My crush this month contains the two most recent examples in my life of what I’ll now describe for the first time as the “what the hell was that?” experience. You know, you’re watching TV or a film, or a car drives by with its windows open, or perhaps you happen to be walking into a cafe in Franz Joseph, NZ - wherever you may be, you suddenly hear a song that clicks with something deep down and you know you’re not even going to have to write anything down, you’ll remember those lyrics and that feeling for a long time, certainly long enough to get in front of a computer and do a lyric search and the inevitable subsequent completely legal download. (Sorry, that may have been my most run-on sentence ever, and considering it’s me, that’s saying a lot. Oh great, now an unintended pun… Tom Stoppard, stop tweaking the script of my life) Anyway, this stuff comes up a lot these days in commercials and on TV shows with exploratory and daring music supervisors. I’m thinking of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scrubs” these days, and “Northern Exposure” and “Miami Vice” historically.
Going far beyond the band playing at The Peach Pit / The Bronze, or those infamous jiggly mini music video montages on “Baywatch”, these songs are inserted for their emotional impact by someone who actually loves music and thought it would be perfect for the scene. Granted, there’s probably a lot of payola going on behind the scenes - “Scrubs” needs a death-scene song, Joshua Radin’s agent is looking to promote his new album, what can you do for me… - but overall I get the sense that someone somewhere is just having a lot of fun being the guy constantly on the lookout for distinctive new music for the show. And it’s that disctinctive quality that really sets it apart, especially in the condensed world of the television commercial. Recent standouts for me have been Nick Drake and The Polyphonic Spree shilling for Volkswagen, a snippet of Cut Chemist for iPod, and the unmistakably whimsical music of Raymond Scott for those impossible tic-tac commercials. And then of course one of the most memorable, the use of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Over The Rainbow / What A Wonderful World” exploding simultaneously in theaters (”Meet Joe Black”) and TV screens (”eToys”). It is to this distinctive, instantly-sticks-in-your-head category that my two crush songs belong.
Bedouin Soundclash, “12:59 Lullaby”
This is one of many songs that has become best known in certain circles (in fact only known because it is) a “Grey’s Song” - meaning it was featured prominently in an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy”, most likely underscoring an emotional scene of so-and-so leaving or dying or getting married. From the quality of my friends who are into the show, I’m sure it must be worthwhile, but I’ve never caught it myself - which means when said friends hear one of these songs on the show and download it and share it with me, I get to enjoy the song purely on its own merit. For instance I was playing Anna Nalick’s “”Breathe (2AM)” in the store the other day and co-worker Tom remarked that he also liked that song but people always made fun of him for liking it because of “Grey’s”. I don’t have that problem. I get to defend myself as liking it because a friend likes it because of “Grey’s”… A fine distinction, bordering on rationalization, but it’ll do. Anyway, back to this track. Definitely a spiritual descendant of Iz’s sound, this is a wondrously wistful tune, placing the singer’s plaintive Sly-Stone-after-drugs wailing vocals over Hawai’ian ukulele plucks with a bit of reggae bassline - kind of like John Lennon’s “Stand By Me” before the rest of the band kicks in. My friend Jenn gave me a copy shortly before our trip to New Zealand, and it became the oft-played theme music to our journey.
Antony & The Johnsons, “Hope There’s Someone”
This one jumped into my life unexpectedly just last week while watching a particularly good episode of the BBC sci-fi series “Torchwood”. The show is a more grown-up-minded spinoff of the recently resurrected and rejuvenated “Doctor Who” series (think anagram here folks), and extends creator Russell T. Davies’ look into the emotional impact these supernatural experiences would actually have on real people. If your girlfriend died because a rift in space opened up and turned her into a man-eating lizard and you had to kill her using the raygun your future self sent you in a time bubble, once the acrid smoke cleared, you’d probably be just as sad as if your girlfriend had died in a car accident. That’s the kind of real-world impact that Davies brings to Torchwood, and to less mopey and therefore more entertaining extent, to Doctor Who. What would it really be like to live forever? Or travel through time? And what would that be like for those left behind? These are the concepts that the musical supervisors on these two shows get to play around with while choosing songs to spotlight. In the second season of Doctor Who, for instance, an episode is musically built around old ELO tunes - at first for comedic effect, but then culminating in a profoundly moving use of the end of “Mister Blue Sky”. And in Torchwood, a similarly-themed episode contains this song by Antony & The Johnsons. I’d never heard of him/them before, but once you hear this song you’ll understand why I had that old “what the hell was that” reaction and did a lyric search and now I’ve saved you that trouble. It’s kind of indescribable, but I’ll try anyway: Nina Simone and Tiny Tim had a child, named him Antony, force-fed him nothing but Nick Drake and various dead Buckleys, and then one day he woke from a dream in which he had written “Imagine”, but then was so depressed that he hadn’t that he wrote this song instead. Oh and he invited Regina Spektor to come in halfway through and play his piano with a large polo mallet. Thank God someone was recording all that, huh?
Okay, so those are two individual songs I’m currently crushing on (also check out Lily Allen’s “LDN” and The Mekons’ “Ghosts Of American Astronauts”), but I’ve really got to second Uncle Sam on the whole Malcolm Middleton album. He gave me a copy just last week, and it’s already topping my most-played list in iTunes. I’ve been listening to the whole thing non-stop, something I haven’t really done since Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea”. And Middleton defintely echoes some of Mangum’s quirky, intensely personal yet enjoyable songwriting, as well as the “anything goes, bring it into the studio and bash on it, make it sound like a Gaelic carnival punk Mardi-Gras marching band is going by the window” style of production. Thanks to Sam for my fix of new music, and for a whole new album to crush on.
Download: Antony & The Johnsons, “Hope There’s Someone” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)
Download: Bedouin Soundclash, “12:59 Lullaby” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)
We were so busy putting together our mouthwatering playlists this month that Selective Service’s 1-year blogoversary came and went on March 1 without the appropriate fanfare!
My monthly crush is a new, random find: Malcolm Middleton, a singer/songwriter from Falkirk, Scotland, who once was a member of Arab Strap. I was poking around the NME’s website this week & stumbled upon 
Y’know, I can’t just concentrate on one ideal meal. I need to enjoy food as a day-long ritual of flavors, people, scenes, textures, smells - and sounds.
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That, folks, is 
This month, our theme was provided by another Selective Service draftee: my lovely, talented, and patient wife Alexis. And away she goes:
