MAC DEMARCO – ROCK AND ROLL NIGHTCLUB
Mac Demarco is a huge favourite of ours here at Dissatisfied Sounds. His two most recent full length offerings ‘2’ and ‘Salad Days’ garnered him a huge hoard of devotees, but it is this low-fi track from his first album that got us intrigued.
Mac is known for being prolific, being competent on most instruments and its interesting to hear a track such as this where he is still carving out his musical identity. With warbley Elvis like vocals this track is underminned, as always with Mr. Demarco, a really juice guitar riff. Enjoy…
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FLEETWOOD MAC – RHIANNON (1976)
Rhiannon is one of our fave Fleetwood Mac tracks, and one of their first bangers after Nicks and Buckingham joined the group. From the Fleetwood Mac White album – the song itself has an interesting background.
Nicks discovered Rhiannon in the early 70’s through a novel called Triad, by Mary Leader. The novel is about a woman named Branwen, who is possessed by another woman named Rhiannon. There is mention of the Welsh legend of Rhiannon in the novel, but the characters in the novel bear little resemblance to their original Welsh namesakes (both Rhiannon and Branwen are major female characters in the medieval Welsh prose tales of the Mabinogion).
Nicks bought the novel in an airport just before a long flight and thought the name was so pretty that she wanted to write something about a girl named Rhiannon. She wrote “Rhiannon” in 1974, three months before joining Fleetwood Mac, while living with Richard Dashut and Lindsey Buckingham in Malibu,[6] and has claimed that it took 10 minutes to write.
After writing the song, Nicks learned that Rhiannon originated from a Welsh goddess, and was amazed that the haunting song lyrics applied to the Welsh Rhiannon as well. Nicks researched the Mabinogion story and began work on a Rhiannon project, unsure of whether it would become a movie, a musical, a cartoon, or a ballet. There are several “Rhiannon Songs” from this unfinished project including “Stay Away” and “Maker of Birds.” Nicks wrote the Fleetwood Mac song “Angel” based on the Rhiannon story.
Nicks avoided wearing black clothing for “about two years” in an effort to distance herself from the witchcraft and dark arts associations surrounding her as a result of the lyrics to “Rhiannon” giving fans the wrong impression.
Its not the album version that we keep returning to however, its the above live 1976 version. Just wait until after the Lindsey Buckingham guitar solo and the building middle eighth – to see Stevie Nicks at her most 70’s (and probably most coked up) best. In the words of Nevermind producer Butch Vig in Dave Grohl’s Sound City – Reel Reel, “Boy, that Girls’ got some pipes!”
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RZA – YOU CAN’T STOP ME NOW
Coming from the Wu Tang Clan’s commander in chief the RZA’s fourth studio solo album Digi Snacks – You can’t stop me now represents the obligatory Hip Hop tune on our countdown. The album Digi Snacks can be seen as a concept album, with RZA himself saying,
“This world wasn’t in a digital format in 1998. Now digital is the most compelling form of commerce and entertainment so this is like a relaunch of the character.
The album is Digi Snacks because it’s a snack pack of Bobby Digital’s world. Not only music and sounds, but also the comic background, the sci-fi background, the black-exploitation background. Look at the artwork—a girl with an afro, an Asian girl, Bobby sitting in the big king’s chair and then the villains—Raven, Hawk, Eagle and Crane, the four birds of prey that I use as my enemies. Bobby Digital’s life-long nemesis. That adds a comic element to it—as well as martial arts. I’m planning a comic book, a video game—I’m already talking to people. I want fans to be aware of these things.“
Clearly RZA is an ambitious dude – but this track is worth all the pretence. Featuring our third fave Wu-Tang memeber Inspectah Decks and underpinned with an amzing sample of the Whatanauts – Mesage from a Black Man RZA spits his world view in true East Coast fashion.
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THOM YORKE – HARROWDOWN HILL
We love a good change of pace to keep you guys on your toes here at DS and so lets go for a but it of electroey rocky – well…. its hard actually to define Thom Yorke. The Radiohead frontman simultanously breaks down generes he himslef creates. his first solo effort the Eraser is no better exampke of this.
Harrowdown Hill in Longworth, Oxfordshire is notable for being the place where the body of Dr. David Kelly was found in 2003. His evidence had raised questions about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction — the official justification for the UK government’s decision to invade Iraq. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Yorke said, “The government and the Ministry of Defence… were directly responsible for outing him and that put him in a position of unbearable pressure that he couldn’t deal with, and they knew they were doing it and what it would do to him… I’ve been feeling really uncomfortable about that song lately, because it was a personal tragedy, and Dr. Kelly has a family who are still grieving. But I also felt that not to write it would perhaps have been worse.” In another interview, Yorke said that “Harrowdown Hill” is “the most angry song I’ve ever written in my life. I’m not gonna get into the background to it, the way I see it… And it’s not for me or for any of us to dig any of this up. So it’s a bit of an uncomfortable thing.”Yorke also notes that “‘Harrowdown Hill’ was kicking around during Hail to the Thief, but there was no way that was going to work with the band.”
A deeply personal, dark track that bears repeated plays. One that leaves us uncomfortable and at that same time….
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