Current Earworm

Magazine, A Song From Under the Floorboards

I occasionally trawl Apple Music for bands I used to listen to in the dim and distant past (unlike those times when I trawl Apple Music looking for new music I haven't heard yet). Last week, I was listening to Magazine, Howard DeVoto's post-Buzzcocks band. I got stuck on the absurdist classic "A Song From Under The Floorboards".

This weekend, Laura and I went up to Catskill, New York, to attend Dromfest, a tiny scale rock festival where the guy who puts it on invites a bunch of his favorite indie rock bands from the 1980s and 1990s to come play to a couple hundred people in a dive bar just off the main drag in this tiny town upstate. One of the bands that played this year is one of my all time favorites (and probably the one that convinced us to attend), Scrawl, the riot grrrl precursor band that sprung out of Columbus, Ohio, back in the late 1980s. I've seen them probably a couple of dozen times. They're awesome. When they played Dromfest this year, they included a cover in their set. Marcy Mays, one of the two people who are indispensible to Scrawl, introduced it by saying that were going to do a cover, but didn't say what it was. Then the first words came out of her mouth as she sang the song: "I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin". My jaw dropped. I had listened to the original probably 15 times the week before.

Here's the original. I'll see if I can find a video of Scrawl doing it; they were incredible.

Log, Measure Once, Cut Twice

Very few people who follow me on social media will know this song, and most of the ones who do played on it. Laura mentioned this song to me in the course of conversation this evening and now it's stuck in my mind. A classic.

The Clash, Wrong 'Em Boyo

My wife Laura uses playlists on Apple Music to set up lists of versions of the same song, which she'll then listen to for hours. She was showing them to me the other day when it occurred to her that she didn't have one for Stagger Lee. So she set one up, which led to us talking about the Clash's cover of Wrong 'Em Boyo, which incorporates Stagger Lee into it. 99 times out of 100, if there's a ska original and then a cover, I'll prefer the original. But in this case, the Clash did the number such justice that it can't be denied. And so it's been my earworm this morning.

Soft Boys, Mr. Kennedy

The Soft Boys were like the Velvet Underground. They only sold a thousand copies of their classic record, but every person who bought one started a band. Acolytes like R.E.M. went on to fame and fortune and spoke glowingly of their influence. In 2002, they did what I hate and got back together (bands should never get back together, except for Wire, who actually made great music after reuniting). They put out a new album. I got it. I never listen to it. But this, this one song from the album, sticks with me, and it's what's plaguing me this Sunday morning in New Jersey. It's even one of that worst of subgenres of rock songs, the tour diary. No matter, it works.

100 Flowers, Strip Club

Yesterday, I was listening to the recent odds and sods compilation of World of Pooh, and one of the songs sounded familiar. Wait a minute, I know this song. Took me a minute, but I realized it was a cover of a song by 100 Flowers, the punkish band that The Urinals evolved into. Hearing Barbara Manning sing it was an interesting genderfuck moment. But it's the orignal that's been stuck in my brain ever since.