Dylan Goes "Select, Rik" - Shuffle Mode, Monday, May 4, 2009

Man, I really wanted to get Part 2 of my Troll movie adventures recap up before this weekend, and I did say I was going to expound on my ratings scale on Sunday. I really did intend for all of that to happen. But, as it happens so often, migraines got the best of me for a couple of days, and everything, to paraphrase Rigby Reardon, kind of shifted all out of whack. So, I am still working on finishing both pieces, and Part II of For Whom the Bull Trolls will likely not get up until at least tomorrow night, followed by the ratings explanation sometime on Thursday.

As a temporary space-filler, here’s a peek at my iPod this morning, which kept me going as I tried out my brand new sneakers. The old ones squeak incessantly, having popped a few of the support struts during my speed-walking routine of the past few months, and the squeaks were getting goofy looks from people sitting on bus benches and cars at traffic stops. Or maybe I was getting the goofy looks on general purposes. Probably the last one… but I am used to that.

Here’s this morn's shuffle:

1. It’s Gonna Be A Long Night – Ween / Quebec
2. Oh Daddy – Adrian Belew / Mr. Music Head
3. I Ride My Bike – Cracker / Tucson (ep)
4. Cold War – Devo / Freedom of Choice
5. It’s A Dark Day – The Reverend Horton Heat / Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
6. Holiday for Strings – Spike Jones & the City Slickers / The Spike Jones Anthology
7. Kevin Barry – Lonnie Donegan / Rock Island Line: The Singles Anthology 1955-1967
8. Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? – Frank Zappa / Joe’s Garage
9. That Teenage Feeling – Neko Case / Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
10. Take Me With U – Prince and the Revolution / Purple Rain
11. Sifl & Olly News: Olly’s Psychic Helmet / The Sifl & Olly Show
12. Good Texan – The Vaughan Brothers / Family Style

I like the transition from Donegan, a British skiffle/folk singer who deeply influenced the Beatles, to Zappa’s social disease silliness, then straight to the haunted vocal landscapes of Ms. Case. Wholly inappropriate, such segues, and exactly why I have slowly grown to love shuffle mode. Of course, jumping from the Reverend Heat's bleak blues to the chicken-squawking, awooga-horn-laced Spike Jones oddity is just as goony a jump. Actually, my old squeaky sneaks would have fit Jones' Holiday for Strings quite nicely. Just another wacky percussion instrument in a giant pile of wacky percussion instruments.

As a side observation, I discovered twt.fm today, a Twitter app that allows you to search out a favorite song, and then prep it to play from a link placed on your Twitter page. Started out with one of my favorite Robyn Hitchcock tunes this morning, which has garnered 19 plays, and might have led to two people dropping my page. One can only hope. Those without the proper taste, or at least those without the capacity to try out new artists and styles, are not welcome. Must weed out the weaklings.

And now, after a nice 12-hour day of prepping our new work website for tomorrow a.m.'s scheduled launch, I am too exhausted to write any longer. Hopefully, I will be able to finish the second Troll piece tomorrow, because tonight is one for the books. The Celtics lost before I even made it home an hour ago, which has me grouchy, and my stomach is aching, not from hunger, but most likely from an alien life form nestled somewhere behind my pancreas. That little green guy is clearly as tired as I am, and just as pouty. (The other one, most likely green from a misspent youth, is never sleepy...) So, to bed for me, and I will plan on reading some R.W. Chambers until Jen gets home. Though, with any luck, I will be asleep in mere seconds. Out.

Dylan Goes Select-Rik: Shuffle Mode, Friday Morning 11.21.08

Isn’t the whole point of shuffle mode that you get a decently mixed selection of the music on your iPod, regardless of how many songs you actually have on your iPod? I understand if you have an iPod Shuffle with only enough room for a few dozen tunes and you end up the same artists (assuming you have multiple songs from the same artist on your Shuffle) over and over again. But I have 16,000-plus tunes, and possibly about a thousand full albums, jammed onto Ymir (the name of my particular iPod). So you'd think that my little metal monster would have no problem throwing down clear lines of division between similar artists. 

But… well... apparently not.

As you can see on the list below, in the space of seven songs, I end up with two each from the Davies brothers and the Johns – F. and L., respectively – and the iPod goes on like it had done its job properly and all that. Wait a minute, Ymir… didn’t I hit shuffle mode? And please don’t use the excuse that it's because I have so many full albums by these groups on the machine that it becomes hard to avoid them. I have a full twelve Kinks albums in the mix (along with a few stray singles) along with thirteen TMBG albums… yes, that’s true. But with the exception of Richman, Beefheart and the Muppets, every other group in this short list has more than five albums in the mix as well. Costello also has a dozen (I own about twenty of his, so don’t think that I am not being particular in the overall selection) and Floyd has nine.

It is the cramming together so closely of the Kinks’ tunes that has me worried. Dammit! For once (two days in a row, really), I chose “shuffle.” I purposefully tried to mix things up, and this is what I get. 

It’s like Ymir is so used to my just careening straight through a whole album, he gets confused and doesn’t know what to do. Or maybe he is scared to mix things up, thinking that he has mistakenly fallen into the wrong mode, and that I will wing him across the road if he doesn’t keep me pointed down the normal listening pattern. He’s almost like a tiny little TiVo, only more aesthetically pleasing. Whatever it is, I will chalk it up to loyalty on Ymir’s part…

• Important in Your Life – Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
• Too Much Monkey Business – The Kinks
• The Army’s Tired Now – They Might Be Giants
• Set Me Free – The Kinks
• Valium Waltz – Old 97s
• Country Darkness – Elvis Costello & the Imposters
• San Tropez – Pink Floyd
• Something Grabbed Ahold of My Hand – They Might Be Giants
• Interview: The Tooth Fairy – The Sifl & Olly Show
• Ole! Tarantula – Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3
• Frownland – Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
• Get That Girl – Joe Jackson
• Seymour Stein – Belle and Sebastian
• Mahna Mahna – Jim Henson’s Muppets (The Muppet Show Soundtrack)