The Random Ten #20

Welcome back to the Random Ten. This was supposed to be a Random Twenty, with Mr. Steele collaborating, but prior engagements prevented him from doing so. He’ll be back with his own Random Ten next week.

#1) Peter Gabriel – “Mercy Street” – So (1986)

So, featuring songs like “Sledgehammer”, “In Your Eyes” and “Big Time”, was one of the biggest albums of the 1980s. “Mercy Street” is a lot different than those songs, replacing their intoxicating exuberance with a toned-down seriousness that doesn’t work quite as well.

Gabriel’s sound is interesting because it is so synonymous with the 80s. “Mercy Street” has a plodding, brooding, and vaguely computerized/vaguely foreign beat that date the song but don’t make it feel old. Peter Gabriel was ahead of his time, and even though his then-state of the art methods are now antiquated, there’s still a vibrancy and contemporaneousness to his music that continues to stand out.

“Mercy Street” isn’t very good, though, clocking in at around 6 ½ minutes but containing a boring intro and outro that take up almost half of the runtime. It’s bland, but Gabriel had a way of making even his bland songs sound interesting.

#2) String Cheese Incident – “Hotel Window” – On The Road: Louisville, KY 4/17/02 (2002)

“Hotel Window” sounds like it might be originally written by someone else, but I couldn’t find any information online. Anyway, I don’t listen to “SCI” too much anymore, but I’m always happy when they show up on a Random Ten. They have the capacity to play some balls-out jams, they play some interesting covers (such as Talking Heads’ “Naïve Melody” and Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies”), and then they can come with a traditional rock ballad like “Hotel Window”.

As with many jam bands, would-be strengths of more straightforward rock acts are sacrificed to lengthy instrumentation and improvisation. Bill Nershi is not a very good singer, and his vocals on “Hotel Window” don’t fit well; they’re nasally and low, where the lyrics and music call for a singer able to hit a more soulful note.

There isn’t much else I can say to the negative. Of course, an extended jam fills out the middle portion of the song, bookended by a couple of quick verses. The music matches the lyrics nicely, creating a hopeful but lonely aura around a person watching over a city from their hotel room window. It’s a nice listen.

#3) U2 – “Twilight” – Boy (1980)

“Twilight” is from U2’s first album, released back in October of 1980. The sound here is post-punk, with Bono providing a snarling slant on his vocals and staggered, direct guitar riffing from The Edge.

There is a lot of force to the early work of U2. Their new material is so layered and purposefully larger than life that it is able to replicate through engineering what they were effortlessly able to do in their beginning. Not to say their new material is bad, but “Twilight” has amazing vitality and raw strength readily apparently thirty years later. If you couple that sound with some monolithic hit singles, it’s not hard to hear how U2 became U2.

#4) moe. – “Plane Crash” – Tin Cans & Car Tires (1998)

It is an undeniable fact of life that studio albums from jam bands are not as good as their live work. Jam bands are great at improv and experimentation, two traits that don’t fit the rigid structures of a studio record.

We just discussed String Cheese Incident, who were able to cobble together a couple of half-decent studio albums due to their bluegrass/country background and traditional, old-timey songwriting. Bands like moe., on the other hand, come up with a really cool guitar riff and then play endless variations on it for eight minutes. Live, while on drugs? Fine. On a record? Boring.

Tin Cans & Car Tires is moe.’s best studio album, though it still falls into those riff-heavy, repetitious trappings described above. “Plane Crash” is the album’s standout. The song is about being deathly afraid of a plane crash and it is forceful enough in both lyrics and music to get that feeling across. Some of the lyrics are a bit foolish, but their simplicity is also effective. Consider the chorus:

Strap me in, tie me down
And roll me a bone
I’m getting on an airplane
And I’m flying home

Strap me in, tie me down
I’m learning to fly
Drive across the country
I get too fucking high

The chorus rightfully explodes with energy and an appropriately desperate and frightful vocal style. The song concludes with a rolling jam and what sounds like an instrumental panic attack, with a violin added to complete the foreboding effect. This might be moe.’s best song.

