After last month's beyond-epic title round-up, which exhausted me and most likely pole-axed the handful of readers who might have glanced at it, had it been a quarter the length, I decided to go monthly. The first instalment on the new schedule is coming soon. Fourteen titles in the pot so far, so with ten days left I'm guessing around twenty when we get there. Sounds a lot more manageable.
Of course, I can't mention one song without linking to a bunch more, so even a month's worth is probably going to run over fifty links to the ever-essential YouTube. As each day passes it gets harder to imagine how we ever lived without it. In fact, thinking about it, I guess it's been well over a decade since I had too, which is scary, too.
Top of the provisional schedule is a covers post. It's been a while since I did one. Okay, obviously, every music post I put up is pretty much going to be a covers post anyway, since I'm obsessed with re-interpretation in all media, but I don't think I've done a pure covers collection in a while.
I was looking in my music folder and I see I've popped a load of fresh possibles in there recently. Some curiosities, some themes. Looks like I had something in mind. Can't say I remember what it was but I can fake it.
One idea I do remember having, which totally failed to pan out, was famous film directors who used to be in bands. There aren't any. Okay, there almost certainly are. I bet most directors born since about 1950 were at least in some school or college combo if nothing else. If any of them ever recorded a performance, though, I haven't had much luck tracking down the embarassing evidence.
I got the idea when I happened across a video by the Del-Byzanteens. Jim Jarmusch played keys and sang with them in the early eighties. John Lurie guested on sax, too. The Del-Byzanteens have the unusual privelige of being pretty good which started me wondering whether directors would make more of their musical talents than actors. With actors, being in a band can sometimes seem just a teeny bit like a vanity project. Just sayin'.
But no, apparently movie directors have other things on their minds than making music. Unless you count performers like Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood or composers like John Carpenter or David Lynch, which for this purpose I most definitely don't. I was looking for people who were making music before they were famous, not for whom fame opened up opportunities to make music and have people notice.
So that was a bust. But it did re-ignite my interest in the early eighties New York No-Wave scene for a hot second. I always had a soft spot for that unfashionable, unlistenable moment in time. I could spin up something around that, no trouble at all, but it seems almost cruel.
It would give me an excuse to embed a Cristina video, though, although Ze Records were Post-No Wave, I suppose. I mean, there are tunes.
I nearly put her mesmerizing cover of Is That All There Is? up when I read that she'd died of Covid19 related complications to her pre-existing auto-immune disease. For a while during lockdown I was pondering tribute posts to musicians who'd died as a result of the pandemic but it just seemed too morbid. I might think about some kind of portmanteau tribute at some point but I think it's too soon. We are, after all, still bang in the middle of the damn thing.
Another quasi-topical issue post I'm considering revolves around the song Sally Go Round the Roses. I came across it when I was digging into the history of The Jaynettes and it seemed curiously pertinent. I have a few ideas but I'm not quite sure where to go with them, so it's simmering on the back burner for now.
Then tonight this turned up on Feedly. Much as I like Gorrilaz it didn't do an awful lot for me on first listen but it did make me wonder why I've never done the obvious and put a post together featuring songs about video games. I'm gonna get right on that. Maybe.
I'd also like to do another musical death match. I was thinking of pitting a couple of cute woodland animals against each other. I started with squirrels. It turns out there are a lot of songs about squirrels but almost all of them are terrible. Terrifyingly bad, in fact. I need to give it some thought and come up with a better animal. Two better animals. Open to suggestions.
Anyway, that's what's bubbling around my brain at the moment. I'm still furloughed and Mrs. Bhagpuss is away for a week checking out her first grandchild (ten weeks old and finally available for inspection under recently relaxed lockdown rules) so I have time to sift through YouTube and play unpleasant, annoying videos at full volume all day.
Watch this space. And listen to it. You might hear something you like. It's not impossible...
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