Sunday, February 19, 2012

No blogging on a Sunday.

See you Monday!

Saturday, February 18, 2012: Jeannie C. Riley - Harper Valley P.T.A.

We started out the week sticking it in the eye of all the small minded morons in the world.

Seems like a great way to end the week as well.

Remember, everyone, it is better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Friday, February 17, 2012: Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows (Live)

Leonard Cohen (yet another Canadian, from Montreal, Quebec this time) has a new album out. It's getting a lot of buzz.

Maybe because this cat is a legend. And he is also 77 years old.

Slate.com says that Leonard Cohen writes better lyrics than anyone. Including Bob Dylan.

It's hard not to disagree.

Here's some pretty convincing proof.

Thursday, February 16, 2012: Roxy Music - Love Is The Drug

If this blog is about Cool Songs, why haven't I blogged Roxy Music yet?

No clue.

Here you go.

Off their fifth album Siren (1975) and their only US top 40 hit.

God Bless Roxy Music.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012: Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane

Lots of Canadians this week on CSOTD. Which is always a good thing.

Yesterday we had Canadian Singer-Songwriters Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet (AKA "Whitehorse"), and for today is Toronto based alternative country/blues/folk rock band Cowboy Junkies.

From their 1988 album, The Trinity Sessions, this entire album was recorded at Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity on November 27, 1987, with the band circled around a single microphone.

It was a $9,000 Calrec Ambisonic Microphone, not some Radio Shack special, mind you, but that's still amazing nonetheless.

Channeling the spirit (and the music) of the Velvet Underground, here's the coolest of cool covers for your hump day.

Enjoy.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012: TWOfer Tuesday - The "Sweet And Sour" Edition

Valentines Day.

I hate Valentines Day, I really do.

There are many reasons for this, but probably my biggest gripe is the commodification of love. It's not even about turning something like Love into a for-profit enterprise (though there is that), but more important, it is about diminishing the vast landscape of love to something simple and manageable so it can be bought and sold.

Love. It's so much more than just hearts and flowers and chocolate. Someone once told me the opposite of love isn't hate - the opposite of love is indifference. You can love someone, and absolutely hate them at the same time. It is near impossible to love someone, and still be indifferent to them.

Valentines day, however, drains all that complexity away and just gives us the hearts and flowers and chocolate. It's a drag. Well, no fear, gentle reader, CSOTD is here to rectify this sad situation. We are going to give you both the sweet and the sour this Valentines day.

First up is an absolute stunner of song. When aliens land and begin to be exposed to our culture, I can only hope that You And Me by Penny & The Quarters is one of the very first songs they listen to. Then take it back to their home planet so that pure love and pure soul may reign throughtout the universe.






So sweet. Now for the sour. Sometimes relationships don't always end up with hears and flowers and chocolate. From the ridiculously talented Luke Doucet & Melissa McClelland, here is a song about that as well.

Monday, February 13, 2012: Josie Cotton - Johnny Are You Queer

Magnet Magazine has a pretty good interview with Josie Cotton regarding the origins of this forever 80's classic (Valley Girl Soundtrack, anyone?)

But, her version breaks down like this.

From that interview: "Forged in the L.A. club scene’s punk-rock underground of the late ’70s, the origins of “Johnny, Are You Queer?” are murky at best. No one can seem to agree about the details, but here’s the story as I understand it. Punk band Fear was the first to perform a version of the song live. They made no mention of any Johnny character...

Enter Bobby and Larson Paine, two guys straight out of Philly—kind of cowboys, kind of marketing-genius types—who had discovered the Go-Go’s at their first gig at the Masque...the Paine brothers [rewrote the song and] had the Go-Go’s perform it in their live show. It became the band’s big song, erupting in total anarchy at the end of the night."

After the Paine Brothers and the Go-Go's parted ways, they were shopping around looking for a singer for "Johnny Are You Queer".

Josie Cotton: "I lobbied hard just to be able to sing on the publishing demo the Paines made for Warner Bros... I had to agree it would be a one-time thing because they were going to find the perfect girl later. Bobby finally told Larson to just let me sing it. It was only a demo. What harm could it do?

The L.A. press never quite forgave me for absconding with “Johnny, Are You Queer?” There was a common misconception that I had somehow stolen the song from the Go-Go’s. I didn’t. "

And thus a classic one-hit wonder was born.

Johnny Are You Queer is one of those great songs where so many different people can get such different responses. On top of the fervent socio-policital/religious/cultural lashings and backlashings upon release, now almost 30 years later* we can add nostalgia as a response as well. But in a good way.  This track manages to retain both its pop-punkish 80's vibe that so many try to copy but usually get totally wrong (think Fountains Of Wayne and you're very close) but also manages to be slightly off-kilter and up front enough to still generate a slightly uncomfortable undercurrent. You can dance to it, but you are still looking around just to make sure everyone else is dancing with you, and not staring at you with knives in their eyes and arms folded in rebuke.

The final word goes to Ms Cotton: "For the record, it was my supreme honor to be the girl who got to stick it in the eye of all the small-minded morons of the world. They owned the word “queer” back then. They kept it in the back of their pickups or in the locker room, to haul out when someone just didn’t look right. Where I grew up, if a guy looked the slightest bit interesting, he was often called a queer. Even if they didn’t say it out loud, there was this look they gave; you could see the pure hate in their eyes."

Here's to sticking it in the eye of all the small-minded morons of the world.

What a great way to start the week.

* HOLY VANISHING DECADES, BATMAN, 30 YEARS?  REALLY?