Here’s a discussion of my selections for the Battle Of The Sexes mix, Volume 10 of the Green Monkey Music Project.
In the initial round of the Green Monkey Music Project I did with some folks from work, one of the guys chose “Girls, Girls, Girls” as a theme (all songs had to have a female name), so I knew for this mix I would be opting to choose songs of the male persuasion.
I thought it would be difficult, but as I searched for songs I realized there was a helluva lot of dude name songs I liked as well.
Charlemagne – John Cale
From Vintage Violence, John Cale’s first solo album. Sure, the title and cover of this album may be a little unsettling, but it’s quite the lovely slice o’ pop. This song is really wonderful, though I could just as easily have included “Gideon’s Bible” from the same record. Check it out.
Billy Two – The Clean
This is just a straight-ahead, no-nonsense two minute pop song. I saw Yo La Tengo play this at the Metro in Chicago. Their guest guitarist touring with them sang the song, who just happened to be David Kilgour of The Clean. From the Anthology compilation.
Captain Lou – NRBQ
I never really knew a lot about NRBQ, despite their beloved status among many musicians and music-lovers. I actually saw them open up for R.E.M. on the Green tour, in the unfriendly confines of the Assembly Hall in Urbana, Illinois. I really didn’t dig them too much, but conditions were pretty much as bad as they could be for me to appreciate their music. I recently heard this song on Yo La Tengo’s very enjoyable half-assed covers compilation Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics. I liked the song so much I sought out the original, which I liked even more. Hey, it’s got Captain Lou Albano. How cool is that? From Lou and the Q.
Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing – The Minutemen
A great song off a great album – Double Nickels On The Dime. Has some really choice lines, my favorite being “So dig this big crux”. This song clocks in under two minutes. It shows what a rockin’ song is all about, in my humble opinion. Pure, pure stuff.
Adam Green – Momus
This song was one of my entries in a lyrics quiz, but no one ever got it. Off the interesting album Stars Forever, where for US $1000 you could have Momus write a song about you. Supposedly, the songs-for-pay on Stars Forever was concocted to enable Momus to recoup his legal costs incurred by being sued for a song on his previous album, The Little Red Songbook. Songbook contained a song “Walter Carlos”, about the famous Switched-On Bach virtuoso now known as Wendy. Wendy no like the song. Wendy sue Momus. I can assure you that the song wasn’t that offensive. Harvey Keitel got much worse treatment on the same album. Anyways, I was hesitant to include this song because it has a couple offensive lines, too. But hell, if this is my last Monkey Mix, screw it, right?
Thanks to Beckeye for hosting this time around.