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Pocket Reference: material for those moments when you must have guidance.

This is pocket reference you didn’t know you needed. Occasions arise, situations evolve, you need a little something-something, where to turn? Right here. We are all tired of the Best Of lists, and some of us are downright disgusted with the perennial Readers’ Poll, Insider Tips, and similar crap that was never even fifteen minutes ago. On with it, then.

POST-BREAKUP SONGS TO LISTEN TO REPEATEDLY

# Tullycraft, “Pop Songs You’re Boyfriend’s Too Stupid To Know About”
# Silkworm, “Couldn’t You Wait”
# Daniel Johnston and Yo La Tengo, “Speeding Motorcycle”

THE PROPER USE OF A SONG IN A FILM
# Rolling Stones, “Monkey Man” as Ray Liotta’s paranoia rightfully mounts near the end of Goodfellas, marinara sauce and all.
# Van Morrison, cover of “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” as Basquiat tries to becalm his increasingly upset girlfriend shortly after painting white stripes on her red dress (in Basquiat).

CAPTIVATING COVERS

# Cherubs, Blondie’s “Dreamin’”
# The Feelies, Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On”
# Pavement, Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Killing Time”
# Pansy Division with Calvin Johnson, Johnny Cash’s “Jackson”
# Superchunk, Magnetic Fields’ “100,000 Fireflies”

3 MUST-HAVE FRENCH ACTS

# Serge Gainsbourg
# MC Solaar
# Francois Hardy

# honorable mention: Air

STRANGE, BUT USEFUL, INFORMATION

# Mick Harvey of the Bad Seeds is recording English translations of Serge Gainsbourg.
# James McNew of Yo La Tengo recorded an album of Prince covers.
# The ominous opening sample on the legendary UNKLE remix of Tortoise’s “Djed” comes from Steve Reich’s 1966 “Come Out”, which in turn uses a series of tape manipulations of a black preacher recorded in San Francisco.
# Mary Lou Lord’s “His Indie World” mentions (largely negatively) 19 different indie bands.
# Richard Farina, whose wife was Mimi Baez (Joan Baez’s sister) and whose best man was Thomas Pynchon, died in a motorcycle accident in Carmel, April 30, 1966. Bob Dylan’s motorcycle accident occurred exactly 90 days later.
# “Magnetic Fields” is both one of Stephin Merritt’s band names and the title of the first Surrealist literary work, published in 1919.
# Beck’s grandfather is the pioneering Fluxus artist Al Hansen. They showed together at New York City’s Thread Waxing Space and released a book, “Playing with Matches”.

BEST USE OF RELIGIOUS TERMS IN A BAND NAME (tie)

# Jesus & Mary Chain
# MC 900 Ft. Jesus

BEST CHRISTMAS SONG

# Pansy Division, “Homo Christmas”

BEST HOMAGE TO THE SEAT OF DEMOCRACY (SOD)

# Magnetic Fields, “Washington, D.C.”

2 GREAT SONGS USING THE WORD ‘ALASKA’

# Velvet Underground, “Stephanie Says”
# Beat Happening, “Indian Summer”