June 28, 2006

Curious George and his car tunes. Well, summer cruisin' season is upon us. Time to roll down all the wagon's windows, drape your arm over the door, and staight-arm steer at two o'clock, blasting out tunes all over the nieghbourhood and having the bass reverb dislodge all the plastic in your car. What cruisin' tunes do you prefer, to aid in your non-chalant pissing-off of everyone within earshot?

Of course, the key is to remain cool and detached, and not give a fuck about the pedestrians or patio-goers think, as you test out the echo-capabilities of downtown streets. Recently, I was given scowling looks for Moe Koffman Live at Expo '67, (featuring the best Hammond B3 this side of Jimmy Smith), but appreciation for the quasi-porn instrumentals of Beastie Boys. Yes, we're being anti-social fucks. That's a given. Now what do you like to crank out, Joe Cool?

posted by Capt. Renault 18 years ago
  • I rammed my Fiat Uno into the back of a Toyota Landcruiser while listening to Primal Scream.
  • The Dixie Dregs (Road Expense, Punk Sandwich, and, of course, Cruise Control).
  • On my way to work, I rock to the likes of Big Sugar, Buckcherry, or The Trews. On my way home, I relax and unwind with mostly jazz (Coltrane, Getz, Monk, or even some Steely Dan) On weekends, it's a free-for all with selections from whatever 20 or so CDs are in my vehicle's rotation that week.
  • /spoilsport.
  • Me First & the Gimme Gimmes.
  • I don't listen to music in the car, as I find it distracts me from both the task/enjoyment of driving and from the environment (traffic, road, etc.). A nice side-effect is that it saves money on audio gear. (...which I promptly dump into engine & suspension mods...) Saves weight, too, not lugging around all those amps and subs. I know, I'm no fun... but then again, I am a bit of a freak when it comes to driving. ...and in general... on preview: Also, I'm a-skeered of the tumor that bees'll give me if I listen to loud music.
  • I can't hear the radio in my car, because all of the soundproofing had to be ripped out so that the carburettors would fit. But, if the stereo could be heard above the gurgle of a finely tuned aircooled engine, it'd be pumping out Black Eyed Peas. Dem humps, dem humps!
  • The Offspring. "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)" is the perfect cruising song.
  • Alkaline Trio, Vertical Horizon, Neko Case, Gorillaz, Korn, Sarah Bettens, Better Than Ezra, Audioslave, Death in Vegas, Elliot Smith, Radiohead, Tool, and Toad the Wet Sprocket are among the many artists I listen to while driving. But then, I drive about 30k miles a year, and I need me some tunes.
  • This morning I made Mr Cobalt suffer through ABBA. It was pouring and the local university radio station is in 'Emergency Pledge Week/Month/Aeon.' I am not a blaster. I amplify the music by singing along, out of tune, occasionally without knowing the words. Lately, besides the ABBA, my summer music consists of: Embarassing pop-punk, Rat Pack and/or Richard Cheese, and, when I'm driving around the lakes and everything's green and nifty, the soundtrack to Silence of the Lambs.
  • To name a few? Femmes (Violent) - Blister in the Sun George Thorogood - One Bourbon, etc. Buckcherry - Crazy Bitch Salt N Pepper - Push it Kenny Rogers - Coward of the County Beatles - Revolver - THE WHOLE ALBUM Led Zeppelin - Kashmir Styx - Come Sail Away x14 Joan Jett - I love Rock and Roll GNR - Patience & Sweet Child O Mine Stevie Wonder - Superstition Cranberries - Zombie Ace of Base - You know the one. J Geils - Musta Got Lost Def Leapord - Pour Some Sugar on Me Styx - Renegade Bob Dylan - One More Cup of Coffee Conway Twitty - I'd Love to Lay You Down Seether - Driven Under Metallica - Enter Sandman --- Yes, I'm serious. Me and the wife are taking a road trip on Friday and I've got the ipod charged and ready to rock/roll/jam/cruise and alla dat good good stuff.
  • "Alkaline Trio, Vertical Horizon, Neko Case, Gorillaz, Korn, Sarah Bettens, Better Than Ezra, Audioslave, Death in Vegas, Elliot Smith, Radiohead... I can't listen to Radiohead in the car. Radiohead puts me into a Driving Coma, when you arrive at home and startle yourself awake and realize you're lucky to be alive.
  • I don;t drive much, and when I do I prefer no music. But as a passenger, I can attest that "The Beatles 1" is an awesome road trip album.
