Listening to...

my (wife's) iPod shuffle.

Lots of people claim that their iPods have a spooky ability to sequence songs in a weirdly psychic manner. Today, the shuffle queued up Cold Sweat. Now, James Brown has been imitated way past the point of parody, but -- good God! -- his voice on the "ahyeeaayeeahhhhh"s on this track is a wonder. It's like Little Richard OD'ing on testosterone. Legend has it that JB virtually made this song up on the spot and had the band run through it pretty much as you hear it. I believe it. And in the famous part where he says "give the drummer some," and Clyde Stubblefield breaks it down, well, it's just too damn funky.

So what could the ghost in the machine conjure up to follow this? How about Viet Nam by the Minutemen? Pretty funky for a bunch of self-described "fucking corndogs" from San Pedro. These are two tracks I wouldn't have thought to put back to back, but by god they work. Thank you, Steve Jobs!