Lisa McKay: "Don't Take Me Alive" from The Royal Scam by Steely Dan
I could listen to Steely Dan all day at work (and I often do). That sounds as if I'm calling them purveyors of elevator music, but that's not really what I mean. I love Steely Dan, and part of their appeal for me, especially for workday listening, is the way their music can just insinuate itself into the back of your mind without constantly pawing at your elbow for attention. The Royal Scam is a swell album, full of the edge and sardonic humor that makes Becker and Fagen such fine company, and this track is simply one of my favorites.
El Bicho: "Five Card Stud" by Lorne Green from Ricky Jay Plays Poker
Magician Ricky Jay has collected 21 tracks of poker-related songs from a roster containing legendary musicians: Bob Dylan, Patsy Cline, Robert Johnson, and Anita O’Day. Yet, the highlight for me is by an artist who has also appeared on the infamous Golden Throats series of albums. Recorded during his tenure on the TV show Bonanza, he doesn’t sing so much as he talks his way through "Five Card Stud," the story about a poker showdown between a stranger and a young cowboy. It makes me yearn for The Dr. Demento Show.
Anna Creech: "Can You Feel It?" from New Magnetic Wonder by The Apples In Stereo
As I wrote in my album review this week, "...New Magnetic Wonder is a fantastic pop-rock record. 'Can You Feel It?' repeats the title of the song in the chorus and adds the line, 'It makes you feel so good.' It certainly makes me feel good when I listen to it...." From the electronica intro to the sing-along and totally rocked out chorus, every aspect of this song gives me aural pleasure. It has been a lovely bit of sunshine in this otherwise grey and overcast week.
Glen Boyd: "Sex Machine" from Stand! by Sly And The Family Stone
In anticipation of the upcoming re-release of Sly's entire catalog in a few weeks — remastered with new tracks to boot — I've been revisiting much of that catalog, but always seem to come back to Stand!. There is just no way to understate how important this band was for it's time. Sly And The Family Stone influenced an entire generation of funk-rockers from Earth Wind & Fire to Prince (whose concept of a multi-racial, multi-gender powerhouse band was first done by Sly with this very band).
Stand! has plenty of better known songs than "Sex Machine," — "I Want To Take You Higher" and "Everyday People" to name just two — but this nearly side long, psychedelically wigged out instrumental shows just how tight this band really was. Anchored by Larry Graham's trademark bass-popping and some wild guitar work from brother Freddie Stone on the wah-wah (remember those?), the track builds in tension for nearly fourteen minutes before exploding in a crescendo of crashing drums and cacophonous horns at the end. If this don't get your groove on, nothing will.
![The Sermon On Exposition Blvd. [Fold-out Digipak with 14 page booklet]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510jOsqVR8L._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Pico
Lisa McKay: "Don't Take Me Alive" from The Royal Scam by Steely Dan
Ah yes, the second Larry Carlton showcase on Royal Scam (the first being "Kid Charlemagne"). SD would have several more memorable guitar playing after this one, but never again would it be so freewheeling as this one. And then there's that trademark dark wit on full display, too. Good stuff.
2 - Connie Phillips
A round of applause for all the writers who participated this week and a special thank you to DRJ for putting it all together for us.
It's nice to see so many suggestions from people whose opinion I've come to trust. I have a feeling a better part of the afternoon is going to be spent checking these songs out.
3 - Lisa McKay
It's fun to do, and yeah, a special thanks to the DJ for making a venue available that's kind of like "writing for the time-impaired".
4 - DJRadiohead
Great job, everybody. There are a lot of selections this week I have never heard and some I have never heard of.
5 - zingzing
autechre may not be as obscure as they used to be, (in popularity, never in sound,) but it is still surprising to see them on blogcritics. woo, tom!
between all the "walking in memphises," (memphi?), simple minds, toad the wet sprockets,(could of dealt without that, thank you,) etc, it's nice to see something pop up that's more than just a memory.
come on people, whip out the strange, the obscure, the new! (no offense if you didn't this time, but this is your last warning.)
6 - zingzing
ok, i've never heard of gorod. i admit it.
7 - zingzing
and el bicho and anna creech get away with it on the obscure/new tip (respectively). this despite el bicho's anti-prince tirade somewhere else. fuck you, he's god.
8 - Mark Saleski
no fair zing! i usually get accused of hanging around in obscureland (especially with jazz)...so then i bring in Rickie Lee Jones...which, if you give it a listen, is actually obscure (at least in sound) AND new.
ok, next week...something really whacky.
ps. i've never heard of Gorod either.
9 - zingzing
yeah, ok. it is new. i forgot about that one. ok, a lot of you are getting away with it. so, i take it back in a way. except "walking in memphis." and toad the wet sprocket. feh!
10 - DJRadiohead
Careful, Zing, I am both a Toad the Wet Sprocket fan and married to the wonderful woman who championed that song. =) You treading on dangerous ground. Besides, that really is a great song.
