Author: mystro2b

Welcome to Paradise by Green Day.

When you’ve had a crappy day, this is the album you put on and play LOUD. You’ll get your angst out in no time.

Surrender by Cheap Trick.

A classic rock anthem by guys who are still rocking today. One of my former students, a 4th grader at the time, came up to me one day and said, “Mr. P., do you know the band Cheap Trick?” Not something you hear from a kid this young. “My uncle Rick plays guitar in the band.” “Um, what!? Wow!” I exclaimed. “Rick Nielsen? Can you get him to sign my guitar?”

Heaven by Psychedelic Furs.

Not only a great band name, but that lead voice by Richard Butler, on the edge of vocal fry is unmistakable. How did he achieve that unique vocal timbre? His brother Tim explains:

“He used to enhance it in the studio by drinking milk, Tim Butler said. “It’s supposed to be a no-no for real singers; you don’t drink milk because it creates phlegm. But for him, it enhanced his vocal style.”

https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/2017/10/psychedelic_furs_tim_butler_ta.html

Something’s Coming by Oscar Peterson.

I love it when jazz pianists cover great tunes. Oscar Peterson is a genius with this one from West Side Story.

Once in a Lifetime by The Talking Heads.

“My God, how did I get here?” Another song I probably saw on MTV first in high school and was my first introduction to The Talking Heads. This version is from the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, but was released first on Remain in Light in 1980.

David Byrne’s choreography in the video was done by the one-hit-wonder Toni Basil (“Mickey“). It was a very odd video, and for many people it was the first look they got at the Talking Heads. As you watch David Byrne spasm like a malfunctioning robot interspersed with gesturing in Martian sign language,
…Toni Basil fills in some details about the choreography for this video: “He [Byrne] wanted to research movement, but he wanted to research movement more as an actor, as does David Bowie, as does Mick Jagger. They come to movement in another way, not as a trained dancer. Or not really interested in dance steps. He wanted to research people in trances – different trances in church and different trances with snakes. So we went over to UCLA and USC, and we viewed a lot of footage of documentaries on that subject. And then he took the ideas, and he ‘physicalized’ the ideas from these documentary-style films.”

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/talking-heads/once-in-a-lifetime

Rosanna by Toto.

Rosanna is my middle name. Not really. I just love this song. Here is why it’s great:

Oh Yeah by Yello. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Teenaged Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is a legend in his own time thanks to his uncanny skill at cutting classes and getting away with it. Intending to make one last grand duck-out before graduation, Ferris calls in sick, “borrows” a Ferrari, and embarks on a one-day bacchanal through the streets of Chicago. Dogging Ferris’ trail at every turn is high-school principal Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), determined to catch Bueller in the act of class-cutting. Writer/director John Hughes once again tries to wed satire, slapstick, and social commentary, as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off starts like a house afire and goes on to make “serious” points about status-seeking and casual parental cruelties. It brightens up considerably in the last few moments, when Ferris’ tattletale sister (Jennifer Grey) decides to align herself with her merry prankster sibling. A huge moneymaker, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off eventually spawned a TV sitcom. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ferris_buellers_day_off

Save Ferris.

F.B.I. by Natalie Wouldn’t.

13 years ago, I played in a band that opened for the legendary Ska band The English Beat. The band is called Natalie Wouldn’t and they have been skanking out the Ska beats since 2000. This original track is one of my favorites. Super fun spy guy vibe.

The tenor sax player was a parent of one of my students at the time. He would volunteer his time to help out my beginning sax players. He knew that trombone was my main instrument and asked me if I wanted to join his band. “We could use a trombone player!” I declined. But then one day he asked me again, and as I was about to say no, he said: “Oh, did I mention, we are opening for the English Beat?” Hell yes! Mirror in the Bathroom was one of my favorite tunes- almost everything on that pink, black and white album was my favorite. I started going to rehearsals as we prepared for the big show. NW had a great set and several original tunes in their line-up and I played harmony to the tenor sax part. After that show though, I quit playing with the band. They were (and still are!) a great group of guys, but my school age kids were the priority. I really had a great time playing this show and thank Natalie Wouldn’t for allowing me to sit in on the dream gig of my life.

One weird memory of this show was watching The English Beat backstage during the show and lead singer Dave Wakeling with his left handed guitar, 51 years old at the time, reaching for a big cup of water after a song and yelling in his English accent, “The specter of dehydration looms large. Stay hydrated!”

Jungle Love by The Steve Miller Band.

Another guitar riff I spent hours trying to play, unsuccessfully. I spent hours on various guitar blogs, trying to dial in that perfect combination of distortion, compression and tone. The problem is, there are so many variables in the signal chain on an electric guitar that you realize the only variable you don’t possess is Steve Miller’s fingers. Pray you never have to play this song in a cover band if you are the guitarist, because it will suck- hard.

Marina Gasolina by Bonde Do Rolê.

What is going on here? It’s Crunk baby:

Crunk is a subgenre of hip hop music that emerged in the early 1990s and gained mainstream success during the mid 2000s. Crunk is often up-tempo and one of Southern hip hop’s more dance and club oriented subgenres. An archetypal crunk track frequently uses a main groove consisting of layered keyboard synths, a drum machine rhythm, heavy basslines, and shouting vocals, often in a call and response manner. The term “crunk” is also used as a blanket term to denote any style of Southern hip hop, a side effect of the genre’s breakthrough to the mainstream. The word derives from its African-American slang past-participle form, “crunk”, of the verb “to crank” (as in the phrase “crank up”).

https://www.discogs.com/style/crunk