Friday, August 10, 2007

Freaky Friday Random Ten

It was strange getting up this morning and not having to rush off to work. I almost forgot it is Friday.

I have one more training shift at the restaurant-- a "runner" shift; you basically stand and watch the food come out of the kitchen in order to see different dishes, in order to be able to identify them, and of course be able to describe them to a customer.

One of the things I like about this place is that they email the schedule to you. I start Monday morning, with a lunch shift, though I have a feeling they may ask me to come in tomorrow night.

After I post this, I'm going to run over to Truman City College and start the ball rolling on signing up for classes, thus starting the next chapter in my life.


1. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue- Bob Dylan
2. Barely Breathing- Duncan Chic
3. The Walls Came Down- The Call
4. Send In the Clowns- Judy Collins
5. Miles From Our Home- The Cowboy Junkies
6. If I Were Only a Child Again- Curtis Mayfield
7. Smokin' In the Boys Room- Brownsville Station
8. Hold On Loosely- .38 Special
9. Rock, Salt and Nails- Joan Baez
10. The Witch- The Sonics



Notes:
1. This is the version from Biograph, the marvelous Dylan box set. It's live, recorded in Manchester, England on the same tour that the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Don't Look Back was filmed. If you haven't seen it yet, do so, if only to see how many spoofs and homages there have been in various movies and rock videos, including:


  • Spinal Tap (the scene where they get lost in the basement on the way to the stage)
  • Bob Roberts (same as above)
  • Fear of a Black Hat
  • The INXS video Mediate (when Michael Hutchence is showing and throwing down cards with the words to the song on it)


2. Great little one-hit-wonder. Kim told me that Duncan Chic is now writing Broadway musicals.
3. The Call were one of my favorite underappreciated bands of the '80's. They were based in San Francisco, but singer Michael Been grew up in near Chicago, and was friends with John Belushi, who he did improv with.

I included the vid for this song at the bottom of this post. Yes, that's Garth Hudson, from The Band, playing keyboards. If Been looks familiar, it's because he played John the Apostle in Martin Scorsese's movie The Last Temptation of Christ.

Looking up Michael Been, I discovered that his son is the singer for The Black Rebel Motorcycle club.
4. My favorite Judy Collins song is her cover of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. The Crosby, Stills and Nash song Suite: Judy Blue Eyes is rumored to be about her-- she was dating Stephen Stills at the time.
5. I love this little gem. I saw the Cowboy Junkies at the Park West back around 1990 with my friend Mark.
6. From the splendid Curtis Mayfield box set, People Get Ready.
7. This song (the original, not the Motley Crue cover) was a hit when I was in junior high school.
8. A guilty pleasure. It was written by Chicago native Jim Peterik, who had a huge hit in 1970 with Vehicle with his group The Ides of March, and in the eighties with his group Survivor (Eye of the Tiger).
9. A beauty from Joan Baez' David's Album. When her husband David Harris went to prison as an act of civil disobedience, for refusing induction into the military during the Vietnam War, she went to Nashville and gathered a bunch of the great Nashville session musicians and recorded a country album, one of my favorites.
10. A classic from the Seattle legends The Sonics. From the ever-present Nuggets box set.


10 comments:

SkylersDad said...

Wow, smokin in the boys room... My god does that song bring back memories. I am a wee bit older than you, we were in high school working out how to get fake ID's.

I agree about both sides now, great stuff!

barista brat said...

oh man - you reminded me - i need to add 'the call' to my collection.

do you know if there is a best of? or, if you had to pick one cd, which would it be?

Moderator said...

Great Foot Notes. I just figured out "Hang on Loosely" on Guitar Hero.

Foofa said...

Remember that time in Don't Look back where they were making fun of Donovan? I saw it late one night in Amsterdam and kept wondering why poor Donovan had it so hard.

Johnny Yen said...

Skyler's Dad-
What a difference a few years makes, eh?

When I was 17, the state of Wisconsin raised its drinking age from 18 to 21. It was funny, because there were people I went to high school who used to go up there to drink-- they could legally drink for a few months after turning 18, then suddenly couldn't.

Barista-
Get the best-of, definitely-- I ripped that track and a few others from a friend's copy of the Best of cd. Some other favorites: "What's Happened To You," "Let the Day Begin," and my favorite of theirs, "I Still Believe."

Grant-
My son was asking about Guitar Hero. I think we may end up getting it eventually. God knows, we're already a bunch of kaoroke whores around here as it is.

Johnny Yen said...

Natalie-
Yeah, I thought he was being kind of an asshole-- which was one of the points of the documentary. He was, like Joan Baez sang about him in Diamonds and Rust "headed straight for a fall."

My freshman year English teacher met him when they were both attending University of Minnesota in 1959 or 1960. My prof said he was a bit of an ass.

Still love his music, though!

Erik Donald France said...

I had a friend who wrote a new version of the Judy Collins' song -- "Send in the Panzers." He's since been committed to an asylum. He was very funny, though.

Cup said...

I didn't know about the Michael Been/BRMC connection. Thanks! Great mix today -- electic, covering lots of genres.

Johnny Yen said...

Erik-
That is funny-- reminds me of the Dickies' Stukas Over Disneyland.

Beth-
Thanks! My tastes in music are pretty "all over the place." I only learned that connection when looking Been up on IMDB today.

JR's Thumbprints said...

I like how you connect the dots to your song selections. I've started recollecting a few songs myself, hopefully, to trigger past memories.