Random Rules: Johnathan Rice

By Scott Gordon | January 15, 2008 | 6:00am

Music Features Music

The shuffler: Johnathan Rice released his most recent
album, Further North, in late 2007; it features Jenny Lewis, lead singer of Rilo
Kiley, which recently toured with Rice.

Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Ramble Tamble"

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Johnathan Rice: That's the first song on Cosmo's
Factory.
My favorite Creedence record is probably Green River, but "Ramble Tamble" is
among my favorite Creedence songs. It's the most uncharacteristic, maybe, of
all Creedence songs, because it has a really big bam in the middle of it, and
it changes tempos constantly. We were just listening to this song in the van
and discussing how it's pretty much impossible to cover Creedence, because John
Fogerty's such a good singer. I think he's one of the most underrated vocalists
in rock 'n' roll history. He just sings every song like it's the last song he's
gonna sing. Jeff Bridges, in his love of Creedence in The Big Lebowski, he's kind of reduced it
to stoner music. Everything works well stoned, but Creedence are much, much
more.

Elliott Smith, "Seen How Things Are Hard"

JR: It's on the second disc of the New Moon record, the unreleased
stuff. Sometimes you get a little nervous—the artist didn't intend for me
to hear this, necessarily. Should I be purchasing this and listening to it? But
even the things that he threw away are better than what most people bet their
careers on.

Grateful Dead, "New Speedway Boogie"

JR: Definitely in my top five Dead songs, for sure.
This isn't the live version, this is from Workingman's Dead, which is my favorite
Dead studio album, because it's their most song-oriented album. It's when they
got kinda tough, and I think they started listening to The Band and took that
direction a little bit, with just really great results. There's a really great
version of it in that movie Festival Express. Right after this record,
they went on that Europe '72 tour, which is my favorite Dead live era.

Bob Dylan, "Sara"

JR: From Desire. It has one of my favorite weird Bob Dylan
lines.

The A.V. Club: Which is?

JR: [Talk-sings in Bob Dylan voice:] "The beach is
deserted, except for some kelp." [Laughs.]

AVC: That's such a strange album overall.

JR: It's a weird genre of music, like some sort of
gypsy-folk. That's the last song on the record, and it's kind of a fuckin'
knockout. He shouts himself in the song: "Stayin' up for days in the Chelsea
Hotel writing 'Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands' for you." He name-checks one of
his own songs within one of his own songs. That's like something that Lil Wayne
would probably do.

The Trashmen, "Surfin' Bird"

JR: That's from a compilation. You know that song
that's like, "B-b-b-bird, bird, bird, bird is the word"? It's a compilation
that Iggy Pop put together for Mojo magazine, I guess. The Mojo Stooges Jukebox.

Levon Helm And The Hawks, "The Stones That I
Throw"

JR: Levon Helm And The Hawks was the band that became
The Band. It's Levon Helm as the lead singer, before they gave most of the
vocal duties to Richard Manuel, and after they had stopped playing with Ronnie
Hawkins. I got this from the Musical History box set, which is this
huge box that I think came out about two years ago, and it's just kind of a
whole retrospective of them from when they were very young all the way into the
late '70s.

The Rolling Stones, "Walking The Dog"

JR: From the Rolling Stones (England's Newest Hit
Makers)
album, which is their first album, and my favorite album of theirs.

AVC: Really?

JR: Yeah. They're so young, it's almost all covers,
but it's totally killer. It's almost like a punk-rock record. They play it
super-fast, they're very excited, and they sound so young, and they're having a
really good time.