Elliott Smith: "Miss Misery"

Elliott Smith (6 Aug. 1969 – 21 Oct. 2003) had his breakthrough as a solo artist with this song, from the soundtrack to the film Good Will Hunting. But he'd been recording before then -- including three albums with the band Heatmiser -- and his career went on a ways from there.



Among the trademarks of his music was his use of multi-track mixing to create harmony effects -- singing harmony with himself. Kinda interesting. He died of two stab wounds to the chest, and a coroner couldn't determine whether they were self-inflicted; his struggles with substance abuse and depression had shone through in his lyrics, but his death remains a mystery, I suppose.

Elliott Smith - Figure 8



Elliott Smith - From a Basement On the Hill



Heatmiser - Mic City Sons



(Another recommendation from Sharon.)

Mental Nomad Mix 8: Give Me Fever

Peggy Lee's recording of the song "Fever" was released 50 years ago ... the anniversary's coming up in a few weeks. The song was credited to Eddie Cooley and John Davenport, the latter name a pseudonym for the songwriter Otis Blackwell. R&B singer Little Willie John had released his single of the song in 1956, but hers was the one that became a smash hit that still pops up in TV commercials today.

Here's a mix that contains that song and 20 other versions by 19 different artists (one of whom, Sarah Vaughan, is represented twice). You can buy the entire mix for $20.79 at the link below -- which will take you to iTunes -- or you can purchase individual tracks for 99 cents each.

Mental Nomad Mix 8: Give Me Fever


Here's what's in the mix:

Peggy Lee: "Fever" (the 1958 hit)

Little Willie John: "Fever" (the original recording from 1956)

Sarah Vaughan: "Fever" (recorded between 1963 and 1967)

Quincy Jones: "Fever" (1965)

Susan Cadogan: "Fever" (reggae!)

Daniel Ash: "Fever" (the Love & Rockets/Bauhaus alum, from the Nip/Tuck soundtrack)

Rita Coolidge: "Fever" (1972)

The McCoys: "Fever" (1965 -- band best known for "Hang on Sloopy")

Eva Cassidy: "Fever" (released in 2002)

Ben E. King: "Fever" (1962)

Kylie Minogue: "Fever" (2002)

Tom Jones: "Fever" (couldn't find a date)

Devil Doll: "Fever" (2007)

Shirley Horn: "Fever" (1996)

Elvis Presley: "Fever" (1960)

Madonna: "Fever" (1992)

Natalie Cole & Ray Charles: "Fever" (2004)

Bobby "Blue" Bland: "Fever" (recorded between 1965 and 1972)

Maria Muldaur: "Fever"(2003)

Michael Bublé: "Fever" (2003)

Sarah Vaughan: "Fever (Adam Freeland Remix)" (2005)

And, of course, this is the eighth Mental Nomad Mix. To find previous mixes, click the "Shameless Commerce" tag below -- three are holiday music, four based on other themes.

Episode 78: Broadway of America, Part 10

This is the conclusion of a multi-part musical trek across the United States down U.S. Highway 70, the former "Broadway of America" that once ran from Los Angeles to the Atlantic coast in North Carolina but now ends in Globe, Ariz., a bit east of Phoenix. The series started with Episode 70 and has continued in each regular Wednesday episode since then.

Here's what you'll hear today (direct download here):

Jess Pillmore (Raleigh, N.C.), "I Feel It Coming On"
Coppo Akena Salah (Raleigh), "Get It Gully"
Wade 3 (Raleigh), "Kisses and Tears"
JAKT (Smithfield, N.C.), "Big Man"
Fyrestone (Goldsboro, N.C.), "Love Ain't Free"
Zona Media (Goldsboro), "Chat Room"
Kalliber (Kinston, N.C.), "Last Stand"
Thomas Taylor (Kinston), "Where Are You Now"
Black Sky Radius (New Bern, N.C.), "Fiasco"
Push Groove (New Bern), "Whiskey Drunk"
Twistedtechnology (Havelock, N.C.), "Twisted's Reality"
Settlement Band (Morehead City, N.C.), "Tell Me When"



Tracks 3 and 8 were found at the Podsafe Music Network; the remainder of the music comes from artists' Garageband profiles. Jess Pillmore's MySpace site says she's from Virginia, but her Garageband profile says she's from North Carolina, so there you go, then.

