Playlist For Tonight

Just another, I don't want to go to work tomorrow morning, I'd rather stay up late into the night, listening to music, playlist.

• The Jayhawks - Society Pages ..... I was in a record store a year or two ago and was asked if I was "a Jayhawks guy?" Well of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? 
• James McMurtry - We Can't Make It Here
• Rosanne Cash - Rules of Travel
• The Wallflowers - One Headlight
• Ben Harper - Diamonds On the Inside .... I became clued in to Ben Harper after he had been making music for several years. The result was a short, intense time of collecting all his recordings. 

It's funny what comes to mind when you are brainstorming musicians and bands that mostly you haven't listened to for a few years. There were periods where I was really into their sounds. Eventually, with many of these, the interest, while not vanishing, it does fade a little while one moves on to new discoveries and obsessions. But the sounds are always there, waiting to be heard again.

• Jolene - New Canaan ..... Just a short little snippet of music that I wish had been expanded on. Maybe it has been and I'm just unaware but I've yet to find it. Listen to it .... there has to be more don't you think? How could those 22 seconds be it?
• Calexico with Neko Case - Tapping On the Line
• Jesse McReynolds - Standing On the Moon .... A Grateful Dead tune. I love the title. I saw Jesse McReynolds perform this on television a few years ago and thought his voice was perfect for the song. "Standing on the moon but I'd rather be with you ....."
• Eric Kaz - Cruel Wind
• The Stray Birds - Feathers and Bone

Just A Monday Night Playlist to End a Blah Day

Just going back in time for another late-night playlist. Not much of a thought process involved. Whatever comes to mind and what leads to what. As it should be .....

• Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers
• Big Country - We're Not In Kansas ..... Don't ask me to turn down the volume. Stuart Adamson left us far too soon.
• China Crisis - Black Man Ray 
• REM - It's the End of the World As We Know It ..... "and I feel fine."
• Neil Young - Tell Me Why ..... Remembering a night long ago, three childhood friends, suddenly teenagers, sitting in a room, playing acoustic guitars and singing this song. Wish that moment didn't have to end.
• Traveling Wilburys - Tweeter and the Monkey Man
• Electric Light Orchestra - Show Down (It's Raining All Over the World) .... Because I heard a five second snippet of the violins or cellos, whatever they are, on the radio the other day, and suddenly had to hear the entire song.
• Eric Burdon and the Animals - San Francisco Nights ..... Going way back here. My vinyl record collecting mentor used to play this song. It was his anthem. We'd play basketball and then go listen to records. I'm sure I lost a game or two on purpose, just so we could get to the records. A perfect day in my estimation. 
• Arlo Guthrie - Motorcycle Song .... My radio roots. "I don't want a pickle, just want to ride my motorsickle." And tonight, I'm also listening to Arlo's explanation of: The Significance of the Pickle.  

I need to get to sleep but I also need one more song to make a ten song playlist. Because I don't know the definition of such but somewhere bouncing around in the back of my mind is the thought that you need at least ten songs for a proper playlist.

• The Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays .... Once again, I'm late on arrival. I should have played this last night (Sunday). 

Bonus Song, or three. What led me to purchase my very first compact disc (Giant Steps by John Coltrane), and transition from vinyl around 1989 or 1990 was the concept of bonus tracks on cd's. .....

• Joe Jackson - Steppin' Out ..... One of those that causes me to ache with nostalgia. 
• General Public - Never You Done That .... Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger. Oh Geez, this brings to mind being awake at 3am and watching MTV videos. Back in the days when MTV really played music videos. 
• Level 42 - Something About You

I should mention, in case it's not obvious to anyone who pays a second's notice to my tweets, and to complete a thought above, that I eventually found my way back to vinyl. And while others love colored vinyl, I still think that black vinyl is one of the most beautiful visions in the world.

Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith's self titled album from 1995. On one of my favorite names for a record label: Kill Rock Stars Records.

A singer/songwriter affair, mostly acoustic. Beautiful and haunting. There's a feeling of sadness behind the songs. Backing vocals on one song are contributed from Rebecca Gates of the Portland band, The Spinanes.

