Gladiator was used to brilliant effect in the British sitcom Spaced, though their rendition didn't feature Yoda busting moves like nobody's business.
CHEWBACCA! WHAT A WOOKIE! Need I say more?
Have an awesome Star Wars Day everyone. And of course: May The Fourth Be With You.
Kitchen Sink Music will showcase the very best in making music out of things have no business making music. To kick off these marvellous musical feats of ingenuity we have: THE BOX AND THE BALLOON.
The balloon boxers have put out an album for FREE for all of your rubbery wood slappin' needs. And I think we all have those needs.
Bastion is extraordinary for being the only video game soundtrack I put on in the background and consistently get non-gamers coming up to me head a-bobbin' saying 'What IS this?'
Bastion's soundtrack was composed by Darren Korb, audio lead for Supergiant Games and multi-band independent musician since he was a teenager. The music is a dazzling mixture of soundscapes, genres and styles. Banjos twang and grind over digital crashes and smashes while ghostly harmonicas trade blows with distorted slide sitar. And that's ONE song out of twenty two.
The result is a fantastic soundtrack which instantly crafts a narrative on top of whatever you're doing. For example, I listen to Bastion a lot when cooking. Suddenly those draining plum tomatoes are no longer a lumpen mass of vegetables- they're prairie critters I'm having to slaughter to survive in the brutal wastes of the west.
I don't know what prairie critters are. I don't know what the brutal wastes of the west would be. But I know EXACTLY what they are when I'm in the moment with Bastion's soundtrack.
The East meets West meets Folk meets Industrial meets Classical meets Baroque mixture of the album ensures you never hit a dull moment. Cellos march you to war before delivering you into the hands of water logged harps. Chiming twelve strings tango with funked up dobros. Six shooter pistols clink and clank against rumbling electro bass. Korb is one hell of a musical magpie, and he knows how to construct an absolutely towering nest out of his bits and bobs.
The whole album is available to stream from Supergiant Games Bandcamp page and can be yours for ten bucks. It's also up on Spotify and YouTube. You have no excuses. Allow Bastion's transcendent soundtrack to craft some new adventures in your life.
