19th April 2011. C:B:22

I have been thinking about music A LOT lately. This is perhaps due to the fact that not only am I volunteering on a very small, very local hospital radio station, but also because in light of the new job I should be starting soon, I will eventually be responsible for managing a record label and radio station of my own.

Oddly the Choose My Music selection this week has also given me some additional food for thought. But lets start from the beginning.

This weeks Choose My Music was picked by Charlie Greenwood (or @LottieDean on Twitter). The fact that she decided to choose my music and thus appear on this blog is, I am told, rather ironic considering she spent most of yesterday morning lamenting about pointless blogs. If there is a blog as pointless as this I would love to read it.

Anyway, Charlie kindly picked the random combination of C:B:22 - which lead me to.....

Fugazi - Steady Diet of Nothing


I must admit, I was a bit apprehensive when my finger counted across to CD number 22. It was a beautiful early spring morning and I was about to take a short drive to Derby - secretly I was hoping for something a little more 'summery', but thems are the breaks when you insist that your music habits will be dictated at random by strangers....but to be fair, once I got going down the A38 I am rather quite pleased and saw fit to crank up the volume.

I was a late comer to Fugazi, which is no surprise as I was 8 years old when they formed. I knew of their existence during my latter school days, mainly thanks to a brilliant drummer by the name of Kalvin (a few years later in 1999, we did eventually start a band which was very good - I still miss them to this day) . But it wasn't until perhaps my early 20's when I really started to take notice.

Looking at the CD cover, inlay and sleeve notes (as is my love - hence why digital downloads are a struggle for me) I registered that the album was recorded in 1991,which got me thinking. If I had heard this album at 11 or 12 years old, as I would have been at the time, would I have liked it?

I am guessing the answer is likely to be NO for many reasons. First, I wouldn't have "got it" as it were. Social / Political punk was not really my thing at that age and to be honest, I have no idea how I would have even heard anything from this album in the early 90's - I can't imagine Simon Mayo cranking out Dear Justice Letter on his Monday morning breakfast show.

As much as I love the body of work produced by Fugazi, I am rather grateful that I didn't hear them until later in my life as I feel many of us music obsessives will reach a point where we stop just liking music and move on to actual appreciation. Not solely enjoying a song because it is there, but listening to the intricate details, the clever rhythm changes, a self serving bass line which doesn't just hit root notes, instruments being dropped in when you least expect them and so on.

As sad as you may think it is, I love listening to music and letting my brain pick out the individual parts which make up the whole and just appreciating the entire ensemble - this explains why The Beach Boys 'Pet Sounds' album is my all time favourite and perhaps why people who do not listen to music in this way do not see it as anything special. I enjoy listening to Fugazi in this way to.

I suppose I should point out for fear of pompousness, that I know I am not the only one who does this...heck, producers get paid by the bucket load for a similar, but even more proficient, listening style.

Speaking of producers. Looking at the history of this album, Fugazi wanted to employ the producer of their first album (Ted Nicely) to work on this release with them. Oddly, Nicely has gone from producing awesome records to being a Chef  so the band landed up doing it themselves.

To be fair, there isn't too much to say about this album. You ether love Fugazi or your don't. They have a very set sound, a very distinguishable style. I sometimes find it hard to distinguish from one album to the other. I suppose if this is a band someone would want to get into then I would suggest starting at the beginning with 'Repeater' or at the end with 'The Argument' and work your way back.

Prior to writing this post, I rightly assumed it would be difficult to find some tracks off this album to post here. So I am sticking on whatever I can find.

Fugazi - Waiting Room - Fugazi by SoundKreep
Fugazi - Merchandise by Rudimentor

18th March 2011 9:1:13 & 7:1:33

Apart from helping me rediscover my CD collection, this little project of mine seems to suggest a pattern of human thought.

The majority of random selections so far have resulted in people choosing a higher end bay number (usually 7-9). I am not sure what this means, but I am sure someone who is more versed in human decision making would be able to shed some light on to the matter.

I took an unusual step with this Choose My Music selection. I decided to let someone make the selection the day before. Usually I ask for selections in the morning just before I go to work, but in time when we can communicate with people globally with nothing more than a click of a button I felt that my timing was excluding a lot of people.

So last night the request went out to Choose My Music for today’s commute to work – I got some very quick responses – the quickest came from someone who I have only recently started following on Twitter by the name of Peter O

He chose the combination 9:1:13 (Bay 9, Row 1, CD 13) which meant on the drive to work I got to listen to:

Various Artists - Barrio Nuevo – Latin Funk .Latin Rock. Latin Disco. Latin Soul



There were three things that struck a chord with me as my hand counted along to CD13.

Firstly this album is on the rather brilliant Soul Jazz label. A compilation with their name of it is always a sign of quality.

For those not aware of Soul Jazz, they are a British based label who specialise in releasing compilation albums that predominantly feature black music such as Reggae, Soul & Jazz although more recently they have delved into post-punk and electronica.

I first came across the label through their excellent Reggae collections – most notably their Studio One and Dynamite series. You would do very well to check them out.

The second thing that came to my mind was this album came to me during the height of the Cuban music explosion following the release of Ry Cooder’s release of Buena Vista Social Club. Working in independent record stores at the time we were inundated with requests (from usually middle class, wax jacket types) for not only the BVSC album but also various other Cuban / Latin albums.

The beauty of Barrio Nuevo (as with all other Soul Jazz albums) is the tracks they pick – they are always great examples of the genre but are also not choice you would be familiar with. The Patti Labelle track ‘Teach Me Tonight (Me Gusta Tu Baile)' is one such song plus slightly lesser known War tracks like ‘War is Coming’ and ‘Me and My Baby Brother’



There are also 2 ‘unknown’ tracks on this album which is due to a printing error. The track list on the back of the CD misses out tracks 5 & 6 entirely. One of them I know is ‘Jungle Fever’ by The Chakachas…which brings me on to my third memory…

….We used to love to play this CD and watch the uncomfortable faces of the OAPs who used to frequent our little market town shop on a week day morning when ‘Jungle Fever’ was played in its entirety.

Happy Days



My second Choose My Music selection this week was made by a brilliant music loving twitter person who goes by the name Substandard Nerd

He picked the combination 7:1:33 and picked out this little gem

Ben Sollee - Learning to Bend


Ben Sollee is a vocalist and cellist, originally from Kentucky. The fact that he was billed as a such instantly appealed to me, with my love of all things unusual.

I first discovered Ben on a music website called Aurgasm, who bill themselves as featuring 'your favourite music you've never heard of' and I was instantly struck by him.

Firstly his vocals are stunning. Second, I couldn't quite pitch his music. One minute he is playing Bluegrass, the next he is on Folk before going off on a bit of a Jazz tip. Thirdly, how often do you hear someone playing the cello and singing? Not that often I bet you.

This is a really nice album, although more suited to a Sunday read of the papers as opposed to doing housework - which I was at the time.

I strongly suggest you check out his version on Sam Cooke's 'Change is Gonna Come'. It is simply brilliant and amazingly beautiful.

Ben Sollee - A Change Is Gonna Come by diegosan

Panning for Gold is also a very good stand out track

08 Panning For Gold by Bensollee