Last modified December 07, 2009
Copyright © 2006 Drew Atkins

Sylvia and I recently bought a house so we don't have any money.  At least we can still download stuff for free from the Internet!  Thanks Canada for lax piracy laws.

My old friend Dave Brown sent me a link to Roxette by Dr. Feelgood. You can hear the sounds of punk, ska and new wave about to erupt. Check out the guitar player's moves in the video.  I saw Blitzen Trapper earlier this year and really enjoyed the show.  Eric Earley channels Bob Dylan in his live performances.  I pulled the live version of Bittersweet Symphony off a compilation from Uncut Magazine.  Check out the legal battles over this tune.

If you haven't already seen it check out the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnson.  The part where he throws the keys out the window of his Dad's airplane is riveting!  Our family went to see Green Day this summer in Hamilton.  It was cool to see the kids pumping their fists in the air.  More of the same left-wing pop goodness!

My friend Dave gave me this cassette tape a couple of years ago. It's a board mix of The Nils playing at The Ritz in New York City back in 1986. At the time there wasn't much Nils' stuff available on the Internet so I decided to digitize the recording for fans. I promptly loaded it into my old cassette deck and it ate the tape. It sat there for a couple of years until I took the machine apart and spliced the tape back together.

There is some dropout on tracks 14 and 15 where the tape got crumpled by my deck. It's a board mix so the vocals are way out in front. I tried to balance the recording a bit because most of the signal was in the right channel but I think it was a stereo recording. I took out some midrange to get the vocals to balance with the other instruments a bit better.

You can still hear what a great live band they were despite the low fidelity of the recording. The drums and bass propel the songs forward and Alex's voice is as powerful and fragile as always. The songs are some of the best that come out of the Canadian punk rock scene.

Dave and I guessed at some of the song names. If you know the correct names please send them to me. Sadly Alex Soria died a while back. I hope this gives you a glimpse of what a great musician he was.

The true power of rock and roll can make you heave and sway with friends and strangers. The true power of rock and roll doesn't come from wires and amplifiers, although they help propel it at high velocity. The true power of rock and roll comes from genitalia and the primitive brain. The true power of rock and roll is transmitted throughout the universe on radio waves as ancient as the big bang singularity. The true power of rock and roll cannot be harnessed only experienced.

It's a little ironic but I got this mix when I was in Costa Rica last March. We stayed at a Hotel called El Sueno Tropical near Samara. It's owned by Steve Samiof who started Slash Magazine. Slash was Los Angeles' punk scene rag in the late '70s. The hotel is very beautiful and relaxing and it has the best dinner music, bar none.

During dinner one evening Steve asked us what we wanted to listen to and I said No Sunshine by Bill Withers. The next morning he gave me a CD with No Sunshine and a bunch of other gems on it. The title of the CD was No Sunshine Mix. I never paid much attention to Donovan but the tracks on this list are excellent. The Damien Rice tune really knocks my socks off and the Love tune is way cool.

This isn't a DJ Drat playlist but it's easier to post it here than create a new section for Steve. I sent Steve an email asking if it was OK to post his name here but I never got a reply. Steve, let me know if you want your name removed.

A long time ago I read a book by Charles Bukowski called Women. It gave me the idea to create a playlist of female artists. Not all of the tunes are composed by women by they all have a female vocalist. This isn't an attempte to list all the femal artists I know or even my favourites. It includes some I've come to know recently plus some old favourites.

About a year ago I read the book Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain.  A couple months after reading the book I met someone in my neighborhood who knows Gillian so I now have an autographed copy.  I know someone who knows somebody famous.

One of the kids at the office read the book but hadn't heard most of the music.  I thought I would publish a sampling of the artists mentioned in the book as a educational reference for the kids.  Everyone should know who Dee Dee was!

It's not all strictly New York because I've included some Iggy Pop and MC5, both of whom are based out of Detroit.  Maybe the play list should be called be called Detroit - New York to mirror the influence of Detroit on the New York scene, but that doesn't sound right so I've deferred to that famous tune sung by Frank Sinatra.

The tracks are arranged in chronological order by release year.

I know it's almost summer but I prepared this play list just as the first few sweet days of spring hatched out of the ice and snow.  As always I've included a Cramp's track just because I believe that every play list should include a Cramp's track.  I picked up a copy of The Beatle's White Album this spring and it still sounds great.  I Can't Get Behind That is a cool mix of 60's schlock (William Shatner), 80's punk (Henry Rollins) and 90's pop (Ben Folds). Check out the guitar solo on track 11.

It's been dark and dreary in TO all winter so I thought I had better put together something uplifting before everyone kills themselves. Get that noose out of you hands, crank up the volume and hit the play button. Then dance about the house in your underwear until the rain stops.

Here's a mix I created for my friend Scott. He doesn't have any Wilco recordings so I felt sorry for him. It almost sounds like Scott is singing track on 13. I included a couple of Captain Beefheart tunes from Safe as Milk because Scott claims he's never heard the album; even though I distinctly remember playing it for him back in the winter of '89.