Monday Random Ten

As we continue to shelter-in-place, the Thin Blue Touch is a source of comfort and joy, so let's see what it's offering up this week.

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!

Bruce Springsteen - Land of Hopes and Dreams
Crosby, Stills & Nash - Suite:  Judy Blue Eyes
John Prine - Speed of the Sound of Loneliness
Our Native Daughters - Quasheba, Quasheba
Steve Earle - Here I Am
Rod Stewart - Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)
Dolly Varden - Mouthful of Lies
Peter Himmelman - Only Innocent
The Beatles - Across the Universe (Past Masters, Vol. 2)
Beki Hemingway - Don't Let It End

Bonus 11
Bob Dylan - Joey

A friend recently wrote that "Land..." is the best gospel song written in the new millennium. It may have been penned on the cusp and a centerpiece in the '99 E Street reunion tour, but he's otherwise correct. We're still processing John Prine's passing. Our Native Daughters is a terrific record from a quartet of African-American women featuring Rhiannon Giddens. Beki is covering the Styx hit, and Bob's recent 16-minute release about the JFK assassination shouldn't have surprised anyone, because the bonus today is all eleven minutes of him from 45 years ago, singing about a mobster.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Sarcasm? In the middle of a pandemic?"), already in progress. 

Monday Morning Rock!

Time to find out what the Thin Blue Touch served up as we start this sixth week of staying at home.

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!

Vigilantes of Love - Real Down Town
Adam Levy - How I Let You Down
Gordon Lightfoot - The Patriot's Dream
Joe Henry - Widows of the Revolution
The Rutles - With a Girl Like You
Vince Guaraldi - Cast Your Fate to the Wind
Bob Dylan - God Knows
XTC - I'm the Man Who Murdered Love
Peter Frampton - Baby, I Love Your Way
The Clash - Hateful

Bonus 11
Lake Street Dive - How Good It Feels

("God Knows" was preceded by a 21 second track of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash studio chatter from the latest Bootleg Series, but we're not counting that officially as part of the ten.)

The Adam Levy song is from "Naubinway", a deeply moving album about the loss of his son, who took his own life. Lightfoot's anti-war tune is the closer to the underrated "Don Quixote" album. The Rutles twist "If I Fell" ever so slightly into a delightful new song. If all you know if Vince Guaraldi is the Charlie Brown soundtracks, you owe it to yourself to check out his other material. The XTC song is from "Wasp Star (Apple Venus Pt. 2)", their terrific swansong, "Baby..." is from the monster "Frampton Comes Alive" set, and "Hateful" is one of the "18 New Songs From The Only Band That Matters" from the album with the best cover photo ever.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Where are the tests?"), already in progress.   

Monday Morning Rock (Three straight weeks!)

We're starting our fifth straight week of working from the home office at TWDQ HQ with the Thin Blue Nano connected up to the big stereo system, so let's see what it's offering for takeout service today.

Let's...hit...shuffle!

Spinners - I'll Be Around
The Frames - People Get Ready
The Beatles - For You Blue (from Anthology 3)
Van Morrison - Come Running
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Rock Me
Indigo Girls - Closer to Fine
Billy Bragg & Wilco - All You Fascists
Little Richard - Keep A-Knockin'
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
Sam Cooke - Chain Gang (Live at the Harlem Square Club)

Bonus 11
Poco - Keep On Tryin'

Nice mix there. Just finished reading that Sunday was Amy Ray's birthday, so the Indigo Girls is very appropriate. The Frames tune is an original, not the Curtis Mayfield classic. Bragg & Wilco remind us that Woody Guthrie was warning us about fascists decades ago. The Sam Cooke live album is from a tough, gritty small club performance that is light years away from the slickly-produced singles or Sam's set at the Copa. Sam could bring it.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("What the...it's snowing AGAIN?!?), already in progress.

Monday Morning Rock (Random 10)

Remembered to do this two weeks in a row! Let's find out what the Thin Blue Touch serves up this overcast, stay-at-home Monday morning.

Let's...hit...shuffle!

