Music

Luck of the lockdown – Random gum 2020

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Luck of the lockdown – Random gum 2020

Since my last playlist the world has turned upside-down. Travel has stopped; people have been quarantined. Probably no better time for some music. The latest playlist is here.

Follow along on Spotify if inclined…

I started compiling this early in 2020 and had originally intended it for March, so it had a lot of Irish and Scottish artists (still does), but the whole “luck of the Irish” thing won’t work now. Not just because it’s June but also because frivolity – though we need it – feels wildly out of place at the moment. As I write this the world is feeling prematurely hopeful about the coronavirus while the US’s decline into chaos accelerates. (The ‘future view’ of America, as foretold in the tv comedy Brockmire looks more and more likely every day.)

1. Childish Gambino – “This Is America”
The times we live in.
2. Alien Sex Fiend – “Now I’m Feeling Zombiefied” …Show you faces and places that’ll make you terrified to be alive!…
How do we live without zombified numbness and fear?
3. Electronic – “Make It Happen” …I am a fraction/A part of a broken man…
4. Sharon Van Etten – “I Told You Everything” …We held hands as we parted…
Opening up to the dark and the light.
5. Cate le Bon – “Sisters”
6. The Prodigy – “Charly (Original Mix)”

charley

A complete UK experience must be accompanied by Charley the cat and his dead-eyed little boy owner cautioning you against all kinds of dangers.


7. Roy Orbison – “In Dreams” …A candy-colored clown they call the sandman/Tiptoes to my room every night…
Is anyone else creeped out by these lyrics? This sandman claims “everything is all right” – but is it? Is it?
8. Mazzy Star – “Roseblood” …Capture a smile and then that’s all/You won’t know her so it’s ok/Funny how things change…
RIP David Roback.
9. Michael Kiwanuka – “You Ain’t The Problem”
10. Primal Scream – “Rocks”
Must be played loud.
11. John Prine – “Angel of Montgomery” …just give me one thing that I can hold onto/to believe in this living is just a hard way to go…
RIP. What a huge loss; one victim of the COVID-19 virus that has gripped the world in 2020.
12. Weyes Blood– “Andromeda” …If you think you can save me/I dare you to try…
13. The Waterboys – “The Whole of the Moon”
The use of this song in the final bit of often-frustrating The Affair (and Fiona Apple’s cover) made me listen to this anew; I included it originally when this was going to be a St. Patrick’s Day/March mix (was mostly including Irish and Scottish stuff). But here we are in June.
14. Bedouin Soundclash, Coeur de Pirate – “Brutal Hearts”
15. Autobahn 86, Jokey – “National Health Service”
It’s Glasgow and it’s timely, don’t you know? People need and love their NHS.
16. Carl Hauck – “Pure Gold”
17. Kenny Rogers – “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”
RIP Kenny. Not my style but definitely a marker of childhood. I will always remember a classmate telling me that her Japanese father taught himself English with Kenny Rogers tunes. Don’t love the dubious lyric: “And if I could move I’d get my gun and put her in the ground”; also a fitting tribute via Glaswegian comedy Burnistoun.

18. Fleetwood Mac – “Go Your Own Way”
19. U.N.P.O.C. – “Here On My Own”
During this lockdown, we are all on our own. Especially those of us who live completely alone.
20. The Soup Dragons – “I’m Free”
The order in which the last few songs appear (go your own way, sad all on my own and now freedom) seems intentional but wasn’t. Weird. I doubt Sean Dickson of The Soup Dragons imagined during his Bellshill/Glasgow years or the early years of fame how prescient and prophetic recording this song would be for him. I watched a documentary thing in which he featured – I didn’t recognize him at all. But the guy looks healthy and happy (once he embraced who he really is). This YouTube clip isn’t the docu I saw – but you can see him here along with clips from the “I’m Free” video – a world of difference.


21. Echo & the Bunnymen – “Never Stop”
22. The Wild Reeds – “I Think We’re Alone Now”
For some reason this song is always going to make me think of Terra and miss her.
23. REM – “Nightswimming”
This song’s use in Pamela Adlon’s Better Things was so exquisite that I’ve had to play this often.
24. Jessie Buckley – “Glasgow (No Place Like Home)”
I’d never have guessed that this Buckley was the same girl who delivered a heartbreaking performance in Chernobyl, nor the same girl who turned up in Taboo. But there you go. Irish versatility! This tune from the soundtrack to Glasgow-based indie film Wild Rose was co-written by Mary Steenburgen. Yes, that Mary Steenburgen!
25. Peter, Paul and Mary – “500 Miles”
26. Noire – “Baby Blue”
27. U2 – “Love is Blindness” …Love is drowning/In a deep well/All the secrets/And no one to tell…
Oh, those youthful years of obsession with U2 and Ireland.
28. Brigid Mae Power – “On a City Night” …Before I could reply he said/I like the city lights instead/country trees in the night/their shadows give me a fright…
Brigid Mae Power (Irish, of course) continues to be one of my favorites. I love this song.
29. Moses Sumney – “Doomed” …When I expel/From this mortal shell/Will I die for living numb?…
And we are back to numbness.

