Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 47

My Top 1000 Songs #708: Charlton Heston

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

This one's a definite anomaly on the list: a band I don't necessarily care for, a song/album I've never owned, here largely because of an awesome video. Which, speaking as part of the original MTV generation, I feel no shame in admitting.

Stump were an 80s Irish indie/experimental band who owed no small debt to Captain Beefheart; not exactly cut out for mas...

My Top 1000 Songs #707: Girls Talk

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

There have a been a few times on this list where I was explicitly praising a cover rather than the original version of a song. Most notably (or at least highest on the list) was Elvis Costello delivering the definitive version of "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love, And Understanding," originally written & recorded by Nick Lowe during his Brinsley Schwarz...

My Top 1000 Songs #706: Theme From "Shaft"

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

Here's another childhood song with which I have a complicated relationship. As described at length in the book, I grew up in a largely rock & roll-free home, my father's 8-track tape collection populated by adult contemporary schlock and mostly-instrumental movie soundtracks. In the latter category, he had some compilation of film music, and I distinctly r...

My Top 1000 Songs #705: The Devil Is My Friend

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

This delightful little country-romp from the wonderful Jazz Butcher is a bit of a lark, and apparently even was for the band. It was a last-minute b-side recorded for a 1985 single, later showing up on the 1986 Bloody Nonsense collection (my introduction to the band) and, more recently, the exhaustive 2021 compilation Dr. Cholmondley Repents (a must-own!)....

My Top 1000 Songs #704: Halah

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

While Mazzy Star's second LP, 1993's So Tonight That I May See, was the band's masterpiece, their 1990 debut, She Hangs Brightly, was no slouch. The band announce themselves on opening track "Halah," a pretty little morsel that serves as a fine declaration of purpose--wedding the retro-psychedelic tapestries of the late great former Rain Parade guitarist D...

New Releases: Laughing

Just picked up a great new debut album from Montreal indie pop act Laughing. Because It's True is top-notch jangly guitar power pop, tightly packed with catchy hooks and pretty harmonies, with added variety courtesy of multiple band members contributing songs & lead vocals. Yes, it is incredibly lazy of me to describe them as a band who must really love Teenage Fanclub (and maybe some Cosmic Rough Riders)--but there it is. Great record; check it out at Bandcamp.
(Also, if this is your thing--and ...

My Top 1000 Songs #703: Shake Some Action

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

After a few years of relative obscurity, San Francisco late 60s/early 70s garage band Flamin' Groovies shuffled the line-up and moved in a more pop direction. They recorded two amazing, jangly power pop tracks in 1972--the unabashedly Beatlesque "You Tore Me Down" and the anthemic "Shake Some Action." But jangly power pop was out of favor at the time (as t...

My Top 1000 Songs #702: Sunshine Soul

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

Back in the late 90s, I was deep into online music trading. Well, semi-online: I and other music collectors would post lists of our bootleg collections on clunky GeoCities sites, and then swap tapes (and later CDRs) via snail mail. At some point, I received a cassette full of lo-fi home recordings from the then-nascent Elephant 6 indie scene. I'd probably ...

My Top 1000 Songs #701: Dancing With Joey Ramone

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

I'm a big believer in rock & roll dreams. As one can tell from the opening passage of Jittery White Guy Music:

So, naturally, I'm a sucker for singer-songwriter Amy Rigby's jaunty "I Was Dancing With Joey Ramone" (from her 2005 Little Fugitive LP). It's not the first song in which esteemed women in rock pay homage to the punk icon--that would probably be Sl...

Covers! Come And Get Yr Covers!

As of today, I've spent the last approximately 700 days writing up my 700 favorite songs. (Less than a year to complete the full Top 1000, if I decide to keep going.) You can count 'em all down right here.

Naturally, I've also been keeping some running Spotify playlists to track the list, 100 per playlist. (If you've got Spotify, you can hear #601-700 right here.)

At the same time, I've also been compiling some playlists that track the same list, in the same order, but comprised solely of cover ve...