Friday Random Top Ten

Ya pushes "shuffle" and ya takes yer chances. . .

1. I Can't Reach You The Who
2. Jockey Full Of Bourbon Tom Waits
3. Yesterday Is Here Tom Waits
4. Reconsidering Our Love The Wonders Of Science
5. Day In Day Out XTC
6. Missa Assumpta Est Maria (Palestrina) The Tallis Scholars
7. Get In The Swing Sparks
8. Back To Schooldays Graham Parker
9. Sisters Of Mercy Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris
10. She Talks To Rainbows RAMONES!!!

A great start! I loves the Who, well, the REAL WHO, with Keith Moon. I didn't buy any of their stuff after he died. Then the ol' shuffle got inna Tom Waits mood. I love both of these songs and the ambience in each recording. Jockey Full of Bourbon has an incredibly slimy feel to it, and Yesterday Is Here is quite spooky! I likes everything else on the list (not really. #8 is not his best work), but, really, why didn't the shuffle choose #6 two Fridays ago, on the actual Feast of the Assumption? THAT would have been impressive.

And now, our extremely random (and boring!) Friday Feature: Padre Mickey Reveals The Stories Behind the Recordings of The Wonders Of Science and A Cruel Hoax. Today's episode: Reconsidering Our Love. This is the final cut on our EP The Record Of The Same Name which has recently swept Scandinavia and the Teutonic states. In those days, Matty Boy was designing video games for Activision™ and I was a Buyer for TSI, a manufacturer of electronic devices for the Blind. We would do our recording after work, usually on a Friday evening. All the cool bands had gigs, so The Music Annex was available for our Recording Needs. We would show up around six, often with a Stromboli pizza (which we would share with our engineer, Russell Bond) and start recording. We would record long into the night, often leaving about six a.m. the next day. When I hear this cut, it always feels like three a.m. to me. When we started mixing this cut, we had nothing but trouble getting a mix we liked. I remember spending an entire evening, equipped with our "mixing juice" and still couldn't get anything worthwhile. Finally, Russell sent us home and did his own mix, which was great and was the one we used. Sometimes you need an outside ear to really hear the piece. Okay, you can wake up now; I'm done.

Hey, ya gotsta check out that Sparks video! And please, PLEASE, add your Top Ten lists in the comments. You'll be glad you did!