Roll The Bones: A Random Journey Through My itunes Library

"This is the Life" / Living Colour / TIme's Up

2010-11-17T20:46:00.004-05:00

This is probably one of the more obscure songs you'll see on this blog. It's the last song on Living Color's second CD, Time's Up which came out 20 years ago (!).

You remember Living Color from their classic hit "Cult of Personality". They arrived with quite some fanfare back in the late 80's. Cory Glover had quite a set of pipes and a beautiful set of dreads, guitarist Vernon Reid was hailed as a quasi-genius and the inheritor of Jimi Hendrix's instrumental wizardry, oh, and did I mention they were a black metal band?

Look, I'm not calling these guys a gimmick. They were a solid group, but I think that much of their media attention came from the fact that they were black folks playing traditionally white music for a white audience. They weren't the only ones, however, there was a small window when there was a burgeoning movement of black rock bands - in addition to Living Color there was Fishbone, 24-7 Spyz, and one of my all-time local favorites, Atlanta's Follow For Now. Not much came of it; the "movement" seemed to be more media-created than anything else, but we still were left with some solid music.

This album is, for some reason, inextricably linked with my freshman year in college. Of course, this is when it was released, but it seems to be a touchtone album of that time for me. I hardly ever listen to it anymore, as it's severely dated in both sound and production, but I remember loving it at the time. Let's recall that in 1990 Hair Metal was still king (I remember Sebastian Bach on the cover of Rolling Stone around this time), and although Living Color seemed to me more substantial than Warrant, Slaughter and the like, they were definitely tied to that genre.

Time's Up, looking back on it now, has some good songs. The title and leadoff track is a little slice of Slayeresque speed metal (with a Rush riff thrown in the middle for good measure), "Pride" is an Afrocentric polemic which touches on their identity as a black band ("Don't ask me why I play this music / 'cause it's my culture, so naturally I choose it"), "Love Rears Up It's Ugly Head" is probably my favorite tune on the album, a stripped down slice of neo-soul with an intro from Nat King Cole's "Lush Life", "Solace of You" has a light, sweet West African feel, the MTV hit and first single "Type" and second single and goofy gimmick-hit "Elvis is Dead" - all decent stuff. I can't say that it's an album I pull out often, if at all, to listen to, but I'm not skipping a track if one comes up on random.

"This is the Life" is the album closer and is a little bit more introspective (and, in my opinion, more ponderous and plodding) than the remainder of the album. It's probably best they saved it for last. It begins with some strange, almost tribal dissonance from Glover and Reid and the song proper really doesn't start until a minute and a half in. Glover really dials back his register to sing in a low, atonal whine which makes his grand release in the chorus nicely effective. Unfortunately, that vocal in the chorus is the best part of the song. The music never really makes any interesting changes, just stayting mostly in the same key and tempo (save Reid's solo, those are always fun to hear).

Lyrically, it's a nice, however trite message - accept the life you have; don't waste your time by wishing for something else or lamenting how things could be different, the grass isn't always greener, blah, blah blah. I have to give them credit, though, for the final verse as a nice way to end not just a song, but an album:

In your real life
Treat it like it’s special
In your real life
Try to be more kind
In your real life
Think of those that love you
In this real life
Try to be less blind

"Cologne" / Ben Folds / Way to Normal

2010-10-04T22:18:00.002-04:00

Blog rules - I go random on the itunes and don't repeat minor artists, but do revisit the biggies. And Ben Folds is a biggie. Check here and here for previous entries if you're interested.

One thing I love about Ben Folds that I've mentioned before is the duality of his tone. He's got a smarmy, ironic, Gen X snarkiness in some of his songs, but then others are completely straight-faced, sincere, emotionally naked confessionals. "Cologne" falls in the latter category.

It stands to reason that a man who has been through three divorces would be pretty good at writing a breakup song, doesn't it? "Cologne" sets the melancholy tone early with the tinkling piano notes (with the song's little hook coming in at 1:20). In classic Folds style, his voice is at the forefront, accompanied only by piano (as it is through most of the song) so we can really catch the lyrics. So, let's check those out:

Here in Cologne
I know I said it wrong
I walked you to the train
And back across alone
To my hotel room
And ordered me some food
And now I'm wondering why the floor has suddenly become a moving target

What we have here, as I read it, is a man who (obviously) just walked his girl to the train station after a serious "relationship" conversation. It's probably awkward and uncomfortable - if it was a blowout argument he wouldn't be accompanying her, and besides, he just "said it wrong", something came out the wrong way, maybe he didn't really mean it, but it's out now and he can't get it back. I'm also thinking they were drinking pretty heavily. Things slip out easier then, and when he comes back, he's hungry and "suddenly" the floor's spinning.

(By the way, one of my favorite parts of this song is the little five note bass run he makes right after "food" in the verse (2:25) - in fact it's in the same place in each verse. Good stuff)

Then it's the first chorus (with the opening piano arpeggios behind it):

Four, three, two, one,
I'm letting you go
I will let go
If you will let go

The "countdown" there makes more thematic sense after the next verse, but isn't this just like a breakup? You may know it has to end - remember, I don't think there's a huge argument or anything here - but you can hardly bring yourselves to do it. You countdown, bargain, agree to still be friends, all the painful stuff that ,in the end, just leaves the wound open.

Says here an astronaut
Put on a pair of diapers
Drove eighteen hours
To kill her boyfriend
And in my hotel room, I'm wondering
If you read that story too?
And if we both might
Be having the same imaginary conversation

Here our dude's reading the paper, referencing this strange story form a couple of years ago about the NASA pilot who, in fact, put on adult diapers and drove all night to kill the boyfriend she suspected of cheating. Here, as I mentioned, the "four, three, two, one" countdown in the chorus can play both to a shuttle launch as well as the couple bracing themselves for the disillusion of their relationship.

One thing I like here as well - that feeling you have after a breakup of constantly wondering what your former partner is doing. Are they thinking about you too? Moving on? Out with a friend? Are they as sad as me? Would we be talking about this weird astronaut if we were together right now? Is she reading it at the same time I am, and are we thinking about the other reading it and having this "imaginary conversation"?

Back in the song, there's a brief bridge (with more astronaut imagery)

Weightless as I close my eyes
The ceiling opens in disguise

And the final verse:

Such a painful trip
To find out this is it
And when I go to sleep
You'll be waking up

I think the first two lines are pretty one the nose, no? The second speaks to not only the physical distance of time zones (remember the speaker's in Cologne, and I think it's safe to assume the girl's gone home to the States) but now the emotional distance as well. They are literally thousands of miles away, but in another way even further than that now.

A gorgeous, depressing song, but one that really captures the essence of a relationship dissolving. Based on the lyrics, though, I like to believe these two kids gave it another shot when he got back home. I hope they're happy, honestly...

To close, here's what I'm talking about with the two sides of Ben Folds. The album version of "Cologne" is pretty much just Ben, the piano, and that's it. (This is the closest I could find online)

But, as if he thinks that's too intimate, he has to release an over-the-top, ridiculous version with a full chorus, orchestral fills, and cheesy cinematography in the guise of a fictional European music show with a clueless host and a bizarre girl in a black cat costume. It's like insulating yourself from any real emotional outpouring in a way; it reminds me of the embarrassing morning one has after a night of deep, drunken conversation - a way of winking and saying, "Hey, I don't really mean this after all, ya know?"

(It is pretty hilarious, though)

"A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" / Edie Brickell / Born on the Fourth of July Soundtrack

2010-09-16T20:19:00.003-04:00

In high school in the late 80's, every girl I was friends with, and I mean EVERY girl, loved Edie Brickell. The Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars CD was a musical female Bible; she was the patron saint of the thoughtful, disaffected, moody teenage girl. Diaries, classroom folders and yearbooks had scribbled lyrics from "Circle". She just seemed to capture the zeitgeist of what it meant to be a adolescent girl back then.

And I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't too bad. Edie was easy on the eyes, and the music was nice when one was in the mood for some mellow tunes. I actually really liked the single "Mama Help Me" off of her follow-up album, but that was a litle bit darker and less accessable and didn't prove to be much of a hit. Then Brickell went on to marry Paul Simon, have some guiar stumming folkie babies, and was hardly heard from again(save the odd release).

In 1989, at the height of Brickell's popularity, the Tom Cruise war film Born on the Fourth of July was released. The soundtrack contained Brickell's perfect cover of this Bob Dylan song.

Here's the thing about Dylan: at the rick of losing any musical credentials I may have among people and alienating my Dylan-worshiping in-laws, I'm just really not a fan. I recognize his significant cultural impact, I appreciate his skill as a songwriter, but the perfomance just has never done it for me. The sloppiness of the music, the inscrutable, pretentious lyrics, that voice (though this is coming from a dude whose favorite band is led by Geddy Lee, so take it with a grain of salt), it's never worked for me.

Now songs that are Dylan covers I generally like. Of course, there's Hendix's "All Along the Watchtower" (considered by many to be the greatest cover of all time); I just recently heard a cover of "Girl From the North Country" by Lions on Sons of Anarchy - an incredible song that I downloaded before I even realized it was a Dylan cover, and there's this Brickell cover here. Dylan can compose a hell of a song, but his performance just leaves something to be desired.

I've never heard the original of this song, and it's probably just as well, because I always listen to this without any preconceptions or comparisons. It made sense once I found it out, though, as you can recognize some classic Dylan elements such as the wordiness, the odd imagery, the symbolism and the folk structure.

Brickell's gorgeous voice probably gives the song the biggest improvement. My favorite part of the song is the very beginning with the strummed intro and her crystal-clear tone lulling

Oh where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh where have you been, my darling young one?

(And check out the chord change on the second "one" there - what a great punch, and it's repeated throughout the song)

The first verse is just Edie and the guitar, which is nice, but it's best just to ignore the lyrics about misty mountains, sad forests and dead oceans. I mean, I consider myself pretty well versed in poetic devices and symbolism, but come on. After the chorus, she adds more instrumentation, which makes the drop back to just her voice and the guitar very effective at the beginning of the third verse (3:03).

After that, I love the slow build from quiet to loud as Brickell takes advantage of the "Where the...." refrain which is repeated over and over and builds tension and intensity, finally dropping it off at 4:27, (on the word "sinking"). Finally, a really nice job with the false ending, "I'll know my song well before I start singing" and trailing off with a false ending at 4:34 before poping out with the chorus once more, and I just love how she belts that bad boy out - I still get chills when she hits the "Raaaaaain" high note at the end of the song.

Here's Dylan's version

"Damage, Inc." / Metallica / Master of Puppets

2010-08-21T21:16:00.002-04:00

Oh, Metallica…*sighs, shakes head*

Back in high school in the late 80's, Metallica was probably my favorite band. To this day, one of the best shows I've ever seen was Metallica and the Cult (with Steve Jones!) at Atlanta's Lakewood Amphitheatre on the "...And Justice for All..." tour in 1989. Then came the pile of crap called the "Black Album". Then came forcing Jason Newstead out, then Lars and Napster, a shameful episode that found a band taking its fans to court, more crap albums, and you have what you've got now.

Seriously…they went from this:

To this:

Metallica is a band at which I can pinpoint the first time I heard them. I was on a family vacation to Jekyll Island in 1986 between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I was all about the classics at that time – Zeppelin, Floyd, Rush, etc. I met a kid down at the condo at which we were staying who was into music too. I had just bought Electric by The Cult and was really digging that “tape”. I told this kid to check it out, and he slipped it in his walkman.

He took a listen, grinned, and said, “Not too bad. Now you listen to this” and then handed over Master of Puppets.

Just the imagery of the tape cover told me I was in for something new and exciting, something semi-dangerous and challenging. As I stared at the picture of rows of graves under a blood red sky, I hit play and heard the first chugging chords of “Disposable Heroes”

Some seven minutes later, I turned the tape player off and looked at the kid. I’m sure my eyes were big as saucers because of the big smile on his face, “Good stuff, huh?” he said as he took his tape back.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t ever listened to anything out of the mainstream. In ninth grade I tried on punk for size, but it was nothing to the euphoric feeling I got from Metallica.

This is one reason I hate them so much today : to go from being so great and important (not just to me, but important musically) to geezers today feels like a complete betrayal. Add to that Lars Ulrich’s and James Hetfield’s general douchiness , and they are just so easy to hate (pity Kirk Hamnett, who always seems like an easygoing fellow, and the sting of bass players - Cliff Burton, Jason Newstead and currently Robert Trullilo – who forever seem like the coolest dudes in the group whenever they are in it).

So let’s remember the good times with “Damage, Inc.”, shall we?

The final song off of the aforementioned Master of Puppets, it’s one of the group’s most famous and lasting. It begins with some slow, building guitar work from Kirk before breaking into the classic Metallica crunch at 1:20. Even for a Metallica tune, it’s a damn scorcher, roaring along at breakneck speed.

At 1:50 they introduce the five-chord hook of the song, a descending riff which is one of the most recognizable in their canon. The lyrics tend toward the trite (“Living on your knees, conformity / or dying on your feet for honesty”) and cliched (”Fuck it all and fucking no regrets”) but have some nice imagery of blood, wild animals (razorbacks, jackals, hunt, instinct) and general mayhem (steamrollers, slamming, agony).

It’s more or less a “We are badass, don’t fuck with us” tune, the type they used to write in their sleep (“Hit the Lights”, “Whiplash”) before they completely quit trying.

Anyway, some last few cool part of Damage I love: the whispered song title, the bridge / breakdown at 3:14, the little drum fill and the “Go!” at the end of it (3:47) leading into Kirk’s killer solo, and my favorite part has always been the little syncopated twist they put on the main riff at the end of the song (5:19).

It’s really bittersweet to listen to the first four Metallica albums – Kill Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and …And Justice for All. Those albums are about as close to perfection as hard rock music gets, and it’s just a shame to consider what’s become of them. I heard they can still bring it live, but they lost me long ago, unfortunately.

