Murky Words Music Mix #2: Yokels

Shame on me. A good friend of mine, who is stuck at home recovering from knee surgery, has been asking me to send "email forwards and other neat stuff" in an effort to help alleviate the boredom. At last count, I've provided a whopping TWO "email forwards" (which were nothing but links to various clips from Google Video. Which ones, you ask? Oh... fine. If I must. They're here and here. Happy now? Not exactly clips of the highest quality, I know. Particularly the last one. If it makes you feel any better, I'm not sure how I should feel about it. Should I laugh or be shocked? Or both? Maybe I shouldn't have sent them at all. I'm a sick man.) I've provided no posts either. So, to M'Lady of the Ace Bandage I offer an apology. More updates a'comin. Hope you're faring well during your indisposition.

Messing around with iTunes this evening and I see that they've updated their "Essentials" section (basically themed music mixes) to include a section called Travel Tunes and Road Songs. You'd expect a bunch of lame travel songs like Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane (not a WORD out of you, Ace Bandage) and the Grateful Dead's Truckin' but in fact they've created a number of different themed mixes revolving around various cities. Surprisingly enough, they've created a Boston themed playlist (you'll need iTunes to open that link, by the way.) Even more surprising is that it's good. Damn good, actually. I was expecting a few generous helpings of New Kids on the Block followed by some Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch but damn if they didn't dig a little deeper and select some excellent artists and tracks. In fact, what the hell... here's the list. 75 total songs separated into three categories rather ridiculously labeled The Basics, Next Steps and Deep Cuts. Those tracks that are highlighted as a link are available for download courtesy of moi (for a VERY limited time. I don't want either Apple or these artists suing my ass - even though I didn't download any of them. I own them all.) You're welcome.

(Oh yeah. It has also been brought to my attention by a few people that when they click on the music link, they're merely redirected to a blank page and the song plays within a media player embedded in that page. Booo!! I hate that feature. If you would rather download the file and save it to your computer for later use right click on the link and choose "Save Target As" (in Internet Explorer) or right click on the link and choose "Save Link As" (in Firefox) and then choose the location where you'd like the file. You're good to go. Any questions? Ask away.)

The Basics
(Song Title - Artist)

More Than A Feeling - Boston
Dream On (Live) - Aerosmith
Centerfold - The J. Geils Band
Good Times Roll - The Cars
Please Come to Boston - David Allan Coe (whoever that is)
Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Cheers Theme) - Gary Portnoy
The Impression That I Get - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday (Aimee Mann in disguise before she was Aimee Mann. Spikey punk hair! Oh - by the way, he said shutup.)
Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies (Proud to say this is the first band I ever saw live. This song, while good, is almost certainly NOT the song I would've chosen as a good representation of their work, however.)
Fire and Rain - James Taylor
Roadrunner - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
That's When I Reach For My Revolver - Mission of Burma
Cool It Now - New Edition (Oh Dear... must have been a mistake.)
Step by Step - New Kids on the Block (Nope. No mistake.)
Last Dance (single) - Donna Summer
It Hurt So Bad - Susan Tedeschi
Start Choppin' - Dinosaur Jr. (Side note: Back in high school I owned a Dinosaur Jr. T-Shirt which featured this image on the front. My mother, when she first saw it was absolutely appalled and said, "Holy Mutha, that's disgusting! Cigarettes are gross. Take off that shirt, Eric. I can smell it from all the way over here." God bless mothers.)
That's Just What You Are - Aimee Mann
My Drug Buddy - The Lemonheads (Oh.. sweet high school memories!!)
Cape God Girls - Dan Zanes & Festival Five Folk (huh? This is a "basic" track? Who the hell is Dan Zanes? Who are the Festival Five Folk?)
Why Do I Cry - Barry & The Remains (perhaps the best band name ever.. and it's surf type rock. Go figure.)
Bright Yellow Gun - Throwing Muses
Spain - Chick Corea
Buena - Morphine
Twilight in Boston - Jonathan Richman (Great Boston summertimey tune.)

