Lefty's Listwood Drift

What I'm drifting to:

1. Every summer, Dewey Dell and I invariably make our way to Central Park to see the legendary Bladie Flowness (above) as he leads the amazing Central Park Dance Skaters Association in a massive roller disco party, complete with gigantic sound system and people with gold teeth and hot pants doing impossible tangos on 16 wheels. Last time Bladie sold us his excellent inspirational CD compilation, which features Bladie philosophizing about our inner "genius" and encouraging us to get some skates and shake our collective booty (all over a thumping beat and backup singers chiming, "Duality! Life Dance!"). If you need to see/hear/feel how transcendently funky this experience can be, check out THIS AMAZING OLD-SCHOOL VIDEO featuring Bladie back in the early 80s when he was known as Vin Zee (he had a hit called "Funky Bebop" on Emergency Records). Well, Bladie's proselytizing worked, cuz we're getting skates this year and getting our groove on. God help us.

You Can Do It - Bladie Flowness

2. When I find myself in times of trouble, John Anderson comes to me like a trusty triple-layer flannel shirt on an Autumn day in 1982. While comforting me in the present, he’s also traveling to the past and comforting me there as well. That’s where it hurts.

You’ve Got the Longest Leaving Act in Town – John Anderson

3. If you've ever wished, as I often have, that Style Council had made a whole lot more fey British soul like they did on My Ever Changing Moods, then you'll be delighted, as I was, to hear The Sharpe Things' supremely fey and soulful "Cruel Thing." This is a great song. (Thanks to Chicago Dave for alerting us to it.)

Cruel Thing - The Sharpe Things

4. If you need proof that Tommy Fox is one of the GREAT rock'n'roll drummers of all time (Tommy who? Tommy Fox), then crank this up to 11.

So Chemical (The Revelers Song) - The Revelers

4. Dizziehead Ed recently turned me on to this mysterious supergroup known as the Psychic Envelopes. This song, in all its wobbly weave of guitaring, has mysteriously grabbed hold of me and won’t let go, especially the spooky/shocking miniaturist guitar solo at minute 2:14 or thereabouts.

Raleigh – Psychic Envelopes

5. Usually I wait till everyone has stopped liking something to start liking it myself, but that’s just silly. So I’m going to just enjoy Yeasayer now and accept that I'm part of the same unwashed blog-o-demographic mob as everyone else. I'm in. This is me. Ecce homo.

2080 - Yeasayer

5. I’m not sure if there’s one single time that I’ve listened to this song and not almost cried or grown severely misty. Is it possible that this is literally one of the best songs ever written? Hat tip to Agent Eliot, who first played this for me.

1952 Vincent Black Lightning - Richard Thompson

6. I’m really hoping Nick Lowe plays this on April 9 at the Grand Ballroom in New York City (please?):

I’m a Mess – Nick Lowe

7. My niece goes to the elite arts-focused LaGuardia High School in Manhattan and is therefore plugged directly into the bloody beating heart of all youth culture. In her impressively condescending teen coolness, she’s constantly telling me that things I say are “cute,” as in, “Heh, that’s cute.” As if I’m the one who’s 18 and she’s 36. Anyway, she recently got in a fight with her dad over whether she could go out late on a Tuesday night and see the supposedly coolest band that all the coolest kids want to hear because they're so cool, called Crystal Castles. She won the fight. Heh, cute.

Good Time – Crystal Castles.

8. I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned Boris, the Japanese drone metal band who are rocking my world. As I’ve been telling everyone who’ll listen, I lost 10% of my hearing seeing them live at the Knitting Factory – and it was totally worth it. It’s hard to recall having been rocked that hard. If they come to your town, you simply must. MUST! But with ear plugs maybe.



9. In a just world, this song would be part of every FM Classic Rock rock block in the nation. It rises and crashes just right, all guitar pleasure and pop-emotive triumph. But it was just another song on one of those Frank Black albums and nobody really mentioned it. Shame.

Fields of Marigold – Frank Black

10. English Beat to Vampire Weekend: Heh, cute.

Ackee 1-2-3 - English Beat