John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Weekend playlist

Been a few weeks since I posted a list of tunes I've been playing; too busy, I guess, to type some notes. Here, randomly, are a few of the songs that have been playing in the earbuds or in the car lately.

Taj Mahal: Bound To Love Me Some. I could play Taj Mahal over and over ... and do, come to think of it.

Rod Stewart: Seems Like A Long Time. From Every Picture Tells a Story, which I heard a lot around the house while I was growing up, and am still quite fond of to this day. I'm impressed that Stewart made his best work - the early solo albums - while he was still recording and touring with the Faces.

The Farm: Groovy Train. One of my favourite summer songs by a band that looked, for a couple of seconds,that they were going to stick around.

Kirsty MacColl: Children Of The Revolution. From Electric Landlady, a song about bombs, destruction, wreckage and refugees that is heartbreaking and hummable, with a guitar backdrop by Johnny Marr.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! It's nice to see that Nick Cave is a) still with us and b) still wonderful. The album of the same name came out this spring.

Weekend playlist

A little rock, some jazz, a bit of ska with a townie twist ... all bits on the playlist this week.

Radiohead: Reckoner. From In Rainbows, a favourite built around clanging percussion and a hypnotic guitar figure, and a singalong vocal from Mr. Sunshine himself, Thom Yorke.

Idlers: Guns Of Navarone. "In 2007, the Idlers took the music from the Skatalites ... and gave it to the townies." So goes the setup to this faithful cover by the St. John's ska band, from last year's album Corner. I really like the Idlers; I knew Guns of Navarone from the Specials, which were huge for my generation, so it's cheering to see a young band reaching back even farther, and playing with so much energy besides. The pic above was lifted from Graham Case's Flickr page.

T-Bone Burnett: Kill Zone. It's not Brian Wilson's Smile, but give T-Bone Burnett credit for completing his new album, Tooth of Crime, a long-delayed project to create a musical complement to an early 1970s play by Sam Shepard. An indication of the long gestation: this song was cowritten by Roy Orbison, shortly before his death in 1988. For all the world, the song sounds right out of Orbison's work, with Burnett himself sounding very similar.

Anita Best & Pamela Morgan: Lowlands Low. A while back, a friend living away asked me to pick my top Newfoundland album; I would probably change my mind several times over the months, but I picked The Colour of Amber, which holds up as a deeply satisfying piece of work.

Jim Hall: Baubles, Bangles and Beads. From 1971's ... Where Would I Be?, one of my favourite jazz guitar albums. The stuff Sunday mornings were made for. I first learned about Jim Hall when I was collecting Ella Fitzgerald records; I ought to resume my search for more of his material. It never disappoints.

Weekend playlist ('That's hot' edition)

Saturday was conspicuously warm in St. John's ... it wasn't that hot, it's just that the preceding weeks have been so cold. Noticing that two of the newer songs on my iPod have a thematic link, I went looking for more. Apologies to Paris Hilton.

The B-52s: Hot Corner. The B-52s have a new album, Funplex, and pretty much the same sound and look that have served them well (for some reason, though, they dropped the apostrophe in their name, which I guess shows that it took about three decades to understand how a possessive works). It's nice to have a toe-tapper again, but ... well, don't they age?

The Detroit Cobras: Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat). This came from a CD tucked into Uncut some months back, paying tribute to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. Proof, if nothing else, that rock is alive in someone's garage.

Bina Mistry: Hot Hot Hot. What wedding or Christmas dinner-n-dance would be complete without an awkward run-through of "feeling hot! hot! hot!"? Among the versions out there, I like this curried take on the Bend It Like Beckham soundtrack.

Hot Chip: Ready for the Floor. Nerdy look, non-melodic vocals, great hooks.

The Bosshoss: Hot Stuff. Yes, the Donna Summer song, getting the Bosshoss countrified workout. Not as hilarious as, say, their wink at Britney Spears's Toxic, but fun enough.

Billy Idol: Hot In The City. When did Billy Idol go from a semi-credible punk guy to a I-wanna-top-the-charts dude? About around here, I would reckon. "Straaaanger ..."