Next week: Probably no theme whatsoever. Thanks for indulging me on this longer-than-expected diversion.

Otis Redding: "Try a Little Tenderness"

Otis Redding (9 Sept. 1941 – 10 Dec. 1967) was one of the greats of American soul music, back in the days of real R&B.

iTunes Essentials: Otis Redding

Episode 77.7: Broadway of America, Part 9

This special Sunday edition is the penultimate chapter of a 10-part musical trek across the United States down U.S. Highway 70, the former "Broadway of America" that once ran from Los Angeles to the Atlantic coast in North Carolina but now ends in Globe, Ariz., a bit east of Phoenix. The series started with Episode 70 and has continued in each regular Wednesday episode since then.

Here's what you'll hear today (direct download here):

Crush (Greensboro, N.C.), "Making the Move"
Buck Shamus (Greensboro), "I'm Not Saying"
Romantic Piano/John Cannon (Burlington, N.C.), "Theme in Search of a Lyric"
Gilbert Neal (Hillsborough, N.C.), "Bubble"
Jason Burke (Hillsborough), "Heretic"
Katherine O'Mally (Durham, N.C.), "Ball and Chain"
Blackstrap (Durham), "Sex House"
Ancient Traveler (Durham), "A Journey"
The Nein (Durham), "War Is on the Stereo"
Baptist Death Ray (Raleigh, N.C.), "Pharisee"
Big Money Grip (Raleigh), "Car Chase Theme"
Komakino (Raleigh), "Keep on Walking"
Ari Ahokas (Raleigh), "No Shine"
Glorydive (Raleigh), "Anyone at All"



Tracks 1, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 14 come from the Podsafe Music Network. The remainder of the tracks were found at Garageband.com. Join us Wednesday for the final leg of this musical road trip.

The Who: "Boris the Spider (live, 1982)"

A request from Axejudge, this one finds the band's bassist, John Entwistle (1944-2002), on vocals.



The Who - Then and Now! 1964-2004

Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris: "Love Hurts"

After posting the Queen video this morning, the thought hit me: A theme week (or so) of people singing in Rock & Roll Heaven. So entries will be tagged as such for the next few days, until I run out of them.



Emmylou Harris is still alive, and may she always be so. Gram Parsons ... was not so lucky. He died of a drug overdose at age 26, but not before discovering Ms. Harris and paving the way for what's now called alt-country through his experiments in what he called "Cosmic American Music," as a solo artist, a member of the Byrds and a co-founder of the Flying Burrito Brothers.

The song you hear them singing here, "Love Hurts," has been done by a number of people, of course. The song's author -- Boudleaux Bryant -- is probably best known for, with his wife Felice, penning the song "Rocky Top," the University of Tennessee fight song.

Cher - Love Hurts - Love Hurts



The Everly Brothers - Walk Right Back - The Everly Brothers on Warner Bros. - Love Hurts



Gram Parsons - GP / Grievous Angel - Love Hurts



Heart - The Road Home - Love Hurts



Nazareth - Hair of the Dog - Love Hurts



Pat Boone - In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy - Love Hurts



Paul Young - Paul Young Live, Vol. 1 - Love Hurts



Rod Stewart - Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time - Love Hurts



Roy Orbison - The Essential Roy Orbison - Love Hurts

Rachel Griffin: "I'll Lay My Confusion Down"

I don't typically play religious music on the show, though probably the Afghan music deals with such, an upcoming track featuring vocals by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan will qualify (though it's to a dance beat), and today's show features a song titled "Buddha Camp." Here's Rachel Griffin, a lovely singer who's appeared on the show several times, doing a prayerful song that isn't on her album I'm Up to No Good.



You can buy her album at her Web site. Her sister, Rebecca Griffin, is a jazz singer and also has appeared on this show.

Episode 77: Broadway of America, Part 8

This is the eighth of a 10-part musical trek across the United States down U.S. Highway 70, the former "Broadway of America" that once ran from Los Angeles to the Atlantic coast in North Carolina but now ends in Globe, Ariz., a bit east of Phoenix. The series started with Episode 70 and has continued in each regular Wednesday episode since then.

