Soundtrack For Positive Reinforcement, Vol. 220
1. Sheila Nicholls, Brief Strop
Selected Track:
Fallen for You
Notes: If it weren't for cinema I don't know what I'd do with myself. Lately I've been coming across lots and lots of great tunes included in films. Secretly (oh well, the word's out), I'd love to do music for film, or simply choose music for inclusion in films. I came across Sheila Nicholls via "High Fidelity," Nick Hornby's book turned feature film, starring John Cusack (with many other great performances). I loved it. I don't actually remember the tune above from the film, but I did pick up the soundtrack recently. I've found rather quickly that people either very much like, or very much hate, Sheila Nicholls' work. The critics, many of them, have not been kind. I'll defend her. I like her because she's honest, all of her. And also, I'm a sap. And some day, I will dye my hair blue.
Location: I was singing it on Little Willey's and various other locales. I must add that tunes with "fall" in them... not the best mental imagery when climbing.
2. The Beatles, 1967-70
Selected Track:
Lady Madonna
Notes: How can anyone compete with these guys? And have you ever heard Stanley Jordan play "Eleanor Rigby"? Or his version of Hendrix' "Angel"? Same album: "Magic Touch." Do it.
Location: Radio. Crawford Notch pullout, much drizzle. Dour was the operative word.
3. The Pretenders, Learning to Crawl
Selected Track:
Back on the Chain Gang
Notes: Chrissy Hynde is tough. Did anyone see her on the VH-1 Fashion Awards show a few years ago (I was channel-hopping, okay?)? Schoolgirl plaid skirt. Thigh-high stockings. Sneer. Stickin' it in the camera. Still. The woman rocks. I saw a quasi-unplugged show where she talked about her tunes and performed them with a small group. "Kid" is a beautiful, sad tune that I always liked, but it never really touched me the way it did when I heard her do it that night. I think music, and particularly the way it is received, how it can evolve for the musician and the listener from performance to performance, is quite special that way.
Location: Radio. In the car, twice.
4. Sammy Cahn & Jule Styne, various
Selected Track:
I Fall in Love Too Easily
Notes: One of the most recorded standards ever. I didn't recognize the vocalist, who sang the tune very, very slowly. You need to play this one blue. Chet Baker knew how.
Location: Radio. Nereledge Inn, breakfast room, day two.
5. Nico, Chelsea Girl
Selected Track:
These Days
Notes: Another tune I heard in a film: "The Royal Tenenbaums." Don't get me started. Nico looked like she belonged in a wax museum and sounded like a robot, but there was some good stuff. Jackson Browne wrote it, many, many bands have covered it. The guitar on this original is perfect. Al played me the version he learned, which was recorded by Tom Rush.
Location: Everywhere. I'm always singing this tune.
6. Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, various
Selected Track:
Happy Trails
Notes: Heard Van Halen do it? You can smell the Jack Daniels coming off the record player (for those of you who remember what one of those is).
Location: Rappelling Little Willey's. I had a very, very high intensity sort of vaudeville shout chorus going, too. You are fortunate to have been elsewhere. Except for you, Brian.
7. G. Love and Special Sauce, G. Love and Special Sauce
Selected Track:
Cold Beverage
Notes: He is the man. Mr. Love has the spice.
Location: Sung at a gas station on 302 on the way to I-93 South. Citrus Gatorade. Hit the spot. I was pretty dry by the end of the trip.
8. Neil Young, Harvest
Selected Track:
Old Man
Notes: I was in Salt Spring, British Columbia, in August of 2001, sitting in a little pub, listening to a folk/bluegrass trio who were making the circuit on the island. They played lots of John Prine and kindly did their best to honor requests, though they were good enough to simply play for themselves. They even allowed a very tipsy woman to sit next to them for a couple of hours and noisily attempt to play the spoons, even though the few of us listening wanted to take those spoons from the drunk bat and put them... somewhere else. Late into the evening the three men broke into the tune above, and the aging leader seemed to know what he was singing about.
Location: Radio. In the car, on the way to Crawford Notch. I don't remember which time.
9. Primus, Sailing the Seas of Cheese
Selected Track:
Jerry Was a Race Car Driver
Notes: Les. Ler. Brain. If you haven't, you oughta. Oysterhead is pretty cool too.