Fountains of Wayne - Please Don't Rock Me Tonight

Billy Joel - Prelude/Angry Young Man

Delta Rae - Forgive The Children We Once Were

James Taylor - Shower the People

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Go It Alone

Bill Evans Trio - My Romance (Take 2)

First Aid Kit - A Long Time Ago

Michael Kiwanuka - Piano Joint (This Kind of Love)

George Harrison - What Is Life

Molly Burch - To The Boys (Live at Paste Studios)

Bonus 11

Allen Toussaint - It's a New Orleans Thing

Nice touch to start off with FoW. RIP, Adam Schlesinger. 

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question, ("Is today really Monday?") already in progress.

Monday Random Rocking-in-Place 10

Hey, kids! Since we're all staying home (or should be!), let's fire up the Thin Blue Touch again!!!

Let's...hit...shuffle!

Squeeze - The Day I Get Home

Aretha Franklin - (Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone [mono]

The Hollies - Bus Stop

The Kinks - Celluloid Heroes

Petula Clark - Don't Sleep in the Subway

Faces - You're My Girl (I Don't Want to Discuss It) [Live]

Matt Andersen - Gasoline

The Move - Do Ya

The Byrds - Blue Canadian Rockies

Peter Himmelman - With You

Bonus 11 because you've all been so patient:

Uncle Tupelo - Discarded

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("What the...?"), already in progress.

Monday Morning Rock (Random 10 returns!)

One, two...one, two... Is this thing on?

Hello, Cleveland!!! We're back!!!

Long story short, we misplaced the beloved* Little Green Nano earlier this year. After exploring some cheaper mp3 player options, we finally decided to bite the bullet and pop for a new model, so here's what the Thin Blue Touch ladled out of its deep, deep 128 GB well this week.

Let's...hit...shuffle!

Ian Hunter - Seeing Double

The Heardsmen - She Knows It

The Hold Steady - Hot Soft Light

Sarah Morris - Careful, Careful

Patty Griffin - Wiggley Fingers

The Spinners - I'll Be Around

The Beatles - Sie Liebt Dich

Old 97's - Bel Air

Ray Charles - The Midnight Hour

Billy Bragg & Wilco - Hot Rod Hotel

Bonus 11 because you've all been so patient:

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito, No. 1 (The actual #11 was an intro to Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's New Year's Eve 1975 concert from Upper Darby, PA, which isn't technically a song.)

The Heardsmen track is from the excellent That Thing You Do! soundtrack, and, like the title track, sounds like it coulda been a hit in the 60s. Sarah Morris is a local singer/songwriter we saw at the MN State Fair a couple of years ago and we heard the audio from her YouTube videos wafting up from the lower level of TWDQ HQ so frequently, we ordered her CD and have been to see her perform many more times. If you haven't heard Patty Griffin's Flaming Red, you need to remedy that, and The Fab Four woo the German market.  

*Full disclosure:  The Little Green Nano had been having syncing problems and we'd begrudingly reimaged it a couple/three times before it went missing, so "beloved" is largely historical revisionism.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Have you voted yet? Why the hell not?!?!?"), already in progress.

Hump Day Random 10

Been a long time since we checked in with the little green Nano. (Okay, we check in with the LGN pretty much every day, we just don't post about it.)

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!

Everything But the Girl - The Night I Heard Caruso Sing
Marshall Crenshaw - I'm Sorry (But So Is Brenda Lee)
Jonathan Rundman - I Don't Want to Go to Hell
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Here Comes My Girl
Bob Dylan - Blind Willie McTell
Dan Zanes - Cuckoo Waltz
The Beatles - I Me Mine
Daryl Hall & John Oates - Had I Known You Better Then
Rogue Valley - And Your Bird Can Sing
Jonathan Rundman - Deadly Life

Bonus 11 (just because you've all been so patient)
Laura Nyro - And When I Die

Wow. Selections from a bunch of essential albums in this list, EBTG's "Idlewild", a pair from Jonathan's "Sound Theology", TP's "Damn the Torpedoes", Zanes' "Parades and Panoramas", and H&O's "Abandoned Luncheonette".  If you don't know these records, check 'em out!

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question (President Donald Trump would 'love' to include Sarah Palin in his cabinet? Is it too early in the day to start drinking?), already in progress.

We Can Be Heroes

Apologies to my vast readership for going quiet for so long.

