DateNovember 10, 2010
Miracler
Toby Barlow
Location
Detroit
About TB
Whether you know this man from this sweet mix in August '08 or this City vs. Country Mix in May '09 or this one during voting season of '08 or this one which Toby facilitated in April '09 or because he wrote a book or writes editorials for the NYT or is getting attention as the ersatz mayor of Detroit (and not in the Four Square way), you're about to know him as the guy who crammed people from like 8 different musical genres into 45 minutes.
Note from TB
I hope this brighter, tighter mix fulfills the classic 3MPM criteria (though no Kinks, sorry) while moving into some fresh new territory (has anyone put a Mariah Carey tune on a mix yet? I don't think so! Have you heard the rockin Canadian kid Sam Roberts' love song to my adopted home town? I think it is sublime! (but I might be biased, and I am, but still.) Harper Simon sounds so eerily similar to his father it's, well, eerie, but the song is quite sweet. I am slightly worried that the Simone/Bowie/Etta/Nina tunes have all shown up on mixes before, but fuck it, I can't worry all the time about everything, can I? CAN I?
Mix is up; same new password from last week. See you back here or on our don't-forget-to-check-in-for-extra-bits, members-only Facebook page soon. XOK
25 comments:
A dizzying, dazzling foray through moods, tones, genres, and ages.
You're right about that Harper Simon: uncanny. Almost creepy — down to the lyrics and phrasing. Fortunately, I love his pop, as it were, and this, too.
And, fuck, Nina Simone: I don't feel cool enough to even listen to that. Wow.
I have no idea who Sam Roberts is but I dig his understated epic.
English Beat is refreshing. Rarer Bowie. Cool ass Blondie.
For me, the super yum, is the eels. It nails my mood as of late.
Thanks for it all.
A Sunday Kind Of Love is making me swoon. I didn't realize I was on shuffle, so I have to start over to listen properly; am only two shuffled songs in, and already prompted to comment. Gush.
I heard In My Dreams today for the first time and my initial thought was, this song is perfect.
I also thoroughly enjoyed Nina, Etta, Louis and Jelly Roll. Well done, Toby. Thank you!!
Harold Arlen - such a genius. Nice schmaltzy version of "I Gotta Right..." from Louis. Sunday Girl - so perfect. I think I was sporting a wedge cut when this came out. In My Dreams - I think the 3MPMP should send E some sort of present so he knows that he's loved. I'm likin' the Sam Roberts. New to me.
Don't feel the need to comment on Etta, Nina and Peggy. I mean, what do I have to add to the conversation?
Thank you, Toby
You bet! The Sunday Girl has rocketed to the top of my favorite Blondie, if only for the lyric "cold as ice cream but still as sweet."
And the Jelly Roll tune is actually real magic. So, careful.
33 years ago, Bowie summed up my existence by penning this song in a coked-up haze somewhere near the Berlin wall. And that is cool.
Nina Simone has always kind of intimidated me, but not Sea Lion Woman. I like it a lot.
But I'm sorry - Mariah Carey is still anathema to me. I can't hang with all the coloratura stuff she does.
Oh, and Gun Club is definitely going on my faves list.
Viva Detroit!
I'm just going to say "ditto" to the above before crawling back to my contrastingly unhip listening habits.
Note to Kevin Seidel:
Unhip? Did you see the way that St. Vincent track was devoured when reduxed on Daniel's mix? You're ahead of your time, man.
And to Toby: lovin' it, especially the Blondie, Sam Roberts, Bowie, Eels, Nina, and English Beat.
No one will ever ask Peggy's question about this mix.
XOK
Y'know, I was driving home yesterday, not yet having seen this mix, and "Always Crashing in the Same Car" shuffled in on the iPod, and I wondered if someone had put that on a 3MPM mix yet...
Wow, again Toby, you don't disappoint. A couple of times through your mix and I find I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving in the city you so shamelessly and gracefully promote. And it isn't Sam Roberts, but Peggy Lee and her cheery fatalism that makes me want to flee the city of dreams if just for a weekend. I'll see if I can crack your code. Gun Club-the cocktail, Mariah-the cheese ball, Nina-the butterball,English beat- green jello,In My Dreams, the Pecan Pie. Oh and Etta, the whipped cream? Yum!