Lunchtable TV talk: Blue skies

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Music, as we know, influences how we perceive and feel about things in our lives, our environments, and nowhere does this play to its strengths than in films and television. It’s often a subtle piece of the storytelling puzzle, quietly pushing the emotion buttons of viewers.

I ended up seeing this week’s episodes of This Is Us and Star Trek: Picard on the same day, both defined by the song “Blue Skies“. I wouldn’t think this would be so … affecting. Sure, in Picard (the version used is sung by one of the stars of the show, Isa Briones), it is fitting because it refers back to the use of the song in the film Nemesis (a picture complete with a young Tom Hardy, whom I’ve also recently watched in Peaky Blinders and Taboo. Yep, all this from someone who claims not to be watching television content any more). It still seemed surprising for this old tune to turn up twice in emotionally demanding contexts.

But “emotionally demanding” is an interesting theme. In the past you didn’t really expect television to make any demands on you, other than sacrificing a certain amount of time to watch it.

With Star Trek: Picard, you can enjoy it on its surface-level merits, or you can bring a deep knowledge of Star Trek history and lore to your viewing, and assess whether or not it meets the sometimes exacting demands of Star Trek aficionados (Trekkers, perhaps, who can be unforgiving).

Some criticism has been leveled at Picard for making it into something that Star Trek resolutely has never been (bold text mine):

“The reaction, understandably, has been mixed. Some fans welcome Star Trek being brought up to date with the look and feel of contemporary television. Others maintain that such pessimism is at odds with what makes Star Trek Star Trek. The showrunner Michael Chabon, responding to questions via his Instagram page, defended Picard against the latter claim by saying that “shadow defines light”, that “if nothing can rock the Federation’s perfection, then it’s just a magical land”. It is a sentiment that has been echoed in the past by Alex Kurtzman, the showrunner of the other ongoing series set in the same universe, Star Trek: Discovery. He justified its equally violent, profane and dark sensibility by maintaining that modern Star Trek is simply a reflection of its time.”

I don’t know that the “Blue Skies” theme of the Picard finale would bring tears to the eyes of any non-Star Trek fan, but it certainly moved me to tears.

With This Is Us, everyone who knows something about the show knows it’s engineered to turn on the waterworks – you don’t exit most episodes without having a tear come to your eye. And this week’s installment was no exception, anchored by “Blue Skies”, as inexpertly but emotionally sung by guest star Gerald McRaney.

I wonder if This Is Us could possibly evoke this kind of reaction without the music. Could anything?

 

Spring into action – Random gum 2020

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Spring into action – Random gum 2020

It was a good run, making monthly soundtracks to chronicle life’s ups and downs. But inevitably other priorities clashed with best intentions, and here we are. I’ve just added a few bits to a playlist I intended to share in February/March 2019 – a whole year ago. How much has changed in that year, even though on a day-by-day, drip-by-drip level, it feels numbingly same-same.

Follow along on Spotify if inclined… I was, once upon a time, burning CD copies of MP3 files of all this stuff, and mailing them out with various candy/sweets from different spots in the world, but this too has fizzled out.

Usually when I produce these lists in a timely fashion, I nod respectfully to the dearly departed by including a song from those no longer on this earthly plane. For some time, something by The Cars lingered in the playlist as a ‘remembering Ric Ocasek’ thing, but it was like a nagging splinter that’s visible but unextractable. I removed the song; it didn’t belong. But the same can be said of so many things: remove because it didn’t belong – whatever ‘it’ was.