Location: Sung coming down Webster, upon witnessing Brian's luge accident(s).
10. Queen, Hot Space; Live Killers
Selected Tracks:
Under Pressure
Keep Yourself Alive
Notes: Queen was the first rock and/or roll band I ever listened to, if you don't count Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, or any of the '50s stuff or Stephen Bishop I grew up on via my mother's LP collection. I had a bunch of Queen on 8-track. I was maybe 10. Roger Taylor seemed like a cool drummer. Freddie Mercury had immense teeth. Brian May built his own guitars. John Deacon had a cool name and curly hair. I didn't have very many friends.
Location: Radio. In the car, on the way to Manchester airport.
11. The Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime
Selected Track:
Wild Wild Life
Notes: I have a very funny David Byrne story involving body odor, youthful obliviousness, a puppet show and a girl with a tattoo on the small of her back, but I'm not going to tell it here.
Location: Radio. Outside McDonald's, Manchester, NH. The mean streets of Manchester. Where all the wild stuff goes down.
12. Rush, Moving Pictures
Selected Track:
Limelight
Notes: I was embarrassingly into Rush for about a decade. I finally grew out of it. That's all I'm going to say about that. Other than I can still air-drum any of their tunes, note for note. I didn't say I was proud of it.
Location: Radio. In the car, of course. "The Trees" had been on the night before. The maples scream opression!
13. Billy Joel, The Stranger
Selected Track:
Only The Good Die Young
Notes: One of the most in-your-face rock tunes I know (and a deep stab at the Catholic church, somewhat masked by the upbeat guitar and vocal; not exactly a sensitive look at young love/lust, and I'm sure Virginia had her hands full, what with all of the hoods in town courting her). "52nd Street" was one of the first records I bought with my own money. Many years later I saw Billy Joel and Bill Gates within 10 seconds of one another while wasting time on the top floor of a hotel in Boston when I should have been covering a conference for a magazine but had long since stopped caring about that particular job.
Location: Radio. Gee, this was in the car too.
14. The Eagles, The Long Run
Selected Track:
Heartache Tonight
Notes: If anyone has seen the SNL short film with Ben Stiller, Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell as Glenn Frey, in which Stiller's character "makes it with Glenn Frey in one line," were you as bothered by it as I was? Funny, though. I suppose.
Location: Radio. Also car.
15. Dusty Springfield, Dusty...Definitely
Selected Track:
Take Another Little Piece of My Heart
Notes: Not Janis Joplin. Speaking of which, Christy Hoggard, if you're out there, tell Kenny I said hello.
Location: Radio. Pretty sure it was the car.
16. Pete Yorn, musicforthemorningafter
Selected Track:
Simonize
Notes: I like Mr. Yorn. I was somewhat suprised to find his latest in the bargain bin. He's from New Jersey. Shocker. Who isn't?
Location: Tape. Leaving Dulles airport. Jeep.
17. Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde
Selected Track:
Just Like a Woman
Notes: I have to admit that as much as I love Bob, my favorite version of this tune is probably the one recorded by Bill Frisell.
Location: Tape. Jeep. On my way home.
18. Elvis Costello, Extreme Honey (Mighty Like a Rose; Brutal Youth)
Selected Tracks:
Hurry Down Doomsday
Sulky Girl
Notes: Elvis. What can I say? He's my fave, bar none. If you can find it, "Extreme Honey" is a great collection and contains both tunes. A lot of the earlier stuff is going out of print (though Rhino is re-releasing a lot of it). A lot of it Elvis doesn't seem to bother promoting, which is sort of cool, I guess. The cover of "Brutal Youth" is fantastic. Lyrically I don't think too many have Elvis' gift. Have you seen "200 Cigarettes"? Nice cameo. I have some Elvis shades. Rose-colored lenses on those specs, contrary to the view of a lot of the music. "The Juliet Letters" with the Brodsky Quartet was an amazing project. And the great thing is Bill Frisell did an album with Elvis ("The Sweetest Punch," and also "Deep Dead Blue"), and they did the tunes Elvis did with Burt Bacharach ("Painted From Memory"), and personally I think they're 100% better with Brother Bill.
