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Underground > Radio & Music >

Mixtape Jam #3

No star here laces

07:41 / 14.11.01

These are fun. I like 'em. Much easier than doing a real mixtape.

Intro: Reader's Digest Promotional Flexidisc

Can-can music fading out to be replaced by incredibly clipped BBC voice saying:
"Hello, this is Christopher Howell, and I'd like to welcome you to a great new way to discover the wonderful world of music with our 100 best melodies compilation"

Scritch-scratch-chirp-chirp-draaaaag

Sue Wilkinson - "You've got to be a hustler if you want to get on"

Minor early 80s hit (number 34 in the charts, I think) this is has a simple tinkling piano line the whole way through with occasional drum noises. Ms Wilkinson has a very 'proper' type of voice and a conversational singing style. The words are pure comedy:
"You remember Sally from number four? She always had boys, queueing up at her door. Mummy said Sally was loose and cheap and girls like that ended up on the street, not like me... I was good, you see."

The song goes on to tell of how Sally went on to acheive national fame through a scandal with a politician and then wrote her memoirs and became extremely rich. i.e You've got to be a hustler if you want to get on...

08:45 / 14.11.01

sounds like it should be followed up by something by pulp. jarvis has a multitude of great lyrics like that, and candida's synthpop noises are pretty 80s.

or disco classic do the hustle.

or john barry's theme from midnight cowboy.

or there's a couple of dionne warwick tunes that fit: do you know the way to san jose which talks about how hard it is to make it in hollywood, or message to michael, which is about a girl who lost her first love when he went to find fame & fortune, and she still loves him even though he never found it and never came back to her.

or nancy sinatra's version of on broadway, which has a little more *bite* than the drifters.

No star here laces

08:57 / 14.11.01

Well make up your mind, goddamit!

08:57 / 14.11.01

nah. i'll let whoever picks the next song choose

12:49 / 14.11.01

Neil Young's live, very electric version of On Broadway?

Nahh, that'd be mean.

I'll see your Nancy Sinatra, and raise you one Marianne Faithfull, doing her cover of the Beatles' I'm a Loser. Tambourine, quavering voice, very deadpan 60s pop arrangement. She sounds like Nico without the accent and with vocal training.

I've got it on a compilation of Beatles covers from Uncut magazine. I'm *very* fond of that collection.

No star here laces

13:07 / 14.11.01

I was thinking it'd be bad form to post twice to the same tape, but fuck it.

I see your Beatles cover and raise you a Tom Jones cover.

Willie Bobo - "It's not unusual"

Well, I say a Tom Jones cover, but this actually pre-dates ol' Tom, being a 1950s spanish jazz recording. It has a very latin, shuffling feel with Willie hamming it up on the vocal with an exaggerated Spanglish accent. Everybody who hears this tune loves it, it's so infectious and also smoochy, in a fun way.

13:19 / 14.11.01

[off thread]
have you heard bobo's funky sneakers?

"everybody loves my funky sneakers
remember yours? i'll bet they're still lyin' around in your closet somewhere"
[returning you to thread]

13:50 / 14.11.01

Please for the love of Christ NOT "On Broadway!" I can't tell you how much I loathe that song.

No Tom Jones covers, no!! "She's a Lady" all the way, with the snippet from the "Fear & Loathing Soundrack."

"30 minutes. It was going to be very close."

No star here laces

14:09 / 14.11.01

A slap on the wrist to Ms Bomb for not reading the rules as laid out by Dr Flyboy the headmaster.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:16 / 14.11.01

See, I was gonna point that out but then thought it would make me look too anal and control-freaky.

Um, because Kooky mentioned Pulp earlier, and cos I just think it'll fit well after the last one, number 5 is The Trees. Nice horns, classic hummable Pulp tune, great Jarvis lyrics... See the We Love Life thread for more info.

14:42 / 14.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Tyrone Mushylaces:
A slap on the wrist to Ms Bomb for not reading the rules as laid out by Dr Flyboy the headmaster.

Yow! You know, this is how I'd end up failing tests at school when I knew the subject matter, racing right through with my idea without bothering with the "dull stuff."

"...a bright child, who has the potential to do much better if she'd only take time to do her work properly."

Anyway... uh... I don't even know where the directions are. Can someone tell me and then I'll read them and play nicely.

Thanks!

