Music Diary: Thursday

7:45 am: My wife plays a YouTube clip of Joni Mitchell performing "California."

   

8:45 am: On a damp and overcast morning, I put on Rene Hell's The Terminal Symphony again, this time on headphones. I give up after a few tracks because it can't compete with the noise of traffic while I wait for the bus. I switch to the "We've All Got Wheels" playlist I mentioned on Monday. I make it through most of the playlist on my commute, which takes about 40 minutes—30 of which are spent standing around waiting for the bus.

• International Submarine Band: I Must Have Been Somebody Else You've Known

9:30 am: In my office, I finish out the playlist and my iPod glides right into the stuff I was listening to the night before—the Sea and Cake (same old same old from them), Gang Gang Dance (not as good as the other song they've released from their new album), Phil Ochs. Then it's a few Merle Haggard songs, so from Monday—though I feel like I'm hearing them for the first time today.

• Merle Haggard: The Girl Turned Ripe

10:08 am: Needing instrumental music so I can focus on an editing project, I return again to Rene Hell. When it's over I switch over to my "Writing" playlist and shuffle through more instrumental tracks by the Dirty Three, Isan, Oval, Papa M, Four Tet, Tied & Tickled Trio, the Books, Arvo Pärt, Belong, and Philip Glass. Eventually I take my headphones out and don't return to any music for the rest of the work day.

• Philip Glass: Escape! (from The Hours Solo Piano)

6:08 pm: My wife has a quick dinner ready for us—this is like two hours earlier than usual!—since once again she has to work tonight. While we're eating I feel the urge to listen to the two Michael Nesmith songs we have in the library—"Roll with the Flow" and "Some of Shelly's Blues." It's the latter that I was compelled to hear, ever since hearing an inferior version by the Stone Ponys in the "Wheels" playlist in my morning commute. When those two songs are over I skip ahead in the library to Midlake's first album, Bamnan and Silvercork. It's such a great and underrated album—underrated maybe because it lacks the 70s-isms that made so many people love The Trials of Van Occupanther (itself a genius album). This becomes the soundtrack to Coop's bedtime ritual, which is code for "I didn't really pay attention to any of this because I was giving my kid a bath and reading him a story and putting him to sleep."

• Michael Nesmith: Some Of Shelly's Blues
• Midlake: Kingfish Pies

8:07 pm: After an hour of silence I put on the Amarillo Highway playlist, also from Monday. I realize that I much prefer the Wheels playlist to this one.

9:15 pm: I've had the BBC4 Krautrock documentary from a few years back bookmarked on my browser for months and months, but I never remember to watch it when I'm home alone. Tonight I finally remember and it is awesome (though I watched it on YouTube and the final segment's audio is unfortunately totally bungled). Snippets of Amon Düül II, Popol Vuh, Can, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Faust, Harmonia, and Cluster. It's awesome.

10:28 pm: Cluster's Zuckerzeit followed by the first part of Harmonia's Musik von Harmonia, both downloaded within moments of finishing the doc—and both albums I'd been meaning to get for a while now. I can't actually make it through the whole Harmonia album—dad's gotta go to bed so he's not a zombie in the morning.

• Cluster: Caramba

Comments

[Lynchie from Aberdeen]

I was 19 years old when I saw Joni on that BBC TV show and I fell in love with her on sight.

God I feel old...

Oh - and thanks for the chance to hear that International Submarine Band track. Hadn't heard it before and it sounds great.

[Erin]

Just wanted to stop by and let you know I am really enjoying the Music Diary series. Thanks for playing music all day long! :)

[scott pgwp]

Thanks Lynchie and Erin - glad you're enjoying it!