RXTT's Top Ten VAN HALEN Deep Cuts

There was once a band from southern California that somehow combined precision heavy riffs, complex melodic harmonics, and the infectious party enthusiasm of a 16 year old at their first kegger.  That band was Van Halen. (For the purposes of this post, and for my own sanity, I will not be delving into the "Van Hagar" era after the departure of Diamond Dave.)

Everyone who likes rock music knows their big hits, and boy were they big, but Van Halen was never a band that padded their albums with trifling shit and third-class songs.  Some of the most inventive guitar-work and amazing tracks can be found digging deep in the albums.  Here are my ten favorite.

♦

 
VAN HALEN - Girl Gone Bad
(This track off of the album 1984 starts off with those sweet overtone harmonics that Eddie Van Halen was so righteously famous for.  It then kicks into a balls-to-the-wall rager with some amazing riffage.)




 
VAN HALEN - Unchained 
(From the album Fair Warning, this track starts off with a riff that I have yet to get over.  No matter how many times I see this video I always wish I was able to see Van Halen in their prime live.)
 


 

VAN HALEN - Beautiful Girls
(As the ultimate party band ever to exist, Van Halen had many tracks that were not face-melting guitar freakouts.  Songs like this one, with that sexy-ass swing, helped Diamond Dave entertain the fans just as much as the guitar wizardry of Eddie.  These lines basically define Dave's persona, "Now, I'm a seaside sittin'/ just a smokin' and a drinkin'/ I'm ringside / on top of the world / I got a drink in my hand / I got my toes in the sand / All I need is a beautiful girl")




 
VAN HALEN - Drop Dead Legs
(Speaking of FAT riffs, the one that anchors this sultry track is one of my faves.  That "brown" sound that Eddie worked up through his guitar effects was amazing. Everyone tried to copy it, and diluted its impact.)






VAN HALEN - Somebody Get Me a Doctor (In the midst of all the hard riffs and drums and screams the guitar does a great mimic of a chugging locomotive, something that harks back to old country blues tradition, where the rhythm of the guitar was to mimic the rhythm of the old steam trains.  Love the various changes in it, and Diamond Dave can be heard cheering Eddie on in his bad-assery!)





 
VAN HALEN - D.O.A.
(Van Halen's 2nd album has so many amazing riff-heavy rockers.  The sound you hear at the beginning of this track is the sound of the RAWK GAWDS announcing their presence.  Love how this track gets faster and faster and faster...)





VAN HALEN - Little Guitars
(The Van Halens were classically trained musicians at a very young age, who switched over to guitar and drums the better to rock us all.  From time to time Eddie would show off his classical guitar techniques, such as the intro to this track.  This track off of Diver Down is fun AF and melodic and just beautiful.)




 
VAN HALEN - Hang 'Em High
(A rager from the word GO.  Everything blasts forth.)





VAN HALEN - House of Pain
(Not many Van Halen tracks can be categorized purely as Heavy Metal.  This track from their mega-hit 1984 album contrasts wildly with the more pop-melodic hits like Jump and Panama.  SO AWESOME.  SO HEAVY.)





VAN HALEN - I'll Wait
(One of the albums I would listen to on my Walkman headphones while mowing the lawn as a kid was 1984, and this track started off side 2, so when I would flip the cassette, I knew I was gonna go off in my head.)

Ten More Hip Hop Tracks. Turn up the Bass and lay low on the Treble!

YEAH. I cannot get enough!  The hot tracks keep coming and I keep blasting them in my foreign whip on the way home.  May the beats and rhymes help you out as much as they do me.  Let's get this next batch started! Some are fresh, and some are old. Enjoy.