"Coward of the County" / Kenny Rogers / Greatest Hits

2010-07-28T21:18:00.003-04:00

Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits holds a fair amount of nostalgia for me. When I was in second and third grade after I got off the bus to come home for the day, my Mom usually had a nice snack for me and was playing one of two albums: this one or The Oak Ridge Boys Greatest HIts. We would sit and have something to eat, chat about my day, then play a game of Clue or Life or something like that (I remember thinking that in "Lucille" I thought it was awfully unfair that the narrator's wife left him with "400 children and a crop in the field". Just wrong, that was)

One thing I love about this song and many of the classic country songs are that they're story songs. You can have a pretty nice complete narrative in three or four minutes in a great country song, sometimes with a nice ironic twist ending if you're lucky. Kenny's got some great ones too: besides this one and "Lucille", there's the classic "Gambler", and "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town", about a VIetnam paraplegic who's begging his wife to stay with him (with the terrifying to me at that age line: "If I could move I'd get my gun and put her in the ground")

So what's going on in "Coward of the County"? A poor boy named Tommy is teased for running from fights ("The folks just called him Yella'" as the narrator says). There's more to that story, though. The song's narrator is the boy's uncle ("I looked after Tommy cause he was my brother's son") and is raising him because Tommy's Dad died in prison. So our narrator knows why Tommy won't fight; he heard the last words Tommy's father said to him, giving us the song's famous chorus:

Promise me, son, not to do the things I've done.
Walk away from trouble if you can.
It won't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek.
I hope you're old enough to understand:
Son, you don't have to fight to be a man!"

It's not all bad for Tommy, though, he's in love with a girl named Becky. Unfortunately, some local miscreants the Gatlin boys see something they like in Becky too. The song describes the next event as such:

One day while he was workin' the Gatlin boys came callin'.
They took turns at Becky... and there was three of them!

Now, I really wasn't sure what "taking turns" meant when I was seven....but I was pretty sure that it wasn't good. Especially the way Kenny delivers the last part of that line - doesn't sing it, and pauses right before it to get the full effect (3:37 in the video)

Tommy comes in and sees Becky's "torn dress" and "shattered look", walks over to his Daddy's picture (and hears the words of the chorus again) and then turns as if to leave, prompting taunts from the Gatlin boys. Then comes the turning point of the song, spoken again, with another pause for emphasis:

But you could have heard a pin drop when Tommy stopped and locked the door

Tommy proceeds to kick the collective Gatlin boys' asses using "twenty years" of pent-up rage, then speaks again to his dead father, playing with the words of the chorus ever so slightly (and giving us our twist):

I promised you, dad, not to do the things you've done.
I walk away from trouble when I can.
Now please don't think I'm weak, I didn't turn the other cheek,
And papa, I sure hope you understand:
Sometimes you gotta fight when you're a man.

Again, this song's all about story. Chuck Klosterman, a social and music critic I love to read, has a great essay about modern county in his book Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs.

More or less, he says county music is unique because the lyrics are the center of the song. They are always easy to understand, and the music almost always takes a backseat to the lyrics. I'm no country expert, but it seems he's right about this - when you listen to country, the music is really forgettable and generic. It's just background noise so the lyrics can be presented to the listener. That's all to say there's not much for me to analyze musically here, other than some typical pop-country tropes: the strummed acoustic guitar, the shuffling beat, the female harmonies on the chorus. Kenny has an all-time classic voice, though; it's warm and intimate, a little raspy around the edges, and instantly familiar.

I've had lots of fun recently revisiting some of the old classic country music like this from the 60's and 70's (In fact, I highly recommend this station out of Monroe, GA). There was a time when I guess I considered myslef too hip to admit it's enjoyable (and that I enjoy it), but it's definitely a part of my musical upbringing that I'll always carry with me.

"Army of Me" / Bjork / Telegram

2010-05-30T10:53:00.002-04:00

My wife is the big Bjork fan in the family, accounting for the four albums of hers on my itunes. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan, but I enjoy the occasional song. I really liked The Sugarcubes, one of those "underground / progressive" bands from back in the 80's (as we called them before the genre "alternative" became established), especially their modest hit from '88, "Birthday", a great tune that still holds up well today:

"Army of Me" is a pretty badass song for one reason - that ominous, rolling bassline which doesn't let up for the entire song. I'll be damned if anyone can make any sense of Bjork's lyrics, even if they can decipher them, but the lyric that stands out that gives the song its title: "If you complain once more / you'll get an army of me" makes me chuckle a bit. Bjork, with her Icelandic, pixieish* voice and persona, doesn't lend well to tough talk like that. It actually is kind of adorable, which really just defeats her purpose. Oh, well.

*Any writing done about Bjork and her music is contractually obligated to include either a reference to Iceland and / or the word "pixie". Just following through, here.

Love the video, though. Typical Bjork surrealism - the tiny girl driving an immense tank with a full set of teeth, a gorilla dentist, Bjork playing secret agent and blowing up a museum....good stuff.

"Senses Working Overtime" / Mandy Moore / Coverage

2010-05-17T20:38:00.003-04:00

You may be asking yourself what a 38-year-old, married, father of three is doing with a Mandy Moore song (or two) in his itunes collection, and it's a fair one to ask.

First of all, it's not originally a Mandy Moore song. "Senses Working Overtime" is by the brilliant English pop group XTC and this version appears on Moore's album of covers called, er, Coverage. Second, as I have owned up to before, Mandy Moore is on my list of five (she's 26 now, so that's not creepy...right?). And, finally, Ms. Moore (I refuse to call her Mrs. Adams) is a pretty talented singer who has a nice interpretation of this song.

Mandy Moore was lumped in with the Brittanys and Christinas of the pop word back during that teen explosion of the late 90's, but she never quite took off the way those two did. She's seemed to have found more success as an actress now than as a musical artist, but I always suspected that there was a little bit more going on (musically) with her than the rest of the 'tween queens. This was somewhat justified when I found out she covered artists like XTC, Joe Jackson, Cat Stevens, The Waterboys, and Joni MItchell on this covers album. She seems to be a very mature musical artist now, unconcerned with album sales and motivated by a love of music (and, again, a profitable acting career gives one that luxury).

Moore doesn't add too many twists to her version of "Senses", but I do enjoy some of the changes. The XTC version takes a bit to get going, beginning very quietly and then getting louder toward the chorus, but Moore jumps right in with the "1-2-3-4-5" bit (the most cringeworthy part of the cover, in my opinion). Her version swings a little more too, though "swing" is a relative term when discussing two rather square artists.

As with most pop acts, the chorus and / or hook is where the tale is told, and "Senses" has a great one. I'm not crazy about the high-end overdubs Moore has on the "counting" bit, but I do like the smooth, fretless bass added underneath. I miss the little guitar jingle after the "counting" that XTC has, though to be fair Moore isn't attempting a rock cover, so no guitar is meant to be noticed anyway.

My favorite part of Moore's version is just a really brief bit - at the end of the chorus the delivery of the line

Trying to taste the difference between a lemon and a lime

I love the way she ever-so slightly draws out the "L" sound (alliteration, kids!) and puts a very slight hitch in her voice on the word "lime". It's also nice how the chorus ends softly, with an almost a cappella part on the "church bells softly chiming" line, the harmonics suggesting chiming bells themselves.

All-in-all, a cover that doesn't necessarily improve on the original, but does give a different perspective which is what a great cover should do And props to Ms. Moore (see, Mandy? You don't even need to change your name!) for digging deep in the pop vault to dust off a little gem like this.

And for comparison's sake, here's the original

"Soap Star Joe" / Liz Phair / Exile in Guyville

2010-05-02T10:07:00.001-04:00

Has any other "important" artist had such a sad, precipitous fall as my girl Liz Phair?

The quality of her music has just taken an absolute nosedive with each successive album. She went from indie pop brilliance in 1993

To mawkish, Adult Contemporary crap in 2005

I mean, I know a girl's got to provide for herself and sell some CDs, but as a dedicated fan, it's just sad to see her neuter herself over the years. And judging by her album sales, I'm not the only one that feels this way - she was dropped from Capital Records after the poor sales of Somebody's Miracle. I own all of her albums, as I've mentioned before I'm a loyal fan of artists I love, but damn she's making it hard to maintain hope.

But for now, let's remember some happier times. Exile in Guyville, her debut was a HUGE album back in the burgeoning alternative scene in the early 90's. Importantly, hers was the first important female voice to emerge, paving the way for the Lillith Fair scene (don't hold that against her, though). Exile in Guyville, if you believe the rumors, was written as a feminist song-by-song response to the Rolling Stone's masterpiece Exile on Main Street (which would make "Soap Star Joe" the response to "Torn and Frayed", my favorite non-hit Stones song).

Both songs begin with a simple strummed intro and have a nice, mid-tempo sway to them. "Torn and Frayed" is about a dude named Joe (!) that's in a band but is having some issues. His coat is "torn and frayed", he's a drifter and a "deadbeat", is addicted to codine, but apparently is a hell of a guitar player to "steal your heart away".

Phair's "Joe" is the personification of American manhood, the Marlboro man:

He's just a hero
In a long line of heroes
Looking for some lonely billboard to grace
They say he sprung from the skull of Athena
Think about your own head
And the headache he gave

(you have to like the mythological allusion and clever turn of phrase at the end, huh?) And as if you didn't divine the Joe-as-archetype through the lyrics, she ends with this line:

Check out America
You're looking at it babe

Uh, thanks...

So, yeah, a big difference between the Stones' Joe and Phair's: the former being a veritable bum that pulls it together in time for incredible shows, the latter being American, Western manhood incarnate, a "hero from a long line of heroes", wearing tight blue jeans, sporting "thinning hair" and driving a pickup.

The sound of Phair's song is sparse, like much of Guyville - mostly just her strumming the chords, accompanied only by her unique, quivering voice and a few brush strokes on a snare. What amounts to a chorus (at 1:28 and 2:03) offers an echoed, haunting change (is it really a chorus if it's the same music but not the same words?) with a telltale Stones-ish harmonica finishing out the song. Most of the Guyville songs follow this structure; Phair plays around with conventional song structures throughout, often eschewing choruses, bridges, and rhyming altogether. It's this loss of experimental spirit that has let so many fans down; "sellout" is an ugly, overused word in music, but it's sometimes applicable.

I believe Phair still has some great stuff left in her. It's been five years since her latest album, the 90's are beginning to have a nostalgic return (it happens in cycles of 20 years), and music fans LOVE a comeback. All she needs to do is hook up with the right producer (i.e, not The Matrix /shakes head/), find her edge again, and await the plaudits that will certainly be tossed her way. Come on, Liz...we're rooting for you!

"Revolutionary Generation" / Public Enemy / Fear of a Black Planet

2010-04-13T20:55:00.003-04:00

It's really hard to overestimate the impact that Public Enemy had on my cultural development after I discovered them in high school. Though I grew up in a pretty diverse educational environment, PE was my first real foray into what one might call the American Black Experience. Until I started listening to PE I had never heard of Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, or Eldridge Cleaver, never considered Malcolm X anything other than a rabble-raising black man, and found out that not everyone seemed to hold John Wayne or Elvis in such esteem as white folk.

I sheepishly admit to you now how much I got into these guys: I purchased a leather African medallion that was all the rage in the late 80's (and wore it to school, even /slaps forehead/), the group I hung out with called ourselves (jokingly) the "9-8 Posse" after a line in "Rebel Without a Pause", I pattered my tuba section in the marching band /dork/ after the S1Ws, PE's stepping, uzi-toting, martial-arts-practicing security group, and I also bought a message in our school's Valentine's paper and simply put the PE logo on it

Yeah, I did

And I know I wasn't the only one Chuck D and the gang affected. White boys my age who were into rap back then were gaga over these guys. It is somewhat ironic when you think about it, as PE always took a pretty militant pro-black (but not anti-white) stance in their music, but I think many of us were drawn to the authenticity of the groups message, the rebellion in the delivery, and the dense production of the Bomb Squad, PE's sonic engineers (and don't forget that those first few albums were overseen by Rick Rubin, who already had endeared himself to suburban white boys through the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J). In many ways, PE was a rap group that took a Rock attitude and approach to its music (hell, they sampled Slayer in one song, for God's sake), and I think many of us could sense that.

PE certainly evolved as a musical force over time. Their first album, "Yo! Bum Rush the Show" was well-received (highlighted, in my opinion, by "Public Enemy Number 1"), but it didn't give any indication that their next joint (see what I did there?), "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" would be damn near revolutionary. Seriously, you can't consider yourself a true music fan if you don't own a copy of that album. It's one of the best in music history, genre be damned. "Fear of Black Planet", the follow up, almost reached the same heights, but was still great in its own right, containing what became the group's signature song, "Fight the Power"

Ahhhhh...1989!

Yep - 1989: my senior year, the best year in rap's history, and PE and Spike Lee scaring white people to death with "Do the Right Thing"

Anyway, let's look at the music. I measure rappers by three criteria: voice, flow, and lyrics. Chuck rates high on voice (that powerful, Don Pardo-esque baritone is distinctive and commanding) and lyrics, but not so much on flow. And it's hard to believe now that he's a reality show buffoon, but Flava Flav brought something to the table as well. However, as I mentioned previously, the Bomb Squard produced the tracks that really let PE shine.

If you check out the first minute or so of "Revolutionary Generation", you can pick up not only the huge beat and scratching of Terminator X, but also a clip of a MLK speech, an Aretha Franklin sample, and a bit of "Pass the Dutchie" from Musical Youth. Dense, complex, and challenging music. As you listen to the entire track, see how many different bits, pieves and samples you can pick out. This is one reason rap isn't what it used to be - where's the musical artistry?

Lyrically, this song is about showing solidarity with black women. Rap music is often criticized for its misogynistic tendencies, so kudos for Chuck for standing up for black women (though in retrospect, those Tawana Brawley references sting). He even acknowledges his past indiscretions in his own music ("So I said Sophisticated B , don't be one" - though that could be described as a cop-out, couldn't it?). Still, males in rap weren't approaching this subject in 1991. There's more lyrics here, so check it out for the full text.

Sadly, it seems that PE is now relegated to the old-school rap dustbin. They've attempted a couple of comebacks, but have never really fully reentered our musical consciousness (though they came close for a minute with "He Got Game" from old friend Spike Lee's film). I hope they will be remembered for their music as well as their message when it's all over with them, though.

"Allergic" / Placebo / Without You I'm Nothing

2010-03-13T14:35:00.002-05:00

Placebo is a nice mix of two or three of my favorite bands : the mysterious androgyny and Anglicanism of Suede, tight grooves and vocals reminiscent of Rush , and a little of Muse's progressive musicianship.