Some folks are losing their excrement because ESPN gave out one of their ESPY Awards (I believe they were originally conceived as the BWNSTSOTDATASGWTIAEGOOOCWHTTANFLMCA* Awards) to Caitlyn Jenner for her courage in coming out as transgender.

*Boys, We Need Something To Show On The Day After The All Star Game When There Isn't Anything Else Going On Or, Oh Crap, We'll Have To Talk About NFL Mini-Camps Again

That brings us to This Week's Discussion Question:

When the hell did heroism become a zero-sum game?

Look, people do heroic stuff all the time. Small, quiet acts of heroism and big, honkin' acts of heroism, every damn day and somebody doing the latter doesn't make the former acts any less heroic.

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "If you think this makes ESPN look bad, do you realize that they point a camera at Stephen A. Smith on a regular basis?" or "Is it too early in the day to start drinking?"

Discuss.

Whatever Happened to You and I?

So tonight we're celebrating $5.99 Burger Monday at a local establishment near TWDQ HQ and we hear something we don't think we've ever heard before:  Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes on a restaurant sound system.

As such, we paid a little more attention than usual, bringing us to This Week's Discussion Question:

Why do I give Johnny a pass on a grammatical error in a chorus, but not the BoDeans?

Please keep the discussion civil and feel free to wander off into "That's Steve Van Zandt getting the pass, actually," or "YouTube is awesome."

Discuss.

The Wall Street Shuffle

Good on both of the local dailies for carrying the Times' story on commodities manipulation. The west side of the river had it on the front page and their counterparts to the east had it on page 2.  Charlie Pierce has it absolutely right about Occupy Wall Street:  They may not have a coherent message, but they're yelling at the right buildings.

That brings us to This Week's Discussion Question:

Where the hell is my pitchfork?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "Hey Detroit ought to at least get a cut of this action!" or "Torches! We're gonna need torches, too!"

Discuss.

Sunday Random 10

Wonder if the little green Nano can pull up some tunes to melt the snow that's gotta go.

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!


Adele - I'll Be Waiting
The Rascals - It's Wonderful
Mavis Staples - Wonderful Savior
Alice Cooper - Elected
David Bowie - Valentine's Day
Dan Zanes - The E-Ri-E Canal
Jeremy Messersmith - Repo Man
U2 - All Because of You
Dar Williams - Are You Out There
The Magnetic Fields - You're My Only Home

The Zanes tune is most definitely NOT the "Erie Canal" they taught you in school. Can't find the Zanes version on YouTube, so this'll have to suffice. And if you don't have Dan Zanes' wonderful Parades and Panoramas album, what are you still doing here? The Bowie tune's from the new record, which is quite good.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Really, Sixth District? Really?"), already in progress.

Sunday Random 10 (x4)

Whoosh! Where did that month go?

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!

02/24/2012
Eddie Cochran - Boll Weevil
Steve Winwood - Higher Love
Shawn Colvin (with Mary Chapin Carpenter) - One Cool Remove
The Jayhawks - Bottomless Cup
The Rolling Stones - Get Off Of My Cloud
The Gaslight Anthem - Mulholland Drive
Aimee Mann - Christmastime
This Train - Who's Stopping You
Tom Waits - Shiver Me Timbers
Professor Longhair - Bald Head

11. Stevie Wonder - You Are the Sunshine of My Life

03/03/2012
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Drain the Blood (Live)
Wilco - Black Rose (Alt)
The Rascals - People Got To Be Free
The Wild Tchoupitoulas - Hey Mama (Wild Tchoupitoulas)
The Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy
The Beatles - The Ballad of John and Yoko
Lucinda Williams - Changed the Locks (Live)
Erik Brandt - Anywhere But Here
Loudon Wainwright III - Daughter
Patty Griffin - Getting Ready

03/10/2012
Tracey Thorn - Maybe This Christmas
Elvis Presley - Suspicious Minds
Van Morrison - Mystic of the East
The Beatles - Baby's in Black
Otis Redding - I've Been Loving You Too Long
The Bangles - Going Down to Liverpool
Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone
Fountains of Wayne - Fire Island
Lost Dogs - Precious Memories
Bruce Springsteen - The Promise

