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The week leading up to Christmas and through the first week after New Years is generally quiet – the phones aren’t ringing. Clients, contractors, and sub’s are all taking some time off. This means I can come into the office and get a lot of work done without distraction … and turn the music up while I’m working. I think there is something to music and the creative process and I frequently have something playing in the background all day, every day. As a result, I listen to a lot of music … except the more popular something is the less likely I am to want to listen to it. As a result, I tend to jump around in what I am listening to at any one moment. One of the luxuries of having a private office (other than naps at your desk) is that I can play whatever music I want to listen to without having to get permission or reach consensus from the group … or as I like to call them (hand in flippy motion while looking in opposite direction) “those people”.
As a warning, in an effort to get these songs on here, I went to Youtube and tracked down these videos. None of these songs is on this list because of the video … except for maybe the very last one – but it’s just too hilarious not to mention.
(for some reason, some YouTube videos won’t display on some mobile devices … sorry, you’ll just have to come back once you’re off your phone)
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Bill Withers – Use Me
What can you say about Bill Withers – he dominated 1970′s soul music with a half dozen of songs that everybody knows. Put some of his music in your rotation and get your groove on.
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Ben Harper – Use Me (from Live from Abbey Road)
I always like to throw one pair of comparison songs whenever I put together one of these list. Since I started with Bill Withers, I decided to pair him up with the smoothest folk rocker to enter the music scene since the early 90′s. Of course, it’s easy to see how Ben Harper can take a soul classic like Use Me and make it sound fresh. By the way, this video is from the series ‘Live from Abbey Road’ which is typically one of the best hours of TV you will find – it airs on the Sundance Channel.
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Curve – Fait Accompli
Curve was an early 90′s band that I listened to when I was spending a lot of late nights up in the architecture studio while in college. They have a very big sound – you can’t listen to this one without the volume set on 11, otherwise it all sounds like chaos. On a side note, I went and saw them in concert and I was probably 20 feet away from lead singer Toni Halliday and I was absolutely convinced (still am) that she spent most of the night looking right at me while singing. Probably part of the reason I liked the band so much…
Don’t judge the song by the video … and if you want to judge me for liking this group knock yourself out, they were ahead of their time. nobody I know has ever heard of Curve and that’s a shame.
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Frightened Rabbit – Swim Until You Can’t See Land
Out of Scotland (the first of two on this list), I just started listening to this group … and I couldn’t figure out how to describe them – so I looked it up. According to Justin Farrar over at Rhapsody, “Glasgow’s Frightened Rabbit fuses art school indie pop and stripped down folk-rock, while filtering its influences — everything from Interpol to Joe Jackson to Thin Lizzy — through a fragile tenderness and naked earnestness that seems to be uniquely Scottish.”
That’s pretty much what I was going to say.
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Peter Gabriel – Shock the Money
When this song came up in the rotation, without even thinking I started to groove in my desk chair like I was the monkey getting shocked. For that reason alone I decided to include it. Besides, it deserves to be here on the genius of the line “Don’t you monkey with the monkey” … doesn’t everybody know that you should NEVER, EVER monkey with the monkey?
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Radiohead – Lotus Flower
What can I say, I am a fan of these alternative rock superstars. Thom Yorke (I almost wrote Mayne – you have to be an architect to get that) is at his falsetto-y best on this song. To truly understand some of the greatness of this song and the mixing going on, you either needs headphones or decent computer speakers. Listen to the snare drum and how it moves from left to right channel around the 2:50 mark. That is some attention to detail people.
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Mumford & Sons – Dust Bowl Dance
Another UK based indie rock/ folk/ bluegrass group for your listening pleasure. Between Mumford & Sons and Frightened Rabbit, I am itching to go back to the UK and listen to pub house music while drinking as many pints as I can.
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We Were Promised Jetpacks – It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning
Oh no I didn’t … but of course I did. Two Scottish bands on one list? You tell me if they are worth listening to.
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Julian Plenti – Games for Days
Julian Plenti’s real name is Paul Banks and his other main gig is as lead singer for one of my 3 most favorite bands in the last 10 years – Interpol. If you’ve heard of Interpol, you have a chance of knowing Julian Plenti … otherwise you have no shot. Great melodies, driving bass, interesting instrumentation … I think my wife loves him (just not the version seen in this video).
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LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk is Playing At My House
This song came up in rotation and is infectious. After listening to the song, everyone was walking around muttering “Daft Punk is playing at my haus … myyy haus“.
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Edgar Winter Group – Frankenstein
Okay, I’ll admit that I like this song but the reason I included it here is that this video is completely over the top … particularly at the 1:03 to 1:10 minute mark. Just what in the heck is the guitarist on the right doing? He’s definitely thinking something deviant.
