Heart – Alone
Album: Bad Animals (1987)

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April Wine – Just Between You and Me
Album: Nature of the Beast
Year: 1981

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Usually when Jan 11th comes around on the calendar I tend to get a bit morbid, thinking about my own mortality and whatnot… and this year was no exception. I was amused when the first tune I got SIMH (stuck in my head) in my 33rd year was “Struggle To The Grave” by Random Movement.

A few weeks ago I started thinking about age and how it changes you when it comes to music. I’ve been pretty disengaged from what’s happening in popular music for a while now, but in the last few weeks the realization at how out of touch I am with current trends in music really sunk in. I imagine if I was asked to deejay at a high school dance I’d probably get booed out of the gym after the first 15 minutes.

I have no idea what kids listen to anymore, and I’m getting increasingly comfortable with that. I chalk a lot of that comfort up to generational shift, that moment where an adult’s taste in music begins to set like cement and slowly becomes invulnerable to the newest hits that are flooding nightclub dance floors with teenagers. The way I see it, generational shift is somewhat hard-coded into human DNA and it’s only a matter of time before it kicks in.

I think the rest of that comfort comes with the fact that I’ve been disengaged from trends in pop music for a long time now. I’ve never been a big fan of pop, I haven’t watched MuchMusic in years and I don’t remember the last time I tuned the radio to anything that wasn’t the CBC or Team 1200. When I worked at the Ottawa Sun this one girl used to play Hot 89.9 all the time and after the first half an hour I got the nagging feeling that my brain cells were dying at a much faster rate than normal.

Am I babbling? Whoops. What was I talking about? Oh yeah; pop music blows and today’s my birthday.

After that “one year closer to the grave” bit of morbidity died down, my mood improved and I got a cheerier tune SIMH, “Birthday” by The Sugarcubes from 1987.

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Bjork’s awesome. No matter what she’s sounding like or what style/genre her albums take on she’s always managed to make an interesting spectacle of herself. She also dated Goldie for a little bit… I can’t imagine what sort of music their kids would have made if they’d had any.

The rest of my day was fine. It was nice and warm out so I went for a drive and played Hudson Mohawke’s Essential Mix real loud with the windows down. Then I came home, had dinner with my fam and here I am.

Thanks to everybody who left me a note on Facebook today. If you’d like to give me some birthday props in person, come out Thursday, I’ll be hitting up Mr. Scruff @ Ritual. If you don’t know him, he’s a pretty amazing DJ who plays pretty much whatever he likes, be it jazz, soul, house, hip-hop, funk or whatever… as long as it’s got soul. He’s well-known for playing marathon sets of 8 hours or more, so he’ll be playing *all night long*. Yes!

If you still aren’t sure, check out his Essential Mix from last year and/or a recent 5+ hour set of his recorded from Keep It Unreal, his Manchester-based 12 year residency (!). Hope to see you out there!

Download: Mr. Scruff – Essential Mix (2009.02.07)
Stream: Mr Scruff – Keep It Unreal, Live @ Band On The Wall, Manchester

Here’s the first one, Grace Jones’ “Pull Up to the Bumper”.

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Grace Jones kills it. Despite some weaker efforts here and there, she’s got a string of great releases. If you want to grab some of her strongest material, snag her LPs from the early 80’s, Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing and Living My Life.

If you’re just looking for singles, check these ones out for starters:

My Jamaican Guy (sampled for “Doin’ It” by LL Cool J)

Private Life

Given that Grace Jones has been involved with dance music ever since her first disco albums came out in the 70’s, there are tons of remixes of her material out there. (Apparently) Danny Tenaglia did one of “Hurricane”, a track she put together with Tricky in 1997.

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Maybe the craziest thing about Grace Jones (other than the various fashion styles she’s been costumed in over the years) is that she’s still going… at 61. She put out the original Tricky collaboration along with other material last year on an album called “Hurricane”. The LP showcases a bunch of Jones’ different sounds from over the years, from dub and reggae to big ballads to Massive Attackish trip-hop.

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The album’s a curious creature, but considering the artist… that can’t be much of a surprise.