It's Too Hot For Clever Titles - Just Play Us The Damn Songs Already

It's really hot today. In my room especially. Too hot to play games or write a blog post or do much of anything. Maybe I won't bother. 

Or maybe I will. It's been two weeks since the last What I've Been Listening To post and I did say that was the cadence I was aiming for. If nothing else, they're easy to write. Do I have enough songs, though?

Hmm. Not at all sure I do. Still, I expect I'll come up with something.  Might be a short post, though. Stop that cheering at the back...

Terri - Micky Dolenz (Paul Westerberg cover)

I bet that was a surprise. Certainly surprised me when I heard it. Last man standing and he's making it count.

I love the Monkees. They've had an up and down kind of career. I grew up watching them as a kids' show but they were also in the pop charts, which might have confused me if I'd been just a few years older. They went out of fashion to the point of derision and then weirdly came back in with punk, when the Sex Pistols covered (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone. Since then it's been mostly acceptance into the canon if not outright adulation although it didn't help that they reformed and made some not very good records.

Not that Steppin' Stone was really a Monkees song. It was written by the men who made the Monkees, Boyce and Hart, but they shopped it around to a bunch of bands before the Monkees had the hit with it. And this isn't a Micky Dolenz song either. It's a Paul Westerberg number although kind of an unofficial one.

It's from a bizarre solo album Westerberg released as a 49 cent Amazon download in 2008. Full story at Stereogum, which is where I learned it and from where I'm ripping it off. The album had one, continuous forty-nine minute track and included no information about the songs on it, not even the names. Apparently this one is generally referred to by fans as "(Tell Me) Who You Gonna Marry." Mickey obviously prefers something shorter.

I have never really got Paul Westerberg. He's one of those people, like Alex Chilton or Nick Drake, who I do get, who constantly comes up as a reference point for other artists. I listened to his original version of this one and it sounds a lot more like Eve of Destruction than Mickey's cover.

 CPR - Wet Leg (horsegiirl remix)

I still haven't acquired the second Wet Leg album. I say "acquired" because I probably was never going to buy it for myself. It seems like I would have put it on my birthday/Christmas wishlist last year but I didn't. 

Partly it was over-exposure. There was a while when you really couldn't get away from Wet Leg. There was a  brief respite and then they came back, firing off singles ahead of the album and doing interviews non-stop and honestly I felt like maybe I'd had enough of them for now.

Which was a bit silly given the singles were all good. Just not as good as the singles from the first album, which were all great. But it turned out that might have been because they were growers. I've heard some of them a few times now and they get stronger with familiarity. 

That could be significant.The main reason I didn't put the second album on a wishlist was that great though all the individual songs on the first were, listened to all in a row they were... quite annoying. That's the bane of all great singles bands and Wet Leg are categorically a great singles band. It's why i can barely stand to listen to Greatest Hits albums by anyone, even people I really, really like.

A good album needs pacing as much as it needs bangers. Light and shade. Otherwise it's like eating a whole box of chocolates, one after another. I realize some people aren't going to see why that's a bad thing...

This, though, is very different. horsegiirl (Not to be confused with Horsegirl.) takes the sugar out and replaces it with a bit of acid. Not that kind. The sharp stuff you get on acid drops. (Seriously? Acid drops? How old do you think your readers are? Even you don't remember acid drops. When you read about those in the Beano when you were a kid, you had to ask your grandmother what they were...)

Talking to myself in the second person now... I told you it was hot.

 CUT THE LINE - deBasement

Okay, I have no idea what that is. I just had it bookmarked. It's great though, isn't it? I love snippets of conversation used as lyrics. Used to be a bit of a thing back in the '90s. Don't hear it so much any more, more's the pity.

Shall I look them up? See who they are? Okay...

"deBasement are a queer/trans electropop-bass duo based in LA, comprised of Alli Logout (front person of the critically acclaimed punk outfit Special Interest), and Margo XS (esteemed DJ and in-demand producer who is a primary collaborator for Kim Petras, Zara Larsson and more)."

 Ohh... that makes sense!

MORNING DEW (DONK) - Beyoncé

I'm guessing I don't have to explain who Beyoncé is. Although she doesn't crop up here very often. She's in the "I understand why she's good but it's not doing it for me" pot most of the time. And honestly, i just like the way she goes "DonkyDonkyDonk."

I mean, who wouldn't?

Come and Go - Bodywash

Alright, I'm not going to gab on about who every last act on the bill this week might be. I have no clue who this lot are although I'd lay good money they're Australian. 

The way this works, or one way, is that I listen to a bunch of new stuff every day and if I like it I ignore it because I like a lot of things. Just liking something doesn't get us anywhere. 

If I really like it, though, I bookmark it to come back to when I'm considering candidates for the honor of being included in a post on a blog that's mostly read by people whose main interest most likely isn't music and whose tastes most likely aren't all that close to mine. (Then again, this one has less than a thousand views on YouTube so maybe they'll be glad of even a couple more.)

If I really, really like something, though, I listen to it a few more times and most likely take a look to see what else they've done, meaning when it comes time to write the post, I usually at least have a vague idea who they are. 

This is one I really liked.

Florida Water Blues - Twisted Teen

This one I really, really liked. So I looked up who they were. Which was a mistake. I liked it even more when I thought the band was the guy and the girl in the video. It's not. It's the two riding in the pickup at the end.

Sometimes, the less you know the better. 

I still really, really like it though.

Nobody - Computerwife

Takes a while to get going but it's worth the wait. Video needs a motion-sickness warning.

Couple of covers to end, I think. I did say I didn't have much and it's too damn hot still to go looking.

 Go F*** Yourself - Fat Dog

Their asterisks, not mine. So coy!

 Dog Dribble - Getdown Services

Oh, I see. It's like that, now, is it? Maybe it's time to stop. How about we go out with something tasteful?

 The Chain - The Tullamarines (Fleetwood Mac cover)

I liked the Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac, back when even getting to hear music from five years ago was like finding fragments from the Great library of Alexandria. Then punk came and they were the antichrist for a while. Now I can see them in the round and I like some of it and not the rest.

The only bit of The Chain I really like is the bit they used for the motor racing on TV back in the eighties. And I mostly liked that because it gave me warning so I could change the channel.  

I like Tusk. Shame they didn't pick that one.

And that, I think, will do for now, especially since my PC just crashed, either because it's fucking up again or because it's hotter than the surface of the sun in here. Think I'll give both of us a break to cool down.