ask me no questions

i've been pretty obsessed with johnny thunders' album, 'so alone' for a while now. thunders totally surpassed the punk stereotype by actually being an amazing guitarist, and by writing songs with some pretty sensitive lyrics. for a strung out punk, he was very in touch with his emotions. from the beginning of the record, he makes his skills apparent by opening with a cover of the surf rock song by the chantays, 'pipline.' thunders was one of the original members of the new york dolls, and later formed the heartbreakers with the dolls' drummer, and richard hell on bass. 'so alone' was recorded in 1978, and features vocals by chrissie hyde of the pretenders and instrumentals by awesome musicians like the sex pistols' steve jones and paul cook. in the same way the ramones covered the ronnettes' single, 'baby i love you,' thunders does a great cover of 'great big kiss' by the shangri-las on this album. i really can't get over how beautiful the songs 'ask me no questions,' 'you can't out your arms around a memory,' are, and '(she's so) untouchable' is that song you wish a guy had written about you.

 

click HERE to download 'so alone'

seriously ridiculous, but still so good...check out the bassist

where do the children play?

okay so i know that yusuf islam (or who used to be cat stevens) is a little...extreme. but i was recently watching 'harold and maude,' and was reminded of how beautiful his music is. he didn't write the songs specifically for the film, but the they work so well. kind of like simon and garfunkel's soundtrack for 'the graduate', although they did write the single 'mrs. robinson' for the movie. folk music is so cool because it's usually musically simple, but it can still manage to be lyrically profound. another good example of this is leonard cohen's music. check out his song 'chelsea hotel no. 2' about his romance with janice joplin. cat stevens' 'tea for the tillerman' was one of the first albums i bought for myself and for one summer i listened to the CD every day along with 'sticky fingers' by the stones. the album was recorded and 1970, and stevens apparently painted the picture on the cover. check it out if you don't have it already!

click HERE to download 'tea for the tillerman'

ps, 'mona bone jakon' is also a great record.