Brooklyn based trio Pain Don’t Hurt have been making waves in the NYC music scene over the last couple of years and recently released their debut album “Sometimes I hate my body but sometimes where friends”.
Bassist/Lead Vocalist Jude Coffey shares some of her favorite songs in this weeks edition of “Five For Friday” but first enjoy the Pain Don’t Hurt track “Harpur”.
The dB’s – “Black and White”
When I first got into this song, it would literally make me jump up and down in my room. This is how you write a pop song! With every listen I pick up something new. The rhythm change-ups, the counterpoint in the bass, the percussion choices — the stuff of genius. The whole Stands for deciBels album is a masterclass in power pop. It’s nerdy but not too flashy, punky but tonally grounded. It’s everything I love about power pop: it worships the pop song structure while welcoming the innovations of the ‘70s/early ‘80s. Growing up with my dad’s cassette tapes, it really feels like this song was designed in a lab for me.
The Tammys – “Egyptian Shumba”
I think I found this through Numero Group(?) The song melted my face off when I first heard it. The tinny flute and over the bass drum pounding at a manic clip, all filtered through scratchy ‘60s microphones completely overwhelmed me. It’s like a Phil Spector song on adderall. The vocal performances give the track a lot of character as well. The three girls are so nasally, but the delivery feels so real and sincere, it works! This is one of those songs that really makes me miss having a car, where the insane noise can really wash over you in true wall-of-sound form.
The Band & Neil Young – “Helpless” (From The Last Waltz)
One of the few songs that gives me full body chills every time. If you haven’t seen it, watch The Last Waltz as soon as humanly possible. It’s a candid and bittersweet portrait of The Band, quite possibly the best to ever do it. It’s fitting that their last concert was on Thanksgiving. It was their final offering to the world, the sum of their labors. A musical harvest, if you will. Hearing Neil — the king of harvests — sing it with The Band and Joni really feels like music perfected. “Helpless” in particular captures that late-November feeling of a season, a year, an era coming to a close. It’s a mixture of comfort and cold, nostalgic and relentless, loving yet final.
Cleaners from Venus – “Summer in a Small Town”
I grew up in a small town. When COVID hit, I had to move back for the summer while I waited for grad school to start. I was working as a waiter at a retirement home, and everything felt pretty bleak. This song was perfect for driving past my old high school in my Honda Civic. “I’m not going mad, I’m not going mad, I’m not going mad” really hit close to home for me. I had gone to college and moved out on my own for a while and all of a sudden I was back where I started. The song eerily matched my current place in life. The drum machine and guitar make a funky ostinato in the verse before giving way to a bleak, anthemic chorus. The song cycles through these two modes, without any sense of escape. All the while, Martin croons over the shapes with the reverb turned up to the max, making for a delicious outsider snack. The song fittingly ends with a fade-out, leaving the listener guessing whether the narrator will ever be able to escape. (I did, thankfully.)
Igor Stravinsky – Firebird Suite: Finale
I’m a French horn player. If you know French horn, you know Firebird. This was the piece that cemented me in the world of orchestral music. My high school threw a pops concert in our gym at the end of every school year. When I was a freshman in the freshman band, the symphony orchestra played a couple movements from the Firebird Suite. The finale opens with one of the most iconic French horn solos in classical repertoire. Hearing the solo in that gym awakened something in me. I bought the piece on iTunes and listened to it on my silver iPod Nano incessantly over the summer. It represents the part in the ballet where the sun rises and good triumphs over evil. You can really feel that when you listen to this piece.
