The Onion this week did an article (not a jokey one, a real one) where they got a few famous-type people (guy from Modest Mouse, David Cross, that douche from the Postal Cervix/Dead Scab for Cutie) set their ipods on shuffle and comment on the first five songs that show up. This has the potential to be extremely embarassing for me, or conversely, seeming to be a virtuoso performance of my unassailable taste (which you will hate me for). So nobody wins here, but whatever, here we go. I promise complete honesty.

1. Hefner - "Love Will Destroy Us in the End"

Um, honestly I can't remember this song except for the chorus which is also the title. I really got into Hefner when I was living with Matt Voynovich. Matt had this way of liking indie rock in a totally un-fey way, which made it cool. The singer for Hefner is really funny and brutally honest and vulnerable. My fave song of theirs is "Hymn for Cigarettes" which my brother re-turned me onto not this christmas but the christmas before. But, like I said, I hardly ever listen to this one.

2. Soulwax - "NY Excuse" (Dirty South remix)

I love this song! Whenever I listen to it I imagine myself as the DJ who put it on at the beginning of my set. People are just milling around, not dancing, but this song gets them going and launches them into a frenzy that doesn't end till the lights come on. I have all the Soulwax "excuse" remixes and this is my favorite. I wonder if it gets a lot of play in clubs I never go to?

3. Misfits - "She"

I recently put a bunch of my fave Misfits tracks on my ipod, but this one I can't remember--even though I know its basically a classic. I would much rather listen to "Where Eagles Dare," "We are 138" or "Bullet." I saw the bastard version of the Misfits play in the late 90s in the parking lot of the Mindbomb in St. Catharines. There were a lot of racist skinheads there threatening to beat each other up. I stood by the side of the stage for safety with Geoff Brown.

4. Jonathan Richman - "Ice Cream Man"

Wasn't this on the soundtrack to some Adam Sandler film? Anyway, again, I'm never in the mood to listen to this song for some reason. I totes love JR obv, but this song is kind of annoying. Modern Lovers tracks are much better for ipod play. I bought the first Modern Lovers album at a Borders (or some big music/movie/book store) in Niagara Falls, New York in my late teens and I felt an instant connection with everything Richman sang, even "I'm Straight." (1st straight-edge song ever?)

5. Spacemen 3 - "Come Down Softly to My Soul"

Truthfully, I recently got this song on record (Playing with Fire) and it makes for house-listening much better than ear-phone listening. I find that with most Spacemen 3 tracks actually. I have had the first two S3 albums (Perfect Prescription and Sound of Confusion?) on cassette tape for awhile. I taped them off Fraser Dempster who subsequently claimed I never returned the cds I dubbed them from. I have often contemplated getting a tatoo of the band's logo because it looks really cool, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for that level of fandom yet.

So there it is. Phew, not really that embarassing after all and a pretty good cross section. One thing I've learned though: I tend to skip through a lot of stuff all of the time and should probably remove it.