CD Challenge: Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

Before attending a fantastic Kaiser Chiefs concert last month, my good friend Bonham and I were talking about the usual stuff –- the plusses and minuses of shitting in the bathtub, movies about Indian leg wrestling, how many hose lashes are too many when disciplining a pet monkey (there is no correct answer, apparently) –- when he told me about this thing that occurs at his apparently audiophilic office every so often.  It's called the CD Challenge.  Each challenge has a certain set of rules or a theme, and everyone in the office has a few weeks to make a mix CD with 12 songs to share with the office, the goal being to expose everyone to new and different music.

I thought this was awesome, so he kindly forwarded me the rules for the latest challenge so that I could turn it into a blog post.  Obviously, this is something that can only be done with a relatively small group of people, but it would be sweet if this kind of thing happened in more offices.  Hopefully Bonham will continue to send me these challenges.  If he does, I will post my picks.  With that, here are the rules for this challenge:

"The theme for the challenge is: '6 of one, half a dozen of the other' in other words, 6 songs from among your top 12 artists and 6 songs from new artists (or songs you suspect are new to the group)

Minitheme: Dark/Anger

As in other challenges, buried treasures and bonus tracks are welcome"

For the first part, trying to name my 12 favorite artists was a challenge in and of itself.  For sure, the following 9 artists are in the top 12:  The Beatles, Def Leppard, The White Stripes, Guns N' Roses, Thin Lizzy, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin.  The remaining 3 were a tougher call, since I have a ton of groups that I like about the same that all could be one of those three (Mötley Crüe, Sam Cooke, The Rolling Stones, Kiss, Weezer, Black Sabbath, Queen, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Bruce Springsteen), so I will just keep my list to those top 9.  Since the goal is buried treasures, I am going to go with songs that I don't think would be played on the radio (or at least played very infrequently).  I did my best to comply with the "dark/anger" minitheme. 

Here they are, in alphabetical order by artist.  For the songs I could find (in both categories), I provided a link.

1.  "Happiness is a Warm Gun" by The Beatles

This is my favorite Beatles song, and it's definitely a buried treasure (or as much of a buried treasure as a Beatles song can be).  I've already written about it, so I'll just repeat what I've already said.  I don't know what it is about this song, but I've loved it since the first time I heard it. Junior and senior year of college (and in law school), I used to listen to it to psych myself up before flag football games. It's still on my running mix (were I to run). Legend has is John wrote the song after producer George Martin showed him the cover of a gun magazine with the title "Happiness is a warm gun." The song has three distinct parts. It's kind of eerie at the beginning with John singing "She's not a girl who misses much." You expect him to explain why, which he does, but it makes no sense, as the song kicks into this raunchy fuzzed-out guitar chord. The remainder of the lyrics in the first part are fascinating, mostly because they make no sense whatsoever and are apparently the result of an acid trip. Then the song switches to John repeating the phrase "Mother Superior jumped the gun" for 30 seconds or so while someone plays a tambourine. Then the song switches into kind of a neo-doo wop song, where John belts out the only lucid lyrics in the song -- sexually suggestive lyrics that are not actually about putting his finger on your trigger while the rest of the guys sing "bang bang shoot shoot" in the background. All the while, the song switches tempo and time at several points. In the hands of anyone else, what I have just described to you would be a catastrophe. In the hands of The Beatles, however, it is a masterpiece.

2.  "You Got Me Runnin'" by Def Leppard

1981's phenomenal sophomore effort, High 'N' Dry, is best known for "Bringin' on the Heartbreak" and "High 'N' Dry (Saturday Night)," both of which are great hard rock songs.  But the rest of the album is just as good, and one of my favorites is "You Got Me Runnin'." Like most of the album, it's a hard-hitting, heavy song.  The verses are brooding, about some chick who's trying to pull one over on her man, and the chorus features those classic Def Leppard harmonies.

3.  "Tightrope Ride" by The Doors

A lot of people don't realize that The Doors kept on making music after Jim Morrison died.  Well, they did, with mixed results. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek took over the vocals.  "Tightrope Ride," which is off the band's first album after Morrison's death, is probably the best post-Morrison song, and it is one of my favorite Doors songs. The song sounds upbeat, but it's actually about Morrison as a tragic figure (which he was). This line has always stuck out to me: "And we're by your side / But you're all alone / Like a Rolling Stone / Like Brian Jones." Jones, of course, was the Stones' guitarist who was kicked out of the band in 1969, then died a couple months later (and, like Morrison, is a member of The 27 Club). Robbie Krieger has a really nice solo near the end.

4.  "My Michelle" by Guns N' Roses

This is probably the darkest song on Appetite for Destruction.  Even 25 years later, it still hits you square in the teeth with a hammer every time you listen to it.  That first verse is killer:  "Your daddy works in porno / Now that mommy's not around / She used to love her heroin / But now she's underground /So you stay out late at night / And you do your coke for free / Driving your friends crazy /With your life's insanity."  Can you imagine how eye-opening it was for me as a 10-year-old to hear that?  A dad in porn?  A mom who OD'd on heroin?  Doing cocaine?  Staying up late?!  And then to find out years later that it's about a real person makes it even that much darker.  If you don't know, the song is based on a woman named Michelle Young who used to hang out with the band. Axl originally wrote it as a romantic song, but then decided to be honest about Michelle's life and completely changed the song into the badass song it became.  The link above is from a live show the band did at The Ritz in New York City in 1988.