Sly & The Family Stone: Hot Fun In The Summer Time. More appropriate for August, I would guess, than the tentative warmth we get in May, but an AM radio favourite from my childhood. I'm still amazed to think that some people thought this song, or Dancing in the Streets for that matter, was code for rioting.

Level 42: Hot Water. A song from a period in the 80s when it was acceptable, if not fashionable, for semi-mulletted men to wear paisley shirts, long scarves and red jackets.

Weekend playlist

A bit of jazz, a few golden oldies, and the return of Portishead are on this week's playlist.

Tito Puente: Take Five. The rip and roar that Puente's band puts into a cover of the Dave Brubeck Quartet classic is so energetic, it's tempting to consider it the default. (Tempting, but not enough. Paul Desmond forever!) A lot of fun.

Dire Straits: Skateaway. From Making Movies, one of my favourite album tracks of the early 1980s. A slow build and very cinematic in its feel.

Portishead: Deep Water. I bought the new album, Third, which is the first album of new work in 11 years. Poor Portishead got saddled with having arrived at a key modern musical style years ahead of others, and, worse, getting saddled with a "dinner party music" reputation, which is hardly fair. I've played Third through a couple of times, and it's different, in several ways. Deep Water sticks out the most: I actually thought it was Beirut, with a ukelele arrangement.

McCoy Tyner: Lazy Bird. From an Atlantic piano compilation I bought around 1991, when I was beefing up my CD collection (not the wisest move, in retrospect!) and widening my jazz appetite. McCoy Tyner fits most any weekend mood I've ever had.

John Lee Hooker: Dimples. Last month, I picked up an Uncut feature on the Rolling Stones, which came with a compilation CD featuring 15 early blues, R&B and rock tunes "that fired up" Mick, Keef et al. The CD was worth the cost of the mag.

Weekend playlist (backing vocals edition)

This weekend's playlist has a thread in common: tunes featuring well-known singers chipping in the backup vocals. They're from, roughly, the same period, with the Robbie Robertson song coming a bit later.

Warren Zevon: Excitable Boy. Linda Ronstadt stands out on this dark, dark slice of boppy pop (a junior prom date that goes murderously wrong); Jennifer Warnes and Karla Bonoff provided harmony vocals behind Zevon.

Robbie Robertson: Fallen Angel. A deeply felt tribute to Richard Manuel, the late singer and pianist who played for years with Robertson in The Band, Fallen Angel gets its emotional anchor from Peter Gabriel's supporting vocal. Speaking of Gabriel ...

Peter Gabriel: Games Without Frontiers. Kate Bush sings the "jeux sans frontieres" chorus; not as famous as her appearance on Don't Give Up, but I always think of that as a duet.

Rough Trade: Crimes of Passion. Carole Pope may have had a vivid writing style, but a limited (sub-octave? maybe) singing voice. Bruce Cockburn puts some oomph into Rough Trade's tale of kinky crime. Cockburn later recruited Pope to return the favour on Making Contact.

Steely Dan: Time Out of Mind. Michael MacDonald made several appearances on Steely Dan songs, particularly in the early years; for this highlight from Gaucho, he's one of several instruments that blend in a tight, near-perfect arrangement.

Weekend playlist

Fairport Convention: I Heard It Through The Grapevine. The Norman Whitfield-Barrett Strong classic gets a surprisingly gritty treatment on this live recording, featuring Richard Thompson. A long ways from the dulcimer-n-fiddle sound I might have expected.

The Police: The Bed's Too Big Without You. What makes an album a classic? Well, after almost three decades, I still love listening to Reggatta De Blanc, and almost every track.

Hot Chip: Made in the Dark: The title track from the electronica band that resists the electronica label. Which makes sense, as they don't sound much like other outfits with synths and drum machines.

The Flaming Lips: The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song. I don't think I'll be able to listen to this song again without thinking of a shrieking Brent Bambury. Before last week's show from St. John's, Bambury used an edited loop from this song - basically, with the lyrics chopped out, except for the "yeah yeah yeah" bits - to get the audience on the go, as it were. It worked: a couple of hundred people trying to harmonize, if that's the word, with Wayne Coyne's scales.

