j's indie/rock mayhem - 7th december 2005

[the excitement is palpable. you can taste it on your lips, your fingers, in the air you're drinking in it's so thick with anxious atoms. it's less than two weeks until the j's indie/rock mayhem top 25 albums of 2005. oh, dear. but this week was no exception to the excitement. played some great stuff left and right and even spent the last thirty minutes in a tribute to the birthday boy, tom waits. so hope you enjoy. onward.]

Theme Song - Peaches - "Rock Show"
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Danger Doom feat. Ghostface - "The Mask" [finally we got in the danger doom album. the hotly anticipated collaboration between mf doom and dangermouse. aside from its use as a shameless promotion for the adult swim cartoon lineup on cartoon network, it's a pretty sharp album. i especially like this track with ghostface (neé killah) of the wu-tang clan.]
Lush - "Single Girl" [from lush's, sadly, final album, 1996's lovelife. drummer chris aclund, tragically, committed suicide in the fall of '96 just as lush was finishing touring for this album, their most successful. click here to download.]
the Clash - "Clash City Rockers" [the lead track from the debut, self-titled album. rock, rock. clash city rockers.]
Devin Davis - "Turtle and the Flightless Bird" [from 2005's excellent lonely people of the world, unite! will it make the top 25? you'll have to see.]
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Dirty Three - "Doris" [couldn't stay away from this ripping yarn of a song. from their latest album cinder.]
Bob Dylan - "Queen Jane Approximately" [i have already decided what to name a daughter, should i ever have one. her middle name would be jane just so i could sing this song to her as an infant. is that sappy or what? from the mind-bogglingly perfect highway 61 revisited.]
Richard Buckner - "Lovin' Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)" [from the excellent nothing left to lose: a tribute to kris kristofferson album from 2002. this record is a stellar listen and, honestly, a great introduction to the lucid and fluid songwriting of kristofferson. it is obvious his work is quite universal. click here to download.]
Depeche Mode - "John the Revelator" [this is easily one of the best songs on the new playing the angel album. catchy, synthy, pulsing. everything depeche mode is when it's at its best.]
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Ryan Adams - "Night Birds" [another new song off the forthcoming 29 album due out in less than two weeks. you know the drill. click here to download it.]
Pavement - "Gold Soundz" [from one of the 90s most defining albums, crooked rain, crooked rain. there's no way to exactly quantify how important this album was to college rock and indie culture in general, but there's no mid point here: you either love this album or just don't get it.]
the Decemberists - "The Engine Driver" [by request. caller wanted to know if the decemberists had put out an album this year. well, yes, just about their best. from picaresque.]
PJ Harvey - "C'mon Billy" [i found a tape of one of my shows from early 2001 and i played this song from her stellar to bring you my love. it's a great stomping, acoustic of a song and i thought it had been too long since i'd played it.]
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Hard-Fi - "Tied Up Too Tight" [from the somewhat harder to find cash machine EP, these guys are one of the new british music press darlings. and they live up to the hype. "cash machine" is an even more hype song, but this is quite the real deal.]
Vic Chesnutt - "New Town" [after having met the man back in 2003, i finally got around to buying a vic chesnutt album earlier this year. about to choke was the first album he recorded after he got the recognition boost of the sweet relief II compilation of covers of his songs.]
Goldfrapp - "Slide In" [i usually don't go in for overtly dancey stuff, but i've always been intrigued by goldfrapp and certainly this sounds like what madonna would sound like if she were still relevant. deliciously slinky and sexy, from her latest album supernature.]
Hüsker Dü - "Never Talking to You Again" [by request. caller wanted to hear something off the new bob mould, but i couldn't dig it up. so classic huskers instead from the legendary zen arcade.]
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the Sea and Cake - "Sound + Vision" [a set of nothing but david bowie covers, starting with this from sea and cake's 2003 album one bedroom. a lovely, even more dancey version of the bowie classic from low. click here to download.]
the Replicants - "The Bewlay Brothers" [the replicants were a sort of super group, made up of paul d'amour (ex-tool) and greg edwards and ken andrews of failure, they recorded one album. nothing but covers, but infinitely enjoyable. this is a really smashing cover of the bowie classic from hunky dory.]
Dinosaur Jr. - "Quicksand" [from the whatever's cool with me EP, a really nice acoustic and bare version of another classic from hunky dory. click here to download.]
M. Ward - "Let's Dance" [the most radically re-worked of the four songs played. ward's slow, somber take on bowie's biggest 80s hit is a revelation. from the magnificent transfiguration of vincent. click here to download.]
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[december 7, 1949 was a great day for music. the birth of tom waits. and as i am a huge fan of 'the tom,' i decided to spend the last half hour exclusively with him. so happy birthday, mr. waits. thanks for all you do.]
Tom Waits - "Ol' 55" [i thought it fitting to start with the first song off his first album, 1973's closing time.]
Tom Waits - "House Where Nobody Lives" [i played this at a piano recital in college. did a really awful job of it, too. from 1999's mule variations.]
Tom Waits - "Jersey Girl" [from 1980's heart attack and vine.]
Tom Waits - "Johnsburg, Illinois"/"16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six" [these two songs lie back to back on his 1985 album swordfishtrombones and are too good to pass up. i love that album.]
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Tom Waits - "Cold Cold Ground" [i got into tom waits due to vh1's top 100 artists of rock and roll. i saw the bit on tom and it showed part of a live performance of this song. i was immediately drawn in. from 1987's franks wild years.]
Tom Waits - "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" [the ramones covered it to great effect, but the original is just fantastic. from 1992's frightening and gorgeous bone machine.]
Tom Waits feat. Crystal Gayle - "Take Me Home" [tom actually doesn't sing on this song, but plays piano underneath the lovely crystal gayle. this is from the incredibly moving one from the heart soundtrack. the entire album is waits and gayle trading off vocals, although sadly, they only do one actual duet (the amazing title track). i'm not too fond of the movie this was for, but it ranks as one of my absolute favorites waits albums.]

Thanks for reading. Tune in next week for the best songs of the year, best of the rest of 2005, christmas music and shirtless pictures of Scott Stapp threatening to fight everyone at my Quaker alma mater. Take care.

This show dedicated to Tom Fox and other peace missionaries held hostage in Iraq and across the globe. Wage peace, friends. Come home soon.