1/2009 Playlist

It's a new year, and so I thought it would also be time for a revamped playlist header. The monthly playlist is something that I have been doing for almost three years now, it's simply a new iTunes play list each month titled for the month, and add what ever tracks catch my ear or stick in my brain to it. When the month is over, I file the old list, start a new one. When I joined Mog.com (www.mog.com/iren) in June of 2006 and started writing a summary and/or comentary for each track sometimes posting a related video as well. As time passed Mog started to wane, and I decided to branch out my posting of the list. At first I added it to my multiply page, my gather page, my Myspace page, but all of that got to be too much, so from here on out I will only post this list on my mog page and my blog (www.restlesskind.blogspot.com). Thanks to everyone who has been reading along and feel free to post comments, questions or what ever in the comments section. Enjoy
Eric Reanimator.

We Will Fall by The Stooges
www.iggypop.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stooges  
www.myspace.com/iggyandthestooges  
The first thing that I thought when I heard of the passing of Ron Asheton was We Will Fall indeed. I have already paid tribute to him on my blog and my mog pages, so I am going to limit my comments to just this track. It's a hypnotic trance like dirge of a tune, it's long and droning, it's simple, but it's got a punch to it. It's like a meditation, it's like it's whispering truth in the midst of chaos, it's the quite at the eye of the storm and it's a great example of how The Stooges could be lower key and reflective.... in a fairly simple way.

Gospel Plow by Screaming Trees
www.myspace.com/screamingtrees
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screaming_Trees
www.timeforlight.com
Following the We will Fall with the Screaming Trees playing their rocked out version of this gospel tune was a happy accident. I added it because I have been thinking about this album while trying to get started on writing my book on it. No, I haven't gotten the nod for the 33 1/3 people, I honestly don't think I am going to, but I have committed to myself to write it anyway. This tune is much like We Will Fall in that it has a quiet droning quality, and it's reflective and deals with the issues of morality. All of the elements of this song work just right, the traditional moments melt just right into the swirling guitar and thudding bass that were the hallmarks of the Screaming Trees sound....

Honeymoon Hotel by Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler & Chorus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Powell
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Keeler
It's catchy, fun, and slightly subversive. This song lodged in my brain like a bullet when I saw Footlight Parade this past month. On thing, this song works on it's own, but it's better when you see it from the film...

Catwoman on the moon by Riot Squad
www.myspace.com/thestaggers  
I've been a Staggers since their previous incarnation Riot Squad, a Dallas based Oi!/Street punk band singing about horror films and politics. They have always been catchy, basic, fun and filled with energy. For some reason Catwoman on the Moon got stuck in my head.

What Stephanie Wants by T.S.O.L
www.truesoundsofliberty.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSOL
www.myspace.com/tsol
TSOL have come a long way since the early 1980s and Long Beach CA. They were part of the second wave of SoCal punk, and were notable for their political lyrics and great hooks.. you can read the history at one of the links above.. anyway, this track is from their new album (which was a free download when I got it this past month, and it still might be).... This tune is just a solid punk rock tune that has all the energy of their recent out put. You can hear the classic punk sounds of The Ramones and the Damned, but also the bark and bite of classic TSOL. If anything they have become more subtle in their sociopolitical lyrics.


See you next month.

RIP Ron Asheton,

RIP Ron Asheton,
By Jim DeRogatison January 6, 2009 4from http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2009/01/ron_asheton_rip.html
The term "godfather of punk" is one that's too often abused: The genre can't possibly have had 189,958 progenitors, could it? And bandying it about too lightly only cheapens it when referring to a musician for whom that really was the case.
As reported by the Detroit Free Press, Ron Asheton, who founded the Stooges with singer Iggy Pop and was one of a half-dozen players who defined what punk-rock guitar could and should be, was found dead in his home in Ann Arbor, MI, Tuesday morning. He was 60 years old.
I last spoke to Asheton circa the Stooges reunion in 2007, but we first connected in the late '90s when I was researching the roots of punk in Detroit for Let It Blurt, my biography of rock critic Lester Bangs. The two were friends and mutual admirers, and it seems fitting to give Lester the last word on Asheton's enduring contribution to music, to culture and most of all to punk. From "Roots of Punk (Part One)" in New Wave magazine, 1978:
"'1969'" featured the only use of wah-wah that I had ever liked on any record (mainly because Ron Asheton didn't do anything with it, no flash bulls---, he just blanged out a chord and let the technology play its own self), and most importantly of all, THAT HE AND IGGY DIDN'T GIVE A S--- ABOUT ANYTHING AND NEITHER DID WE. We knew that over in Michigan his lifestyle was identical to ours, just getting f---ed up all the time and trying to find the girls who'd f--- us and usually failing. F--- the establishment, f--- the counterculture, f--- the Beatles after that white atrocity, f--- rock 'n' roll for that matter, everybody being so goddam protective about it like it was some sickly child or something, f--- the government and f--- the war and f--- the college and f--- the hippies and f--- everything. F--- you. I'm f---ed up already. Listen, when one of your best friends is slumped in your room stoned just this side of death on Seconals, drooling on himself and mumbling "I dunno, man, lately I think I been turnin' into a vegetable..." you really don't want to listen to Abbey Road, much less "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," a title I can't even type without sneering.Thanks, Ron, for giving us an alternative.