Skip to content

Friday Random Ten

And on this Friday, made especially good by not having school today, the first ten off the ‘pod…

  1. “Houses in Motion” – Talking Heads – The Name of this Band is Talking Heads
  2. “Sorrow” – Pink Floyd – A Momentary Lapse of Reason
  3. “I’m in Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop” – Brian Wilson – Smile
  4. “Five Room Love Story (Live)” – Cowboy Junkies – Waltz Across America
  5. “Windfall” – Son Volt – Trace
  6. “Feel So Bad” – Lightnin’ Hopkins – Blues Kingpins
  7. “Antiquity” – Chicago Underground Trio – Flamethrower
  8. “I Love Her All the Time” – Sonic Youth – Bad Moon Rising
  9. “Sing a Simple Song” – The Meters – The Meters
  10. “Open Country Joy” – Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds of Fire

That is an eclectic set to say the least.

The Talking Heads tune at the start comes from my all time favorite live album. It covers the Heads from their post-punk minimalism through the expanded Remain in Light version of the band, which is still one of the most intriguing and thrilling musical adventures I’ve ever listened to. I had The Name of this Band… on tape for years and years. And years. Every time I went to a record store, I checked to see if it was out on CD, but no luck.

Few people I knew had heard it, and by 2004, the tape was getting pretty run down. The one day, lo, I saw it at the record store, not just on CD, but remastered and full of extra tracks from the Remain in Light days. The best parts, of course, are “Born Under Punches,” “Crosseyed and Painless,” and the ominous “Psycho Killer” that opens disc two. This was a band at the height of its powers and sometimes it seems the world is still catching up.

Published inMusic

3 Comments

  1. Totally agree with you on the T-Heads–it was wonderful for the album to get its CD release at last. It’s also cool they tell you how to program the CD to hear it in concert order as well as album order. Plus Belew on “Houses in Motion” is genius.

    I’m also a complete sucker for “Windfall,” but I’m not alone–got to hear Steve Earle cover it live once.

  2. George, I think I gave copies to all my Heads fan friends for their birthdays around that time. Sure made shopping easy and they all reacted like I had personally engineered the release of the CD.

    RC, I think of SY all the time. Of course, I have many hours of their stuff on my ipod…

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.