Ciao, party-goers! This week the Listening Party turns 50 and Mary and David celebrate by doing…the exact same thing as always! That’s right – they play a bunch of songs and yak up a storm!
Come on into the old Rumpus Room and take a seat near the old Victrola while we listen to the following songs:
- Freddie Scott – “Are You Lonely for Me” – Are You Lonely for Me, 1967 – 20:52
- Mike Watt – “Against the 70s” – Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, 1995 – 38:08
- Meat Puppets – “Plateau” – Meat Puppets II, 1984 – 1:01:28
- Jim O’Rourke – “Last Year” – Simple Songs, 2015 – 1:10:10
- Cate Le Bon – “I Was Born on the Wrong Day” – Crab Day, 2016 – 1:22:46
- Leo Sayer – “The Show Must Go On” – Silverbird, 1973 – 1:29:39
- Iron Maiden – “Killers” – Killers, 1981 – 1:46:33
- Morrissey – “East West” – HMV CD single “Ouija Board, Ouija Board” b/w “Yes, I Am Blind” and “East West”, 1989 – 2:06:51
- Fleet Foxes – “Mykonos” – Sun Giant EP, 2008 – 2:14:50
- The Move – “Curly” – Regal Zonophone single b/w “This Time Tomorrow”, 1969 – 2:37:23
- Beck – “Diamond Bollocks” – Mutations, 1998 – 2:49:08
This week – instead of our usual additional songs – we’re posting some links to some videos of interest for this week’s show.
Up first, the Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen:
And some great footage of Jim O’Rourke and his band playing “Last Year” at a festival in 2016:
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Hi,
For the hat in France we call it a “bob”. And Jim O’Rourke is a nice discovery interresting musician.
About loving or not a certain periode of time in music or more generally for its cultural impact. I think that if you live the period you’ve got memories of it rooted in your reality, you connect the music with your reality of this time good or bad.
And you rememenber all the cultural impact of the good ones and bad ones. If you don’t live the period the time filter the good from the bad, so you get the, as we say here, “substentifique moelle”.
So the vulgar, common, commercial stuf had been remove for you by the time, you don’t had to undergo it.
For exemple I lived the 80’s with a lot of bad commercial stuff, all the keyboard, reverb, beatboxes drums. But now on the youtube commentary you see young people tell there love for this area like “You don’t get this good stuff now”. But there was a lot of interesting and good music from beautifull simplistic Talk Talk to the more complex Police/Sting stuff. And the less interesting which survive had become meme like Rick Ashley.
My 2 cents
Maybe Mary was thinking of Eddy as a soldier because of The Trooper which had as a cover Eddie as a soldier.
In France we had the hardos, those who listen to hard rock music from AC/DC to Bon Jovi with a touch of Kiss. They where wearing patched jeans jackets, with no sleeves put on a leather jacket, with their most beloved group logos and visuals, or the one who looked cool. Like F1 driver from hell. And on there back was a huge patch and Eddie was a must have, regurlarly as the Trooper.
Speaking of forgotten music of the 80’s who remember those hard rock groups like WASP (I wanna be somebody) or Megadeth or Slayer (the most well known) ?
Was it hard rock or metal or heavy metal ?
Oh Mr. Dedrick, what have you done now? I’m on a rapid spiral down the rabbit hole of Toytown Psych! I feel I should explain exactly how I digest your podcasts every week. First off, you must know that Listening Party is essential to me, I get so much information and great music thanks to what you and Mary provide every week. Honestly, you’d hate the way I organize my Mix Playlists because I’m a “Shuffle Fiend” and I just list the songs in the order that I find them, many of them coming now from your podcast. But I enjoy the surprise of what’s coming next, so I shuffle my playlists with careless abandon.
