Tonight's compilation is the first collection of live recordings from Los Angeles radio station KCRW, called Rare On Air, Vol. 1. The album was released in 1994 and is made up of mostly acoustic tracks, all recorded live at KCRW's studios.



Total file size is ~149MB, album art is included. Right click and save:

Rare On Air, Vol. 1

1. Tori Amos featuring Leonard Cohen - Silent All These Years
2. John Cale - Cordoba
3. Peter Himmelman - Always In Disguise
4. Evan Dando with Juliana Hatfield - My Drug Buddy || (video (album version) @YT)
5. Michael Penn - Coal
6. X - Arms For Hostages
7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - God's Hotel
8. Beck - Mexico
9. Los Lobos - Peace
10. Lindsey Buckingham - Never Going Back Again
11. Mark Isham - The Moderns
12. Brendan Perry - The Captive Heart
13. Natalie Merchant - How You've Grown
14. Lucinda Williams - Which Will
15. David Wilcox - Chet Baker's Unsung Swan Song

My favorite songs are most of them, depeding on my mood. The standout track on the album has to be David Wilcox's "Chet Baker's Unsung Swan Song". It's a gorgeous and lyrical retelling of Chet Baker's suicide. I love to listen to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds performing "God's Hotel" because they're just pricelessly funny here. Beck's "Mexico" is also funny and fun to sing along to.

Notes:

1. I don't know why they didn't make it a separate track, but "Silent All These Years" is preceded by a short poem written and read by Leonard Cohen. It's from his first book of poetry Let Us Compare Mythologies.

Poem ("I heard of a man...")

I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.

If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips.
it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside the door.

2. The John Cale track is mislabeled "Corboda" on the CD, on KCRW's site and the Amazon listing for this album.
3. The original version of "Never Going Back Again" is on Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
4. The original version of "My How You've Grown" is on 10,000 Maniacs' Our Time in Eden.
5. K.D. Lang covers "Chet Baker's Unsung Swan Song" on her 1997 cover album Drag. It's retitled as "My Old Addiction".

Tags: 1990s, music
maybe he's caught in the mood: busy
he just sings whatever he's seen: The Shins - Caring Is Creepy

Total file size is ~166MB, album art is included. Right click and save:

Theodore: An Altnernative Music Sampler

1. Kate Bush - Be Kind To My Mistakes [Non-Album Cut]
2. Poi Dog Pondering - Bury Me Deep [Special Version]
3. The Rave-Ups - She Says (Come Around)
4. Social Distortion - Let It Be Me
5. Living Colour - Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution [Live]
6. Toad the Wet Sprocket - Come Back Down
7. O Positive - Overflow
8. The Psychedelic Furs - House [Long Version]
9. Public Enemy - Welcome To The Terrordome || video @YT)
10. Big Audio Dynamite - If I Were John Carpenter [Non-Album Cut]
11. Nuclear Valdez - Run Through The Fields
12. Indigo Girls - Kid Fears [Live] || video @YT)
13. Shawn Colvin - Shotgun Down The Avalanche [Live] || video @YT)
14. Big Dipper - Another Life
15. 3rd Base - Triple Stage Darkness
16. Prong - Your Fear

Released in 1990, Theodore: An Alternative Music Samper has an interesting mix of well known and obscure artists (even at the time it was released) and covers a variety of genres. I especially like that the producers weren't afraid to put disparate artists like Public Enemy and Kate Bush on the same album.

I love this album as a whole, but if you only download one song, it should be Shawn Colvin's live version of "Shotgun Down the Avalanche". I was never very interested in Shawn Colvin for some reason, but this live recording is something special. It's sparse and sharp, just her and her guitar, and her voice is flawless.

Notes:

1. Living Colour is covering Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution".
2. This CD suffers from "Six Degrees of Molly Ringwald" syndrome:

• The Rave-Ups (song number three on this cd) were Molly Ringwald's favorite band during her John Hughes period. She helped get them cast as the nightclub band in Pretty in Pink and she has the name of the band scratched into the cover of her notebook in Sixteen Candles.
  
• The Psychedelic Furs (song number eight) perform the title song from Pretty in Pink.
  

