turn it up accordingly

The Groundhogs - Thank Christ for the Bomb (listen) Still listening to this from yesterday. Remember the ubiquitous "Freedom Rock" ads?



I remember the good ole days of my childhood afternoon TV time being peppered with ads for similar collections, and I bet a large part of my classic rock and country knowledge stems from these ads more than it does from direct exposure to the songs. To this day, I probably know 10-seconds of every Conway Twitty song from ads. Under mild hypnosis I could likely rattle off the 1-800 number.

Anyway, the Groundhogs are total freedom rock that falls just of the general radar. Tony McPhee has a bit of a funny voice, not Tom Rapp funny, but a little sung-through-his nose and strained, and maybe that puts folks off; I find it endearing, juxtaposed against the prog-blues whose intricacy matches that of the tangle of hoses coming off a moonshine still. George Harrison and Roger McGuinn and Tommy Iommi fight over the same guitar in the steam that shoots out of this contraption when things really get cooking. Plus, c'mon, Thank Christ for the Bomb might be the best album title ever.

Darkness Is No Friend - The Gr...

Graham Coxon - Happiness in Magazines (listen) I have Joe Adranga of New Orleans power pop wunderband the Junior League, or more precisely, his blip.fm stream to thank for turning me on to this. Joe is one of the rare classics-obsessed music dudes I know that is also imbued with spot-on taste; most of the others I know seem to be content to listening to the same five records forever. I never really looked into the Blur offshoots. I'm tempted to say it is because I am really more of an Oasis man myself, but that is a ludicrous reason; I just haven't done it. This records is a gee-tar explosion from the first push of the plunger, punk and snotty and starstruck and asking you for a cigarette. I will dare to say this record hits me much more solidly than any Blur record ever has.

Spectacular - Graham Coxon

And, holy crap, this song is quite a volcano-grade face melter at the end.

Girl Done Gone - Graham Coxon

Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation (listen) It is common current practice to keep classic rock and punk rock separated like bickering children in the back seat. Such situation are why I only have one child; that child can be all things to me without needing to siphon off aspects of one to imprint on another, and while in another world of my angry twenties, I would have vehemently argued against putting something as archly freedom rock as the Groundhogs and as rawk-reconstituted-from-its-powdery-remains like Graham Coxon on the same mixtape as Richard Hell's ever-crucial album, probably would have made some mutterings about desecration, but now all those threads tie up rather nicely and collectively (and thankfully) bear my weight.

Another World - Richard Hell