chris’s picks: a chronological history
1988
The Beatles “Twist & Shout”
My mom loves The Beatles, especially the early stuff. I remember listening to Breakfast with The Beatles every Sunday morning and my mom singing along to the radio as she drove my little sister and me to church. There’s a bunch of great Beatles songs that I could really pick for this, like “Don’t Let Me Down”, but John shredding his voice on “Twist and Shout” was about as punk as anything I’d ever heard at this point. My mom had a bunch of great classic rock records, too, like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin but it’s The Beatles that really do it for me as foundational music. It’s probably why I loved Nirvana so much, which speaking of…
1993
Nirvana “Drain You”
When Kurt died in 1994, I was 11 and very disappointed my neighbor friend and I would no longer be attending Lollapalooza that year. Later, at the age of 12, I would purchase my first CD ever with my own money, Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged. But before all of that, and just after Smells Like Teen Spirit, there was Drain You. Not only does it have an amazing opening riff, the song has a noisy middle section that was often even better on the live recordings. The 1991 live at the Paramount has become my personal favorite over the years, especially with the “1,2” count in after the noisy part. But that riff would stick with me, and it wasn’t until a friend of mine played me The Bends that it was my all-time favorite guitar part…
1998
Radiohead “Just”
That is until I heard Just and my brain exploded. I remembered the High and Dry video from staying home from school and watching MTV and of course I knew “Creep” but what I didn’t know was that Radiohead was the most kick ass thing on the planet to 15 year olds. I would beg my dad pick me up a copy of OK Computer on CD on his way home from work, and eventually he did. And while OK Computer is arguably the greatest rock album released in the 90’s, “Just” was simply a perfect song. Maybe it was all the puberty, but nothing revved me up like this until
2003
Uncle Tupelo “Graveyard Shift”
Picture this. I’m 20 years old and we’re driving from Cincinnati to Louisville in an old navy blue Chevy Astro van that my best friend Ben had received from his family, and there’s only one tape stuck in the tape deck. It was made by Ben’s older brother Paul, and it started with Graveyard Shift. Now, we’d all just discovered Whiskeytown and The Flying Burrito Brothers and so forth, but while those were good bands Uncle Tupelo kicked ass. They were drinking songs, and we would drink any beer or whiskey we could get our hands on back then. The thing I remember the most is Ben and I absolutely stomping along to Graveyard Shift as we sped down the highway, heading to a party with our pals, believing summer was going to last forever.
2008
Pavement “Summer Babe”
When The National released the single So Far Around The Bend from 2009’s Dark Was The Night compilation, they really had mastered their audience with the line “praying for Pavement to get back together” which they did and I saw them in 2010 at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago where they decidedly did not play “Summer Babe” and I’d been dying to hear it live. 25 was me at peak hipster, in graduate school, hanging out with people I absolutely believed I was currently in a foxhole with, people that would become lifelong friends. And Pavements Slanted and Enchanted was my Bible. The jangly guitars, the bass recorded on a guitar amp, the non sequitur lyrics, it was all a perfect mess and laid the foundation for everything else I was listening to then: Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, Superchunk, Guided By Voices, and the aforementioned The National. It was then I was diving further back into music, listening to the influences of the music I currently listened to, digging into the archives to find Joe Strummer and Ian Mackaye and Bob Mould and Nick Lowe and Paul Westerberg…
2013
The Replacements “Here Comes A Regular”
Which brings Here Comes A Regular. Not the most ripping of ‘Mats tunes, but definitely the one that hit me the hardest. I was spending a lot of time in bars, so much so that I threw my own 30th birthday party. There was a show flyer made by my buddy Curt and everything. The first band was Frontier Folk Nebraska and the second band was Heavy Chase, and I told bad jokes about the bar tenders in between sets. When I finally moved out of that little college town, I made all the bar tenders a mix CD called Here Comes A Regular. Later, after moving to Colorado, I would listen to The Replacements incessantly and buy this cute woman a copy of Trouble Boys.
2018
Wilco “Impossible Germany”
This cute woman would be Ann, who would become my wife and mother of my child. On our first date, over Odell 5 Barrel Pale Ales, we would talk for hours about music. We realized we were both at some of the same shows in Chicago, namely an early afternoon set by a young band called Sleigh Bells, and we found we both really loved a great band from Chicago— Wilco. “Impossible Germany” has become a live staple in their sets ever since Nels Cline joined the band, and it’s consistently one of the best parts of the set. Whether it’s a classic 2007 Austin City Limits performance or any other live recording from Nugs, Impossible Germany rarely disappoints in featuring epic guitar solos from Nels. Except for that one time my wife and I saw Wilco, and she kept trying to film his guitar solo to Impossible Germany, but it never quite went Full Nels in the best possible way, and even though it was still very good, it wasn’t perfectly great, which made it slightly disappointing.
2023
Boy Genius - Satanist
There’s been bands like Boy Genius before in that there’s been really good rock trios, but Boy Genius manages to make rock n roll that’s still refreshing in 2023. All of these years in, I’m still drawn to riffs, and Satanist has a great one. The three women who make up the band are all exceptional song writers in their own right— see Night Shift by Lucy Dacus, Sprained Ankle by Julien Baker, or Smoke Signals by Phoebe Bridgers— but on Satanist they all shine together. Each singer takes a verse, and the song bounces along with lyrics about killing the bourgeoises. What more could you want from rock n roll?
