Stuck In Thee Garage #628: April 17, 2026

If you don't pay attention, time slips by you pretty quickly. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Lambrini Girls, Lifeguard and Gang of Four in hour 1 and songs from 2006 in hour 2. Don't forget to take your meds!

This playlist fits like a fur coat:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Lambrini Girls - Cult of Celebrity/Single

Gang of Four - No Kings Here!/Single

Lifeguard - Ultra Violence /Ultra Violence/Appetite

Emerald Comets - Don't Doubt the Clouds/Single

The Bevis Frond - Draining the Bad Blood/Horrorful Heights

Jack White - G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs/Single

The Dambuilders - Shrine 2026/Shrine 2026

Hallelujah the Hills - Drivin' on 9/Puritan Garage Howlers Vol. III

Gladie - Future Spring/No Need to Be Lonely

Snail Mail - Tractor Beam/Ricochet

King Tuff - Crosseyed Critters/MOO

Courtney Barnett - Same/Creature of Habit

Motorists - PCSD/Never Sing Alone

Daniel Romano's Outfit - Phantasy/Preservers of the Pearl

Joyce Manor - Grey Guitar/I Used to Go to This Bar

Juliana Hatfield - Harmonizing with Myself/Lightning Might Strike

The New Pornographers - Wine Remembers the Water/The Former Site Of

EXEK - Don't Answer (When They Call)/Prove the Mountains Move

Hour 2: 2006

The Hold Steady - Same Kooks/Boys and Girls in America

The Twilight Singers - My Time (Has Come)/Powder Burns

Eagles of Death Metal - I Like to Move in the Night/Death By Sexy

Arctic Monkeys - Red Lights Indicate Doors Are Secured/Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Sloan - People Think They Know Me/Never Hear the End of It

TV On the Radio - Dirty Whirlwind/Return to Cookie Mountain

Jarvis Cocker - Don't Let Him Waste Your Time/Jarvis

The Blood Brothers - Set Fire to the Face on Fire/Young Machetes

Mission of Burma - Spider's Web/The Obliterati

Sonic Youth - Sleepin' Around/Rather Ripped

The Raconteurs - Level/Broken Boy Soldiers

Beck - Nausea/The Information

The Black Angels - The First Vietnamese War/Passover

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Way Out/Show Your Bones

The Minus 5 - Hotel Senator/(The Gun Album)

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rise Up With Fists!!/Rabbit Fur Coat

Drive-By Truckers - Aftermath USA/A Blessing and a Curse

Crank up the rock songs here! 

Day After Day #332: Steady, As She Goes

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Steady, As She Goes (2006)

I just wrote about a side project that turned out to be a big hit for all involved (The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights") and here's another one. While it wasn't as huge as the Postal Service song, "Steady, As She Goes" by the Raconteurs was a catchy rocker that immediately caught the attention of indie rock fans everywhere.

In 2005, Jack White and the White Stripes were riding high with their fifth album Get Behind Me Satan, which hit #3 on both the Billboard 200 and U.K. album charts. White and his friend, singer-songwriter Brendan Benson, lived near each other and got together when Benson asked for help on a song he was working on. Benson had recorded a demo for the song "Steady, As She Goes" but was stuck on the line "Find yourself a girl and settle down," so White helped him with the lyrics. When bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler of the Cincinnati garage rock act the Greenhornes stopped by a few days later, White and Benson asked them to play on the song. 

The recording of "Steady, As She Goes" was the first thing the four had done together and they liked it so much they kept an early version as the one they used on the eventual album they made, Broken Boy Soldiers. White's lyrics examined the notion of settling down and getting married.

"Find yourself a girl and settle down/Live a simple life in a quiet town/Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)/Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)/So steady as she goes. Your friends have shown a kink in the single life/You've had too much to think, now you need a wife/Steady as she goes."

The song features a crunchy guitar riff and '60s-inspired power pop construction, just a perfectly infectious ripper.

"Well here we go again/You've found yourself a friend that knows you well/But no matter what you do/You'll always feel as though you tripped and fell/So steady as she goes/When you have completed what you thought you had to do/And your blood's depleted to the point of stable glue/Then you'll get along/Then you'll get along."

