Song you're listening to right now

I love music and like to see what everyone else likes, I like pretty much all types of music. 

So what are you guys listening to?


Right now I'm listening to "AssMilk" by Tyler the Creator feat. Earl Sweatshirt - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgyWFVfnZ-k

The Classic Crime's new album.

Friday song of the day (Theme Week) : "Friday I'm in Love" by The Cure. Released in 1992, Robert Smith was initially reluctant to record the song. After he wrote it, the music just seemed too familiar to him, and he was worried that he had unintentionally stolen it from someone else. Because of this, Smith called up many of his friends and played them the song to see if they could identify another song from which he may have unconsciously stolen parts of the music. Eventually he reached the conclusion that the music was similar to "Just Like Heaven", one of his own songs.

Tell her all the little things I'm gonna do

Saturday song of the day (Theme Week): "Saturday Night" by The Bay City Rollers. The Bay City Rollers were formed in Edinburgh, Scotland as "The Saxons" in 1966, and changed their name to the Bay City Rollers after throwing a dart at a map of the United States, hitting near Bay City, Michigan.

The band had some minor success in the UK before finally scoring some big UK hits in 1974 and 1975. In late 1975, their US record company, Arista, began a media blitz to push the band. The hyperbole was amazing, with the Rollers marketed as "the next Beatles". It succeeded, with the song Saturday Night reaching #1 on the US charts. Interestingly, the song had been released in the UK in 1973 and failed to chart at all, with a 1974 re-recording of the song released in the US in 1975.

The cheesy teen pop scored them a few lesser hits, but by 1977, the Rollers popularity in the US had fallen. The manufactured "Rollermania" made some money for the band and its record label, but quickly faded.

Yes, it was standard bubblegum pop, and not very good at that, but surprisingly, the song partially inspired The Ramones to write "Blitzkrieg Bop". According to Tommy Ramone, "“There was a big hit by the Bay City Rollers at the time called Saturday Night, which was a chant-type song. So I thought it would be fun to do for the Ramones too. And somehow I came up with ‘Hey! Ho! Let’s go!’.

Hey, I saw your guy with a different girl.

Sunday song of the day (Theme Week): "Sunday Girl" by Blondie. From the 1978 album, Parallel Lines, Sunday Girl reached #1 in the UK, but was never released as a single in the United States.

She's a sex bomb my baby - yeah

Monday song of the day: "Sex Bomb" by Flipper. Flipper was a noise and punk band that formed in 1979 in San Francisco. Their sound was slow and heavily distorted, presaging bands like the Melvins.

Sex Bomb has only one lyric: "She's a sex bomb my baby - yeah", screamed above discordant and noisy music. It was released as a single in 1981, and a different version was included on Flipper's first album the next year.

Here's the 1981 single version:

Shopping cart pusher or maybe someone groovy

The magnum opus of a living legend.

Tuesday song of the day: "Walking In LA" by Missing Persons. Drummer Terry Bozzio met singer Dale Consalvi in 1979 while they were both working with Frank Zappa on his Joe's Garage albums. They married that same year, and formed Missing Persons in 1980, with fellow former Zappa musician Warren Cuccurullo.

The band played a hard rock version of New Wave pop, They released their first album "Spring Session M" (which is an anagram of "Missing Persons") in 1982. This coincided with the early days of MTV, and Dale Bozzio's squeaky singing and sexy outfits made their videos very popular.

While her stage attire and persona influenced many later female singers, Lady Gaga is the most blatant rip-off.

After their early success, Missing Persons faded away, releasing a few more albums before breaking up in 1986. Dale and Terry Bozzio divorced at around the same time. Dale had a mostly low-key solo career afterward, while Terry did lots of session and tour work. Warren Cuccurullo went on to be a member of Duran Duran for 15 years. There have been periodic Missing Persons reunion tours since then, mostly without Terry Bozzio.

Walking in LA reached number 70 on the US charts in 1983. Although Missing Persons was very popular on MTV, they had limited record sales, with none of their songs cracking the top 40, although the Spring Session M album went gold and reached number 17 on the album charts.

Here's the album version of Walking in LA, as well as the band performing the song live at the 1983 US festival. I attended the 1982 three-day US festival, but had to work and couldn't go to the 1983 shows. Anyway, you can definitely see from the live show where Lady Gaga took a large part of her act.

Said California is the place you oughta be.

Wednesday song of the day: "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. I got to thinking the other day that TV theme songs that tell you the basic concept of the show are a thing of the past. They were pretty common for comedies, from Gilligan's Island telling of the shipwreck, to the Brady Bunch giving the story of the man named Brady and the lovely lady, etc, to the Jefferson's movin' on up. Even some dramas and action shows used to have theme songs that gave you an idea of the story, such as The Ballad of Paladin from "Have Gun, Will Travel" or the theme from the Dukes of Hazzard.

The latest story-telling theme song that springs to mind is the theme from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and that has been off the air for almost 20 years. I'm sure there have been a handful since then, but now they're pretty rare.

Anyway, one of the classic TV themes is "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" from the Beverly Hillbillies. The show first aired in September 1962. The theme song was written by series creator Paul Henning, with music provided by bluegrass legends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and vocals by Jerry Scoggins. Two months after the first show aired, Flatt and Scruggs recorded a different version that was released as a single, with Lester Flatt providing the vocals for the record. The record reached #44 on the main Billboard chart, and hit #1 on the country music chart .

Here is the Flatt and Scruggs recording, along with the actual TV theme,

And then the jukebox plays a song I used to know.

Next up in the Darkthrone anthology, Transilvanian Hunger.

Glad someone is posting Darkthrone here. Used to talk to Fenriz here and there over the years. Good dude. Some trivia you might not know, but this was Fenriz's project STORM (Viking/folk metal) from the mid-90s. He later used this riff for Quintessence off of Panzerfaust. Always cool to go back and listen to him sing on this:

Yea Panzerfaust is up next.

Thursday song of the day: "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)" by The Greg Kihn Band. From his sixth album, "Rockihnroll", Greg Kihn had his first big hit with The Breakup Song. Released in 1981, it reached #15 on the Billboard chart.

He went on to have a bigger hit in two years with "Jeopardy." Kihn continued to record and tour throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and had second and third careers in radio and writing novels.

Tomorrow: Who built Stonehenge?