Tag Archives: Johnny Cash

38. another song to sing

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“Johnny Cash is right. The world’s always bigger than you thought it was. And weirder, more wonderful. There’s always a reason to crawl out of whatever hole you’re in, get up, try one more time. Because there’s always another song. I guess I don’t really know Johnny Cash’s story as well as I should. I know he had some hard times. I know he got himself saved by the Lord Jesus. I know he gobbled a lot of pills for a while, mixed them up with moonshine or whatever. I know he managed to burn down a forest in California. A thick and complex volume, that man in black. Thank all gods (or whatever) that he found so many songs to sing. Including this one, all (almost) two minutes of it, that I have no memory of adding to my collection, except there it was one day, stuck on side two of an album called From Sea To Shining Sea. About America, I guess. Which goes without saying. Johnny Cash is always about America, one way or other.” (Philip Random)

(Morrison Hotel Gallery)

230. back in flesh

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“Wall of Voodoo being one of the first uniquely post-1970s outfits I ever threw in with — tight, unafraid of new technology, a little nasty, full of film noir shadows and surprises, even some laughs. And they could deliver live. Which is what happened in Vancouver’s Luv Affair, early 1982, one of the great shows of that or any year. They opened strong with a cover of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, and it all peaked maybe an hour later with Back In Flesh – a song about what happens when your arm gets smashed and your salary gets cut and the corporation’s boiling over … and everything else. Yeah, it sounds a bit like the B52s, I suppose, but what the hell’s wrong with that?” (Philip Random)

WallofVoodoo-1981-promo

(photo source)

022. The Final Countdown*

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TFC-022

 

The Final Countdown* is Randophonic’s longest and, if we’re doing it right, most relevant countdown yet – the end of result of a rather convoluted process that’s still evolving such is the existential nature of the project question: the 1297 Greatest Records of All Time right now right here. Whatever that means. What it means is dozens of radio programs if all goes to plan, and when has that ever happened?

Installment #22 went like this.

877. Brian Eno + David Byrne – help me somebody
876. Nico – I’m not saying
875. Wilco – heavy metal drummer
874. Severed Heads – advertisement + power circles
873. Sunroof – Hero
872. Monkees – porpoise song
871. Add N To X – plug me in
870. Brian Eno – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
869. Miriam Makeba – Mbube (The Lion Sleeps)
868. Osamu Kitajima – benzaiten [reprise]
867. Assembly – never never
866. Sonic Youth – Providence
865. Flying Burrito Brothers – sing me back home
864. Julie London – yummy yummy yummy
863. Madonna – justify my love [the beast within]
862. Bim Sherman & Dub Syndicate – Can I be free from crying?
861. Johnny Cash – don’t think twice, it’s alright
860. Lindstrom & Prins Thomas – Horseback
859. Arto Lindsay – light moves away
858. Leonard Cohen – there is a war

Tracks available on this Youtube playlist (not exactly accurate).

501. 16 tons

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The album title Wereldsuccessen says it all (a Dutch double vinyl compilation that I grabbed one day at a yard sale). Because by 1970, Mr. Tom Jones was an international monster, a force of passion and life that had more or less conquered all comers be they hip or straight, cool or absurd, and all by taking none of it remotely seriously. Except maybe when he took on 16 Tons, the old mining song, his Welsh blood rising, giving voice to who knows how many ghosts.

TomJones-1970-cookingSteak

795. ring of fire

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“I discovered Eric Burdon + The Animals‘ entirely OK take on Johnny Clash’s classic at least thirty years after the fact. But man, if the timing wasn’t perfect. Mid-1990s. Drinking too much, drugging too much, stumbling through some mid-life blues, it seems I was falling into my own ring of non-heavenly fire. But suddenly there was Mr. Burdon to not so much catch me as welcome me, sounding like a Tom Jones that was actually cool and experienced enough to get what the crazy psychedelic ’60s thing was all about – something to do with saving the entire universe by letting one’s freak flag fly, even if that meant going personally to hell in process. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” (Philip Random)

The 12 MixTapes of Christmas

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chrs-bopsolid-master

The Twelve Mixtapes of Christmas have got nothing to do with Christmas (beyond being a gift to you) and they’re not actually mix tapes, or CDs for that matter – just mixes, each 49-minutes long, one posted to Randophonic’s Mixcloud for each day of Twelvetide (aka the Twelve Days of Christmas).

The mixes are in fact remnants of an unfinished project from a few years back that had something to do with compiling a playlist for an alternative to Alternative Rock (or whatever) radio station. To be honest, we’re not one hundred percent clear about any of it because somebody spilled (what we hope is) red wine on the official transcript, thus rendering key parts illegible.

Bottom line: it’s five hundred eighty-eight minutes of music covering all manner of ground, from David Bowie to Bow Wow Wow to Tuxedomoon to Claudine Longet, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Captain Beefheart, Aphrodite’s Child, Tom Jones, Marilyn Manson, Ike + Tina Turner, anything and everything, as long as it’s good.