DJ Riz at SAM Remix
photo by Michael Uetz
This past Friday night, the Seattle Art Museum kicked off their Andy Warhol and Kurt Cobain exhibits with an incredible sold out event! And KEXP was there on the scene!
Our own DJ Riz was spinning in the Brotman Forum under chandeliers of suspended cars, with streams of light shining through them! Up on the third floor, DJ El Toro was leading tours through the museum, sharing stories of his favorite things. And when you first walked into the museum, you were greeted by playlists curated by me!
I got tons of great comments and questions about the mix throughout the night, so I thought I’d share the entire playlists with our readers, complete with streams below:
SAM playlist 1:
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| artist | song | album | comments |
| Lou Reed & John Cale | Style It Takes | Songs for Drella | Fictitious musical look at the life of Andy Warhol. |
| R.E.M. | Pale Blue Eyes | Dead Letter Office | One of a handful of Velvet Underground songs R.E.M. covered. |
| The Velvet Underground & Nico | Femme Fatale | The Velvet Underground & Nico | Andy Warhol requested Lou Reed write a song about Edie Sedgwick and insisted Nico sing. Seductive and alluring. |
| Antony & the Johnsons | Fistful of Love | I Am A Bird Now | Lou Reed guests on vocals. |
| David Bowie | Andy Warhol | Hunky Dory | “He’ll think about paint. He’ll think about glue. What a boring thing to do.” |
| David Bowie | The Man Who Sold the World | The Man Who Sold the World | A song Nirvana covered during their 1993 MTV Unplugged performance. |
| Nirvana | About A Girl | Bleach Deluxe | A song Cobain wrote after spending an afternoon listening to Meet the Beatles over and over. |
| Bikini Kill | Rebel Girl | Singles | Kurt dated Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail briefly in 1990; several songs on Nevermind are said to be about her. |
| Patti Smith | Piss Factory | Just Say Yesterday | Originally released as a b-side on Smith’s debut single “Hey Joe” in 1974. |
| Campbell’s Soup | Hmm Hmm Good. | ||
| Neil Young | Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) | Rust Never Sleeps | Kurt quoted Neil Young in his suicide note. |
| Public Image Ltd. | Public Image | First Issue | A track John Lydon wrote during his days in The Sex Pistols, as a diatribe against their manager Malcolm McLaren. |
| Wipers | Alien Boy | Is This Real? | Kurt cited Portland band Wipers as a huge influence; not only did Nirvana cover their songs, but they invited frontman Greg Sage to open for them on tour. |
| Nirvana | Been a Son | Incesticide | Said to be a semi-autobiographical song about Cobain’s father, who Kurt claimed, wished for another son. |
| Black Sabbath | Paranoid | Paranoid | Influence to Kurt and just about every post BS heavy rocker |
| Melvins | Honey Bucket | Houdini | A fellow band from Aberdeen, WA; Kurt went to high school with two of their members, and auditioned to join the band himself, but was so nervous he forgot all their songs. |
| The Vaselines | Son of a Gun | The Way of the Vaselines | Covered by Nirvana on the Incesticide album; Kurt once described The Vaselines as his “most favorite songwriters in the whole world” and even named his daughter after vocalist/guitarist Frances McKee. |
| Richard Hell & the Voivoids | Love Comes in Spurts | Blank Generation | Originally written when Richard Hell was in the Neon Boys, alongside Tom Verlaine (Television). |
| New York Dolls | Trash | New York Dolls | Often played one of Warhol’s hangouts, Max”s Kansas City. |
SAM playlist 2:
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| artist | song | album | comments |
| The Dandy Warhols | The Dandy Warhols’ TV Theme Song | Dandys Rule OK | This Portland band took their name from a pun on Andy’s name. The cover of their fourth album Welcome to the Monkey House is an homage to Warhol’s album cover work. |
| Lou Reed | Vicious | Transformer | According to Reed, Warhol told Reed he should write a song about someone vicious. When Reed asked what he meant by that, Warhol replied, “Oh, you know, vicious, like I hit you with a flower.”[ |
| The Pixies | Wave of Mutilation | Doolittle | Cobain was a huge fan, and hired Steve Albini to produce In Utero based on his work on Pixies’ Surfer Rosa. |
