Friday Five

It's been a while since I threw out a Friday Five, so here we go. Play along at home, if you like. For those of you new to this, here are five songs on my BilliPod, shuffled randomly:

1) "Severed Hand" by Pearl Jam, from their performance on Saturday Night Live on April 15, 2006.



If there was any doubt that their upcoming album was going to rock, it was dispelled when they premiered this on SNL, much to the surprise of many, as they had been expected to play "Life Wasted," which they had done on the rehearsal show, along with "World Wide Suicide".

2) "Nipples" by Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse.

One of the greatest songs ever written about the human breasts.

Listen to it here (JHC & TFHotA's MySpace page)

3) "Breath" by Pearl Jam, live at Madison Square Garden, September 11, 1998.

Click here to see the back story behind this particular performance.

4) "Accidents Will Happen" by Elvis Costello & The Attractions. Watch him performing it from 1979:



5) "Back of My Hand" by The Rolling Stones from their last album A Bigger Bang. This song oozes the Blues, and could just as well have been performed twenty years ago.



The Stones performing it at Madison Square Garden in 2005:

Friday Five on Tuesday the Twenty-Fifth

I haven't done one of these in a while, and can't wait until Friday. So there.

In case you're just joining us, it's five random tracks off of the BilliPod.

1) "Across the Universe," the great Beatles tune, featuring Billie Joe Armstrong, Bono, Steven Tyler, Brian Wilson, Tim McGraw, Scott Weiland, Alicia Keys, Alison Krauss, Norah Jones, and Stevie Wonder, backed by members of Velvet Revolver. Snagged from the blog Music for Kids Who Can't Read Good.

According to wikipedia, this version is from the 2004 Grammy Awards ceremony in February 2005. The following week, a recording of the performance was released exclusively for purchase through the iTunes Music Store. All proceeds from the sale went to funds for victims of the 26 December 2004 Tsunami. Sales from the benefit release made it the fastest-selling download in iTunes history and allowed the song to peak at #22 on the Billboard singles chart. This version has a lyric change: "Nothing's gonna change my world" was changed to "Something's gonna change my world."

If you missed this the first time around, it's pretty impressive:



2)
"Everytime I Look for You" by blink-182, track 10 off their smash album Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.




3)
"Baby, Please Don't Go" by John Lee Hooker, from his album Burning Hell. This old blues standard originally by Big Joe Williams has been covered by a ton of folks. On the BilliPod alone, I have versions by Big Joe, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Lightnin' Hopkins, Aerosmith, MC5, and Them (with Van Morrison).

Here, Listen: "Baby, Please Don't Go" (mp3) by Them, via Live Journal.

4)
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by The Black Crowes from the I Am Sam soundtrack.

and finally.....

5) "Everybody Getting High" from one of Mick Jagger's solo albums Goddess in the Doorway. I honestly think that this solo effort from Mick is better than most of the Rolling Stones' recent work. (Rebuttal, Melanie?)

Phriday Phive

Stuck home today, chillin' with an illin' kiddo, so I am shuffling the BilliTunes library for today's random quintet of interesting (I hope) tracks.

You're always welcome to drop a comment with your five, I'm always interested in other people's pods.

Let the games begin:


1) "Soma" from The Strokes debut album Is This It. If that cover art seems unfamiliar to you, it's because this is America, and we can't have our kids seeing such filth when we take them to Wal-Mart to buy ammo for our weapons. So, most of us Americans got this album art instead:


Aren't we lucky? Here's them performing it live:



2)



That's "Black Gold" by Soul Asylum. Great song.

Listen: "Black Gold" (mp3) by Soul Asylum, courtesy of Lil Mike's Last Known Thoughts & Random Revelations. There are more Soul Asylum songs at that link. Nice post on the band from August 2006.

3)



"The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" by Weezer, off their "blue" album.

The blog Neile's Life did a segment in September of "the 125 Albums that should be in your collection". This was #17, and the song can be heard here: "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" (mp3), courtesy of Neilie's Life.



4) Ah, a classic:



"Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins.

Here's an old look:



And numero 5 to get you through the weekend:



"Moon Baby," the lead track from Godsmack's quadruple-platimum debut eponymous album.

Here's them performing the song at Woodstock '99. Viewer beware: he says some bad words.

The Return of the Friday Five

I ran into BillyBlog reader Colin a couple weeks back in Los Angeles and he remarked that I hadn't done a random 5-song shuffle on the BilliPod lately. The last one was way back here, I think.

So here we go....

1) Great, I'll get slack for this, I'm sure. "Back to Dungaree High" by Queens of the Stone Age from the Turbonegro tribute album Alpha Motherfuckers. I was debating whether or not to mention the album title, but I am showing the album cover, so who's kidding who? I am not in the habit of censoring myself, and I am merely referring to a song on an album. Using symobols (#@!) wouldn't fool anyone. I apologize to anyone who may have been offended.

Anyway, Turbonegro is a legendary punk/thrash band hailing from Norway, Oslo to be more precise and Queens of the Stone Age do a nice little number on this song.

Listen: Turbonegro - The Age of Pamparius (mp3), courtesy of the blog Afterbirth of the Cool, who does a nice post on Turbonegro's 1998 album Apocalypse Dudes here.


2) Great. I see where this Friday Five is going. The next song is Rob Zombie's "Meet the Creeper (Brute Man and Wonder Girl Mix)" from the CD of greatest hits/remixes American Made Music to Strip By. Colin is very likely on the floor right now, laughing hysterically, as we share a funny story about the song "More Human than Human," by Rob's band White Zombie. Of course, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.


3) Ok, I just got a little more respectable. "Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen, from his 1982 solo album Nebraska.

Here's Bruce & Co. performing the song in 1985:




4) "Baby Please Don't Go," by Big Joe Williams from the Martin Scorcese documentary The Blues. This song has been recorded by Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Them, Paul Butterfield and Paul Revere & the Raiders, Amboy Dukes(Ted Nugent), AC/DC, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Aerosmith, but Big Joe wrote it and did it first.

And through the wonder of YouTube, see him performing this, from 1963, playing the 9-string guitar. According to wikipedia:

Big Joe's guitar playing is decidedly in the Delta Blues style, and yet is unique. He played driving rhythm and virtuosic lead lines simultaneously, and sang over it all. He played with picks both on his thumb and index finger, plus his guitar was very heavily modified.

Williams added a rudimentary electric pick-up, whose wires coiled all over the top of his guitar. He also added three extra strings, creating unison pairs for the first and second courses and an octave pair for the fourth course.

Totally worth the three minutes to watch.




and last, but not least,

5) "Breaking Honey's Heart" by The Supersuckers, off their 2006 album Paid. I basically became familiar with this band through their association with, go figure, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. Ed performed with them at The Showbox in Seattle in 2001. He worked with them on a cover of the punk band X's song "Poor Girl" for a benefit album for the West Memphis 3.

Feel free to add your Fabulous Friday Five in the comments section. Just grab an mp3 player, shuffle, and tell us the first five tracks that appear.