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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.

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

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”

 

May I come in? – Random gum of May 2018 soundtrack

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Time again for another monthly random gum music mix; music for May 2018. To discover all my playlists on Spotify and follow me.

I don’t have any words of wisdom this month. I’ve been busy with my sudden students status, but nothing ever stops me from finding and listening to music. I invite you to listen, too.

May I Come In? – Random Gum – May 2018

01 Nico – “The Fairest of the Seasons” …Yes and the morning has me/Looking in your eyes/And seeing mine warning me/To read the signs carefully…
Love for and thanks to AB… “Now that I’ve tried/Now that I’ve finally found that this is not the way”.
02 Brigid Mae Power – “Let Me Go Now”
Heartbreaking. “It was just too hard to love unconditionally/you can let me go now, that’s okay/it was just too hard to love in that way”
03 Belle & Sebastian – “Nobody’s Empire”
Glasgow love. “There was a girl that sang like the chime of a bell/And she put out her arm and she touched me when I was in hell”
04 Feu! Chatterton – “Grace”
The French past. “Le tendre passé qui nous hante/Croît comme un jardin vivant/Un terrain vague/Peuplé de très vieux mirages/De fleurs sauvages”
05 Akofa Akoussah – “I Tcho Tchass”
Tales of Togo and Togolese radio
06 Lower Dens – “Your Heart Still Beating”
“Your heart is still beating in all of my dreams/And I swore again and again/Never again”
07 The Helio Sequence – “Deuces” …now I’m gone/you’ve lost your hold on me…
PNW. “I don’t wanna be cool, I don’t wanna be distant/Or harbor grief for you/And I don’t mean to be cool, I don’t need to seem never like/I’m holding out for you”
08 Tortoise – “Yonder Blue” …Oh, I’ll fill the ocean with tears until I find you…
09 Gentle Hen – “The People You See Regularly Never Grow Old”
Hold them horses, hen.
10 Twerps – “Dreamin”
Australia/Melbourne
11 The Communards – “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
Glasgow disco. SD
12 BC Unidos, Shungudzo – “Ouagadougou”
13 Belly – “Superconnected”
Memories of driving-around singalong sessions with dear Tara in the mid-90s and our continued connection
14 Alberteen – “Infant Nation”
Thanks to inimitable AB
15 Silver Apples – “I Have Known Love”
16 Veronika Boulytcheva, Natalia Ermilova – “Ouj i ja li moloda”
A song that hurts most people’s ears – reminds me of college and my dad saying this sounds like ”wailing Chinese people”
17 Yo La Tengo – ”Pablo and Andrea” …someone came and took all the roses away…
“I’ll cover for you like a slipcover covers a chair”
18 Geowulf – “Greatest Fool”
Aussies in London. “Point at me and laugh, my love/’Cause I thought we were enough/Guess I make the greatest fool/Gentlemen, I’ll humor you”
19 Julian Cope – “Sunspots” …I’m in love with my very best friend…
Back to high school and the nightmare “environmental camp” I went to one year trying to make a friend feel better
20 Hoshi – “Comment je vais faire” (acoustic version)
21 Alabama Shakes – “Dunes” …Somewhere in me, a memory that I cannot gather anymore…
22 Delta 5 – “Mind Your Own Business”
Words of wisdom
23 Diane Coffee – “Hymn”
“So come on, walk to your house/You put a record on”. Afternoons after school listening to records, love to my school friends (Terra, Leighanne, Gary)