1. Jeff Russo – Star Trek Picard Main Title
Because it’s the sound of a mild but windy winter turning to spring, and of inevitable moments of turning away from…
2. Roxy Music – Both Ends Burning …do I have the speed to carry on/I’ll burn you out of my mind…
3. Julia Jacklin – Good Guy …tell me I’m the love of your life/just for a night/even if you don’t feel it…
Missing Julia in Glasgow in December. Big regret. “I don’t care for the truth when I’m lonely/I don’t care if you lie”
4. Pavement – Range Life
I have no idea why I stumbled on this and placed it here.
5. Stone Poneys – Different Drum …I see no sense in the cryin’ and grievin’/We’ll both live a lot longer if you live without me…
How often this one pops up in life.
6. The Wild Reeds – Be the Change …conclude my story with a degrading phrase/because I never meant to be this way…
7. Fat White Family – Feet
8. Habib Koité – I Ka Barra
Always returning to Mali in some way, as one does
9. Angel Olsen – Lark …Hiding out inside my head, it’s me again, it’s no surprise I’m on my own now/Every time I turn to you, I see the past…
I missed out on Angel Olsen in Oslo in February. Ambitious, I bought tickets to all kinds of concerts in the autumn, and by winter, my ability to face crowds and noise withered
10. Sleater-Kinney – Hurry On Home …You got me used to loving you…
11. Maggie Rogers – Fallingwater …I never loved you fully in the way I could/I fought the current running just the way you would…
12. Karen O/Danger Mouse – Lux Prima
13. ALA.NI – Cherry Blossom …Blowing through the flowing of my heart…
14. Sharon Van Etten – Consolation Prize …The moral of the story is/don’t lie to me again/To find a better conversation/So I can be your consolation prize…
15. Jim Croce – I Got a Name …they can change their minds but they can’t change me…
I can’t hear Jim Croce without thinking of being a child, looking at an album my mom had that was just a close-up of Croce’s face, and my mom telling me that Croce died when he was 30. I was four so 30 sounded like a perfectly reasonable old age to die.
16. Dean Wareham, Britta Phillips – Mistress America
17. King Creosote – Surface …And now it’s my turn to hide, if not out here then inside/it’s both of us have run to ground…
Scotland, of course
18. Peter Schilling – Terra Titanic
For S and Deutschland love, and how Peter Schilling will always make me think of 1989 and college radio
19. Jane Weaver – You Are Dissolved …Even I am not amazed by you…
For Ade and the fights one can get into at Jane Weaver concerts
20. Heaven 17 – Temptation
21. New Order – Touched by the Hand of God
New Order, and more importantly, Kyle and Anne in Prague and seeing Naomi’s doppelganger. Will never forget the video for this song and how it entertained the adolescent Terra and me
22. Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb …there is no pain/you are receding/a distant ship’s smoke on the horizon/you are only coming through in waves/your lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying…
Because, according to S, I am the only person on earth who listens to Pink Floyd without being high
23. Ride – Vapour Trail …thirsty for your smile/I watch you for a while/you are a vapour trail/in a deep blue sky…
Still the nightly sleep filled with reawakening of old Terra memories
24. Belle & Sebastian – Meat and Potatoes
Dear Green Place music with a chuckle
25. Billie Eilish – all the good girls go to hell
Not normally my thing but this is a catchy one
26. Angel Olsen – Too Easy …one could make me laugh forever/I’d do anything for you…
27. Alvvays – Next of Kin …if I’d known you couldn’t swim/we would never have gone in…
Sometimes a band will just remind you of one specific moment, one specific person, and you can’t escape it
28. U2 – Red Hill Mining Town …A link is lost/the chain undone/we wait all day/for night to come…
Last year I listened to The Joshua Tree on repeat; my long-ago obsession with that was probably the last time I was ever that connected to such blind passion for something. It was also probably the last time it seemed like U2 wasn’t just going through the motions.
29. Nils Frahm – La
With love for Andreas; this one is best listened to in headphones
30. Vashti Bunyan – Train Song …What will I do if there’s someone with you/Maybe someone you’ve always known/How do I know I can come and give to you/Love with no warning and find you alone…
Another musician whose existence I trip over, so connected to discovery at a specific moment in time. Incidentally this also serves as the theme song for a tv show called Patriot, which I watched and forgot all about and started to watch again. Luckily I immediately realized I’d seen it. But we’re way beyond peak TV now…
31. Morphine – In Spite of Me …You seemed so close but yet so cold/For a long time I thought that you’d be coming back to me/Those kind of thoughts can be so cruel/So cruel/And I know you did it all in spite of me…
32. Angel Olsen – All Mirrors …I’ve been watchin’ all my past repeatin’…
33. Belle & Sebastian – The Party Line …I am on this morning quite distracted/The tug of war begins in our emotion/I am leaving many people feeling/worse than before…
I know I have included this song on another playlist before, but I don’t care. I love it that much.
34. Lana Del Rey – Mariners Apartment Complex
Also not my normal thing. I’m NOT a Lana Del Rey fan but at some point I listened to this particular song enough that it just became a part of this list, and I couldn’t remove it.
35. This Is the Kit – Bashed Out …and blessed are those who see and are silent…
36. The GoGos – Our Lips Are Sealed …there’s a weapon that we must choose in our defense/silence…
For S, J, and others. Somehow many people who should know better had never heard of this, and if they knew the song, they only knew the Fun Boy Three version. The two versions are tellingly different, but the GoGos’ version came first; the song was written by The GoGos’s Jane Wiedlin and Fun Boy Three’s Terry Hall.
37. Joe Fagin – That’s Livin’ Alright, end-credit theme, Auf Wiedersehen Pet
Um, yeah… thanks to S, this past year has been a learning experience about 80s-era UK television. This gem is the end-credits theme for a show about a bunch of unemployed English construction workers who go to Germany to get a job. Funny that with Brexit and its inevitable economic consequences, Germany and the rest of Europe won’t be an option for this type of out-of-work bloke any more
38. Tori Amos – Putting the Damage On …I’m just your ghost passing through…

amusing tongue of procrastination – Random gum of February 2019 soundtrack

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It’s been another city-to-city runaround for the last two months, and music has been one of the things fueling me as I overfill an endless to-do list, tend to my most basic needs and contemplate the impending doom of Brexit and Trumpdom. I know some of these are repeated of songs I’ve included in other mixes. At this point I don’t think it can be helped. I collect what keeps me going as I go… and that might be the same songs month after month…

amusing tongue of procrastination
Good Goo of Random Gum – January and February 2019

Follow along on Spotify.

