Musical Fits

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Do you have them? I am referring to the total saturated infatuation with a single album, group, or even sometimes a single song which causes you to get caught up in a loop and be unable to stop playing it.

Examples: When Strange Little Girls came out, I listened to it almost continuously during every waking moment for a two week period. It caused my eyes to roll back in my head and spittle to form in the corners of my mouth. Painful as it was, I could only stop when I began to fear the ramifications of my future mental health.

A few weeks ago, Gaz innocently quoted the song One by U2, and I had some kind of seizure which caused me to feel a deep need to listen exclusively to U2 for about two weeks solid. I got a phone call at 3 AM one morning from a neighbor saying that if I played The Fly one more time, they were going to kill me with a shotgun without further ado.

I once listened to the song Our Father God Celestial, an 11 minute, 15th century Scottish song with two cellos and female vocals (the original setting of the Lord's Prayer) continuously on a loop for three days in total darkness with no sleep. Had a religious experience, but that's another thread...

A few days ago I put on Boys and Girls by Bryan Ferry, and no matter how hard I try, I am unable to remove it from my CD player. I'm on my sixth listen this morning.

Is anyone else this musically obsessive compulsive? Just wondering. Perhaps I need some kind of treatment...

[Dawn]

You need treatment dear. Soon.

[nanook]

hahaha!!!
it is so funny, ramona......i just finally took "The Silence" by Mike Koglin, off a playlist of it's own, on loop.

it was in a playlist of mine. it comes on today and i had this urge, u know the one, to hear it, fifty million times over.
unlike u, i put it on repeat, for about 3 or 4 days straight, about a year ago, all day and at night when i went to bed and slept like a baby.
i do wonder what effect the subliminal message to my rem-state sleep, it might have upon me, though.

[greedy_lars]

yea, happens to me all the time, last was...ummm, either Rolling Stones - Exile On Main St. or Weather Report - Night Passages, dont remember. when you said musical fits, i thought you were talking about something more like this...


few years ago i saw The Pretenders, was a pretty good show except for when Crissy Hinde threw a fit after the first couple of songs. first? time she stopped singing after a few lines, the band stoped playing with puzzeled looks on their faces, and she said "hey security guards, let those people come up front and dance, now!!!!" the security guards at this place were nazis, and would not let anyone out of their seats. so now they did. then few minutes later she stops again, this time says "hey i see people looking at me with binoculars, stop it!! no binoculars!!" then she chucks her tamborene into the stage and it breaks, then she picks up a nice sharp piece and chucks it into the crowd.

she then paces back and forth for a bit, then the concert resumes without any more weird chit. and hey, the lead guitarist was doin this cool thing where he would be playing then would bend down one of his guitar stirngs with the pick, then let it fly out into the crowd. i caught one, blue, says pretenders on it.

[ab-NORM-al]

oh yeah...especially when I'm mixing someone I've recorded

um.....more on that later

[greedy_lars]

hmm scheck this out. 4? days ago i woke up with Warren Zevon - Rolland The Headless Thompson Gunner runnin thru my brain from the moment i was awake, and continued to for 3 days straight. odd thing is, i havent heard that song in many years. then yesterday it was Doobie Bros - Chinna Grove, again, something i havent heard in years. kinda like they came outta my dreams, and my oh my havent my dreams been interesting lately. sex, bank robbery, violence. perhaps ive been watching too much Farscape before bed. im currently listening to Flash In The Pan- debut album, and Hey St Peter is drowning out the Doobies. ahhh...

[thinker]

I get musical fits all the time. It's usually something rock-oriented, though not always.

[Turnstile To One]

As for me my fit started 26 years ago. I remember the day it started as if it was yesterday. Skippin school at a close friends house. I was utterly stunned and in awe of what I was hearing. I was listening to YES music. "AWAKEN" from Going for the One album. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was to realize later that yes I HAD. My friend said that he could see it in my eyes. I haven't forsaken it since.

[gazdet]

I'm always doing the "musical fits" thing

It all started with the Beatles....*introduce mystical "way back" music theme here*...

Magical Mystery Tour/ Sgt Peppers Lonely hearts Club album (is that the title?...it was so long ago ) Later I even started a group called "Sgt Pepper " and worked the clubs here playing nothing but Beatles songs

Alice Coopers - Welcome to my Nightmare. ..of which I must have bought 5 albums and played or scratched each one to death, at the time my friends and I even staged concerts at school and mimed/sang the whole thing every weekend on stage....(I got Vincent Price's lines down to an art too. )

Then in no particular order came the relentless musical fits of these albums...

Rodriguez- Coming from Reality.
Pyramid - The Alan Parsons Project.
Deep Purple - 24 Carat Purple.
Pink Floyd - The Wall (and everything else)
Neil Young - Comes a Time.
Foreigner.
Bread - Best of Bread
Chicago.
Boston.
Pink Floyd.
Dire Straits.
Eagles - Hotel California.
Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees
Ricky Lee Jones.(1st album)
Matchbook - Ian Moss (Aussie stuff v.good)
Cold Chisel (self titled- more Aussie stuff)
Matchbox20
Hootie and the Blowfish (both sets)
Love and Money (self titled bunch of session muso's..rare, and def worth a listen!)
U2 (sorry Shawn )
The Verve- Urban Hymns (which I am currently flogging to death as we speak )
...and yeah ...heaps of others.