24 Sugar Candy Mountain – “Atlas”
25 Lost Horizons – “The Places We’ve Been”
Vocals by Karen Peris from The Innocence Mission
26 Cinerama – “Tie Me Up”
“You own me, you own me, and I’m not arguing”
27 Emily King – “Sleepwalker”
“I feel my body move without me again/Ooh, like a sleepwalker getting closer to him”
28 Tracy Chapman – “Smoke and Ashes”
Reminds me of the interminable summer of 1996
29 The Stone Roses – “Love Spreads”
I never cared much for this Roses song, but after seeing it live, it took on a different feeling
30 of Montreal – “Last Rites at the Jane Hotel” …These tears I cry for you must prove that I’m not the demon that I’m meant to be…
“Other people can be so disappointing/I need to spend more time alone”
31 A Taste of Honey – “Boogie Oogie Oogie”
For SD, as all danceable tunes are
32 Bam Spacey – “Avstånd och skog”
Malmö.
33 Heather Nova – “What a Feeling”
“Life is only half way in our hands/Years have passed while I was making plans/And I could never find the words/I always felt absurd, and always outside”
34 Kalbells – “Alonetime” …life can be so emotional/when you’re lonely…
Springtime. Here’s cheers to Annette, AB, SD, J, Anne
35 Fastbacks – “I Never Knew”
The old Seattle haunts and sounds; Oslo tunnels
36 Brandi Carlile – “Sugartooth”
Locals
37 Olden Yolk – “Cut to the Quick”
38 Low – “Let’s Stay Together”
Because yes, sometimes, people do stay together
39 Indigo Girls – “Kid Fears”
It’s like junior high school again, and somehow makes me think of Amie
40 Bedouine – “Summer Cold” …You say, ‘What have they done to you friend?’…
Armenian-American via Aleppo. “I’ve had enough of your guns and your ammunition”
41 Orange Juice – “Untitled Melody”
Glasgow. “You need me more or less, I need you more and more”
42 Belly – “Judas My Heart”
“Where I live/There’s a blanket of sighs and it covers the stars/In my heart, I’m as hungry as ever”
43 Madeline Kenney – “Signals”
“A signal is what you use in your car, dude. Not a way of communicating with someone who clearly needs direct answers.”
44 Sevdaliza – “Amandine Insensible” …There’s a woman, she’s every fantasy/And no reality in one…
“How can I suffer without the pain?/Can we struggle without the shame?”
45 Dori Freeman – “Cold Waves” …There’s something bitter and it’s tyin’ up my tongue/My body’s restless but I’ve got nowhere to run…
“I’ve got a lover and he loves me very well/He took my broken heart and brought it back from hell/And with the slightest glance and movement he can tell/That I am lost and only he can lift the veil”
46 Deep Throat Choir – “In My Bed”
Amy Winehouse cover
47 Aidan Moffat, RM Hubbert, feat. Siobhan Wilson – “Cockcrow”
Scotland
48 Salad – “Warmth of the Hearth” …Here comes the hearth/We’re almost there baby/I’m on the path/Missing you already…
One of those bands that never quite hit (I loved them) but has reunited to tour recently
49 Julia Lucille – “Lie and Wait” …What do you think should we take it slow/Or go as fast as my body wants to go…
“Wrapped up in your loving arms imperfect as I am/You don’t tell me I’m beautiful, you tell me I’m a badass but/I hold back my love” … “What do you think was it too much too soon/I felt your mind just leaving when I walked into the room”. I like almost nothing more than I like Julia Lucille these days.
50 The Go-Betweens – “Dive For Your Memory”
“When I hear you saying/That we stood no chance/I’ll dive for your memory/We stood that chance”