Calling themselves the Raconteurs, the band made two videos for the song, one a performance video directed by Jim Jarmusch and the other starring Paul Reubens and featuring the band members racing soapbox derby cars. The song hit #54 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Alternative Airplay chart, while reaching #4 on the U.K. Singles Chart. They were known as the Saboteurs in Australia, where a band already had the name Raconteurs and wouldn't give it up.

The album was released in March 2006 and the Raconteurs started touring, selling out mid-sized venues thanks to White's popularity. It was nominated for two Grammy awards but didn't win either.

White went back to the White Stripes, who released Icky Thump in 2007, and Benson, a prolific solo artist, released My Old, Familiar Friend in the same year. The Raconteurs returned in 2008 with their second album, Consolers of the Lonely, and toured again, playing big festival dates including Coachella and Bonnaroo. After a hiatus, the band played some festival dates in 2011. But no new Raconteurs material emerged until 2019's Help Us Stranger.

In the meantime, the White Stripes split up in 2011 and Jack White began a solo career, which continued with this year's No Name album. Benson continued to release solo albums. Lawrence played on numerous projects, including another Jack White group, the Dead Weather. Keeler joined the Afghan Whigs in 2014.

Things are quiet on the Raconteurs front at the moment, but that doesn't mean they won't get together in the future. Still, the first song they worked on remains their best.

Day After Day #30: Wolf Like Me

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Wolf Like Me (2006)

In the early 2000s, the New York rock scene was happening: the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, the Walkmen, Interpol. Perhaps the best of the bands that emerged was TV on the Radio, founded by singer Tunde Adebimpe and guitarist-producer Dave Sitek. The band combined a lot of different influences, from Bad Brains to Pixies to Brian Eno to Wire, and played many different styles from art rock to shoegaze to post punk. And they kicked absolute ass live.

After an excellent debut EP and first album, the band released Return to Cookie Mountain in July 2006, which represented the band at its peak. There were plenty of guests on the album, including David Bowie, but this was a tour de force for TVOTR. Adebimpe and co-lead singer Kyp Malone were able to harness something haunting and primal in their harmonies while Sitek creates a multifaceted musical wall behind them full of a dense collection of sounds and layers. It's pretty intense stuff.

The absolute peak, however, was the brilliant "Wolf Like Me." Originally pegged to lead off the album (as a leaked early version had it), the song was pushed down to the #5 slot because honestly, it's so good everything else might have felt like a letdown. Instead, the album builds up to it, and then BOOM! "Wolf Like Me" launches in like a whirlwind, grabs you by the throat and never lets up.

"Got a curse I cannot lift/Shines when the sunset shifts/When the moon is round and full/Gotta bust that box, gotta gut that fish."

It's one of those songs that just gets you amped up from the get-go. I've never seen TVOTR live in person, but I'm sure when they played it, the crowd went nuts. I've watched a few live versions and Adebimpe's vocals ride above the din, even as the band flails away behind him. A tale of a werewolf/lothario, it's just an exhilarating experience. And the live performance they did on Letterman (see below) just amps it up even more. Incredible. Also, I witnessed Greg Dulli's Twilight Singers do a cool cover of the song when they toured that year (also below).

Return to Cookie Mountain was rightfully lauded by critics; SPIN named it their album of the year for 2006 and many other outlets put it in their top 10.

Sadly, the band hasn't been active in close to a decade. Bassist Gerard Smith died in 2011 after losing a battle with lung cancer. They released three more excellent albums, the last one being Seeds in 2014. But after a tour in the summer of 2015, it's been radio silence from TVOTR. Hopefully, they'll reunite someday. Until then, crank up "Wolf Like Me."

Completely Conspicuous 630: Goin' Against Your Mind

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 2006. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Jay's non-top 5s: The Black Angels, Mission of Burma, Twilight Singers, The Tragically Hip, Girl Talk, Iron Maiden, Lemonheads
• Phil's #5: Beck's last really good album, especially the first half
• Jay's #5: First solo release from Pulp's Jarvis Cocker
• Phil's #4: Last Drive-By Truckers album with Jason Isbell expands their world view
• Jay's #4: Expansive and excellent outing from TV On the Radio
• Phil's #3: Droney, psychedelic fuzz from the Black Angels
• Jay's #3: Yet another great one from the Hold Steady
• Phil's #2: Sharp debut from Jack White-led Raconteurs
• Jay's #2: Sweeping double album from Sloan, chock full o' power pop goodness
• Phil's #1: Guitar greatness from Doug Martsch and Built to Spill
• Jay's #1: Audacious debut from Arctic Monkeys
• Arctic Monkeys caught on with a whole new audience
• Favorite songs: "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor" (Jay), "Goin' Against Your Mind" (Phil)

