This Week’s Theme: Random Artists A-Z

The themes of the Faux Shows during the last couple of months have been very simple, the posts have been very short, and the shows have been bi-weekly. This week’s theme is a random selection of songs from artists alphabetized A to Z. To make it a little more challenging, I only included artists with double-lettered names, such as selecting Herbie Hancock for H instead of Heart. There are 26 songs, one for each letter of the alphabet (there are actually 27, but it makes sense when you see it), and the double-letter attempt is pretty successful with a few creative uses of artist names.

Now You Know Your ABCs

A is for Adam Ant “Friend or Foe”: This is the title track to his solo debut.

B is for Big Black “Kerosene”: Before he was a famous indie-rock producer, Steve Albini was the leader of this influential ’80s noise band.

C is for Counting Crows “Mr. Jones”: This is the band’s first big hit.

D is for Dick Dale “Nitro”: This song is from his 1993 album Tribal Thunder, released thirty years after his last album of classic surf rock in 1964. Less than one year later, his surf rock classic “Miserlou” became the song that starts the film Pulp Fiction, just after Amanda Plummer’s character Honey Bunny yells out her iconic line “Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!”

E is for Easy-E “Only If You Want It”: This is one of his early solo recordings, released in 1992.

F is for Fred Frith “Rivers and Tides, Part 1”: This is some Difficult Listening from one of the avant garde’s best.

G is for George Gershwin “Rhapsody In Blue”: This is a great recording of Gershwin performing his classic.

H is for Herbie Hancock “Maiden Voyage”: Before he mastered jazz fusion with his band Head Hunters and recorded the MTV classic “Rockit,” Hancock was one of the best pianists in jazz. This is the title track to one of the best albums of his ’60s jazz period.

I is for Iko Iko “Hole In The River”: This is a song by a band who I assume are named after the New Orleans song, originally recorded in 1953 as “Jock-a-Mo” and made famous in 1965 by The Dixie Cups. This song is a pleasant instrumental.

J is for Jack Jones “Willow Weep For Me”: This is a cover of the jazz standard by an artist who I first came to know through his guest appearances on Chris Elliott’s long-forgotten and extremely under-rated sitcom Get A Life.

K is for King Kong “Funny Farm”: I wanted to include the song “Old Man On The Bridge” but couldn’t find it on my streaming service, so I used this song instead. Short history: One of the best hardcore bands of the mid-80s was Kentucky’s Squirrel Bait. That band broke up and turned into Bastro and Slint. Slint helped invent the post-rock genre. Some of the members of Slint also formed the much more humorous and much less serious band King Kong.

L is for Lene Lovich “Lucky Number”: This is the breakout 1979 single by one of the original British New Wave artists.

M is for Marilyn Manson “The Beautiful People”: I am not much of a fan of this band and others like them, but this song has always been one of my favorites of the period.

N is for Naughty By Nature “O.P.P.”: This is the classic and one of the best rap singles of all time. It it also one of the best samples of all time. Dance.

O is for Oliver Onions “Dune Buggy”: This is my favorite discovery of the show. The Italian duo Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, also known as Oliver Onions, have been working together for almost fifty years as recording artists, producers, film and television soundtrack composers, and on other musical endeavors. They were so prolific in the late ’70s and ’80s that they had to record under a variety of different names. This song is a fantastic selection from their classic ’70s period. The actual Oliver Onions was an early twentieth century British writer of ghost stories. Overall, both the Italian music duo and the writer are worth further investigation.

P is for Patti Page “Nevertheless”: Patti Page was the best-selling female artist of the ’50s, selling over 100 million records.

Q is for Queen/Queen “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions”: I couldn’t find a double-Q artist, so I got creative and went with arguably the greatest double A-side single of all time.

R is for Red Rider “Lunatic Fringe”: This is a long-lost song that appeared on MTV for a few weeks during the golden years of the channel.

S is for Syd Straw “Actress”: I first heard of Syd Straw when she provided vocals for Golden Palaminos in the late ’80s. I was a fan of her 1989 solo debut album Surprise and was going to include a track from that album, but I listened to her 2008 album Pink Velour and chose this song instead. This is the last track on her last album, and is a wonderful swan song for an artist who never got the attention she deserved.

T is for The The “Good Morning Beautiful”: This is the opening track from the band’s overlooked gem Mind Bomb.

U is for Ufo Ufo “Strange Clouds”: I don’t know anything about this band, but this is pretty good piece of modern dance pop.

V is for Vince Vance & The Valiants “Shake Rattle and Roll”: I thought using a band with 3 Vs may make up for the Q selection. This is a passable attempt at one of the greatest songs of early rock and roll.

W is for Wet Willie “Keep On Smilin'”: This is the first of 3 hits for this Alabama rock group who I have never listened to before except for this song. I’m okay with that life-choice.

X is for The xx “I Dare You”: This is another stretch of the double-letter rule, but close enough. The xx are a twenty-first century electro-pop group.

Y is for Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Maps”: This triple-Y should definitely make up for the double-Z stretch coming up next. This is one of the most popular songs by this band who found most of their popularity about twenty years ago.

Z is for ZZ Top “Jesus Just Left Chicago”: Selecting ZZ Top is obvious as a double-Z. This is one of my favorites by the trio. R.I.P. Dusty Hill.

Thanks for listening (and reading)!

This week’s track list is already listed above.

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