Random Song of the Day: When I'm Dead and Gone by McGuinness Flint

Today was one of those whirlwind sort of days. I had to drop off Eickholt the younger at the parents house and trek down to Saint Paul to sign some paperwork, then head back to the parents in time to make sure Eickholt the younger was able to take a nap before "hitting time" (when ETY gets tired, ETY likes to hit to get the point across that they are indeed tired).

The good thing was that the route to the parents takes me through Blaine, which means I get to stop off at Half Price Books for some quarter 45s. Acting on a tip, I knew there was a bunch of 80s and 90s country 45s, so I feasted on some Randy Travis, Garth Brooks and George Strait. I also procured a remix 7" of Every Heartbeat by Amy Grant, which caused me to react like some people do when they find Elvis records on Sun.

While hunting I found a 45 on that weird 70s Capitol Bullseye label that I had seen mentioned on a couple of music blogs. For a quarter, I figured I could give When I'm Dead and Gone by McGuinness Flint a chance. Good call on my part. The backstory is a bunch of 60s bit players got together and rocked a bitchin song inspired by Robert Johnson. They included Mandolin and kazoo as instruments. It hit #2 in the UK and top 40 in the US in 1970, and then the band imploded. And here it is, for your listening pleasure:

Ruffles New Packaging

As far back as I can remember, Ruffles have had the same package. My memories seem to go back to 1987, when I would ride around with my grandma while she collected coins from her laundromats and as a treat I would get a quarter bag of cheddar and sour cream Ruffles from a vending machine. They are the most perfect of chips, flawless like a victory by Kung Lao over Cyrax.

This commercial pretty much sums up the perfect Ruffles era. And it still pisses me off because I cannot roll my tongue.



My world came crashing down last night at Target. Because Ruffles changed their package. What the sweet fresh hell is this?:




This looks like some generic dollar store/bodega isn. Seriously, what intern did they get to design this package? For shame Frito-Lay, why would you mess with perfection? The bag on the left is regal, classic, and makes me want to house these chips while crying about relationship problems drunk off my ass at 5AM (NOTE: that may or may not have happened like 5 years ago). The new bag makes me want to shop at a Dollar Tree. I mean, I will probably still buy them frequently, but the regality of the Ruffle is now lessened!

Random Song of the Day - A Good Woman Is Hard to Find by Morphine

It is nearly impossible in this day and age to not be able to own music. Years ago, in the stone ages before Napster, the only way to obtain music was to either tape it off the radio or purchase it. This led to many nights of me sleeping with KDWB or The Edge left on my crappy Emerson 3 in 1 record player hoping to catch songs that I either didn't want to purchase or couldn't purchase. I never will forget the night (probably in 1998 or so) when All for Love by Color Me Badd came on KDWB at 2AM and I managed to tape it. Why it was on that late or 5 years after it hit #1, I'll never know...but the gods were smiling on me that night.

For the longest time, I couldn't find the song A Good Woman Is Hard to Find by Morphine anywhere. I heard it on a Valentine's Day countdown on The Current about 10 years ago and dug it's skronky fucked up sax and strange semi crooned singing. The only things I really knew about the group is that Cure For Pain had been a Modern Rock hit here in Minneapolis in the early 90s but didn't chart anywhere else, and that BMG used to pimp out their albums for their record club when I was a member.

Later on I found out that the lead singer Mark Sandman suffered a heart attack and died onstage in 2000. I didn't even realize the band had been active that long. Their music always felt like it came out from some other time and place, sort of timeless but not of any particular place, if that makes sense. Not many bands really fit into that category (the only ones that pop into my head at the moment are CCR and the Band) but Morphine truly does.

The other day I finally got A Good Woman Is Hard to Find via an MP3 rip. One of my white whales has been conquered. Now if I could only get my hands on What Does It Take by Honeymoon Suite...

Random Song of the Day: Lost And Found by Brooks and Dunn

While driving back from a job interview yesterday, this gem came on a playlist on my iPod. I make a playlist a month and stock it with whatever strikes my fancy. This particular playlist had a lot of aggy rap (Boot Camp Clik and Company Flow) and random radio pop circa 1988 (Scarlett and Black's excellent You Don't Know in particular). In the middle of all this, the one country song that came up was Brooks and Dunn's 1992 single Lost and Found.

Lost and Found was the 5th and final single off their massive country album Brand New Man and was the first single to be released after Boot Scootin' Boogie, which was a #1 country and #50 pop hit, back when NOTHING country hit that high on the pop charts. So Lost and Found's #6 country chart placing seems like a bit of a letdown.

The thing for me that stands out about Lost, is the overall feeling of the song. I read once that certain songs can convey a feeling of nostalgia without specifically stating so in the lyrics. Prime examples of this are 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins and Midnight City by M83. When I listen to Lost and Found's tale of looking for a runaway woman who can't be tracked down, I get the same wistful feels. Not too many songs do that for me without a specific memory tied to them. The only memory this song gives is summer evenings, which really doesn't make sense since the song peaked in popularity in the winter of 1993.

Anyways, see if this forgotten country great makes you feel the way that I do:

Billboard Hot 100 Week of 8/29 (AKA What Have, What Have, What Have I Done to Deserve This?)

Wow. Just wow. I decided to watch the entire chart sweet (100 to 1) for last week's Billboard Hot 100. Since I don't actively engage with top 40 as much as I used to (unless I am in the car with the fam and Cities 97 or KDWB is on), I felt the need to see just what the country considers hot. So, if you have 20 or so minutes to kill, you can do it too!



Some of the takeaways that I got from this particular Hot 100:

-Country music is in it's Jiggy Phase and that shit ain't pretty. To be fair, it seems like it is the Jiggy Phase crossed with 1980s hair metal. Nothing but partying, shitty tribal tattoos and live performance videos. Bro country has to be the worst era for any genre of music ever. The only song that truly sounded country was the Eric Church one, and maaaaaybe the Zac Brown Band song that reminded me of a Herb Ritts video

-What the hell is the deal with the weird Autotune voice effect with all the rappers not named Drake or J. Cole? How can someone find that endearing?

-Speaking of Drake, I think he has reached the tipping point. How many features can one man have? We are on some Nate Dogg in 2000 shit right now. Like Boy Meets Girl, I am waiting for the star to fall

-Fetty Wap just needs to go away. Dude has multiple songs in this countdown and not an iota of talent. I guess we know what white suburban kids dub thee Lil Wayne now?

-I know that Ed Sheeran gets a lot of flack, but compared to most of the shit on here, he sounds like the goddamn Beatles

-The best thing I heard was in the Omarion song where the chick says (and I am probably paraphrasing) "You beta eat dat ass like groceries". I guess Gawker was right, we are truly living in a golden era of butthole munching

-The Weeknd is so far ahead of other R&B in the talent and visuals area it isn't fair. Seriously, it shocks me that someone this fucked up is hugely popular (two singles in the top 5). I guess true talent and pop song craft sometimes does rise to the top?

-The top 20 portion of the chart sounds nothing like the rest of the chart. If I were running the charts, I would recalculate the formulas so the bottom half isn't just Bro Country and Shit Hop. It seems like it's ghettoized into that area, with the poppier stuff rising to the top of the pops

-'Cheerleader' and 'Can't Feel My Face' probably would have been hits in any era they were released

If I can, I think I will do a comparison to the Hot 100 from like 20 or 30 years ago to see what the music of that time was like. I cannot imagine it being any worse than this.