Here's what you'll hear today (direct download here):

Freightrain Jones (Statesville, NC), "I'm Down"
Run on Deez (Statesville), "Predator Prey"
Fisher Street (Salisbury, NC), "Kiss"
Mr. Sixty Six (Lexington, NC), "Imagine"
The Subverts (Lexington), "Shattered Windows"
Epic of Athens (Lexington), "Rise Against"
Old Southern Moonshine Revival (High Point, NC), "New Pair of Boots"
Lisa Dames (Greensboro, NC), "Kinda Fun Getting Over You"
3 Feet Up (Greensboro), "Buddha Camp"
Imani Reggae Band (Greensboro), "Coconut Juice"
Kid Icarus (Greensboro), "My Plans for Tomorrow"
The Malamondos (Greensboro), "Candy and Condoms"
Rose Fur Coat (Greensboro), "Standing and Hoping"



Tracks 1, 8-9 and 12 came from the Podsafe Music Network. The remainder of the songs were found at Garageband.com. Come back Sunday for a special edition as we drive this musical road trip to its conclusion.

Mental Nomad Mix 7: Pre-Emo Music

Emo music gets mocked for its excesses, but the psychological need to fuels its creation -- the venting of (usually male) pain and angst in a more positive means than self-destructive behavior or picking fights -- is valid, and it's been around forever. These songs express much of that same spirit, though in different musical genres than what you'd call "emo" music today, and generally preceding the rise of that genre. Just food for your musical thought.

You can buy the entire mix or individual tracks at this link:

Mental Nomad Mix 7: Pre-Emo Music


Here's what is in the mix:

John Lennon: "How?" -- A song that brings to mind early adulthood, the sting of numerous successive rejections.

Jude Cole: "Tell the Truth (album version)" -- Sort of a breakup song.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: "I Don't Live Today" -- Maybe tomorrow, but not today.

Matthew Sweet: "You Don't Love Me" -- Title says it all. This wasn't a single off Girlfriend, but it could have been.

Phil Collins: "Long Long Way to Go" -- A song about feeling the tragedies of the world almost as a personal affront, a song that speaks to the moment of realizing there are tragedies everyday and that they're too big for any one person to address. Featuring great, haunted backing vocals by Sting.

Hank Williams: "You Win Again" -- The quintessential "crying in the beer" song, as performed by him.

Eagles: "Lyin' Eyes" -- Because the worst feeling in the world is knowing that right at a given moment she's with HIM.

Johnny Cash: "I See a Darkness" -- A cover of Will Oldham, who is almost the country version of Bright Eyes or Dashboard Confessional, a one-man band who's incredibly prolific but has yet to break through to the maintream.

Jeff Healey Band: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- A cover of one of George Harrison's best-known Beatles songs.

Grant-Lee Phillips: "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" -- Quiet cover of a classic by The Smiths.

Joy Division: "A Means to an End" -- The way Ian Curtis sings the line, "I put my trust in you," you can almost taste the bitterness in the statement, the sense that the trust was betrayed or at the very least misplaced.

The Moody Blues: "Nights in White Satin (single edit)" -- A classic.

U2: "Love is Blindness" -- The couplet "Love is clockworks and cold steel, fingers too numb to feel" is pure heartache.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!"

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have a new album coming, and this is the title track.



Some background on Nick Cave for the uninitiated: He's an Australian singer-songwriter (also author and now screenwriter) who got his start in the post-punk band The Birthday Party years ago. More recently, he also recorded in a side project called Grinderman with Australian violinist Warren Ellis -- not the comics writer, novelist and all-around Internet Jesus from England, but the Australian musician from the instrumental band The Dirty Three.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Tender Prey



Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Proposition (Original Soundtrack)



Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Music from the Motion Picture the Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford



Grinderman - Grinderman



Dirty Three - Dirty Three

Steve Earle: "Guitar Town"

This is Steve Earle doing the title track for his breakthrough album.



Man, he looks so young there. Ye Olde Podcaster didn't start listening to him until some time later, but he can remember the time when this wouldn't look dated, and that was ... urm ... not that recently.

Cassandra Kubinski: "She's Gonna Make You Want Her"

This pretty lady has been featured on the show once before, and will pop up again next month in an episode of music tailored for right before Valentine's Day.



You can buy her first album and/or her first EP at her Web site, through the SnoCap store at the MySpace profile linked in the first paragraph, or through the iTunes links below.

