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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Totally Bodacious Confidence-Building Playlist

Hey there, shrimp. Tired of getting sand kicked in your face? Tired of ordering those get-big-now products in the back of comic books? Tired of the bully from the beach stealing your mail and using the get-big-now products you ordered only to get bigger and kick more sand in your face on the beach? Well spit out those tiny rock babies (sand). You men and women can empower yourselves cheaply and safely from the confines of your loneliest computer room. All you need is, get this, a thing that plays music, and a way to get music that is recommended to you. I suggest any way that is legal and in some way rewards artisans for their innovative and selfless efforts. Unless that artisan is Kanye West. If that's the case, plunder and pillage like a pirate viking straight outta space-jail.

Here are 10 confidence-building songs perfect to listen to right before:

- entering a job interview
- asking Betty or Lindsay to the Friday's Place dance
- standing before a judge

So get the 'rone (body-builder-types like us call it testosterone) and enjoy a 10 song playlist of music that is sure to make you stupidly punch your computer screen in a fit of confident rage.

1) Motorhead - Ace of Spades - Holy Hell. Motorhead came into my life like one of the apostles coming to a sinful ignorant desert village. Except the apostle was actually the influential 1980s BBC comedy series The Young Ones (I was the village). The Young Ones was a surreal look into what a country of weirdos think is funny - basically bludgeoning each other with blunt objects for 30min or so. Regardless, this show was the closest thing to a variety show I ever watched (in fact, the show's producers claimed to the BBC it was actually a variety show because variety shows were given more money). Motorhead exploded on the screen and this song assaulted and brutally beat my morally pure ears like a musical chaingang. Pretty soon I was selling my comic books for glue and speed and whistling at the girls on the tire playground. Hearing this song now fills me with the same relentless can-do/fuck-shit-up/eat-that-thing attitude only a person with his whole life ahead of him can have... or a 10 year old geek who should be outside on a sunny day playing with other neighborhood kids instead of watching an obscure program from a country that is unfortunately NOT America.



2) Sick Of It All - Step Down - Okay, these NYC hardcore legends might not have the most radio-friendly tunes so don't expect your parish or deacon to dig the vocals of Lou Koller, and what the hell are you doing hanging with those dudes anyway- you should be out partying before this country gets sold. In the rare instance someone actually asks me for an opinion such as what old-school hardcore bands are worth a few ducats, I would probably start with this band, this song. It's more melodic than most of SOIA's catalog but there's still a good old fashioned "breakdown" in the middle that you can listen to on your iPod without getting kicked in the face by some guy named Angelo from Crown Heights (but probably has relatives in Staten Island). I saw these guys at a Warped Tour in '94 or '95 then promptly returned to the comforts of my suburban fortress never to venture out among city-folk again (or regular folk for that matter (I order my kleenex box shoes from creepyshut-in.com))




3) Operation Ivy - Unity - Holy Shit, what the fuck are these guys singing about? Are we really at war?! I heard something about Iraq and Afghanistan but thought that blew over like the Leave-Britney-Alone guy! But these guys are from the 80s?! What the Eff, are these guys like soothsayers or astrologers? How in the world did they know we would be neck deep in the international shenanigans we've cooked up for ourselves. Woah, just checked this shit in google: Turns out there's been like wars for like a long effin' time but this song is still appropriate. They did the punk/ska thing before it was cool and then REALLY uncool and then just there.




4) Fucked Up - Baiting The Public - You know the line in Wayne's World where they talk about The Shitty Beatles and how it's not just a clever band name? How many times do you think I made that joke in reference to this band? If you said a shitload, you are pretty close. It's a shit-ton. Seriously, haters love to hate this band. But you know who else was a hater? Hitler. Do you really want to share anything in common with Hitler? Didn't think so. This song is terrific and at 5:57 you can play it to drown out almost 6 minutes of Rock Of Love 2: Bus Of Love. As for the other 3 seconds, that is entirely up to you. Some may suggest a bullet, but if I had to watch to more than 3 seconds of that show I would dust off my grand pappy's colt and give my noodle-noggin a good ol' fashioned roofdoor.



