Perhaps you’re aware of Stella’s SwimClub radio project. A bunch of us make CD’s of our favorite tunes of the moment, she copies them, and we all dig each others’ sounds. It’s as much fun to listen as to create (well, almost – you know me) and so here’s my second effort. It was harder than the first. I was going to do the part of the alphabet I didn’t get around to, but I wanted it to be more thematic. I had Rock, Cosmic, and Love – Rock was just too long and too obvious, I tried to combine Cosmic and Love, but when I road tested it, it didn’t hang together. So as usual I surrendered to Eros and that lovely Mom of his. Here it is a little bag I call BURN.
1.) Ballerina (Demo) – Van Morrison – Laughing In The Wind
A while ago I was lucky enough to get a few high quality Van Morrison bootlegs that some desperate soul had sold to Encore Records, including this one which had on it a dozen "studio demo’s," some of them from the sacred Astral Weeks period. To hear this classic stripped down to guitar and voice is a real trip, and there’s something so hypnotic about the beginning where Van says a monotone Ballerina, and then just starts Spread your wings/and come on fly a while…that I had to listen to it first thing in the morning for about a month.
2.) Maps (Live) – Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Sessions@AOL
Honest, I really think the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs are one of the few contemporary groups that give me any hope for music. They go in for a lot of Sonic Youth style guitar noise, but this AOL thing is kind of like Unplugged was for Nirvana – a chance for the listener to really hear the strong songwriting and the ultra bitchin’ beauty of Karen’s voice.
3.) I Wish I was Your Mother – Mott The Hoople – Mott
When I used to do a radio show in college on the 10 watt WKCO radio station in Gambier, Ohio I’d do a little segment I called Modern Love, and this song got played all the time. It’s certainly part of the soundtrack to my adolescence and Ian Hunter’s voice, though technically not much, is such an expressive instrument. The mandolin player (credited as I remember on the LP as "that guy from Hawkwind" whose name they evidently can’t remember) adds a great texture and sort of leads to the next track.
4.) Please Read The Letter – Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
I love both Plant and Krauss and this album is fantastic. This song is super spooky, right along the border of love and crazy. I think Jimmy Page is buried somewhere in the writing credits, too, which would make sense with the vague esoteric hints. I wrote a letter like this once. I’m sure she’ll answer it any day now.
5.) Diana – Skip Spence – Oar
Oar is, like, waaay over the border on the crazy side. Along with Syd Barrett, no one has ever mined madness so successfully, and brought tuneful nuggets back to us. Supposedly most of Oar was composed when Skip was being held in the psycho ward. This track is just so real and deeply felt. It’s no mistake that Diana is the name of a goddess, the naked sight of which was enough to destroy a man.
6.) Like Rain – Grin – Very Best Of
Another track that got played to death on my radio show. Nils Lofgren is one of the underappreciated geniuses of the rock era, a great singer, songwriter and guitar player. I’m glad he and Springsteen hooked up, but I’d rather see a Grin reunion.
7.) Burn – Rainer Maria – Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
A group named after Rilke can’t be all bad, and this one got less noisy and more tuneful on this album with fantastic results. It’s sort of the whole thing from a woman’s perspective which is amazing. Too bad they broke up after this.
8.) Riot Act – Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Get Happy!
I guess no one’s really had the emotional effect on me that Elvis has. Get Happy! Is the perfect album, with more songs, more emotions and more ideas on it that most "artists" produce in a lifetime. Elvis’s breaking voice on that final You can make me… will break your heart too…and I felt like I was living it at the time….
9.) You Keep Running Away – The Four Tops – Essential
This isn’t one of the Four Tops songs you hear on the radio, but it’s one of my favorites. Listen to the drumming! The lyrics! There’s a part in the middle where Levi goes Just look at me/I’m not the man I used to be where he spits out the words in magnificent syncopation.
10.) Through The Lonely Nights – The Rolling Stones – Rarities
This was the flip side of the 45 of "It’s Only Rock and Roll." In high school I used to leave that stacking arm thingie on my stereo open so it would play over and over again. I never thought I’d hear it again until it came out on that Starbuck’s rarities CD. I still think it’s a great song though I don’t remember it ending so abruptly. But it actually makes a good segue to…
11.) Radar – Morphine – Yes
What a wonderful band. It just drives me crazy when they stop the song and the late Mark Sandman says "If I am guilty…" and even names the date. Clever, ironic and yet deeply felt at the same time.
12.) Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends – Joan Osborne – Pretty Little Stranger
I’ve written on here before about how I was idly channel surfing and came across a Grand Ole Opry performance that blew me away. It turned out it was Joan Osborne absolutely owning this classic Kris Kristofferson song. It’s an existential novel with steel guitars.
13.) Wrong To Love You – Chris Isaak – Baja Sessions
This was in and out and then back in again, beating out The Velvet Underground’s "Pale Blue Eyes" by a nose. I love "Pale Blue Eyes" but it wasn’t dynamic enough in context and I couldn’t resist the "there will be no song of love…" part which always breaks my heart. I liked this version better than the more produced Heart Shaped World version.
14.) Lost My Drivin’ Wheel – Cowboy Junkies – 200 More Miles
This is another one that I had to listen to every day for a long time. Margot’s voice is bone chilling and the way it rises slowly from a whisper to a wail and back again makes me feel like one of those lobsters slowly boiling. Yeah, you know how it is.
15.) My Only Love – Roxy Music – Heart Still Beating
Another high quality bootleg from Encore. It’s so sad and operatic – I don’t know when Bryan Ferry and Roxy went from ironic to sincere, but I bet it was just about the time Jerry Hall broke Bryan’s heart. Over time Roxy’s musicianship became pretty accomplished, too. This is one together band.
16.) Hymn To Her – Pretenders – The Isle Of View
This is the only holdover from the Cosmic set. It fits here as an expression of the eternal feminine. Chrissie Hynde’s voice is an absolute treasure and she can still come up with a great song every so often. I saw the Pretenders kick ass in Columbus in 1981, little knowing that within a short period of time two members of the band would be dead.
17.) A Dream Goes On Forever – Todd Rundgren – Anthology
Yeah. Here’s another one I pretty much wore out back in the day. Of course now the line "You’re so long ago and so far away…" has a little more meaning…
A Leak In The Safe 
SWEET! I’ll be round soon-ish