Root Down in the Shadow

Back in High School, once I left the realm of being a top 40 listener, I started filling out my music collection.  My mom had the Beatles ' 1962-1966' on vinyl, which I kindly adopted and have held for the next approximately 20 years.  I added ' 1967-1970'  on compact disc, and I was as relatively complete as I could afford.  I wasn't as much of an archivist at the time to realize I needed full albums to get such gems as 'I've Got A Feeling ', 'I've Just Seen A Face', or 'Glass Onion '. When I was old enough to hit the bars, I loved finding great songs in the jukebox.  Gooski's in Polish Hill, had my favorite collection with Ween 's The Mollusk and Chemical Brother's Dig Your Own Hole amongst their discs .  We normally found ourselves at a few bars in Pittsburgh's South Side, where Kopy's, and  Smokin' Joe's each had respectable collections as well. It was often in a semi lucid state at these locatio...

Back in college, through a monthly compilation from CMJ NEW MUSIC MONTHLY , I first heard DeeJay Punk-Roc .  I'm not certain which track it was that caught my attention, but I had to get my hands on the 1998 album Chicken Eye .  Over ten years later, I still find the album fresh and unique.  The album is somewhat of a collection of tracks rather than a complete story or single composition, but it weaves themes of tweaks, scratches, excellent sampling and some horns.  In today's post, I'd like to review Chicken Eye for you, go over a few tracks from other releases and then lament his disappearance with you.  Chicken Eye. is across the board with slow rhythm numbers, to rap, to party songs.  'I hate Everybody' starts off the album.  I could totally picture this song coming out of the speakers, while watching a turntablist perform during a d.j. battle.  It's filled with tweaks & scratches, while sampling a girl saying "I hate everybody" presum...

Typically I prepare for my posts throughout the day. I listen to music constantly while I drive around town. It's really one of my most favorite parts of my job, the other being the puzzle of addressing how a car got damaged and how far that damage traveled. Today, however, I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed when getting ready for this post. I love... emphatically love the Blood Sugar Sex Magik album, but I've come to realize it's just not a "Desert Island Disc". Anthony Kedis ' insane lyrics of feelings, drug trips, and other adventures are outstanding, but the disc itself is too much of a roller coaster to ever be on repeat (preferably with 4-5 other albums) for a desert island eternity.  I somewhat always knew this, but at the same time I always wanted more out of this pinnacle of Red Hot Chili Pepperdom. Even after reading Scar Tissue the Kedis autobiography, and understanding more of the lyrics, especially his ever constant binge and purge wit...

Yield may not be Pearl Jam 's most famous album ( Ten), nor critically acclaimed album (Vs) but it has been my most favorite Pearl Jam disc to date.  Yield straddles the rock and art divide that so many   Pearl Jam albums only find themselves on one side of.    In my opinion, the album never really took off, as 'Do the Evolution' was featured as the first single  with it's graphic comic book style video.  'Do the Evolution' from Yield by Pearl Jam The 'Do The Evolution' video was a bit odd, and there was really nothing in the song that I felt like singing along to... EVER! On the other hand, gems such as the rockin' "Brain of J', ballad 'Low Light'or my favorite 'In Hiding' would have been much better choices from Yield , but didn't really see the light of day. My Pearl Jam Yield  favorite 'In Hiding' featured on Single Video Theory The one successful track from the 1998 Pearl Jam album was 'Giv...

'Teardrop' is amongst the awesome tracks by Massive Attack on Mezzanine   with 'Angel' and  'Inertia Creeps'.  It is more well known than most people would recognize as an instrumental portion is the theme music on the television show HOUSE.  DISCLAIMER Also, the video can be somewhat disturbing... just page down, and listen instead if you don't like it, as this post is about the song, not the video. the original 'Teardrop' by Massive Attack(sorry for the commercial) During episode 16(the finale) of Season 4 of HOUSE, a cover version of 'Teardrop' by José González, was featured.  It was extremely haunting to me.  Although I had been, in a matter of months, watching four seasons of House and hearing the original, albeit instrumental, track each time, when the vocals came on through a different voice, I was stumped.  What was this song, and why was it so familiar?  I even knew the words to it, but I had no idea what this was.  ...

One of my earliest posts was describing the concept of Molly Songs, which is a combination of tolerable children's music and music from artists that I love that can mix right in amongst her tunes.  In some rare cases, such as Lisa Loeb , there is an awesome combination of a singer that I  enjoy and purposefully brilliant children's music. When Lisa Loeb was at Brown, she ofter played with another singer/songwriter Elizabeth Mitchell .   In 2003, Loeb & Mitchell teamed up for Catch the Moon a very successful kids album.  Featured are the traditional 'Big Rock Candy Mountain', 'Stop and Go', "Little Red Caboose' and the title track' 'Catch the Moon' .   Since that, Lisa Loeb has put out Camp Lisa, on her own, and for over a  decade there have been solo Elizabeth Mitchell albums.  However amongst all of those fantastic kid songs, Molly's favorite is a stand alone single 'Jenny Jenkins'  The song itself, somewhat of kid...

A little over a decade ago, I had been spending some quality time with my gal pal, MJ.  She was in law school and I was trying to jump start my career.  Our hanging out was typically quite chill as we were both pretty exhausted from either long hours or odd shifts.  Around this time, I was knee deep into electronica & ska, while edgier stuff like System of  Down, Incubus, Disturbed, and Union Underground   were all featured on the radio.  But for our hangout sessions, I put together a mix:   October Low 'Rodeo Clowns' -  G Love & Special Sauce 'Cold Brains' - Beck 'Untuchable Face' - Ani DiFranco 'California Phase' - Jeremy Toback 'Chansons Sans Issue (Ne Vois Tu Pas)' - Autour De Lucie "Wishing It Was' - Santana feat. Eagle Eye Cherry 'Meet Virginia' - Train 'When You Gonna Learn' - Jamiroquai 'Shower Your Love' - Kula Shaker 'Jukebox' - Ani DiFranco 'Rolli...