| Jonathan Richman | Velvet Underground | I, Jonathan | “How in the world were they making that sound?” |
| The Velvet Underground | Beginning to See the Light | The Velvet Underground | How does it feel to be in love? |
| The Rolling Stones | Bitch | Sticky Fingers | Warhol was commissioned to design the album cover, photographed by Factory mainstay Billy Name. |
| Flying Lizards | Money | Money | Covering Barrett Strong’s 1960 Motown smash “Money (That’s What I Want)” |
| Grace Jones | Nightclubbing | Nightclubbing | Grace Jones was a muse to Warhol, who photographed her extensively and often accompanied him to Studio 54. |
| Giorgio Moroder | Chase | Midnight Express | If Andy danced, he probably danced to this at Studio 54. |
SAM playlist 3:
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| artist | song | album | comments |
| Sylvester | You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) | Step II | He was the “Queen of Disco.” |
| Hercules & Love Affair | Blind | Hercules & Love Affair | Lou Reed collaborator Antony Hegarty on vocals. |
| Liaisons Dangereuses | Los Ninos Del Parque | Liasons Dangereuses | Early eighties German avant garde dance music. |
| Goldfrapp | Ride a White Horse | Supernature | A song inspired by Studio 54 and Bianca Jagger’s legendary entrance upon a white horse. |
| The Juan Maclean | Feel So Good | DJ-Kicks | James Murphy of LCD Soundsysatem was an early member of the Juan MacLean. |
| LCD Soundsystem | North American Scum | Sound of Silver | They hadn’t lost their edge. |
| James White & the Blacks | Contort Yourself | Buy | No Wave “classic.” |
| Killing Joke | Eighties | Night Time | Killing Joke sued Nirvana, claiming they stole the riff to “Come As You Are” from this song. They dropped the lawsuit after Cobain’s death. |
| Nirvana | Molly’s Lips | Hormoaning | At the 1991 Reading Festival, Eugene Kelly joined Nirvana on stage for a performance of “Molly’s Lips.” |
| Mudhoney | Touch Me I’m Sick | March to Fuzz | Cobain has said Mudhoney, and this song in particular, were an inspiration to him. |
| The Stooges | I Wanna Be Your Dog | The Stooges | Cobain wrote in his journals that Raw Power was his favorite album of all time. |
| Sonic Youth | Kool Thing | Goo | Sonic Youth encouraged Nirvana to sign to the label DGC, who released their own album Goo. |
SAM playlist 4:
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| artist | song | album | comments |
| Blondie | Rapture | Autoamerican | Vocalist Debbie Harry was a friend of Warhol’s in the 80′s; Warhol did her portrait several times. |
| M.I.A. | Born Free | /\/\ /\ Y /\ | Sampling Suicide. |
| Suicide | Ghostrider | Suicide | Suicide frontman Alan Vega was a huge fan of the comic book Ghost Rider. This song named in its honor. |
| Caribou | Sun | Swim | You’d be hearing this now in Studio 54. |
| Le Tigre | Deceptacon (DFA remix) | Remix EP | Fronted by Kathleen Hanna, former member of the band Bikini Kill, and the woman who coined the term “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” |
| Lizzy Mercier Descloux | Fire | Press Color | Post punk avant funk. |
| Devo | Turn Around | Whip It B-side | Nirvana covered this song; Cobain has said, “Of all the bands who came from the underground and made it in the mainstream, Devo were the most challenging and subversive of all.” And Devo have often cited Andy Warhol as an influence of theirs. |
| Nirvana | Love Buzz | Bleach Deluxe | Covering the 1969 Dutch band Shocking Blue; it was Nirvana’s debut single, and the first single in the “Sub Pop Single of the Month” club. |
| The Jesus Lizard | Dancing Naked Ladies | Bang | One of Kurt Cobain’s favorite bands; The Jesus Lizard and Nirvana released a split 7″ together in 1993 on Touch & Go Records. |
| The Treepeople | Andy Warhol | Crash Course for the Ravers | An early project of Doug Martsch, better known with Built to Spill. Covering David Bowie. |
| The Ramones | 53rd & 3rd | The Ramones | You’re the one they never pick. |
| The Velvet Underground | I’m Waiting for the Man | The Velvet Underground & Nico | Lou Reed has said that Warhol was a “mentor figure” on the band in their early years. It was Warhol who secured the band’s spot as the “house band” at Max’s Kansas City and financed the recodring of their first album. |