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 629: Star Witness

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 2006. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• First episode of the year
• In 2006, Jay had two little kids
• Phil was having fun
• When you don't know anybody playing the festival
• Top-selling album of the year was High School Musical soundtrack
• The Who released an album in 2006
• Phil's non-top 5s: Neko Case, Destroyer, the Hold Steady, the Walkmen, Dylan, Heartless Bastards, Tom Petty, Eagles of Death Metal, Black Keys, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Jay: Check out Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
• To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Stuck In Thee Garage #395: October 15, 2021

A lot can happen in 15 years. You can build a social media empire, watch your revolutionary technology become obsolete, or just marvel at the sheer political insanity that lurks around every corner. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 2006 in hour 2. It was the height of MP3 blog mania, to which kids nowadays would say, "The whatnow?" Ah, to be old.

This playlist has exactly zero Dropkick Murphys songs on it:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

IDLES - The Beachland Ballroom/CRAWLER

Black Country, New Road - Chaos Space Marine/Ants From Up There

Steve Gunn - Fulton/Other You

Melkbelly - Prehistoric Worm/Single

Chime School - Wait Your Turn/Chime School

Slothrust - Waiting/Parallel Timeline

Ducks Ltd. - How Lonely Are You?/Modern Fiction

Illuminati Hotties - Knead/Let Me Do One More

Mac McCaughan - Sleep Donor/The Sound of Yourself

Absolutely Free - Epilogue/Aftertouch

The Bevis Frond - Numb in the Head/Little Eden

Low - Disappearing/Hey What

Colleen Green - I Believe In Love/Cool

Chubby and the Gang - Pressure/The Mutt's Nuts

Cub Scout Bowling Pins - Sister Slam Dance/Clang Clang Ho

Ty Segall - Feel Good/Harmonizer

Descendents - I'm Shaky/9th and Walnut

Hour 2: 2006

The Black Angels - The Sniper at the Gates of Heaven/Passover

Destroyer - 3000 Flowers/Destroyer's Rubies

TV On the Radio - Province/Return to Cookie Mountain

Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor/Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy!/Boys and Girls in America

Sloan - Another Way I Could Do It/Never Hear the End of It

The Raconteurs - Steady, As She Goes/Broken Boy Soldiers

Mission of Burma - Careening With Conviction/The Obliterati

The Twilight Singers - Live With Me/A Stitch In Time EP

Neko Case - Star Witness/Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Midlake - Roscoe/The Trials of Van Occupanther

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion/Show Your Bones

Beck - Think I'm In Love/The Information

Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye/Carnavas

Ye Olde Hit Parade: Wolf Like Me

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

2006: TV On the Radio - Wolf Like Me

You remember 2006, don't you? Well, I guess it's all kind of a blur now. But it was the year that Dick Cheney shot a dude in the face and was so powerful that the victim apologized to him. James Brown, Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein all died within a few days of each other at the end of the year. And the movie Borat introduced the fun-loving side of the country of Kazakhstan to the rest of the world.

Satellite radio had been around for a few years, but Sirius made a big push in '06 when Howard Stern made the jump from terrestrial radio. Back when I was at Webnoize in '01, my buddy Ric and I got a sneak preview of then still-to-be-launched XM (pretty sure it was XM and not Sirius, but I could be wrong); they had just set up the satellite repeaters around Boston and gave us a ride around the city listening to it. Anyhoo, Sirius and XM merged in '08 and are still at it, but I've never seen the need to pony up the dough for it. At the same time Stern was starting his satellite era, David Lee Roth began as his replacement but only lasted a few months before getting canceled.


No big changes in the work situation and the family was good. Both Deb and I were doing a lot of running early in the year as she ran the Boston Marathon and I did the Vermont City Marathon in May; I also ran the Chicago Marathon in the fall. For concerts, I saw Pearl Jam, Arctic Monkeys, Mission of Burma, Bloc Party, X/Rollins Band, Yo La Tengo, Iron Maiden (a work buddy got me back into them and we saw them at Agganis Arena...but were a bit bummed when they played their new album front to back), the Hold Steady, Frank Black, the Twilight Singers and the Hold Steady again while I was on a work trip in New Orleans.



