Last Ten CDs We've Listened To: Folk, Indy and Jazz

Greetings to our blog readers in Ireland, Uruguay and South Africa.

Here are the last ten compact discs we've listened. Yes, we have based this on our regular Last Ten Films We've Seen series, an idea we got from "Film Comment" magazine, as they frequently ask movie directors, such as Quentin Tarantino or Sofia Coppola, what are the last ten films they have watched.

Here's is our list; Bruce Piephoff, a Greensboro, NC, singer featured on this list, is a good friend of our's, alas, we have never met David Bowie. The top image is of the late rock singer Alex Chilton, a song about him was on The Replacements' cd "Pleased to Meet Me" (1987) and the bottom image is of folk singer Sufjan Stevens:

1) Bruce Piephoff. Soft Soap Purrings. 2014. Folk

2) The Replacements. Pleased To Meet Me. 1987. Indy

3) David Bowie. Hunky Dory. 1971.Rock

4) Steely Dan. Countdown to Ecstasy.1973. Rock

5) Pink Floyd. Animals. 1977. Rock

6) Sufjan Stevens. Illinoise, 2005. Indy/folk (the recording features a ballad about a notorious serial killer!)

7) Superchunk. On the Mouth. 1992.Indy/punk

8) Talking Heads. Face the Music. 1979. New Wave/rock/punk

9) The Police. Regatta de Blanc. 1979. New Wave/rock/punk

10) Pat Metheny Group. Letter from Home. 1989.  Jazz.

http://www.reverbnation.com/brucepiephof

http://thereplacementsofficial.com/pages/home

http://www.davidbowie.com

http://sufjan.com/

http://www.superchunk.com/

Last Ten Cds I've Listened To: Lots of '70s Stuff

This list of the last ten cds that I had listened to as of Tuesday night is indeed a journaey back in time as the latest album was recorded in 2004 and the earliest in 1963.

Most of the music I listened to tends to be from the years 1979-1991 though here there are some exceptions. And, yes, I do indeed listen to lots of New Wave and Turkish psychedelic music! Here is the list:

1. Sonic Youth. "Goo." 1990. Key Tracks: "Dirty Boots," "My Friend Goo" and "Mildred Pierce."

2. The Cars. "Candy-O." 1979. Key Tracks: "Let's Go," "It's All I Can Do" and "Dangerous Type."

3. Selda (Selda Bagcan). "Selda, Vol.2" 1976 (comp). Selda is a Turkish folk singer who was prosecuted for her highly political song lyrics during Turkey's somewhat turbulent 1980s.

4. David Bowie. "Hunky Dory." 1971. Key Tracks: "Changes," "Life on Mars?," "Kooks" and "Queen Bitch."

5. The Cure. "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me." 1987. Key Tracks: "Why Can't I Be You?," "Just Like Heaven" and "All I Want."

6. The Replacements "Pleased to Meet Me." 1987. Key Tracks: "Alex Chilton" and "Can't Hardly Wait."

7. 3 Hurel. "3 Hurel." 1963. The 'Anatolian rock band' 3 Hurel consisted of brothers Onus, Haldun and Feridun Hurel; hence the name of the band.

8. REM. "Out of Time." 1991. Key Tracks: "Losing My Religion," "Shinny Happy People" and "Half a World Away."

9. Tom Waits. "The Heart of Saturday Night." 1974.

10. Mercan Dede. "Su (Water)." 2004. Mercan Dede is a Turkish instrumentalist.


SIDEBAR: The answer to our Rabbit Ears Quiz from last week is b) 1975; that is the year when "Wonder Woman" made its network debut.

Special Quote of the Week- Jonathan Swift

Today, we are continuing to quip famous people from Ireland with a quote from the great writer and essayist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) who penned the famous novel "Gulliver's Travel" (1735) that was recently made into a Jack Black film that we haven't seen (I wonder if esteemed New York film critic Nathan Lee has seen it, but he probably doesn't want to be pestered about it).


According to Wikipedia and my tenth grade English teacher Mrs. Schultz* at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md.**, "Gulliver's Travel" is meant to be a satirical view of European government, illustrate the petty differences among faiths, question man's inherent nature and show that specific individuals may be good even if their tribe is bad.

Now that we have that important stuff out of the way, here is the quote:

"A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle."

SIDEBAR: For those of you residing in the Blacksburg, Va., area, one of our favorite college radio stations (well, the one in which I actually 'worked' at) WUVT/90.7-FM is on the verge of hosting their fund-raiser for the spring.

WUVT is one of the few radio stations where one can hear the '80s cult indie rock band The Replacements and the Turkish folk group Kardes Turkuler (means Songs of Fraternity in English) within a two-hour time span!

WUVT did indeed air songs from both of these musical entities on Saturday. Their amazing lineup for that day includes "Hickory Dickory Dock," "The Greek Show," "The Turkish Show" and "Nathan and Jared."

"The Turkish Show" played several selections on Saturday from Kardes Turkuleri, a group conceived some 20 years ago which plays Anatolian folk songs in the languags of Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and Armenian. Songs from Kardes Turkuleri were featured on the soundtrack to the 2001 comedy film "Vizontele," which was a huge domestic box office hit in Turkey.

Later in the afternoon, "Nathan and Jared" played the song "Bastards of the Young" from The Replacements of the band's acclaimed 1985 release "Tim," which makes for great listening if you are writing that long-winded book report on "Gulliver's Travels."


*-pseudonymn, well I have no idea who my tenth grade English teacher was actually

**- Yes, there is actually a Walt Whitman HS in Bethesda, Md. No, I did not actually go to school there.