Friday Five - January 28, 2011

Lake of Fire – Nirvana, MTV Unplugged in New York

Okay, so just get it out of the way right off the bat, I love this song.  Although (as kindly brought up to me by music all-star, Julie) the song is a Meat Puppets cover, I kind of think the sound epitomizes the overall personality of this album.  In its entirety, the album was a little bit of a game changer for me.  This live set was recorded in 1993 and this was the first album Nirvana released after Kurt’s death, in 1994.  But at the time, it gave the band a completely different personality from what most were used to seeing from them.  This album also started the “Unplugged” craze that is still going today, 16 years later!  Unplugged albums started to become much craved from fans of normally electric musicians.  Such a novelty, hey!

Nice in Nice – The Stranglers, The Hit Men (The Complete Singles)

This is a band Julie introduced me to.  They got their start on the UK punk scene (although not anything like what I would consider a British punk band) in the mid-70’s and are still creating music today, in their 5^th decade together!  For me, listening to this double album, I think about the first time I heard them.  We were at Julie’s cabin in Sooke, B.C. and during a day in the tiny town, looking through the tiny used record store, she came upon this and a couple other little gems.  We took it back out the cabin and played it most of the night, getting drunk of tequila.  Aahhhh….good times.

I Did It – Dave Matthews Band, Live at Folsom Field, Boulder Colorado

I have ten live DMB albums in my collection, and Folsom Field is one of my lesser favorites.  It was done around the tour for Everyday and for some reason, the energy just isn’t there in this one for me.  I will say however, that the overall setlist is a bit eclectic compared with other live releases, so I do respect that part of it.  This song in particular was a bit of a hit from the Everyday album for them, and I like it.  It’s got that dirty little Dave growl to it. 

Driving All Day – Little Mike & The Tornadoes, Hot Shot

This “Chicago Blues” style band, who reside in Florida now, are the spawn of an excellent story.  I know this guys as a friend of a friend, Troy Chandler, who was a fantastic guitar player.  I mean really, really truly gifted.  He was a blues player among other things, able to riff SRV at 14 years old.  But this is not a cranial player…it was all from the heart.  You think John Mayer makes funny guitar faces?  You should see Troy.  As teenagers in junior/ senior high school, we’d never seen anything so weird.  Anyway, at sixteen Troy was busking one night on Whyte Avenue on a night that Little Mike was here on tour in Edmonton.  After stopping and listening to Troy for a bit, he complimented his playing and asked for his number, in case they were ever in need of a guitar player.  Yeah, right.  Three years later, He was true to his word: Troy got a message at his parents house from Little Mike…come on and play with us.  Troy has played with them ever since.  I go to catch them at the Commie every time they’re in town.

Let It Bump – Missy Elliott, This is Not a Test

Missy is a hot potato, baby!  I love the attitude and what she brings to the table.  It’s not like the rest of hip hop at all, I don’t think.  She’s not a big sampler and her time signatures are often out of the 4/4.  She loves Bjork and she loves things being weird.  She’s got so much personality, how do you not love a girl like her?  The album was produced by the ever present Timbaland.  Although this album was a bit of a rush job for her label to capitalize on her popularity from just releasing  a monster hit of an album in “Under Construction”, the Rollingstone review that prompted me to buy the album advised, “Why anyone would choose to spend their life without a copy of this album is a mystery to me.”  And I agree…I call it fun!