by Ubikkidus

Kittenhead

Kittenhead is a band based out of California and I’ve been listening to them a bunch lately since we became friends on Twitter a couple of months back.

Straight ahead timeless rock, hell this could’ve been on a cassette of mine from the 80’s (that’s a compliment–I don’t fuck around with my cassettes and there is a whole collorary around did you buy cassettes or were you always grubbing off other’s people shit with your blank tapes but we won’t go there).

I started listening to them on Spotify. If you want to what I mean by straight ahead, go to “Tuesday” the first song of their 2014 album “We’re Here”.

Love songs that keep chugging along. And while we’re at it, the very next song “Ready to Roll”  has some good chugging too (just go with it) with a nice, slower groove.

 

One change of pace one I really dig is “Privacy”, which digs into the alternative rock bag of tricks.

 

Finally, love “Derby Girl”,   an earlier song from Kittenhead, which, reading their bio, gets played at roller derbies throughout California, and made me realize, I’ve never been to one!!!!! (staring at my toes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIl2U9JWd6c

 

Changes of direction, great guitars and vocals (#younarcissiticbastard), and the groove of the drum / bass interaction is inifectious throughout.  You can tell these guys would be fun to see live (I’ve seen some videos), and I need to make a trip to the Left Coast one of these days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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by Ubikkidus

  1.  Champion – by Kanye West (2007)  – this week marks the 10th anniversary of Kanye’s release of “Graduation”, which has goodies like “Stronger” and “Flashing Lights”.  I chose “Champion” though to marry it with the passing of Walter Becker, co-founder and guitarist of Steely Dan, whose song “Kid Charlemagne” is sampled here.  And while we’re at it………this doesn’t count as a second song but you get it.

Kid Charlemagne, from one of my favorite albums ever…..”The Royal Scam”!!!!!!!  So many great songs on here.  If I wanted to be obnoxious (which I am), I’d throw “Don’t Trust ‘Em” by Ice Cube in here, which samples “Green Earrings” from, you got it, Royal Scam.  Oh what the hell.

 

Whatever happened to O’Shea Jackson?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWrqI1FI4TU

2.  “Mean Streak” – by Y&T (1983)  – I came across this song on a compilation album called “Masters of Metal”, which also featured bands like Kiss, Sabbath, Maiden, Rush, Van Halen and DOKKEN!!!!!!   My understanding is that Y&T were big fans of The Beatles and Y&T stands for Yesterday & Today, a Beatles song.  History aside, I think this is a vastly underrated song from that era.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX34Qhmto0Y

3. “Evermore” – by Grandaddy (2017) –  I love this little piece of alternative rock.   It has a constant, hypnotic groove, but it also has a slow build from verse to chorus.   Those keyboards are like guitars, but the song has guitars too!

 

 

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by Ubikkidus

Image result for birdie bees gavin turek

 

So I’ve been listening to Gavin Turek for the last year or so, enjoying everything I’ve heard through Spotify.   But until recently,  I thought that Gavin was a DJ who had a really good female singer accompanying him.  That is incorrect.

Gavin Turek is a singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress from L.A. and you get the point, I’m an ignorant idiot. At least she’s a sport.about it:

Gavin’s music runs the gamut of R&B to disco club hits and the common thread is there’s  a nice groove in every song.There’s about 25-30 of her songs on Spotify (ncluding remixes) so it’s easy to catch up on what you’ve been missing.  Being a perky dimply dude, I’m focusing on the more dancy stuff (yep, and I don’t dance), but give it all a listen–it’s worth it.

The first two songs are from 2015. Both “Frontline” and “Don’t Fight It” both have 1980’s dance pop sensibility but not over the top that you don’t feel comfortable sitting in 2017.

Gavin’s “Good Look for You” EP came out in 2017, and I really dig the title track, which like “Frontline” and “Don’t Fight It” straddles the line between the 80’s and today.

 

“Birdie Bees”,  which came out this month, has it’s feet firmly in the now, and has a slower funky feel, and some vocal gymnastics from Gavin.  This is a nice kickback, change of pace from the songs above and look forward to hearing mre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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by Ubikkidus

  1. Groove Is In the Heart” by Deee-Lite (1990)—- this is an obvious song, with a less obvious fact.   There is a musical threesome of hall of fame all-stars here.   Q-Tip(ATCQ), Bootsy Collins (Parliament/Funkadelic, maybe the GOAT of funk bassists) and Maceo Parker (James Brown’s sax player).

2.  ” Over Everything” by Courtney Barrett and Kurt Vile (2017) –  So Courtney Barrett and Kurt Vile did a song together?  Really.   They did a whole album together? Yep. If you like either one of them, you’ll probably like this.   And this is my kind of country music (ok, I know it’s not country).

 

 

3. “E=MC2” by J Dilla (2006) – Because when I hear this groove by J Dilla, I feel like I can take bullets. Any one who was ever overcaffeinated, overstimulated or just intelligent should understand that last sentence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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by Ubikkidus

I’m not sure who followed who on Twitter, but Frances-Frances has the least Twitter or Facebook followers I’ve seen for a legitimately good band (They can be found on Twitter via  https://twitter.com/FRNCS_FRNCS or Twitter handle @FRNCS_FRNCS).

Frances-Frances image

Their Twitter page says Glitz ‘n’ Blitz | Glam/Post-Punk from South London. To me, it’s straight up fun alternativ-ey British rock.   There is something about these guys, I can’t put my finger on it but it was fun listening to all of the tracks on their Bandcamp page.

