Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 12-31-23

The year after I graduated from college I moved out of my parents’ house into my own apartment in Woodbridge, New Jersey, where I lived for two years before moving into Manhattan. Woodbridge was no great shakes, though there was one cool thing about it. Around the corner from me was an independent record store whose name I will never recall. Always on the hunt for new music, I would spend hours there flipping through the racks. It was on one of those occasions, in 1986 or ’87, that I chanced upon an album named Let It Be. I already had an album at home called Let It Be by a different band, and that one was pretty good, so I figured I’d take a chance on this Let It Be. It’s by a band named The Replacements, and while I had never heard their music, I did recall reading positive things about them in the music press. I splurged the $9 + tax on the still sealed vinyl LP, took that baby home, and have never looked back. I now own every album ever released by The Replacements in triplicate plus one (is that called quadruplicate?), not because I’m an obsessive, but because I worked for their record company. And because I’m an obsessive.

The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg was born on this date in 1959. A few of the band’s earlier recordings are included on today’s playlist.

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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 10-7-23

One night in December 1994 my friend Kathy and I attended the WDRE Acoustic Xmas show at New York City’s Beacon Theater. There were multiple artists on the bill, each getting a short slot to perform three or four songs. The acts were The Go-Go’s, Big Audio Dynamite, Jesus and Mary Chain, frente!, Love Spit Love, Black 47, G. Love & Special Sauce, and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. I looked up online who performed, as the only act I recall seeing there were the Radiohead guys. The band had one album out at that time, 1993’s Pablo Honey. Kathy and I just wanted them to do their hit – “Creep” – and then skedaddle. They didn’t play “Creep.” They played some song about plastic trees and one about an iron long and some other mess. Kathy and I knew this band would never be heard from again.

Oops.

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke was born on this date in 1968. Lots of Thom’s work on today’s playlist.

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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 7-8-23

Beck Hansen came up with a nifty guitar lick, to which a friend of a friend added beats. The beats inspired Beck to recite an improvised poem, on which he attempted to sound like Chuck D of rap group Public Enemy. Listening to the playback, Beck thought “Man, I’m the worst rapper in the world. I’m just a loser.” He started singing “I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me?” That became the chorus of his song “Loser,” along with “Soy un perdedor” – “I’m a loser” in Spanish.

Today is Beck’s birthday. A smattering of his work is included on today’s playlist.

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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 5-14-23

In 1988 or 1989 I saw Talking Heads’ David Byrne walking around in NYC’s Greenwich Village. In my memory of this he was wearing his big suit from the Stop Making Sense movie. That can’t be, though, right? He wouldn’t walk around the city in that get-up, would he?

David Byrne turns 71 today. Lotsa Talking Heads on today’s playlist in his honor.

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