Clang & Clatter

Foo Fighters - “But Honestly” (Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, 2007)
Dave Grohl has to be one of the hardest-working people in rock music today, and say what you will, I like most everything he’s ever done on one level or another. “But Honestly” is no different. I love the simplicity of first half of the song with just Dave’s voice and acoustic guitar and how it builds into this whole other stadium rock anthem thing.

Glen Phillips - “Cleareyed” (Winter Pays for Summer, 2005)
Fingers crossed that iTunes continues to serve up a good Friday Five. Glen Phillips is one of my favorite songwriters, and again, there’s not much he does that I don’t like. Winter Pays for Summer should have been a breakthrough album for the former Toad the Wet Sprocket singer, but I’m beginning to realize that I just don’t understand the music industry. At all.

Victor - “Victor” (Victor, 1996)
Uh-oh, here’s where iTunes goes wonky on me. This comes from a solo album Rush’s Alex Lifeson released under the project name Victor. The title track bears absolutely no resemblance to anything Rush has ever released, and if you didn’t already know this was Lifeson, you wouldn’t believe it. While most of the album features former I Mother Earth singer Edwin on vocals, “Victor” is a spoken-word track of sorts with Lifeson handling the “vocals.” Victor is mostly made up of heavier, post-modern alterna-rock-styled tunes, but this one is just plain strange.

The Scooters - “Throw Your Arms Around Me (Live)” (Peepshow, 2000)
I’m not sure how I came across the Scooters, but given the catchy pop tunes and sweet vocal harmonies, I’m guessing it was probably from my favorite rock ‘n’ roll snob Jay. This particular song is a live cover of a tune from the Australian band Hunters & Collectors, and while it strips away the decidedly 80s feel of the original, it is so unlike the rest of the Peepshow EP that you can’t use it as the measuring stick to judge whether you would like the rest of the album.

Thin Lizzy - “Romeo and the Lonely Girl” (Jailbreak, 1976)
This is not my favorite Thin Lizzy tune, but the more I listen to Phil Lynott’s work, the more I find to like. This is a good way to close out today’s Friday Five.

iTunes, you did alright by me this week.

It’s Friday. IckMusic. Friday Five. You know the drill.

At the Drive-In - “Skips on the Record” (Acrobat Tenement, 1996)
At the Drive-In. Love the attitude. Hate the out-of-tune guitars on their debut. And you can’t blame it on the usual culprit Omar Rodríguez-López since he was playing bass at the time.

I Mother Earth - “Three Days Old” (Scenery and Fish, 1996)
iTunes is at it again. This week it’s a another selection from I Mother Earth’s second release. This particular tune has too many thematic shifts for me to really get into. Your mileage may vary.

Switchfoot - “Twenty-four” (The Best Yet, 2008)
Switchfoot is one of those CCM bands that I really used to like (around the New Way to be Human era) but is becoming much harder to stomach of late since becoming so popular. I purchased this “best of” collection for my pre-teen son who began to listen to some of their songs a couple of years ago. “Twenty-four” comes from the fourth release The Beautiful Letdown, which was the last major release from the band that I purchased, and is the band’s typical radio-friendly ballad, not that that’s a bad thing. Had I known at the time that The Best Yet was the usual last-ditch effort to cash in on the band by the record company after Switchfoot ended contract relations with Columbia/Sony, I would have refused to buy it.

King’s X - “Prisoner” (King’s X, 1992)
One of my all-time favorite King’s X tunes from their often-overlooked—though at one point most popular and best-selling—self-titled fourth release. This was the last album on which the band would work with manager/producer Sam Taylor, citing the usual creative differences reason. Seeing as the band’s next release was the stripped-down, grunge-ish Dogman, and hindsight being what it is, it’s not hard to believe that now. King’s X retains that classic King’s X sound from the first three albums, but introduces a bit of a darker side, both sonically and lyrically. Guitarist Ty Tabor’s playing is excellent throughout the entire album as it is here on “Prisoner,” making the album worth checking out if for that reason alone.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Scenes from a Vinyl Recliner” (Bread and Circus, 1989)
I first heard this song on a live bootleg of a Glen Phillips solo concert, and I much prefer that stripped-down acoustic version to the one on the TTWS debut album. That being said, I love the song, and in typical Glen Phillips fashion, the lyrics and song title become deep and weighty as you dig into them, with the allusions to the “circus” portion of the album title (itself a phrase that has come to mean to placate the masses) and the hint of comfortably and safely watching the misfortunes of others from the outside. Deep.