I think Mary and I are on the same wavelength because I sought after “Granny Takes a Trip” a few weeks back to have as my own, now I’m looking into The Move and other Toy Town Psychedelia. I have a hard time articulating exactly what makes music sound like it does and lining it up with other songs that reflect it’s style, I guess I’m more of a visual learner than an audio one. Your podcast helps me through this and gives definition to music that I otherwise wouldn’t have a classification for. The way I listen to Listening Party compared to you and Ian on Sneaky Dragon are completely different from one another. I kind of savor and listen to you and Mary over the course of a week, stopping to listen to the songs again or look up more on what you’re discussing. I digest it slowly and thoughtfully and it helps me understand music in a very measurable way I can articulate. When I listen to you and Ian on Sneaky Dragon, I’ll usually do it in one go, usually while I’m puttering around the house on the weekends. Then I wait until the end to decide what I’ll write you guys about last minute. Sneaky Dragon has a more editorial style that I can casually listen to like clockwork but Listening Party is more like a classroom podcast that I look forward to learning from. I always know that I’ll get something from it, a new song or a definition for some form of music I never thought of but always knew existed. What you and Mary offer is essential to me which is why I give to Patreon, it’s worth it to me.
My only request is that maybe someday in the future you do a show or two on a certain style of music and give some deeper insight to it, something like this Toy Town Psych or the aforementioned Jangle Pop music from a few episodes ago. More about the groups who made it happen and made it great would be so much fun and so enjoyable.
Thanks for all the work as always, I know you put a lot of work into the podcast and it’s appreciated. The gift of music and sharing your love of it is what makes Listening Party great.
And yeah, Iron Maiden dude….I was there too. What a crawl down the hallowed hallways of high school in the 80’s. Thanks for powering the WayBack Machine with that one…
I just realized I have “Fire Brigade” by The Move on my 2019 Playlist, I knew I’d heard of them from somewhere before. See? That’s what I’m talking about, Listening Party, connecting the dots of music for 50 episodes and counting….God Bless you.
Yay – episode 50! Just four more, and you’ll have done a full bi-year!
That was a great discussion off the top, ranging from dinosaurs to first nations to bible studies to evolution, and I probably forgot a couple of topics. it’s always fun to hear two hosts who actually listen to each other, and when the two are daughter and dad, it speaks so well to the strength of your relationship.
So, to the songs…
Freddie Scott – I’m with Mary here, it was okay. I did snigger childishly at Freddie repeatedly yelling ‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’ Maybe if they’d only done 99 takes they could have used the extra time to come up with a better lyric, baby.
Mike Watt – Yes! Fantastic track and fascinating backstory from Dave, with the additional delight of a gratuitously mean Mark Lanegan impersonation. The Minutemen documentary was enlightening and moving, in lots of ways.
Meat Puppets – What a wonderful song and performance. Also, I think the production is excellent! Sure, it’s rough and even out of tune in places, but that’s part of what’s great. Can totally hear the connection Mary made with Beck, though it hadn’t occurred to me before.
Jim O’Rourke – Not familiar with his work, but I liked this one a lot. Kind of a missing link between Frank Zappa and Cat Stevens. Thanks for the video too.
Cate le Bon – This brought a huge smile to my face. It had a twisted nursery rhyme quality that hooked me from the start and I loved the instrumentation. More weird shit please!
Leo Sayer – Yeah, he’s the epitome of uncool alright. But this is a fine song and he sings the hell out of it. Brilliant playing from the band too.
Iron Maiden – Wow, I didn’t see that coming! Love that you love it, Dave, but it ain’t for me. Probably a band you had to hear as a youth to get on board. The music was okay, but I found the lyric pretty obnoxious.
Morrissey – Another song that was new to me. A nice reminder of what an innovative, distinctive singer and performer Mr M can be.
Fleet Foxes – I feel a bit guilty wtiting this, as you love this band so much. However, Fleet Foxes are one of those groups I feel I’m supposed to like more than I actually do. Mykonos has plenty of qualities that usually get me going – strong melody, tight harmonies, acoustic instruments, big finish – and yet… they just don’t move me. Sorry, guys.
The Move – On first listen, this sounded a bit of a mess, but second time through, its delightful silliness completely won me over, all the way to the ‘She Loves You’ closing chord. Fab gear!
Beck – ‘Sunshine grunge’ – perfect description, Mr D. ‘InterestingTM’ that it had so much in common musically with the Meat Puppets and yet was almost the opposite in terms of its intricate production. Thrilling and slightly crazy. Another fne closer.
Apparently it’s the Babylonians who are responsible for us using base 60 for measuring time. The Babylonian numeric system used base 60 for everything, but because they were the best astronomers in the ancient world, other cultures adapted their methods for measuring hours (and angles and whatnot), and that’s why it’s remained the same in those specific areas to this day. Or something like that, if I remember correctly.