A coupla tunes for alla y’all on a slow-ish day.

Like any red-blooded American, I dig Creedence. I have for a long time, although I wouldn’t say I’m a fan per se, because I own only two CCR albums. I mean, I know all the hits, I think Creedence is pretty great and all, but I have great respect for the word fan. (Kinda like I have great respect for the word friend–’tis not to be thrown around willy-nilly.)

When I’m a fan of something, I get all the albums or books. And all the limited edition stuff. And lie in wait outside their practice space so I can grab a lock of their hair. Since I was never compelled to do this for Creedence, I didn’t consider myself a Fan with a capital-F.

But I recently heard a deep album track by CCR that rocks so damn hard, I just might have rocked me into full-fledged fanhood. It’s called “Ramble Tamble”, it opens Cosmo’s Factory, and holy goddamn, is it good.

Your second tune comes from Nation of Ulysses, who I would definitely declare myself a fan of, even though I was too young to get hip to them the first time ’round. (Their first 7-inches dropped around the time I was deep into Weird Al.)

It would take a medium-sized novel to capture all the mythology and legend surrounding the band (much of it self-propagated). Suffice to say, they were revolutionary in every sense of the word. Although nowadays it may be hard to piece that out, since so many of their innovations were co-opted by later, lesser bands (not to mention marketing). The liner notes to Plays Pretty for Baby are a genius piece of agitprop. Or satire. Or satirical agitprop.

But today I turn to their first album, 13-Point Program to Destroy America, and the tune “You’re My Miss Washington D.C.” This song was played on last night’s edition of The Best Show on WFMU. This not only reminded me how awesome it was, but allowed The Baby to dance heartily to its strains. Her moves weren’t much different than Ian Svenonius’s in this video.

With that said, here’s some liberation for your room.