Friday Tunes

I’m in the mood to put up a mix, but it seems like going to the trouble of hosting MP3s and creating xspf files, etc, is just too much work.

So, let’s use YouTube instead. It’s easier, and it offloads the bandwidth and copyright violation to someone else.

Let’s start with a dedication to Sarah Palin and all her Red State supporters:

Randy Newman – Rednecks (Live)

I’ve been on a Randy Newman kick for a while now, working my way through the reissues. Lots of good stuff. (Oh, and if you need a historical reference: Lester Maddox.)

Next up we can have a flashback to my childhood:

Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy vs The Red Baron

I actually know this as an Irish Rovers song, since I had their (slightly more spirited) cover when I was a kid. I had to dig up some Rovers discs recently because Sarah is fascinated with the Unicorn songExplaining that was really a trial for my whole “just don’t talk about Christianity” thing. Just like trying to explain who the Devil is when we’re listening to Charlie Daniels. and I found myself listening to this and flashing back to 8-track days. I love the idea of using YouTube to stream music across the world that I remember as being on an 8-track.

Also in high rotation this week is Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Buying it got me the immediate downloads, and I’ve been playing it at least twice a day since. I actually wanted to put “Have To Drive” up here, but since Amanda didn’t put a video for that up on Youtube (although she did put eight other videos, plus a 44-part “making of” series), I’ve fallen back to:

Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family

There are a lot of styles of music on that album, but the overall label of “punk cabaret” seems to fit.

Very far from that is the sparse, almost ascetic style of the Cowboy Junkies. I’ve been a fan ever since catching one of the Trinity Session era showsAge 14, hitchhiking to Toronto for a different concert and just happening on that one. and developing a little crush on Margo Timmins. This tune is from just a little later on.

Cowboy Junkies – ’cause Cheap Is How I Feel

Since we’re apparently doing all different styles of music, I guess we might as well end up on something just as different again. And, I should really have something on here to establish me a little bit of “knows cool music from this century” cred with people who won’t rate Palmer. And to that end, here’s one of those “videos” that’s really just music + a still. If you want to see the real video, it’s also online, but it’s not embeddable, so you get the cheapass version here:

D.J. Shadow – Midnight In A Perfect World

And that should probably do it for today.