april’s fool – random gum of april 2018 soundtrack

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It comes just slightly early – the April random gum soundtrack. I also think I will be sending out a few copies on CD (along with the previous few months’ music) in postal form because there are a handful of people who need more candy.

April’s fool
Random gum – April 2018

Entire playlist on Spotify. Listen!

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01 Negative Gemini – You Never Knew …now you’re pretending that i’m someone you never knew…
For all the beautiful negative Geminis
02 Gianna Lauren – Mistakes …Mistakes, they are my own…
Thank you to Esteban
03 ABC – All of My Heart …What’s it like to have loved and to lose that much?…
Thanks to J
04 Vorderhaus – Tanz Tanz Tanz oder ich bin verloren
Thanks to ML & Inken 
05 The Jack Moves – Doublin’ Down
06 Mark Gaetani – Rwanda
With Rwanda on my mind
07 The Aislers Set – Cocksure Whistler …Showers icy but the streets are chalk/Like the cocksure whistler’s on a winter walk…
08 Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy
For SD and to memories of Terra and her insistence that she would like to stick her tongue between Roland Gift’s front teeth
09 Katie Von Schleicher – Baby Don’t Go
10 Kelley Stoltz – Kim Chee Taco Man …Let your grace go wild…
“You’re not alone… You know the smile is real/It’s something you can feel/The stars with twisted teeth/Not so out of reach!” For Martina: “The Kim Chee Taco Man/The real Mexican”
11 Lushes – Low Hanging Fruit
For Annette and our dislike for low-hanging fruit preachers with deer-in-the-headlights eyes
12 Mugison – Patrick Swayze …there’s a ghost living here in the scrapyard…
For SD, the Swayze gym and the way Scottish people talk, even over strange Icelandic soundtracks
13 Jane Weaver – I Wish …I wish you were cool/I wish you were something…
MP. “So you really did nothing/So you really did nothing of concern?/In the distance I’m humming/Are the whispers nothing?”
14 Olivia Newton-John – Hopelessly Devoted to You
Sing-song singalongs with SD
15 Negative Gemini – Don’t Worry Bout the Fuck I’m Doing
“I don’t care about your shit face, the street goes down two ways, Don’t worry bout the way I’m going”
16 Belle and Sebastian – Poor Boy
True words. “Poor boy, I could never live up to your imagination/Poor boy, I was a crush that killed”
17 Emma Lee Toyoda – Nünü
18 Indeep – Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
SD and locker-room recordings
19 Feu! Chatterton – L’oiseau
Merci, Laurent.
20 Karen Marks – Cold Café …on the esplanade/my coffee’s gone cold/I won’t forget the sounds/you left me…
Australia.
21 Robyn Hitchcock – Godnatt Oslo
22 Cat Power – Nude as the News
Memories of Seattle, Naomi and the Finn from Funland
23 Ösp Eldjárn – Ástarnetið
Thanks to and love for Eva
24 Maggie Björklund – The Road to Samarkand
Danmark
25 Veronika Boulytcheva, Natalia Ermilova – Зачем тебя я, милый мой, узнала …И сердце песню радости поет…
For J. This ‘relic’ from the college years pops into my head now and then. I had to dig through all my old CDs to find it.
26 Houndstooth – Bliss Boat …words are just a poor man’s pennies, dear…
Portlanders. I love the sound of this. “My aching heart/my wounded knee/you were the only air I breathe”
27 Kon Kan – I Beg Your Pardon (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden)
Thinking back to being 13 and the people populating that period
28 Clara Luciani – Comme toi
“J’ai le coeur qu s’égare en attendant que toi/Qui me ressemble tant, qui ne me comprend pas”
29 The Sundays – God Made Me
“We’d love to be good but we’d rather be bad/But how was I supposed to know that?”
30 Scott Fagan – In My Head
31 Martha Ffion – We Disappear …guess we never really knew how good we were…
Irish in Glasgow 🙂
32 Velly Joonas – Kaes On Aeg
Estonia
33 YACHT – I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler
“Got my broken heart—/I got it sold right back to me—/By an algorithmic social entity!”
34 Widowspeak – Dead Love (So Still) …Even if it wasn’t as good/If it didn’t hurt so bad to remember…
35 The True Loves – The Dirty
Seattle, you know…
36 Martin Courtney – Airport Bar …I can pass the time/But I can’t undo the changes once they’re made…
“Life in that dream was just what it seemed/If I knew then what I know now I would not have stayed”
37 Cate Le Bon – Aside from Growing Old
“What’s the hubbub, I’m losing my mind/I’m running from people/What’s the measure of a passing time/I’m, I’m running from people/Deep seated inconsequence/Still running from people”
38 Fleetwood Mac – The Chain …And if you don’t love me now/You will never love me again…
For Erin
39 Vendredi sur Mer – L’amour avec toi
40 Laura Marling – Gurdjieff’s Daughter …Darkness can’t do you harm/Fear will hurt you…
“Man is made in such a way that he is never so much attached to anything as he is to his suffering.” –Gurdjieff
41 The History of Apple Pie – Keep Wondering
I keep wondering about some never-tasted mysterious apple pie
42 Jane Weaver – Slow Motion …I want to feel the life we loved in the sun,/Slow motion…
“Let’s get together/We keep changing/Sometimes everything’s amazing/Then the silence/Reminds us we are lost/Stop listening/To other people/Whose agenda/Doesn’t seem good/Then exception is the only/Thing we’ve got.”
43 Dan Deacon – Feel the Lightning …I try not to worry/But I always worry…
44 Belle and Sebastian – Lazy Line Painter Jane …Being a rebel’s fine/But you go all the way/To being brutal…
Missing my Jane
45 Crybaby – When the Lights Go Out …There’s a beauty in this/A privilege in parting I know…
46 Meshell Ndegeocello – Waterfalls
A Meshell take on someone else’s song that somehow outshines the original. Love to Anne
47 Strawberry Runners – Dog Days
48 Jessica Lea Mayfield – Sorry is Gone …Leave me alone, but I want you with me every minute…
49 Damien Jurado, Richard Swift – Radioactivity
50 Veronika Boulytcheva, Natalia Ermilova – Вьюн над водой

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a love supreme – anti-valentine – random gum of february 2018 soundtrack

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a love supreme – anti-valentine
february 2018 – the good goo of random gum