  • Right now I'm enjoying anything that has to do with Danger Mouse.
  • Since moving to LA, I can't help but to listen to the Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell songs that reference wherever it is I'm driving. I am a dork that way. Other than that, I've always felt that Misstra Know It All (Stevie Wonder) is the best song ever to have on whilst driving along with the wind in your hair.
  • Always wanted to drive along the main strips blasting classical (Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven) but I'm sure it would be drowned out by the kids whose stereo equipment cost more than their car.
  • I roll up with audiobooks bangin'. “I HAD SEEN LITTLE OF HOLMES LATELY! MY MARRIAGE HAD DRIFTED US AWAY FROM EACH OTHER! MY OWN COMPLETE HAPPINESS, AND THE HOME-CENTRED INTERESTS WHICH RISE UP AROUND THE MAN WHO FIRST FINDS HIMSELF MASTER OF HIS OWN ESTABLISHMENT, WERE SUFFICIENT TO ABSORB ALL MY ATTENTION!! WHILE HOLMES, WHO LOATHED EVERY FORM OF SOCIETY WITH HIS WHOLE BOHEMIAN SOUL, REMAINED IN OUR LODGINGS IN BAKER-STREET, BURIED AMONG HIS OLD BOOKS, AND ALTERNATING FROM WEEK TO WEEK BETWEEN COCAINE AND AMBITION, THE DROWSINESS OF THE DRUG, AND THE FIERCE ENERGY OF HIS OWN KEEN NATURE!!!” werd.
  • It's been over 10 years since I last was driving, but my favorites were always Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", the Carpenters, and Cat Stevens (the result of Harold and Maude's early influence on me).
  • Radiohead puts me into a Driving Coma Driving Coma is my default autopilot. Stewardess! I need another coffee over here.
  • I just roll down the wondows and scream random obscenities at the top of my lungs.
  • I've had a thing for "Tarzan Boy" and "One Night in Bangkok" for a while now. They are such great grooves. On a curiouser note: I have the tendency to inject the phrase "pork and beans" into every song I sing. For example: Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" would be sung as such: ♪I ain't no pork-and-beans girl, I ain't no pork-and-beans girl..♫ Isn't that poetic? When I'm in the field mapping with my buddies, we all eventually stick pork and beans into whatever we're singing. It's a hoot!
  • You can also improve almost any song by replacing the word "heart" with the word "pants".
  • VNV Nation. I also have a soft spot for turning up Simon & Garfunkel as loud as my speakers can handle, and rolling down the windows.
  • many songs can also be improved by the swapping out of "gloves" for "love" and "shoes" for "you" ie: I am human and I need to wear gloves just like everybody else three minutes in a closet of shoes...(kinky!) right now in the car is: Gotan Project Lamb Sneaker Pimps Duran Duran a Brazilian dance/electronica compilation and something else I can't remember great driving music (I love to drive and love music and have a horrible singing voice so the only place I'll belt is solo in a car...): Massive Attack Mezzanine (really, its good for anything) Nine Inch Nails (particularly Pretty Hate Machine) any Thievery Corp Stravinsky (also really good for most applications, very loud!!!) Dead Can Dance (wonderful to drive to when the weather is extreme!!)
  • oh and the Smiths...I love "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" (I'm 5'9")
  • I <3 Daft Punk cranked so loud, it makes your car sound like you have a load of dishes in the trunk. Their Homework & Human After All albums seem to have maximum dish rattling effect.
  • "He has stolen my knapsack." "Il a volé mon sac a dos. Il a volé mon sac a dos." And when one needs a break from that, Spem in Alium, Santana, Corelli, Mozart, Beatles, Paul Simon, McGarrigles ...
  • Car music begins and ends with but a single song: Low Rider. /trump!
  • Gary Numan's 'Cars'... Kraftwerk's 'Authobahn'. Massive Attack, yeah. Gotan Project. Sigur Ros. Royksopp. I'd be happy riding along in Medusa's car, with that playlist. As for annoying noise to rattle and confound the passerby, KMFDM, NIN, Revolting Cocks would fit the bill.
  • Enigma, Trancevision, Delerium, Dead Can Dance and certain Strawpeople tracks, if I'm letting someone else hear them. They tend to attract the kind of people I like.
  • Monkeyfilter: attract the kind of people I like
  • Since others are listing bands I'd like to add anything by Disturbed or any of Flogging Molly's faster songs. Ok Go usually has very loud bass parts too (especially "Maybe, This Time.")
