Music For Listeners 2006/11/25

1) The Beastie Boys-“Country Mike’s Theme” From the CD ‘Anthology’.
2) Hank Williams-“San Antonio Rose” From the CD ‘Complete Hank Williams’.
3) Mumm-Ra-“Clocks Tick Louder At the Dead of Night” From the brand new UK CD single for “Out of the Question”.
4) Simple Kid-“lil’ King Kong” From the brand new CD ‘Simple Kid 2’.
5) Of Montreal-“Psychotic Feeling” From the CD compilation ‘What To Do With Everything’. Previously unreleased song.
6) Badly Drawn Boy-“The Long Way Around” From the brand new CD ‘Born In the U.K.’.
7) Klaxons-“Atlantis to Interzone” From the CD ‘Xan Valleys E.P.’.
8) Battle-“Wicked Owl” From the brand new UK CD E.P. ‘Back To Earth’.
9) The Oohlas-“Tripped” From the CD ‘Best Stop Pop’.
10) Jamie T-“If You’ve Got the Money” From the brand new UK CD single for “If You’ve Got the Money”.
11) Buttercup-“You’ll Just Have to Wait” From the CD ‘Hot Love’.
12) Hilary York-“Out of Sight” From the CD ‘The Moon’.
13) Big Soy-“I Don’t Mind” From the CD ‘Putting the _____ in _____’.
14) Snowbyrd-“Ram” From the brand new CD ‘Snowbyrd’.
15) Math and Physics Club-“Holidays and Saturdays” From the CD ‘Math and Physics Club’.
16) Yellow Fever-“Ratcatcher” From the E.P. ‘Yellow Fever’.
17) Voxtrot-“Sway” From the CD single for “Your Biggest Fan”.
18) Yo La Tengo-“Daphnia” From the CD ‘I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass’.
19) Explosions in the Sky-“Have You Passed Through This Night” From the vinyl E.P. ‘Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever’.
20) Howling Bells-“Low Happening” From the CD ‘Howling Bells’.
21) Cold War Kids-“Passing the Hat” From the CD ‘Robbers and Cowards’.
22) The Decemberists-“The Sporting Life” From the CD ‘Picaresque’.
23) Built To Spill-“Sidewalk” From the CD ‘Keep It Like A Secret’.
24) XTC-“Jason and the Argonauts” From the CD ‘English Settlement’.
25) Mosquitos-“Ele” From the CD ‘Mosquitos III’.
26) Los Campesinos!-“Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks” From the CD ‘Hold On Now, Youngster EP’.
27) Datarock-“Sex Me Up” From the CD ‘Datarock Datarock’.
28) The Spinto Band-“Spy Vs. Spy” From the CD ‘Nice and Nicely Done’.
29) “The Mid-Morning Recording” Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel (3) (Melting Face)
Wow…I cannot believe I’ve never played a Peter Gabriel album as a “Mid-Morning Recording”. It’s almost shocking to me, as he is certainly one of the most amazing artists of our lifetime. Visual, aural, and atmospheric. This album was the first one I heard by Mr. Gabriel. My father bought it new on cassette tape, and I would listen to it as a child. The cover always blew me away and as a child, I would be a little afraid to look at it. As I grew older I learned many things about this particular record. For instance, the abovementioned cover was created with a Polaroid camera. Peter’s “melting face” was designed with pencil erasers manipulating the images as the pictures developed. The more they practiced, the better the photographers were at the technique. They would smear the erasers across the picture and developing fluid inside would shift, thus creating a liquefied appearance. Hypnosis designed this cover, and it is freaky. You can surf on over to www.stormthorgerson.com for a shot of the cover inside the "work - non-moving - album covers" links. There is more work by the great Storm Thorgerson and his old company Hypnosis there. Also, another fact about the record is the repeating phrase in the song “Games Without Frontiers”. It is not “She’s so funky, yeah”, and it’s not a phrase with a certain four-letter word. It’s actually a 21-year-old Kate Bush singing background vocals, and her words are French for “Games Without Frontiers”, which happens to be “Jeux Sans Fronteires”. The amazing Steve Lillywhite produced the record. He also worked on early albums by U2, and XTC, amongst others. He is also the husband and producer to the late great Kirsty Maccoll. Hugh Padgham engineered the record, and he has worked with U2 and XTC as well. As mentioned, Kate Bush sings a bit of backing vocals, Robert Fripp plays some guitar, Dave Gregory (later of XTC), plays some guitar too. It even has Phil Collins and Jerry Marotta as drummers, the great bassist Tony Levin, and guitarist David Rhodes finishing out this amazing cast of musicians. This album is one of many great albums by Peter Gabriel, but I believe it to be my personal favorite. Mainly the list of talent on this record is the biggest selling point for me, yet alone the amazing songs. Every song is dark and a little dreary, but it doesn’t matter, because every song is atmospheric and passionate. Peter still makes great albums, and to this day, his live shows are a great ticket. He’s a real professional, a consummate musician and artist. Not bad for a record released in 1980.
Michael – MFL
30) James-“Sayonara” From the CD ‘Wah-Wah’.