01 Cameron Avery – Dance with Me …Sure, I’m a lonely fool and I ain’t that cool
But I’ll walk you through it…
Some Australian thing
02 Poliça – Marrow
Snowy walks in the dark
03 thanks – Your World
04 INXS – Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down a Mountain)
Hard to believe how long Hutchence has been gone; another Aussie representative
05 Alvvays – Plimsoll Punks
Sometimes things inexplicably and unexpectedly remind you of someone and you can’t figure out why they ever seemed so important
06 World Party – Is It Like Today?
World Party is one of those bands my best friend and I probably made fun of (no idea why) when we were adolescents. Now I listen to this during the snowy, dark morning walks and can’t separate it from the annoyances of public transportation
07 The Cult – Fire Woman
The Cult was never my thing, and this song was something I suppose I made fun of in its heyday, but I recently sent it to my best friend when she offered to help me overcome my fear of fire in order to operate my dormant fireplace
08 Lizzo – Juice
Can’t get enough of this
09 U2 – Spanish Eyes
Another nod to adolescence and the old days when B-sides were so hard to come by
10 Phantastic Ferniture – Bad Timing
Oh, how I love everything Julia Jacklin is involved in. “Maybe it’s not the timing/maybe we were never meant to be”
11 Lee Hazlewood – Pray Them Bars Away
12 Stone Roses – Made of Stone
I think I include this song every time I am in a period of isolation and contemplation and walking long distances – since I first heard it in 1989, it has served this purpose
13 Bill Callahan – Javelin Unlanding
14 Charlotte Gainsbourg – Such a Remarkable Day
15 Townes van Zandt – High, Low and In Between
16 Connie Francis – You’re Gonna Miss Me
17 Santigold – Coo Coo Coo
18 Agnes Obel – It’s Happening Again
Denmark
19 Elvis Costello & The Imposters – Heart-Shaped Bruise
20 Julia Jacklin – Head Alone
“Come on, give me the room tonight/You know I’ve told you before that you hold me too tight”
21 Elvis Costello – This Year’s Girl
Recently binged the second season of The Deuce – this was a perfect theme song for this season. “You want her broken with her mouth wide open cause she’s this year’s girl”
22 Clau Aniz, flávia cabral – Montanhesa
23 Dory Previn – The Lady With the Braid
24 Swans – Blind
25 Ludovic Alarie – we’re a dream nobody wrote down

missing lionesses – Random gum of December 2018 soundtrack

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This isn’t the most complete or exciting ‘soundtrack’ – I found it hard to find time for music in November to put together something for December… then again, none of the playlists are “exciting”. But here’s to what I’ve been hearing.

Missing lionesses
Good Goo of Random Gum – December 2018

Follow along on Spotify.

01 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – (Forever) Live and Die
1980s reruns of Top of the Pops
02 Idlewild – Little Discourage
Scotland; memories of a long-ago concert
03 The Bats – North by North
04 X – True Love – Part 2
05 Erkin Koray – Cemalim
Türkiye
06 Deerhoof – Criminals of the Dream
07 John Maus – Walls of Silence
08 Deidre & the Dark – Unerasable Love
09 Kero Kero Bonito – Make Believe
10 Gwenno – Hi a Skoellyas Liv a Dhagrow
Wales
11 Camille Christel – Copenhagen
12 Jim White, Aimee Mann – Static on the Radio
13 Lee Hazlewood – For One Moment
14 Shannon Shaw – Freddies ‘n’ Teddies
15 Marie Möör – Pretty Day
16 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – So In Love
Realized that the singer of OMD resembles a young Donald Trump. Poor guy.
17 Yo La Tengo – The Ballad of Red Buckets
18 Melody’s Echo Chamber – Breathe In, Breathe Out
19 Irène Jacob – Souris
20 Eurythmics – Thorn in My Side
21 Radmila Karaklajić – To Naše Mesto
22 Cass McCombs – Sleeping Volcanoes
23 Piroshka – Everlastingly Yours
24 Mathilde Bataillé – Crying in Public
25 Orange Juice – I Guess I’m Just a Little Too Sensitive

Tex & Hen on the Ranch – Random gum of November 2018 soundtrack

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Only 35 songs rather than what has come to be the standard 50. Time limitations kept me from listening to as much music as I normally do, so here’s what we’re left with.

Tex & Hen on the Ranch
Good Goo of Random Gum – November 2018

Follow along on Spotify.

