Ickmusic’s Friday Five: August 15, 2008
Ah Friday. The day most of us look forward to beginning at around 9:30 AM on Monday morning. The gateway to the weekend and the only thing standing between you and the release from the daily grind… I think that I can easily say for everyone, Thank God it’s Friday.
Friday also means it’s time for the Five. This week I struggled a bit with the theme as we head into the final stretch of “The Theme Days of Summer”. It hit me that we’ve covered a good bit of ground to date and that one thing we’ve not covered is direction. Furthering upon that thought the “Feng Shui” playlist was born.
Match ANY of the following conditions
NAME contains North
NAME contains East
NAME contains West
NAME contains South
NAME contains Heaven
NAME contains Earth
The playlist populated with 216 tracks, with nearly half of them being Prince related, go figure!
Last week’s Olympic inspired theme saw everyone going for the gold and some bringing home the bronze. Everything from Dylan to Bowie to the Godfather of Soul made appearances (some more than once) to represent their home country and bring back the glory.
For those who have not joined in the Five, here’s how it works: … I hit the shuffle button on my iTunes and share my five with some words (and on occasion the song itself) for each track.
Then it’s your turn! You can play along with the themed playlist or just share the first five of your shuffle, either way the fun is in playing musical voyeur for the day.
Here are this week’s tracks:
1. The Rolling Stones – Beast of Burden (from Forty Licks)
Yes friends of Ickmusic, this is my favorite Stones tune. Actually it’s tied with “Waiting on a Friend” for the top spot. There’s something about the laid back soul side of Mick and the boys that resonates with me more than some of their more up-tempo numbers.
2. Donna Summer – Heaven Knows (from Gold)
I am surprisingly unashamed of having this disco-era gem pop up. Featuring Joe “Bean” Esposito (who you can find much more than you ever wanted to know about by paying a visit to our friend Jason Hare over at Popdose) this was a Number 2 hit for Miss Summer and was the last of her purely disco hits.
3. Bryan Adams – Heaven (from So Far so Good)
Did anyone else see Bryan Adams on Jimmy Kimmel Live! the other night? It was a far cry from the lackluster performance that he turned in at this year’s American Idol finale. He belted out “Summer of 69′” like it was 1984 all over again. This one brings memories of school dances and Saturday nights with Dr. John Barron on WSPK.
4. The Ohio Players – Heaven Must Be Like This (MP3) (from Skin Tight)
Back to the 70’s for what was likely the soundtrack to many a session of “7 Minutes in Heaven” in 1974. Clocking in at just over 7 minutes it’s hard to picture this track on the same record as the funk tour-de-force of the title track.
5. The Escape Club – Wild, Wild West (from Wild Wild West)
Cliché in just about every respect from the faux reggae breakdown to the super compressed guitar over the electronic drum beat to the innuendo laced lyrics you could not escape this tune in the late 80’s and well into the early 90’s. Released in 1988 the track reached Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November and lingered on radio playlists for damned near a decade. Oh and the video, how could I forget the video…
Well we started in the East and ended in the West with a whole lot of Heaven in between, what’s bringing balance to your day?
6 Comments
Gavinsdad
First time to be First !!!
1) Airline to Heaven by Billy Bragg and Wilco (Mermaid Ave) — great make of a Woody Guthrie lyric. I love both albums.
2) North Country Blues by Bob Dylan ( The Times they are a-Changin) — I watched Dewey Cox Walk Hard the other night and it is a must not miss rental. The Dylan years were to funny.
3) Watch the North Wind Rise by Hot Tuna ( Hoppkrvv) — I live Jorma and the name of this album. Dont miss this band when they come around live if you love old time groove.
4) Westerly by Strangfolk ( Weightless in Water ) — I caught this band in NYC at the Wetlands and fell in love with this songwriter. They had 2 really wonderful albums and he decided to quit and go to school. Look them up if you love good feeling music that is well crafted.
5) Earth Died Screaming by Tom Waits ( Bone Machine ) — just saw him in Tulsa OK around 4 weeks ago. Never seen anything so cool. Love this guy !!!
I love this mix. Just might keep it on all night.
Have a good weekend.
ljhord
1. “Girl From The North Country” by Bob Dylan.
2. “East Virginia Blues” by Johnny Cash.
