New Countdown!: October 2020

 

The Killers

Hey everyone! We are blasting towards the end of 2020 and, as you may know, or maybe not, 2021 will bring a switching of source charts for this show! I've been using the Alternative Songs airplay chart for a little over 10 years, but next year we're going to give the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart a shot. It will reflect the airplay as well as the streaming and purchasing of songs. So it'll be more in the hands of the people!

This episode was a lot of fun and it also brought one of my favorite songs of 2020 onto the show!

Enjoy!

Countdown #422

***Featuring***

All Time Low feat Black Bear

Bad Religion

Bakar

Bastille feat Graham Coxon

Dayglow

I Dont Know How But They Found Me

Judah & the Lion

Juice WRLD x Marshmello

The Killers

Machine Gun Kelly

Matt Maeson

Me First & the Gimme Gimmes

Peach Tree Rascals

Powfu feat beabadoobee

Royal & the Serpent

Twenty One Pilots

Wallows feat Clairo

Weezer

New Post!: 2019 Artists of the Year!

The Wonder Years

Here we are again for another glorious Artists of the Year countdown. I love it so much and this one is an EXCELLENT one. Great songs, but also songs that point to specific events in the year, which is just what you want in an AOTY countdown, you know?


2019 Artists of the Year Countdown

***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
The Beatles
blink-182
Cast of Hamilton
Fall Out Boy
Gin Blossoms
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
The Mountain Goats
New Found Glory
Pearl Jam
Taylor Swift
The Wonder Years

New Post!: December 2019

Local Natives

And so we come to the end of the year! Do you all understand how CLOSE we are to catching up? The answer is: very close! I hope you enjoy this one. There are some gems that cropped up at the very end of the year that are worth checking out!


Countdown #412

***Featuring***
Absofacto
Billie Eilish
Catfish & the Bottlemen
Coldplay
Local Natives
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Meg Myers
Rex Orange County
SHAED
twentyonepilots
Weezer
White Reaper

Special Countdown: 12 Years of Last.fm (Part 4) (#20-11)

Counting Crows ca 1994

I'm back with another installment of the countdown of the Top 50 artists that I listened to from 2/14/06-2/14/18. This episode is the much-anticipated Bottom 10 of the Top 20.


12 Years of Last.fm (Part 4)

***Featuring***
Ben Folds
Cartel
Counting Crows
Fall Out Boy
Green Day
Kanye West
Less Than Jake
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
R.E.M.
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers

New Countdown: Mug mug mug

Foster the People

Running a little bit behind, but we're getting things done this weekend! It's a fun, punky little show this week and I think you'll enjoy it very much!


Countdown #373

***Featuring***
AJR featuring Rivers Cuomo
Alice Merton
Descendents
Foster the People
Imagine Dragons
The Killers
lovelytheband
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Muse
Pennywise
Portugal. The Man
Walk the Moon

New Countdown: Watch the Video!

Original Broadway Cast of Cats

Hey everyone! Hey! I'm on time this week! I honestly can't believe it and I'm really really happy about it. It makes me feel organized and WITH IT.

I hope you enjoy this episode and that you're enjoying this January Artist of the Month :)


Countdown #365

***Featuring***
AJR featuring Rivers Cuomo
Alice Merton
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Beck
Imagine Dragons
The Lumineers
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Portugal. The Man
Thirty Seconds to Mars
Vance Joy
Walk the Moon

2014 Artists of the Year Countdown

St. Vincent

Just as the Year End Countdown (which went up last week) closes out the year, the Artists of the Year Countdown kicks off the new one.

Sometimes it feels like it's the same artists every year, but I think there's enough variety and variance to still make it a fun listen. Hopefully you agree!!


2014 Artists of the Year Countdown

***Featuring***
The Beatles
blink-182
Dessa
Doomtree
Idina Menzel
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
New Found Glory
Paramore
P.O.S
Smashing Pumpkins
St. Vincent

New Countdown: Indestructible!!

Milky Chance

Well, we did it. It's finally done. 225 nearly defeated me, but I said, "Nay! I will not let a nasty stomach bug prevent the Alternative Tunes from reaching the ears of my fans! They've worked too hard for too long to keep up with my ramblings for me to quit now! I must create an episode with extra ramblings! Extra windy ramblings!"