5) Ink & Dagger - Shadowtalker - What are the fuck are these guys so angry about? Who's in the shadows? What shadows? Where are the shadows? These guys were 1) from Philly and 2) great. Sadly, singer Sean McCabe died in an motel room somewhere in Indiana. They were one of the few punk/HC bands I ever knew about actually playing in make-up. Them and Yuppicide (who were also very good no matter what my mother says). In fact I just watched some performance from 1998 in Germany. These guys looked like a hardcore Addam's Family.



6) Queen - Don't Stop Me Now - That's right. Queen. One simple word. They made it easy for you. Impress your friends by recommending a song by Queen that isn't played at every sporting event every day in every state (or province). Guitarist Brian May actually built his guitar from wooden mantle over his family's fireplace. He and his dad built it together. Further proof that the family that builds guitars together, rocks together. The family that walks together, rocks together is 7 Seconds. I remember buying Live Killers on CD sometime in '91 but I had to play it on my mom's special CD player and only when she was home since I only owned a tape deck from the 70s. Eventually we both realized how annoying that all was for the both of us so she just dubbed it to cassette for me. It was the first CD I ever bought immediately followed by those two Sup-Pop comp CDs (remember, one had those two businessmen in a car on the cover and the other had a cartoon).



7) Ram Jam - Black Betty - I was at a Whitney Biennial and one of the "exhibits" was a video of guys dressed in pope, Santa, and mythological Nordic beast costumes breaking into eastern Europen RVs in small villages (I think it was Romania) and hassling the adults and frightening the children. I mean children were actually crying. I remember one guy in a monster costume roughing up one the kids pretty bad. The kid was crying really hard and it was all being videotaped on a camcorder. Needless to say... it was awesome! Oh, and they were all singing along to this song and drinking vodka for a little bit. A routine google search for this song provided no interesting information, however the video is the most no-frills thing from the 70s I've ever seen.



8) Rapeman - Just Got Paid - I know what you're thinking. Really? What's with this band's name? And how come whenever I hear Steve Albini's name it's always followed by "asshole"? Personally, I got bigger fish to fry. Like this 24 Ib Kingfish caught in Clearwater Florida. Mmm, that's good eating.



9) Oasis - Fuckin' In the Bushes - This song was in that stupid movie Snatch. I know some of you may lose sleep putting Oasis on your iPod but this song is actually pretty decent to lift a weight or two to, and then drop the weight on Liam Gallagher's skull. It's also pretty gratifying to learn on guitar. Watch me rock, dad!



10) Sloan - Keep On Thinkin' - This power pop quartet is the only thing I know from Nova Scotia that doesn't go on a bagel. This song is also the outro to a film I made in college with my uncle, cousin, and closest friend. We had been up for about 72 hours with about 8 hours of collective sleep. And even though anything you played me would have sounded like Jesus/Bach I knew that after the haze cleared this would still be a good album. Nay, great album. And still is. And is and is. Weirdly enought, it only exists on youtube as part of a local cooking show. Seriously though, the whole album Navy Blues is perfect like a platinum-soaked pill of some type of alien ecstasy that only the coolest aliens take when they go clubbing.



CONGRATULATIONS!

11) Electric Light Orchestra - Tightrope - You got the job! Now don't take it too seriously and have a good time. Live fast, die young, leave all debts unpaid, and don't forget to look vampires in the eye when you drive the stake in (lets 'em know who's boss!)


5 comments:

Dan Brooks said...

Holy crap man, great post. I love all the choices -- especially Queen. I love the way that tune is used in Shaun of the Dead.

Some of my confidence builders:

ELO - Don't Bring Me Down (I know you already listed an ELO tune, but in college I always played this before a final.)

Hall & Oates - You Make My Dreams

Paul McCartney - Too Many People

Dropkick Murphys - I'm Shipping Up To Boston

Chris Bacolo said...

I was at that Warped Tour show! SOIA, CIV, Shelter Quicksand- Amazing!

caroline carr said...

"Watch me rock, dad!"

you are awesome.

Dan Brooks said...

There is a video somewhere on the internets of a young Chris Bacolo rocking to Avail...and there is also a video of an old Chris Bacolo playing Rock Band with an Optimus Prime helmet on.

Michael McGillicuddy said...

RS superguest Adam K was also at that show taking photos of mid-90s kids slamdancing... and slamromancing.