January 23rd, 2003 6:45pm
Tying You Is Fine, And Whipping You Is Grand
Here’s another batch of songs. These will stay up til Tuesday, I suppose.
Steely Dan “Through With Buzz” – Seriously, don’t be scared off by Steely Dan’s reputation; give this song a shot. I’m not a very big fan of Steely Dan, and yeah, a lot of their music is awful; but “Through With Buzz” is a great concise piece of pop music that you shouldn’t pass over. Many thanks to Jody Beth for introducing me to this song over the summer. She gave me a homemade Steely Dan best-of compilation, and though I only really liked about three songs on it, they were all fabulous tunes.
United States Of America “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar” – Here’s a great psychedelic gem from songwriter Joseph Byrd, who produced this song as part of a one-off record with the band United States of America at UCLA in 1967. For more about the United States Of America, I’d recommend checking out this site, which was written by a professed ‘fanatic’ about the band.
Harper’s Bizzare “If We Ever Needed The Lord Before” – This is taken from the expanded cd reissue of Harper Bizarre’s IV, and is simply a beautiful, earnest rendition of the gospel standard, with some really gorgeous vocal harmonies.
Guided By Voices “Beg For A Wheelbarrow” – In my experience with Guided By Voices, it seems that Bob Pollard makes sure that there’s at least one excellent song on every record he puts out, meaning that even the most tossed-off GBV side project releases have at least one bona fide GBV classic for the faithful and obsessive. This song is the keeper off of the recent compilation of Universal Truths And Cycles outtakes, The Pipedreams Of Instant Prince Whippit, and is currently a staple in the band’s live show.
Shudder To Think “Hop On One Foot” – I’ve decided to offer another selection from Shudder To Think, this time the closing number from their final non-soundtrack album, 50,000 BC. Like I said earlier in the week, Shudder To Think were very underrated, and suffered commercially for what made them so special. They were too prog for the punks, too pop to be fully prog, and entirely too weird for radio and MTV. Singer Craig Wedren is now involved in a new project called Baby, and guitarist Nathan Larson is now scoring films.
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