01 Hall & Oates – I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)
It’s like being a kid again, although strangely Hall & Oates keep turning up on “classic” 80s radio everywhere I go these days (multiple countries). S has been doing a provocative dance incorporating this song and Isaac Washington Love Boat moves while singing this and throwing in a few Elliot Stabler quotes from Special Victims Unit: “Don’t go there! I’m not goin’ there! Don’t go there!”
02 Alberteen – Tamagotchi Landfill
Thanks to Ade… and memories of the Tamagotchi craze
03 Julia Jacklin – Body
New Julia
04 The Courage – Parasols
05 Boy Azooga – Face Behind Her Cigarette
A loud, repetitive one for late-night drives
06 Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up (extended)
Irresistible
07 Bajofondo – Lluvia
08 Weyes Blood – Be Free
09 MUNYA – Hotel Delmano
10 Mr Husband – Holy Kaleidoscope
11 Neko Case – Curse of the I-5 Corridor …I was so stupid then…
“I fear I smell extinction/In the folds of this novocaine age coming on”
12 Link Wray – Fallin’ Rain
13 Isabelle – Une odeur de neige
14 The Pointer Sisters – He’s So Shy
Godawful Love Boat reruns in Glasgow
15 Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness
16 Loretta Lynn – Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’
17 Faces – Flags and Banners
18 ESG – Dance
19 The Cleaners from Venus – The Mercury Girl
20 Rod Stewart – Maggie May
Clear glimpses back into childhood and its pervasive sounds
21 The Velvet Underground – Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
Kept playing this and am sure I included it on another soundtrack, but who is keeping track?
22 Salad – Cut and Cover
Something new from Salad… finally
23 Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
24 ABBA – Knowing Me, Knowing You
Home from wandering
25 Gigliola Cinquetti – Ho scritto fine
Italy is not fooling me
26 The Clientele – Bonfires on the Heath …late October sunlight in the wood…
27 King Creosote – Melin Wynt
28 Eliza Shaddad – This is My Cue
29 Ibeyi – Rise Up Wise Up Eyes Up
For Annette – donkey wine mine fine
30 Hako Yamazaki – ヘルプミー
31 Curtis Harding – Dream Girl
32 John Cale – You Know Me More Than I Know
33 Alice Boman – Waiting
34 Arthur & Yu – Afterglow
“and a wolf got caught up in the barbed wire/and there’s a bullet in the wood/we use for fire/and we’re caught in the afterglow”
35 Widowspeak – Harvest Moon …Because I’m still in love with you…

This is Glasgow – Random gum of October 2018 soundtrack

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I’d like to have more commentary on each song because there were reasons behind them, but time is too limited at the moment. It’s shocking that I even managed to compile a list.

This is Glasgow – Good Goo of Random Gum – October 2018

Follow me on Spotify.

01 Hopetoun Brown – Let’s Not Be Friends
New Zealand
02 Anna Calvi – Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy
03 Hana Vu – Crying on the Subway
04 Manu Dibango – Sun Explosion
05 Karl Blau – Fallin’Rain
06 Malphino – Segunda Molienda
07 Lindstrøm – Blinded by the LEDs
Norway
08 A Certain Ratio – Do the Du – The Graveyard
09 Montero – Adriana
10 Julianna Barwick – Beached
11 Neil Finn – Chameleon Days
12 Black Grape – A Big Day in the North
13 Weyes Blood – Used to Be
14 Roxy Music – End of the Line
15 Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton – Please Don’t Stop Loving Me
16 Nice As Fuck – Angel
17 Primal Scream – Movin’ On Up
Glasgow
18 Liar’s Club – Espresso Girl
19 Netherfriends – Be Yourself, You Piece of Shit
20 Honeybunch – All That’s Left of Me is You
21 Marshall Crenshaw & The Handsome, Ruthless and Stupid Band – You’re My Favorite Waste of Time
22 Marika Hackman – Time’s Been Reckless
23 Neko Case – Sleep All Summer
24 Anemone – Daffodils
25 Lizzy Mercier Descloux – No Golden Throat
26 Virginia Wing – Pale Burnt Lake
27 Flesh for Lulu – Slowdown
28 Nightlands – Lost Moon
29 Dory Previn – Atlantis
30 The Magnetic Fields – Smoke and Mirrors
31 Beyond the Wizards Sleeve – Creation
32 Loma – Dark Oscillations
33 Thousand – Le nombre de la bête
34 The Three Degrees – Collage
35 Spooky Mansion – Alright
36 Laure Briard – Je vole
37 Psychic TV – Just Drifting
38 Buzzy Lee – Facepaint
39 Creep Show – Modern Parenting
40 Belle & Sebastian – A Summer Wasting
Glasgow
41 Dark Sky – Jjj
42 TOPS – Outside
43 Mariee Sioux – Twin Song
44 Tintura – Sönum
45 EERA – Christine
46 Charlotte Dos Santos – Move On
47 Gloria – Beam Me Up
48 The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
Glasgow
49 Cate le Bon – I Can’t Help You
50 Rod Stewart – You’re In My Heart
Not Glaswegian but a die-hard Celtic fan

Runaway Glaswegian Rocking Horse – Random gum of September 2018 soundtrack

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Runaway Glaswegian Rocking Horse
The Good Goo of Random Gum – September 2018

Listen on Spotify.

