Top 10 Songs of the Week 7/12/10

OK, OK, we’re a day late. But who’s counting. This is just another way we try to spread the word about all the good music out there. As you’ll notice, every song that reaches the #1 spot on this list will also appear on our 100 Best Songs of 2010 list at the end of December. We try to mix it up, offer a little something for everyone: sad songs, funny songs, upbeat songs, quieter stuff, you name it. If you don’t like one of these, you can always go on to the next one. The only one here that doesn’t have a link to the track is #1 and that’s because it’s so new.

1. The Brooklyn What – Punk Rock Loneliness

About time Brooklyn’s most charismatic, intense, funny rockers returned to the top spot here. This one has a Dead Boys influence, with the two smoldering guitars and frontman Jamie Frey’s menacing lyric aimed at the gawkers who pass by what used to be CBGB. “You wanna be a dead boy?” Let’s get the Brooklyn What on Hipster Demolition Night!

2. Ernie Vega – Cocaine Blues

Not the one you’re thinking of – this one’s a lot more rustic and it’s hilarious, like something you’d hear on a Smithsonian recording from the 1920s.

3. Under Byen -Alt Er Tabt

A Danish version of the Creatures: catchy, atmospheric vocal overdubs, terse accordion and strings over a clattering Atrocity Exhibition rhythm.

4. Golden Triangle – Neon Noose

X as played by late 80s Jesus & Mary Chain – they’re at South St. Seaport on 7/16 at 6

5. Loose Limbs – Underdog

Lo-fi garage rock with soul/gospel vocals – if you like the Detroit Cobras you’ll like Loose Limbs. They’re at South St. Seaport on 7/23 at 6

6. Jeff Lang – Home to You

Wild insane steel guitar blues by the innovative Aussie guitarist.

7. Mike Rimbaud – Dirty Little Bomb

Classic new wave songwriting by a survivor from the very end of the era, still going strong twenty years later.

8. Costanza – Just Another Alien

The lyrics are the text from a US Immigration form. Eerie and apropos.

9. J-Ron – Weed Song

Texas faux “R&B.”

10. Amy Coleman – Goodbye New York

This is such a blast from the past, it’s kinda funny: the bastard child of DollHouse and Pet Benetar. Suddenly it’s 1979 again. Except it’s not.

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Concert Review: Moisturizer at Zebulon, Brooklyn NY 9/30/09

Moisturizer did their inimitable best to put a smile on it, but the inevitably sad truth is that the band is finished. After more than ten years of getting notoriously uptight New York crowds to bounce and twirl and sway, they’re packing it in. The funnest instrumental band in town probably has a final blowout up their collective sleeves, but for official club gigs, this was it. Blending 60s Memphis with clever funk, bits of jazz, film soundtrack, pop and a little punk rock (and some surf in the beginning), they ruled the Lower East Side in the early zeros and put out one classic ep, Moisturizer Takes Mars. There have been innumerable bands from these parts who never achieved the world dominance their fan base longed for, but nobody ever deserved it more than Moisturizer. Frontwoman/baritone saxophonist Paula Henderson AKA Moist Paula gets plenty of work and has her own equally devious side project, the cinematic Secretary; bassist Gina Rodriguez AKA Moist Gina, also of the Detroit Cobras, is moving to the Murder City where she will no doubt focus on that band and drummer Moist Yoshio, like all good drummers, is in at least two or three other groups. But there should have been Moisturizer action figures. They should have had their own Sunday morning cartoon. Maybe even the Moisturizer movie. With all those sly, Satie-esque song titles – Subway Flood, Mother’s Coming Over with a Bunch of Scallions, ad infinitum – and the joyous pulse of the tunes, they really should have been famous. Maybe, like ESG for example, there’ll be a Moisturizer revival.

Unsurprisingly, the set was mostly greatest hits: the fast, pogoing Cash Incentive; a similarly cute, clever cover of The Look of Love and the big crowd-pleaser Miss Psycho Jones with its unstoppable, lickety-split bassline. As Moist Paula has always been quick to remind, all their songs are true stories, none more strikingly and perhaps surprisingly haunting than the epic The Littlest Orphan, about a child lost in the Indonesian tsunami but then successfully reunited with his family. Maybe because of the circumstances the band was playing under, they gave the song a special gravitas and majesty. The brilliance of Moist Gina was never more apparent than it was on another big dramatic number, Enactuate Our Love, where she went for the furiously joyous crescendo at the end, missed her first step but then improvised a solo that was completely different yet also completely hit the spot. And it was indelibly hers. New York’s loss is Detroit’s gain. They returned to playful, upbeat mode and closed with the classic, catchy Pretend Boyfriend, Moist Gina and Moist Paula working a neat echo between them. Backing them was a guest guitarist who added color and contrast with some frequently eerie, Keith Levene-esque noise.

And the crowd, unsurprisingly, was less vibrant than usual: despite the fun onstage, it didn’t look like anybody was very psyched to see this band come to an end. The final Moisturizer show is at the new Knitting Factory in the old Luna Lounge space in Williamsburg on Oct 13.