1. Curly Davis and The Uniques - Black Cobra Pt. 2
2. LA Carnival - Blind Man
3. Creations Unlimited - Crystal Illusion
4. Black Merda - Cynthy Ruth
5. Jakobs Kelly - Funk Key
6. Gran Am - Get High
7. Hot Chocolate - Good for the Gander
8. Doug Anderson - Here Comes the Preacher
9. Sir Stanley - I Believe I Found Myself
10. Preacher - Life Is A Gamble
11. Jade - Paper Man
12. The Young Senators - Ringing Bells Pt. 2
13. Iron Knowledge - Showstopper
14. Skit I (don't know who by)
15. Skit II
16. Curtis Knight - The Devil Made Me Do It
17. Black Rock - Yeah Yeah
18. Stone Coal White - You Know

It's all seriously Hendricized guitar work over superfunky riffing, kind of like Shuggie Otis.

edit - and here's a review by Dominique Leone: [link]

It's called Chains and Black Exhaust. Lemme look up the line-up.

Yeah, it's in Matthew Spector's sidebar. And I got a copy through Shangri-LA. It's pretty spiff.

I missed it! I'll get back to work memorizing LITG, though.

Thanks!

It was an excellent summary of his work for the newbie, and after finishing FoS all I was thinking was "I just want to hang out with this guy." Which was pretty much the thesis of your essay, so it was fun to read.

guitarlicious

You know I'll love it then. I'll never say no to a guitaralicious mix, hayden. (Uhm, I mean C.I.).

My roommate and I had a "how I discovered music" talk tonight after many many drinks. Here's my story. (His was hearing Led Zeppelin on the radio while he was mowing his parents' lawn and freaking out and dancing in the yard while the mower was running.) The first song I ever loved was "Joy to the World." I thought my Dad had made it up. Every night my Dad read to me and then he turned the lights out, did figure 8s in the dark with his cigarette (yeah, it seems kind of fucked up now but I've had an ashtray in my room since I was four - it seems normal to me) and sang "Jeremiah was a bullfrog...". It was YEARS later that I realized he was singing somebody else's song. But the SECOND song I ever loved was "Twist and Shout" from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

(There was a lot of singing to Prince, Huey Lewis, and Duran Duran in the mirror before "Twist and Shout" but I had never been obsessed with a song before then.)

I asked my Mom about it and she dug up the record it was on and I listened to it on headphones about 765,000 times (I keep trying to remember if it was Please Please Me or Meet the Beatles or what, but I don't know). While I was listening to that I found this record in her stack that if you moved the jacket independently of the record sleeve these girls faces would match with all these different wigs. One day I just put the record on the player and listened - it was Some Girls. And then that was my favorite album (I wish I could say my favorite song was something cool like "Far Away Eyes" but I think it was "Miss You" - I was in 6th grade).

t /drunk

When is the unconventional love song trade starting?

1. Gandalfe (duh)
2. DavidS
3. DXMachina
4. Jon B
5. Corwood Industries
6. Steph L
7. Lyra Jane
8. erinaceous
9. sue
10. tina f.
11. lisah

Anyone else want in?

Just got back from the Scott Miller show.

He had it at the Rite Spot Cafe where JZ and I had our first not-quite-a-date-but-definitely-an-outing several years ago. (We saw Project: Pimento, a theremin band, at Jon's suggestion.)

He played solo with electric guitar (Billy Bragg style as I tend to think of it) and was in fine voice. He's also an excellent guitarist. His guitar was gorgeous blonde Fender that I didn't recognize. It was a semi-hollowbody with an f-hole. I didn't know Fender even made a semi-hollowbody.

Anyway, he did five songs from the Game Theory record we wrote about in the book (Real Nighttime) and then five songs from the Loud Family record we also wrote about (Interbabe Concern).

He sounded wonderful and I not only got to introduce him, but when he came back for an encore he took my hopeful (but seemed unlikely) suggestion, "Regenisraen." It's one of his most gorgeous melodies and his friend Tammy joined him for the super pretty melodies.

Here's some AMG copy about him if you're unfamiliar with his work.

Game Theory formed on the fringe of the Paisley Underground movement of the early-'80s and though they certainly had a retro-'60 sound with psychedelic leanings, the band owed its greatest debt to the proto-power pop of Big Star.

Leader Scott Miller's song craft, distinctive voice (self-described as a "miserable whine") and intelligent lyrics (often obscure but rarely pretentious) carved a sound that, while firmly rooted in traditional pop, was truly original and defined an era of college rock.

Editor's note: His voice, incidentally, is not a "miserable whine" though it's not a classic voice by any means. He sounds like Chris Stamey of the dBs (anoher reference obscure enough to be useless, I suppose). Modern reference: he lead The Shins of his day.

He did the song "24":

"24" is about as close as Game Theory ever got to Athens-style indie-jangle (even though Mitch Easter produced 1985's Real Nighttime and all the following albums), and it's not really that close at all. Scott Miller's usual structural quirks are on full display here ? the song starts with a slowly-building 30-second instrumental intro, an eternity in a song that barely lasts 2:45, and that instrumental section is repeated in full after the first chorus ? and the lyrics are typically opaque, but unlike a lot of Miller's songs, there's a clear subject (the traditional post-collegiate identity crisis) and the prolix verses do eventually resolve into a simple, straightforward chorus. On the original Real Nighttime album, "24" faded out to a puckish acoustic guitar quote from "Stairway To Heaven," a grace note that's not on the Tinker To Evers To Chance compilation.

Though tonight he closed with a puckish quote from "Misty Mountain Hop."

He writes excellent song titles too. Consider some of them from Interbabe:

Sodium Laureth Sulfate
Rise of the Chokehold Princess
Such Little Nonbelievers
Screwed over by Stylish Introverts
Not Expecting Both Contempo and Classique
I No Longer Fear the Headless

We recorded the show and will probably have songs up at our website shortly.

Bridget Striker came to the show so I got to see her twice this week. We talked about music and baseball and Knut which are three excellent topics.

Anyone else want in?

I do.

a grace note that's not on the Tinker To Evers To Chance compilation.

I think the song I'm planning to use for the mix has a reference to the trio of bear Cubs. Versions of it certainly had a refrain of "these are the saddest of possible words," but I haven't listened to it in a while & don't remember what's on the recording.

David, sorry I missed you last week. Didn't check email while I was gone & didn't receive yours before I left. Also sorry I missed the Moe's event. Was there a couple days later & asked about it. Heard it was a success. If my return flight had been delayed any longer I could have made the Scott Miller show, but it's hard to plan for such things. Would have been delighted to hear the puckish Zep quote as I too was walking in the park just the other day, baby.

I'll add a copy of Chains and Black Exhaust to the Send to Tina pile o' cds.

David, I'm going to send your write up of the Scott Miller show to Big Bill Ham, who'll get a kick out of it.

And Joe, I like that tagline. That was a great article. I've been thinking that I should try to write like Swearengin talks, especially because it would make for amusing memos to the TX Lege.

BTW, David, I'm 90% sure Miller was playing a Fender Coronado. I've lusted for one for years, but I think the only one I've seen onstage was Jon Auer in his role as neo-Chris Bell for the sorta-Big Star: [link]