01 Aretha Franklin – Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
RIP Aretha
02 Julia Jacklin – Don’t Let the Kids Win
Loving Julia as much as ever
03 St Vincent – Fast Slow Disco
An amazing version of “Slow Disco” – a fast one. Thanks to Ade for bringing it to my attention
04 Bryan Ferry – Casanova
Because a dose of Bryan Ferry never hurt anyone
05 The Faint – Erection …You know it’s not a remote, dear/That I can flip the switch off/You know, I probably should be/There we go, I flipped it off…
Those things you can’t control … a mess the size of Nebraska
06 Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
The best of the best. Here’s to owing dinners to people
07 Portugal. The Man – So American
From Sarah Palin’s own town, Wasilla, Alaska… yikes
08 Manu Dibango – The Panther
Because the panther patrol is out to get you
09 Golden Teacher – Sauchiehall Withdrawal
Glasgow
10 Seaside – Golden Girl
Aussie time
11 Lin Pesto – Bir Düşün
Türkiye
12 Negativland – The Way We Know Things
Thinking of Mr Hosler, wondering where he’s gone
13 Aster Aweke – Yeteretahulet
Ethiopia-via-America
14 Wooden Shjips – Staring at the Sun
15 Simon Love – God Bless the Dick Who Let You Go
16 Prince – When You Were Mine
We all still miss Prince, I think.
17 The Shacks – Follow Me
18 A. Savage – Thawing Dawn
19 Tom Tom Club – Kissin’ Antonio
20 Girl Ray – Don’t Go Back at Ten
21 Ash Hendriks – One
22 Vivien Goldman – Launderette
23 Palya Bea – Szabadon
Hungary
24 Mazzy Star – Quiet, The Winter Harbor
A return
25 Hurray for the Riff Raff – Pa’lante
26 BC Camplight – Deportation Blues
27 Zaki Ibrahim – Something in the Water
28 Brazilian Girls – St. Petersburg
29 Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir – Like a Ship
30 Loma – Black Willow
31 Lhasa de Sela – Con Toda Palabra
32 Santigold – Gold Fire
33 Kaleidoscope – Egyptian Garden
34 Bajofondo, Elvis Costello – Fairly Right
35 C Duncan – Garden
36 Eleanor Friedberger – Make Me a Song
37 Two People – I’m Tied, to You
38 Bag O’ Cats – Popocatepetl
39 Wilco – Someone to Lose
40 Nadia Schilling – Misfire
41 Julianna Barwick – Big Hollow
42 Lower Dens – Real Thing
43 Swallow – Tastes Like Honey
44 Lera Lynn, JD McPherson – Nothin to Do with Your Love
45 CC Dust – New Ways
46 Moon Panda – Rabbit
47 Sir Victor Uwaifo – Okuo Ida
48 Charles Watson – Everything Goes Right
49 The Posies – I May Hate You Sometimes
One of those things I didn’t like when it was new and now it’s a piece of hometown nostalgia
50 Amber Arcades – Goodnight Europe

everything’s gone orange – Random gum of August 2018 soundtrack

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Everything’s gone orange – Random gum – August 2018
www.comraderadmila.com / Follow me on Spotify

