Song Of The Day 3/21/2015: Chris Joss - "Discotheque Dancing"

Unlike what we did with Breaking Bad, we’re watching Better Call Saul in what we now term “real time,” which is to say we DVR it on Monday and watch it on Tuesday. We have commercial intolerance. It’s going pretty well, I think. It’s not quite the bayonet to the gut that Breaking Bad was. They just haven’t developed that life-and-death urgency yet. I mean, Walter offed two thugs in the very first episode. But I’m a patient man. I got nothing else to do but exhibit patience. They love me in hostage situations.

ANYWAY, last Monday/Tuesday we’re watching a scene where Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite supporting TV characters of all time, is, let’s say for the spoiler-averse, “conducting an operation” in a house at night. But as happened with me and Breaking Bad, I’m really enjoying the background music to the scene about as much as the scene itself. I whip out the Shazam, which is something I do, and learn that the song is called “Tune Down” by Chris Joss. I thought it was a freshly remastered funk-jazz piece from George Duke or Bob James in the ‘70s, but it was just released in 2009 on Joss’ album Sticks. Just as well, it’s best in these cases that the shag carpet remain virtual.

So I went on a Joss mini-binge in the living room. He’s a Frenchman who’s been doing stuff since around the turn of the century. Recording, production, remixing. I notice that he remixed a Woody Herman recording in 2006, but can’t find it. His work’s quite entrancing and functional, and a lot of his videos are very fun to look at. I chose “Discotheque Dancing” because it looks like the progeny of the characters from Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” video, slightly better-adjusted but troubled by various mutant afflictions.

And here’s a video Chris did explaining how he creates his music. Contains sitar-playing. An actual sitar, not a patch.