When i was a little kiddo in the 70s, I had a cassette of Parallel Lines I would listen to obsessively on my tape player (yeah, tape player. it wasn't even a boom box) and Sunday Girl was one of my FAVORITE songs. For this, I love you.
I'm also a girl from Flint, Michigan. And for Detroit '67 I love you yet again.
Whole lotta love on this comment....I like yer style Mr Barlow.
Alex
Man, I love this. It's all over the map stylistically, but it all works. Loved hearing the Gun Club-it's been awhile, but I think my favorite is the eels track. so nice. Great job, Toby!
Thanks all, and Stephen, our friend Mr Patterson has supplied this handy tip to make the Mariah more tolerable: just pretend it's the Tom Tom Club! Seriously, that works.
And Vanessa, Call When You're Close! We're going to be rocking the downtown over Tday holiday weekend. Celebrating the imminent arrival of Mr Greg Mills. Yes, Yes!
I'm catching up on all the 3MPMP goodness after a few weeks away, and how awesome to find this gem of a mix. Lots of stuff that is new to me, including the original "Sea Lion Woman" and the Mariah Carey. (I did think it was the Tom Tom Club for a brief moment.) But you also have one of my favorite English Beat songs and some nice Sunday stuff, which is coincidentally when I'm listening to it for the first time. Thanks for another great mix!
Curious about the title ... isn't Harvey Nichols a London department store?
Yes, Harvey Nix is a massive dept store next to Harrods in London and the cover photo for my mix was a fantastic and inspiring window display they had of an enormous grand piano made entirely of old cassette tapes. Very thrilling. heart burstingly beautiful.
Nina's "Sea Lion Woman" was not the original original, it was (according to wiki) "first recorded by folklore researcher Herbert Halpert on May 13, 1939.[2] Halpert was compiling a series of field recordings for the Library of Congress in Byhalia, MS, when he ran across Walter Shipp, a minister, and his wife Mary, a choir director of a local church. Halpert recorded Shipp's daughters, Katherine and Christine, singing a sparse version of 'Sea Lion Woman' that defined the basic rhymes and rhythm of the song. Two weeks later the song was covered by musicologist and folklorist John Lomax."
TWO WEEKS LATER?! What is up with that?
Nice mix. I'm intrigued by the rhymin' Simon -- the music is produced like The Boxer or something so we're in Frank Sinatra Jr territory, yet I like the song. Life is short & full of tension & contradictions & stuff, as Heraclitus said. The English Beat song is evidence of a person being of certain age. Certain persons were lucky enough to see them on tour when REM was the opening band. Thanks for sharing!
Interestingly enough, I was just in the UK blasting my mix and when the Special Beat song came on none of the Brits (who were more or less my age) recognized it, making me think the English Beat might have had greater appeal in the vast warren of US dorm rooms than they did in their own homeland.
I was wondering about the cover and title. Very cool.
The Mariah Carey song is sonically trippy. It's got all this white-noise middle for my ears.
Great mix.
Interesting mix of sounds and textures. Of the tracks I wasn't familiar with I enjoyed the eels very much.
I'm afraid for me the Gun Club will always summon images of a certain Mike Boisson flouncing around in just his blue and white striped running shorts during the spring of '85.
Impressive inclusion of Mariah and Jay-Z.
Or maybe they were squares
I hate to admit that I wanted to like the inclusion of Mariah, but I couldn't. I like to consider myself ecclectic and open-minded, and usually I'm quite game for the odd excentricity, but this time, in this context, it didn't work for me... That said, I loved the mix and its variety of styles: always a few songs I didn't know, and then some I hadn't heard in a while. Gun Club! Hell yeah.
Loved Sam Roberts and eels in particular. Thanks Toby!
SEX BEAT, BABY-- YEAH!
Thanks for including the Harper Simon, Toby. Heard him interviewed on NPR a couple years back and have been meaning to hear more ever since.
Dig having Satchmo and Jelly Roll in this-- or any-- mix.
Like others, not so into the Mariah Scene. Her pipes are amazing, but, well, yeah....
Is That All There Is? Played that Peggy Lee tune for my girlfriend's 13 year-old son just the other day. Hmmm. Like gifting a pack of cigarettes and a double martini to a minor?
Great French-fried Blondie. Louvre it.
Love the Blondie. Here, they sound like a band, not just a blonde. Just read that the song went to #1 in the UK, but wasn't even released as a single in the States. Kind of the flip-flop of the English Beat phenomenon.
Post a Comment