As you return from your long day at work, you might settle down in front of your television, computer, wet bar, shag pad, whatever. You’ve had a rough couple of nights — smoke still lingers in your hair and there’s blood on the jeans you shoved in the laundry basket. You’re alone, and your lower lip starts trembling, nervously. You need songs of triumph and quiet disaster, muted glory and faded stars.

Lambchop – “Paperback Bible”: mp3
Lampchop – “Beers Before the Barbican”: mp3

(Buy from Merge Records)

If you’d like a longer exegesis of Damaged, Lambchop‘s fantastic new album, I reviewed it last week for Cokemachineglow. Me, I’m going to go watch Snakes on a Plane again. Have a good night, friends.

How do you guys like the new header? I’m trying to make the whole page look cleaner – let me know if my HTML skillz are lacking.

I got rid of the sidebar disclaimer because it was ugly. Basically you can find all that information on the About/Submit/Advertise page, if you guys are into that kind of thing. Thanks, as always, for your readership and support.

“Righteous!”

The Kinks – “Waterlou Sunset”: mp3
I discovered this song thanks to hearing Elliott Smith cover it. In his hands, it was a gentle, nostalgic meditation, a narrative of small scope and big heart – thankfully, the Kinks’ original did Smith one better.

The Lovin’ Spoonful – “Darling Be Home Soon”: mp3
What an overlooked, underrated band. “Summer In The City,” “Do You Believe In Magic” – dudes had ’60s proto-soul down cold. “Darling” is my personal favorite, one that leans heavily but gloriously on a Beach Boys-style 3-2-1 melody triplet and features a fantastic lyric. The best line is the one that’ll turn your heart to butter: “And now, a quarter of my life is almost past / I think I’ve come to see myself at last / And I see that the time spent confused / Was the time that I spent without you.” Excuse me, there’s a piece of toast over there with my name on it.

Stan Getz, Joao and Astrud Gilberto – “Girl From Ipanema”: mp3
All my jazz musician friends hate this song because they’ve had to play it so many times. You know why, guys? Because it’s incredible. Expect a lengthy article on bossa nova here on this blog, some summer’s day when tan, long-legged women roam the streets of Rio de Janeiro, hair wafting in the cool breeze.

Bonus: Frank Sinatra – “Girl From Ipanema”: mp3

The Righteous Brothers – “Unchained Melody”: mp3
One of the few songs in the pop catalog that lives up to the title. Sheer, unfaltering song. This is the culmination of all the best aspects of ’50s pop in a song that could’ve only been recorded in the 1960s.

That’s enough. I can’t pick my favorite Supremes track, but they’d be on here too.

(Check out the rest of my favorite songs of the ’60s here and here.)

Dropping the ball. Getting back in the swing of things: We’ll finish the ’60s traxxx tonight, cover sweltering summer jamz (VanGaalen and Lambchop – straight ballin’) tomorrow, and take an in-depth look at the golden age of Belle & Sebastian singles later this week.

August is the hottest month:

Chad VanGaalen – “Flower Gardens”: mp3 (right-click, save-as)
Lambchop – “Paperback Bible”: stream

In the meantime, there’s plenty of great reading to be had in the final posts of MP3 blog retiree, Vain, Selfish & Lazy — one of the most fascinatingly written, personal music blogs around. Go give Fred the send-off he deserves.

This, this is a beautiful man.

Let’s take a break from classic rock to talk about some real shit: Les Savy Fav. Dudes are back in the studio working on a new album, but until then, you can experience the sheer, unmitigated rawk by picking up Inches – which is quite possibly the best singles-collection-as-album in the history of popular music. Sorry, Les Savy just inspire that kind of hyperbole: their brand of post-punk isn’t hard enough to make the faint-hearted run screaming for the exits, but rock music doesn’t get a whole lot more sweat-soaked and intense than these guys. Andrew W.K. might be a contender. But in all seriousness, this is one of the few bands which is only spoken of with reverential tones in my apartment. I don’t know what the other ones would be – Mission of Burma? Radiohead? We’re talking heavy hitters, gang.

Les Savy Fav – “Meet Me In The Dollar Bin”: mp3
Les Savy Fav – “The Sweat Descends”: mp3

(Buy from French Kiss Records)

Bob Dylan – “All Along the Watchtower”: mp3
Hey, I love Jimi. I’m a guitarist, I can appreciate the man. But folk has always been my true love, and Dylan’s original cut — all blood and menace and far-off thunder, the way only his Bobness can bring them — is easily his finest song.

The Beatles – “You Never Give Me Your Money”: mp3
My favorite Beatles song comes not from my favorite Beatles album (that’d be the White Album) nor from my favorite Beatle (that’d be George Harrison), but McCartney’s never sounded prettier or actually written about life so realistically: “Out of college, money spent / I see you no future, pay no rent / All the money’s gone nowhere to go…but oh, that magic feeling / Nowhere to go.” I except this track to dominate my iTunes the closer I get to graduation.

Nico – “These Days”: mp3
I realized the other day that I don’t like Nico’s voice. I’ve always found her throaty, accented croak a bit laughable (“And I wonder if I’d see another highvvvvaaay“), but now, it almost ruins the song for me. But as Brandy told us back in ’90s, almost doesn’t count, and Jackson Browne’s best lyric works perfectly with the song’s brittle, finger-picked electric guitar and dubbed-over strings. I guess I can handle a highvvay or two when everything else sounds so fucking depressing.

(Read the first entry in the ’60s series here.)

***

The Rob Gordon Shuffle is a weekly Sunday rundown of fascinating songs without particular regard to genre or timeliness. It is absolutely not a top 5.

Movie was glorious. Go see it now because there’s no point if you don’t see it with a rowdy audience who’s going to cheer the whole time. There were like 4 dudes in the theater here in the boonies of Ventura and I was the only one laughing. Uncontrollable lolz. But ironically, it was a bad movie. Most of it wasn’t even campy, it was just terrible. Peep the gratuitous slow-motion motorcycle shots in the beginning, or the middle stretch of the movie where random anonymous actors get brutally murdered by snakes (in the eye! in the neck! in the chest!) or when Samuel L. Jackson has to randomly fix something on the plane. He fixes it. Crisis averted! Kenan rocks, though, and Sammy L.’s line…you know what I’m talking about. It’s so awesome.

Anyway yeah, worst/best movie I’ve seen since Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror. Go make a stop at the local liquor store and see it while there’s still time.

I’m going home for the weekend (the long weekend – ’til Tuesday), but hopefully I can get some posting in.

In the meantime, you’ll notice the Los Angeles concert calendar in the sidebar to your right — it’s courtesy of Upcoming.org, and it lists L.A. concerts I’m either attending, hope to attend or think will be awesome. I’ll try to keep it fresh, and shout me a holla if you’re hitting up any of those shows. I’ve got my tix for the Willie Nelson & The Cardinals extravaganza already, so maybe I’ll see you there.