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:05 / 14.11.01

From The Headmaster's notes...

quote:Since everyone has an equal share in this, please also refrain from posting "but that song SUCKS!" or "you've RUINED it!" messages. If you don't like the sound of a tape so far, you can always start a new one...

It's okay, just don't do it again...

15:08 / 14.11.01

Ok, well, triple posting now, found the first thread and have figured. Am all embarrassed for fucking the groove up!

Sorry.

But I'm going to tossup EITHER The Shirelles "Baby, It's You" on here, for the kind of ethereal "Shalalalalas" that clink and clang in the background of the song, OR this song (and dang if I can remember the name of the singer), called "Girl Don't Come"

The lyrics go
"You have a date
With her at 8 tonight
ANd all the stars are shinin' bright
You wanna see her
(cue super 60s horns)
You wanna SEE HER, Oh yeah
So you wait, you wait and wait
Girl Don't Come...

It has an excellent sixties doowop bop feel, with a velvet voiced lead singer.

Next person pick one, and have I figured the game out now?

20:46 / 14.11.01

"Girl Don't Come" was by Sandee Shaw. A true gem! She was part of the British mid '60s pop scene...hung with the Beatles, etc.

09:53 / 15.11.01

Thanks! Yes, my Dad really loves that song and used to play it a lot when I was youngster. There's something about it that is very haunting (think it's the voice) and very 60s (think it's the horns) at the same time.

This is the one.

09:53 / 15.11.01

Indeed, one of the all time sexy trombone intros...

09:53 / 15.11.01

Also deceptively profound lyrics about rejection. I think we've all been where this girl is.

(Totally HOT horn intro...)

...."You have a date for half past eight tonight
Some distant bell starts chimin' nine..

You want to see her
You want to see her

You had a date.
You've been stood up.
You don't know why.

Those tears will come
Your eyes won't dry...

You want to see her...
You want to see her...

Oh yeah...

And So you wait
And So you wait

But, girl don't come
Girl Don't come

(sexy horn solo...followed by plucked strings ending)

11:30 / 15.11.01

I always get the feeling the singer is either mocking the guy who got stood up, or is incredibly bitter about the way the guy dumped her for the girl who stands him up. It's in the way she screams, "You wanna SEE her, Oh YEAH!"

But let us move on with the tape, yeah?

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:21 / 14.01.02

God, this one seems screamingly obvious in retrospect:

7. Le Tigre - 'What's Yr Take On Cassavettes?'

Starts off as a pastiche of the intros to all those classic girl group songs like 'Leader Of The Pack', with someone in a phonebox (you can hear seagulls in the background, oddly), saying (in a bored/detached and yet nervous way):

"We've... talked about it in letters
And we've talked... about it on the phone
But... how you really feel... about it
I don't really know..."

Then it turns into a low-slung punk/new wave number, consisting of the title being chanted repeatedly, and then alternating shouts of things like "Misogynist!", "Genius!", "Alcoholic!" and, for some reason, "Hey, where's Gina?". Oh, and there are what sounds like barking dogs at the end. Don't ask why...

No star here laces

15:36 / 14.01.02

Hah. Going for the triple bill of me 'n Fly's picks on these things. Seeing as we're in nonsense mode, I'll add in Labi Siffre - "A collection of words" (at least I think that's the title - it's track three, side 2 on "The singer and the song"). It has an easy jazz-funk type groove, very understated and these funny stream-of-consciousness lyrics in Labi's unique style. Actually Labi Siffre ought to be some sort of patron saint of Barbelith in some ways...

19:42 / 14.01.02

To continue the nonsense theme, next is Blectum from Blechdom's 'Son Toe Fury', made up of fucked up, pitchshifted vocals telling the story of the son in de snaunted haus, a house full of one-holed rats called snauses, who have just bitten off all his toes in the fancy torture chamber... his mother is extremely annoyed that he is interrupting her needlepoint, which prompts him to reply, in classic annoying kid whine, "but i'm BLEEDING!" - it is very good, best concept album ever maybe...

06:00 / 16.01.02

Continuing the whole songs that tell odd stories thing is Frank Zappa with "Titties & Beer." A song about how, while hiking through the mountains with his big chested girlfriend, one night, the devil ate his girlfriend and his beer and how Mr. Zappa tries to trick the devil into giving them back. Set to a funk-type thing in the background.