There is the current batch that just came out called “Demos”, which was released a few days ago (9/1/2017):   https://frances-frances.bandcamp.com/album/demos

Also, from March 2017- “Venus Incarnate / Ides of March”:   https://frances-frances.bandcamp.com/album/venus-incarnate-the-ides-of-march

You can’t go wrong here. I’m assuming (hoping) that they are continuing to work on new material (hey guys, how about putting these up on Spotify?).

 

 

 

 

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by Ubikkidus

So what were you doing at the age of 20?    Enisa is a 20-year-old singer from Brooklyn, and she sounds amazing. Her voice is both beautiful with a touch of hostility, like she would kick my ass if she needed to. Below is her video for “Burn this Bridge”.

Sounds great,right?   I really hope this is the beginning, it’s clear she has runway here to go far.

Enisa currently has three other songs on Spotify (4 if you count a remix of Burn This Bridge).   I gave them all a listen and you can’t go wrong with any of them.

Enisa’s current single is “Freedom”, which sounds like she is going for it. Can’t wait to hear more of this.  Below is a list of her songs on Spotify, but I think you can find her on Apple Music too.

 

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by Ubikkidus

Here we go folks, Monday night and I’ve got five songs for ya to get through the week, or the next 25 minutes.

1. “You Are In My System” by The System. Love 80’s music and fashion!

 

2: Between Us & Them” by Moving Units – anything that sounds remotely like vintage Franz Ferdinand is welcome.

 

3. “Ye Ye Yamaha” by The Go! Team. I love The Go! Team so much–this song is in French, no clue what they’re saying, and still love it.

4. “Myage” by Descendents. This is old school punk you may never heard of, and it’s more punk to me than anything else.

5. Lotus Eater by Foster the People.  These guys keep pushing new sounds. They could’ve gone the pop route and stayed in a lane but kept playing around and I appreciate that.

 

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by Ubikkidus

With Rise Against’s June 2017 release of “Wolves”, I decided now was the time to do a mini deep dive on their back catalog.  Armed with google searches and a couple of reddit boards, I came up the playlist below.

By no means am I a superfan, so feedback and requests are welcome through Twitter (@chiswick_radio).

 

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by Ubikkidus

Like many of you who have Spotify, on Mondays  I get a 30 song playlist called “We Are Trying to Figure You Out”.  The playlist is really called “Discover Weekly” and it recommends new songs based on my listening habits.  I would venture that on a good week, about 30% of the songs they pick make it on one of my playlists.

The one algorithm (or is it a genre?) that is a favorite are R&B songs that weren’t huge hits BUT were sampled by songs that became hits. I love the specificity of that – kind of like getting a batch of songs that use the word “loooooooove”, instead of love.

The sampling argument is at least 40 years old and I will not rehash it.  Instead of taking the side of people who say “they are trying to make music by ripping off others”, I’ll go the opposite way.   R&B / Hip-Hop artists are taking parts of a song that might not get recognition and giving it new life to the original artist and enhancing the new song.  Off the pedestal.

Below are my current favorite songs that have been sampled by others.  So as not to spoil it (and see if you can figure out for yourself), there will be a big white space after I list the three song. Feel free to scroll down and you will find the original song it came from. I’m only listing samples I know (or think) I know.   http://www.whosampled.com/ is a great place if you want to do more research.

“Think (About It)” by Lyn Collins (1972)

Lyn Collins is a great R&B singer that is most famously associated with the James Brown ecosystem of music (and that’s not a bad place to be).  The famous hook comes midway through the song, but the vocals, horns, and organ work on it’s own make it a playlist staple.

“Get Up and Dance” by Freedom (1979)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oV1PTdsQpc

The band Freedom would be the answer to the question “What if you took Kool & The Gang and Earth Wind & Fire and smushed them together?”.   This song has many nuggets that have been sampled by others, some less obvious than others.

“I Got The……” by Labi Siffrey (1975)

Nothing emerges at the beginning of this song but two minutes in, it hits you right in the face. It is art the way a producer can take that riff, and create a smash out of it. And please don’t think it wasn’t integral to the song’s success. And that is not a slight in anyway to both the artist and the producer (listed below) who are world famous, and first ballot inductees in the to-be built Chiswick Radio Hall of Fame.

Scroll down to see where these great songs were used (if you didn’t know already). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. “It Takes Two”  – Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock
  2. “Freedom” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “Anything (Old Skool Radio Version) by SWV featuring Wu-Tang Clan and (not sure about this one) “Best of My Love” by The Emotions
  3. “My Name Is” by Eminem with a big assist from Dr. Dre

 

 

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by Ubikkidus

I will keep this very brief.   I did a deep dive of the Strokes catalog on Spotify, and pulled the songs that I thought merited being on this Stokes playlist (I like to call it a “digital box set”).

Admittedly, this list is weighed heavy on the first album “This Is It”—- as almost every song appears on it.  I’m sure I will get it from someone for the two songs I left off (and don’t get me started on “New York City Cops”) .

But there is some balance here with songs from every album, including an independent single and the recent EP.

The Strokes have been a great band, the last 15 years. The only issue was their first album will be the most highly regarded fom now until eternity—there was no rising action—we were at the top of the mountain from the beginning.   But, the entire catalog is definitely worth going through a few times.

There are 31 songs here that come in a little under two hours. Enjoy.

 

 

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