Random Shuffle - 12/19/06

I have recently become an absolute shuffle mode junkie. This is difficult to admit for I used to be a full album purist kind of guy. In many ways I still am – when really listening to music on my home stereo I always throw a singular album on and let each song tell their story. However while surfing the internet, checking my e-mail, working out, or writing I love the uniqueness that shuffle mode gives me.

There is something just about perfect about being able to juxtapose “Like a Rolling Stone” from the Bootleg Series with The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” If there is a problem with listening to entire albums, it is that most albums have a couple of really lousy songs that you have to trudge through. By handpicking the songs on my hard drive and shuffling them all together, it’s like one super-gigantor greatest-hits collection of my life.

For months now I have been chronicling five randomly picked songs from my collection in an article I call Random Shuffle. I’ve now decided its time to share these picks with the good people at Blogcritics.

Enjoy!

“Whiskey in the Jar” – Grateful Dead
From So Many Roads (1965-1995)

One of the many things I love about the Grateful Dead is their undying passion for the music. This is a band that played together for 30 odd years and never seemed to stop exploring new grounds or finding joy in the pleasure of making music.

Even after they had became an enormous corporate behemoth, they still enjoyed learning new songs as can be seen in this performance. This is not so much a cohesive song as it is a rehearsal session. It begins with Jerry singing one of the versus, but stops short before it is completed.

What follows is the entire band joyfully talking about the song and where it came from. It is in fact an old folk song which Jerry has recently remembered (and for a full brilliant performance of the song see the Garcia/David Grisman disk, Shady Grove.) The band laugh and talk excitedly about the song before Jerry launches into it again.

All told the song is partially performed three times with a continual adding of performers as the band begins to learn it. These are not particularly beautiful performances, but it is priceless in its ability to show road warn musicians still getting a kick out of music itself.

“Hands In My Pocket” – Jim Guthrie
From a Capitol One Commercial

Periodically, as the mood hits me, I visit one of the many mp3 blogs floating out there.  As is true anywhere in the music world there is lots of crap floating out there, but there are also a few gems and I’m always excited to find something new and interesting.

This is a wonderful jangly bit of pop and an immensely pleasing, catchy thing. With a little research I discovered it was written specifically for a Canadian Capitol One commercial. A little guilt there for buying into a piece of commercialism, but if a relatively unknown musician can gain some extra cash and gain a new audience by creating an incredibly catchy piece of music then more power to him.

And really, it is a lovely little thing that I can’t get out of my head.

“Return of the Grievous Angel” - Gram Parsons
From Grievous Angel

There has been some recent fanboy ravings about the exemplary qualities of The Byrds. My own experience with that band has been uneven. I first purchased their pioneering country-rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo and absolutely adored it. From there I dove head first into their musicography and purchased a boxed set. Strangely I could never get into it.

I think much of the trouble stems from the majority of the Byrd’s output sounding nothing like Sweetheart. I went into the boxed set expecting more of the same country-inflected rock and found something completely different.

Admittedly, I gave up on the boxed set pretty quickly, but with all the recent hubbub I have gone back into it to see if maybe a few years listening experience would sweeten my ears to their sounds. Partially, it did. There are now a number of the more jangly pop tunes that I am loving, but it still isn’t latching onto me with any force.

With some research early on I came to realize a large portion of the magic of Sweetheart was due to one man – Gram Parsons. I have since sought out his own solo work and found it to be the sort of sound I was looking for in the depths of the Byrds catalog.

Still, it has been a slow climb into his solo catalog and I would not claim to be any kind of Parsons aficionado but this is a darn fine song. It’s the kind of lazy country song I might find my uncles singing on the porch during one of our family reunions.

“Flowers in December” – Mazzy Star
From Among My Swan

It’s funny the way some people leave lasting impressions upon you, even when you don’t know them that well at all. Mazzy Star will forever remind me of a girl named Michelle. I knew Michelle in college as a strangely attractive, highly interesting if mostly spacey young lady.

She had seen more than her fair share of drugs, and she tended to walk around on sort of a perpetual high – never quite coherent or all together there, but still a very cool chick. During our all-too-few conversations, I found her completely fascinating and kind and enchanting.

One conversation stands out to me and that’s when she told me that she had a religious vision where God came down and told her it would be all right by giving her a big giant bear hug. It was beautiful, she said, and I had to agree.

Michelle always had good taste in music and she was a big fan of Mazzy Star. So much so that my memories of her are always accentuated by a Mazzy Star backdrop.

This song sounds like much of their work as it is filled with breezy soundscapes and the sleepy angel voice of Hope Sandoval. It never fails to sweep away the clouds of memory and put a smile on my face wondering whatever happened to my friend Michelle.

“Old and in the Way”  -  Old and in the Way
From Old and In the Way

We’ll bookend today’s shuffle with some Jerry Garcia music. Old and in the Way was a superstar bluegrass group formed by Garcia, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements and John Kahn. It was never really a serious group in the manner of planning to be something lasting, as all of the members were very active in other bands. It seems like more of an excuse for all the players to play together and to perhaps play something they wouldn’t get the chance to otherwise.

I’ve loved bluegrass music for as long as I’ve been serious about loving music. To me, it is one of the purest forms of American music out there. Even though much of it actually comes from across the seas, it is that special blending of so many cultures and styles that makes it particularly American. That, and the way that it is played in the backyards, front porches, and church basements across this country by professionals and amateurs of every stripe.

This is from the only album the original version of band ever produced (a live set was much later released, and the group reformed minus Garcia and Kahn a few years back.) There is nothing fancy about this song, it just sort of rolls along the hands of master players without showing off or announcing itself to the world. But there is something beautiful and wonderful about it just the same.

Article Author: Mat Brewster

Mat Brewster is a periodic ex-pat wondering if he'll ever find a home. You can find him musing on pop culture, and obsessing over concert bootlegs at The Midnight Cafe.

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