Pitch Perfect

Tessa organised Pitch Perfect, a cosy little iPod DJ event, at Pitch Black on Saturday night.

I used my 15 minute slot as follows:

• Gareth Brown Says (McLusky): I’ve always liked the rather surreal playground taunting of this one – “All your friends are cunts / your mother is a ball-point pen thief”.
• Drunken Butterfly (Sonic Youth): Because if I don’t play Sonic Youth at every public opportunity to impose my taste on other people, somewhere a fairy dies.
• How Can I Love You If You Won’t Lie Down? (Silver Jews): Awesome title aside, this is a rather delightful departure from Silver Jews’ usual, rather minimalist, formula of alt-country (though even that’s been good enough to sustain nearly a decade of my fanhood). It’s a lovable, sturdily unpretentious little ditty and I always love singing along with the girl echoing David Berman – “Lie down” “Lah daawn!” – in every word of the chorus.
• Fuck You Pay Me (Killer Mike): My most recent aggro-hip-hop-dancing-in-my-bedroom song of choice. Though it does get a bit embarrassing when I listen to it while walking along the pavement and have to stifle some of those moves.
• Sh-Boom (The Chords): Enough aggro, let’s finish with some happy! And this is, quite simply, one of the happiest songs I have ever heard.

Later on, I learned that because Ci’en hadn’t brought her iPod, Peishan had ingeniously appropriated Ci’en’s 15 minute entitlement to play a second slot. This got me thinking (and looking craftily at the empty-pocketed fiance sitting next to me), and so it was that about an hour later DJ “Alec” made his public debut. And I must say I thought his, uh, “choices” were truly magnificent.

• Enter Sandman (Fade To Bluegrass cover): This isn’t just a novelty cover, I do actually think the bluegrass harmonies and musicianship are pretty tight.
• Pussyhole (Dizzee Rascal): Sorry about the pun, but this is just such a banger.
• Long Snake Moan (PJ Harvey): Big dense noisy riffs, quintessential PJ Harvey attitude and a chorus which you just have to shout along to. “You wanna hear my long snake…MOAN! You oughta see me crawl my…ROAR!”
• Dance Music (Mountain Goats): It took me a while to warm to the Mountain Goats, but this is the song that sold me.
• All The Things She Said (Cinerama cover): You shouldn’t expect this song to surpass the original because, well, nothing can really surpass Russian lesbian pedophilia. But I like Cinerama’s take well enough, especially the weighty stabs of the chorus and the pensive guy-girl harmonies that bring us to the close.