And that's just what I did :)

Countdown #225

***Featuring***
alt-J
Bastille
Big Data featuring Joywave
The Black Keys
Fall Out Boy
Foo Fighters
Girls
Hozier
Imagine Dragons
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Milky Chance
Vance Joy

Throwback Thursday: 1961

10. Chubby Checker - Let's Twist Again
9. Connie Francis - Together
8. Brenda Lee - Dum Dum
7. Dee Clark - Raindrops
6. Del Shannon - Hats Off to Larry

Well, we've reached the point where music videos are kind of not a thing that you can really find if you want to find them from the year the songs are from. But here's a bonus. I know this song because of the Me First and the Gimme Gimmes cover. This one.

There's really no excuse for me not being able to find a music video for that. Or like, a live video or something. But here we are. I hope you enjoy the tunes!

5. Chris Kenner - I Like It Like That Part 1
4. Arthur Lyman Group - Yellow Bird
3. U.S. Bonds - Quarter to Three
2. Brook Benton - The Boll Weevil Song
1. Bobby Lewis - Tossin' and Turnin'

New Countdown: Fences v. Bleachers

Coldplay

I am always finishing these up so late, that I never feel like anything I write in the blog posts for these podcasts is worthwhile. All I do is talk about how late it is or how tired I am.

While both of those are true, I'm going to try to figure out something else to talk about. Hmmmm. Nope. Not coming up with anything.

Chris Martin was in a sketch on SNL a couple of weeks go and he was funny! Good for him. I always love it when some members of the band get to be in sketches. Or even star in them!

Countdown #198

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
The Black Keys
Bleachers
Cage the Elephant
Coldplay
Fitz & the Tantrums
Kings of Leon
KONGOS
Me First & the Gimme Gimmes
Phantogram
Phoenix

Me First Album Update!

Brooklyn Vegan posted a new song and a tracklist for the forthcoming Me First and the Gimme Gimmes album. The song is great and the tracklist looks fantastic.

Here's the tracklist:

Are We Not Men? We Are Diva! Tracklist:
1. I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)
2. Straight Up (Paula Abdul)
3. Believe (Cher)
4. Beautiful (Christina Aguilera)
5. My Heart Will Go On (Celine Dion)
6. I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)
7. Top of the World (The Carpenters)
8. Speechless (Lady Gaga)
9. Karma Chameleon (Culture Club)
10. Crazy for You (Madonna)
11. On the Radio (Donna Summer)
12. The Way We Were (Barbra Streisand)

And here's a link to the article with the new song ("Beautiful")

New Me First and the Gimme Gimmes album this May!

So, Fat Mike did an AMA on Reddit a couple of weeks ago where he said that the new theme for the new Me First and the Gimme Gimmes album was going to be Divas.

Well Joey Cape just posted a link to an Esquire article about the album, which is going to be called Are We Not Men? We Are Diva! which is slated for release in May.

Yay!!

Here's a link to the article, which also contains a cover of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" which is fantastic, of course.

One Year, 100 Albums: #37 Me First and the Gimme Gimmes "Blow in the Wind"

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Blow in the Wind, 2001

I first heard about Me First and the Gimme Gimmes from my friend Erin. But she had only heard of them as something of a rumor. THEN we were on dinner break from some play we were doing so a bunch of us went to the mall. And that's where I found my first Me First album: Are a Drag which was all showtunes made famous by women. The thing was, I didn't know most of the songs, so I was worried that they did covers AND originals. But, slowly but surely, I tracked down the musicals that each song was from using CDNow (which I believe got absorbed by Amazon) (Wikipedia would have been very helpful back then) and confirmed that they were a 100% cover band.

So then I got their first album Have a Ball (70's covers) and eagerly awaited the release of this, their 3rd album. It's all 60's covers and it very nearly didn't make the list. In fact, if I could (and I could, but it would be a hassle), I would have had two Me First albums here: this one and their "black" album Take a Break because I love them roughly equally and I guess it was just the inclusion of "Oh Girl" and "Mona Lisa" (which never really take off for me) on Take a Break, that caused me to choose this one over that one.