Rae Sremmurd - Powerglide



Jhené Aiko - Sativa feat. Rae Sremmurd
 


Young Thug - Digits
 


Future & Young Thug - All Da Smoke
 


2 Chainz feat. Travis Scott - 4 AM
 


Young Thug - Tomorrow til Infinity
 


Future - Rent Money
 


Migos - Stir Fry
 


Migos feat. Drake - Walk It Talk It
 


Post Malone feat. Ty $ - Psycho
 

RXTT's Top Ten Neil Young Tracks

I do not remember when it was that I actually started to like Neil Young's music. As a youngster I thought everyone associated with his early era, the folk rockers, the Crosby Stills and Nashies of the musical world,  were so fucking boring.  I needed to hear chaos and aggression and most of all energy.  Around my sophomore year in college my friend Barnaby Struve (former VP at Three Floyds Brewery, and currently working at Stigberget in Gothenburg, Sweden) left me in his room chillin' with Neil Young's Harvest Moon playing.  Around the time Neil started singing about a lonely night spent with his dog I was swept up.  I could not believe it.  Since then I have explored Neil Young's records and found so much skronk, so much distorted, angry rock n roll, in equal parts to his soft and wise and funny folk and country tunes. I love hearing the man play guitar. He brings it all Live.


Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Cortez The Killer (Live 2001)


Neil Young - Like a Hurricane (Live 1982)


Neil Young - Harvest Moon (Live 2010)


Neil Young - The Needle & The Damage Done (Live 1971)


Neil Young - On The Beach (Live 1999)


Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Cinnamon Girl (Live 1991)


Neil Young - The Loner (Live 2002)


Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) (Live 1991)


Neil Young - Ambulance Blues (Live 1998)


Neil Young - Cowgirl In The Sand (Live 1971)

 

Ten Hip Hop Tracks I've been Bangin' on the commute

I am a  resident of Houston, TX (AKA Screwston, H-town, Da H, Space City, Hou-stoned, etc.) and because of this I have the curse of a long commute in to work.  Most Houstonians do, and it is not an exageration to say that many people have commutes that are an hour or more.  Quite a few people I work with drove 3 hours a day just going to and returning from work.  This allows for a large number of talk radio stations, especially sports talk, but that gets tiring after a while.  I use this time to blast music from my car.  This is a collection of ten hip hop tracks I have been blasting lately.  Some are very new, and a few are old tracks I am re-exploring.  Enjoy.


Travis Scott (feat. Kendrick Lamar) - Goosebumps


Digable Planets - Black Ego


Future - Codeine Crazy


Rae Sremmurd - Swang


Future - Good Dope


Young Thug, Travis Scott - Pick Up The Phone


Rich Homie Quan - Word of Mouth


Future - Rent Money


De La Soul - Breakadawn


The Roots - Act Too (Love of My Life)
 

RXTT's New Top Ten Current Hip Hop Tracks

The last time I made a list of Ten Current Hip Hop Faves was in June.  It is now nearing October, and the music never stops coming.  Between my old stand-by Street Flava (The SF !), Houston's hip hop radio stations, and the suggestions and recommendations of my pals over at the Sonic Youth Gossip Forum (specifically the good folks in the thread Louder's Hip Hop Cafe, currently in its 5th incarnation), I am always awash with new tunes and old bangers I may have missed, ready to add to my ever-growing Spotify playlist which I title A+ Whip Songs.  


Young Greatness - Ball


Dew Baby, Ft. Visto - Bu$$in Sudz


Young Thug - Future Swag


Rae Sremmurd - By Chance


Ro James - Permission e>


Big Baby D.R.A.M., Ft. Lil Yachty - Broccoli

 
PARTYNEXTDOOR, ft. Drake - Come and See Me

 
Kevin Gates - Really Really

 
Ty Dolla $ign, ft. Travis Scott - 3 Wayz

 
Future, ft. The Weeknd - Low Life

RXTT's Top Ten Dinosaur Jr Songs

Dinosaur Jr

Dinosaur Jr rule all, have always ruled all, and will forever rule all.  That is just facts, people.  I have long loved this band and their awesome sonic squalor.  J Mascis, guitarist extraordinaire, once described their music as "ear-bleeding country."  This is an apt description.  Thurston Moore recalled seeing Dinosaur perform in NYC in the 80's and being amazed at how effortlessly the band would slide from melodic, twangy rock to massive shards of white noise, to soft rumbles of depression and back again, all in the same song!  I love when music does that.  Too many people assume that depression is inert.  It is most definitely not always that way.  Depression can be rage-filled, actively destructive, and violent.
I think my first exposure to Dinosaur was, like a lot of MTV-addicted youngsters back in the day, seeing (and taping onto a VHS), the video for "Thumb" off of 120 Minutes. Something about the mood created by the intro to that song, coupled with the self-effacing and honestly depressed lyrics really got to me.  I watched that video over and over again, eventually memorizing every second of J's amazing solo at the end of the song.  I went out and bought the Green Mind album, and immediately became a fanatic for Dinosaur Jr.
J Mascis sang in a voice that was so lethargic, so completely apathetic, so very SLACK, that he became the guitar god of slackers everywhere.  He was so loved for his honesty about plainly not giving a single fuck about anything that Thurston Moore wrote the Sonic Youth classic "Teenage Riot" as an homage, describing what would happen if the apathetic youth of America voted J Mascis for President.  AWESOME.  His lyrics were also prime examples of a human being who knows he is damaged, is not too worried about it, and would rather just be left alone.  I think a lot of people can relate to that.  On the drums was Murph, a man of few words who could blast forth a beat like no one's business, holding it down for J to shred his guitar histrionics.  On bass and vocals was Lou Barlow, at least for the first few albums.  He wrote songs too, usually extremely lo-fi recordings (before "Lo-Fi" as a genre was a thing) of himself singing about how much chicks sucked and how his heart was broken so bad and how it just pissed him off.  We can all relate.
Once Lou and J parted ways Dinosaur became the J show, and shifted slightly to anthemic slack-rock, if there can be such a thing!  Amazing album after amazing album followed.  The original crew has gotten back together again and is recording and touring.  Thank the slack gods for that.  How do three guys make so much noise? 

Dinosaur Jr - Thumb
"There never really is a good time/ There's always nothing much to say/ Pretty good not doing that fine/ getting up most every day..."
 

Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene
"So fucked I can't believe it/ If there's a way I wish we'd see it/ How could it work, just can't conceive it/ what a mess, best just to leave it..."
 

Dinosaur Jr - "Little Fury Things"
(I love the screams that begin this song.  LOVE THEM.  My brain explodes in soundgasms when I hear it)

Dinosaur Jr - No Bones
(There is a sonic moment in this song of supreme skronkability that may be my single most favorite moment in Dinosaur Jr's discography. It happens at 2:43.  It is such a squall of noise.  It is glorious.  I turn it up SO LOUD.  It erases all thought from my head and instead fills me with a noise zen that I find hard to describe.)


Dinosaur Jr - Whatever's Cool With Me
"I can't take it back today/ You wouldn't dig it anyway"


Dinosaur Jr - I'm Insane
 

 Dinosaur Jr - Repulsion
"I could run but I stand and greet it/ Boredom won't starve as long as I feed it..."

 
Dinosaur Jr - Sludgefeast
"I'm waiting, please come by/ I've got the guts now to meet your eye"
 

Dinosaur Jr - The Wagon
"I ring the doorbell in your mind/ but it's locked from the outside/ You don't live there anyway/ but I knock on it all day..."
 

Dinosaur Jr - Budge
(Fuck I love this song.  I love how it starts off blasting forth.  Nothing like Dinosaur Jr to make me feel great!)
  

RXTT's Top Ten Jane's Addiction Songs

Jane's Addiction, for the kids!

I have always been attracted to music and bands that scared me or unnerved me somehow.  If the band also had high-energy music then all the better.  Between the ages of 8 and 14 or so most of my musical focus was on Heavy Metal music, punk music, and hardcore music.  I wandered about on the periphery of a lot of other weird bands that the odd kids at my schools liked (bands like The Cure, Depeche Mode, Bauhaus, etc.) but I was not yet ready to dive fully into the depressed emotions.  I was still stuck on anger and volatility.  Metal music moved me then, and still does.  However, I was searching for something truly deranged, unhinged, and musically fresh to my ears.  Enter Jane's Addiction.
I have a vague memory from what I think was my 7th grade year, of seeing a cassette in someone's backpack with a bizarre cover painting.  It appeared to be some sort of bondage vampire.  

Jane's Addiction's self-titled debut, a live album!

 
The name on the cassette was even more weird, "Jane's Addiction."  Instantly my freak-dar (freakness-proximity-radar) went into overdrive.  I ended up running to Sound Exchange at the earliest convenience to find this cassette. I must have listened to it a dozen times before I figured out what the hell I was listening to!  I did not have any frame of reference.  Most of the bands I listened to at the time were hyper-masculine, and Jane's Addiction melted all that away.  Yet, they were still angry as fuck and INTENSE.  It was awesome.
I listened to Jane's Addiction's next albums like a man possessed.  Nothing's Shocking WAS shocking!  Songs about Ted Bundy!  Songs about a woman's heroin addiction and life as a prostitute!  Songs about self-reflection in the shower while you're pissing yourself!  It was new territory.  Their next album, Ritual de lo Habitual, continued the insanity, expanding it, until it felt like the entire album was a coded story transporting me to some far away place.  Right when they were poised to take over the world with their insanity, inner-band turmoil broke them up.  (Actually, it was lead singer Perry Farrell's egomania and assholery that broke them up, but oh well...)  They have since regrouped, without master-bassist Eric Avery who wrote most of my favorite Jane's Addiction songs.  I don't care about that.  I will forever adore their first albums.  Here are my top ten favorite Jane's Addiction songs.

 Jane's Addiction - Mountain Song



Jane's Addiction - Stop


Jane's Addiction - Jane Says
 

Jane's Addiction - Ocean Size
 

Jane's Addiction - Three Days
 

Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealing
  

Jane's Addiction - I Would For You 

Jane's Addiction - Classic Girl
 

Jane's Addiction - Up The Beach
 

Jane's Addiction - Then She Did
 

RXTT's Top Ten Butthole Surfers Songs

The Butthole Surfers.  Don't they look like wholesome, all-American kids?

Ahhhh, my beloved Butthole Surfers.  Ever since I first dipped my ears into your insanity I have been hooked.    I used to see your albums at Sound Exchange when I would go shop for cheap used cassettes, and your covers always scared me off.  Something truly bizarre was contained within, it seemed to me.  I was right.  I was so right.  I was seeking the musically deranged and I found it.  My man Barnaby Struve was a huge fan and he made me a mix-tape of the choicest nugs.  I played that mix-tape so much that I had to create a second version!  I wore it out, often blasting it's weirdness and forcing my friends to listen to it over and over again.

Over the years I have always found my way back to the Butthole Surfers.  I love them so much.  They might be my second favorite band of all time.  

*WARNING*  The Butthole Surfers are  not for the faint of heart, nor are many of the fan-made videos to follow.  You have been warned.


Butthole Surfers - "Mexican Caravan" 
Let's begin with one of the best fast rippers that the Surfers ever put on wax.  Mexican Caravan comes off of the amazingly titled "Psychic...Powerless..Another Man's Sac" LP.  It tells the tale of a man hoping to head to Mexico, learn how to pass as a Mexican, all so he can score some of that "heroin brown."  



 
Butthole Surfers - "Jimi"
This was one of my first dips into the Surfers' world.  What a dip!  From the slow, tribal, brutish beat and shifted vocals at the beginning ranting horribleness to the full-on guitar squall freakout in the middle to the frankly beautiful and pastoral ending (cows, dogs, birds, people speaking unintelligibly, and bowling!), this song contains everything you will ever need.



Butthole Surfers - "I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas"
I think this song is about going to the doctor's office while wasted on psychotropic intoxicants, but you never know.  I have loved this song ever since I heard the first line, "Ten foot tall and the nurse stuck a needle in my aaarrrrrrmmmmmmmmmm."  The Butthole Surfers have always been hilarious!