#5) Leo Kottke – “Echoing Gilewitz” – A Shout Toward Noon (1986)

I know Leo Kottke best as the classical guitarist who has collaborated with Mike Gordon, bassist of Phish, on two albums. This was a library pickup that I’ve never listened to, so let’s learn more about him together!

“Echoing Gilewitz” is Kottke playing an acoustic guitar with no accompaniment, and it is appropriately beautiful. It’s soft, contemplative, and slightly sorrowful; it’s like the guitar equivalent of watching a sunrise by yourself. Not for everyone, but quite good.

#6) The Beatles – “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” – Help! (1965)

You probably know “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”, or at least I hope you do. It’s a timeless pop rock classic.

The Beatles made everything sound so simple. This song is haunting, mesmerizing, hopeful and tentative at the same time, all while sounding great and coming in at barely over two minutes. A flute accompaniment shortly before the song’s conclusion pushes it into “brilliant” territory.

The lyrics aren’t very complex, but they match the music to a T. The Beatles did the “I miss my baby” songs to death in their early days, but they managed to not only make them sound fresh and interesting, but made them some of the best songs ever produced by anyone.

#7) Iced Earth – “Vengeance Is Mine” – The Dark Saga (1996)

I gotta be honest. I was digging this list so far, and I don’t really feel like listening to a metal song I haven’t heard in ten years and which I only keep on my iTunes for the sake of posterity. Matt, you want to help?

But seriously, let’s give it a whirl. This is from a concept album based on the Spawn comic book (really), and the lyrics are predictable violent babble and forced rhyming:

Profaner to humanity menaced by flesh and bone
Screams of the unknown youth to him the sweetest tone
Undying in his will to kill his bloodlust is profound
For the blood of the lamb I’ve got to bring him down

But…BUT…the guitar riffs and blast beat drumming are definitely awesome. It’s hard not to like some of the thought that goes into the music here. The melodies are complex and often legitimately harmonious, making “Vengeance Is Mine” childish but enjoyable.

#8) Robert Johnson – “Traveling Riverside Blues” (alternate take) – King Of The Delta Blues Singers (1961; song originally recorded 1937)

Ah, Robert Johnson. You sold your soul to the devil just so Led Zeppelin could make a more famous version of your song. Zeppelin may have lengthened and electrified “Traveling Riverside Blues”, but the song undeniably remains Johnson’s.

From 1937, this recording obviously sounds old. Johnson’s legend casts a shadow over his work, and due to the crackles and tininess of the original recording, you’re almost listening for hints of a diabolic influence in the music. His legend shines through, and the song is simply great.

#9) Beastie Boys – “Live At P.J.’s” – Check Your Head (1992)

Another raucous outing from the Beastie Boys, with the three rappers passing off verses and punctuating each other’s lines throughout. A lot of what the Beastie Boys do sounds awfully similar to me, but “Live at P.J.’s” is greatly aided by a funky beat, nice tempo changes and some inventive rhyming. “Live at P.J.’s” is very raw; it sounds like a live performance at some dingy night club, which is the song’s premise. Two songs from Check Your Head have showed up on the Random Ten over the last couple of months and I’ve liked them both. Perhaps it’s time to give the record a serious listen?

#10) Little Feat – “Cold, Cold, Cold” – Waiting For Columbus (1978; the song was originally released on Feats Don’t Fail Me Now [1974])

“Cold, Cold, Cold” appeared as part of a medley on Little Feat’s seminal album Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. This is culled from their Waiting For Columbus live album of a few years later.

Little Feat has an unmistakable southern rock sound. Like so many other 70s southern rock bands (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, even the Band, to name a few), their music pays homage to the past while adding muscle and inventiveness to their influences. Now Little Feat sounds almost traditional, but for the time this was advanced stuff. The guitar flourishes, organ, and horn flares sound right at home. The songs of Little Feat, including this one, are infectious and fun, the way southern rock should be.

John Lacey