Red Hot Chili Peppers. I have pretty much loved these guys forever. I got in trouble from my mom for the album cover of  “Mother’s Milk.” I remember when they played at Park West with Oingo Boingo. The cover of “Mother’s Milk” has since been censored. Both Park West and Oingo Boingo no longer exist. RHCP has gone through as many guitar players since then, as they have changes of underwear. I’m glad that through all of that, they are still cranking out some quality sounds.

Since it is the week of Christmas, I thought I should post something festive. I didn’t want it to be too cliche though. So I’m doing “Snow” from “Stadium Arcadium.” As an added bonus, I’m also including a link to “Deck the Halls,” performed by RHCP A’capella. Merry Christmas.

Snow (Hey Oh)

Deck the Halls

Ok, for the year anniversary (at least the first LMC post since the 1 year mark, Hehe.), here is Beck. I have been a little bit lackadaisical with the music writing lately because of the whole Brazil thing. Back in the saddle, though. So I figured that I would make it a good one.

Beck is a pretty amazing musician. It seems like most people have an opinion of his work. It is one of those hate it, or love it situations. I personally love it. I was first exposed to Beck, when the singles from “Mellow Gold” were in rotation. So, songs like “Beer Can” and “Loser” were my introduction. At first, I was really confused about the seeming lack of continuity in the ideas expressed by his lyrics. It took a little bit of digging deeper for me to finally understand that the stream of conscious-style-flow was one of earmarks of Beck’s M.O..

One great thing I really like about Beck, is that he has been a very prolific artist, over the years. I have a lot of respect for musicians who work hard. I can’t say that I have loved all of his records, with equal enthusiasm. Just the same, I appreciate that he is getting it done. The song that I’m sharing is from Midnight Vultures. To me, this is one of those albums that I could start from track No. 1 and just let it play the entire way through without skipping a song. Even though a lot of the songs are kind of experimental sounding, I’m sure that I’m not alone in my opinion on this one. Anyway, the song is “Nicotine and Gravy.” I really like the title for a couple of reasons. First, my friend Joel, who I used to play music with in high school, had a song called “Nicotine and Caffeine.”  I feel like this song is probably Beck’s version of that same song. Here it is: Press Play.

As with probably half, or even more than half of my generation, one of my all-time favorite rock bands is Nirvana. There is nothing that I can write about them that hasn’t already been written 1000 times over. The song that I’m sharing from them, is not actually a Nirvana, song. It was actually written by a group called the Wipers, out of Portland OR. Kurt was a big fan of theirs, and actually covered a few of their songs. This one is called “D7.” To my knowledge it was only available on the “Outcesticide” imports. I love it. If you like Nirvana, you probably love it too. Turn it up and press play.

Taking it back to the garage band revival, again this week with The Vines. I love these guys, bad. The Vines, hail from from the land down under. Which is kind of cool, considering that I can only think of 3 other Aussie bands that made it big. (although I’m sure there are many more). Midnight Oil, Men at Work, and Silverchair are the ones that come to mind. When they released the “Get Free” single, it was instantly one of my favorites. Their most recent album “Melodia” seems to have mellowed out, a bit. The songs aren’t completely soft, or anything like that. But they definitely seem less angry, generally. In addition to the musical style, I love the sound quality. The guitars all have rich deep tone, reminiscent of analog recordings from the 60’s. The song I picked out for today is from “Melodia.” It’s called “Orange Amber.” It was between that and “Rainfall” from the “Winning Days” album. They are both currently two of my favorite songs. Ultimately, I went with “Orange Amber” because it is short and sweet, at just over 2 minutes long. Chekkidout.

Les Claypool is legendary in the realm of bass players. I’m not just talking about bass guitars. Claypool is not afraid to break up the stand-up bass and bow on occasion, to wow the masses. His infectious ultra-complicated slap-heavy bass playing is the backbone of the group Primus. Primus is not to be confused with, and is in no way related to Prius, which is a weak little tin can of a Toyota hybrid car.

When I was in high school, the group released an album called “Sailing the Seas of Cheese.” It was an amalgamation of the weirdest/coolest music that I had heard, at that time in my life. Claypool also does vocals and has a very Kermit the Frog-esque voice. Despite the odd vocal quality, Claypool’s voice doesn’t detract from the music, as much as it does give it character.

When I first obtained a copy of “Sailing the Seas of Cheese,” I was in the beginning stages of learning to play bass guitar, myself. As I would listen to the album, I though that there was no way that all of that noise was coming out of a single bass track played by one person. It was not until attending Lollapalooza 1994, and seeing Primus live, that I truly appreciated Claypool’s skills. He is amazing to watch.

The song that I’m sharing today is from the seas of cheese album. It was one of the more heavily played singles from the album. It is called “Jerry was a race car driver.” Give it a listen.

I debated about not even including a photo of these guys in the post, because, well… look at them. I did, though. So, there it is. NOFX is one of my favorite, if not my very favorite bands in the punk genre. They are definitely my favorite punk band that is still producing music. A lot of people find their puns and political lyrics corny. If they are, I eat that corn for dinner. I love their cover of “Vincent”  by Don Mclean, which is about Van Gogh. If you haven’t heard it, listen to the Josh Gropin’, excuse me, Groban version first. If you are still awake, listen to the NOFX version. Or if you fall asleep, make sure that the NOFX version is cued up to follow, and it will wake you up. They also do an tasty cover of  French classic, “Champs Elysees.” Not like they need to do any covers to fill a set, since they have about 5000 (slight exaggeration) original songs padding their repertoire. The beauty of it is, that no matter how coarse the song is, the average length of song is probably under 2 minutes. They have such a great way of creating harmonizing heavy guitars and adding in the occasional horn for effect. If you love punk, you probably love NOFX. If you think the entire genre doesn’t even classify as music, then feel free skipping this track all together. The song I’m sharing is “Whatever Didi Wants.” It is a fairly well known song, as far as NOFX goes. Here it is, for your listening pleasure.

I love Sonic Youth. I know that is kind of a corny statement, but dude, I do. Some of  their songs are a little too “experimental” for my taste, but they have a deep enough bag o’ tracks that I don’t even notice. I’m sure that most people probably already know all about them and either hate them, or love them too. So, here is the song I’m sharing. It is “Stones” From the Sonic Nurse Album.