These Go To Eleven: Part 11 of 11
Posted: 11.21.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, Spinal Tap, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »And, of course…
These Go To Eleven: Part 10 of 11
Posted: 11.20.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, The Who, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »I thought it’d be no problem choosing my favorite Who song for this category, but the more I thought about it, the more impossible it became. I was even considering cheating and posting a “bonus” track, but I’ll remain faithful to my one-musician-only rule. So after wracking my brain for a bit, I thought of ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’, Pete Townshend’s first proper rock opera, and often forgotten next to Tommy and Quadrophenia – likely because it was a 9 minute magnum opus, not an album-length story. Still, the goofy story he crammed into those 9 minutes is impressive, but the actual studio recording of it was rushed and tinny. So why would I choose this song when I have such mixed feelings about it? Listen to the live version below, from their 1968 appearance at the Rolling Stones’ Rock And Roll Circus, and you’ll understand.
These Go To Eleven: Part 9 of 11
Posted: 11.19.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, Led Zeppelin, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »‘Fool In The Rain’ will always be my favorite Led Zeppelin song, for reasons I’ve already written about elsewhere on this site, but there’s something infectious about ‘Rock And Roll’ that gets my blood pumping. What I enjoy most about this song is the drum solo, of course; as a drummer in a previous life, I would channel my inner John Bonham in my garage band Tequila Mockingbird, my arms a whirlwind as I tried to perfect the sound. Inevitably, it would fail miserably, and I would shout in frustration and kick my drum set over, cursing wildly while my wide-eyed band members watched in amusement. Now that’s rock and roll.
These Go To Eleven: Part 8 of 11
Posted: 11.18.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, These Go To Eleven, Tom Waits Leave a comment »I reserve my Tom Waits for very particular moods and times. He’s not the kind of musician that I can just pop into the CD player (or queue up on the iPod) on a sunny morning as I make the lengthy trek into work and be able to sing along to like I could with any of the other musicians. No, Tom Waits is for trudging home in the rain from a dirty dive bar, drunk on cheap beer and lonely regrets, just past closing time. There’s a certain shambolic inebriation to his songs that make it perfect for that scenario, but only that scenario; since I haven’t felt like that in a while, Waits hasn’t been in regular rotation on my iPod, but every once in awhile one of his songs will come on random, and I’ll be transformed back to those nights that were more common a few years back.
These Go To Eleven: Part 7 of 11
Posted: 11.17.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, David Bowie, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »A little bit of Bowie never hurt anybody, and, as with any of these other selections, there’s a ton of his songs that could easily fit this category, but for my money, ‘”Heroes”‘ is about as perfect as it can get. I defy you to tell me that there’s a more gorgeous moment midway through the song when Bowie practically bellows the lyrics. It’s an uncharacteristic touch of poignancy usually absent from Bowie’s songs, but when it shows up, it’s unexpectedly appreciated.
These Go To Eleven: Part 6 of 11
Posted: 11.16.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, Eddie Vedder, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »It’s pure serendipity that this song was chosen for my “These Go To Eleven”, as I have very fond memories of driving around the backroads of Bucks and Montgomery Counties in the autumn and winter of 2008/2009 listening to Eddie Vedder’s Into The Wild soundtrack. I was in the process of reinventing myself after a particularly demoralizing year, and, as schlocky and tacky as it may sound, good music and good friends certainly helped that process.
These Go To Eleven: Part 5 of 11
Posted: 11.15.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, Neutral Milk Hotel, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »For a few weeks back in the spring of 2005, I was convinced that In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was the greatest album ever. I have since come to my senses, although I can’t overstate its importance in my daily soundtrack at that time; while I find it hard to listen to a lot of the album these days, simply because of the emotional attachment I have with it, ‘Holland, 1945′ is one of those songs that, bizarrely, transcends that connection. Even though it’s November, I’m compelled to listen to this one at full blast with the windows down.
These Go To Eleven: Part 4 of 11
Posted: 11.14.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, Them Crooked Vultures, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »The first half of ‘No One Loves Me & Neither Do I’ is enjoyable, if a bit generic, with an obvious nod to Led Zeppelin’s bluesy swagger (no surprise, considering one-third of the band is John Paul Jones), but the second half of the song is where it really starts to heat up, and the introduction itself is one of those moments that I wish I could bottle up and hold onto forever.
These Go To Eleven: Part 3 of 11
Posted: 11.13.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, Queen, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »As with ‘Victoria’, there are tons of Queen songs I could put on here, but ‘Gimme The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)’ is a forgotten track from their 1986 A Kind Of Magic album. It’s not the best song they’ve ever done, but it does turn Brian May’s homemade guitar into a set of bagpipes for a few seconds, and that, my friends, is enough to make me turn the volume knob as high as my delicate ears can handle.
These Go To Eleven: Part 2 of 11
Posted: 11.12.2011 Filed under: 11/11/11, The Kinks, These Go To Eleven Leave a comment »There are some obvious Kinks songs I could put on here – I’m trying to limit it to one song per band – like ‘You Really Got Me’, ‘Low Budget’, ‘All Day And All Of The Night’, or ‘David Watts’, but ‘Victoria’ has always stood out to me as an underrated classic. Like ‘Never Been To Spain’, it starts off a bit quieter, but once it kicks into higher gear, it really cooks. One part of the song that I love – and this is a little part – is around the 2:50 part, where the band really get into the groove, and Dave Davies is shouting in ebullience at finally being able to simply rock again.