5.  "You're Time is Gonna Come" by Led Zeppelin

It's almost impossible to find a Led Zeppelin song that isn't played on classic rock radio, but somehow this one has slipped through the cracks.  This is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs, and should have been on my list of Top Ten "Fuck You" Songs.  If the TV show Cheaters could afford to get a Led Zeppelin song as its theme song, this would be the one.  It starts with some strange church organs.  You're not sure where this is going.  Then it kicks into a nice-sounding acoustic song about some trollop who cheated on her man (with "every guy in town," apparently) and, more importantly, that's man's promise that she will not get away with it.  "You been bad to me woman, but it's comin' back home to you."  Translation:  bitch, your uppance is coming.  I hope it involved a public depantsing, followed by a table-topping, followed by a lot of pointing and laughing.

6.  "Toughest Street In Town" by Thin Lizzy

This is one of my favorite Thin Lizzy songs.  The world Phil Lynott created in his songs was always gritty and blue collar, and this song is a shining example of that.  Blazing guitars complement lyrics about the seedy part of town, where people get jumped, deal drugs, and get killed, and "no one gives a damn."  The original version was even darker, with more blunt references to prostitution and heroin use.

For the "new" artists, Bonham said it's a personal decision as to what you want to consider "new" or what you think is "new to the group."  I will consider a new artist one whose first U.S. album was released in the last five years (on or after January 1, 2007).  I will also consider songs that are maybe a little older than that that are likely "new to the group," even though the group in my case (you, fair readers) is indefinable.

1.  "Demon Eyes" by The Answer

The Answer is a Northern Irish hard rock band, and "Demon Eyes" is the first song off of their 2009 album Everyday Demons, the band's first full-length release in the U.S.  It's a frantic, fast-paced hard rocker with a great driving riff.  If you don't like this song, then you don't like rock and roll and I hate you.

2.  "The '59 Sound" by The Gaslight Anthem

The Gaslight Anthem are one of my favorite new bands.  "The '59 Sound," which is the title track off their 2008 album, is a fantastic rock song, with a huge chorus.  It seems to be about the band playing a gig at the same time a friend died unexpectedly elsewhere.  The opening line posits, "Well, I wonder which song they're gonna play when we go," and the chorus asks the departed what he heard in the hospital bed as he was dying.  "Did you hear your favorite song one last time?"  That's a brutal thought –- the last song you hear before you die.  I hope it's "Heaven" by Warrant or "Fuck the Police" by N.W.A.

3.  "Never Wanna Fuckin' See You Again" by Rich Hardesty

This is definitely a "new to the group" selection, since it was released in 1992.  Hardesty was a regional act, mostly performing in college towns in the Midwest.  This is his signature song, and a favorite of anyone who went to IU from the early '90s to the early '00s. It's an unabashedly blunt and angry reaction to a relationship gone wrong. "Whatever happened to me and you / is on page six hundred and seventy two / And that's the end of the book / So fuck you."  It's a great song to sing when you're standing in 20 tons of sand on a Friday afternoon in April, hammered off of a green drink with a secret recipe.  God, I miss college.

4.  "You Been Lyin'" by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

If there's anyway to tell a woman you know she's a liar, it's with a horn section and backing singers.  This is another garage soul boogie from Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears that is simply impossible to hate.

5.  "Lady Ann" by Township

This is another "new to the group" song, since Township technically released their first EP in 2006, which contained this song.  I have touted Township many times on GMYH, and they are one of my favorite bands from the past 5-6 years.  Hopefully they will be playing Chicago again sometime soon, since they put on a fantastic live show.  Anyway, "Lady Ann" isn't really dark or angry, other than the fact that it's about a guy who plays rock and roll to escape from his job in the "salt mines" and to remind him of his dreams from when he was younger.  I particularly like the second verse:  "I'm gonna to write a book, you're gonna read it / It's gonna change your life / I'm gonna write a song there, too / That'll put an end to strife / I'm gonna find me the smartest woman / I'm gonna make her my wife / We're gonna live in a goddamned mansion / And roam the hills at night."  I always picture an insane rich couple running around woods behind their house dressed up like extras in Braveheart, chasing coyotes with nothing more than their bare hands, and then having weird sex after they fail to catch any coyotes.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find a link to the full song anywhere, but I know it's available on iTunes and Rhapsody, so check it out.  Here is a link to the Rhapsody page with a 30-second clip of the song.

6.  "Brave Man's Death" by J. Roddy Walston & The Business

This is another great new band.  I saw them last year at Lollapalooza and in March at the Double Door.  They are great live.  This song definitely falls into the dark category.  It's about a dad who is happy to die at the hands of his son's bullet, and then more generally about dying "a brave man's death."  It's pretty hardcore subject matter, but softened a little by the fact that the song is a piano-based soulful rocker with a big chorus.


So, there are my choices.  I'd love to hear yours.