Beck is a pretty amazing musician. It seems like most people have an opinion of his work. It is one of those hate it, or love it situations. I personally love it. I was first exposed to Beck, when the singles from “Mellow Gold” were in rotation. So, songs like “Beer Can” and “Loser” were my introduction. At first, I was really confused about the seeming lack of continuity in the ideas expressed by his lyrics. It took a little bit of digging deeper for me to finally understand that the stream of conscious-style-flow was one of earmarks of Beck’s M.O..

One great thing I really like about Beck, is that he has been a very prolific artist, over the years. I have a lot of respect for musicians who work hard. I can’t say that I have loved all of his records, with equal enthusiasm. Just the same, I appreciate that he is getting it done. The song that I’m sharing is from Midnight Vultures. To me, this is one of those albums that I could start from track No. 1 and just let it play the entire way through without skipping a song. Even though a lot of the songs are kind of experimental sounding, I’m sure that I’m not alone in my opinion on this one. Anyway, the song is “Nicotine and Gravy.” I really like the title for a couple of reasons. First, my friend Joel, who I used to play music with in high school, had a song called “Nicotine and Caffeine.”  I feel like this song is probably Beck’s version of that same song. Here it is: Press Play.

As with probably half, or even more than half of my generation, one of my all-time favorite rock bands is Nirvana. There is nothing that I can write about them that hasn’t already been written 1000 times over. The song that I’m sharing from them, is not actually a Nirvana, song. It was actually written by a group called the Wipers, out of Portland OR. Kurt was a big fan of theirs, and actually covered a few of their songs. This one is called “D7.” To my knowledge it was only available on the “Outcesticide” imports. I love it. If you like Nirvana, you probably love it too. Turn it up and press play.

Taking it back to the garage band revival, again this week with The Vines. I love these guys, bad. The Vines, hail from from the land down under. Which is kind of cool, considering that I can only think of 3 other Aussie bands that made it big. (although I’m sure there are many more). Midnight Oil, Men at Work, and Silverchair are the ones that come to mind. When they released the “Get Free” single, it was instantly one of my favorites. Their most recent album “Melodia” seems to have mellowed out, a bit. The songs aren’t completely soft, or anything like that. But they definitely seem less angry, generally. In addition to the musical style, I love the sound quality. The guitars all have rich deep tone, reminiscent of analog recordings from the 60’s. The song I picked out for today is from “Melodia.” It’s called “Orange Amber.” It was between that and “Rainfall” from the “Winning Days” album. They are both currently two of my favorite songs. Ultimately, I went with “Orange Amber” because it is short and sweet, at just over 2 minutes long. Chekkidout.

When I was in high school, the group released an album called “Sailing the Seas of Cheese.” It was an amalgamation of the weirdest/coolest music that I had heard, at that time in my life. Claypool also does vocals and has a very Kermit the Frog-esque voice. Despite the odd vocal quality, Claypool’s voice doesn’t detract from the music, as much as it does give it character.

When I first obtained a copy of “Sailing the Seas of Cheese,” I was in the beginning stages of learning to play bass guitar, myself. As I would listen to the album, I though that there was no way that all of that noise was coming out of a single bass track played by one person. It was not until attending Lollapalooza 1994, and seeing Primus live, that I truly appreciated Claypool’s skills. He is amazing to watch.

The song that I’m sharing today is from the seas of cheese album. It was one of the more heavily played singles from the album. It is called “Jerry was a race car driver.” Give it a listen.