One Stupid Mop

We like music. You should too.

Radiohead - Polyethylene (parts 1 & 2)

(download)

Been humming this song for hours. Or maybe it's been days that I haven't been able to get it out of my head.


Of all the Radiohead b-sides and rarities, and there are many, this is absolutely one of the best. It's jerky moodiness, like the College Karma EP that it comes from, was the hallmark of the band's ascent to "Best Band In The World" status: the OK Computer era.

I swear to god I had a six-hour anxiety attack tonight, from about mid-afternoon to around 10:45 pm when I got on the highway to come home. I couldn't sit still, and had no desire to be anywhere, really. But I had this song stuck in my head the entire time. 85 mph, Motley Crue singing about strippers and cocaine on SFL's main modern rock station, and all I heard was Thom Yorke...

Sometimes the right song is what you need. In my case, I need to swap out the stereo in my car for the one sitting on a shelf in my garage because not having the ability to choose what I want to hear, or just shuffle a collection of songs I choose to carry, is killing my modern life. 

The delay made this song all the more perfect when I got home though.

Soundgarden - Jesus Christ Pose

(download)

I picked this one off the irony pile today. If you remember, this song and its video got banned from Mtv because they crucified a girl on camera. They were persecuted for the video whose point was to mock and deride people who act like martyrs (the self-righteous too). Of course, Mtv can't get enough of poor little filthy fucking rich celebrities' meaningless minor problems these days. Just don't comment on it.

Besides all that, this always represented the concept upon which the word 'grunge' was built - before it was taken out behind the shed and brutally sodomized. Audio assault in every direction. The main line sounds like an incoming Apache. The drums come up like machine gun fire. Chris Cornell is screaming like he's about to eat your brains.

True: Soundgarden went to shit pretty quickly. Just a few albums out, and what could still be a major force in the rock world collapsed like the British empire; suddenly and catastrophically. They had a perfect storm of personality and talent that was very obviously useless on an individual level unless combined. And of that combination, this is still their best effort.

King Django - Reason

(download)

It's not very often that you hear white boys playing reggae (or rock-infused reggae, for that matter) without a nagging desire to draw up a giant placard informing them to "Put down the bong. You suck at this."

For the longest time I assumed that another band had randomly picked the same name, but they have also been purveyors of Klezmer ska - which is awesome by definition.

Though their shows page only goes back to '05, I first caught them in '02 or so at the old Florida Theatre in Gainesville. Not more than 50 people showed, but those that did got their skulls reconfigured. Fuck Matisyahu. These guys are the real deal. Sick guitar skills with motion rhythms and smooth vocals from the King (a.k.a. uber-Rudy Jeff Baker).

After not seeing them for nigh a decade, it's good to know they'll be at the Brooklyn Music Festival in about 6 weeks.

Black Sabbath - Time Machine

(download)

I was introduced to the Dio era of Black Sabbath - and very possibly, for the first time, Sabbath - by way of the soundtrack to the first Wayne's World movie.

That movie is awesome, and this song is awesome. It's pretty simple.

RIP Ronnie James Dio

Rollins Band - Starve

(download)

When this track arrived at the radio station on a three-song teaser disc for "Come In And Burn," the first album Rollins Band recorded for Dreamworks, I had been listening to the band for a few years. I had already read one or two of Rollins' books, and was fast on my way to becoming a devotee.

But more than the self-loathing and expelling of emotion that characterized a good part of the band's work up to this point, "Starve" seemed different. It's like Hank went from being the scared wolf to the scary one who just got out of jail and has a world to fuck the fuck up.

"Come In And Burn" didn't do much for growing the Rollins Band's audience, and MTV ignored it aside from playing the video a few times on 120 Minutes, but this song remains hugely strong. Built on a rolling groove that grows stronger and more menacing, it's like a harder-core "Thunderstruck." 

For the record, it is especially effective on a Monday or any other day that you're trying to claw your way back to bed.

Samuel L. Jackson - Alice Mae

(download)

Just last night I saw the box-office failure that was The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Wikipedia says it made a piss-poor $6 million due to our countrymen having shit taste in film). Just an incredible flick. It happened to include the best musician-turned-actor of all time, Tom Waits.

Where creative endeavors constantly spin against the twisting tide of the toilet bowl is in the actor-turned-musician category. The classic example being Eddie Murphy, who should have gotten a record contract just after the 1985 Bears. But we all know Sam Jackson is a bad motherfucker.

The fact that he made this song is completely unnecessary to liking it. It's such classic beer-house, call-and-response blues rock that it would be impressive from an actual musician. What truly shocked me was the complex flare of the off-lyric guitar line - it's got a seasoned fluidity no one can expect coming from an outsider. And lyrically, it's just spot on.

Of course, he did steal the song from R.L. Burnside.

It's that he managed to do it a bit of justice puts him way out ahead in the cross-discipline race.

These United States - I Want You To Keep Everything

(download)

This would have been my post last week, had my computer not crashed and I been able to put the lastest album from These United States on my iPod and listen to it for any part of my drive to and from Orlando. 

Instead, I finally listened to it when I got back, exhausted from a weekend of chasing children around Disney World. For my exhaustion, and even when I'm well rested, this is a goooooooood album.

The combination of influence from Tom Petty and The Cars - yes, they can coexist - makes this a very comfortable feeling album. A friend of mine also suggested a big Springsteen influence. It took a while for that one to sink in but I think I've got it now.

What the album really reminds me of is the debut from Monsters of Folk last year. That was a solid record that brought together a kind of electric folksiness, a mid-point of fragile and not, that felt right on that album. This is more of that.

The thing I dig about "I Want You To Keep Everything" is that those influences, Petty and The Cars, are so apparent to me but the song doesn't really sound like either one. It's the familiarity that ropes you in. And with this as the first track on the album, it sets a good pace that gets you a little excited for the next song, and the others after it.

Now, about that computer...