01 The Supremes – Love is Like an Itching in My Heart
“Just an itching in my heart and I can’t scratch it”
02 Cate le Bon – Are You With Me Now?
03 Margo Price – Hands of Time
“Turn back the clock on the cruel hands of time”
04 Nana – Menino Carioca
05 Mary Lou Lord – I’m Ahead If I Can Quit While I’m Behind
06 BC Camplight – You Should’ve Gone to School
07 Sandie Shaw – (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me
08 Sibylle Baier – Softly
Here’s to hidden women making their belated mark
09 Grizzly Bear – Losing All Sense
“Like a rogue wave you/Wash right over me/Losing all sense of what my body could feel/I was able to drift away from here/I have lost all control”
10 Gingerlys – Incandescent
11 BRONCHO – What
12 Sofia Freire – Canção da Bruxa
13 Dita von Teese, Sébastien Tellier – Bird of Prey
14 Marta Kubišová – Už se léto schovává
…Hang up the Czech habit. Love to Anne, to Martina, to Mr MI
15 Claudine Longet – Medley: Jealous Guy/Don’t Let Me Down
16 Belle & Sebastian – I’ll Be Your Pilot
All the Glaswegians
17 Nap Eyes – Delirium and Persecution Paranoia
18 Angel Olsen – How Many Disasters
19 The Supremes – Forever Came Today
20 The Barry Sisters – Vyoch Tyoch Tyoch
Can’t resist a Yiddish song, now can we?
21 Tommy Allen – Ghosts in the Walls
22 The Fall – There’s a Ghost in My House
RIP Mark E. Smith – who seems like the type to linger as a ghost in another dimension, tormenting people for all eternity from the beyond.
23 Jenny O. – Lazy Jane …I’m feeling blue/Cause I can’t have you…
“I’m never gonna be a cheerleader/I can’t do tricks/And I ain’t that sick”. For all those so far away now I will never get them back
24 Emma Gatrill – Odd Ones Out
“Don’t judge a book by its cover/Its façade is simple, simple to see/But by twenty pages in/You’ll find the story is not what it first seemed”
25 Over the Rhine – Latter Days
26 Al Masrieen – Men Awel Deqiqa
27 The Fall – Feeling Numb
One can only feel numb at the passing of Mark E. Smith (RIP), knowing the end probably could easily have come earlier. Still, the only good thing about his death is that I have learned about so many more people in my circles who are fans of The Fall, and I might never otherwise have known.
28 Hollie Cook – Desdemona
29 Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou – The Homeless Wanderer
Ethiopia
30 The Fall – Big New Prinz
I didn’t think much about how The Fall served as a soundtrack thread through most of my life until the recent passing of the cantankerous Mark E. Smith. All the way back to my adolescence, when my friend Terra and I would be sucked in by the aggressive sounds of “Big New Prinz” (and the rest of the songs from the same album), and not too long thereafter when my bricklayer pen pal Peter in the north of England would send me mixed cassettes that included loads of The Fall. And then how Naomi and I would share this connection and even see The Fall together many, many years ago. The Fall continued to help me forge surprising connections through the years.
31 Renata Zeiguer – Follow Me Down
32 Duke Garwood – Blue
33 France Gall – Laisse tomber les filles
34 Mattiel – Whites of Their Eyes
35 Yo La Tengo – I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
36 Slow Club – In Waves
“You can’t tell me you’re not like this/Staring down the pages of the shit you’ve missed/Hoping you’ll find a way to change/Days spent waiting in my living grave”
37 Julia Lucille – Darkening
Such pretty sounds “As I’m darkening I must go alone”
38 Brigitte Fontaine – Une fois mais pas deux
39 Ofege – It’s Not Easy
Nigeria
40 Luwten – Pinball
“I am the pinball/I am the deer/I hear the shot/I disappear”
41 Mogwai – I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead
“Jim Morrison… Van Morrison more like!” For S (naturally with an additional nod to Glasgow in Mogwai)
42 Wooden Wand – Mexican Coke
Martina! You know if it’s Mexican I will tag you!
43 The Fall – British People in Hot Weather
I had been an avid anglophile as a kid/adolescent, and I don’t really know what happened to make me so negative on the English. Still, The Fall has been something of a ‘negative soundtrack’ all along.
44 De Lux – When Your Life Feels Like a Loss
45 Ramona Lisa – Dominic
“Forgive me if I was too forward too fast”
46 The Fall – Powder Keg
And what else is the world today than a powder keg?
47 Sexores – Bluish Lovers
Ecuador
48 The Supremes – Someday We’ll Be Together
…but will we?
49 The Psychedelic Furs – Sister Europe
“Words are all just useless sound” … for all my Furs friends
50 Tori Amos – Josephine
51 Cowboy Junkies – Cowboy Junkies Lament
Memories of college-era road trip with my Russian class, all long disappeared, all of us singing together in that fleeting moment of closeness. And the long, lost Townes van Zandt, who wrote this song for the Cowboy Junkies. “There’s a hole in heaven where some sin slips through/Close your eyes and dream real steady/Maybe just a little will spill on you”
52 Al Green – How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?
“I could never see tomorrow/I was never told about the sorrow”
53 The Cranberries – No Need to Argue
RIP Dolores O’Riordan. I remember listening to this song on repeat one year during college – it had such a sad, resigned finality to it that resonated with me (as I greeted endings, particularly of relationships with this kind of sad resignation. I have never been the type to really “freak out” and go crazy). This seemed like the perfect anthem for that kind of sad acceptance. Much as we must go forward with sad acceptance when people die too soon.

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