Location: Radio, various. "Sulky Girl" was on in the car somewhere. "Hurry Down Doomsday" came to me while looking at clear evidence of the end of ice season. Or global warming. Or both.
19. Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced
Selected Track:
Foxy Lady
Notes: Nothing to say here that hasn't been said before.
Location: Shuttle to the car lot, Dulles airport. I overheard a woman on her cell phone calling someone, and she said, in part, "I'm on my way. I'm coming to get ya." And I broke into left-handed air guitar and mindless psychedelia. That's when the cops showed up. And I've been in this rubber room ever since.
20. Coldplay, Parachutes
Selected Tracks:
Shiver
Everything's Not Lost
Notes: They're not your average band from England with a very thin, brooding, tortured lead vocalist sporting untamed facial hair and a buzz cut as counterpoint. They're somewhat above average. And the guitar work is nice.
Location: CD. My house, unpacking in otherwise sweet silence, save for the cat's occasional purring.
21. Fun Lovin' Criminals, Come Find Yourself
Selected Track:
Smoke 'Em
Notes: I'd like to believe these fellows are mostly law-abiding, productive members of society, but with a followup titled "100 Percent Colombian," I have my doubts. I don't think they're talking about coffee here.
Location: Sung above the second real pitch of Hitchcock Gully, getting ready to lead the final pillar.
22. Bryony Atkinson & Inara George, The Minus Man
Selected Track:
Infinity
Notes: It is possible to overdose on the Wilson brothers. "The Minus Man" is a somewhat forgettable film, but there are a couple of tracks, namely the one playing during the credits and sung by the two women above, that are quite good.
Location: Sung at the top of the last pitch on Shoestring Gully.
23. Miles Davis, 1955-85 Columbia Years
Selected Tracks:
Generique
All Blues
Notes: Do yourself a favor and put some Miles on right now.
Location: Horsefeathers, North Conway, NH, over a [these days] rare (for me) [quite a large portion of] beer. Brian and I were discussing jazz. Please, I'm begging you, don't get me started. I proceeded to "sing" the lead lines of both tunes above. I was delighted that these were two of Brian's favorite tunes. I then explained, and later demonstrated on the table for all to hear, that the latter is in 6/4. I'm kind of a freak a whole lot of the time.
24. David Gray
Selected Track:
Say Hello Wave Goodbye
Notes: Someday, Hal, you'll be able to simply listen to this tune and appreciate it as a tune. You hang in there. We're pulling for you. I know you'll make it. Waka/Jawaka.
Location: A radio in my head. The truth is that "Babylon" was on numerous times on the radio while we were in New Hampshire. But I'm most partial to the tune above (a Soft Cell cover) [followed by Gray's "Please Forgive Me"], with which my brain would counter whenever I heard Mr. Gray's biggest hit come over the airwaves. To give credit where credit is due, which Gray does on his album, the lines from Gray's version of the tune quoted in this trip report are taken from Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" and "Madam George."
20See Vol. 1.
Trip Sponsors: Toys L' Us, Nereledge Inn, The Conway Daily Sun, Planter's mixed and honey roasted nuts, Bayer Aspirin, The Need to Know Why, Scent of the Dawg, Nuke Canada: the arcade game, Jagged Edge French Pants, earplugs, Fine Foods Northwest Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans, crotch strap, the anecdotally ill-prepared, sporty goo, no bail biner, Life is Good, the ghost of Shalimar, the blue flames of speed, devil beard, United Express Brotherhood of Male Flight Attendants ("We're tougher than we look." - Wesley and Enoch), leave the red parka on and keep driving, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and the memory of Brother Sean, USDA Forest Service Avalanche Forecast (Brad Ray, Snow Ranger), 103mph gusts, -50 wind chill, the softer side of... RAV4, footnotes, the death of all phony in-jokes, Black Diamond Dry Tool gloves, I'm not here next time there's a call, time signatures and the somewhat bombed, the Huntington Ravine 105mm Battery, David Foster Wallace, Newcastle Brown Ale, Hitchcock Gully Anonymous (HGA), Mr. Hal Makes a Comeback, the vocally impaired, imdb.com, Jesse Says.