3. “South of Cincinnati” by Dwight Yoakam.
4. “Tell Me There’s A Heaven” by Chris Rea.
5. “I Feel The Earth Move” by Carole King.
whiteray
Well, given the sorting limitations, one from each word:
1. “North Star Grassman And The Ravens” by Sandy Denny from “North Star Grassman And The Ravens,” 1971. One of Britain’s greatest voices ever . . . and a great album!
2. “East Virginia” by Buell Kazee, Brunswick 154, recorded in New York City, April 20, 1927. A real oldie, and real folk music at its most raw.
3. “Wind from the West” by Valdy & Gary Fjellgaard from “Contenders,” 2000. A couple of Canadian troubadors. Very nice, mellow folkish stuff.
4. “Southern Comfort” by Matthews Southern Comfort from “Second Spring,” 1969. One of Ian Matthews’ projects, and a sweet one. Some more folk-rock!
5. “Heavenly Days” by LeRoux from “Louisiana’s LeRoux,” 1978. LeRoux was a pretty good band that got too little notice, a bit rootsy and a bit slick.
6. “Salt of the Earth” by Joan Baez from “Blessed Are . . .,” 1971. A cover of the Stones’ tune. Nice way to end this: “Let’s drink to the salt of the earth!”
Skittles
1. “Walk This Earth Alone” by Lauren Christy from Great Expectations Soundtrack. I bought this soundtrack when I was deep in my Tori Amos phase because it had a new song of hers on it. It ended up being surprisingly good, on the whole. This isn’t one of my favorite tracks, but it’s not bad.
2. “Shadow of the West” by Lindsey Buckingham from Law and Order. It’s very appropriate that this one came on because I just bought a ticket to see Mr. Buckingham on his upcoming fall tour.
3. “The Number One Song in Heaven (Original Long 12″ Version)” by Sparks from The Number One Song in Heaven single. One of my favorites of theirs. Truthfully, though, I don’t think they have a song that I don’t like.
4. “West One (Shine On Me)” by The Ruts from The Crack/Grin and Bear It. My new favorite punk band. I only wish I’d found out about them a long time ago. Thanks to Henry Rollins for introducing me to them. He played their stuff before and after all of his spoken word gigs on the last tour, and told a really great story about a reunion gig they did that he was a part of.
5. “Bright Sunny South” by Alison Krauss and Union Station from New Favorite. I recently re-discovered this album, after seeing AK tour with Robert Plant earlier this year. Good stuff.
KathyB
I was busy yesterday. 🙁
Lovely assortment this week…
1. “Feast of Lights” by They Might Be Giants from “Festival of Light 2.” Nice to start out with a Chanukah song in August…
2. “Southern Misfortune” by Ruth Minnikin. I got this from SXSW’s website last year. She’s a folk singer.
3. “Great Southern Land” by Icehouse from “Primitive Man” (1982). Go, Australia! (I just felt like saying that after watching the rowing events this afternoon.)
4. “West NY” by Whiskeytown. This was a demo they did around 1995? 1994? Sometime just before “Faithless Street.”
5. “North to Alaska” by Johnny Horton.
6. (which I’m listing just because it’s so different from everything else in this incredibly diverse mix) “Sheep Go to Heaven” by Cake from “KBCO Studio C Volume 11”
I have 19 (!) versions of “East Virginia Blues” in my iTunes, and none of them showed up in the shuffle. Maybe that’s for the best, with the other weird stuff that came up.
Pete
1. “Down South” by Tom Petty, from Highway Companion (2007) – I haven’t listened to this album as much as I should. Nice tune. It’s Tom, after all.
2. “North” by Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons, from Mouthful of Copper (2003) – this a double CD, recorded live in Butte, Montana. Hard driving rock & roll.
3. “Heaven Sent” by INXS, from Welcome to Wherever You Are (1992) – Another song from this great INXS album popped up a few weeks ago on a Friday 5.
4. “South Street” by the Orlons (1963) – a great song from a Philly girls group.
5. “Beast of Burden” by the Stones, from Some Girls (1978). I’m almost finished with Ronnie Wood’s autobiography (really entertaining read), and I’m about to watch Scorcese’s ‘Shine a Light’ tonight. And I listened to this earlier today. If I could only listen to the Stones for the rest of my existence, I would die happy.