  • I like bagpipes for loud car music, ideally something modern like Brother or Lenahan, but more trad stuff works, too.
  • Mahler's Resurrection Symphany?? really loud...its VERY dramatic!
  • It's fun to switch out the word "slime" for "time" in any song: "Slime keeps on slippin, into the future..." /loves the Smiths
  • Ministry's Jesus Built My Hotrod is the bestest deliverator tune ever.
  • One of the best music/driving memories I have is driving through the Arizona desert in the middle of the night and the guitar intro to Dave Matthews' Band's #41 came on. It was perfect. Also driving around in summer with the top down playing Supergroove nice and loud. Since then I've learned it's not cool to force your music on other people, but still, it was fun at the time. Nowadays I'm likely to listen to anything that I can sing along with while driving, whether it's Joplin or Soul Coughing or Air or the soundtrack to Moulin Rouge. Not much help, I guess. I will also sing along with the windows down, since I figure I will never see any of my co-drivers again and therefore it's pointless being embarrassed. Oh my God, I'm turning into my mother.
  • i don't drive at all, but i wrap small speakers around my neck while cycling. i'm too wary to wear headphones/ear buds in city traffic. i like dancey techno electronica stuff when cycling. i've fashioned a neck-hugging system using one of those pillows people use on airplanes and the innards of some passive pc speakers. it's not really powerful enough to annoy other people, but it's enough for me to listen to while retaining awareness of the cars around me.
  • Driving! I do love it so. Tank!, Cowboy Bebop soundtrack Ça Plane Pour Moi, Plastic Bertrand Road To Nowhere, Talking Heads Grand Canyon, Magnetic Fields Any Jamaican ska Anything by the B-52s The entire Blues Brothers soundtrack AND... the ultimate highway driving track: The Ride Of The Valkyries, Richard Wagner, die Walküre Act III yeahhhhhh.
  • What i'd like to do if the intent was to blast the neighbourhood is to play some great big huge operatic aria. That would be cool. However, i don't know any, which is a problem.
  • I don't know opera, but I'm tellin' ya man, Igor is the way to go. The Rite of Spring, anyone??
  • I like blaring NIN's "Perfect Drug" (the mix with the long-assed drum solo) while cruising. Damn, but I love that song.
  • smoosh.
  • OLD PEOPLE'S MUSIC! Rock on, GramMa
  • The think I've never been able to understand is why folks with mondo acustic systems think the rest of us want to hear their music. They can hear their music at less decibles, so I have to think that when my rearview mirrow is shimmying it's because a car behind me wants to show how cool they are 'cause they can afford those big speakers. It maybe another "I'm sorry about your penis" thing, unless you can tell me why it isn't. Some years ago, I spent a couple of months cranking my pathetic (standard) player to send out bouzikia music or Mozart in protest, but that became pretty boring, so I stopped But, really, folks, your favorite band sucks! Please, please don't try to share it with me. Especially since it'll trash your hearing.
  • Please see the thread on misspelling.
  • "songs for the deaf" by queens of the stone age, and uhawaii college radio is usually good, as is the stuff that medusa mentioned. =)
  • ah, it is recommended to play brazilian girls in the rain.
  • the soundtrack for my mini lately has been kind of electronic, stuff like Underworld and Royksopp, Zero 7, Air, Saint Etienne, Massive Attack,etc.
  • and stereolab, especially boppy stuff like Emeror Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops
  • (sees thread on spelling)
  • A CD full of music from the Simpsons ("Who keeps the martians under wraps..") can make any long car trip heaven... or hell, if you're not fan.
  • How can you forget Arlo Gutherie's "Alice's Restaurant"? shovels and rakes and implements of destruction....
  • I cannot tell a lie, I put that CD under that pile of garbage...
  • MonkeyFilter: "I'm sorry about your penis" thing.
  • Twenty-seven eight by ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one... Yes. Oh hell yes.
  • My preferred cruisin' music varies widely. However. When the annoying children next door have played Ashlee Simpson or that goddamned candy shop song that still haunts my nightmares even though it's long off the charts one too many times, and I snap, I pull out the Nitro CD. It was deliberately mixed to have almost no midtone whatsoever, and the lead singer was famous for being able to shatter glasses from the stage without using any amplification. Freight Train alone is usually enough to drive the annoying children, most of the rest of the neighbors, and every canine within a mile radius away for hours.
