Monthly Archives: July 2013

My iPod #101: Guttermouth – Black Enforcers

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Hi everybody.

I’m not a huge fan of Guttermouth, but it was their song in “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3” – which I’ll dedicate a post to later on – that got me interested in them. Particularly the album “Covered with Ants”, the album that song is on. I had good times with THPS3, burying the bully in Canada, being really excited when I managed to grind the molten bucket in Foundry, and the soundtrack is one of the best in any game ever. It’s a must buy – even if it’s for the PS2.

I was nine years old around the time and I really wanted to listen to that the track on my computer so I tried to search for it in the Guide section on an old version of Windows Media Player. It wasn’t there. This song was though. I liked it, it rocked. Even though it was only a minute and ten seconds long. But it just wasn’t the same as “Destroying the World”. The chorus didn’t compare and it was probably too short for me to really get into it.

Do you know how hard it was to find songs to listen to on demand all those years ago? I didn’t know what Napster or Limewire was, there was no YouTube or Spotify to go to. I had to deal with 30 second clips on random music sites, that was the closest I could listen to “Destroying the World”. It was also the way I heard “Cram It Up Your Ass” for the first time, which is the funniest yet disturbingly creepiest song on the album.

Thanks to Spotify I was able to listen to “Covered with Ants” last year, and “Black Enforcers” stood out for me. It’s the penultimate track on the album, and another song with a really angry sounding riff. Makes me want to punch a wall. And shout at something. You know that episode of The Simpsons when Homer joins that secret society “The Stonecutters” and he starts singing the theme song with Lenny and Carl and everyone else. Well, this is the theme song for the “Black Enforcers” where if you don’t know the rules…. then you don’t know the rules and the original members have ‘got no pity on you’. The song absolutely rocks, the only problem I have with it is the bass. Where is the bass? It’s like they completely mixed it down, you’re not The White Stripes for goodness sake. I’m just saying the presence of a bass might have added an extra something.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #100: The Beatles – Birthday

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HEY EVERYONE. IT’S JUST GONE PAST FIVE O’CLOCK, AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.

YES. IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE THE 100th POST OF “MY IPOD”. YES.

I’ve really accomplished in life now.

And what a great way to commemorate it too, with one of the loudest songs on “The Beatles” where Paul celebrates your birthday… as well as his own. I never knew about “Birthday” until it appeared in a trailer for “The Beatles: Rock Band” in 2009. The ‘dreamscape’ for the song in the game is the video above. Although it was written at a time when relations between the band members were starting to deteriorate – It is the only song on “The Beatles” where Paul and John share lead vocals. John sings lower harmony. Paul still managed to come up with this hard rocker, belting out high notes at the top of his chest voice.

Along with “Helter Skelter”, it’s a song where Paul can’t seem to control himself and goes all out on his performance. He takes charge of guitar while George plays bass and if you listen carefully during the drum break, you can here him screaming the measures in the background and he sings quietly during the instrumental break. But seeing as it is his song, one that he and John made up on the spot apparently, he should be allowed to do what he wants. The song also features Yoko Ono and George’s first wife, Pattie Boyd on background vocals.

Enjoy the song, enjoy this momentous occassion. 100 posts, get in.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #99: They Might Be Giants – Birds Fly

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“Birds Fly” is another They Might Be Giants song, penned by John Flansburgh, which is also found on the “Miscellaneous T” compilation – something I talked about only three days ago. For me, it has the same back story as “The Biggest One”. I began to listen to their discography in 2011, found “Miscellaneous T” and downloaded the tracks.

“Birds Fly” is a jazzy number with a walking bassline, background vocals akin to a barbeshop quartet and blocks as the percussion. It makes the song sound very pleasant, light and very easy to listen to. It sounds like it’s about someone who’s arrested by the police for driving recklessly though. I guess you can say it’s got that “Maxwell Silver Hammer” thing going on, with the happy music and the… more serious lyrics.

The song was originally going to be released as a B-side to the “Purple Toupee” single. That was never released though. But it does show that it recorded during the sessions for “Lincoln”. It is very similar to “Lie Still, Little Bottle”, in so many ways in fact that I think it would have been a shoe in on the album if the band thought “Lie Still” wasn’t good enough.

Enjoy it.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #98: They Might Be Giants – Birdhouse in Your Soul

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Here it is, They Might Be Giant’s biggest song. Commercially anyway. This, “Istanbul” and “Boss of Me” were their only songs to chart in the UK. Shows how much we know about music. I’m only joking, we know quite a bit about music. It’s a shame we just never appreciated this band as much.

I’ve just woken up from a nap so please excuse any spelling mistakes, or anything that clearly doesn’t make any sense.

They Might Be Giants released “Birdhouse in Your Soul” as the first single from their major label debut, “Flood”. The song, from the perspective a ‘blue canary’ night-light who ‘watches over you’ in your sleep. Not in any strange kind of way, but to guard you from the demons and monsters of the night. Like a guardian angel, it’s always near.

Now I don’t know what affect the song had on people when it was initially released in 1990. I still had another five years to go until I was born, but judging from the stats I see on Wikipedia and TMBW it helped the band gain a bigger following of fans after reaching top ten positions in the UK and in the US Modern Rock chart in the US.

When I was younger and started listening to They Might Be Giants, I knew that I’d heard the song from somewhere. Perhaps in an advert, or it played in the background of a TV show or something. But I didn’t know it was the band who sung it. I watched the video on Yahoo’s LAUNCHcast website, and it made me like the song even more. The weird zombie children, the random bike riding around the band, the choreography, it’s nice to see the band in one of their music videos too.

If you want to listen to the demo from Dial-a-Song, here it is.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie

My iPod #97: Pezz (Billy Talent) – Bird in the Basement

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“Bird in the Basement” is the title of this song by Billy Talent when they were in their Pezz phase, but the phrase doesn’t appear at all. It’s not sung by anyone, no one in the studio says it or anything. It’s the same for the rest of the songs on the album. Maybe it’s a phrase that only the members of the band are able to get. They probably won’t play any of “Watoosh!” any time soon though, so we’ll never know.

I mentioned how I came to own “Watoosh!” in my post for “Absorbed”, the last track of the album. However, I knew about the album since I was about ten years old. A Billy Talent fan uploaded the songs on their fan site but they were in terrible quality, and were eitther in wma or wav files. I just didn’t listen to this song until my sister bought the album for me in 2009. I think the link for it was broken.

As for the meaning of the song, it’s quite hard to say. I’m thinking it’s about a relationship where the couple feel that ‘everything is fake’ around them even though to other people, they are the problem. They are oblivious to the whole situation though, and look forward to sticking with one another when everything turns to crap.

This is my one hundredth post. Hooray! To anyone who reads this, thank you. You are the reason why I feel like I haven’t been wasting my time since February, when I started this thing.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.