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Entries categorized as “Friday MP3 Shuffle” 276 results
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday D. Boon Edition
Today we wish a posthumous Happy Birthday to D. Boon, guitarist and lead singer of the Minutemen. The band wasn’t lying with their name - If you don’t like one of their songs, wait literally 90 seconds and you’ll be on to the next one. But you’ll get the same brilliantly melodic anger delivered with all the subtlety of a carjacking.
D. Boon died in a van accident in 1985, way WAY too soon for humanity. Between today’s Day of Action in Chicago, a never-ending Presidential election, political instability at home and abroad, and the continuing struggles between the haves and have-nots, the atmosphere the Minutemen raged against in the 1980s hasn’t gone away. This is the kind of band that would have given the lie to Corporate Pop and its top-down ziplocked smiley-happy Carpool Karaoke nonsense. As it is, we have Double Nickels on The Dime What Makes a Man Start Fires? to point the way.
So light your torch, take your MP3 player, press the "shuffle" button, and share the first 10 songs that play:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Tom Wilson Edition
(photo from The Daily Beast)
This week we wish a posthumous Happy Birthday to Tom Wilson, a key figure in ‘60s music who made brief but permanent marks as a member of that most precarious of occupations in the record industry, the producer.
From an artistic perspective, most producers at best take care of the business end of things while staying out of the way and letting the musicians work. The best ones, however, have the ability to put the right pieces together at the right time to make magic on tape.
Many “name” producers are known for working with a specific band (George Martin) or cultivating a specific sound (Phil Spector). But few can match Wilson’s eclectic and forward-thinking catalog. Hailing from Texas, he got his start by founding a jazz label that produced the debut albums of Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor. Wilson would go on to contribute to the early work of several landmark artists of the 1960s including Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, The Animals, The Velvet Underground, Nico, and Frank Zappa’s band The Mothers of Invention. Some of the artists were recording their first albums, others were transitioning from folk and roots music into more amped-up electric sounds.
It’s probably the fact that he died young and most of his work was with artists who had yet to become icons that he’s not hailed as one of the “super-producers” of his day. There’s little doubt that many of the Sounds of the ‘60s would be different had he not come along.
In Mr. Wilson’s honor, take your MP3 player, press the "shuffle" button, and share the first 10 songs that play:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Grant Hart Edition
(photo from Blurt)
Today we wish a Happy Birthday to Grant Hart, drummer, singer and co-songwriter for seminal Rock band Hüsker Dü. Slamming into the hardcore scene with SST records, the band’s mid-‘80s trio of albums (Zen Arcade, New Day Rising, and Flip Your Wig) are about as close as you can get to required listening for anyone interested in the style. Those records left a permanent impression even as the band later moved into more melodic directions that would influence Alternative and “College” Rock groups from the Pixies to Nirvana to those guys making all that noise in the garage down the street.
Hart later struck out on his own, switching to guitar and forming the band Nova Mob as well as working as a solo artist. But there’s no question that the group he started with is on the short list of “Bands That Really Need to Get Together for a Reunion While Everyone Is Still Alive.” While tensions have been high among the group members post-breakup, it seems that there may be a recent thawing of relations. In the next few years, look for rumors to build about a possible get-together which, if it ever became a reality, would be something special.
Let’s wish the good Mr. Hart a happy birthday by pressing the “shuffle” button on your MP3 player and sharing the first 10 songs you hear:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Bruce Watson Edition
Photo Source: DaBelly Magazine
Today we celebrate the birthday of Bruce Watson, lead guitarist and longtime member of the band Big Country. While they never dominated the US charts, they had a few international hits while building a solid following in the UK and Europe with a rustic yet punkish Rock sound. It was also a very Scottish sound, courtesy of Watson’s guitar which sounded like a bagpipe fused with a mandolin. The piercing hooks helped define songs like “Fields of Fire (400 Miles),” “Wonderland,” and one of the all-time ‘80s-est of ‘80s tracks “In A Big Country.”
The band released eight studio albums before the death of lead singer Stuart Adamson, who succumbed to alcoholism. Despite the tragedy and a few lineup changes, Bruce and the band remains together and continues to perform and tour. Let’s honor Watson and Big Country’s ability to keep on keepin’ on: Take your MP3 player, press the "shuffle" button, and share the first 10 songs that play:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Martin Chambers Edition
[Photo from Fanphobia.net]
It’s once again time to give the drummer some as we wish Happy Birthday to Martin Chambers of The Pretenders. Chambers gave up his job as a driving instructor in London upon meeting with singer Chrissie Hynde, a transplant from Akron, OH working at the music paper NME, and forming a new group that instantly clicked as soon as he got behind the skins. As a Punk-flavored Rock band with the Pop skills to appeal to general audiences with songs like “Brass in Pocket,” “Message of Love,” and “Talk of the Town,” The Pretenders were perfect for the first wave of bands that provided MTV with sound and pictures.
However, the group was twice struck by tragedy early on as guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bass player Pete Farndon both died of drug overdoses as the band was approaching the top of its game. Nonetheless, a brief late ’80s-early ‘90s hiatus from the group notwithstanding, Chambers has kept the faith and helped keep the band going with Hynde all these years. Give the man props by pressing the “shuffle” button on your MP3 player and sharing the first 10 songs you hear…