February 10, 2016 - The Beatles - She Said She Said (1966)

This is one of John Lennon's mind games. A woman tells him she knows what it's like to be dead (in real life it was Peter Fonda) but John's like 'yeah right, get outta here'. The music swirls around, Ringo's drums lock in and then threaten to veer off into space, the bass jumps up and down the neck, the guitar picks out individual notes, stabs at chords, and sends the main riff in and out of the picture. The time signature goes from 4/4 to 3/4 in the 'when I was a boy' section. Then does a double time beat on the fade out. A brilliant paranoid schizophrenic piece of art. George Harrison apparently played guitar and bass on this track. Paul was pissed off about something or other and walked out. Or so it goes.

February 9, 2016 - The Seeds - Pushin' Too Hard (1965)

Yeah, this is one of the ultimate garage rock classics. Bam bam bam drums, simple clever riffs, lots of repetition. Raw fuzzed out rudimentary guitar solo, spat out vocals. Makes me think of the Star Trek episode, Miri, where that one kid just yells "bonk bonk on the head!!" He could get on stage with the Seeds and make the bonk bonk motion in time with the drums and occasionally shout bonk! bonk!

February 8, 2016 - Albert Band - Ella Tiene El Cabello Rubio (1970)

Jimi Hendrix sang, "I want to hear and see everything." That's how I feel about music. It seems like whenever I think I'm familiar with everything in the history of 20th century music, something new reaches my ears. This song, in English it means 'she has blonde hair', is a driving mess of spikey guitar chords, punctured tire bass lines, and somewhat under the radar swirling organ. The vocalist is wild, I love how the intensity of his voice builds through the verses. He starts out fairly subdued, then his voice rises and he sounds like he's about to throw a tantrum. I'd be like, Hey dude, just calm down OK? I can't help you if you are going to be all crazy. I wish I could say this at my job! In Spanish, too! The guitar solo starts around :53 and is truly warped. These guys were from the great city of Barcelona, and this song appears on the amazing compilation Andergraun Vibrations.

February 7, 2016 - Television Personalities - A Family Affair (1980)

I love the atmosphere of this song, so minimal and with a lot of reverb. Low-key bass and guitar lines accompany the troubling news affecting the lives of ordinary people. At the end the narrator asks, 'why should I care? It's just a family affair.' He then phones god, but he gets the answering machine. He says 'please help me.' Any thoughts?

February 6, 2016 - Big Star - O, Dana (1974)

"I'd rather shoot a woman than a man". Whoa, what is that about? This song is filled with esoteric lyrics, there is a nice little discussion about some of them here. Musically, I have always appreciated gentle waves of strings in popular music, and they show up in this song around :45 and 1:30. Another beautiful Alex Chilton creation from the Third/Sister Lovers album. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe he's the same guy who sang on 'The Letter'...but it's true.

February 5, 2016 - Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (1967)

It's weird posting this one, since Paul Kantner died about a week ago. Actually, the original singer of the group, Signe Toly Anderson, also died that day. I hope they are chasing rabbits out there in the cosmos. This song was released during the 1967 summer of love (just like me, haha), but it sounds like a bummer, man. You take those pills and you had better be ready to face the music. I love the bass that opens it and Jorma's snakey guitar lines, and quasi bolero rhythm. Grace Slick wrote this song (in an hour, supposedly) and sings it like I would imagine someone who lived in Wonderland would sing it, with a tone of warning, while sitting peacefully on a mushroom in a jungle of fantastic objects and visions.

February 4, 2016 - Houston Wells and the Marksmen - North Wind (1962)

Finally, some Joe Meek magic! So many of his trademark production ideas are present on this "death disc" - the clackety rhythm, the climbing and falling keyboard, the heavenly choir, the pumping feel of the compression, the high lonesome almost out of tune guitar solo. It conjures up images of some low budget western horror nightmare. Even more so when you listen to the singer. He sounds like he's right out of some poor quality negative colorized film version of Oklahoma! on a fuzzy UHF channel (like channel 44 in Chicago in the 70s), and you have to keep manually adjusting the horizontal bar on the tv set. And he sings with such gusto - 'how I loved and lost my baby took her life as well', like he's out riding on the range to hell. Just your typical messed up romantic killer psycho tunes. No one else sounds like Joe Meek, a cross between easy listening and beautiful scary weirdo pop music. This recording is taken from the great Joe Meek compilation It's Hard To Believe It.

February 3, 2016 - Funkadelic - Alice In My Fantasies (1974)

Batten down the hatches, it's time for a wild two and 1/2 minute ride. Eddie Hazel scorches on this one, such an amazing guitarist.

Please enjoy the crazy George Clinton lyrics. Wow, hahaha, amazing.

Look at the image. Those look like Funkadelic merit badges. And Eagle Scout ones at that. How did I miss out on becoming a Funk Scout?

February 2, 2016 - The Beatles - Got To Get You Into My Life (1966)

I could not find the Revolver version of this song on you tube, so I found something close - take 8. I also recorded my own instrumental version, if anyone wants to check it out.

This song will always take me back to the summer of 1976, I can picture my nine-year-old self at Deerspring Pool, eating chips and fla-vor-ice from the snack bar and impatiently waiting for the whistle that marked the end of the 15 minute adult swim period. This song came on a lot through the radio loudspeakers. It had been reissued that year as a single. I didn't find out that the song was originally from 1966 until a few years later.

This may be my favorite song of Paul's. His voice is amazing. The horns are so dramatic, and they have a unique texture to them. They remind me of the opening horns in Stevie Wonder's 'Sir Duke'. The other part of the song I like is George's guitar at the end, it is magical and brilliant.

February 1, 2016 - The Modern Lovers - Dignified and Old (1972)

Check out Jonathan Richman on the left in that image, he always looked like such a squeaky clean little teenager. I really love all the songs from the Modern Lovers, but this one is a favorite. Like so many of the songs on this album, it's about being a teenager. In this song, the singer is all depressed because of some break-up, but he thinks about how he will someday get through all the 'bleakness and gray and sadness' and grow up to be 'dignified and old.' He is also singing to all the other teens out there going through the same thing, we will all get through this together - "hey kids," we will be ok. Jonathan Richman's lethargic adenoidal voice fits in well with the lyrics. It's like he's so depressed he's just staying in bed all day, moaning and groaning and drinking Nyquil. I like playing along with this one on my guitar. Quite jangly and clean.