Hey, no Rush or Geoff Tate this time. I guess that’s something.

Gettin’ my Friday Five shuffle on over at IckMusic…

Let me start by saying that I’m loving participating in The Friday Five. It’s giving me an opportunity to listen to music in my library that I either have forgotten about, haven’t heard in ages, gloss over, or totally ignore.

Dokken - “Lightnin’ Strikes Again” (Under Lock and Key, 1985)
Typical Dokken fare from the 80s. I like pretty much everything about this one except the goofy low bass vocal delivery on the first line of every verse section. George Lynch was one of my favorite guitarists for a long time, and he somehow manages to redeem even the worst Dokken song.

Queens of the Stone Age - “I Was a Teenage Hand Model” (Queens of the Stone Age, 1998)
These guys really are hit or miss with me. I loved virtually everything off Songs for the Deaf, but for some reason I have a really hard time getting into their earlier stuff. This one is the typical album closer from QoTSA and really seems to drag on and on. I really wish they would end an album on a high note for once.

Neal Morse - “The Angels Will Remember” (It’s Not Too Late, 2001)
Solo album track from former Spock’s Beard frontman that recalls a musical theme similar to that band’s “Can’t Get It Wrong” from Day for Night. Morse is an excellent songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, and he has had a large hand in the progressive rock revival of the 90s and 00s. This song, however, is a straight-ahead, ballad-y, sugary-sweet, piano-based pop tune. But if you’re a prog-rock fan and haven’t heard his material, do yourself a favor and check out Spock’s Beard’s catalog up through 2002’s Snow. Then go listen to Transatlantic, the prog supergroup he formed with members of Dream Theater, Marillion, and The Flower Kings.

The Goo Goo Dolls - “Iris” (Dizzy Up the Girl, 1998)
I used to absolutely love this song, but then City of Angels, FM radio, and MTV went and completely ruined it for me. Thanks a lot. I don’t particularly like the direction these guys have gone in the past few years, but I love the material from their albums A Boy Named Goo through Gutterflower (not to say I don’t like their earlier efforts). Rzeznik’s pop sensibilities combine with Takac’s power pop punk edge to create just the right mix for my tastes. I just wish I could still listen to this song and hear it for what it is rather than all the imagery that it now conjures.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Hey Bulldog” (I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1997)
Excellent execution by one of my favorite bands covering one of my favorite bands . ‘Nuff said.

Friday. Five songs. On shuffle. Here we go…

I’m beginning to get the impression that maybe I have different musical tastes than most in these here parts and that there’s the possibility that some of the IckMusic regulars may not have heard some of the songs that I post here. So beginning with this Friday Five, I plan to include links to the tracks that exist in Spotify for any of the more curious among us. I hope that’s OK.

Collective Soul - “Giving” (Disciplined Breakdown, 1997)
There was a period where I was absolutely infatuated with anything Collective Soul put out. The band’s third album may not have produced as many hits—only two—or as many instantly familiar tunes as some of its other albums, but I actually like it better than most of the others. Maybe it’s because it was born in the midst of management difficulties, money troubles, and lawsuits. Or maybe it’s simply that Ed Roland knows how to write a good song.

Joe Satriani - “Hands in the Air” (Is There Love in Space?, 2004)
One of the things I have always liked about Joe Satriani is that he doesn’t just noodle around on the guitar just for the sake of noodling. The man can shred with the best of them, but he always seems to be more concerned with creating a real song with a real melody and a groove. Give me that over guitar wankery any day.

Yes - “Changes” (Yesyears, 1991)
A live version of one of my favorite songs off 90125. Not much else to say.

KISS - “Black Diamond” (KISS, 1974)
Klassic Kiss. And while the first album did not capture the spirit or the energy of the band’s live performances, I will always have a soft spot for it in my heart. I love the unpolishedness of Peter Criss’ vocals, and it contains some of my favorite guitar work from Ace Frehley. That being said, I really could do without the outro effect of the tape slowing down.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Comes a Time” (Coil sessions outtake, 1996)
I have had this song in my collection for so long, and since Glen Phillips has performed it live so often and recorded versions of it for other projects, I have become so familiar with it to the point that I forget it’s not an official TTWS release. Beautiful mostly acoustic tune with electric embellishments underneath and even a solo, and it contains Phillips’ typical poetic lyrics and themes.