 
Butthole Surfers - "Something"
This is off of the Butthole Surfers first EP, a twisted song, shouted by Paul Leary, which seems to describe a conversation held with a deranged woman who "danced all over [her] daddy's grave" and who "ate some cheese and rice today."  Just weird.


Butthole Surfers - "Colored FBI Guy"
This amazing and melodic track off of the Widowermaker EP is one of the more straightforward tunes the Surfers ever put out.  It is a beautiful song, and ends with that timeless refrain, "I hope I'm together when I die."



Butthole Surfers - "Sea Ferring"
A real twisted track from the equally bizarre "Rembrandt Pussyhorse" album.  It starts off like a sideshow sea-chanty with some fat-bottomed bass.   This is a hard one to describe.  I love Gibby's singing on this, as well as his screams at the end.



Butthole Surfers - "Kuntz"
Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz, Kuntz...
This one is just fucking hilarious.  



 
Butthole Surfers - "Human Cannonball"
Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Such a raging beast!  I love this song so much.  From the detuned vocals at the beginning to the perfectly deranged guitar solo that kicks it off, to the perfect lyrics. "Pardon me, I'm only bleeding..."  Another one with amazing Gibby Haynes screams and hollers.



 
Butthole Surfers -"Sweat Loaf"
Amazing.  Amazing.  What a way to start off an album.  Alternating between a fat riff stolen from Black Sabbath and lyrical segments where the guitar feels almost angelic, this track begins with the immortal wisdom, "Son, the funny thing about regret is, it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done, and by the way, if you see your mother this weekend would you be sure to tell her SATAN!  SATAN!  SATAN! SATAN!"  



 
Butthole Surfers - "Wooden Song"
Sometimes the beautiful looks even more so when surrounded by insanity and ugliness.  This is one of those tracks.  The Butthole Surfers always fucked around with all sorts of musical genres, and this quasi-sea chanty is one of those tracks.  There is absolutely nothing bizarre here.  Even the fuzz-heavy guitar solo serves the melody.  This is a drinking song for the ages.

 


 

RXTT's Top Ten Sonic Youth Videos

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth are my favorite band.  They have been for over 30 years now!  Amazing!  No other group affects my ears like Sonic Youth does.  Their music has been the soundtrack to my life and I love it so.  I have had the pleasure of meeting Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley from SY but never have I had the chance to meet Thurston Moore or Kim Gordon.  Perhaps the future holds some cool surprises!
Either way, here are my Top Ten Sonic Youth videos.  This is not a definitive list, as my preferences change depending on when I am asked, but these ten videos are fucking awesome.



Sonic Youth - "Mildred Pierce"
This short number was one of my faves off the "Goo" album.  It starts off with a grimy bass groove and the builds and builds to what may be my most favorite recorded scream, outside of certain Doors classics.  It's kind of like a grooving punk tune that explodes near the end into the kind of freakout skronk that Sonic Youth do so well.

Sonic Youth - "Disappearer"
This awesome slow-burner is the song on Good that leads into the previous entry, "Mildred Pierce."  I love this song.  I love the video.  Just gorgeous. 




Sonic Youth - "Mote"
When I first listened to Sonic Youth I did not realize that there were two different male voices.  When I finally understood this I had an even greater appreciation for the SY.  This track, my favorite Lee Ranaldo song, is like the epitome of what Sonic Youth do.  The first half is an amazing riff-heavy rager counter-balanced by Lee's melodic and clear singing.  The second half?  a noise-rock skronk masterpiece that I memorized upon countless repeat listens.  The video itself is a lo-fi freakout of found porn and war footage interspersed with grainy pixel video of Lee performing the song alone.




Ciccone Youth - "Macbeth"
Sonic Youth was always informed by the pop music world, even if it was only to ridicule it.  The members of SY, along with some friends, created Ciccone Youth, a riff on Madonna's last name.  The self-titled album is awesome and this track may be my favorite off of it.  Noise as beauty.  Melodious chaos.  Gorgeous sonic moments composed of pure squalls of feedback.  The video was filmed by the one and only Dave Markey, who filmed the amazing 1991: The Year Punk Broke.




