Friday Random Ten: Audit my coolness edition

Well, it's one of those ideas going around today that I just can't resist. Norbizness started it, I think. It's the usual Friday Random Ten, but annotated and with a "coolness" score for each. I'm not sure I really have any clue about this coolness thing, though. I've been accused of listening to weird shit on purpose, just to be cool or something. But that's cool, right, to listen to stuff that nobody else knows about? And anyway, how am I supposed to know what everybody else is listening to? Maybe I'm a total geek. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

It should probably tell me something that when I look at everyone else's random ten lists, I don't even know most of the stuff that they have (and it doesn't seem to matter how old they are).

I don't really have a point of reference here, so maybe youall will help me by leaving coolness ratings (a 1-10 score, ten being the coolest) in the comments. Besides, self-assessments are notoriously unreliable, aren't they? I'll just give myself all tens because I mean, if it's on my iPod, I think it's cool. And there's only so much room on here, so I can only put what I really want to listen to on it. And even if it's not cool, I think it's cool to listen to stuff you like, no matter how cool it is or is not. But that's just me. Oh, I guess I'd be a little embarrassed if one of the three Indigo Girls songs on there comes up, but I do like those songs; it's just that they remind me of a sort of clueless and embarrassing time in my life.

Besides all that, I'm not really sure how good an indicator one's music collection is of one's coolness or lack thereof. I've met a lot of total assholes and dorks with really cool record collections, if you know what I mean. But, hey, everyone else is doing it, so here you go:

I'm just going to start with the song that's playing now, and I'll stop at ten or when we've heard from Leonard Cohen, whichever takes longer. It shouldn't take too long, though; there's an awful lot of LC on there just now:

1. "Simple" by the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, on their release "Shy Folk."I totally love these folks. Unfortunately they are not performing/recording together any more, and most of their stuff is out of print. They're Canadian, and as I recall there were a bunch of them on stage. Horns, keyboards, drums, guitars, Fabulous vocals from Kate Fenner and Chris Brown. And this is a great song so I'd give it a 10 out of 10. See what I mean about self-assessments?
2. "Sometimes I Cry" by Buddy & Julie Miller, on Buddy Miller's "Cruel Moon." Now I happen to think that Buddy and Julie Miller are really cool, and Julie is a fabulous songwriter. Insanely talented and if you read the liner notes of things you'll find them all over the place. As far as coolness goes, they're pretty much Nashville insiders and that's pretty cool, right? This isn't one of my absolute favorite songs of theirs, but it's nice and sad and it's raining out. It might not be cool to listen to them, though, on account of this Americana/ alt-country thing is maybe not so, you know, cutting edge anymore.
3. "Dealing With the Distance" by the Cash Brothers on "A Brand New Night." You know what? I don't know a thing about these guys, and I don't have the liner notes right here with me so I can't even tell you when this was made, or where, or anything. When I uploaded it the other day, the CD data base classified them for me as "rock" but I don't think that's very helpful. It's a little more alt-country or Americana or roots-like than that, but not really that either. The lyrics are a little too complicated for me to really call it pop, but it's got a certain pop flavor & texture to it. But I really dig it a lot, whoever the hell they are.

   [update: There's no excuse for ignorance. I looked the Cash Brothers up here on the internets (duh). They're Canadian, so forget what I said about the Americana thing. But they really are brothers & they're not related to that other guy by that name. This CD was released in 2003, and they have one other one out from 2001 called "How Was Tomorrow? The "news & notes" section of their website says that they are working on new material. I look forward to hearing it]

4. "Pancakes" by Lucinda Williams, from a live concert sampler called "Born To Choose." Nice tune from Ms. Williams - I'm not sure who the band is that she's performing with here but it sounds more or less like the usual suspects. Never heard this song on any of her other releases, but it's kind of goofy and good. Now I know that buying sampler or anthology or especially tribute discs is not supposed to be cool according to certain schools of coolness theory, but I really like them. Even if there's only one thing on there that interests me, there's often more that I would never have otherwise heard.
5. "The Road" Patty Larkin, from "Perishable Fruit." Patty is very cool, in my opinion. She's funny, and every time I hear her live, her guitar playing is even better than the last time. Plus, she's really kind of hot. "Perishable Fruit" is one of my favorites from her, and this is a great tune.
6. "House Where Nobody Lives" by Tom Waits on "Mule Variations." A sweet sad waltz, and a nice spare arrangement. Makes me want to dance all slow. Tom Waits is automatically totally cool, right? Or is it not cool to like somebody who is totally cool? Even if you've liked him for more than 20 years?
7. "Mickey Mouse March" by Aaron Neville & Dr. John. This is from a CD called "Stay Awake," produced by Hal Wilner. It's a whole collection of Disney tunes by a bunch of people (including Tom Waits doing the most terrifyingly demented performance of "Heigh Ho Heigh Ho it's Off to Work I Go") and it's great. I like this song too. I like Aaron Neville quite a lot, actually. Dr. John, too.
8. "6060-842" The B-52s. Well, this is just such a cool song, no question. But on the other hand is it cool to still be listening to stuff that was wildly popular when you were in high school?
9. "Do Right Woman" by the Flying Burrito Brothers, from "Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels, another of those anthologies I'm so fond of. I'm sorta nuts about Gram Parsons. Not much more to say about that.
10. "Dark Hand Over My Heart" Richard Thompson, on the "voltage enhanced" disc of "You? Me? Us?"" I know a lot of RT fans who aren't all that fond of this disc. And there's this one friend of mine who has a taste for really slick, highly produced Europop -- this is the only RT record he seems to even sort of like. But I do like this release quite a lot all the same, both the "nude" and the "voltage enhanced" discs.
11. "Fuvom Azenekem" by Marta Sebestyen & Muzsikas, on their first release, called "Muzsikas." It's not my favorite CD of theirs (I think I like "Apokrypha" best), but it's the music of my people. You've heard her if you saw that movie the English Patient, which I didn't actually see, but I guess her songs were featured prominently on that soundtrack.
12. "Democracy" by Leonard Cohen, on "The Future." I told you it wouldn't take long for a Leonard Cohen song to come up. This one came out in 1992 and this song seemed so hopeful for a while there, about how democracy is coming to the USA. Now I'm not so sure. "The Future" seems a little more realistic:

    "Give me back the Berlin Wall
    Give me Stalin and St. Paul
    I've seen the future, baby
    It is murder"

So there you have it. Go ahead and tell me I'm a geek, or whatever.