In The iPod: January 2011

A while back I was marvelling at all the good music that came out in 1987 and one of the lost albums from that era for me was The Yong Fresh Fellow's album, The Men Who Loved Music. It has two of my favorite YFF songs of all-time: "My Friend Ringo" and "Amy Grant." There are lots of other good songs as well: "When The Girls Get Here," "Ant Farm," "Get Out Of My Cave," and there is a bonus Refreshments EP is included with this album.They were one of my truly favorite live acts of all time I must have seen them more than 10 times over the years and I could never understand why they didn't get as big as The Replacements-a band that they frequently toured with. I guess Scott McCaughey had his brush with fame as 5th member of the touring REM band in the 90s.

This led to me ripping their solid first two albums, Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest/Topsy Turvy that were released on one CD. There are also many great songs like: "The Young Fresh Fellow's Theme," "Think Better of Me," "The Sharing Patrol Theme," "Hang Out Right," and "Where Is Groovy Town."

Taking another trip down memory lane inspied by Dean Wareham's memoir about indie life in an indie rock and roll band (Luna and Galaxie 500), Black Postcards, I wanted to go back and listen to his first band Galaxie 500. So I've been listening to On Fire, which has a haunting cover of George Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity?", and some other fine tunes like "Strange," "When Will You Come Home," and "Decomposing Tress."

The other Galaxie 500 album I've been listening to is Today. This album has one of their best known tunes, "Tugboat." I also like "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste," "Temperature's Rising," and "Oblivious."

There was a contemporary album that also got a lot of play this month, Arcade Fire's latest album The Suburbs which is another strong album that has lots of great songs like: "Sprawl II," "City Without Children," and "The Month Of May."

Comments

[Carrie]

I saw Dean Wareham playing Galaxie 500 songs a few months ago. Those songs really hold up, and he still sounds great. As do the Fellows--they opened for Robyn Hitchcock on my 40th birthday, at the Triple Door. Rock!

[MC]

I'm really envious, I have yet to see him play live. During Luna's last tour they played Tokyo about 1000 feet from where I was living at the time, but I didn't know about the show until the day after. As far as I know Dean & Britta have yet to tour Japan.

The Robyn Hitchcock YYF show sounds like it was fun, too.