a guest series, courtesy of a very friendly lawyer
Today’s set was all queued up to start off with ‘Do The Du” by A Certain Ratio. Then the New Zealand correspondent served up a solid post featuring that EP in his excellent Four Track Mind series. So just imagine you heard the ACR tune before all of the following ones.
WHAT TO DO
Lead off track and only single from Roxy’s second album, For Your Pleasure. Everything about it is awesome, including the great bass line by John Porter. It’s a shame Porter didn’t become a permanent band member, but he went on to a lot of success as a producer for the Smiths, Billy Bragg, Killing Joke, and then a load of blues legends (BB King, John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy & co.).
Second track on the eponymous debut album, produced by Elvis Costello. It’s credited to “Rufus Thomas, arrangement by Jerry Dammers.” Not sure why—the Coventry ska merchants’ song bears no resemblance to Thomas’s 1963 Stax single.
The Stranglers bassist was the first of the band to release a solo record, Euroman Cometh (1979). It was a concept album of sorts, about the possibilities of a united Europe. The not-the-subtlest-guy-ever wrote in the liner notes: “A Europe riddled with american values and soviet subversion is a diseased sycophantic old whore: a Europe strong, united and independent is a child of the future.” Okay, JJ.
Some kinda half-baked screed about technology. Or something. Hard to ever really say what Eddie Vedder is going on about, but he’s all in on the vocals. A raucous number from 1998’s Yield.
Do The Panic – Phantom Planet.
This song has a tricky little history. It was written by PP frontman Alex Greenwald and drummer Jason Schwartzman (the actor) for a 2001 black and white indie film, Don’s Plum, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Then the band included it on their fanclub-only release Negatives in 2004. Then they recorded new lyrics and put it on their 2008 album Raise The Dead, which is the version in this set.
Can’t tell you much about Welcome Back. They’re apparently a trio from Denver, Colorado. Tinder in the Ashtray (2024) is their only album to date. Despite their relative obscurity they’ve got a super laid back, pretty sound reminiscent of, say, Real Estate, and Los Angeles’s dearly missed Acetone.
Let’s go WAY back to 1968 for this single, purportedly the first popular song to use a variation of the word “reggae.” Toots Hibbert wrote it and hinted that the word equates to “raggedy” and was Jamaican slang for a scruffy person.
This under-the-radar Philly band is hard to categorize. Or maybe easy to categorize since they’ve been called psychedelic, indie, bluegrass, lo-fi, alt-country, pop, and lots of other descriptors. Whatever—they’re a solid act that have been together for 25 years and have released a boatload of records. They must have a great agent because their songs constantly show up in movies and on TV shows. From their sixth studio LP, Be the Void (2012).
Sort of what grunge sounds like if you come from Tennessee. For their second LP, Head Trips in Every Key (1998), Superdrag enlisted doomed pop-punk producer Jerry Finn, who’d go on to produce for Green Day, Blink-182 and their ilk. Not sure what the song is about, but vampires were popular in the 90’s.
Do The Whirlwind – Architecture in Helsinki.
From the band’s second album, In Case We Die (2005). At this point in their too-short career, AiH were an octet with a full horn section, in addition to other non-rock instruments like glockenspiel, flute, and clarinet. The Australian band arrived at their name by cutting up and rearranging newspaper headlines.
Bonus track: Do The Astral Plane – Flying Lotus.
Haven’t heard a lot from FlyLo for a minute. His last studio release was 2019’s Flamagra. But I have a soft spot in my heart for the guy for two reasons. First, he CRUSHED it at Coachella in 2012 and was a highlight of the festival. Then, six months later, he personally intervened to get underage and possibly high on ecstasy Sam into a show at the Congress Theater in Chicago, where Sam had just moved to go to art school. An album side from 2010’s critically acclaimed Cosmogramma.
Jonny
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 