One of the comments on this video was spot on so I am going to rehash it here – “I’m pretty sure Edgar can play every instrument known to man and several known to monkeys…”. You are right emperorsenshi, absolutely right.
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Let me know in the comment section what you’re listening to – I clearly need some help.
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So I have been really busy at work the last few months and I have been letting things slip a little – sorry about that. I am still busy(which is great) but one positive side effect (other than being able to pay the bills) is that I get to listen to a lot of music. I became used to using music as white noise back in college when there was so much activity going on in studio that you needed something to help block out the games of tape ball sounds of everyone else being hard at work. When it comes time to simply lower my head and crank out some designs and details, I like listening to my music … but I don’t like futzing around constantly looking for the right songs and organizing elaborate play lists, etc.
No, I pick a genre of music and move on. My focus the last few weeks has been jazz with a heavy dose of artists from New Orleans (Mardi Gras is coming up you know…)
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YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
Allen Toussaint -St. James Infirmary
If I could play the piano, I might want to play like Allen Toussaint (also known as ‘Mr. New Orleans’). He is very smooth, light on the keys and almost everything he plays sets a mood. He has also played for just about everyone that ever was, has had about a billion of his songs remade by people like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The O’Jays, etc. (I could keep going). He was also the guy who produced the classic ‘Lady Marmalade’ by Patti Labelle – as a result, Allen Toussaint can walk into any room anywhere and pretty much call scoreboard.
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YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
Branford Marsalis – Cherokee
I love Branford Marsalis a lot. It all started when he played on Sting’s first solo album ‘The Dream of the Blue Turtles’. That band was amazingly good but despite being surround by world class talent, Branford was the brightest star – something even Sting recognized because he carried Branford onto his next several albums. Despite his odd turn as the band leader for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (a job originally made cool by Doc Severinsen and The Tonight Show Band when Johnny Carson was in charge), Branford is THE guy.
YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
For good measure – here you go, an acoustic version of Sting and Branford performing Roxanne.
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YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
John Lee Hooker – Boogie Chillen
John Lee Hooker has all sorts of things about him that made him an interesting character. One that never ceases to amaze me was despite being a prolific lyricist, he was illiterate. There is some debate on the year he was born – 1917 being the most widely accepted - his recording career did not begin until he was 31 years old. He had been knocking around for a while and his manager at the time passed around a demo tape that contained the song he might be most famous for recording – Boogie Chillen. Talk about coming out of the gate strong.
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YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
Big Head Todd & the Monsters – Boom Boom Boom Boom
I have to admit that I have my wife to thank for being a fan of Big Head Todd & the Monsters. I was familiar with his music (which was pretty good) but it wasn’t until she made me go see him live in concert did I dial in to the fact that he is a fantastic guitar player. I mean really good. I thought it would be interesting to put up Big Head Todd version of the second most popular song written by none other than John Lee Hooker. Schwinggg!
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YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
Ray Charles - I Don’t Need no Doctor
Taking a little detour out of the Louisiana and the Mississippi delta, it’s time for a little Ray Charles. A pioneer in fusing gospel, rhythm and blues and one of the first to actually make it sound good. Ray Charles was listed on #10 on Rolling Stones list of 100 Greatest Artists of all time and #2 on the List of Greatest Singers of all time and there is no shortage of people who think he might be the most important American musical figure. There are songs that everyone knows but there are so many really great songs that he recorded it was hard to list just one. I picked this one because I don’t think many people have heard it before.
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YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
Peter Herbolzheimer – Stone Cockattoo
If anybody knows who Peter Herbolzheimer is they deserve a cookie. The list of renown German jazz trombonists starts and ends with him. I owe any knowledge I have of Herbolzheimer to my good friend Ben DuBose who had a few albums titled ‘Fatman Tribute to Swing’ and Fatman Tribute to Boogie’ that I got copied onto cassette tape when I was in high school. These two albums are probably on my desert island listand are worth ordering from some random record house if you can ever locate them. I couldn’t find any songs off those albums on youtube but Stone Cockatoo is pleasantly funky.
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YouTube Channel: Life of an Architect -
Buddy Rich Big Band – Birdland
A true musical prodigy, Buddy Rich was billed as ‘the world’s greatest drummer’ and despite having died in 1987, he probably still holds that tile. Buddy Rich started playing the drums at 18 month old and at the height of his childhood career was the second highest paid child entertainer in the world. He couldn’t read music and he didn’t pratice – in fact, he would have another drummer sit in a play the sheet music the first time, memorize it after hearing it that one time and then take over. His dexterity, musicality of playing style, speed and smooth execution are considered “holy grails” of drum technique and have been considered next to impossible to duplicate. Decades before he died, he was clocked at 20 drum strokes per second, a speed that modern day drummers are only now beginning to approach.
Buddy was a bad ass.
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