The Daily 5

I currently have 14145 songs in my itunes folder. I randomly update my ipod every few days....the last 5 songs I’ve listened to while playing on random:


5. The Beatles...A Hard Day’s Night: That opening chord, F or G, lets you know right from the start what it is. Great vocal by Lennon. My 3 year old son has been singing this song with me at night time because I don;t know that many kids songs. So I started singing this somewhere around Thanksgiving 07 at bed time and he picked the entire thing up within a week or so. Now, when it comes on over the stereo, he sings along. The song has taken on a new meaning for me with that. Everytime I hear it without him, I think of him.10/10
4. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers...Breakdown. Good ol’ Tom played the Superbowl this year. Tom kicks ass. He knows how to write a hit. This is one in a string of a couple of dozen great tracks by these guys. Great guitar, keyboards, and back up vocal harmonies on this one. When he opened up the Superbowl show with American Girl, I was stoked. That’s my favorite all time Tom Petty song, no matter how much my friends Becky and Jeremy make fun of me for being old and even knowing that song. They can bite my ass! 8/10
3. Pearl Jam...Once: The song kicks off their debut, Ten. Nice mellow Phil Collins "In the Air Tonight" thing going on to start it. Then the distorted guitar kicks in, drums and bass follow and the rest of the song kicks ass from there. I got lucky enough to see these guy open up for the Chili Peppers back in 91 or 92. It was in the fall, not long after Ten made its debut. I didn;t have it yet, nor did anyone I knew. I did have the Mother Love Bone disc and was a bit ambivalent about it. These guys played for about 35-40 minutes with intensity. Everything they had was being poured out on the stage and it showed. Looking back, I was there to see the Peppers, but these guys made much more of an impression that night. Eddie did his signature (at that time) stage dive that night into a crowd of about 15,000 and surfed out to the soundboard and back. The chili peppers show is on youtube now (check out this link) http://youtube.com/results?search_query=red+hot+chili+peppers+troy+ny&search_type= you get a sense that John isn;t giving a fuck about playing and things are already starting to unravel. The show was pretty damn good, but in hindsight, Pearl Jam was the band to be seen and I bought Ten the following day. 10/10
2. Rancid...Liecester Square: Now here’s a band I haven;’t seen and desperately want to. This is a great song to listen to with headphones to get the brilliance of it. It starts out with some really strong vocals by Lars and a single guitar. Drums, bass, guitar 2 and some great work on the toggle switch (ie. the headphones)...nice chorus, handclaps...the arrangement of this song is absolute genius. Matt Freeman’s bass is a bit slower than usual and he still manages to run up and down the neck...There’s a bare simplicity to the song, but just enough there to really shine. One of their best! 10/10

1. Pink Floyd...An Colour You Like: This is off Dark Side of the Moon. Great spacey bug out music. Song is carried nicely along by the bassline and kick drum, snare. Alien Keyboards...About a minute in the guitar starts up a little conversation...I wonder if this is where Steve Vai got the idea to try and make his guitar talk in the 80s...the sound patterns of the guitars sound exactly like conversation. Again, this is one of those songs I’ve heard a million times and until I really listened, I never noticed the sound signatures laid down on the track. 7/10
** this is definitely the best 5 songs I;ve had grouped together since I;ve started this jackass experiment.

Random 5

I currently have 14005 songs in my itunes folder. I randomly update my ipod every few days....the last 5 songs I've listened to while playing on random:

5. TV on the Radio...Province: This one starts off with some quiet guitar work and the drums out front. Weird vocals come on in..two singers? Pretty weird stuff...I wasn't a big fan of these guys when I bought the cd last summer. I saw the video for "Wolf Like Me" one morning before work. Catchy song. Bought the cd a few months later. Didn't like it. It grows on me more and more everytime I hear a track off of it. I like the sparse instrumentation on this one. Great arrangement. 7/10.

4. A Perfect Circle...Magdalena. The title of this one has me thinking of the old tanned lady with the saggy knockers in There's Something About Mary. Was that the character's name? Anyway. With Maynard singing, this one sounds like a Tool outtake. Tool's a force to be reckoned with. These guys are second rate. Not a bad song but it's a modern rock cliche. 5/10

3. Jimi Hendrix Experience...House Burning Down. Love the guitar solo to open this one up. Most solos come later in the song. Jimi gets right to the heart of things from the get go here. This song is about racial tension in the South. Great drumming by Mitch Mitchell as always. Interesting instrumentation on this one...the song's got several complex sections. A lot of changes all tied together by a repeating motif. 8/10

2. All Fall Down...Wonder. Great band out of Albany NY. Saw these guys a few times back in the day. Good energy live. You get a sense of it on this disc, but the low budget production doesn't quite bring it all the way home. These guys fall somewhere in the realm of melodic hardcore and pop punk. Whiny vocals, distorted guitars, simple drum patterns, and decent songwriting. This is not one of the best tracks off of this disc but typical of their overall sound. Nice guitar solo in this one and nice thrasing drum beat towards the end of the song. I remember seeing these guys once in Hudson, NY around Christmastime in the early 90's and one of their singers/guitarists, Keith, was rolling around on stage on a broken glass ornament on the stage saying, "We're punk rock now." It was pretty funny. 6/10

1. Red Hot Chili Peppers...Love Trilogy. A little reggae beat and riff to start off. The pace picks up slowly as the song progresses and Flea slaps the fuck out of his bass once this fucker picks up. It keeps getting faster and faster...got that Doors' Roadhouse Blues thing going on. Faster...faster....faster...Keidis's vocals are much more tolerable here as he's more punk and shouting and yelling than trying to sing when he can't sing a fucking note (ie...the last 2 or 3 albums). Best line of the song..."My love is my dick in my hand." 8/10