[greedy_lars]

"its a dangerous place, a dangerous place"

[Ramona_A_Stone]

I've decided that I'm going to start using this thread to state my latest musical fit, sort of like Cornflakeboyee's thread, which seems to be the most popular thread in the Underground ever. However, instead of just saying "I'm listening to this at the moment," I'll only state things that I'm currently madly looping and can't get over. Feel free to join in.

And this week, it's HUNTERS & COLLECTORS, a very under-rated Australian band in my opinion. Most Australians I talk to haven't even heard of them, much less most Americans. They broke in the states with their one hit from their first (82) eponymous US CD: "Talking To A Stranger", which features the typically exasperated vocals of lead singer Mark Seymour and got played on MTV twice, or maybe three times. It was a very dark B&W video featuring Mark in the shower with goggles and nose-plugs, being a freak.

"Souvent pour j'amuser les hommes d'equipage
And it's like talking to a stranger
You tasted mustard when she painted your face
And it was like talking to a stranger
Remember the panic in its delectable face, when you touched it
It was like talking to a stranger
And Oh Miss Jesus tell me where are your black eyes?
Your baby was talking to a stranger"

Their one other brush with fame seems to have been Pearl Jam choosing to cover "Throw Your Arms Around Me" from 1986's Human Frailty. Back in the Napster boom days, one could find literally a hundred live versions of this song by both bands.

I fairly recently discovered Mark is a school teacher and the brother of another (perhaps more famous) lead singer, Nick from Crowded House. At any rate, his passionate, if not half-crazed, lyrics and vocals are one of the most important elements of this band for me. H&C, after producing quite a number of fine albums, has since dissolved and Mark, I understand, has made several solo albums, but I've not heard any.

John Archer, one of the hands-down ballsiest bass players ever, is another vital element, spurring the groups overall organic rock-and-fucking-roll-sound. Try "(Betty's Worry or) The Slab" or my own personal fave "Little Chalkie" (both from The Jaws Of Life, 1984) for some good examples of his raw pop-and-thump sound. He can make Flea sound a bit sophisticated.

("Little Chalkie", by the way, is apparently a ballad about the legendary urban figure in Australia who leaves chalk messages wherever he goes; there was some vague reference to this during the olympics, involving the word "freedom" being writ large on a bridge overlooking the Sydney harbor, I think, but I've never been able to find anything much about this--any of you natives know anything?)

The "Horns Of Contempt," Hunters' ever-present squelchy brass section, are another important element, especially when they're doing Ray Charles covers, like "I Believe." And Jack Howard, keyboardist, apparently has the world's only coal-fed and steam-driven synthesizer.

Another thing that really sold me on this band is that they worked with Producer Connie (or Conrad) Plank, a very inventive German engineer from Kraftwerk, Can and Cluster & Eno fame. Connie appears on the albums Jaws of Life and, my overall favorite, The Fireman's Curse. Before I'd even heard the band, I read an interview with Eno about some of the strange rituals he (Connie) was putting this innocent but ballsy Aussie rock band through: things like facing guitar amps into the corners of enormous warehouses and micing them from the opposite corner, or recording vocals from 150 yards away, or micing them, sending them to another amp, micing that amp and sending it to another amp etc ad infinitum. The result is ethereal and satisfyingly strange, if subtle.

The Fireman's Curse is a spectacular album. (my current musical fit) It always sounds to me a bit like what the ghosts of Auschwitz (can you say "post-apocalyptic?") might play with a typical rock band's instrumentation. For instance, "Blind Snake Sundae," is, apparently, an anthem for the cannibalistic survivors of a scorched planet. "Sway," "Judas Sheep," "Eggheart," and "Drinking Bomb" would be my other recommendations. See if you can find them.

Anyway enough raving. Now iz zee time on Schprockets venn vee donce.



I says mother I have lost my arms, lost my arms
She says, use your charms son, use your charms
And I says smell that fear mother, smell that fear
She says off your knees son, off your knees

Well, our friend the Judas sheep
He's dressed up like a compost heap
Our friend the Judas sheep
To the top, top, top of the heap

We are tentacle wrapped in memories, memories
Down in the dark we stumble happy, happy
We are wet to the skin, wet to the skin
Free from sin, free from sin
Oh father forgive this state we're in, state we're in

Because our friend the Judas sheep
He's dressed up like a compost heap
Our friend the Judas sheep
To the top, top, top of the heap
And I said our friend the Judas sheep
Today's companion tomorrow's fresh meat

[Maze]

Originally posted by Ramona_A_Stone

I once listened to the song Our Father God Celestial, an 11 minute, 15th century Scottish song with two cellos and female vocals (the original setting of the Lord's Prayer) continuously on a loop for three days in total darkness with no sleep.

