Category Archives: Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs with the Okee Dokee Brothers

Paul Simon, Graceland

We’ve been listening to this album since we were kids. It was an ever-present album on family road trips and continued to be a source of inspiration during our high school and college music explorations. We are still amazed at Paul’s vocal delivery. No matter what he sings, it sounds heavenly. The fact that he’s singing outstanding lyrics just adds to our fanaticism. The way he delved into South African music, culture, and politics while making this record has always been a reminder to us that music is more than notes.

Dawes, North Hills

This record is representative of our more contemporary influences (it falls just above Justin Townes Earle’s Harlem River Blues in that category). We’ve been lucky enough to see Dawes perform multiple times as they’ve risen through the ranks and we’ve even had a chance to spend a day talking about songs with them. Their first record taught us the importance of a classic sound and the value of capturing an authentic performance in the studio with real energy. While we didn’t record Can You Canoe? analog like North Hills, we did try to capture as much live takes as possible. You can hear a bit of the Dawes influence on our tune “Thousand Star Hotel” after the interlude.

Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)

This record is a prime example of collaboration at its finest. David Rawling’s harmonies and lead guitar are the prefect match to Gillian’s voice. They both help write the songs too, so they’re an inspiration to us as a duo. Plus they write such unique melody and harmony lines. On this record they prove that folk music can be dissonant, harmonious, slow, and full of energy all at the same time.

John Prine, John Prine

This guy knows how to write songs with the perfect amount of tragedy and comedy, and that’s what it’s all about. He’s incredibly vulnerable and honest on this album and at the same time, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. This record proves that good music making requires good livin’ (whether that’s hard livin or happy livin’)!

The Band, Music from Big Pink

We love this record because it essentially takes all our favorite folk song parameters and invites them to let go a bit and wail away at a basement rock party. We love what the Band stood for (Dylan’s “brave knights” when he went electric, bringing musician’s together for collaborations like The Last Waltz, adding a contemporary edge to traditional songs, really great lyric writing) and this record highlights their best tunes and attributes. It was an honor to have Garth Hudson (the Band’s organ player, and more) play accordion on a couple tracks on Can You Canoe? and we really looked up to Levon, Danko, and Richard Manuel too. Robbie’s no slouch either!

Overall, if you’re gonna have just five albums to listen to on a desert island, the most important attribute has to be repeated listenability. All of these albums have that essential mixture of easy-to-understand, yet mysterious enough to listen to over and over. That combination is the most important part to making a good album no matter what genre of music you’re making.

Desert Island Discs with Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

A Tribe Called Quest, Midnight Marauders

Though Tribe really changed the game an album earlier with their second album, The Low End Theory, this third album is their high water mark for me. Banging drums, soulful jazz, and the endlessly inventive and inspiring style of Q Tip, the Abstract Poetic perfectly balanced with the gritty but hilarious battle rhymes of Phife Dawg, the 5 Foot Assassin. For me, classic hip hop gets no better than this.

De La Soul, Buhloone Mindstate

Another third album — and the one I consider De La’s opus. Funky and different tracks from Prince Paul and the super creative confidence of a couple of the game’s best MCs knowing the world embraced their abstract, sophisticated and playful raps. This was when hip-hop on the radio was challenging the listener to be intelligent and pay attention, pushing them up to the next level of artistic thinking. An absolute masterpiece. As the hook explaining the title says, “It might blow up, but it won’t go pop!”

KRS ONE, Edutainment

KRS is probably the first MC to truly dedicate himself to “consciousness.” His abilities both as a lecturer on social justice and global politics and as the most fierce battle rapper in the history of hip-hop combine on this album in a perfect balance. The right formula of important information and dope beats and rhymes is the meaning of “Edutainment,” and it’s something all us rappers who attempt to make a point or teach continually strive for.

Beastie Boys, Check Your Head

Yet another third album, this is probably my favorite from the Beasties discography. Though Licensed to Ill was my first cassette, and an argument could be made that Paul’s Boutique was the most groundbreaking of their albums (and I probably wouldn’t have a comeback), I grew up on this one most and I love every note. This is also the moment that the Beasties really stepped up the use of their own live playing incorporated into making their tracks, and when MCA (RIP!) began bringing the Tibetan Buddhist influence into the crazy lyrical gumbo.

Outkast, ATLiens

Outkast is beyond a doubt one of the most if not the most creative, unique and different group in all of hip-hop history. This album was truly the beginning of their ascent into the strange cosmos of their stellar musical voyage. Subtly psychedelic production from Organized Noise create a heady landscape for the mindbending flows of Big Boi and Andre (before he was 3000!), and the lyrics and methods of delivery are brilliant and inspiring. This is where these stars were truly hatched, and still has some of my favorite of their tracks.

Secret Agent 23 Skidoo’s new album Make Believers comes out on May 22, and it is his third!

Desert Island Discs with Lucky Diaz

The Beatles, Revolver

Let’s be honest, there’s no way to encapsulate the entire complexity of the Beatles in one album. But if one had to, I believe it would be this one. My daughter sings to “Yellow Submarine” the way I sang to “Good Day Sunshine” in the back seat of our family car. It’s been said “Here, There, Everywhere” is Paul’s favorite song he ever wrote. It’s certainly mine.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue

Before I ever visited New York City, it came to me via this album. I was a sophomore in high school when my band teacher (a trumpet player) lent me this album to take home. I never returned it. I finally understood the concept of an instrumentalist “singing” through their instrument. I felt New York. I felt Miles. Kind of Blue makes sadness beautiful.

The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing

Admittedly, I came to the B-52’s via my brother, who blasted “Rock Lobster” from his bedroom. He was obsessed with Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson. I believe we were 12 or so when Cosmic Thing was released. I had never heard a party before. Not only that, they looked like they came from mid-century outer space! “Love Shack” is still one of my all time favorite songs. I mean, you CAN’T help but move when you listen to it. Tin Roof Rusted!!!

Nirvana, Nirvana Unplugged

I suppose it’s my age, but Nirvana was my coming of age band. They heralded the Seattle sound that shaped my first bands, my first written songs, and my voice. We all wanted to be Kurt Cobain or Eddie Vedder. Here was a guy that couldn’t really sing or play a guitar that well — and he sounded amazing. I didn’t really know Bob Dylan yet, so Kurt was my first experience with a message and emotion really delivering a song. But not until this album did I really see how beautiful Kurt’s songs are. I believe this is the best Nirvana record ever recorded. “Dumb” WITH a string section! Brilliant.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced

People are often surprised to discover I’m a pretty serious guitar player. I spent a great deal of my youth cutting heads in blues jams where I grew up. Our records don’t have a lot of guitars on them. I always think the song comes first and rarely, if ever, do my songs ask for some epic guitar solo. I can honestly say when I first heard this album I couldn’t believe it was real. To this day, I’m mesmerized by Jimi. He’s what Miles is to the trumpet. I hear his voice in his playing. I want to play like Jimi. I want to perform like Jimi. Beautiful madness captured on tape played backwards.

Not a bad list of influences, right? See how they all came together to form A Potluck — coming May 8 to a store near you — in the album teaser clip below. And don’t forget to preview the whole record at this link. Enjoy!

Dadnabbit

Dads writing about kids' culture