11. Alice Cooper - School's Out

03/17/2012
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Don't Do Me Like That
Faces - Angel (Live)
Professor Longhair - Big Chief, Pt. 2
The Beatles - It Won't Be Long
Wilco - You and I
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Even the Losers
Bill Staines - Symphony of Gold
John Wesley Harding - Sweat Tears Blood and Come
Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer (Live)
Van Morrison - Queen of the Slipstream

11. The Who - The Dirty Jobs

A few bonus elevens in there to make up for our tardiness. One of 'em contains the quintessential rock 'n roll verse:

Well we got no classAnd we got no principlesAnd we got no innocenceWe can't even think up a word that rhymes

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Aren't this moron's fifteen minutes up yet?), currently in progress.

Sunday Random 10 (caught up!)

Let's see what the little green Nano produced while we were blogging the last two weeks' worth.

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!

Beach House - Myth
Fleetwood Mac - Don't Stop (Live '77)
The Bangles - Be With You
Menahan Street Band - The Contender
Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
Johnny Cash - Rock Island Line
Los Lobos - I Can't Understand
The Beatles - Glass Onion
Ian Hunter and the Rant Band - Comfortable (Flyin' Scotsman)
Van Morrison - Full Force Gale

Bonus 11:  Beki Hemingway - Make You Proud

The live Mac tune is from the 3-disc Rumours reissue that's well worth your dough even though everyone already bought it in the 70's. Picked up the Menahan album for a buck at Half-Price last week and it's nice stuff. And boy, oh boy, we hope we can still rock like Ian Hunter when we're in our seventies.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Couldn't they resolve another schism by naming Rowan Williams pope?"), already in progress.

Sunday Random Ten (Catching up)

While we're in the middle of this week's shuffle, let's see what the little green Nano offered up in the first half of February.  Let's...Hit...Shuffle!


02/03/2012
The Ventures - Wipe Out
The Who - Drowned
Van Morrison - Real Real Gone
Wilco - I Might
The Beach Boys - Psycodelic Sounds:  Brian Falls into a Piano
Dan Penn - The Dark End of the Street
The Ike Reilly Assassination - Holiday in New York
Beki Hemingway & Jonathan Rundman - Hometown
XTC - Books Are Burning
The Oneders - That Thing You Do!

Bonus 11:  Wilco - Can't Stand It

The juxtaposition of "Wipe Out" and "Drowned" is kind of creepy now that we think of it. "Real Real Gone" is a wonderful 90's Van Morrison song, to which we owe a great debt to the terrific Twin Cities-based Van cover band The Belfast Cowboys. And "Hometown" came up on a Sunday when the lectionary contained the reading about Jesus' less than well-received preaching in Nazareth, making us think--once again--that this Nano knows way too much.

02/10/2012
Billy Bragg - Lay Down Your Weary Tune
Nate Houge - Take Your Time
Dr. John - Tipitina
Dawes - Fire Away
The Kinks - Muswell Hillbilly
Van Morrison - Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)
Todd Rundgren - Bread
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Heart on a String
Bobby Whitlock - Standing in the Rain
The Who - How Many Friends

Bonus 11:  Buck Owens - I've Got a Tiger by the Tail

Continuing the "knows way too much" idea, here's Dr. John a couple of days before Mardi Gras. "Jackie Wilson Said" remains our all-time favorite Van Morrison song. "Bread" is from the brilliant Hermit of Mink Hollow, which you really really ought to hear.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Where's Sister Joan Chittister?"), already in progress.

TWDQ QOTW

TWDQ's Quote of the Week comes from Charles Pierce:

...if equal protection under the secular law is really a threat to your religious liberty, then both your religion and your liberty are made of spun sugar and you should shop around for a most robust variety of both of them.

Tell us again why George Will's on our teevee every Sunday morning and this guy isn't.

Sunday Random 10 (Friday Edition)

Busy week again, so let's see what the little green Nano offered up on Sunday.

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!