Like most in the States, I caught onto them with the single "Pure Morning", one of the best releases of the 90's.

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie - they sounded a lot like a new and improved Rush to me, and this was when Rush was in the lowest point of their career: they had just released the disappointing Test for Echo, Neil Peart lost his daughter in a car crash and his wife to cancer within a year, and it looked like the band was finished (but that's neither here nor there). Placebo looked like a good candidate to fill that void.

Despite my fondness for this album, it's the only release of theirs I have. They are a band I never kept up with like I thought I would. Maybe I should check back in on them and see if they have done anything interesting latey. They've all but dropped off the face of the earth in the States, but still have a nice following in the UK. They also recently had a hit with this Kate Bush cover, which I think's a pretty good remake.

"Allergic" is one of the more uptempo songs on WIthout You I'm Nothing. It's got a great crunchy bass sound to open the song, and the simple two chord structure of the song moves it right along. The vocals complement the simplicity of the tune nicely, as Molko quickly crams his words in the space created.

The end of each verse is cool too, one line - "You take a beating" followed by the guitar echoing the chord progression. Nothing fancy , no bridge, no musical masturbation, just keeping that groove intact throughout the whole song. (Oddly enough, when I first listened to this, I misheard that as "You take a BM", and now I can't get that out of my head).

The chorus is as basic as the rest of the song, with its repeated couplets of "The light divining / The light defining", and listen to the bass and drum combo, as they never stop the two chord groove they established back in the first few seconds.

The only variation to the song comes in its coda, as from the 3:00 mark on they add some discordant guitar sounds and drop the bass a little. It's cool how they hold that last note for a good twenty seconds or so too. It's a solid, no nonsense straightforward rock song. The video below is fan-made, as they never released this song as a single, but it's not bad as far as those go.

"Mahgeeta" / My Morning Jacket / It Still Moves

2010-03-02T13:49:00.003-05:00

Despite having one of the stupider band names in music history (and despite their Furthur / jam band / hippie following), My Morning Jacket has quickly become one of my very favorite bands of the 'oughts.

At their best, their songs are just hypnotic, entrancing and lovely, with singer Jim James' soft voice lulling you into contemplation. Let it be known that thy can bust out a rock tune as well, but thats not my favorite mode of theirs. As in the song here, they often have a classic 1950's era rock sound, but adapt it for a modern audience. The beginning melody of "Mahgeeta" sounds as if it could have been from a Bill Haley and the Comets track back in the day, but they add enough contemporary styling to make it fresh. This produces a comforting mix of something new sounding but innately familiar as well.

It's a hard conept for me to explain, so, if you wish, read this essay by WIlliam Bowers from The DeCapo Best Music Writing 1994 compilation (start on page 34). I had heard of MMJ before reading this, but just in album reviews in music magazines (which always referenced their similarity to Neil Young). It was after this article that I decided to seek them out.

I started with Z, their fourth album and still my favorite., then moved to this one (It Still Moves), and then finished off by, um, "borrowing" a couple more from a somewhat loyal blog reader. I love having the whole catalogue of these guys, and putting their tunes on a long playlist while grading essays or just lounging around reading. Hell, they say it best themselves in the first lyrics of this song:

Sittin here with me and mine.
All wrapped up in a bottle of wine

For a real treat, if you're not familiar with them. start with Okonokos, a double live album recorded at the Filmore in San Francisco.

Wordless Chorus, one of my MMJ favorites

As with many of their tunes, one secret to "Mahgeeta"s sound is reverb - lots of it. The echoing, looping vocals and impeccable harmonies have everything to do with the mood these guys create. The song is deceptively simple, with a steady, staccato groove underneath, but the vocals really make it pop.

At 4:30, the vocals drop out, and you can hear how MMJ gets the Bonaroo-crowd following - they up the tempo and finish with a bang of a coda, complete with a flourish on the final chord. You can imagine this song would be drawn out and rocked pretty hard live, can't you?

"Camel Walk" / Southern Culture on the Skids / Dirt Track Date

2010-02-18T10:05:00.003-05:00

If ever there was reason to praise the itunes / digital music revolution it's for songs like "Camel Walk". SCOTS is a band with a schtick (not that there's anything wrong with that - so were the Ramones, The Cramps, KISS, The B-52s, Ween and The Hives) which is awesome for a song or two, but gets really old over the course of a whole CD.

As you can probably guess from just the name of the band, or definitely after watching the video or hearing the song, SCOTS's schtick is white trash. The faux country musical stylings, silly lyrics, trucker hats and beehive hairdos all attest to this. Having said that, let's look at "Camel Walk" on its own merits (ha).

I heard this song quite often in the mid 90's on a local Athens station, 103.7, which played a great alternative mix (that station then became "classic rock" - ugh- and just recently changed to pop music. So, if you're scoring at home, that's Radiohead to Nazareth to Miley Cyrus) I was instantly intrigued by it's greatness, and the fact that it annoyed my girlfriend to no end make it even more fun to blast in the car and sing along to.

It's hard to get a handle on the complex themes of this song. FIrst of all, I'm not sure what "walking like a camel" means. I'm thinking it has a sexual connotation, given the mentions of "thorny boots", and I'm picturing a camel walking in my head, but it's not adding up. Maybe if one is, um, aroused, one may tread carefully as a dromedary? I don't know.

What brings brilliance to the song is the vending machine snack shoutouts. One of my favorite lines in the song comes early on :

Who's in charge here? Where's my Captain's Wafers?
Don't go 'round hungry now!
Baby, the way you eat that oatmeal pie makes me want to diiiie

Wooooo!

He ends the song with this gem

Little Debbie, Little Debbie!
I'm a comin' on home, baby!

So, the consumption of prepackaged snacks, "special outfits" and quarters under high-heeled boots really gets this guy going, or "camel walking". I....guess. Fun times anyway.

Musically, I love the whip cracks, followed with perfect timing by the singer's howl. Also love that sliding bass riff, and you can't deny that they hit a pretty good grove at times in the song (check that part at :24).

So, let's just have fun with this one. Lots of the music I love the most is so damn earnest and serious, so it's good to change it up with a song like this now and again. As for the video below, it's interspersed with footage from a Ben Stiller movie, "Flirting WIth DIsaster" on whose soundtrack this song appeared. Never seen the movie, but parts of it seem to fit OK, especially the opening image of the dude licking his lady's underarm.

"Angels" / Robbie Williams

2010-01-31T20:57:00.003-05:00

Interesting thing about Robbie Williams…he’s England’s version of Justin Timberlake. Just as JT was the breakout star of 90’s boy band N’Sync, Williams was part of England’s biggest klan of non-threatening cute teenagers, Take That.

Embarrassed that I remember this

Both guys took a risk by dropping their respective cash cows to strike out on solo careers, which was viewed by most observers as a huge mistake, but both ended up exploding as solo artists.

The major difference is Willams’ inability to “break” in the US, whereas Timberlake has done well for himself over the pond. Beginning in the late 90’s, the music press was touting Williams as the Next Big Thing in the US. He did have a minor hit in the states with “Millennium”, then had that really weird, gross video in which he strips off his skin and muscles while he’s dancing, which seemed to immediately undo any momentum he’d built. It just never happened for the man here.
Not helping here

So here we have “Angels”, which, apparently was as big in England as….I’m not sure there’s an apt comparison. I remember seeing a documentary on Britpop, Live Forever, that speculated that this song was the death blow to that musical era. I happened to come across it through one of my favorite music magazines, England’s Q, when they published a special “1001 greatest songs ever” issue a few years ago. The description sounded interesting, so I gave it a download.

And, look, there’s no way I can really defend this song, It’s cheesy, melodramatic, and calculated, but I can’t really deny the goose bumps at the chorus, and not to get too maudlin, but hearing the lyrics

And through it all, she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I’m right or wrong

And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won’t break me
When I come to call
She won’t forsake me

I’m loving Angels instead

and realizing they are about his late mother really strikes a chord with me, sentimental sucker that I am.

I think this was Robbie Williams' last big gasp at becoming big in America. He must have figured if this song couldn’t do it, it wasn’t meant to be (and thank GOD Jessica Simpson’s version didn’t become a hit. I was terrified that this would happen).

So, flame away if you must. However, before you do, watch him perform this in front of 350,000 at Knebworth and see if you can deny it’s not just a little bit great.

"Riding on the Rocket" / Shonen Knife / Let's Knife

2010-01-20T21:10:00.001-05:00

Imagine, if you will, that on an alternate world the Ramones were not tall, goofy Greenwich Village Jews, but three tiny, smiling Japanese women that can barely speak English.

That, my friends, is Shonen Knife.

I bought Let’s Knife After seeing the “Riding on the Rocket” video late one night on 120 Minutes or something. I was strangely fascinated (and probably deep into a few beers, truth be told). There is something strangely alluring and fascinating about Shonen knife, this song, and this video. I had to have it.

These ladies play some fine pop music for sure, and you have to love the Japenglish that they use (“Blue eyed kitty cat say / Please take me with you” @ :25) Plus, with what other bands can you hear a song about a popular Asian toilet cleaner?

“Riding on the Rocket” is indeed a catchy little number, what with the three-chord fuzzed out guitar riffs, the cute cooing of the adorable ladies, and the sing-along chorus. My favorite part, though, is the little breakdown of planets at the end of the chorus – “Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars” – it gets thisclose to being a little metal, doesn’t it?

In all honesty, though, songs like this make me appreciate MP3 and digital music that much more. This song is lots of good fun, but over the course of an entire CD? Not so much.

Check out the video, a fine example of the surreal, wacked Japanese culture I love. Ride the rocket with Shonen Knife, people. Come on!

"Reason to Believe" / Bruce Springsteen / Nebraska

2010-01-10T20:38:00.003-05:00

(Remember, as Springsteen is one of my all-timers, he gets the benefit of a repeat review. For previous Springsteen musings, see here)

Nebraska is a unique little record. It lies chronologically between The River, which spawned the hits ("The River",“Fade Away” and “Hungry Heart”) to the stratospheric smash Born in the USA.

It sat for the longest time, unnoticed in the Springsteen pantheon, sandwiched between those two classic Boss rockers. When he put out The Ghost of Tom Joad in 1994, it began to get attention as it was an easy reference for what he was trying to do with that album. Nebraska is, in one word, stark. From the desolate album cover, to the depressing narratives in the songs, to the sparse instrumentation, the entire work is bleak.

Most of the songs on Nebraska concern people who are down on their luck, who have run afoul of the law, who have nothing left in the world and seek some type of escape or salvation. Many are told in first person, with Springsteen performing only on acoustic guitar and harmonica. In fact, the first version of mega-hit “Born in the USA” was originally a Nebraska cut. Check out this version, and think about how much differently people would have approached this song if it was released like this instead of how it was misinterpreted it as a pro-USA fist-pumping anthem (as, admittedly, I did as a twelve-year-old)

“Reason to Believe” is one of the most interesting songs on the album. It’s no accident that it comes at album’s end, as it is the ONLY song on the entire record which offers some type of hope (despite it’s opening imagery of a bloated, dead dog in a ditch)

The message of ”Reason to Believe”, of course, is easily summed up in its chorus :

Struck me kinda funny seemed kind of funny sir to me
How at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe

After describing scenes of despair in each of the verses – the dead dog, a man leaving his pregnant girlfriend, the circle of birth, death and marriage, Springsteen lets us know that you have to find some reason to carry on and cling on to the promise of a better future

The protagonists of the songs before this one – Johnny 99, the out-of-work auto worker who robs a store and kills a man, Joe Roberts of “Highway Patrolman” who lets his brother accused of murder escape to Canada, the young boy in “Used Car” who sees his family’s financial struggles and swears he will buy an new car one day - don’t have any hope, but escape is offered us at the end. And, despite the depressing mood of this record, this closing song is a nice contrast to its eponymous opener, a retelling of the real-life cross country murders Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate which ends with the ominous lyric:

They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world”

. Not to mention, this is probably the only song on the entire album that isn't written as a veritable dirge. It's an upbeat, shuffling toe-tapper, and suprisingly closes the album with a feeling of happiness.

So we begin with “A meanness in this world” and end with a “reason to believe”. That’s Nebraska, and that’s Bruce’s America. Do yourself a favor and pick this album up is you have a chance.

"You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" / Eddie Vedder (Beatles Cover) / I Am Sam

2009-12-30T13:48:00.004-05:00

Back in 2001, there was a forgettable little film called I Am Sam in which Sean Penn went full retard. Though I never saw the movie or had any interest in it, the soundtrack was entirely Beatles covers; apparently the songs of The Beatles played a large part in the plot. Covering the Beatles is, of course, not a new concept, as they might be the most widely covered band in history, but to their credit they eschewed some of the more obvious choices for some of the deep cuts, and in this blogger's opinion, matched up the songs and artists well.

Some of the notable songs:
Ben Folds' "Golden Slumbers" (my favorite on the album)
Nick Cave's "Let it Be"
Granddaddy's "Revolution"
Paul Westerberg's "Nowhere Man"
Rufus Wainwright's "Across the Universe"

And, of course, we have Eddie Vedder doing one of my favorite Beatles tracks, "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away". The original was a Lennon track and appeared on the "Help" album in 1965. That time period was smack in the middle of the Beatles' transition from pop stars to "serious" artists, and you can tell from this tune that they were definitely headed in a different direction.

Unlike other Beatles songs, it's in a minor key, a slow, Dylan-esque comedown from the formulaic pop gems that they had produced up until that time. It must have thrown their fans for a loop at the time (whenever I hear it I think of a northern England sea shanty), and was definitely a portent for the experimental phase the band was about to experience.

Eddie Vedder plays this cover pretty straight, not changing much at all from the original. He has one of the most outstanding voices in rock music, a deep baritone with great range, so it was a natural song for him to cover. Without being blasphemous, I think his voice suits this song better than Lennon's does, actually.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-21T23:33:00.002-05:00

To all my reader(s)

Taking a Christmas break. Check back next week.

My Christmas present to you: NYC's PS 22 chorus singing the Cure's "Pictures of You". Awesome.

"Strobelite Honey" / Black Sheep / A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

2009-12-09T20:12:00.003-05:00

Ahhh....what could have been.

