A late-night/early-morning random ten before bedtime, just to get it done. Headphones on, MST3K playing on the TV as always at this hour, helping with insomnia a bit. Have to try and get SOME sleep. But first . . .
1. "The River" - PJ Harvey - Is This Desire?
Berit's the big PJ Harvey fan in the house, though I like most of her music myself. This is a slow one, and I generally like her loud nasty ones, but this is pretty and pleasant and perfect for a quiet late night.
2. "Teenage Dream" - T.Rex - History of T.Rex -- The Singles Collection
Oh, cool. Also perfect and mellow for a pre-sleep mix. I love T.Rex, and luckily don't actually know all of the songs I have from this extensive compilation backwards and forwards yet (except for those on Electric Warrior and Dandy in the Underworld, the only albums of Bolan's I had for years), so whenever they come up on random it's like hearing a rare favorite on the radio unexpectedly. Whatever happened to the teenage dream? Still trying to figure that one out myself.
3. "In the City" - The Jam - D.I.Y.: Anarchy in the UK - UK Punk I (1976-77)
Well, there goes the mellow. Don't mind when it's something this great. Green Day wishes they could do this.
4. "Gimme Shelter" - The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
Oh, dear. This is one of my favorite recordings of all time, and how can I say anything about it? The perfection of the ominous slowed-down-Chuck Berry riff at the opening? The amazing sound of Jagger's harmonica? Merry Clayton's backing vocals and solo moment?
No. All of it is one, and too physical, too tactile to try to get across. It makes me afraid and comforts me at the same time. Produces hallucinatory images.
I wound up in the middle of the Tompkins Square Park riot in the Summer of 1988, fireworks going off, horses running, snipers on rooftops. Bad craziness. My friend Vanessa, who told me to come down and take photos, and who had been in riots before, grabbed me when the cops started beating people randomly on Avenue A and threw me into a bar on 9th Street off the park that had sealed itself up tight (she knew the doorman and was able to talk me in) and I stayed in there for some time as the screaming filtered in from outside, drowned out mostly by what I assume was a tape the bartender was playing which included this song and Jagger's "Memo from Turner" from Performance. Far too appropriate.
Vanessa eventually came in when she though the coast was clear out there, and brought me out to "safety," and I started west down 9th Street, stopping to photograph a helicopter hovering just over the rooftops at the corner of 1st Avenue, then turning to snap another shot of a large group of cops in full riot gear in front of P.S. 122. As I turned away to go there were shouts, and I turned back to find the cops splitting up and rushing at people all around, three of them coming at me. Thinking if I stood still and didn't run I would be identified as a "civilian," I did so, and was shoved against the metal gate of the fabric store on the corner (it's a pizza place now) and beaten with nightsticks. I put on an English accent and started yelling that I was a tourist, and that made them hesitate enough for me to start running away down the sidewalk. Another cop started chasing me on the other side of the parked cars, and as I kept yelling my tourist claim, he slowed up and called after me, "Wrong night to come to town, mister!"
My right thigh and the underside of my right arm spent many weeks going through an astonishing series of color changes -- I never KNEW the spectrum that skin was capable of. I now have a large oval patch on my thigh where the skin is either numb or feels of pins and needles most of the time (sometimes cold and painful ones). I didn't associate the weird nerve thing with getting beaten there until Berit asked me a few years ago if they were connected, and I realized the numb patch is exactly the same as the bruised area from the beating. I don't understand how one could lead to the other, but the coincidence seems a bit much.
I've never printed my photos from that night, just a contact sheet. Maybe sometime I will. I want to look at that photo of the cops before they came at me for real.
This song brings every feeling of that night back, and then gently pushes them away again. Shelter.
5. "Thunder and Rain" - Alan Dean & His Problems - Joe Meek Presents 304 Holloway Road
From the sublime to the ridiculous, albeit the gloriously ridiculous. Early 60s Brit-pop, heavily compressed, mono, hysterically-pitched, everything on its sleeve. Back to the real world.
6. "You're Driving Me Insane" - The Missing Links - Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond
More Brit-pop, later, more garage-y, psychedelic-y. They've been listening to The Yardbirds (but who wasn't?), but aren't trying too hard to imitate them. Good idea. Doing fine on their own. Primitive and basic. Reminds me a bit of The Monks.
7. "Donegal Express" - Shane MacGowan & The Popes - The Snake
Fun vulgar number from post-Pogue Shane still sounding like his old band. Could he not?
8. "Chains of Love" - Pat Boone - Back to the 50's vol. 6
Oh, jesus fuck a shit souffle! Well, this is what I get for not going through all of the compilations I download carefully. Pat Boone, for the love of pete!
That said, this isn't as bad as it could be. If it was actually at double time all around, it might be a good peppy pop number -- but at this draggy pace it's SO dopey I can't keep it in the iTunes. When it's over, it goes.
9. "Queen Bitch" - David Bowie - Hunky Dory
Okay, another favorite. What else to say? You know, you know it. You don't, you should. Someday I'll upload and share the cover I did of this around '92 or '93 - one of the best recordings I ever did, even if I was REALLY sick and feverish and I played the damn riff BACKWARDS. Still worked. I was in bed for days after.
10. "You Know I Know" - John Lee Hooker - The Ultimate Collection: 1948-1990
From Berit's collection, another artist I love and don't know as well as her, and a song I'm not sure I ever heard before, and it's great. Damn I do love the man. Damn I wish I could sing along with this at the top of my lungs right now.
Okay, one or two more for just myself, and so to bed . . .
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