Next Steps (This also doubles as the tortured female singer/songwriter section)

Rollin & Tumblin' - Peter Wolf
The Weakest Shade of Blue - The Pernice Brothers
I Heard Ramona Sing - Frank Black
Downtime - Blake Babies
Sunflower Suit - Buffalo Tom
The Road - Patty Larkin
Gotta Go Now - Melissa Ferrick
Far Off Mother Earth - Chris Harford
Something Beautiful - Tracy Bonham
Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste - Galaxie 500
High Tide - The Zulu's
Your Ghost - Kristin Hersh
Choose Drugs - Juliana Hatfield
On Fire - Sebadoh
How Come? - Dumptruck
Where I Find My Heaven - Gigolo Aunts
Narragansett Bay - Cordelia's Dad (Duh... that's like... in Rhode Island. Dumbass.)
The Bright Light - Tanya Donelly
Boston's Daily Temperature - Damon & Naomi
Go! - Letters to Cleo
I Hate Everything - Charlie Chesterman
Comet No. 9 - Helium
King of Everything - The Gravel Pit
Faith - Moving Targets
M.T.A - The Kingston Trio (Now THIS should a "basic" track. It's a local institution for God's sake. It should be our national anthem. I feel very strongly about this.)

Deep Cuts (Now this is where it gets obscure. Even I haven't heard of half of these people. And what the hell is Bell Biv Devoe doing in here?)

Long John - Tom Rush
Jug Band Music - Jim Kweskin
The Boston Rag - Steely Dan
Speeding Motorcycle - Mary Lou Lord
Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier (HA!!)
Before the Streets Were Paved - Peter Rowan
Nite and Day - Al B. Sure! (Way to spell, Al. Way to spell.)
More Than Words - Extreme (Are you kidding me? What? Did you need filler?)
Summer - Flying Nuns
Fenway Sunday - Aztec Two-Step
Leave Me Alone - The Cavedogs
For Boston - Dropkick Murphy's (I'm not sold on these guys yet... Yeah, I know they redid the Tessie song that supposedly helped the Red Sox win the World Series but still... all their songs... eh - nevermind.)
Fenway - Phil Coley
Poison - Bell Biv Devoe
Boston - The Dream Syndicate
Don't Say Goodnight - Jon Butcher Axis
Slow Dancin' Don't Turn Me On - The Addrisi Brothers
It Only Takes A Minute Girl - Tavares
Come Back - Treat Her Right
Boston - Peter Ostroushko
Song For The Boys - Pat Metheney (Phenomenal Instrumental Guitar)
Au Contraire - They Might Be Giants
Gathering Flowers For The Master's Bouquet - Blood Oranges
Boston Boy - David Grisman
Who's The Greatest Red Sox Fan? - Phil Coley (Ol' Phil's back again. You are, Phil! You are!)

So... as you can see we have quite the smorgasbord of tunes on this list. Notable omissions? A few come to mind, the most obvious being Dirty Water by The Standells. How you could not include that is beyond me, but maybe it's because the Red Sox (who now play that after every victory) decided to not bother actually playing their recent contests and dropped two out of three to a Yankee team virtually living on the disabled list. Nice job, guys. Grrr... Well - at least we have a vibrant enough music scene to have an iTunes mix, whereas New York has nothing. Not surprising.

Anyway, the quality of the Boston music scene tends to be rather cyclical. We have a few years of some top notch local bands followed by one or two decades of subpar blah (although many would argue - I among them... sometimes - that it simply a matter of you listening to the wrong music) and although this list certainly provides it's fair share of "what the hell?" entries, it does a decent job of getting some great tunes from some great moments in the local scene. And... well, looking at it again... what do you know? I got so consumed with some of these tracks that I inadvertently created the 2nd ever Murky Words Music Mix. How's that for productivity? Enjoy folks, and always remember.... you NEVER trust a big butt and a smile.