iTune's Roulette (Don't Be Scared!)

Here are the rules:

1. select your MP3 player of choice (iPod/iTunes/iPhone/Blackberry)
2. Select the Shuffle All Songs option
3. List the next 10 songs and the reason why you have it
4. NO SKIPPING ALLOWED

Yeah dude, I'm doing this. You ready?


1. "Here's the Thing" - Girl Talk (Feed The Animals)



So "here's the thing", I think Girl Talk is really clever with his mixes and they're enjoyable. I grew up on hip hop producers like Prince Paul, Dust Brothers (and Matt Dike), Bomb Squad, Pete Rock, DJ Premier and later got into Coldcut and Steinski. GT reminds me of listening to "Beats and Pieces", but a more updated version.

This particular song samples a lot of wack radio rap, but also samples Chicago's "Saturdays", "96 Tears" by Question Mark and The Mysterians, and Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" (which u2 totally bit for their latest single). I like Pump It Up.

2. "Fire Engine" - Bernard Hermann (Fahrenheit 451 Motion Picture Soundtrack)


Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite movies from the 60's. I love everything about that movie and especially loved the music. I'm a fan of film scores and soundtracks, so yeah. Anyway, everybody should watch this movie. Also of interest for any fans of Ministry, they sampled the dialogue from this movie for the song "Faith Collapsing".

note: I live in Austin and there's a store called Book People, which takes the title from the characters in the Bradbury novel.

3. "Traveling Man" - Stanley Cowell (Deck Safari)



Taken off of an awesome Air mix "CD" called Deck Safari. If I'm not mistaken, this is basically a mix they did for BBC Radio 1 and some jackass made a bootleg of it, which is awesome becasue it's probably one of the best mixes of music I've ever heard (stereogum thinks so too).

Air was one of my favorite bands of the late 90s. They kinda suck now and even Moon Safari wasn't great all the way through, but when it came out in the late 90's, it was a breath of fresh air (damn, I fucking didn't even intend that corny pun, please excuse me) when you measured it up to all the electronic music of that era. Air was making electronic music, but it sounded straight out of 1972, not 1998 (or 1997... I forget). Deck Safari is basically a compilation they put out that where they play some of their favorite jams from their record collections. Excellent comp b/c you can hear exactly how Moon Safari came to be after listening to it, especially its atmosphere.

This song reminds me of the theme from Taxi ("Angela" by Bob James)

4. "Chicken Half" - Sugarman Three (Daptone Sampler)

Way back in the day, we did the very first Scion dj gigs (before the car even came out and no one knew how to pronounce the name). This is one of many samplers I got from them. Basically throwback Stax instrumental R&B. Not my thing, but whatever.

5. "Airbag" - Radiohead (OK Computer)



What can I say, if you don't know this song (or album), um, you fail? yeah, that sums it up. Great song to kick off one of the most influential records of our time.

6. "Slow and Low" - Bits Breaks and Pieces (This is Rong Music)

I first discovered Rong records when I was in Stockholm, Sweden. We were at a very cool bar (that looked like a converted movie theater) and the bartender also happened to be selecting the music, but it was all vinyl. One of the songs he played was an amazing re-edit of some song I'd never heard before and I had to ask him what it was. He was cool, and gave me the title of the record. I bought it at Snickars Records and even tagged my name on the wall next to Kenny Dope's. The record I bought was a very rare promo only re-edit 12" with absolutely no information. I still love that record, all deep disco re-edits.

Rong Records makes some of the best New Disco stuff out there. This is off of a compilation they put out, I highly encourage everyone that likes good deep disco and the Balaeric/Nordic Disco that's been coming out the last few years to look out for anything from Rong (especially Lee Douglas). Also look out for anything on Full Pupp or Bear Ent.

7. "Black Snake" - Ramblin' Jack Elliott (The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott)

This is basically a reinterpretation of Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Black Snake Moan". I found out about Jack Elliott when I became a fan of Dylan. If you're a Dylan fan, you know Ramblin' Jack. If not, he was Bob Dylan before Bob Dylan was Bob Dylan, meaning he was a jewish kid who wanted to be a cowboy and became a Woody Guthrie disciple and even lived with Woody and the Guthries. Dylan was kinda deflated when heard Elliott because "someone else beat him to it" (to be fair, Jack Elliott was 10 years older than Dylan).

Elliott never moved on passed the whole folk and country roots so his audience is kinda small compared to Dylan's, but he's the link between Guthrie and Dylan, and a damn fine musician, storyteller. One of his cohorts, Derroll Adams, took a young Donovan under his wing which you can see in D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back." Donovan was kinda shy, Adams was cool in his beard and Dylan was kinda being a dick.

There's a great documentary about Ramblin' Jack called "The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack" that you should see.

8. "Stop Whispering" - Radiohead (Pablo Honey)



Damn, another Radiohad song! God, this album sucks. Even Radiohead hates this record. The only good songs are Lurgee and Blow Out. I even hate that Creep song. I saw this video once in college on the Canadian version of MTV. God I thought Radiohead were a crappy band. Thom Yorke's hair in this video is FUNNY. The whole video is funny. I only bought this album after Kid A came out and I became a full blown Radiohead fan. I bought this record out of respect for them, even though 95% of me thought I was going to hate it. This song is terrible and tries to sound like Dinosaur Jr. at one point. I should delete this song from iTunes right now.

9. "DVNO" - Justice (that album with the cross)



Daetron Vargas gave me this album when he gave me a shitload of mp3s. Justice kinda blows, but I still kinda like them. I could make this music (I think). This song is pretty wack, but the video fucking rules. Remember when people thought Justice was Daft Punk's alter ego?

10. "Rapture Riders" - Go Home Productions



Damn, there's a youtube video for everything these days. I heard someone else playing this song, I think it was Ursula 1000. I thought it was one of the best mashups out because it sounded natural. I downloaded this off of soulseek ages ago. The quality of this mp3 sucks. The song is still cool.