Sonic Youth - "Teenage Riot"
I had heard of Sonic Youth, but had never seen a video of theirs on MTV (and I watched a LOT of MTV back in the 80's).  One day, while up late recording videos off of 120 Minutes with my VHS, I saw this and taped it.  I watched it over and over and over again.  I had never heard anything like this before!  It was so different from the Van Halen, Megadeth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Misfits, and Jane's Addiction music I was listening to at the time.  It is my all-time favorite SY song.  The pastiche video gave me my first glimpse of these noise-rock heroes of mine.  




Sonic Youth - "Hoarfrost"
This is perhaps Lee Ranaldo's finest "quiet" track.  It is a perfect meditation on the stillness and silence that greets you on a cold, frozen morning. This song makes me think of memories, of the past, of lives that were not mine.




Sonic Youth - "Drunken Butterfly"
Sonic Youth had a contest to see if any fans could make a video for a song off of their "Dirty" album.  The puppets won.  I love this song.  It is one of my favorite Kim Gordon tracks.  I remember driving through downtown Houston with my roommate Scott blasting this track and marveling at it's heaviness.




Sonic Youth - "Death Valley '69"
An early masterpiece of paranoia and fear and outright exultation!  The album this song comes from, "Bad Moon Rising" is a very dark album tonally.  It speaks of the ugly, hidden layers beneath 1980's plastic America.  This song used to scare me, with it's dual-perspective lyrics sung by Thurston Moore and Lydia Lunch detailing kidnapping and torture out in the California desert, a la the Manson family.  The video is, I think, a Richard Kern production, and equally sordid and grimy.




Sonic Youth - "Shadow of a Doubt"
This was the second SY video I taped off of the 120 MInutes.  What a vastly different song than "Teenage Riot."  From pensive rhythms, to shouts and fear, back to slowness and quiet desperation.  It was the first time I began to fall in love with Kim Gordon.  I would watch it and wonder if this was even a proper song!  That is how different SY sounded to my metal/punk ears.  




Sonic Youth - "Silver Rocket"
Oh man, when I first heard this song on the "Daydream Nation" album.  It hit home right away.  It startts off like a hardcore punk romp and Thurston screams about the rocket in his pocket and then it blows the fuck up!  Noise!  Skronk!  Then the riff comes back baby!!!!!!!

RXTT's Top Ten Current Hip Hop Tracks

I love music.  I love finding new tunes and groups to listen to.  Here in Houston, Texas, there is a long-running video show called STREET FLAVA, hosted by H-town's own D Solo, which showcases hip hop videos mostly from the Dirty South (Houston, the rest of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Atlanta).  It airs on Saturdays at 11:00 PM on KTXH, Channel 20.

I have been been watching this show off and on for over 20 years.  I originally watched it on the Houston PBS station but too many old white folks complained after tuning in their beloved PBS and seeing too much bootie poppin' for their sensibilities.  After picking up some sponsors (who have their own hilarious commercials as well) it moved to KTXH and has been "The Soul of the South" ever since.

What is great about Street Flava is that videos from international stars such as Drake or Rihanna will air alongside local independent rappers such as Psyco Sid, Frank Nitty Supreem, or huge up-and-comers like Travis Scott and Future.  Often, their tracks will air on Street Flava before I hear them on the H's hip hop radio stations.  It is a great resource.  I have never met D Solo but if I did I would thank him for the work he puts into the show and for constantly sharing the good tunes.  Between his show, the DJ's in Screwston that play the new bomb tracks, and mixtapes found online, I get to keep an ear on the Third Coast Hip Hop, and bangin' tracks in general.  It is just awesome.

Here are, currently, my ten favorite Hip Hop videos.


O.T. Genasis - "Cut It"

Future - "Stick Talk"

Young Greatness - "Moolah"

Young Thug - "Best Friend"

Travis Scott - "Mamacita"

2 Chainz, ft. Lil Wayne - "Bounce"

TY Dolla $ign - "Blase'"

Bryson Tiller - "Don't"

Kevin Gates - "2 Phones"

Travis Scott - "Antidote"