A Year of Music

So I was listening to The Smiths and reading allmusic.com, as I do, so I could maybe put together a few of the pieces of how the combination of John Mahar and Stephen Morrissey got to be just so potent. allmusic.com mentioned the controversy surrounding The Smiths' "Reel Around the Fountain", and I was all, "is that the same song as 'Virginia Reel Around the Fountain'?", which sent me rooting through my collection (man, is it nice having all my CDs ripped) so I could remember that no, "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain" is a Halo Benders song that Doug Martsch included on the Built to Spill live album.

But then I was trying to remember what the other covers were on that album, so I had to pull it up. I had this vague memory that they'd covered a song by The Rock*A*Teens, which they hadn't (there's just a really boring-ass cover of a Lee Perry song and a largely gratuitous version of Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" with some fabulously wanky guitar soloing), but after all that I just had to hear The Rock*A*Teens' "Hwy R" – from the Matador 15-year retrospective, Old Enough To Know Better – three or four times. It's a thunderous, fuzz-drenched 6/8 epic with lyrics that remind me of nothing so much as Sparklehorse in a particularly generous frame of mind, with maybe a tinge of Archers of Loaf (oddly enough, all these bands are from southeastern states). I could listen to it all day.

That reminded me that I'd been meaning to check out other stuff by The Rock*A*Teens, so I headed over to Rhapsody, and lo and behold, we have a whole bunch of Rock*A*Teens. I found the album that "Hwy R" was taken from, and I clicked on "Hwy R" to see if it was the same version. It was a totally different song. Weird. This stuff happens on Rhapsody a lot, though. There's a lot that can go wrong between a song is recorded and when it's ready to be heard on Rhapsody.

Some futzing around with the other tracks on the album revealed that the song I've loved for the last 3 years was actually called "It's Destiny", which is a more fitting title for it anyway, and that somebody at Matador got confused when they were putting together the compilation [nuh-uh, see below]. And just in case you were wondering: man, the Rock*A*Teens sure are talented at that style of echoing, layered avant garage. Awesome! Must hear more!

I end up going on one of these insane tangents two or three times a week. Get used to it.

UPDATE: Further research on allmusic.com indicates that the song is, in fact, "Hwy R"! I always forget they have song samples on their album pages. Great. Now I have to remember how to get someone to fix the album on Rhapsody.