The Ventures - Pipeline
Randy Newman - I'm Dreaming
Kaivama - Sulo
Dan Penn - I'm Your Puppet
Nick Lowe - I Live on a Battlefield
Bob Dylan - Long and Wasted Years
Chuck Prophet - Emperor Norton in the Last Year of His Life (1880)
Tracey Thorn - Snow
Muddy Waters - Walkin' Thru the Park
Tim O'Reagan - River Bends

Randy Newman's terrific election year tune shows up. If you haven't seen the video or heard the song, GO! Love the jangly version of the hit Dan Penn penned for the Purify Brothers. Tracey Thorn's voice makes us melt, and The Jayhawks need to let Tim O'Reagan sing more leads.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question (Jeez, when you've lost Rambo, it's over, right?), already in progress.

Sunday Random 10

Let's see if Little Feat's "Cold, Cold, Cold" comes up on the little green Nano this week.

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!


Jonathan Rundman - What Wondrous Love Is This
The Avett Brothers - I Killed Sally's Lover (Live)
Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone
The Beach Boys - I'm In Great Shape
Los Lobos - I Got Loaded
Professor Longhair - Bald Head
Bessie Banks - Go Now
Kaivama - Viitaniemi Mix
The Avett Brothers - Slight Figure of Speech
The Beatles - All My Loving

The Nano was into the Avetts this week apparently. The Moody Blues covered Ms. Banks' "Go Now" when they had future Wings guy Denny Laine but no Mellotrons yet.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question (Again? What the hell is wrong with these people?), already in progress.

History Never Repeats

So last week, this happened:

Larry Ward, chairman of the national Gun Appreciation Day gun rights advocates have planned for the weekend of President Obama's second inauguration, told CNN Friday that there never would have been slaves in America if black people had guns.

"I think Martin Luther King, Jr. would agree with me if he were alive today that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country's founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history," Ward said.

Yeah, he said that out loud on teevee.

This morning, Melissa Harris-Perry's opening segment described what really happened when African-Americans started bearing arms in public.

Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn’t “know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” The Mulford Act, he said, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.” 

Yep, Saint Ronald Wilson Reagan signed off on a Republican-drafted, far-reaching gun control bill, bringing us to This Week's Discussion Question:

History's a beeyotch sometimes, ain't it?

Please keep the discussion civil. Seriously. Civil.

Sunday Random 10

Cold, cold, cold in TWDQ land today. Let's see if the little green Nano warms things up.

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!


Brendan Benson - Pretty Baby
Elvis Presley - I Don't Care If the Sun Don't Shine
Joan Osborne - Broken Wings
Kirsty MacColl (w/The Pogues) - Miss Otis Regrets
Dwight Yoakam - Waterfall
Van Morrison - Queen of the Slipstream
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Good Year for the Roses
Old 97's - Victoria
Arcade Fire - Half Light I
Daryl Hall & John Oates - When the Morning Comes

And eleven, because we're on time again this week:
Ry Cooder - 3rd Base, Dodger Stadium

Elvis ain't afraid of no Seasonal Affective Disorder. Speaking of which, this mid-January shuffle wrapping up with songs about half light and morning coming makes us think Apple knows more than it's letting on. We're less than a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting, so that extra track sure warmed us up. Also, if you're not familiar with the late, great Kirsty MacColl, well, there's a new compilation coming soon.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question (no, really), already in progress.

Sunday Random 10

Happy New Year! Did this morning's random ten while waiting in line to wash the road salt off one of TWDQ's fleet vehicles.

With the NHL lockout ending, we're no longer sad to type this play on the Minnesota Wild's traditional game opener:

Let's...Hit...Shuffle!


The Suburbs - Monster Man
Jeremy Messersmith - Breaking Down
Crowded House - Pineapple Head
Buddy Miller - My Love Will Follow You
The Clash - The Card Cheat
Joe Henry - I Flew Over Our House Last Night
Hank Williams - I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love with You)
Wilco - I'm a Wheel
World Party - Strange Groove
Yes - I've Seen All Good People:  Your Move/All Good People (live)

Bonus 11:  The Who - Baba O'Riley

The fine new album from Suburb Chan Poling's new band, The New Standards, arrived in the mail last week. We got into Jeremy Messersmith's brilliantly-crafted pop last summer. Bunch of solid country in this, between the criminally-underrated Buddy Miller, Joe Henry covering Tom T. Hall, and ol' Hank himself.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question ("Is there a bigger bag of hammers in sports than Gary Bettman?"), already in progress.