The first time I heard “Feel it All Around” was watching Portlandia last summer. If you’ve seen or know the show, the tune acts as the opening theme song. And upon hearing it I had to know who, what, where and how. What I came up with initially was a group (which I would later find out was just Ernest Greene) called Washed Out. I put it on the back burner for some reason until recently and then it just hit me like a wonderful hazy memory…and that Portlandia show is terrific as well. Fred Armisen cracks me up, but that is another topic for another day.
Endless Loop: Let the Distance Bring Us Together
Have you ever had one of those songs that gets stuck in your head for days…weeks…years? Sure you have. These are the songs that always make the cut. The songs on repeat. We all have them. I have a ton. Welcome back to Endless Loop.
“Let the Distance Bring Us Together” by Bright Eyes & Britt Daniel
Endless Loop: Un Nouveau Soleil
Have you ever had one of those songs that gets stuck in your head for days…weeks…years? Sure you have. These are the songs that always make the cut. The songs on repeat. We all have them. I have a ton. Welcome back to Endless Loop.
“Un Nouveau Soleil” by M83
Joup Friday Album: The dB’s “Like This”
I remember 1984 like it was yesterday. I was already into music and I had an old Sony combo stereo system it had a radio, record player, eight track and I plugged into the auxiliary channel an after market Realistic tape deck I bought at garage sale. It was fifteen watts per channel, wow! I had just bought Van Halen’s record 1984; The Police album Synchronicity and I had all my parents’ records at my disposal. The Stones, the Kinks, the Beatles, the Band, Johnny Winter, Mountain, Neil Young, the Temptations, Sam and Dave, Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra, Dave Brubeck, Van Morrison and George Carlin (they had a few comedy records). I was amerced mostly with the older music not so much of the current top forty stuff like Madonna and Duran Duran. It’s funny I’m still kinda the same way. However along the line of musical immaturity or neglect I seemed to have missed a lot of groups that were of that era, the early to mid 1980s that were more underground so to speak. Groups like the Fleshtones, X, the Nerves, the Jam, or the dB’s were not in heavy rotation on the Chicago rock stations. WXRT a progressive Chicago rock station dabbled in this sort of music but was most likely featured on an over night, “stoner shift” radio program (I was not a midnight toker at that point, yet). Chicago rock and pop radio was all Journey, Def Lepoard, Toto, Pat Benatar, The Thompson Twins and other stuff like that. I was eight years old I did not know about the punk scene that was waning by then or the amazing power pop bands that were sprouting up in the wake of all the new wave bands. I was eight, it was 1984 and had no internet. The dB’s flew right by me.
Sh!t Song Of The Week “Winds of Change” Jefferson Starship
The sh!t song of the week is “Winds of Change” by Jefferson Starship. I know that it’s too easy picking on Jefferson Starship because of their mega fluffy hit songs like “We Built This City” and “Nothing is Going to Stop Us Now”. As far as I am concerned the whole 80’s Starship catalogue is the soundtrack for Richard Gere’s gerbil escapades. The Jefferson Starship of the 80’s were so far removed from their original roots of Jefferson Airplane’s brand of psychedelic hippie rock it is astounding . Where did the white rabbit from the Bay Area go? Did they find somebody to love and just give up? When did Airplane became Starship? Why did this happen? I’m thinking it probably had something to do with cocaine. I saw that episode of “WKRP” when the record executive tries to push a new record on Johnny Fever and offers up some booger sugar to sweeten up the deal so I am figuring this may have been the case with “Winds of Change“. I was also shocked that Howard Hesseman passed on free coke even in a fictitious scenario. Anyway you want to slice it Jefferson Starship are widely known to many as purveyors of schmaltzy 80’s hits that you can often hear at Walgreens when making the import decisions in life like going with generic brand of KY jelly instead of that expensive brand name stuff. The song I chose this week is not one of Jefferson Starship’s best known songs but it is equally on point with the above mentioned songs. The video for this song is also cut from the same jizz rag because it is a light rock, Heart rip off song but the set design in the video would lead you believe that Jefferson Starship are a heavy metal band with a wall of generic Marshall stacks, an eighteen piece drum kit with double kick drums behind them and last but not least, they have a fucking keytar involved. Do the math. Terrible album art + Shit song + Coked up video conception = “Winds of Change“. This is just my two cents on a three cent matter but the song “Winds of Change” by Jefferson Starship strongly qualifies to be the shit song of the week.
Endless Loop: A Place We Like
Have you ever had one of those songs that gets stuck in your head for days…weeks…years? Sure you have. These are the songs that always make the cut. The songs on repeat. We all have them. I have a ton. Welcome back to Endless Loop.
“A Place We Like” by Hooray for Earth and Twin Shadow
