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Dusted Features
Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists compiled by our favorite artists. This week: Santa Maria and Bucky Sinister.
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Listed: Santa Maria + Bucky Sinister
Santa Maria
Following the Concretes' recent splintering, the limelight has shown most brightly on former singer and "Young Folks" guest appearer Victoria Bergsman, but she's not the only member keeping busy. In addition to continuing on with the Concretes, whose Hey Trouble was recently released, Maria Eriksson has a solo career of her own under the name Santa Maria. While Eriksson's songwriting with the Concretes relies heavily on girl group-esque pop, her material as Santa Maria is much more contemporary. Eriksson is also a member of Swedish duo Heikki. Her most recent album as Santa Maria came out in February on her own label, Slottet. Eriksson picked 10 songs of comfort for this week's Listed.
1. Sandy Denny
Her voice goes straight to your heart and tells you everything will be just fine. There is sadness, there is joy, and that’s life. She hushes the most unbearable thougts to sleep. She is the queen of comfort. What would I do without her?
2.Träd Gräs och Stenar - Sommarlåten
This song is recorded live 1971 somewhere in Sweden. You get the feeling that a bunch of people/friends is gathered in a room. It starts really gentle, after a while someone speaks out loud to turn up the volume of the vocals, the band keeps on playing, someone in the audience starts to sing along, making backing vocals. The bass and the drums holds a steady beat while the guitars are on top, making noise almost like they’re not sure of where to go. Suddenly they all join in for the chorus and then you know, everything will be fine, just relax. It has saved me from many sleepless nights.
3. Moondog - Do Your Thing
Whenever your in doubt about where your life is taking off, and if you chose the right path. Press play. Like a childhood fairytale-figure he tells you to do your thing, and he was certainly a man who did his thing.
4. Jackson C. Frank - Goodbye to My Loving You
This is the perfect breaking up song. The song makes it all seem so easy, yet sad.
5. Animal Collective - #3 from the album Spirit They’re Gone Spirit They’ve Vanished.
The song is like a long cry. The electric guitar screams and cries out loud, frustrated looking for someone or something to put an end to the ache.
6. Melt-Banana - Lost Parts Stinging Me So Cold
Comfort might not be the word that first comes to mind when you here this song. It’s fast, intense and energetic. Yasuko Onuki is spitting out the words like a barking dog and the music just don’t have time to wait for anything. The word is rather escapism and sometimes escapism is the cure.
7. Allan Petterson - Barefoot Song
The heavenly beautiful chorus has a soothing effect.
8. Bill Fay - Tell It Like It Is
"Peace be in your breath and in your sighing. Peace be in your jack and in your blade. And peace be in your Sunday picnic. And your old school friends who´ve passed away But tell it like it is. Tell it like it is. Tell it like it is Peace be in your sight and in your seeing. Peace be in their bikes and in their door keys. And peace be in your team losing And in your dustbin that blew away But tell it like it is. Tell it like it is. Tell it like it is"
9. Beach Boys - Anna Lee, The Healer
Their tribute to a masseuse who made them feel a lot better. The tune just makes me happy every time i hear it.
10. Gavin Bryars - Jesus Blood Haven’t Failed Me Yet
Gavin Bryars got some filmclips from a friend who was working with a documentary about homeless people. In this material he found a poor drunken man singing this song. He’s been trying to find out where it comes from, but no one has ever heard it before. Bryars looped just one sentence and then orchestrated the piece.
Bucky Sinister
Bucky Sinister is a San Francisco standup comedian, spoken-word performer and author. His material is an unholy mix of influences including Charles Bukowski, Bill Hicks, Lydia Lunch, Greg Proops, Henry Rollins, and Patton Oswalt. He is the author of King of the Roadkills (Manic D Press, 1995), Whiskey and Robots (Gorsky Press, 2004), and All Blacked Out and Nowhere to Go (Gorsky Press, 2007). What Happens in Narnia Stays in Narnia, Sinister's debut CD, is being released in September 2007 by the San Francisco comedy label Talent Moat. (Courtesy of TalentMoat.com)
1. Alice Donut - Come Up With Your Hands Out
This is my favorite single spoken word/music track. There were other examples, like King Missle and Ken Nordine whom I also love, but this was my favorite track. It changed how I read prose on stage.
2. Jen Kirkman - Self Help
This comedy CD is less than a year old, but it’s already influenced the way I put a set together. If there’s a fence between Comedy and Spoken Word, Jen’s on the Comedy side of the fence holding on to the pickets. I’m on the Spoken Word side, desperately trying to find my way over. Jen talks about anxiety in a way that hasn’t been done before. I’m also intensely jealous of her smooth delivery.
3. Henry Rollins - Big Ugly Mouth
I had this on cassette in the ‘80s and played it till I warped it. It’s recorded when Rollins was about 25 years old, before he really became the enigma he is today. Still, from beginning to end, the best spoken word album I’ve heard. This, but also a little of Black Flag’s Family Man, was what moved me to become a Spoken Word guy in 1987.
4. Smack My Crack compilation
I found out about The Butthole Surfers, Einsturzende Neubauten, Diamanda Galas, William S Burroughs, The Swans, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave ALL ON THE SAME RECORD. I hadn’t heard of any of them when I was 18, and within an hour, I was a different human being. John Giorno put this out on his record label, Giorno Poetry Systems. He’s primarly responsible for Spoken Word emerging in the ‘80s as a punk/experimental art form.
5. Steel Pole Bath Tub - Tulip
SPBT was my favorite band in the ‘90s. They pioneered sampling outside of other music tracks. Commonly bits of movies, tv shows, and sound effects were mixed in to their live shows and records. I loved all their records, but Tulip was my favorite. Check out “Myrna Loy” for a sample of their sampling. Their live shows were awesome. I saw them every chance I got.
6. The Didjits - Hey Judester
I’ve never understood why this wasn’t one of the biggest bands when they were in their prime. Rick Sims, the guitarist/singer, was a rock tornado on stage. This album affected me so much that I wrote a series of stories based on random lines from the songs. The stories later appeared in King of the Roadkills, and in Kustom Komix, the most expensive retail comic book ever made.
7. Richard Pryor - And It’s Deep Too Box Set
Everyone agrees that Richard Pryor was one of the best comics ever. But have you really listened to his work? It really does live up to the hype. Until you listen to all the CDs in this box, you have no real idea of the depth and range of his material. A must for every comedy nerd.
8. Jello Biafra/Ice T - Shut Up, Be Happy
Freedom of Speech But Watch What You Say is one of the most underrated hip hop albums. It opens with Jello Biafra reading a piece of his with his voice altered and a Black Sabbath sample looping in the background. Before the nightmare that is the current hip hop poetry scene, the crossover of rap and spoken word on a record like this was unique. This is the piece of Jello’s that inspired thousands of bad manifesto poems as we all imitated him poorly.
9. Patton Oswalt - 222
You should be seeing Patton Oswalt live every chance you get. 222 is your chance to hear what it’s like when he’s in full force, and reaping the audience with his laugh-sickle. When he gets loose like this, there’s not a comic in the world who can touch him.
10. Minor Threat - “Filler”
This was the first song I ever heard that slammed religion. I had walked out of a pulpit in disgust at the age of 17, thinking I was the only one who had ever thought that the whole game was bullshit. About nine months later, I heard this song, and it began a lifelong love affair with punk.
By Dusted Magazine
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