Cassandra Kubinski - Hold the Sun



Cassandra Kubinski - Hiding Underneath



Her guitarist, James Adamo, also does solo work. I'll have to see about finding some of his music for the show.

James Adamo - Piece It Together



(You didn't really think I'd leave you dangling with just that Shatner video, did you? If I were going to kick off the Blitzkrieg of Badness for 2008, maybe, but it's not time for that ... yet.)

Episode 76: Broadway of America, Part 7

This is the seventh of a multi-part musical trek across the United States down U.S. Highway 70, the former "Broadway of America" that once ran from Los Angeles to the Atlantic coast in North Carolina but now ends in Globe, Ariz., a bit east of Phoenix. The series started with Episode 70 and has continued in each regular Wednesday episode since then.

Here's what you'll hear today (direct download here):

Collin Raye (Nashville, TN), "Twenty Years and Change"
Campbells Transfer Company (Nashville), "Shape I'm In"
Mooncycle (Lebanon, TN), "Pendulum"
Rude Street Peters (Knoxville, TN), "What Would Hank Say"
Greg Adkins (Knoxville), "The Black Keys"
Artvandalay (Knoxville), "Rinse, Repeat"
Downbreak (Asheville, NC), "Holy Reign"
Brian Turner (Asheville), "Change of Autumn"
Donna Germano (Asheville), "I Once Loved a Lad"
Black Iron Prison (Hickory, NC), "That's More Like It"
Three AM (Hickory), "Say You Don't Mind"



Tracks 1-2, 4 and 8 came from the Podsafe Music Network; all the other music in today's show was found at Garageband.com.

New link for the sidebar

Concert Blast! is a podcast out of Nashville from three guys who grew up together and talk about live music.

Mike Arnold, one of the hosts, was guitarist for The Crowd -- a Nashville punk band from the late 1970s and early 1980s that you've heard twice on the show and will hear once more at a future date.

He contacted me recently to thank me for playing one of his songs in a Highway 70 episode. There's so little information about the band at their Podshow profile, because the band folded a couple of decades ago, it turns out.

But I'm glad he's shared the recordings with the rest of us.

Emmylou Harris: "Pancho and Lefty"

Here's the goddess herself, gracing us with a cover of the best-known tune to flow from the self-destructive genius Townes Van Zandt. (Between the loss of her mentor Gram Parsons at a young age and seeing Van Zandt drink himself to death in early middle age, it's impressive that she's been able to remain close friends with Steve Earle -- who could very easily have died from his heroin addiction had not a stay in the Tennessee correctional system forced him into detox.)



New episode tomorrow, as we near the end of the Highway 70 trip. I might or might not do another video later on in the day.

"Murder: Unscripted"

One of the funniest videos to come along yet from striking members of the Writers Guild and actors supporting them:



This was found at Elizabeth Donald's blog, CultureGeek, presented by the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat.

Watch the video -- four minutes -- before you read below, or it'll spoil some of the fun.

H
u
m
s

J
E
O
P
A
R
D
Y

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... OK. In the video, and where you've seen 'em before:

The detectives at the start are played by Kathryn Erbe (formerly of Oz on HBO, currently on Law & Order: Criminal Intent paired with Vincent D'Onofrio) and Dean Winters (Oz, Rescue Me, the first season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and a guest role on C.S.I.: Miami, among other things); the prosecutor is played by Zeljko Ivanek (who played a prosecutor on Homicide: Life on the Street, a crooked governor on Oz and a conflicted attorney on FX's Damages, among other things); the grizzled veteran is played by Peter Garety (Homicide and The Wire both spring to mind); the forensics guy by B.D. Wong (L&O: SVU, Oz and substantial stage work), the captain by Eric Bogosian (L&O: Criminal Intent, plus one-man shows on stage and film work); and, of course, the guest star at the end is Christopher Noth (Law & Order, L&O: Criminal Intent and of course the Sex and the City TV series and upcoming film). I didn't catch whether the victim was played by a "name."

I strongly suspect the hand of Homicide/Oz/St. Elsewhere maestro Tom Fontana is behind this clip. Everyone in it except for Noth and Bogosian has a background working with him, and it's possible they have some credit with him that I've forgotten.