  • the lead singer was famous for being able to shatter glasses from the stage without using any amplificatio I have an extremely hard time believing this.
  • In the pre-iPod era when cassettes stalked the earth like platic dinosaurs and my car was ankle-deep in the critters ... I accidentally made the perfect driving tape. I seem to remember it featured songs by Husker Du, New Order, R.E.M. (Covering First We Take Manhatten) The Chameleons, Michelle Shocked, The Wedding Present, The House of Love and many, many others. It was a masterpiece of late 80's/early 90's indie-rock ... Then the iPod came along and I thought: 'tapes, who needs em?' and threw them all away. Doh! I now can't remember what was on my favourite driving tape, and yet I remember it was perfect. So every journey now has a little edge of sadness remembering a misguided moment of tape destruction.
  • Wolof: the glass-shattering thing only works with proper crystal glasses. If you tap your fingernail against the edge of the glass, the resulting "tingggg" noise will be a distinct, high pitch. Sing that pitch quietly and the glass will vibrate. Sing (or play) it loudly enough and the vibrations will break the glass.
  • es el Queso, I could drive forever if I made a repeating loop of Stereolabs Jenny Ondioline As for the glass-breaking thing, surely if you find the resonant frequency of any oscillating system, you can overload it until it is destroyed or breaks the oscillation? I guess.
  • Easy: Green Onions Hot Rod Lincoln For night driving. OTOH if you want to scatter pedestrians Motorhead. and Helmet
  • OOPS, WMV above, but you mousedover that I'm hoping.
  • Sing (or play) it loudly enough and the vibrations will break the glass. I understand this, Pallas. Please direct me to a singer who can bust a glass unamplified from the stage. It is my contention that this critter doesn't exist.
  • I like listening to Air, Thievery Corps, Massive Attack, Mazzy Star, Led Zepp, System Of A Down, Cash, Dylan, and on and on. I mean, am I in the mood to rock, relax, have a story told to me, get nostalgic for my teen-hood, or just zone? /I used to drive around in a convertible Corvette blasting opera music in college. Had a Mohawk/have multiple piercings and tattoos. That was a fun game. Incidently after listening to One Night In Bangkok via YouTube, check out One Night In Beijing. It's a very entertaining and mind-bending song in it's own right.
  • Wolof: http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/05/mythbusters_breaking_glass_a_r.html http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-81692.html http://www.metalsludge.tv/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=52 Googling for "Jim Gillette + shatter glass" or "Jamie Vendera + shatter glass" will bring up numerous results. Jim Gillette was the lead singer for Nitro, Jamie Vendera is a student of his, and the guy who actually did it on Myhtbusters, because Jim wasn't available. It's an exaggeration to say either one could shatter glasses further back in the bar from the stage, but on a table in front of the stage, yes.
  • Damn, hard to believe no one's mentioned Lucretia My Reflection. Also: - Animositisomina - Wish/Last - most of the Dirt album and, incongruously, - any Chris Isaak while on the PCH
  • Oh, I love that song! "That's me in the porno, that's me in the spotlight, lucretia my reflection". Man, R.E.M. just don't write shit like that any more.
  • Twenty-seven eight by ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one... Aaaiiigh! Pete Seeger and The Guthries are chewing on my braiiiiin!! *having a Brazilian-Megahoffer moment, or whatever*
  • "That's me in the porno, that's me in the spotlight, lucretia my reflection". Eh? LOSING MY ERECTION! Ugh.
  • I saw that episode of Mythbusters. Pretty cool. I don't drive very much, so can add nothing to this thread. Still, I feel compelled to post...
  • You know, I said 'a bunch of embarassing pop-punk' and then all the bands I was avoiding mentioning got mentioned by other people. Except 'American Idiot.' I could play that album forever, as embarassing as that might be. Hmm, maybe I'll be stealing these suggestions. I'm going on a roadtrip to Florida next month and I'll need to get the music now so I can annoy my carmates with my half-known-lyrics singing. (Or I'll just pop in that annoying System of a Down song, the one with the feet and the pie, and see how long they last.)
  • I hate the way that guy sings in System of a Down. I just want to scratch my skin off when I hear it. It's almost as bad as Bette Midler, or Axl Rose. BARF.
  • or Alice in Chains. Then again, we'll always have Wing.
  • /me thanks quidnunc kid for making me cry
  • Also, anything by Accept or Furr.
  • Grupo Laberinto one time cruising South Street - only nobody cared :(