Tags: 1990s, music
maybe he's caught in the mood: busy
he just sings whatever he's seen: Lamb - One

So, I'm a total sucker for compilation albums. This is nothing new, it's been going on as long as I've had money to buy music. It's one of my primary means of finding new music, along with reading about new bands and nosing around the dark corners of the web for interesting recordings.

I've been listening to some of my old CDs recently, and in honor of that, I'm sharing my favorite compilations from the 1990s. Today's offering is The Edge of Rock, released in 1990.


Total file size is ~88MB, album art is included. Right click and save:

The Edge of Rock

1. Camper Van Beethoven - Pictures of Matchstick Men || (video @YT)
2. Lucinda Williams - I Just Wanted To See You So Bad
3. Dinosaur Jr - Just Like Heaven || (video @YT)
4. Winter Hours - Roadside Flowers
5. The Close Lobsters - Lovely Little Swan
6. Syd Straw - Future 40s || (video @YT)
7. Mary's Danish - Can I Have A Smoke, Dude? || (live video @YT)
8. Meat Puppets - Light || (video @YT)
9. The Lemonheads - Luka || (video @YT)
10. Wire - In Vivo || (video @YT)

Notes:
1. Camper Van Beethoven is covering Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men".
2. Dinosaur Jr. is covering The Cure's "Just Like Heaven".
3. The Lemonheads are covering Suzanne Vega's "Luka".
4. Michael Stipe is singing backup on Syd Straw's "Future 40s".

My favorite song on the disc is probably "Future 40s", but I might be biased because Michael Stipe is singing on it and I'm a huge R.E.M. fan. My least favorite is probably the Meat Puppets' "Light" because it's always just felt weak to me, though I think it's still a generally good song. I just have a take it or leave it relationship with it. This is an interesting mix of songs, and I wouldn't have thought to put them together on the same album, but they work for me. I find it really interesting that this was a K-Tel release.

Tags: 1990s, music
maybe he's caught in the mood: busy
he just sings whatever he's seen: Dinosaur Jr - Just Like Heaven

A few pictures of Portland, taken today.

As always, clicky little picture=big picture.


( Do you feel the urge to pee when looking at this photo? )

Tags: meme, pictures, portland
maybe he's caught in the mood: bitchy
he just sings whatever he's seen: William Shatner - Romeo and Juliet

(Note: You will probably be spoiled if you click the following Wikipedia links.)

I really liked Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Dearly Devoted Dexter was more of a meh book for me. But Dexter in the Dark? What was that crap?

What a way to kill the interesting uniqueness of Dexter, explaining everything to the point of making it boring. And the other plot elements, just bleh. I could have done without the tired ( spoiler ) A Dexter novel is not really where I expect or need to see this plot contrivance explored.

Thank bats I didn't pay for the privelege of reading that utter drivel, Jebus. Good thing the TV series veers off in a different direction, because I sure as hell don't want to watch the plot of this book.

Tags: dexter
maybe he's caught in the mood: aggravated
he just sings whatever he's seen: Massive Attack - Black Milk

( My card is actually not as explicit as I'd wanted, can you imagine that?! )

Tags: kink
maybe he's caught in the mood: sleepy
he just sings whatever he's seen: Crowded House - In The Lowlands

Listen to some mp3s, my child.



Two questions:

1. Why?!?
2. Can I use it to fend off vampires while enjoying some choice tunes?

ETA: And can we get some Holy Perrier up in the Lord's Hizz-ouse while we're at it? (With lemon, of course.)

Tags: wtf
maybe he's caught in the mood: confused
he just sings whatever he's seen: Rising Sun - Haze

Watching everybody and their cousin sign up for kink_bingo made me want to play, too. I've read things so perverted they'd make the devil blush, so I might as well make use of all that crazy, filthy, dirty porn locked away in my head. Dust off a few tropes and treasures of the Usenet era and polish them until they shine like kinky little jewels, hopefully. #^__-#

Tags: kink, porn
maybe he's caught in the mood: dirty
he just sings whatever he's seen: Afro Celt Sound System - Even In My Dreams