01 Curtis Mayfield – “Pusherman”
Watching old episodes of Soul Train; cheers to Ade & to Ste
02 Wendy James – “Bad Intentions and a Bit of Cruelty”
For Naomi: I am sure I said I would never include any Wendy James thing anywhere. Wrong again
03 Julia Jacklin – “Leadlight” …I love you my darling I do!/But I can’t promise I’ll be here to see this whole love through…
Oh, how I love Julia. “I didn’t know that the ground, is not only harder/Oh but colder when you are not around”
04 Weyes Blood – “Everybody’s Talkin’”
Weyes Blood does Harry Nilsson
05 Cat’s Eyes – “I Knew It Was Over”
We always know it’s over before we’re told
06 Sunni Colón – “God is a Woman”
If God were a woman, would things seriously be the way they are?
07 Three J’s – “Chalito”
A song to escape the wee prick that is Three Js
08 John Denver – “Leaving, on a Jet Plane”
John Denver is like… reliving earliest childhood, and learning over time that nothing and no one you perceived in childhood is anything like what it really is
09 Al Green – “Love and Happiness”
10 Zack Mexico – “Suzuki” …I don’t wanna fall in love…
11 Sparks – “Girl from Germany” …My word, she’s from Germany/Well, it’s the same old country/But the people have changed…
12 Bill Baird – “You’re Someone Else”
13 Juliana Hatfield – “A Little More Love” …I’m trapped, trapped in the spell of your eyes/In the warmth of your arms/In the web of your lies…
Juliana’s take on Olivia
14 Fad Gadget – “Coitus Interruptus”
15 The Cambodian Space Project – “The Passenger”
16 Beastie Boys – “Egg Man”
17 Pongo – “Tambulaya”
From Angola to Lisbon – I dare you not to jump around
18 Marissa Nadler – “Hungry is the Ghost”
19 Nai Palm – “Atoll”
Australia
20 San Mei – “Wonder”
More Australia!
21 Barrie – “Canyons”
22 LCD Soundsystem – “Never as Tired as When I’m Waking Up”
23 Spirea X – “Chlorine Dream”
24 Machine Translations – “Made a Friend”
More Australia and Australian translator friends … and machines
25 Eva Pilarová – “Popocatepetl Twist”
For the Czech chicks – Anne, Martina
26 MorMor – “Heaven’s Only Wishful”
27 Jefferson Airplane – “White Rabbit”
For singing loudly in middle-of-night darkness. Hubbubs with Mr Firewall!
28 Emily Jane White – “Nightmares on Repeat”
29 Emma Ruth Rundle – “Fever Dreams”
30 TEKE::TEKE – “Chicchana Toki Kara”
Montreal
31 RÜFÜS DU SOL – ”No Place”
More Australia for an Australia-heavy mix
32 Laura Marling, LUMP, Mike Lindsay – “Shake Your Shelter”
Some things are hard to listen to
33 Whyte Horses – “Empty Words”
34 Caterina Valente – “Popocatepetl Twist”
Another (this time French-Italian) take on this song – and of course a nod to my old friend Mike and our time in Mexico, as Popo erupted
35 Sequoyah Tiger – “Cassius”
Italy… not often I get to include or get fooled by Italy
36 Kaada – “Care”
No-no-no-norway
37 The Walkmen – “Another One Goes By”
38 Natalie Prass – “Your Fool”
39 Erika Wennerstrom – “Extraordinary Love”
40 Boxed In – “All Your Love is Gone”
41 Unloved – “When a Woman is Around”
42 Illy – “Enquanto Você Não Chega”
Brasil
43 Olden Yolk – “Takes One to Know One”
44 Gamine – “Fille du soir”
45 Dirty Three – “Great Waves”
Australia
46 Julio Cesár Oliva, Morgan Szymanski – “Estampas de México: No 16 Los volcanes (Popocatepetl & Ixtaccihuatl)”
47 Rafiq Bhatia – “Before Our Eyes”
48 Mitski – “Geyser”
For the geysers that explode again and again before my eyes
49 Mimicking Birds – “Lumens”
Shining a certain kind of light…
50 Blondie – “Picture This”
“All I want is a photo in my wallet/A small remembrance of something more solid/All I want is a picture of you”

 

Cover up – Random gum of July 2018 soundtrack

Standard

Cover up – Got just enough to cover you – Random gum – July 2018
www.comraderadmila.com / Follow me on Spotify