The Black Sheep are one of the great misses in all of music. Back in 1992, they were a cinch lock to be rap music's next big thing, mostly on the strength of their badass debut single "The Choice is Yours" (which still has one of the greatest samples in rap music ever - the "Uh - come on" that makes up the beat throughout the song)

So, yeah, Drez and Mista Lawnge arrived on the scene with splash in 1992. They came in at what was ,at the time, hip hip's golden era. Black Sheep looked to inherit the same sphere that was occupied by De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde and The Jungle Brothers. And just check 'em out - do the round glasses, high top fade, acid washed jeans and buttoned-up shirt scream early 90's or what?

However, you know what seminal rap album was also released in 1992? Yeah, that's right:

The megastardom of former NWA member Dr. Dre and the subsequent dominance of gangsta rap put the death blow on groups such as the Black Sheep, either effectively killing them off or forcing them underground. It was a complete annihilation, much in the same way that Kurt Cobain and Nirvana decimated 80's metal (though one could argue that 80's metal had it coming, whereas conscious rap didn't. But I digress).

America's choice to allow gansta to dominate rap music can't be overstated, in this fan's opinion. Not only was rap music as a genre affected, but one could also argue that it changed African American culture for years to come. The irony of it all is that on this album, Black Sheep satirized gansta rap, which most causal fans were unaware of at the time, with a track "U Mean I'm Not", in which Dres beats his sister for using his toothbrush and shoots his Mom for breaking his egg yolk at breakfast.

Well, anyway, back to the song selection, "Strobelite Honey" is just a joke song, a narrative about a dude who goes into a club, spots what he thinks is a hot chick, goes to speak to her, and is obviously taken aback by her up close, fooled by the strobe light. Thinking quickly to get out of the situation, he tries an old trick, ("I thought you were someone else"), a flat out lie ("My phone number? 765-4321") and finally, just turns and runs, giving us the "I gotta go" chorus.

Though this song is no great shakes topically, you can see what made these guys popular for a hot minute: good production and sample choices (how about that funk guitar in the chorus?), clever turns of phrase, and nice flow (check out the verse that starts at 1:31). It's a shame that they never fulfilled their commercial potential, but Black Sheep are still fondly remembered by rap fans of my generation.

"The Pass" / Rush / Presto

2009-11-25T21:05:00.003-05:00

Sorry, haters, it's another Rush song.

I'm a person that believes in what some call synchronicity, or "meaningful coincidence". I was checking a Rush news blog which I frequent every couple weeks, and noticed that Sunday was the 20th anniversary of Rush's Presto album. There is a poll attached to the post asking everyone's favorite song on the album, and I thought, "No, brainier, it's The Pass", which turned out to be true. Then I go to itunes for the blog, and guess what song pops up? Pretty strange.

"The Pass" is a song which has only grown in prestige over the years among Rush fans (Russians? Is there a clever name for Rush fans like Dead fans or Jimmy Buffett? Besides loser, I mean) and the band too. They have singled out this song over the years as one of their personal favorites and often trot it out during tours.

This song joins a long line of a great band trope: the anti-suicide song. Though, as we see later, the object of the narrator's pleadings doesn't listen.

Neil Peart is at his lyrical best in this one. We meet the protagonist in the first two verses:

Proud swagger out of the school yard
Waiting for the world's applause
Rebel without a conscience
Martyr without a cause

Static on your frequency
Electrical storm in your veins
Raging at unreachable glory
Straining at invisible chains

One gets the sense of a angry young man, filled with potential and brimming with energy and misdirected anger ("Rebel without a conscience / Martyr without a cause")

But for whatever reason, he's met with frustration, as Peart sets up a metaphor of a dangerous cliff in the chorus. Or perhaps it's no metaphor and our kid is, literally, standing on a ledge. Probably both.

And now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
Staring down into a heartless sea
Can't face life on a razor's edge
Nothing's what you thought it would be

Now, our narrator gives his advice in the second half of the chorus. It's interesting, too how this song has two distinct choruses back to back. Not something you see often

All of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
All of us do time in the gutter
Dreamers turn to look at the cars
Turn around and turn around and turn around
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Don't turn your back
And slam the door on me

Beautifully said, indeed. "Everybody hurts, sometimes" as a famous Athenian once said in his own fashion. I also like how the music "slams" along with the lyric leaving Ged's voice alone to end the line.

Now, more advice:

It's not as if this barricade
Blocks the only road
It's not as if you're all alone
In wanting to explode

Someone set a bad example
Made surrender seem all right
The act of a noble warrior
Who lost the will to fight

And back to the double choruses.

After one of Alex's best solos on record, we get the tragic ending:

No hero in your tragedy
No daring in your escape
No salutes for your surrender
Nothing noble in your fate
Christ, what have you done?

I love what Neil does here, totally pissing over any kind of romanticism, bravery or sacrifice that some might associate with suicide. "No salutes for your surrender"is a hell of a line, no matter your feelings on this band. Again, like the "slam" lyric at the end of the chorus, the music stops on "Christ" to really convey the shock and incredulous feeling of what's happened.

Once more with the chorus, to really get the point across, I suppose, and we end strangely for a Rush song, with Geddy singing alone.

Looking back, I've really focused on the lyrics here, but there is some great musicianship going on here as well. I've already mentioned Lifeson's incredible, restrained solo, but the opening to this song with Geddy's plucked bass riff is very distinctive in the Rush canon. The big intro to the chorus is a classic as well (check :49 on the video), and this is the first album when Geddy really started to restrain his glass shattering screech (one of the main things that people hate about this band) which he does to fine effect here.

So, why have the fates given me this song, what's the synchronicity? Fear not for me, dear reader, but stay alert to those around you, eh?

Also, does Geddy's late 80's ponytailed look make him even less attractive? I don't think it was possible, myself. How about Alex's mullet?

Rush - The Pass
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"The Next Messiah" / Jenny Lewis / Acid Tongue

2009-11-15T20:45:00.006-05:00

OK, first off I'm just going to go ahead and state the obvious - Jenny Lewis is HOT. It's far from the sum total of why I love her and her music, but damn if she just isn't one smoking lady. In fact, she's most definitely in my list of five (the others? Well, that would be Mad Men actress January Jones, pop siren Mandy Moore - (and Ryan Adams, Mandy? Really?)Natalie Morales, NBC news-temptress, and Natalie Dormer, the doomed Anne Boelyn from Showtime's The Tudors. Just in case you were wondering.)

Huge, completely gratuitous photo

Again, though, all that aside, Lewis is an awesomely talented singer and songwriter, with a voice almost as pure and beautiful as Neko Case. Lewis is also the lead singer of indie rock band Rilo Kiley, one of my very favorites of the 2000s. Though Rilo Kiley put out a new album a couple of years ago, they are currently on hiatus as Lewis explores her solo career.

Her first album was the countryish Rabbit Fur Coat, which had a nice hit with the sublime "Rise Up With Fists" and an awesome Hee-Haw tribute for its video

Jenny Lewis - Rise Up with Fists - The funniest home videos are here

As great as that album is for Sunday morning lounging, I actually prefer Acid Tongue more (and I'm probably in the minority there). I like the wide variety of styles she uses in that one; it's more dynamic and has a few rock songs on it too, one of which is this one - "The Next Messiah"

When this came out, I remember reading an interview with Lewis in which she said this song was meant to invoke the multi-part, narrative songs that she grew up listening to as a kid in the 70's. It does tell a story, though I'm at a loss to figure the damn thing out. If you'd like to give it a go, have at it. And, indeed, there are three distinct parts to this eight minute opus.

Part one is a straight ahead boogie beat, with Lewis' voice taking front and center. Part two begins at 2:48 with a funky breakdown and backbeat. Part three at 5:11 (after a cool false ending)has Lewis trading off lines with a male vocalist over a soft strumming guitar. This part has my favorite bit of this song, the "Ohh-ohh" she sings in a blues key at 6:35, 6:49 and 7:31. Unexpected and sexy. The last minute of the song (at 7:51) circles back to the boogie beat, making the listener feel effectively like he's gone somewhere.

I've seen Lewis perform twice now, once in 2005 with Rilo Kiley and this past summer, both times at the 40 Watt. Last summer's show was supposed to go be at the Georgia Theatre, but the week before the show it burned to the ground. Embarrassingly, the first thought I had when I heard it was on fire was, "Crap, does this mean I don't get to see Jenny Lewis?"

Thank goodness the show went on as the 40 Watt generously hosted her, and my wife and I ended up going and getting a hell of a treat. In fact, she opened with "The Next Messiah", which I thought was a song she would just choose to skip live, as I thought it wouldn't translate well. She killed it. You can't imagine how small the Watt felt when she belted out, "He's the neeeeeeext moo-si-uhhhhh" at the top of her lungs at the end of that song.

I apologize for not having an album version, but it seems her record company has a huge copyrighted stick up its butt. The times I posted above are for the album version, but you should get the idea.

"Obscene" / The Rollins Band / The End of Silence

2009-11-02T17:35:00.004-05:00

The End of Silence was released in 1992, and came by me via the “Low Self-Opinion” song and video at a perfect time for me in 1993.

I was familiar with Rollins from my high school skater punk-guy days, but The Rollins Band was another animal altogether. Gone were the breakneck, manic, sarcastic songs like “Slip it In” and “Six Pack”, and in their place were long, eight minute pulverizing, angry dirges based firmly in the blues. To say it took some getting used to was an understatement.

Anyway, this album was essential to me during a bad breakup I had back in my early 20’s. I guess girls fancy a good love song and a cry during a breakup (stereotypically, of course), but The End of Silence contained the perfect mix of self-pity, searing anger, resentment, and resolve that made it an absolute essential part of my life for about six months of 1994.

And then, strangely enough, during a trip to New York City, I got the chance to meet Rollins. Well, “meet” is being generous. I was up there with a buddy visiting his girlfriend, and a few of us were walking around the city, when I notice I’m behind a squat, jacked-up dude that seemed strangely familiar. That’s when I also notice the unmistakable Black Flag insignia tattoo on the back of the guy’s neck.

Without even considering what I was doing, I blurt out, “Hey, Henry”.

He and the girl he’s with turn around and he looks me in the eye and raises an eyebrow – “Yeah?”

Then, panicking, I hold out my hand to shake and say, I swear, “I think you’re pretty cool”

He was nice enough to return my shake, tell me thanks, and not punch me in my face. So, there’s my exciting brush with superstardom.

About a year after that, some of my friends and I went to see Rollins at The Cotton Club in Atlanta (opening act was a noisy, unknown band called Tool). Now, that was a weird performance. I’m sure everyone has seen clips of Rollins in full-on, possessed performance mode. He’s usually naked but for a pair of black briefs, hunched over and screaming his lungs out into a mic. We expected all this, of course, but the strangeness happened in between songs.

This. Yikes

He would put the mic back on the stand, stand erect, start genuinely smiling, and crack jokes with the audience (probably this was about the time he really started considering spoken word as his major career move). There was lots of nervous laughter from the audience, and then, sometimes, just complete, uncomfortable silence. Rollins even noticed this at one point, and commented how everyone seemed scared to speak (to which I answered in my head like everyone else, “No fucking shit, dude”). Then his face would screw up, the band would kick in, and there he’d be, staking the stage again. It was a very strange show indeed.

The years (and his spoken word stuff, and his talk show) have of course shown us that Rollins has either chilled out a good bit or was really a big-hearted person underneath his muscle bound, Hulkish exterior. He’s a very intelligent dude, a good writer and poet, and very thoughtful on a wide variety of subjects. I think The Rollins Band helped him grow as a person, actually, providing him a therapeutic outlet for some of his issues.

“Obscene” is one of the longest songs on this album, clocking in at 8:40, though much of that is taken up by a chaotic, instrumental freak-out at the end. The song really begins with some drum and bass fireworks, with the bass player running some awesome scale work underneath the guitar noodling.

The band locks into a nice riff which drives the song, and Rollins starts the vocals at :33 with, guess what, a guttural scream. He’s confused and angry – go figure. My favorite part of the song is what passes for its chorus – check 1:04, when the band hits HARD on eighth notes with pauses in between – “Bam bam – bam bam – bam bam – bam” while Rollins, raving, yells – “I’ll love you and hate you both at the same time – Heal you and hurt you and laugh as you cry!” Very effective stuff. (He does again at 1:42, just in case you don’t know what I mean)

After the second chorus, we have a great bluesy jam, followed by the song grinding to a halt at 3:00. For the next minute and a half, Rollins quietly sings over a barely audible bass until he explodes again at 4:30 (and we get one more chorus at 5:02). From that point until the end of the song, it’s just the aforementioned instrumental freak out, fading away to nothing. It’s pretty cool to see live though.

Looking back now, it does seem a little bit juvenile to dig this, but I still do, though I can’t really relate to the man’s anger (and to be fair, he’d probably say the same, twenty years on). It’s not particularly skillfully written or performed, but really The Rollins Band is much better than the sum of its parts. Anything that serves as an catharsis or outlet for Rollins’ anger and aggression is probably good for the world in the end.

"I Don't Care (So There)" / The Donnas / Spend the Night

2009-10-13T20:48:00.002-04:00

OK, I'm calling bullshit on The Donnas.

They suck. I downloaded this CD off of the great press they were getting circa 2002, and I'm still trying to decide if the whole thing is a big goof in a "We really stink and I dare you to call us out on it", or if they are really, earnestly trying and just are that bad.

Yeah, I get that they're girls in a rock band(!), and I get all the Joan Jett and Runaways allusions, the cleverness of everyone in the band being a "Donna" (like the Ramones), but novelty can only take you so far. Think about it, if they were a bunch of dudes, would they have even gotten a sniff at a record contract?

Bland riffs, poor singing, boring songs, trite lyrics,a sameness to every tune on the CD; like I said, just not that good. The only part I really do like is literally a few seconds in the chorus of "Take it Off", the little two-note pop at :59.

Not much to say about the song here, as I've already mentioned all I need to up top. If there's something you think I'm missing in them, let me know.

"Drain You" / Nirvana / Nevermind

2009-09-29T21:18:00.004-04:00

I don’t see any point in rehashing here what has already been said and written about Nirvana and their influence on music and culture. As with Michael Jackson, others have said and written more extensively about them and much better than I ever could.

I will say this though, about the period in which they “broke” - I was definitely surprised that they did at all. In the early 90’s, my friends and I were still very much into metal. I had just attended the “Clash of the Titans” tour to see Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer. Nirvana actually first got a break by having “Smells Like Teen Spirit” played on Headbanger’s Ball; in fact I remember seeing this early interview in which Rikki Rachtman takes on a dress-wearing Kurt Cobain.

I liked the song, but it was obvious to me it wasn’t “real” metal. So, when it blew up to pop radio, 96 Rock, and everywhere, I was genuinely surprised that something so raw and angry became that popular.

I must say that “Drain You” is one of my favorites on the Nevermind album, along with “On a Plain”. In fact, those are the only two off this album which are in my itunes library. I think it’s because, due to radio saturation, songs like “In Bloom”, “Come As You Are”, and “Lithium” are completely. Played. Out. And that’s a shame.

(Though, surprisingly, their most famous song.., “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, doesn’t get old for me. Ironically, it’s the least played of all their hits off this album, and something about the drums crashing in at the beginning and the screaming at the end keeps me listening each time)

Lyrically, there’s some pretty cool imagery here about dependency. Some speculate Cobain was writing about a one-sided relationship with Bikini Kill's drummer Tobi Vail which he felt was sucking his soul away (hell, just the song title alone should tell you that).

The creepy chorus brings up, to me, thoughts of a helpless baby (be it a bird or fetus) relying on another for sustenance

Chew your meat for you
Pass it back and forth
In a passionate kiss
From my mouth to yours

To swallow (ha ha) this disturbing material, Cobain couches it in his now famous sing-along melodies. Of course, this is the genius of Nivana – making hard music and difficult lyrics palatable through irresistible hooks and choruses. How many people buying Nivana CDs in 1992 had just the previous year bought MC Hammer, Milli Vanilli or C & C Music Factory CDs? How many of those kids had a clue that Nirvana was satirizing and condemning them all through the album? Cobain pulled an awesome bait and switch, but then became resentful and self-loathing about doing it, fearing the “wrong people” were buying his music and not understanding it at all.

Musically, “Drain You” is propelled by Nirvana’s secret weapon – Dave Grohl. As the endurance and massive success of Foo Fighters has shown, he was a HUGE part of what made Nirvana so great. One thing I love about this song is the double-snare he puts in the verses...that “ tap, taptap” beat really propels the song and it’s such a simple musical choice to make to be so effective (see :21, :23, :25,etc. on the video for an example of what I’m describing)

I also really dig the middle of the song. After the second chorus, Cobain keeps the song in the minor key that finished the chorus instead of going major again and back to the melody (1:46). This gives the song an immediately ominous tone, and again Grohl does a great job with a constant bass drum beat. So begins a weird, unsettling, noisy interlude with chimes, buzzsaw guitars, and other strange effects. It’s not unlike a bastard Sonic Youth song, one of Cobain’s admitted influences. After a few bars of it, we have the classic (but enjoyable) musical trope of the “big buildup”, starting at 2:31 when they finally kick back into the familiar verse at 2:41, it’s awesome and exhilarating.

For all Cobain’s posture about not trying too hard with his music, it’s obvious he had a gift for songcraft and took great care to fully realize it. That he was already experimenting with expanding his style on “In Utero”, and the realization that we will never see where it could have gone, is a tragedy of modern music.

And just so you don't forget how kick-ass they were in concert, here's a live version

"LDN" / Lilly Allen / Alright, Still

2009-09-15T20:36:00.002-04:00

I'd heard of Lilly Allen though her (at the time) unique, 00's style success story, blowing up through her MySpace page which led to a record contract. When my buddy (and unlikely indie music guru) Mike came down for a visit a couple of years ago, he brought his hard drive and I, er, "borrowed" a bunch of his music, including this.

It's not without it's charm. Hard to resist a cute, outspoken British chick with an attitude and mean streak to boot. All in all, I think she was a little bit overrated, as the music media became obsessed with her as a person and a story and left the music as a secondary concern. Nothing more than simple pop tunes, easily digested and quickly forgotten.

This song takes a really simple conceit, that things aren't at first what they appear to be, and stretches it out for, oh, a couple of verses. It seems she became bored with the idea and then just decided to finish the song halfway through by repeating it's refrain ("When you look with your eyes / Everything seems Nice / But if you look twice / You can see it's all lies") and chorus ("The sun is in the sky / Oh why of why would I want to be anywhere else?") until three minutes are up. And let's face it...she's not exactly Shakespearean (or Peartean) as a lyricist. Though it's adorable to her the words "crack whore" in a baby doll cockney accent.

This song was also included on a special mixtape I made when my daughter was born in which all of the songs had "London" in the title. Can anyone guess some of the others?

"It's a Wonderful Life" / Fishbone

2009-09-01T22:46:00.005-04:00

I wondered how long it would take for a Fishbone song to make its way in. I have 86 songs of theirs on itunes, covering seven albums in all. I will say that at one point in the early / mid 90's, they were a top five band of mine. Though some of that passion has cooled, and they have not just fallen off the proverbial map but careened off the chart, I still dig their stuff. Plus, how can you not love one of the greatest, most iconic logos in rock history?

This is one of those instances when I can very well recall the moment I first heard and liked a band. In 1991, fresh out of high school, my friend Marty and I went to Georgia State University in Atlanta to see Primus (one of our big bands of the time) and Fishbone play. We watched Primus and had a great time moshing around to "Tommy the Cat" and the like, then we decided to stick around to see what Fishbone was all about.

So, they begin the show with "Party at Ground Zero", and let me tell you, when they hit the meat of that song with Angelo's scream after the long into buildup (:13 on the video here), the explosion both on stage and on the gymnasium floor was chaotic. I had never, ever seen anything like it, and as I was swept up in the pandemonium of the churning crowd, I caught a glimpse of Marty and imagined I wore the game bug-eyed grin that he did.

Indeed, a fan was made at that very moment. Another funny thing I remember about that show was Angelo crowd surfing to the back of the gym where people were actually sitting in seats and getting into an argument with a girl who said the song they were performing at that moment was "sexist" (The song? A sweet little ditty called "Lyin' Ass Bitch"). Dude lit into her big time, saying something along the lines of, "If this was Michel fuckin' Stipe singing this, you wouldn't be saying that, would you?"

Not long after this show, I was reading Spin or Rolling Stone and read an interview with Scott Ian of Anthrax in which he name-checked Fishbone's newly released album The Reality of My Surroundings, at which point I went out and bought it (yeah, Scott Ian had that kind of pull with me back then. Still might, actually). To this day, that sprawling, brilliant album remains solidly in my top 25 albums of all time.

The great thing about that album is what's great about Fishbone overall - no adherence to any genre, a refusal to be musically pigeonholed, and a unbelievable sonic curiosity. It's easier to list the types of music they don't play than what they do (though they do get most of their hype as a ska band). Reality indeed has ska, but also pop, metal, rock, and funk. I bought all of their available CDs after that, and while they had their moments, none reached the height of Reality of My Surroundings.

Of course, as I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm nothing if not a loyal music fan, and through the 90's I continued to support the 'Bone, until the disaster of 1996's Chim Chim's Badass Revenge, which aside from the single Alcoholic, was a hot mess. I gave them another chance with The Psychotic Friends Nuttworx, a final, sad stab at mainstream relevance with Gwen Stephani appearances and Sly Stone covers, but it was over. Since, the band has had an ever rotating lineup of members (still faithfully fronted by Moore, though) and bizarre tales of kidnapping and brainwashing. It's sad now to see what was one of the most potent live bands ever, as well as one of the most respected underground acts of the 80's and 90's limp along as they do.

So here's "It's a Wonderful Life", a strange little single based on the movie of the same name. It was released a part of a Christmas EP (WTF?) that's now out of print. In a way, it's Fishbone to a T - brazen, unexpected, silly, skillfully executed, all in one tune.
How about the first verse, setting up George Bailey's rescue of his brother -

The ice was freezin'
My brother almost drowned
I jumped in to save him
On his way, way down
Then it went black and I went in

And so on and so forth. It's given the typical Fishbone treatment, a fast-paced, two minute ska romp with some horn accents thrown in on the chorus (and I love the "be-de-du-dip" Angelo sings during it). My favorite part is the little bridge in the middle, though (1:08 on the video)

Angel made me numb
The angel made me void
Got thrown out of the bar
Then I wrecked my car
Got socked in the jaw
Cussed out by my mama
Someone stole my money
Screamed at by my honey
Things was gettin' worse
Things was gettin' worse
Things was gettin' worse
Things was gettin' worse

The juxtaposition of scenes from the Jimmy Stewart classic (and one of my favorite movies, actually) with the incredible presence of Angelo Moore is pretty funny. Fishbone is almost better seen, either live or on video, than heard, just so you can get the full on , hyper-assed, manic Angelo effect. I have to get me another one of those Fishbone logo T-shirts, man.

"Respectable" / The Rolling Stones / Some GIrls

2009-08-23T12:45:00.003-04:00

This is not the first time I’ve posted about the Stones, but the first time I wrote about them was waaaaaay back on post #1. Not only are they a “pantheon” band for me, which means I don’t skip them as a duplicate, but my posting has changed so much that I need to revisit them anyway.

I recently engaged in a classic “Beatles v Stones” debate on a message board, and here is what I concluded:

I love both bands, but I have to go with the Stones, with the caveat that what we know as "The Stones" ended with Tattoo You in 1980. I prefer dirt and grime over spit and polish in the end.
That string of Stones albums starting in '68: Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street are unmatched in rock history.

This song comes in right under what I consider to be “The Stones” cutoff - the Tattoo You album in 1980, which incidentally was the first time I heard of the Stones. When I was in third grade they had a few radio hits off this album, the eternal “Start Me Up", “Hang Fire”, and one of my top three Stones songs, the flawless “Waiting on a Friend”. Some Girls, the album from which this song comes, includes some radio classics like “Shattered”, “Miss You” and “Beast of Burden”, as well as some awesome album cuts like Keith Richard’s fan favorite “Before They Make Me Run” , the country goof “Far Away Eyes”, and the controversial title song in which Jagger analyzes the sexual peculiarities of various ethnicities. Classy, Mick.

After they released “Undercover of the Night”, they all but fell off the map for me (and the less said about stuff like “Harlem Shuffle”, the better). Then in my senior year of high school they came back big for me. There were a coupe of reasons for this: one was they released a critically acclaimed “return to form” Steel Wheels, and my buddy nick bought Exile on Main Street(and made me a taped copy of it, labeling it "The Bible"). Nick, Patrick, Jake and I thought we should go see them on tour that year, when they played at Grant Field in Atlanta, and I recall a very early Saturday morning being picked up in Jake’s brown Ford Tempo, heading to Turtles to get lottery tickets to buy concert seats (remember those days?)

As soon as I got in the car, Jake pushed in the Exile tape and with the opening bars of “Rocks Off”, I knew there was more to this band than I heard growing up, and I was eager to investigate. This followed my foray into the aforementioned quaternity of Stones albums which still hold up strongly today. Beggar’s Banquet remains my favorite, with the Dylan-esque deep cut “Jigsaw Puzzle” also in my top three songs (the third? Exile’s “Torn and Frayed”. Thanks for asking!)

“Respectable” is a bare-bones, bluesy, barroom rave-up. Nothing fancy, just plowing ahead with that nasty guitar sound and other classic Stones tropes like Keith Richard’s high harmonies, Jagger’s lyrics about wooing a sassy young lady, and a classic 1-4-5 chord progression. It sounds like a song they made up on the spot and tossed off in one take in the studio to fill out an album, but in some ways it represents what the Stones are all about.

It appears that those days for the Stones are long gone, but every now an then they have a song that brings back the old magic – like “Mixed Emotions” from Steel Wheels , or even “Streets of Love” from their latest, Bigger Bang. They are obviously never going to have another run like they did from ’67 to ’82, but considering that that might represent the apotheosis of what we call “Rock & Roll”, there’s really no shame in that.

Click here for the official video, as embedding is not allowed. It’s cool to see Mick strapped with a guitar, and to take a look at the guys when they were much younger and less geriatric.

"Girlfriend" / Phoenix / Wolfgang Amadaeus Phoenix

2009-08-13T20:11:00.003-04:00

This is one of the very latest CDs I've bought, and here it is already making itself known.

It's also the first Phoenix CD I've bought. One of my favorite songs of the last few years is "Too Young" by these Frenchmen, which was memorably featured in a great scene from one of my all-time favorite movies, "Lost in Translation" - the scene where Bill Murray picks up Scarlett Johansson to go to karaoke.

"Lost In Translation" [Phoenix - Too Young] from Captain Cook on Vimeo.

"Lost in Translation" is a movie in which the use of music indelibly adds to its atmosphere. I love Sophia Coppola's movies mainly because its obvious she's a music fan and take care with the soundtrack, making very deliberate choices. I knew after seeing this movie I had to track down that song, so I was very happy to find it on itunes back in 2003. Since then I've gone back to "Too Young" quite often as a mixtape money shot. People find it pretty irresistible and usually end up asking me more about Phoenix. To which I can usually only tell them, "Er....they're French?"

Phoenix released this Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix CD in April of this year, and based on great buzz from some of the music websites I peruse, I decided to give it a shot. I bought it at just the right time too, as it made the prefect accompaniment to sunny Summer days. They don't really break any new ground to their dance / pop sound; if anything it got even poppier.

"Girlfriend", as with most of this CD, sounds like s sonic brother of Of Montreal's (seriously - the singer sounds exactly like Kevin Barnes). I like the staccato, clipped delivery of the lyrics, and the guitar accompaniment which appears in the chorus complements it perfectly. My favorite sound in the song, though, is the keyboard which comes after the choruses and leads into the next verses (see 1:22-1:32). It softens the song and plays really nicely over the surprisingly busy drumbeat.

And again, here's an instance with a band in which I only care about the lyrics in terms of how the words sound as a part of the overall musical effect. Though, I do like the "Not a miracle in years" line which they seem to particularly emphasize.

Here's a little bonus too: A mix of the first song on the CD, "Lisztomania" set to scenes from John Hughes' movies. I actually found this before he passed away recently, but now it makes a beautiful tribute, doesn't it?

"Down" / The London Suede / Head Music

2009-08-02T22:18:00.003-04:00

The London Suede (or, from here on out, Suede, as they had to change their name after their debut because of copyright infringement) is an all-time favorite of mine which I enjoy in isolation. Seriously, I count them among my top ten bands, but absolutely none of my friends have either any knowledge of them or are immediately repelled by them. It's sad, because it's what this band's career is like in a nutshell - unappreciated, overlooked, but rabidly supported by those in the know.

Sudede was one of the forbearers of the 90's Britpop movement upon the release of their eponymous debut album in 1992. Later, Blur and Oasis (and their UK tabloid-fueled rivalry) dominated that scene and Suede was set fighting for crumbs. There were a couple of elements that fueled the huge splash Suede made in England. One was the partnership of singer Brett Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler as a modern-day Morrissey and Johnny Marr (of the Smiths), and the other was the androgynous nature of Butler himself. Despite the fact that he was a longtime partner of 90's flash in the pan Elastica's Justine Frichmann, he toyed with bisexual lyrics and imagery which, I suppose, were still shocking in the early 90's from a pop singer.

Boy and Girl? Two boys? Two girls? Who cares?

I had only read about this album in Spin or something back in the day, and then during a trip to Boston with my buddy to visit a mutual friend at Brandeis University, I found the above cover staring at me in an indie record store in downtown Boston. I decided to buy it on a whim there; the American music media at the time was reporting on the fawning of the mercurial UK media over these guys and it certainly piqued my interest.

I put the CD on in my friend's dorm room when I got home, and as the first few seconds of opener "So Young" trickled out, I was instantly intrigued. When Anderson hit the chorus at :45 in, and Butler lay down the guitar hook under it...well, it doesn't happen to me often, but I was 100% solid on first listen. Then they follow that with "Animal Nitrate", which was the big UK hit, and there's still not a one-two opening punch that I enjoy more on any of my CDs.

(On a somewhat related note: On that same trip, I met a girl that worked as an intern for a music company. She immediately asked me what kind of music I liked, and her roommates rolled their eyes and said she always asks people that, and that she is always disappointed with people's answers. Feeling the pressure, I told her that I loved Fishbone (which was and is true) and that I just picked up a new CD that day by Suede that I really thought was great. I passed. She got really excited, ran into her room , and got me a Fishbone sticker which I placed on the back of my '85 Buick Regal and never took off. It was one of the first times I realized that being a music geek could get me something from the right women other than derision.)

As special as Suede's debut was, they went epic for their follow up, Dog Man Star (their first as London Suede). According to the fine book Britpop, which is an awesome account of the 90's in British music, Brett Anderson was spooked by the sudden success of his band, especially after Butler quit, incredibly found a 16 year old, Richard Oaks, that was nearly as great as Butler, and holed himself up in a mansion doing herion and writing the bulk of the music that would be the Dog Man Star album.

Whereas Suede was pop/rock, hooky perfection, Dog Man Star was dark, sweeping, orchestral, ambitious, completely over the top, pretentious, and, in my estimation, brilliant.

They followed that with Coming Up in 1996, a full-on, Bowiesque glam CD.
. It turned about to be as big a success as Suede, catapulting them again into the UK spotlight.

Those first three CDs represent an opening trifecta for a band that seems hard to top. All three different, but all three outstanding. Even their B-Sides album contained great stuff. Hell, this might be their best song period, and it wasn't even a proper release!

You can see a formula for sure in their songs: they begin slowly and quietly with Anderson's rich baritone, then usually within a minute hit their wonderful, wonderful choruses - soaring, sticky melodies with Butler or Oaks riffing under it. Formulaic, yes, but exhilarating and memorable.

The band soldiered on even though they had long ago lost mainstream appeal and were selling only to harcore fans. This selection, "Down", comes from Head Music, the CD that followed Coming Up, then they bowed out with a UK only release, New Morning, which I had to order from overseas. In 2002 Butler and Anderson reunited with new musicians to form a band called The Tears. They released a CD, but it didn't have the same impact as Suede, save a song like "Refugees" that recaptured the old Suede magic.

And that seems to be about it for Suede. I know Brett Anderson has released a couple of solo CDs, but I don't have much interest. I'd rather remember them as they used to be at this point. But, hell, if the Mary Jane Girls can reunite, why couldn't Suede? In a few years, 90's nostalgia will be raging, and they might have a shot.

The song "Down" is different from the others I've included here. Most of the stuff I've posted is pop, but these guys can make some epic ballads (including one of the most beautiful love songs I've heard, bar none). "Down" definitely begins differently, with a slow, bubbling keyboard, Andersen's voice, and a very slightly picked guitar in the back. But then at 1:17, here comes one of those patented Suede choruses, at which point a piano kicks in too. Then, after the first chorus, the drumbeat comes in, and the song begins to build some momentum. At four minutes in, Oaks begins his guitar solo which carries on for two minutes, finally reaching the song's crescendo. It's a classic "building" song, where you start slowly and simply, then add on instrumentation and tempo until you feel, as a listener that you've journeyed somewhere (you know, the "Stairway" effect).

I realize I may have gone overboard here with clips and the gushing, but I'm trying to make it a mission to recruit some Suede fans. If you are new to them, tell me what you think in the comments!

"Answer Me My Love" / Nat King Cole / The Nat King Cole Story

2009-07-22T13:34:00.004-04:00

You can have your Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, and Bing Crosbys. For me, there is only one top “Crooner”, and that, friends, is Nat King Cole.

I spent many a long weekend over at my good friend Dominic’s house growing up. His father was a huge Cole fan, party due to their shared Chicago heritage, and played his records often of the stereo system. Back then, when I was into top 40, or Van Halen, or punk, it was easy to slam that music and make fun of it, especially hearing stuff like “Mexico Joe, the Boogie-Woogie Caballero”. Days later, though, I would find that songs like “Orange Colored Sky”, “Sweet Lorraine”, and "Paper Moon" had wormed their way into my brain and that….I sort of enjoyed it.

Sometime in college, I gave in and bought the double CD set “The Nat King Cole Story”. I can’t say it was (or is) in heavy rotation, but when I decided to play it, often on still evenings out on the porch or something, the effect was magical, pulling me right back to my friend’s house with the kerosene heater on in the playroom, casually talking with his Dad or playing a role playing game (insert nerd joke here). I also pleasantly found out that it was a great secret weapon to surprise and impress the ladies: “Oh, sure, I like Nine Inch Nails like everyone else too, but sometimes, I just have to relax with something different, old soul that I am. Can I get you a brandy?” (It's amazing what "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons" can do. Remember that, kids.)And lest we forget, maybe the signature holiday song of all time.

And really, there is not better mood setting music to me than these pre-rock era singers. They represent a style and classiness that you rarely find in music any longer, and damn, did they dress smoothly. That’s why Dave Chappelle’s goof on gentle Nat Cole wasn’t (snicker) funny (snort) at all (BWAA!)

Chappelle's Show

Nat King Cole Christmas

www.comedycentral.com

Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs

Black Comedy

True Hollywood Story

Now, having said that, this song begins with two of my least favorite parts about crooner music of that time: the sweeping orchestral flourishes and overbearing backup choruses. I cringe a bit on this song for the first 13 seconds until Cole begins to sing, and that mellow vocal always hits me. Picture pouring melted butter on a feather pillow, and that’s Cole’s voice. His phrasing, tone, timber, even his enunciation, create just a singular beautiful instrument that’s immediately distinctive and original.

The lyrics aren’t really worth going over; it’s complete, stereotypical romantic sap that your grandparents fell in love to (boy’s girl has gone cold, he doesn’t know why, he wants to know so he can make it right). But again, Cole to me isn’t about the intent or purpose of the song, it’s about the mood and the idea of what that music can do. Nat King Cole could read the starting lineup for the 2009 Florida Gators and I would probably listen, spellbound. He was that awesome.

"Terminal Preppie" / Dead Kennedys / Plastic Surgery Disasters

2009-07-08T19:42:00.003-04:00

I really began to get into punk music between 8th and 9th grade. My interest in it came about rather naturally from my immersion into the skater / townie culture that I started dipping my toe in around the same time.

I really have to thank an old buddy of mine, Worth Parker, for getting me started. He was the first dude to get a skateboard (the Vision Gator), buy Thrasher magazine (only posers read Transworld), and buy punk records. He let me tape his copy of The Dead Kennedys' “Plastic Surgery Disasters” which I listened to incessantly, which led me to buying Agent Orange, The Sex Pistols, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies (which, awesomely, I begged my Mom to buy for me at the old Ruthless Records downtown on her way home from work. What in the world was she thinking?), and Black Flag tapes.

As I listened to this stuff, I became really obsessed with it in only the way a fourteen year old can really be. To trot out an old cliché, the lyrics really spoke to me at the time and caused me to completely reexamine the social constructs of my school, community and family. I bought a Black Flag T-shirt and began wearing that and an old olive green Army jacket of my Dad’s and started looking at my old friends who were still into Van Halen and Zeppelin with a critical eye. I got lots of shit for my new attitude, wardrobe, and interest in music, but of course that only fed it further.

Bought at Ruthless Records, of course

Eventually I began to reconcile that punk ethos with the reality of being a responsible citizen who, after all, lived in a secure, middle class , two-parent home and had no conceivable right to complain about things (“I am NOT walking the dog, Mom! I’ve had it with your bourgeoisie paradigm of suburban life!”). Plus, in the end, I was too nice and raised with too much politeness to be a good punk. I will admit, though, that I’ve internalized much more of the views of Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra than I may have realized. Even though what I went through was Teenage Rebellion 101, there are still some aspects that I can’t completely let go, and that in all honesty surprises me. I’ve always appreciated music which, at it’s heart, believed in more than chicks and beer, (and damn did they believe), and in the end, I think that’s what still sticks with me the most.

"Punk Ain't no religious cult / Punk Means thinking for yourself / You ain't hardcore 'cause you spike your hair when a jock still lives inside your head"

“Terminal Preppie” is, like most all other DK songs, delivered as a sarcastic, sneering screed,a minute and a half buzzsaw. Jello Biafra does what he does best here – assuming the narrative voice of the object of his scorn and ridicule.

My ambition in life
Is too look good on paper
What I want is a spot
In some big corporation

This sounded great to me at the time, a condemnation of people focused on the dollar and getting ahead, with no thought to what’s “real” in life (again, this from a kid who had his folded laundry lovingly placed on his bed once a week.. What the hell did I know? Who was I to criticize?)

Beliushi’s my hero I lampoon and I ape him
My news of the world comes from Sports Illustrated

Here’s where I ran into a little disconnect. My buddies and I did worship Animal House's Blutarsky, and I couldn’t hide the fact that I loved sports. And now, er, subscribe to SI. Sorry, Jello

I’m proud of my trophies like my empty beer cans
Stacked in rows up the wall to impress all my friends

I came back to this lyric a bunch in college and grad school at a million apartment parties I attended. At least half (more if it was a guy’s) had a line of beer cans or liquor bottles lined atop of their kitchen cabinets. It always gave me a snort.

Now I’m not here to learn
I just want to get drunk
And major in business
And be taught how to fuck

UGA in the early and mid 80’s. That about covers it, no?

I want a wife with tits
Who just smiles all the time
In my centerfold world
Filled with Springsteen and wine

Uh-oh. Starting to his close to home here (well, at least the Springsteen shot)

Someday I’ll have power!
Someday I’ll have boats!
A tract in some suburb
With Thanksgivings to host

Yeah, the last two lines busted me. What can you do? We all sell out eventually, don’t we? We just negotiate our own internal price and eventually justify it to ourselves.

The last thing I’ll point out here is one of the most underrated musicians of all time – the DK’s bassist, Klaus Floride. You can tell from the first riff in this song what’s up, and he's is just incredible on this whole album. His bass launches many of the DK’s songs, and he always has some major riffs and innovative lines. Great stuff.

In Memoriam : Michael Jackson

2009-07-01T16:39:00.003-04:00

Man, what a strange, strange, summer.

I'm not going into a long narrative this week, as you've probably seen and heard enough over the last few days by much more skillful writers than myself.

Let me just run two things by you:

1) A performance by a young Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack on a song from "Free to Be You and Me" from the 70's. I'd never seen this before, but caught it in the mix of tributes on Sunday. If you watch the video and listen to the song, it's really, really poignant and sad, and would have been even before his death. I'm not gonna lie; I teared up just a bit.

2) I made a Michael Jackson cake for the Barnett Shoals Cake Fair in Fifth Grade. Sweet.

The Georgia Theatre: In Memoriam

2009-06-24T12:49:00.003-04:00

For those of you who have been away in the remotes of Argentina the past week, the landmark Georgia Theatre burned down last Friday. The cause of the fire is still unknown, and the place was consumed quickly. As I read on a message board, if you take a wooden building that old with no sprinklers, soak it in alcohol for thirty years and light a flame, the results are inevitable.

Even though the Theatre with its frequent jam and cover bands didn't always cater to my tastes, I still mourn its passing. In tribute, I'd like to list a few of my favorite memories about my experiences there:

-The first show I ever legally saw in Athens was Dreams So Real at there, about a week after I turned 18 in 1990. This was when they had that bar smack in the middle of the place when you walked in. It was one of those moments that actually felt as important at the time as it really was.

- Seeing Social Distortion there around 1992 with all the scary skinheads and inadvertently getting my buddy Trey clocked by one (read the gory details here)

- The infamous GWAR show that was shut down for obscenity by the ACC police which ended up with the city defending itself in a (losing) lawsuit

- Dancing onstage with NYC ska band The Toasters and running into my future wife onstage while skanking.

Those are off the top of my head, and I'm sure many more will arise the more I reflect upon it. The last show I saw there was in 2008 when I saw The New Pornographers and got to see and hear Neko Case live, so that's a fine way to bow out. I also had tickets to see Jenny Lewis there July 1st, but that has since been rescheduled for the 40 Watt.

I'm also thankful my son got to experincve the Theatre a mere week before it burned when he saw a Beatles cover band play a special all-ages show (and, no, he didn't have a 32 oz beer). It's great that Quinn has now been to both the 40Watt (seeing Uncle Monsterface last summer) and was at the Theatre. He's an Athenian through-and-through.

So, in the comments, share with us some of your memorable shows and experiences with the Theatre. Hopefully, the preliminary talk of rebuilding will be seen through and we will have more great shows to remember in the future.

"Young Americans" / David Bowie / Best of Bowie 1974-1979

2009-06-17T20:07:00.004-04:00

Bowie is another one of those artists I enjoy because he keeps things fresh. He may be second only to Madonna (or third to Neil Young) in the many iterations of his musical and performing personality over the years.

My first experiences with Bowie remind me of how I also encountered Bruce Springsteen, through 80’s pop radio. Like many Xer’s, I initially heard of him through the singles “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl” (which, if you remember, got lots of press for being scandalous) I recall the media making a big deal about David Bowie suddenly becoming an MTV star, but couldn’t figure out what the big deal was supposed to be about him.

On a totally unrelated note – I distinctly remember being at a neighbor’s house watching the “Let’s Dance” video, and having one of the kids say, “You know he gives blow jobs on stage”. I had NO idea what blow job was, but not wanting to appear lame in front of a cool older kid, said, “Yeah, I know”. Then, of course, he says, “Do you even know what a blow job is?” “Sure”, I say, seeing the hole I am digging for myself yet not avoiding it. “Well, what is it?” And I think that’s the point at which I excused myself and ran home.

Later, I would get the gist of it after Bowies released possibly the most homoerotic video in history, a cover of “Dancing in the Streets” with Mick Jagger.
Ummmmm....yeah

As I grew up and started delving into classic rock via 96 Rock, I started seeing what more there was out there. I heard “Suffragette City” once and remember thinking, “Oh, that’s David Bowie too?” Then all the 70’s hits seemed to start pouring in and giving me a more complete picture – “Fame”, “Golden Years”, “Heroes”, “Space Oddity”, etc. You know all the ones.

This particular song I got off a two-CD compilation “The Best of Bowie”, which I bought because it had some deep cuts there which I found to be just as great as the radio hits (“TVC 15”, “DJ”, “Boys Keep Swinging”). I’ll admit that my Bowie knowledge is not where it should be, and I need to buy some albums to remedy that. I borrowed “Aladdin Sane” from a co-worker once based on liking “Panic in Detroit” which, for some odd reason, a local radio station decided to put in heavy rotation.

Today, much like I mentioned with Cash in the last post, you can hardly find an artist or big-time music fan that doesn’t claim an appreciation for David Bowie. He even got down with the kids in the 90’s with a Trent Reznor collaboration (and the less said about Tin Machine, the better).

In “Young Americans”, Bowie goes Soul. With the opening drumbeats, piano flourish, and especially the saxophone styling (a key element of this song), you can immediately tell you’re a ways away from the glam of “Ziggy Stardust”. The soul touches continue throughout the song with Bowie’s phrasing and delivery, the syncopated beat, and most of all the background singers, who, along with the sax, hit the song’s hook with their “All night / all right” refrain (and check their quick shoutout to the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” at 2:14 – “I heard the news today, oh boy”)

I had to take a look at the lyrics for this song. It’s one of those you’ve heard over and over, but don’t have a clue what the words are or what it’s about (at least for me). For instance, I thought he was always singing “She was a young American”, but it’s actually “She wants a young American”. The “she” of the song is a character he follows though the duration of the song, starting with the first verse:

They pulled in just behind the bridge
He lays her down, he frowns
"Gee my life's a funny thing
Am I still too young?"
He kissed her then and there
She took his ring, took his babies
It took him minutes, took her nowhere
Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything

That’s much more serious subject matter than I suspected this to be about. In fact, this seems as if it’s a song that’s commonly misunderstood as a celebration of American youth culture, where actually it’s an exploration of the loss of the American dream (see “Born in the USA” for another famous example). Check out the middle verse:

Have you have been an un-American?
Just you and your idol singing falsetto 'bout
Leather, leather everywhere, and
Not a myth left from the ghetto
Well, well, well, would you carry a razor
In case, just in case of depression?
Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors
Blushing at all the afro-Sheeners
Ain't that close to love?
Well, ain't that poster love?
Well, it ain't that Barbie doll
Her heart's been broken just like you have

That’s pretty bleak isn’t it? Let’s keep in mind too, that this was written in 1974, right after Watergate (“Do you remember your President Nixon?”) when America was thought to be shooting straight down the tubes. Taking the song from that “loss of innocence” theme, the repetition of “She wants a young American” looks to be a yearning for a more untainted, optimistic outlook for her, and by extension, her generation and entire country. The upbeat nature of the music only serves to make it palatable to the listener and subversively slip that idea within it as you’re grooving along.

"On The Evening Train" / Johnny Cash / American V: A Hundred Highways

2009-06-07T13:14:00.003-04:00

As I'm sure anyone who reads this blog is aware, the Rick Rubin produced American series completely revived Johnny Cash's career and changed him from a marginal (but influential) washed-up country artist into a full-fledged American icon. It's hard to recall now, but the prevailing thought at the time when news was coming about about this collaboration was, bluntly, "What the fuck?" That first American album, though, traced a direct line to the biopic "Walk the Line", if you think about it. (And here, I must implore you, if you haven't seen the movie "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" and it's Cash / Carter parody scene, please do so posthaste).

But now, do you know anyone that doesn't like Johnny Cash? I think any musician from any genre of music will tell you that, at the very least, they appreciate the guy's mettle, individualism and spirit.

That's right, Mofos...

Rubin's formula for Cash was to basically strip his sound down completely. Most songs in the American series are only Cash's voice, sounding haunted and carrying the weight of years of hard living, accompanied by an acoustic guitar and perhaps a piano or other instrument for shades of color. He also had Cash primarily cover songs by other artists with the exception of maybe one original or re-recording each album. The most memorable of these, of course, is his take on Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", which, with the incredible accompanying video, Cash made his own forever.

It's a formula that was obviously successful, duplicated by Jack White with Loretta Lynn, and a little less successfully again (commercially, not critically) by Rubin with Neil Diamond.

"On The Evening Train" is a cover of a Hank Williams song, but it's impossible not to read Cash's life into it. Many of the songs on American V deal, literally or symbolically, with death - Springsteen's "Further Up the Road", "God's Gonna Cut You Down", "A Legend in My Time" by Don Gibson, "I'm Free From the Chain Gang Now"(a re-recoding of his own song). Of course, with Cash nearing the end of his life during his American recordings, it was only natural for him to explore that theme (though it could be argued that was always one of his major subjects).

"On The Evening Train" has a narrator who is simply watching the casket of his wife being loaded onto a train with his infant son. Even though the song tells us in the first verse "...they're taking Mama on the evening train", it's not until halfway through the song in the second verse that he mentions the "Long white casket in the baggage coach" (harsh!), which is jarring if you don't know it's coming (I didn't).

The lines where you can read again into Cash's life occur in the final verse -

I pray that God will give me courage
To carry on til we meet again
It's hard to know she's gone forever

It' hard not to believe he's singing about June Carter Cash, his longtime wife and love, who passed away before he did. It makes an already sad song even more poignant.

Interestingly, out of the four verses, the first is from a third person point-of-view, while the other three are first person, from the man whose wife has died. Intentional or not? What's the narrative purpose there? Another question - why is the dead wife's casket being loaded on a train? Where is she being buried? Why isn't there a funeral at the place where the family lives?

Anyway, here's the song (nothing happens in this homemade video. It's a train and....a train. But at least you get to hear it.)

"I Just Want to Love U (Give it to me)" / Jay-Z / The Dynasty

2009-05-24T20:13:00.004-04:00

It's hard to believe this song is almost ten years old, isn't it? I'm not a huge Hova (that's what the kids call him...or used to call him; I can't keep up any more) fan, but I do have a couple of CDs, and that's not including the "Grey Album", the (unauthorized) project by Athens' own Danger Mouse mixing his "Black Album" with the Beatles' "White Album" , which I am probably obligated to own as a music blogger.

Two great tastes that taste great together

If you remember anything about rap back in the late 90's, it was all about gloss, bling, and ridiculous excess. It was the heyday of Puff Daddy and he churned out hit after hit based on old 80's pop tunes. The record industry was as strong as it has ever been (and will ever be, in my opinion), there was lots of money to be made, and by God, the hip hop artists of the era were celebrating it.

"I Just Want to Love You" is a pretty good example of the type of music and lyrics we were getting at the time. The Neptunes were the hot producers at the moment (and they were pretty good back then), and Pharrel Williams has the best part of the song - the falsetto chorus that calls back old-school funk songs and is also a lyrical shoutout to someone who hadn't been heard form in years at the time - Rick James

Jay Z, in a typical act of rap artist modesty, calls himself "The greatest rapper alive". I'm not willing to go that far (give me Rakim, Q-Tip, or Chuck D), but the dude's good. I think with him, it's more a "sum of the parts" situation. I can't put my finger on any one thing that makes him stand out, but he does lots of little things really well. I think the best thing about his rapping is his phrasing. He doesn't strictly go line to line, verse to verse in the same rhythm. He mixes his delivery up really well which keeps any of his songs from getting monotonous and keeps you listening and interested. For an example of what I'm getting at here, check the "It's - about -to- go-down" delivery about a minute into the song. All the hallmarks of "bling" music are there - Cristal champagne, Prada, Gucci, Remi Martin, "cheddar", weed, ecstasy, Belvedere, and the like. Hell, even Atlanta's infamous Cheetah is name checked.

Lyrically in this song, and I know you may not believe this, but Jay Z seems to have many, many women after him. He warns these ladies that they must be sexualy proficient to spend time with him, but be warned! Although he has lots and lots (and lots) of money, he's NOT willing to spend it on you.

I kid with this, obviously it's not a weighty message of social commentary like "Fight the Power", but I've always felt it's unfair to hold rap songs to standards like that. Shit, 90% of rock music is about chasing tail and getting fucked up, but no one is calling out Van Halen for not having an uplifting, responsible message. Plus, you have to have chuckle at a couplet like this :

Yeah, save the narrative you savin it for marriage
Let's keep it real ma you savin it for cabbage

Embedding is forbidden! So, click here if you'd like to watch the video. It's a party!

"In The Light" / Led Zeppelin / Physical Graffiti

2009-05-10T21:57:00.004-04:00

For previous Zeppelin musings, check here. As a general rule, I don't repeat artists that appear unless they are one of my biggies. Zeppelin is, for sure.

This song is one of my favorites on Physical Graffiti , which is a double album that takes the genre-expanding possibilities hinted at in Led Zeppelin III (my personal favorite, by the way) and delivers, bigtime. From classic Zeppelin cock-rock to lengthy blues romps, roots bluegrass, and beautiful instrumental ballads, Physical Graffiti has it all.

"In The Light" was the first song on side two of the Physical Graffiti tape (date myself? Nah), and I have very specific memories of listening to this "tape" over and over at a friend's house in high school, his bedroom filled with green light from a Kroger party lightbulb, probably finishing up some marathon role-playing game. So, believe it or not, those are good, comforting memories.

This song has a very long intro, which features Page producing an eerie sound by using a violin bow on an acoustic guitar to act as the bass. It also features an instrument relatively new to the Zeppelin sound up until then - the keybord. Also new was the total turn from the blues-based formula for which Zeppelin had become famous. You can hear the Middle Eastern influence creeping into the song right from the start, a style with which Jimmy Page would become more and more fascinated with until he finally unleashed it in the astonishing No Quarter album years after Zeppelin's demise.

Nigel Tufnel - an obvious influene on Page's style
(Interesting, also, that this song follows "Kashmir" on the album, considered by some the quintessential Led Zeppelin song and itself a tune with stong lyrical and musical roots in the Middle East.)

Plant and Page come in with the first lyrics at 1:44, hauntingly harmonized and heavily reverbed. Then at 2:45, another keyboard kicks in, a monstrous descending riff backed by John Bonham's first appearance in the song. They settle into a nice groove here for a while, then suddenly at 4:11, literally halfway through, there is a thirdkeyboard break followed by Page's wonderful ascending riff at 4:25 (contrasting nicely with the earlier descending scale). Stylistically, it's a whole new song here, and, reflective of the title and lyrics, brings the listener "In the light", highlighted by a change from a minor to a major key. Do you see how they manipulated you there? Don't you love it, though? It's brilliant stuff and the kind of mature songwriting these guys never get credit for.

Then, five minutes in, we suddenly go back to Kashmir, as it were - the strange, droning sound that began the song. They lock into that bluesy groove again, then hit the descending riff immediately followed by the ascending guitar. That riff and Page tracking some solo work over it takes us home, this time leaving us "In The Light" (and if we don't get it, I've always liked the way Plant sings "Light, light, light...In the Light" at the end of the song.)

Think about it: in the five years since their debut, which was essentially heavy covers of blues standards, Zeppelin had grown as artists to produce a song and album like this. It's a phenomenal growth curve for a band in such a short amount of time, and explains why every generation for decades now has come to revere Zeppelin and claim them as their own.

Note: I couldn't find a YouTube video of the song. Apparently Led Zeppelin is very protective of their image as such. I'm sure anyone bothering to read this already has a coy of "In the Light" you could cue up, but if you don't, you can download the song below. I've also included a pretty cool alternate take of the song I did find. Obviously, my notes above are about the studio recording.

"We Hold On" / Rush / Snakes & Arrows

2009-05-03T20:53:00.003-04:00

Well, here I am back from a long sabbatical. And what a way to come back - the moment some of you have dreaded is finally upon us. After 80 posts here, I've finally landed on a Rush song. You'd think having 176 songs of theirs on my itunes (plus owing them the title of the blog) would have made them come up a bit sooner, but maybe it's appropiate that they lead my blogging comeback, especially with this song.

I really don't know how to offer up any context about this band. You either love them or you hate them, and I'm not going to change anyone's mind; God knows I've tried. Over the years I've had to defend myself from attacks by haters, even going in the closet about them, but that time seems to have passed. Against all odds, Rush has become, if not loved, grudgingly respected by the rock world. It's safe to say that when you get slobbery wet kisses from the likes of the Judd Apatow crew The Colbert Report, it's OK to break out the T shirt again

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The first time I really stated getting into them was back in 1986. I would spend most weekends with some other buddies at Trey Watson's house, eating, wasting time, listening to music, all the monotonous stuff kids do before they are able to drive. He put on Rush's best-known classic Moving Pictures, and once I heard Geddy Lee's voice hit the high note on "...what you say" in "Tom Sawyer", I was enthralled. After that, I began buying their tapes at KMart in the $4.99 rack and loved them all - Hemispheres, Fly By Night, Rush, A Farewell to Kings. Permanent Waves (still my favorite of theirs) was the first CD I ever bought after I got my first CD player in 1989.