There were some terrific albums out in '06, including the Arctic Monkeys' debut, the Hold Steady continuing their hot streak with their third straight great release, another excellent comeback record from Mission of Burma, a killer double album from Sloan and a terrific Twilight Singers album. But it was TV On the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain and specifically the song "Wolf Like Me" that was the big one for me. Just a whirling dervish of a song that was simultaneously catchy and creepy. It was the sound of a band hitting its stride, combining killer instrumental chops with amazing vocals. 


Honorable mentions: Arctic Monkeys - "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor"; Arctic Monkeys - "Fake Tales of San Francisco"; Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - "Rise Up With Fists!!"; Robert Pollard - "Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft"; The Minus 5 - "Rifle Called Goodbye"; Ray Davies - "Things Are Gonna Change (The Morning After)"; Danko Jones - "Invisible"; Destroyer - "Your Blood"; Neko Case - "Star Witness"; Band of Horses - "The Funeral"; Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Gold Lion"; The Black Angels - "Sniper at the Gates of Heaven"; The Black Angels - "Bloodhounds on My Trail"; Built to Spill - "Goin' Against Your Mind"; Eagles of Death Metal - "I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)"; Drive-By Truckers - "Gravity's Gone"; Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"; Pearl Jam - "World Wide Suicide"; The Raconteurs - "Steady As She Goes"; The Twilight Singers - "Bonnie Brae"; The Twilight Singers - "Forty Dollars"; Mission of Burma - "Spider's Web"; Mission of Burma - "2wice"; Frightened Rabbit - "Be Less Rude"; Sonic Youth - "Incinerate"; TV On the Radio - "Province"; Peter Bjorn & John - "Young Folks"; The Black Keys - "Your Touch"; Mastodon - "The Wolf Is Loose"; Yo La Tengo - "Mr. Tough"; Sloan - "Who Taught You to Live Like That?"; Sloan - "Ill-Placed Trust"; Beck - "Cellphone's Dead"; The Hold Steady - "Stuck Between Stations"; The Hold Steady - "Massive Nights"; The Blood Brothers - "Spit Shine Your Black Clouds"; The Tragically Hip - "The Lonely End of the Rink"; Jarvis Cocker - "Running the World"

Stuck In Thee Garage #126: April 15, 2016

A decade can go by in an instant. Even though it doesn't seem that long ago, a full 10 years have passed since the heady days of Hannah Montana, Dick Cheney shooting dudes in the face and the emergence of YouTube. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played music from 2006 in hour 2.

This playlist is ready for sexy time:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Parquet Courts - Berlin Got Blurry/Human Performance
Hinds - Garden/Leave Me Alone
Solids - Blurs/Else
Gold Class - Bite Down/It's You
Kurt Vile - Kidding Around/b'lieve i'm goin down
Nap Eyes - Stargazer/Thought Rock Fish Scale
Hallelujah the Hills - We Have the Perimeter Surrounded/A Band is Something to Figure Out
Hooded Fang - Tunnel Vision/Venus on Edge
Stove - Lowt-Ide Fins/Is Stupider
Future of the Left - If AT&T Drinks Tea, What Would BP Do?/The Peace & Truce of Future of the Left
Blacklisters - Power Ballad/Adult
Black Sabbath - Weevil Woman '71/Master of Reality reissue
Iggy Pop - In the Lobby/Post Pop Depression
Iggy Pop - Nightclubbing/The Idiot
Iggy Pop - Success/Lust for Life

Hour 2: 2006
The Hold Steady - Same Kooks/Boys and Girls in America
The Raconteurs - Hands/Broken Boy Soldiers
Pearl Jam - Comatose/Pearl Jam
Sloan - Before the End of the Race/Never Hear the End of It
The Twilight Singers - Bonnie Brae/Powder Burns
TV On the Radio - Dirty Whirlwind/Return to Cookie Mountain
Mission of Burma - Spider's Web/The Obliterati
Jay Reatard - Hammer I Miss You/Singles '06-'07
Sonic Youth - Sleepin' Around/Rather Ripped
Destroyer - Your Blood/Destroyer's Rubies
The Minus 5 - Rifle Called Goodbye/The Minus 5
Robert Pollard - Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft/From a Compound Eye
The Lemonheads - Let's Just Laugh/The Lemonheads
Lilys - Where the Night Goes/Everything Wrong is Imaginary
Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco/Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Eagles of Death Metal - Shasta Beast/Death by Sexy

 
 

Mixology: April Amplification

Mixology is a recurring feature in which I take a look at one of the many mix tapes (or CDs) I made over the years. Some are better than others, but all of them are fun to revisit.