This was the first Me First album I actually ANTICIPATED and let me tell you something: there's few less exciting anticipations than the anticipation of a Me First album. You know it's going to be great and weird and amazing. In fact, I'm anticipating a new one right now!

Their Beatles cover threw me off a little since it wasn't as direct a cover as some of the other songs, but now I love this version almost as much as the original!

Some Me First songs contain references to punk rock songs. "My Favorite Things" starts off like Bad Religion's "Generator", "You've Got a Friend" starts off like "Blitzkrieg Bop", and "On the Road Again" starts off like the Misfits' "Astro Zombies".

This album has references, too. "Elenore" maintains the basic instrumentation of "London Calling" throughout the whole song. But my favorite ref on the album is the one that kicks off the album. I heard this first and THEN the song it's referencing, but "Blowin' In the Wind" references the hidden track on NOFX's Punk in Drublic which contains an outtake of the band trying to get the harmony right on the line "How did the cat get so fat?" from the song "Perfect Government". Which is SO obscure until you know the NOFX album and then it's fantastic.

You should probably just buy all the Me First albums.

I couldn't find any music videos, which doesn't surprise me, so here's three songs. One from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end. (Fun fact: The last song is a cover of a song I featured a couple of posts ago with Carole King!)

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Blowin' in the Wind
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Who Put the Bomp
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

You can buy Blow in the Wind at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes

New Countdown! On Time! Woohoo!

Well, we're back on track this week and so I'm feeling very good about that :)

Man, I love doing this countdown. Every time I listen to the American Top 40 reruns from the 70's, I feel like I'm listening to a colleague.

By the way, a great birthday/Christmas gift for me would be a copy of the AT40 from my birthweek. Or something. I would love to have on demand access to them. But maybe they would lose some of their luster.

Anyways, here's the show!

Countdown #124

***Featuring***
Alex Clare
AWOLNATION
The Black Keys
fun.
Imagine Dragons
The Killers
The Lumineers
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Mumford & Sons
Muse
Passion Pit

2011 Artists of the Year

This is one of my favorite episodes of the year. I look forward to it and I think that all my anticipation has paid off. I had so much fun putting it together and I think you'll have a lot of fun listening to it!

2011 Artists of the Year

***Featuring***
Dessa
Doomtree
King Post Kitsch
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
New Found Glory
NOFX
P.O.S.
Rise Against
Smashing Pumpkins
Wild Flag

So, they didn't have two of my top 10 (which I posted earlier this month) so I naturally replaced them with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes EP's. This is to vote in the Hype Machine's blogger category for their Zeitgeist 2011 (I love end of year stuff!!)

Liveblogging the First Listen: Me First & the Gimme Gimmes - Sing in Japanese

If you click on the tag at the bottom of this post, you'll see that the Sing in Japanese EP by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes is a highly anticipated release around these parts.

So I thought I would do a liveblog of my first listen. I have listed the songs' English titles below and I will write whatever crosses my mind while each song is playing. I'm kind of wary about doing this because...well, they'll be singing in Japanese!

If someone familiar with these songs could comment with some context on the songs, that would be very helpful.

1. Hero

It's so strange. I mean, it could a) be gibberish or b) be a classic song...wait. Did he just say James Dean? I can tell that this is going to be an enjoyable EP. I'm already ready for the chorus... HERO...something something. Love it. It's amazing how the music makes it completely relatable. Kind of makes you think about how unimportant the lyrics of a song can be. This is amazing. Haha HAI HAI. Love it.

2. Kokoro No Tabi

Lol. I feel like I've suffered brain damage. The crowd vox always make me Singh along, but I can't sing along! I don't know the words! Or the language! Me first can do anything. This EP is proof. I wonder they'd ever perform these songs live in America. I also wonder if, someday, I'll be able to sing along....kind of makes me want to learn Japanese. Haha. The other thing is that I'm not sure what level of irony these songs are supposed to be heard at.

3. Kekkon Shiyoyo

Ooh. A little social d reference there. I wondered if they'd do that thing where they quote the melody of other classic punk songs. And they did! Hey there was the title! I can sing that too! Kekkon Shiyoyo! Mmm mmm mmm! He really sings that! Haha how many of you are actually going to hear this EP? It's not like when I was doing radio dad. Lots of people listened to that. I bet I'm the only person in my city that has this EP.