Lorraine Bowen: Julie Christie. This showed up this week in the KCRW Top Tune podcast; it apparently has been kicking around since 1997, and showed up almost a decade ago on the soundtrack of Anne Wheeler's Better than Chocolate. It's playful and kitschy; with lyrics like, "Julie Christie / She makes me go misty," how could it not? KCRW picked it from a new collection called Far Out: Swinging Bachelor Pad Music. Who said lounge was dead?

Weekend playlist (new tunes from old faces)

I do try to keep up with new tunes ... honest. But I'll confess to being much like any music fan: I know what I like, and I'm more inclined to listen to something new from an old favourite, rather than something new from someone new. This week, a roundup of tunes I've picked up in the last few weeks from artists, some of whom I haven't heard much from in years.

Van Morrison: How Can A Poor Boy? First up, Mr. Happypants himself. The new Van Morrison record, Keep It Simple, is bluesier than most. I read the lyrics before putting on the CD, and pretty much needed a drink just after that. The music, by the way, is terrific ... another fine Van Morrison album that will likely drift by without getting much attention.

The Rolling Stones featuring Buddy Guy: Champagne & Reefer. Speaking of the blues ... We went to see Shine a Light, the Martin Scorsese documentary film made at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan in late 2006, and just out now. It's very good. One of my favourite moments was this Muddy Waters cover; the Stones are fine, but Buddy Guy nailed it it for me, with a wicked smile, fiery guitar and of course that voice.

Sheryl Crow: Love is Free. Crow's new album, Detours, is the best I've heard from her in years. She certainly has something to say: tirades about the Iraq war, a fierce song about fighting cancer, a lament for a broken marriage. The album, though, is not a downer. It's hard not to tap your fingers to a tune like this.

Billy Bragg: I Keep Faith. More pop than politics from Bragg. I downloaded the single a week when it was released, and will likely pick up the new album, Mr. Love and Justice, after it comes out later this month. This is up there with his best.

k.d. lang: I Dream Of Spring. lang's new album Watershed was recorded in simple circumstances - at her own home, for instance - and that sound comes through. It's a great record for reading ... not a raveup, then, but it's good.

Was (Not Was): Mr. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. I held off on buying the whole new album - Boo! is the title - but liked the sound of the sample of this to spring for a buck on it. Nice to hear the "brothers" are back in form ... sounding like the break of the last 16 years hadn't happened. This tune is, evidently, a Bob Dylan cowrite.

Weekend playlist

As dinner cooks on the stove, a few words about what's been simmering on the iPod.

Art of Noise. Beat Box. Much of what you hear on Beat Box - the stabbing samples, the rumbling synthesized basslines, the snip-snip editing - became cliches, but here it was all daringly pulled off. I didn't take Art of Noise all that seriously at the time (I didn't think you were supposed to), but in retrospect, it's clear how influential they were.

James McMurtry: No More Buffalo. James McMurtry has been releasing material for about two decades; he has earned his wings through the roots-Americana-whatever-label-you-like arena and deserves a bigger audience. He inherited his storytelling skill honestly; his father is writer Larry McMurtry, who spun a few stories out of horizons and open roads himself.

Michelle Shocked: Come A Long Way. That song made me think of this, for some reason (they're the same generation, and both from Texas ... maybe that has something to do with it); one of the good songs on Michelle Shocked's Arkansas Traveler album, which stretches across a slew of genres. This one (about a repossessed motorcycle and a mythically long trip around Los Angeles) rocks harder than the rest, and is a great bit of writing.

Yael Naim: New Soul. The non-Feist song that Apple is using to move product these days. Also a darn snappy tune.

Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy and Paul Weller: John Barleycorn. From a Word magazine compilation of this winter, a fighting take on an English standard. Raise your glass.

Weekend playlist (Love Will Tear Us Apart covers edition)

I believe I first heard Love Will Tear Us Apart in the fall of 1980, on CBC Radio's 90 Minutes with a Bullet, if memory serves, but I stand to be corrected. There weren't many avenues to hear a song like that in that pre-video, pre-web era. I was a teenager at the time, and was morbidly fascinated that Joy Division's singer, Ian Curtis, had killed himself just a month after the song came out. If the song might have seemed like a sneer of a retort to the sunniness of the Captain and Tenille, Curtis's death put it in another context. Curtis's young widow had the title of the song engraved into his headstone.

Over the years, the song has gutted me more than once, as my adult self understood and appreciated the song so much more.

Love Will Tear Us Apart has had a remarkable life of its own. It's now regarded as a classic, and likely will last for the ages. It's certainly been covered enough times, which is what this week's playlist is all about.

Damhnait Doyle: Love Will Tear Us Apart. The idea for this set comes from Dav's new album Lights Down Low, a colletion of covers. My first reaction on hearing this tune was, Why bother? It's similar enough to the Nouvelle Vague cover (see below) that I felt it was a bit of a retread. The cover, though, has grown on me, and I quite like the rest of the album, which Doyle put together with producer Danny Michel. (Any chance of a hometown concert soon, Dav?)

Nouvelle Vague: Love Will Tear Us Apart. The French hipsters opened their 2004 debut album - a set of covers with a bossa nova style of new wave songs (nouvelle vague loosely works as a translation of both, with a nod to French cinematic history - with this reworking of Joy Division, exchanging the thundering bassline with plucked guitars and chiming percussion.

Paul Young: Love Will Tear Us Apart. Paul Young was everywhere in 1983. No Parlez reinvented Marvin Gaye and other soul gems, but also made me (and I'm sure many others) look at Love Will Tear Us Apart differently. It was no longer a Joy Division recording, but a song.

Calexico: Love Will Tear Us Apart. My favourite of the lot. Available on a 2005 Starbucks compilation called Sweetheart, it's a streamlined rendition, but as rhythmic in its own right.

Hawksley Workman: Love Will Tear Us Apart. A B-side from about five years ago. Workman gives the song a dirge of a slowdown. Available through iTunes.

Vitamin String Quartet: Love Will Tear Us Apart. Speaking of iTunes ... I rummaged around the store, sampling a wide variety of covers. This one - from an album called the Gothic Wedding Collection - is part of a series of string quartet arrangements of modern songs, from Enjoy the Silence (Nouvelle Vague got there first, too, with a carnival treatment) to Orinoco Flow to - unlikely as it is for a wedding album - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. I liked it enough to buy the works.

New Order: Love Will Tear Us Apart (iTunes Originals Version). I also found that New Order last fall did an iTunes Originals series, reworking some of their own material, as well as revisiting the main legacy from Joy Division (in part, I imagine, because of the Anton Corbijn film Control). A very energetic cover of their own work, down to the keyboards and bass.

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Weekend playlist

Here are a few of the songs that have been playing around the house over the last few days.

Van Morrison: Sweet Thing. It's a sweet thing, indeed, to be able to turn someone on to some music you know they'll love. A family member did not have Van Morrison's Astral Weeks in his collection, which I think was to change this weekend, following a rave of a description. I'm still agog to learn that the backing tracks were recorded in a matter of hours, with Morrison working astonishingly quickly with the jazz musicians he hired; strings, winds and other touches were added later in overdubbing, which in the case of Sweet Thing proved to be pretty important.

The Heavenly States: Lost in the Light. The new album from this California band was released - sorry, dropped, to use the apparently obligatory language of today - a few weeks ago. KEXP issued this tune a few days ago as a teaser. That worked ... it's great.

Joan Armatrading: Mama Papa. I bought Armatrading's latest album, Into The Blues, as a stocking stuffer for my wife this Christmas. It's great to hear her back with new material, and with that voice.

New Order: Your Silent Face. What 1983 sounded like, as a I recall. The hypnotic synthesizers sounded so much more interesting than the peppy synthesizers that were absolutely everywhere at the time.

The Waterboys: Church Not Made With Hands. From A Pagan Place. A debut that holds up pretty well. I - wrongly, as it turned out - expected future Waterboys material to follow suit.

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