April Amplification (April 2006)

What were you doing (almost) five years ago? I was watching my wife run the Boston Marathon (and joining her for the last nine miles), training for the Vermont City Marathon, watching the Leafs miss the playoffs and celebrating Hannah's 4th birthday.

I was also making this mix, which featured plenty of the so-called indie rock. Five years later, I'm digging it for the most part. Wolfmother definitely doesn't hold up, but pretty much everything else does. That first Arctic Monkeys album still stands out as an amazing collection of tunes by a young band. I've enjoyed both of their albums since, but their debut was a startlingly good surprise.

The mashup of "Eminence Front" by the Who and "Root Down" by the Beastie Boys is a lot of fun. This was probably the height of mashups and there were some pretty good ones. I used to enjoy it when WBCN DJ Bradley Jay would mash up songs back in the mid-'80s; he was good at matching seemingly disparate songs. I don't have a ton of mashups but the best ones seamlessly graft different songs together in an original way.

I Gotta Feeling (Just Nineteen) - Eagles of Death Metal
I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor - Arctic Monkeys
Rifle Called Goodbye - The Minus 5
Aftermath USA - Drive-By Truckers
Frontin' on the Root Down - I-Train (mashup of The Who and Beastie Boys)
Twin Killers - Deerhoof
The Funeral - Band of Horses
Your Blood - Destroyer
Publish My Love - Rogue Wave
Star Witness - Neko Case
Louisiana - The Walkmen
I Burn Today - Frank Black
The Bones of an Idol - The New Pornographers
I Love You - Matthew Sweet
Spider's Web - Mission of Burma
World Wide Suicide - Pearl Jam
Revenga - System of a Down
Feeding Frenzy - Early Man
Dimension - Wolfmother
Step on It, Jean - Sloan
Hockey Monkey - The Zambonis with James Kochalka


Dance floor:


Hockey monkey:

Mixology: Smarch Rocks

Mixology is a recurring feature in which I take a look at one of the many mix tapes (or CDs) I made over the years. Some are better than others, but all of them are fun to revisit.

Smarch Rocks: A spring-loaded mix (3/24/06)

Ah, the spring of aught-6. Twas a magical time, what with the MP3 blogs and what not. This is a fun mix to reflect upon. Hard to believe it was almost five years ago that I made it.

About half of the 20 songs were discovered through the various music blogs I was following at the time, including the songs from Runner and the Thermodynamics, Thunderbirds are Now, We are Scientists, Wolf Parade and Tom Vek. The song by The Cloud Room had already achieved some notoriety for the Internet popularity it achieved while actually generating not much in the way of actual sales.

At the time, I was training for the Vermont City Marathon, which was two months later. Lily had just turned the ripe age of 2. I can't even remember her being so little. Weird.

Probably the best thing about this mix and the time period was the diversity of stuff I was listening to. A lot of new stuff, some old, some heavy, some wussy. It was all good. I mean, how nuts is following up My Morning Jacket with Scissorfight? You won't hear that on some lame-ass commercial rock station.

Steady as She Goes - The Raconteurs

Hey Now Now - The Cloud Room

Fire Eye'd Boy - Broken Social Scene

Ramblin' Man - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

Rise Up With Fists! - Jenny Campbell with the Watson Twins

It Beats 4U - My Morning Jacket

Granite State Destroyer - Scissorfight

Powerlines - Runner and the Thermodynamics

It's All in My Mind - Teenage Fanclub

Eat This City - Thunderbirds are Now!

Goodbye to Guyville - Urge Overkill

The Rat - The Walkmen

Mothra vs. We Are Scientists - We Are Scientists

Instinct Blues - White Stripes

The People That Life Forgot - The Wildhearts

You are a Runner and I am My Father's Son - Wolf Parade

Instant Karma - Yo La Tengo

Lay It On the Line - Triumph

Nothing But Green Lights - Tom Vek

No Threat - The Tragically Hip

Hey now now:


The Rat: