What's The Connection? Spiders

I don't like spiders, I don't like most bugs. But I love songs with Spider in the title. There are so many good ones. And I do like Spiderman (the comic). This Connection has nothing to do with Peter Parker, though. You would think I would put one of the cool versions of the Spiderman Theme in here, but I didn't. Had to put in Jim Stafford. That's one of my favorite Spider (and Snake) songs. Of course the Toy Dolls and The Who. But one of the coolest tracks, I got from a friend of mine (Liz) who used to live in the UK. I can't verify this, but I believe her story. She heard I was making a playlist of Spider songs and she said that she had a 45 that she got from a cereal box in the 70's with a Spider song and did I want it? OMG, YES! So this 45 is by the Tigers and it's called "Spider In The Bath" and it ends up being a really cool new wave-ish, ska-pop kinda song. So, it's on here. You are welcome. Don't really know much about the band and I looked. All I got is that the band put out some 45's and one album: Savage Music (late 1979 or 1980). Anything else you can find probably is one of the three other bands called Tiger. Just enjoy it.

What's The Connection? Spiders

01 Jim Stafford - Spiders and Snakes

02 Toy Dolls - Spiders In The Dressing Room

03 Who - Boris The Spider

04 Rolling Stones - The Spider and the Fly

05 Tigers - Spider In The Bath

06 Sweet - The Spider

07 Chick Willis - Black Widow Spider

08 Tony Joe White - Stud-Spider

09 Muddy Waters - Mean Red Spider

10 John Lee Hooker - Crawlin' Black Spider

11 Hoodoo Gurus - Mind The Spider

12 Shonen Knife - Spider House

13 Captain Sensible - I'm A Spider

14 They Might Be Giants - Spider

15 Cage The Elephant - Spiderhead

16 No Doubt - Spiderwebs

17 Lee Hazlewood - The Black Widow Spider

18 Uriah Heep - Spider Woman

19 Alice Cooper - Return of the Spiders

20 Dio - Along Comes A Spider

21 Ozzy Osbourne - Spiders

22 Slipknot - Spiders

23 Little Richard - Itsy Bitsy Spider

I'm adding this at the end, because I ended up following up more with Tigers and one of the guys is ex-Van der Graaf Generator (Nic Potter bass) and the other ex-Starry Eyed and Laughing (Ross McGeeney guitar)

What's The Connection? Monkeys

I was listening to a monkey song (that I didn't even put on this connection, but that I liked a lot, so there will have to be volume 2) and started thinking of Ape, Gorilla, Monkey songs that I liked. I came up with this pick. You'll probably know most of the songs. Perhaps not the Fela Kuti or the Residents unless you like that kind of music. And I doubt you've seen the movie that features Jo Kennedy's "Monkey In Me". It was an Australian film in the 80's with some cool, but obscure tracks. Starstruck came out in 192 and didn't really get a good release in the US, but that's too bad it's decent cult film and features music from Tim Finn. The character Jackie played by Jo Kennedy made the film for me, though. She and her "cousin"  get into some great musical antics. Funny movie. And that wasn't even the hit from the movie.

What's The Connection? Monkeys

01 Peter Gabriel - Shock The Monkey

02 Beastie Boys - Brass Monkey

03 Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven

04 Michael Franks - Monkey See-Monkey Do

05 Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench

06 Residents with Snake Finger - King Kong

07 Arctic Monkeys - Who The Fuck Are The Arctic Monkeys?

08 The Miracles - Mickey's Monkey

09 Fela Kuti - Monkey Banana

10 The Dickies - You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)

11 The Kinks - Apeman

12 Traveling Wilburys - Tweeter And The Monkey Man

13 William Bell - Monkeying Around

14 Honey Cone - One Monkey Don't Stop No Show (Part I)

15 Kristin Hersh - Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey

16 Major Lance - The Monkey Time

17 Billy Butler - Boston Monkey

18 Black Eyed Peas - Shake Your Monkey

19 Starz - Monkey Business

20 Jo Kennedy - Monkey In Me

21 Counting Crows - Monkey

22 TeeVee Toons - Magilla Gorilla

PS: The track I didn't add, but like is Peace + Love + Pitbulls " Do The Monkey"

What's The Connection? Swimming

This connection started at the request of a friend, Neb. He loved Siouxsie & The Banshees and came up with the idea of a swimming connection. And he turned me on to the Phil Manzanera and Wire swimming songs. I put it aside a few times. I'd pull it out every now and again, when I noticed a song about swimming. I think one of the last ones was Florence + The Machine. So this covers all genres, multiple years (both looking and finding). Persistence pays off, because here it is. just in time for the summer when we all want to be swimming in the pool. A bonus track could be a track I originally had on the list: Dire Straits "Twisting By The Pool" and Neb might be disappointed since I also removed The Cure "The Drowning Man" Sorry, Neb. But it doesn't quite fit except as this footnote. It's in the middle of the writeup, so more of a parenthetical thought without parenthesis and not a footnote. BTW, that is my pool on the cover.

What's The Connection? Swimming

01 The Call - A Swim In The Ocean

02 Glen Campbell - Swimming Up Stream

03 Simple Minds - Swimming Towards The Sun

04 Billy Currington - Swimmin' In Sunshine

05 Fishbone - Swim

06 Bush - Swim

07 Madonna - Swim

08 REM - Nightswimming

09 10cc - Channel Swimmer

10 Elvis Presley - Moonlight Swim

11 Florence + The Machine - Swimming

12 Gaelic Storm - Swimmin' In The Sea

13 Phil Manzanera - Swimming

14 Kimberley Rew - We Will Swim Together

15 Wire - Our Swimmer

16 John Foxx - Swimmer 1

17 Siouxsie And The Banshees - Swimming Horses

18 Little Nell - Do The Swim

19 Martha And The Muffins - Swimming

20 Bobby Freeman - C'mon And Swim

21 Sly & The Family Stone - Swim

What's The Connection? Suicide

I told you yesterday that I get uncomfortable with stressful situations. Usually I joke my way out of it. But many times I just make a compilation. This is one of those times. No, I do not feel like killing myself. But I did know someone who actually went through with it. Years ago and very surprising to me. It  took me awhile to get to making the playlist, although I started thinking of it then. I couldn't deal with actually putting it together at the time. But eventually I put this pick together: A Suicide Connection. Probably not too many times you will want to play this, but here it is anyway. I'm sure I missed some songs, so feel free to leave those songs in the comments below. If you are thinking about suicide, please call someone: try 1-800-273-8255 or a friend. Remember this too shall pass.

What's The Connection? Suicide

01 Pink Floyd - Goodbye Cruel World

02 Concrete Blonde - Tomorrow, Wendy

03 Lou Reed - The Bed

04 REM - Everybody Hurts

05 Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe

06 Manic Street Preachers - Theme from M A S H (Suicide Is Painless)

07 Depeche Mode - Blasphemous Rumours

07 Queen - Don't Try Suicide

09 Sisters Of Mercy - Emma

10 Van Halen - Jump

11 Blue Clocks Green - Hemingway (12 Version)

12 Specimen - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

13 Pere Ubu - Final Solution

14 Fabulous Poodles - Suicide Bridge

15 Cheap Trick - Auf Wiedersehen

16 Ozzy Osbourne - Suicide Solution

17 Dead Kennedys - Straight A's

18 Eminem - Stan

What's The Connection? Heart Attack

This came about because I had a friend that had a heart attack. I deal with stress with humor and making compilations. Let's me deal with stuff. That works in love and in times of sickness, in this case: heart attacks. Anyway I started looking at everything in my life associated with chest pains and immediately thought of several songs about heart attacks. First that came to mind was my friend and work buddy Paul Engemann's band Device. Might not be the first one you thought of (Probably Queen), but for me, I played that song Hanging On A Heart Attack way before I met Paul or started working with him. And that band was before he worked with Giorgio Moroder or the band Animotion. But I played the hell out of that twelve inch single at clubs, on the radio and at events. So the first song I thought of for this WTC. The rest came after. Not sure if anyone else would think it's proper to play to someone who has just had a heart attack, but I never was known for tact. You'' have to decide for yourself.

What's The Connection? Heart Attack

01 Thin Lizzy - Heart Attack

02 Demi Lovato - Heart Attack

03 Beastie Boys - Heart Attack Man

04 Queen - Sheer Heart Attack

05 James Cotton - Heart Attack

06 Device - Hanging On A Heart Attack

07 One Direction - Heart Attack

08 Eric Burdon - Heart Attack

09 Toni Braxton & Babyface - Heart Attack

10 Nina Hagen - Love Heart Attack

11 Johnny Winter - Serious As A Heart Attack

12 Freak Kitchen - Chest Pain Waltz

13 Jerry Goldsmith - Chest Pains

14 Liars - Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack!

15 Bush Tetras - Heart Attack

16 Olivia Newton-John - Heart Attack

17 Enrique Iglesias - Heart Attack

18 Old 97's - Murder (Or a Heart Attack)

19 Billy Ray Cyrus - Achy Breaky Heart

What's The Connection? Fun

Just a fun WTC? for you. A little bit different than most of my Connections, because I added a couple of songs that are about Good Times. Mostly songs with Fun in the title, one funny song, one enjoy song and the two with good times in the title. Obviously there are a million other songs about fun, but these are the ones I chose from the songs I own. I'm pretty sure I made this around the time that Puffy Amiyumi was popular with Teen Titans in the USA. Because I started listening to them (even saw them in concert) because my daughter liked theband and the cartoons. They were pretty good in concert for what they were. The rest of the songs came from their collaboration with Cyndi Lauper and looking through my albums as I remembered Fun songs. And all of them are pretty fun.

What's The Connection? Fun

01 Daryle Singletary - Too Much Fun

02 Stevie Wonder - Fun Day

03 Jennifer Lopez - Ain't It Funny

04 Jacksons - Enjoy Yourself

05 Spice Girls - If You Wanna Have Fun

06 Britney Spears - I've Just Begun (Having My Fun)

07 Cars - Good Times Roll

08 Chic - Good Times 

09 Con Funk Shun - Ffun

10 Commander Cody - Too Much Fun

11 The Harmonizers Quartet - Ain't We Got Fun

12 Kool & the Gang - Big Fun

13 X - We're Having Much More Fun

14 Inner City - Big Fun

15 Samantha Fox - I Wanna Have Some Fun

16 Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun

17 Madness - House Of Fun

18 Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight

19 Cyndi Lauper with Puffi Amiyumi - Girls Just Want To Have Fun

20 Tony Bennett & Count Basie - Are You Havin' Any Fun

21 Sly and the Family Stone - Hot Fun In The Summertime

22 The Beach Boys - Fun, Fun, Fun

23 The Fantastic Baggies - Summer Means Fun

Shaggin' On The Beach 2

Here's part 2 of my Shaggin' pick. I actually made them both at the same time, making sure I had most all my favorites on these two. Finally, I got to play in the Carolina's and I played a bunch of these tracks. They actually go over pretty much everywhere, just not as Beach music or Shag or even as Carolina beach. Just great tracks to dance to. Probably that's sacrilegious talk in a Carolina Beach club, but I'm not from there. I'll dance to whatever it's called. This is the last one for awhile, so if you find your favorite song is missing, make sure to post it in the comments, because I probably have no clue.

Shaggin' On The Beach 2

22 Chairmen Of The Board - Give Me Just A Little More Time

23 Temptations - My Girl

24 Cornelius Brother & Sister Rose - Too Late To Turn Back Now

25 J.J. Jackson - But It's Alright

26 The Embers - I Love Beach Music

27 The Tymes - Ms. Grace

28 Temptations - Ain't Too Proud To Beg

29 Tams - What Kind Of Fool

30 Four Tops - Baby I Need Your Loving

31 The Drifters - You're More Than A Number

32 Fontella Bass - Rescue Me

33 Showman - 39-21-46

34 The Platters - With This Ring

35 Willie Tee - Thank You John

36 Dominoes - Sixty-Minute Man

37 Bruce Channel - Hey Baby

38 Fantastic Shakers - Myrtle Beach Days

39 The Swingin' Medallions - Hey Hey Baby

40 The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup

41 Tams - Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy

42 Band Of Oz - Shaggin'

43 Fiestas - So Fine

44 The Showmen - It Will Stand