Towner & Moore

Ralph Towner with Glen Moore - 'Trios / Solos'

Vinyl from 1973 on ECM Records. I've been finding several of these 1970's, ECM vinyl recordings lately. 

Ralph Towner is a guitarist. Glen Moore plays bass. Both are members of the group, Oregon. The sound is a fusion of elements of Jazz, Classical, Folk and World music. 

My interest in ECM started with hearing Keith Jarrett's improvisational solo piano, 'Koln Concert' on late night radio many years ago.

Not the easiest listen but I certainly appreciate the skill of the musicians.

ECM's slogan .... "The greatest sound next to silence."

On The Radio

Sometimes you hear things for the first time on the old school radio station. Driving around town this afternoon I was introduced to: 'Sunbath' by Woody Shaw. Trumpet fueled and soulful. I read that it's from 1975. Woody Shaw - Sunbath

Prior to that, I heard a piano ballad tune called, 'Fix It' sung powerfully and beautifully by Lady Blackbird. Lady Blackbird - Fix It. The opening piano notes had me thinking of the classic song, 'Peace Piece' by Bill Evans but then she starts singing and not to lessen Bill Evans by one ounce, but WOW!! It's from an album titled, 'Black Acid Soul' and it's been ordered without any additional research or song sampling. This voice deserves to be coming through my speakers with the volume turned up. 

Phineas Is Back!!

The Phineas Newborn Trio - Look Out - Phineas Is Back!

From 1978 on the Pablo Records label. On vinyl. Piano Jazz.

The result of a spontaneous visit to the only remaining record store in Salem. The owner has three boxes on the floor of unpriced records. Mostly 'soft' Jazz titles that I'm not interested in but occasionally I've found gems in those boxes. So I'm flipping through the records and I suddenly come to this. One keeper hidden among all the elevator Jazz. There's a long wait while the store owner is doing research .... discogs I imagine, while he decides what he "wants to get for it." He finally quotes a price that fails to scare me off. He asks if I know of the musician. "A little bit"  I reply. As if he's not really wanting to sell it he says: "If you hate it, feel free to return it." So I'm thinking to myself that he's really eager to make a sale here. That he's really making his best effort to sell this record. Eventually I get out the door with it. 

I wonder what I may have missed in these boxes between my visits? These four or five found titles that I've come across on separate stops, were not there on my previous visits. It's like the owner replaces one title of interest with another. I never find two records in a single visit. 

Another Saturday Night Random Playlist

Random Playlist for a April Saturday night in Oregon. Because I'm nothing at all if I'm not Oregonian .... and random.

• The Jayhawks - Society Pages .... Not sure if I'm crazy or not but I'm always hearing little bits and pieces in their music that brings to mind, The Beatles. 
• Pete Yorn - Old Boy .... Had the thought while listening, Whenever my spirit  decides it's time to give up and move on to whatever is next, I hope I'm sitting here like I am now, listening to music. This song would be fine to be listening to as I fade away.
• Paul Weller - You Do Something To Me .... Occasionally (rarely) you cross paths with someone who truly moves your soul.
• The Church - Under the Milky Way .... In my mind, the end of the 1980's.
• Robert Palmer - One Last Look .... "Take one last look at the love we're leaving behind."  In the last year or two, this song has become a desert island tune for me. 
• Dionne Warwick - Walk On By / I Say a Little Prayer  .... Don't know how the previous tunes led me here but here I am. Swept up in waves of bittersweet and haunting nostalgia. 
• The Bats - Rooftops 
• Mothers of Invention - Directly From My Heart to You .... I'm only half a century tardy but I just picked up my first Mothers of Invention album last weekend.
• The Bats - Free All the Monsters .... Returning for more Bats. Infectious sounds. 
• Justin Hayward - Forever Autumn .... From 1978's, 'The War of the Worlds' recording narrated by Richard Burton.
• Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds .... Since I played the Justin Hayward tune and referenced the entire recording, I might as well go and listen. Now experiencing flashbacks to the first time I heard this, over forty years ago, also late at night.
• George Harrison - Looking For My Life .... I'm still stuck in the days of the iPod. I may just empty mine out and put this song on it and drive around along rural roads with the volume way up.