Summary: You may know guitarist and composer Lee Ranaldo from his many years with the the experimental rock band, Sonic Youth. You probably also know that in 2011, Sonic Youth announced a separation -- due in large part to the break between the band's married couple, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. Still, that hasn't stopped Ranaldo, and lately he seems to be busier than ever. He's now set to release an album with his new group, Lee Ranaldo And The Dust. While that record, Last Night On Earth, won't come out until October, Ranaldo offers a sneak preview with the song "Lecce, Leaving." Randaldo also puts together a playlist for this edition of Pick Three: The Modern Lovers, "She Cracked" Those 20 songs or so that [Jonathan Richman] did at the start of his career are so fresh and so amazing. Jerry Harrison was in the band — [he] went on to Talking Heads. The drummer for The Cars was in the band, David Robinson, as well. And Ernie Brooks, [a] local fixture here in New York. The songs — I’ve just been listening to them obsessively for the last few weeks. They just re-knocked me out again. Sandy Denny, "Bushes And Briars" Fairport [Convention] made a record in this little nowhere town in England somewhere. There was almost nobody left in the town. Everybody had moved away. But the recording studio was right next to a church, and although the congregation had all left, the priest was still there wandering around the church. So the song is basically about this one man in the church: Is God still there if there’s no congregation? Miles Davis, "Right Off" [My] new record, being more of a band record, there’s a lot more band playing on it. We did a lot of sessions in the studio. There’s a lot more free playing and improvisational kind of work going on. And we ended up doing what I call our version of the [Miles Davis producer] Teo Macero edits on a bunch of songs…. We made use of the razor blade in the studio quite a bit on some of these longer songs of ours.