11 - zingzing
bring it on, you wet sprocket fans do not frighten me. i'll just raise my voice above a soothing tone and your heads will implode into the void of your own obvious self-loathing. why would you harm yourself by listening to that smooth, smooth buttmud? ahh... how i love to hate...
that said, i just read the last line of her "championing" of the song, and i see your revenge is already complete. you need not respond.
12 - Mark Saleski
why listen to Toad? because any band that can write a song like that AND do a cover of "Rock 'n Roll All Night" is OK in my book.
13 - zingzing
ahem, "FEH!" (growled with lower lip starting tucked behind overbite, then thrown out with as much spittle as possible, left dripping onto the floor with nostrils flaring, eyes cocked at wrong angles, crotched rudely grasped to increase the look of pain on the face.)
thank you.
14 - zingzing
that's "crotch," not "crotched," and it totally ruins my fun.
15 - Cara de Pescado
I stand by Waking In Memphis. It's a great tune to play in an entirely hokey playlist!
16 - El Bicho
I just updated my piece with a sample of Mr. Green for your listening pleasure.
zing, my comment wasn't anti-Prince.
17 - Anna Creech
Last year, a friend recommended I check out some Toad the Wet Sprocket. So I picked up their best-of album and was surprised that I a) knew a lot of the songs and b) actually liked them. Go figure!
zingzing: You wanna talk obscure? Hm. Well, then I'll be browsing through my indie singer/songwriter collection this week. Although, a number of them are starting to get national attention.
18 - DJRadiohead
Zing, fear not me nor the other Toad fans. Fear TheWifeToWhomI'mMarried. ;-) She did have her defense on the field already, though, didn't she? Now you know why I encourage you all to fear her. Unless this would displease her. Right, of course.
Besides, soothing tones are no bad thing in a world that is... less than soothing?
Anna, the best of collection is a decent compilation. Too many of my favorites aren't on there, but best of's aren't usually designed for the devoted. Dulcinea is my favorite of their proper albums.
Lisa, the bite-size nature of this does make things a little easier, doesn't it?
19 - Matthew T. Sussman
The sound of my own voice. I love that song.
20 - DJRadiohead
Sussman, shouldn't you be talking about NASCAR or something?
On the obscure issue... I might have one or two items that would qualify. I listen to some stuff that is not on the hit parade, but I don't know where you draw the line with obscure.
21 - zingzing
it doesn't just have to be unpopular, it has to be deservedly so!
nah. just something that you won't find through most media sources, and not because it's crap, but because it's out there, at the edge of music.
take this, for example:
recently, i heard a song called "you're nogood" by terry riley. it seems that he was playing one of his more typical minimalist pieces in a club (nyc? la? don't know,) and the club owner was impressed and ask riley to make a piece of music that he could play at the club before bands came on. so riley asked for his favorite current song and the club owner brought out "you're no good" by someone named Harvey Averne. (i swear you've heard the song before, but it in itself is also quite obscure.)
so, riley took the record, gathered up a moog synth, a white noise generator, a couple of delay pedals, some tape and about 20 minutes spare time, sat down and recorded this doozy. it starts with about 3 minutes of moog and white noise, with a steady rising tone in continuous peak until... a soul song starts. riley plays most of the song before he starts to mess with it, delaying and layering it back upon itself, vocal lines and horn hits whining and eating themselves, then looping around and around... it becomes hip-hop.
this was made in 1967.
the song continues to eat itself, becoming more and more chaotic, before snapping back into place and going down a different path towards ever more chaos and rebirth, including a final section where white noise meets soul cut-up. yum.
22 - zingzing
sorry for the nakie link, but here it is:
"you're nogood" by terry riley
[Naked no more, zinger! Comments Editor]
23 - DJRadiohead
While I am sure that's great stuff, Zing, the purpose of The Listening Room series is not to come up with the most off-the-wall songs we can conjure up- although. It's simply a group of us talking about what we've been listening to, however main stream it may or may not be.
Thanks for commenting and mixing it up with us. I am going to check out your link.
24 - zingzing
thank you, sah. i've never learned how to do that... but i don't do it too often, and it gives you something to do other than take out "fuck off, you pussbag of human butt mud" and shit like that. must be refreshing.
did you listen to it? listen to it! lovely stuff.
i'd listen to it on speakers, not headphones, as the stereo effects of 1967... well, they leave something to be desired. too black and white for my tastes. listening to the beatles and the who on headphones makes me want to die.
25 - zingzing
well, dj, much as i respect the idea, wouldn't it make more sense to come up with something people don't know? you guys do this to some degree, but it would be absolutely pointless to have a three paragraph statement about how you've been listening to "heart of glass" or something like that...
it's not off-the-wall that i'm trying to push, particularily, it's lesser-known stuff. stuff that people might not be aware of.