May 19, 2010
#019
A weekly sampler of what we're listening to (new and old), and what we think you might like, too.
If you couldn't tell, last week we presented you with songs based around a theme. That time, it was waking up. We didn't explain it well. This week, we're continuing this idea of songs around a theme. With that this week, our theme is: Driving songs. No explanation needed, really. Just some songs we like to hear while driving around and doing stuff.
{LISTEN TO THEM ALL}
MY MORNING JACKET -- "One Big Holiday"
"If we holler loud and make our way/ We’d all live one big holiday..." You can chug along as this song as it plays in the early November morning amidst Iowa cornfields, or in the late January afternoon as you hug the Missouri side of the Missisippi River with temperatures howling at 15 below. Or try the more pedestrian back roads of Missouri Highway 28 from Jefferson City on a warm night, through the Ozark foothills with the windows rolled down. This song has accompanied me on road trips large and small. It's liberating. Tap the pedal ever so softly to the slow building guitars until 2:47 when hell breaks loose. There's no TIME to lift off the pedal. "Shakin' and record playin'", all the way down the highway and off into the horizon.
MODEST MOUSE -- "Polar Opposites" (LIVE)
Come desert, dark forest or lunar surface, Modest Mouse will be there singing drivers into restrained rock 'n' roll fits. "Polar Opposites" is just one of their songs about cars and driving and parking lots (or some combination therein). I'd never personally need to "drink away the part of the day that I can not sleep away," but what a line, right? Modest Mouse is among the best bands when it comes to the auto, alongside Cake and P.U.S.A., and this song about "cars low / to the ground" is probably my favorite of theirs to include on mixes. Lately I've been listening to a throwback mix that crescendos to it.
BEIRUT -- "Scenic World"
This song is pretty simple, kind of like driving. I kind of like this version (found on Beirut's EP Lon Gisland) a little more than the one on the album -- sounds a little more lazy, which makes for great driving on summer nights at dusk.
NEW ORDER -- "Age of Consent"
The foundation of any good driving song is a driving bass line.
QUEEN -- "Bohemian Rhapsody"
I don't drive often, but I would be very cliche if I did.
WOLF PARADE -- "Disco Sheets"
"Disco Sheets" is the best driving song ever. I just think the way the drums and guitar interact creates a really pumping, driving groove.
MILES DAVIS -- "Bags' Groove (Take 2)"
If I had a car I would drive up and down the streets and listen to this song, being happy that I had a car. (Miles Davis is not to be trifled with!)
Labels: mid-week mixes, music
by JHitts at 2:10 PM |
4 Comments:
Obsessing over "Age of Consent."
Power, Corruption, and Lies is a great album.
This mix is, as the kids say, BA. Oddly Beirut doesn't sound too out of place amidst Modest Mouse, MMJ, and Wolf Parade.
Speaking of My Morning Jacket, that's probably my favorite driving band and responsible for my favorite driving memory: almost exactly twelve months ago, descending into and then driving through the fiercely glowing Los Angeles valley (by which I mean everything from San Bernadino to Santa Monica) in my old, now sadly sold '93 4Runner with a fifth of Bulleit and a couple packs of American Spirits in the back seat, with the moon roof open, with the radio blaring Z, with me screeching along to 'Gideon' and nearly plowing into the concrete divider on 'Off the Record.'
I wrote about my favorite driving moment (can't immediately think of a better one in the years since), back on this old blog. Do a ctrl+f for "Midland Trail." That involved Circulatory System and 100 curves in the New River Valley of West Virginia.
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