Welcome to the third week’s selection of songs for the Isolation Room Listening Booth playlist, as selected by RPM-ers weekending Friday 10th April. This time in reverse order of submittal (the first shall be last and the last shall be first), it’s over to……..
Dave – “Here’s my 3………”
Mysteries by Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H9HKDQhHDM
Infected by The The
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkUxx1Por7g
M1 A1 by Gorillaz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sonuWWpHs54
Dave asked if his son Aiden (who’s 11) could let us know what he’s been listening to this week……
Of course, so over to………
Aiden - “….3 faves listening to this week.”
Mutual Slump by DJ Shadow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-HVgnOI3HY
Subspecies of an American Day by Damon Albarn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AayEWoaLSPI
Stand Together by Beastie Boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imXOfBSMguA
Sal –“Here are my three tracks...”
Darkness Falls by The The
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MhlBxnUd5Y
The Snake and the Moon by Dead Can Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eQItnQv1lU
Indian Summer by Stereophonics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4eHP4YIOD4
Nina –“Here's my 3. I've been quite unmotivated this week, reflected in my choices………”
Angel by Massive Attack – “Mezzanine is 1 of my all-time favourite albums…..ever!”
Dog Days Are Over by Florence & the Machine – “…….for when I need an audio kick up the bum!”
All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Bauhaus – “Dark, brooding deliciousness. Gotta luv the goths.”
Jean – “I’m truly amazed that there are so many people out there moaning they are bored. If they loved music and had an interest like RPM, they wouldn’t have enough time in the week to get their selections sorted out let alone be bored!
I’m rushing now and have only just decided which tracks I want to be played. There is a mini-theme and it’s: ‘This music takes me back to a time and place in my life that was special.’
Reach Out, I’ll Be There by The Four Tops - Four Tops Greatest Hits,1966, Tamla Motown. “Memories of going to the Regent Dance Hall, Brighton on a Saturday night in 1966 with my mate Terri and hearing this record for the first time.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnih1-VX74M
Westward Wind by England Dan and John Ford Coley – Nights are Forever, 1976, Warner Bros. “Toronto, Canada, Annual Exhibition on the Lakeside in August 1976 and seeing the duo make their debut as support for the main star, Neil Sedaka. (The Album was my Mystery Album in November 2015).”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ-5aX6L6zI
Losing You by Dusty Springfield – Golden Hits, 1964, Philips. “Talk of the Town (London Nightclub) December 1972 for a Stockbrokers Christmas Staff Party (those were the days when they paid for everything during the evening). Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected the star act to be on that night but Dusty was and gave a great performance (despite some of the brokers not being interested).”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GebNX7OYxyM
John –“Here are my selections for this week…..”
Heatwave by Joan Osborne and the Funk Brothers – “During last week I read the book 'Standing In The Shadows Of Motown' and I also watched the film (again!).This is from the soundtrack.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTKFR3ra2ts
You and Your Sister by This Mortal Coil – “Over the weekend I also read a book about 23 Envelope; the design duo responsible for most of the record sleeves by artists on the 4AD label. My weekend listening was very much influenced by this....”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLMqL23GbeI
Listen To The Music by The Doobie Brothers – “It's what we do at RPM!!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3ta4T9tIUM
Jayne – “Greetings to all RPM contributors. I trust everyone is sane, safe and healthy. This week has been a quiet one………”
The Eternal Kansas City by Van Morrison from A Period of Transition.
“Reminds me of bowling along in our white VW Beetle singing along to this on cassette, trying (and failing) on more than one occasion to get the timing of the opening acapella section right………”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOSFoXOdKKA
Homelands by Nitin Sawney
“His work’s always interesting and worth a listen…..”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut5tmVJGrL4
Those Feelings by Matthew Herbert from Scale
“Electronica and extreme sampling (Sampledelia?). For example, 635 objects were used to record the album of which very few are musical instruments and some that are were subject to performance/sound-altering experiences e.g.drums were recorded underwater, in a hot air balloon and in the back of a car driving at 100 mph, then sampled.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5wWV9XbokY
Tony –“Here are my Week 3 selections for the isolation room. Again, no theme just stuff that I've been listening to and revisiting over the past week……..”
Need Your Love So Bad performed Little Willie John – “Further to Alan's piece on original versions of covered songs, this is the original of a song which has been covered by many but never surpassed.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFo7Z2fKTVk
Slippery People by Talking Heads – “I've selected an extract from Talking Heads film 'Stop Making Sense' which was itself used in a 2013 feature length film about backing singers called "Twenty Feet from Stardom" and features Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holts' on backing vocals and choreography.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFS2oz-i3Ik
Papa Was A Rolling Stone performed The Temptations – “……….always reminds me that my own daddy made it easy for me to remember his passing by slipping away on 3rd September. This video is memorable for many reasons not least the outrageous stage outfits and choreography. It was also filmed at the height of popularity of the Afro hairstyle which never caught on in Her Majesty's Navy…….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXiQtD5gcHU
“RIP John Prine and Bill Withers”.