01 Alberteen – “We Are the Mods”
Big thanks as usual to Ade – never in the same place. One of my favorites from Alberteen
02 U.S. Girls – “Rage of Plastics” …there’s no telling how long you’ll be paying…
Relatable sadness and all the nods to plastic. “There are scores of us born in the silent spring/Whose wombs won’t take, won’t bear anything”
03 Alice Skye – “Friends with Feelings” …I hope that tomorrow/won’t be like today, anyway…
04 Depeche Mode – “Cover Me” …Way up here with the Northern Lights/beyond you and me/I dreamt of us in another life/one we never reached…
Memories of some entirely other life. “Better take cover…”
05 Flesh for Lulu – “Postcards from Paradise” …And I fell under your spell/And I lay where I fell…
Weird memories of junior high school and that awkward, fragile friendship with Terra; had no idea until right now that the lead singer died about three years ago
06 Ultra Vivid Scene – “The Whore of God”…But a kiss on the lips is far too much for anyone…
This is like a taste of sophomore year in high school, the weekends of Leighanne, Gary and Terra
07 Bruce Springsteen – “Cover Me” …Promise me baby you won’t let them find us/Hold me in your arms, let’s let our love blind us…
I have no real love, but plenty of respect, for Springsteen, but the ‘cover’ theme must be covered, right?
08 Huri Sapan – “Karanfil Ocak Ocak”
A Turkish delight, naturally. I love how unnatural this sounds directly after Springsteen
09 Julia Jacklin – “Cold Caller” …Will I be a mother or will I always be a child?…
Oh, Julia among Julias. One of my favorites lately. “And some cold caller decides I’m not Ready to change Oh what if my body is but my mind remains the same?”
10 Trashcan Sinatras – “Obscurity Knocks” …Owner of this corner and not much more…
For SD rocking the Maryhill Tesco – but happily not shirtless
11 Love and Rockets – “Ball of Confusion” …Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors/Solid gold in demand, population out of hand, suicide/Too many bills, everyone movin’ to the hills/People all over the world are dying in the war…
Perfect for these tragic, confusing, bombastic times
12 TV on the Radio – “Love Stained”
“In the middle of the night, when fear comes calling/Singin’ it all dies, awfully scared, alone/I’m looking into your eyes to feel your call/Pretty thing that catches me so strong when I fall”
13 The Shacks – “Blue & Grey”
“What did you really mean to say?/I’m tired of waiting because/All we have is blue and grey”
14 Brandi Carlile – “The Joke”
“Let ’em laugh while they can/Let ’em spin, let ’em scatter in the wind/I have been to the movies, I’ve seen how it ends/And the joke’s on them”
15 The Fernweh – “The Liar”
Liverpool
16 Coco Morier – “No Pressure” …Let’s mess around…
17 AURORA – “Life on Mars”
Because I don’t know that we’ll ever know how to live without Bowie, though he got out just in time
18 Peter Perrett – “How the West Was Won” …If I ever get really depressed/I’ll download Tor, buy a suicide vest/Leave a dirty bomb at a Wall Street address/Gatecrash a Rothschild party and leave it in a mess…
19 Savoy Motel – “Sorry People”
Groovy Nashville
20 Belle & Sebastian – “Your Cover’s Blown” …Thus starts the lonely walking/There’s always too much talking/I should have stayed home…
Glasgow… don’t blow my thicker-than-ever cover. Love to all my Dear Green Place folk & to Inga
21 Terry Bush, United Forces – “Maybe Tomorrow” (radio edit remix) …So if you want to join me for a while/Just grab your hat, come travel light, that’s hobo style…
For every person of a certain age in the UK who knows this theme song from a dog-led Canadian tv show, The Littlest Hobo, that Americans never had the dubious treat of seeing
22 Grupo Mogambo, Carlos “Chacho” Ramos – “Dime”
Because… MOGAMBO!!
23 Amber Coffman – “Kindness”
24 Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – “Monkeys on Juice” …laughing at such pointlessness…
25 Tom Waits – “Gin Soaked Boy” …Well, I’m on your tail/I sussed your M.O. …
26 Conspiracy of Owls – “A Silver Song” …You open your heart/And I drift right through…
“We’re not above it all/And we’re in love again”
27 Drapht, Indoor Fins – “The Come Down Was Real”
28 The Julie Ruin – “Just My Kind” …Don’t you know I really like how/You know my mind/But even more to the point is the fact/You’re just my kind…
29 The Moonlandingz – “The Strangle of Anna”
30 Rival Consoles – ”Ghosting”
I’m not too good at ghosting
31 Samara Lubelski – ”Soft Focus”
32 Värttinä – ”Kylä vuotti uutta kuuta”
A wee folk taste of Finland
33 Modern Studies – “Disco” …I used to be a totally different kind of person/and the difference it made…
Scotland Scotland Scotland
34 Triathalon – “3” …help me get myself in the groove…
35 Xmal Deutschland – “Feuerwerk (31.Dez)”
The old days in Hamburg
36 Klaus Johann Grobe – “Geschichten aus erster Hand”
The big Z-city in CH
37 Sonic Youth – “Bull in the Heather”
38 Coda Conduct – “Love for Me” …my love for you, boy, comes after my love for me…
Australian lady hip hop
39 Gwenno – “Fratolish Hiang Perpeshki”
Wales
40 Chapterhouse – “Pearl”
Driving through a painfully hot late spring day, suddenly feeling all the aimless pangs of teenage pain and insecurity stabbing me from the inside, again and again. Ugly. Uglier. Ugliest. Time.
41 Hovvdy – “Thru” …Cover for yourself all the time…
42 Au Revoir Simone – “A Violent Yet Flammable World”
Wondering whatever happened to Aurélien, to whom I owe the Au Revoir Simone debt. Twin Peaks reboot but makes me think of those days in 2008-9, the bittersweet of Paris, misery of Oslo, homesickness for Reykjavik
43 Siouxsie and the Banshees – “Spellbound” …We are entranced…
44 Phantastic Ferniture – “Fuckin’ ‘n’ Rollin’”
It’s no wonder I fell in love with this almost immediately – only after I was hooked did I wake up to the fact that this is another Aussie darling, Julia Jacklin, vehicle…
45 Grover Washington, Jr – “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”
46 Goldfrapp, Dave Gahan – “Ocean” …People collector/I’m on the move/For you…
47 Kings of Convenience – “Know-How”
“Just a little bit of danger/When intriguingly/Our little secret/Trust say trust me/Cause no one will ever know/That this was happening”
48 Class Actress – “Journal of Ardency” …You think I’m living it, living it, living it, living it up/In the spotlight/It’s a lie, lie…
“This game of cruelty/Hardly becomes me…/…’Cause everybody knows/Everybody sees/That this is the thing you do to me”
49 Air, Gordon Tracks – “Playground Love” …Yet my hands are shaking/I feel my body remains/Time’s no matter, I’m on fire/On the playground, love…
50 Emmit Fenn, Yuna – “Modern Flame” (acoustic) …Don’t tell me this doesn’t feel right/’Cause I’m thinking ‘bout it every night…