Feb 2007 Tape - I'm Leaving for Birmingham

Download the Feb 2007 tape. [I first started making myself these playlists in January of 2007, so I could sort of have a memento from each individual thirty-day eon of headspace that I spent on my machine…Also, I have far, far too many songs/albs in my i-tunes than I can organize in even the most haphazard of way.. So having a month’s worth of hits clomped together made sense, and imbued my days of research with a weird, sonic-curatorial function.
What I’m trying to say is that I actually listen to these playlists - I have hard copy cds of each in my car. And I’d love it if you listened, too.

What a great comp, no? My “January 2007” mixtape was a bit erratic, but this dog was a full-on success. ]

Espresso Love by Dire Straits
There was a lotta shit going on in NJ in 1986 that you wouldn’t believe. I don’t believe it, and I was there! This cut was a favorite of my aunt’s, a Springsteen worshipper and former “wine n’ beach party”-type who took my sis and I to meet people who played volleyball and dug the vibe of the Marina. It’s from Making Movies, the predecessor of the then-contemporary, fantastically awesome Brothers in Arms.

First Gear by the Rapture
Like the Liars and Black Dice, these guys were near royalty five years ago, but their bandwagoneer/pundit friends seem to’ve run out of things to say about ‘em… well, great. But what about me? Oh god, how have I forgotten all about this band? Here’s the thing, the one album of theirs that I don’t love – Echoes – is most famous (what a contrarian son-of-a-gun, no?) Well, from their gravity records days on through the more discoist tendencies of late, I’ve been a fan. Simply a filthy vocal track on this, end of story!

Mona by JJ Cale
Meanwhile, all my hero-ish dudes like Waylon Jennings and Neil Young always knew enough to enlist JJ Cale as a sideman if not evoke him as an oracle. Here we have a tasty, phased lead guitar and unpretentious sexual innuendo. Eric Clapton couldn’t do this if his life depended on it.

Flying Fuck For All by “New" Terror Class
If recently I mentioned a dearth of punk rock records I really loved from the 1990s, well the 2000s’d be even dearthier. Thankfully there is this gigantic sprawling album from Kent, OH’s finest. Only one tendril of a Kent tendency that also includes Party of Hellicopters and the unfucwithable Harriet the Spy, Terror Class stands out for their lyrical confrontationalism and their swirling mix of synth and gtrs. This is the classic “fuck you, parent! You don’t understand that I need to work in a video store and reissue 7”s” song.

Phosphate Skin (live) by Son Volt
Live on KXPN, this the first full-band public performance of material from the “Search.” James Walbourne is the badass on electric guitar backing up this, top-10 headiest songs Farrar has ever written. Very resolute choruses, huh? Somebody made the point that the gtr vibe on the studio version of this song reminds them of Black and Blue-era Stones.

We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue by Curtis Mayfield
(Comment withheld.. you know this one?)

Town by Richard Buckner
The band on this album – feat. Buzzo from the Buttheads, Son Volt’s Andrew Duplantis GBV/Cobra Verde/Gem’s Doug Gillard, and more) is an effing monster. So much so, in fact, that you don’t mind these songs structure and content seeming like siblings of its predecessor, Dents and Shells.

Circles by Bob Mould
One of the only two cuts from Body of Sound that approach the level of 2008’s amazing District Line. That’s what you need to hear, is District Line.

Amajan by Ilyas Ahmed
My favorite new artist from 2007, here heard at his most Flying Saucer/Tower Recordings/Jessamine-y. Spacious, quite, resigned gtr chords descend endlessly unto themselves while a languid, language-less Speaker sings what is either a prayer or lamentation.

I Want My Baby Back by the Ethics
Oh those slip-slappy, choppy, funky chords! To get in, and to get out, within 2 minutes….?

She’s All Up Above by Mojave 3
Another personal landmark. Note the lazy, spicy pedal steel vibes and juxtapose it to Neal Hagerty’s English vocs.

Great Cop by Fugazi
Punk rock from the 90s huh? I look for wires when I’m talking to you.

Somebody in the World for You by the Mighty Hannibal
Nothing extra special about the (nonetheless awesome) groove, noting too cute or engaging about the lyrics. But, Mighty Hannibal catapults himself to the forefront of your consciousness nonetheless, on energy and elbow grease alone. Tough stuff.

Edge of the World by Bill Nelson
I stole a 2cd Nelson retrospective from my step-brother in the early 2000s. There is an ethereal kind of, uh, “edge of the world” vibe here that gives me a sense of what Mississippi fish-camps might be like during nuclear winter.

The Blues Don’t Knock by Don Covay
Ooh, let’s take things out with a closing time object lesson. Lucky you, so beautiful and cold.