4. C-C-C

Haha. It's really strange to have song after song of this. I saw a review that was like, I didn't think they'd ACTUALLY sing in JAPANESE. Fuckin Weridos. Hey there was a little bit of English! "I'm so high...I'm so down...I'm so blue...no no no." haha this is such a surreal listen, guys. If you can pick up this EP, do. It's a trip.

5. 22 Sai No Wakare

But I mean, the songs are completely great. If I didn't know better, I would guess that Spike was making up "Japanese-sounding" lyrics. But I know that he didn't. Well, I suppose I don't KNOW it. Can I get some confirmation that these are actual Japanese songs and that spike is singing them at least close to correctly? I think this might be my favorite song so far. Good, drums and guitars. It sounds like a Japanese western song.

6. Linda Linda

Ok this song is twice as long as the others...oh wow. It's gonna be all ska-ey. I love it. Move over, 22 Sai No Wakare. There's a new sheriff in town. And those horns are by El Mariachi Bronx. Tricia, you know them! I hope you're reading this! Oh man. This song is so great. It's cool to hear the Gimmes play so chillish. This whole EP is going to get lots of plays. I can now confirm that. I'm absolutely speechless about how I'm enjoying this! Ooh fat mike can sing the chorus of this one! Repeatedly! Incessantly. And a nice little stereotypical Japanese accent at the end. Nice.

Well, that was a quick 15 minutes. Far more enjoyable than I feared. You should definitely pick up this EP. It's on amazon. I think you can DL it from iTunes. It's a bold next step in this bands illustrious discography. I suppose Glee is going to have Kekkon Shiyoyo on the show this season. Thanks for reading. Arigato. Sayonara.

Welp, here it is!

So, this is the culmination of the rumors and the hearsay!

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Sing in Japanese

I'm excited to hear how this turns out!

Gimme Gimme an Update!

So, a bit of a follow-up on the mystery of the next Me First and the Gimme Gimmes theme.

On Twitter today, Fat Mike (@FatMike_of_NOFX) said, "Can't tell you what the theme of the new Gimmes EP is, but check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVz6Ogfowjo&feature=related"

So, I click on the link and the video is clearly from one of the Asian countries. So I'm thinking to myself, "Wha? Is this some kind of joke?"

Then the Fat Wreck Chords Twitterfeed (@fat_wreck) tweeted this: "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes in the studio! http://www.fatwreck.com/news/detail/375".

Which brought me to the information that, "The six song EP includes covers of songs by famed Japanese artists such as: “Kekkon Shiyoyo” by Takuryo Yoshida, “Hero” by Kai Band and “Kokoro No Tabi” by Tulip."

Clicking on the link contained in THAT link (it's a labyrinth of links on the Internet, isn't it?) told me that this, in addition to Go Down Under (the Australian covers EP), " is just the second in a series of what he calls the band’s 'world EPs'; ones focusing on Spanish, Italian, German and French should also surface in the future."

This is basically the most exciting and terrifying news I've heard in a long time. These will be covers EP's with songs that it's almost impossible that any of their American fans will have heard. It will indeed be a different listening experience and I see what Fat Mike meant by "nothing we've ever done before." AND by  "I don't know if that's a good thing or not." Time will tell.

Can anyone give me a rundown on those three songs? I know I have at least one reader who could help me with this particular genre...

Anybody's Guess

So about a day ago, Fat Mike (bassist for NOFX and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, head of Fat Wreck Chords) tweeted, "New Gimmes record is almost done, and let me say its like nothing we've ever done before. I don't know if that's a good thing or not"

And it got my mind reeling about what it could be....and I'm stumped. So far, they've done:

Have a Ball (70's covers)
Are a Drag (Showtunes Covers)
Blow in the Wind (60's covers)
Take a Break (African-American Covers)
Love Their Country (Country Covers) (Still one of my favorite album titles ever)
Go Down Under (Australian Covers)

So the problem is that there have been so many punk cover albums (Punk Goes...Metal, 80's, 90's, Pop, Crunk, Classic Rock) that it boggles my mind what they could be up to.

What do you guys think?