...well, that's it ...you're definately not well ...lol I do hope that when you listened to U2, you also listened to the early stuff. For someone who's loved them the way I have in the past, I've not been too crazy about thier later stuff. However, "Boy" and "October" hit some kind of special place within me when they first came out ...which remains to this day. Especially about the time "Twilight" & "An Cat Dubh" (what the hell does that mean anyway?) start to play ...I'm gone ...then chimes in "Stories For Boys" on side two. Love it. Don't care if it's considered "not thier best" work or whatever ...to me it is. A lot of it's probably nostalgia at this point ...but I knew it was great when it was new. Back then, I listened to it a great deal, and had a "musical fit" such as being described in this thread!

Being the early '80s, a lot of bands (especially the one hit wonders on MTV ...which I very much enjoyed mind you) looked silly by comparison. U2 could be so serious and spiritual ya know ...and Bono's singing most of the time? Now that's angst!...lol ...I even very much liked and enjoyed a new performer on the scene when one night I saw this unknown gal by the name of Madonna singing "Burning Up" ...I said to myself "My God ...this girl is going to be big!" ...but I always knew U2 was "The Band". When a concert was schedueled to take place in Washington DC soon after the October album came out ...I knew I had to be there! This turned out to be an incredibly lucky affair as for some reason or another the concert was held in a "revamped" movie theater ...so it was very up close and intimate. I also managed to be allowed in with my camera with a huge lens on it. Here's a photograph I made from that night:

Dave "the Edge" Evans of U2 (click pic)

That was some night! The "War" album could be a little "cheesy" sometimes, but mostly I enjoyed the hell out of it. "The Unforgettable Fire" album is amazing and "Joshua Tree" is outstanding ...refreshingly less "theme" oriented than some of the others.

hehe ...I didn't mean to turn this into a U2 post but got carried away. Actually, I did have a bit of a fit one day not too long ago and found myself playing... The B-52's - "Planet Claire" & "Song For A Future Generation" ...over and over again ...like the whole afternoon! The video for that last song is especially fun to watch to see Cindy (the blonde) lip sync the words and at one point (though it's almost imperceptible) she's just overcome with the music and feeling good ...so happy ...she can hardly wipe the smile off her face. There's a lot of joy in that song.

[ONEMANBANNED]

Fathers hands were lined with dirt
From long days in the field
And mothers hands are serving meals
In a cafe on Main Street
With mouths to feed
Just trying to keep clothing on our backs
And all I hear about is
How it's so bad, it's so bad

It's too bad, it's too bad
Too late, so wrong, so long
It's too bad that we had no time to rewind
Let's walk, let's talk
Let's talk

You left without saying goodbye
Although I'm sure you tried
You call the house from time to time
To make sure we're alive
But you weren't there
Right when I'm needing you the most
And now I dream about it
How it's so bad, it's so bad

It's too bad, it's too bad
Too late, so wrong, so long
It's too bad that we had no time to rewind
Let's walk, let's talk
Let's talk

Father's hands are lined with guilt
For tearing us apart
Guess it turned out in the end
Just look at where we are
Made it out, still got clothing on our backs
And now I scream about it
How it's so bad, it's so bad

It's too bad, it's too bad
Too late, so wrong, so long
It's too bad that we had no time to rewind
Let's walk, let's talk
Let's talk

No time, last one, let's go

[Bronxie]

Well I was watching Behind the music and they had on Hall and Oates. Well I've been listening to Hall and Oates for the whole week. I never noticed how many good songs they had. And that Hall has quite a voice

[shoes58]

I totally misunderstood the meaning of this thread. I was sure it invloved Irish guys having seizures whilst listening to music...I remember this guy Paddy Fitzsimmons...

[Ramona_A_Stone]

[theknife]

Johnny Cash's version of Solitary Man...downloaded it the other night and it has grown in my consciousness like some obscene tumor...

[greatdj1]

There was a time (not too long ago) where all I listened to Sleepy Maggie by Ashleigh McIssac

I still love that song...

Then after I saw "Haunted Mansion" Little Things of Venom - Arid never left the playlist

[ONEMANBANNED]

Name

And even though the moment passed me by
I still can't turn away
'Cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose
Got tossed along the way
And letters that you never meant to send
Get lost or thrown away


And now we're grown up orphans
That never knew their names
We don't belong to no one
That's a shame

But if you could hide beside me
Maybe for a while
And I won't tell no one your name
And I won't tell em' your name


And scars are souvenirs you never lose
The past is never far
Did you lose yourself somewhere out there
Did you get to be a star
And don't it make you sad to know that life
Is more than who we are


We grew up way too fast
And now there's nothing to believe
Reruns all become our history
A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio
And I won't tell no one your name
And I won't tell em' your name
I won't tell em' your name


I won't tell em' your name…


I think about you all the time
But I don't need the same
It's lonely where you are come back down,
And I won't tell em your name

[Wenchie]

Now how did I not see this thread afore?

I must admit to being prone to 'fits' of the musical variety quite regularly.....
One of my major/repeat addictions is Sinead O'Connors- Faith and Courage each of the tracks seems to hit home with a vengance for me.......

others in the category of 'fits' are:

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing

Cranberries - No Need To Argue

Sinead O'Connor - So Far.....The Best Of