Philip –“Well I had this all figured out and then Bill Withers went and died, so I thought again. Then we had the news on Tuesday about John Prine, so I thought yet again. Here are three John Prine numbers as a tribute to a great songwriter who was never "The New Dylan" but always the one and only John Prine, much loved by all accounts by fellow artists including people who have come to prominence in the 21st century (Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, producer Dave Cobb, Brandi Carlile, and Dan Auerbach to name just a few) not just as a songwriter and performer, but as a person.”
It's A Big Old Goofy World by John Prine – “1991- from album "The Missing Years".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAfFnB7Yxn8
In Spite of Ourselves by John Prine – “1999 duet with Iris Dement - title track of album of duets with female singers... there is also a video of the actor Kevin Bacon performing this with his wife Kyra Sedgwick this week as a tribute, which is worth a look”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OM3tvIrbqU
When I Get To Heaven by John Prine – “2018- the last track on his final album, "The Tree of Forgiveness," a track from which album I played a few months ago at the RPM club”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaDGYFNmtyY
Piers –“My selection for the week…..”
‘Brennisteinn’ by Sigur Ros - “The single from their ‘Pop’ album ‘Kveik', An album which, in the Icelandic music press, was commended by Christian Cottingham (11 June 2013) for its lack of commercialism. Though some hard-core fans boycotted the album as they considered it an ‘abject sell-out’. However, sell-out or not, it sold better than the previous 6 albums! The release of this single also marked the departure of two members of the ‘trio’ Sveinsson and Dýrason, leaving Sigur Ros as a ‘solo act’ featuring Jónsi" Birgisson and Georg “Goggi” Holm, (plus a handful of other regular members)… Trio with 6 members, Solo act with 2, I know! It’s only Icelandic Rock n Roll!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaAp0ioAQEM
“If that made your head ache…..this is easier…..”
Tobacco Road by Spooky Tooth – “……..Just great R n’ R.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6wQsZofmMY
Be My Chauffeur performed by Erin Harpe – “…….and this week I have downloaded a couple of albums by Erin Harpe… This is her version of Memphis Minnie’s ‘Be My Chauffeur’. Alan may approve of the fact I first heard this song played on an early album by Jefferson Airplane…...”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w6qjg-1j-w
Morra –
Dey Don’t Do Dat T’day performed by Billy Boyle and Company– “…..from Lionel Bart & Alun Owen’s musical Maggie May.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrw3_nYHCkc
Me and My Gin performed by Dinah Washington
Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells
Alan –“Last week’s selection got me thinking about places we regularly went to see bands and, in the early eighties, it was Retford's Porterhouse. Yup, it used to be a steakhouse before it became a regular venue for 'up and coming' bands, or even those on the way down too!!! Downstairs, i.e. upstairs on the first floor, was the 'disco'..... not to be broached by the 'cool' gig goers who sneered as they (we) went past the door to the upstairs, top floor sweat box! Capacity was supposed to be less than 400 but when Soft Cell played a Saturday/Sunday weekender over 600 were shoe-horned in each night!!! So, here's three of those we saw. Unfortunately, Sue's nephews band remained unsigned despite being the regular support, headlining their own gigs there and playing as far afield as Nottingham and Scarborough.”
Independence Day by Comsat Angels – “…..14.11.1980”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y2_v6FyoJE
Motorbike Beat by The Revillos - “…..19.10 1979. (Just outside the 80's but.... hey, ho!)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKaIvuUNJnw
Legion by Theatre of Hate – “……date not known but pre 1983”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAC4QRK6b5Q
Tim – An inadvertent Tom Petty theme this week………..I’ve been reading a couple of books I picked up in Richard Thompson’s 2nd cousins bookshop in Wymondham a while back; “Petty: The Biography” by Warren Zanes which is ok for early background, but written in a slightly annoying hip-muso-journalist style and is too interested in band inter-relationships / breakdowns for my liking and “Conversations With Tom Petty” by Paul Zollo, which, as you’d expect from the title, is a series of transcribed interviews focusing more on the music and how it all came together, which for me was way more interesting. So, guess what the soundtrack for the week has been………? Here are some high points……. complete with titles to reflect our current predicament, no less.
The Waiting by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – A typical Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers track that I can’t get “outta my head” and opener for 4th album Hard Promises. This album was always going to struggle to compete with previous release Damn The Torpedos which is simply a perfect album. Video version just for Rickenbaker guitar drool factor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg
Don’t Fade On Me by Tom Petty – Acoustic track from Petty’s second solo release, Wildflowers. If I was only allowed one Tom Petty album it would be Wildflowers. Damn The Torpedos is his bands’ best rock ‘n’ roll album, but as a more diverse body of great song writing, this is the one! It’s been recorded so well, too……….the drum-sound throughout the LP is killer and the acoustic guitar sounds as though Tom’s in the room right with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKUBlwVgVYc
You And I Will Meet Again by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Petty and the Heartbreakers in strummy Byrds-ian mode…….just such uplifting music from the Into The Great Wide Open LP.