I caught up to the bands back catalogue pretty quickly in time for their first release as a new fan, 1989's Presto. On my eighteenth birthday, May 1st, 1990, I saw them in concert for the first time, pretty much cementing their all-time #1 status with me.

I can't really describe why I like the band the way I do. Rush fans are pretty much known for being obsessive about the band, exalting them to near-deity status. I think being a musician helps, as they are very much a band loved by other band / guitar geeks. For me, a big part is Neil Peart's lyrics. He gets lots of shit for pretentious navel-gazing and has a bad rap for writing Dungeons and Dragons nonsense he can't seem to shake (Rush hasn't written lengthy narrative songs in years), but I like the fact that this band addresses the spectrum of human existence and human interaction - not just love.

Now having praised Peart's lyrics, I have to admit this particular song doesn't come off without a couple of missteps. "Hold On" is the final song off of their most recent album, Snakes & Arrows. It's the best album they have done in twenty years, in my opinion, maybe even more. They have really stripped down their sound these days, sounding much more organic and comfortable. "We Hold On" is a classic Rush album closer, as they are known among fans as some of the strongest tracks on their albums over the years.

It begins with a slow build - Geddy's voice over Alex Lifeson's arpeggios and a simple beat from Peart. The music is low to highlight the first verse:

How many times
Do we tire of all the little battles
Threaten to call it quits
Tempted to cut and run
How many times
Do we weather out the stormy evenings
Long to slam the front door
Drive away into the setting sun

Then at :39, the song takes off - kicking up the tempo and introducing Lifeson's little riff (really, if you follow this band, Alex Lifeson is the clear star of this album). Unfortunately, as previous mentioned, I find one line in the chorus a little painful:

Keep going on till dawn

(Ouch. Really, Neil, you're better than that.)

How many times must another line be drawn?
We could be down and gone
But we hold on

Yeah, the second line in the chorus saves it - I love the determination behind it. The second verse is even better:

How many times
do we chaff against the repetition
Straining against the faith
Measured out in coffee breaks
How many times
Do we swallow our ambition
Long to give up the same old way
Find another road to take

See, here's why I love this band. That couplet - "Straining against the faith / Measured out in coffee breaks" is a clear allusion to a line in T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

This adds another layer to the song's meaning. It's not merely about longevity, it's about putting your foot down (not "drawing another line" as the song puts it), and as Prufrock does in the famous poem, breaking out of a mundane, everyday existence.

There are, literally, hundreds of these types of intricacies to Preart's lyrics .I can listen to a song I've heard thousands of times before and sometimes I will suddenly figure out a lyric I've puzzed over or never payed attention to. It's a band that rewards careful listening, and I appreciate that they respect themselves and their audience that way.

The song carries on through a short bridge then back to the chorus at which point they are locked in instrumentally. (In particular, listen so Peart's stops, starts, off-beats, rolls, and the like at the end of the bridge - 3:12 to 3:17. There's a reason "The Professor" might be the most famous rock drummer....ever). The only thing that bothers me about this song is the tempo. If is was just a hair faster, it would be a new Rush classic. As it is, it's still great for a bunch of dudes pushing sixty, thirty years into their career.

There. That wasn't so unbearable, was it? Now listen to the song. It's not going to kill ya.

"Back To Basom" / Ween / White Pepper

2009-03-22T20:27:00.006-04:00

Ween, for me, works on multiple levels. I definitely enjoy their snide senses of humor and over the top outlandish manner, but in the end, Dene and Gene make some damn fine songs.
(Yeah, I have to include this. Still holds up)

This song, off the fantastic White Pepper album, would be completely cringeworthy if anyone else had recorded it. It sounds like a cross between Pink Floyd and a great 70's AM radio song. When you begin a song with an earnest line like: "Reaching out now and I touch your face", and back it with soft acoustic strumming, you are challenging the listener from the get-go. If almost anyone else began a song this way, I probably would have laughed it off and skipped to the next one, but because it's Ween, you do a spit-take. It couldn't possibly be taken at face value. It's their "love song", if my use of quotes there makes sense.

You can tell what I mean about these dudes being pop auteurs in listening here, though. It's a very mellow tune with a great chorus that sticks in your brain. My favorite part actually comes in that chorus, the funky little guitar riff in the background (listen for it after "Calm the light" at about :50). Then there's a Ween trademark in there too- the weird, distorted vocal part ("should you carry what you are is cooked until it's done" Uh...sure guys.) You find yourself getting over the joke and humming along, immersed in the song...which means, I guess, the joke's on you.

Suddenly at 1:20, this turns into a cousin of "Welcome to the Machine" or something. A completely trippy keyboard instrumental break lasts for half a minute, then we're back in Bread land with another verse.

One reason I've liked Ween and bought every new CD since the seminal "Push 'th Little Dasies" is their musical diversity. I love albums in which the artist tries out different styles with each song, while still retaining the essential "themness" which made you like them in the first place. Seriously, "Chocolate and Cheese" has to be one of my favorite albums ever, and I like it for many more reasons than the laughs. In that CD they explore Faux-Vegas swinging, Philly soul, electric pop, and far out instrumentals. (Not to mention, it was in heavy, heavy rotation at the infamous "baseball house" in the mid 90's. But I digress)

Ween is still putting out quality product today, in 2007 they released La Cucuracha, which stands up there with the best of their work. These guys, while pretty widely beloved, never get quite the credit they deserve for their solid musical chops. Lyrics like "Friends in life are special / Do you want me as your special friend?" while appearing to be straight cheese, , actually dare you to look deeper to be rewarded. And when you do, you find yourself laughing less and grooving more.

"My Superman" / Santogold / Santogold

2009-03-15T10:04:00.004-04:00

Santogold is one of the newest additions to my library, and it comes via the perusal of the "best of" lists which I've mentioned before as a good way for me to figure out what was good over the past year.

This CD came out in Spring of 2008, and was so consistently high on all the lists I read that I figured I'd give it a go. I've been really pleased with it. One thing that I love about my favorite albums is that the artist can cover a multitude of styles while still sounding like themselves. It makes for an interesting listening experience, and Satntogold definitely fits that bill.
Bees!

Santogold often gets compared to M.I.A, which is, in my opinion, lazy and not a little bit racist. People see "eclectic ethnic pop singer female" and somehow think the two are analogous. M.I.A is much more dance / club oriented, while Santogold is pretty entrenched in New Wave pop. Check out the best song off this CD - "Lights Out", which sounds like a lost collaboration between The Cars and Blondie circa 1981:

"My Superman" (to my point about stylistic diversity) apes another New Wave / Punk sound. It's practically a tribute to Siouxsie and The Banschees, one of the originators of Goth.
Here's "Red Light" by Siouxsie and the Banschees

and here's the song of the week - "My Superman" by Santogold:
Uh, yeah. In fairness, she herself acknowledges her song as "based on" "Red Light" and gives them credit in the liner notes.

This, honestly, is not one of my favorite songs on the album, but I still recommend getting it. I like it for it's obvious tribute to its influences, but the lyrics are pretty vague and mostly just seem obligatory. The purpose here is to get the sound of S & TB, which she does well, and approximate Siouxsie's vocals, of which she does an outstanding job. It's spot on, really. I like the loping bass in the track (reminds me a little of Concrete Blonde's "Bloodletting", actually) and the sparse instrumentation. It gives it an eerie feel, which I guess it what she's going for after all.

Be back next week

2009-03-08T20:24:00.002-04:00

Sorry I've been off schedule: snow, Spring Break, etc. Hope to have a full post next week.

In the meantime, here's a video called "Cannibal Queen" from a band called Miniature Tigers. I went to see Ben Folds at the Tabernacle last Friday (2/27) and these guys opened for him. I liked them right off - rare that that happens to me with an opening band (the less said about the other opener - the UGA a cappella group - the better). Their CD is a steal for $7.99 on itunes.

"Running Up That Hill" / Kate Bush / The Whole Story

2009-02-22T21:35:00.007-05:00

I was too young to really experience the first time Kate Bush was popular, so I came to buy this CD in a roundabout way. When I was a Senior in high school, MTV would play the"Love and Anger" video off "The Sensual World" from time to time (Can you imagine that now? Seriously. MTV playing a Kate Bush video). I liked it OK, but had no idea of her backstory as an English alt-pop experimental artist.

99X started not too long after in 1992, and they heavily played this and her other early 80's hit, the ridiculous, awesome "Wuthering Heights". That was enough to convince me to give her greastest hits CD a shot, and I enjoyed it very much.

The early 90's was something of a mini-Renaissance for Kate Bush, as she put out a brand new CD "The Red Shoes" (which I also bought) and was sampled on an out-of-left-field hit in 1993 "Something Good" by the Utah Saints. Also, when Tori Amos came out in 1991, I was cool enough to immediately peg her as a Kate Bush rip-off (but I do love you, Tori! Call me!)

Kate Bush has really kept a low profile since then. She put out a new CD in 2005 ("Aerial" - I didn't buy it, but did download the single "King of the Mountain") and I can remember a couple of references popping up over the years - Big Boi of Outkast (!)professed his love for her:

She was so bugged out man! But I felt what she was talking about in the songs. "Mother Stands for Comfort", "Running Up That Hill". My uncle would explain what the songs stood for. Like "The Man WIth the Child in His Eyes" and all that s***.

"I thought, 'Wow! She's so f***ing deep! I was infatuated with her, still am. I gotta track her down! I just found out that she was producing all that s*** herself! She's so f***ing dope and so underrated and off the radar.

And there was a cool cover of her song "Hounds of Love" by British band The Futureheads:

Supposedly, "Running Up That Hill" is about the female orgasm. That probably comes from the chorus:

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with god,
And I'd get him to swap our places,

And then later:

C'mon, baby, c'mon darling,
Let me steal this moment from you now.
C'mon, angel, c'mon, c'mon, darling,
Let's exchange the experience

It's plausible, I suppose, and I think it's a very sensual song, so I could see that reading. There are layers and layers of overdubs which create an incredibly lush atmosphere, and the soft backbeat of the drums contribute to the mood as well. I love the quirky keyboard squiggle which you hear at the beginning and which appears at odd times throughout. Bush's voice is incredible. I wouldn't describe it as "beautiful" as I would Neko Case or Kelly Hogan (it's a bit thin and doesn't have much presence, in my opinion) but it's certainly unique and instantly distinguishable. And you can't really tell it in this song, but she can hit the hell out of some high notes (check out "Army Dreamers")

Bonus - in checking YouTube for this song, I found out Placebo, another band I enjoy, covered it. Check it out, too.

"Cigarettes, Wedding Bands" / Band of Horses / Cease to Begin

2009-02-15T21:53:00.003-05:00

This band is one of my favorite discoveries of the past year or so. I believe I heard their song "The Funeral" from their debut album on an indie-rock internet station, and I began to take notice of them. When Cease to Begin came out and was getting great reviews, I went ahead and took the plunge. Since then, I've been one of their biggest apostles, talking them up to almost anyone that will listen (in fact, I couldn't help but pimp them a bit ago on a random post here). I even got my wife to really like this band, which is a feat as she's really slow to take to new music.

I was really happy, though, when I found out recently that "Is there a Ghost?", the first single off this album, is one of Isaiah's favorites. The family was tooling around somewhere and we were listening to music, when Izzy asked me for "the ghost song". I had no idea what he meant, then my wife explained to me that she listens to that song a lot with him in the car and he loves it. It's the little things that make you giddy as a parent, really.

This album will forever remind me of a trip I took to Saint Simon's Island with Quinn last year to attend one of my best friend's wedding. I had just bought it, and put it on leaving Athens. Once I got to Greensboro, it was flipping over to start again...and I let it play. I did this over, and over, and over. Something about this music seemed to fit early Spring among the marshes and Spanish moss of coastal Georgia. Maybe it's because, as I found out later, although the band is based in Seattle (thus explaining the song "Detlef Schremph"), their singer is from South Carolina.

Speaking of Ben Bridwell, I knew later that they were destined to be a favorite of mine when I found out he's a HUGE Georgia football fan. I've read several interviews in whihch he, unsolicited, professes his love for the Dawgs. How cool is that? Check ou, for example, this one from Pitchfork:

Favorite TV Show at the Moment

Hard to say, because I'm not sure if a football team counts as a TV show, but when the University of Georgia Bulldogs are playing on Saturdays or whatever, that's my favorite show that could possibly be on television. Tomorrow versus Tennessee at 3:30 eastern!

Pitchfork: Well, the Vols being my home team, I guess I'll have to watch that.

So, it's not exactly football, tailgatin' music, but it's cool to see an indie band that doesn't treat the idea of sports in general as a haven for beefheaded mouthbreathers.

Here's the tune:

I love the heavy opening crash leading into the verse. Bridwell has a very distinctive voice, and he and his band have often been compared to My Morning Jacket, and I can see that for sure. They certainly have that same kind of jammy, etheral, reverb-ery sound to their music. They work the heavy / soft dymanic really well in this song, giving the verses and the accompanying lyrics lots of room to be heard. The heavy comes back in on the chorus, with the "While they lied at night, they lied at night, while they lied" refrain. Speaking of the lyrics, I'm having a bit of a time with them. There are definite themes of alienation, broken relationships, and death for sure there, but I can't piece it all together. I'm getting a real Flannery O'Connor, Southern Gothic kind of feel from them, though. Maybe someone could be brave enough to give it a go in the comments?

By the way, here's a really great live version of this song too. They really translate well live, and have impressive facial hair

"Shining Star" / Earth, WInd & Fire / Let's Groove

2009-02-09T08:47:00.002-05:00

Man, remember when R & B used to be about real stuff, positive, serious, stuff, and not just about doin' the booty?

I'm talking about uplifting, socially conscious stuff like Marvin Gaye, my man Curtis Mayfield, or even Pubic Enemy (Admittedly I'm stretching the defintion of R&B). Not modern R & B like "My Neck, My Back". Maybe that's a good thing, as you could argue that maybe the social status of folks has risen as such that it doesn't need to be a part of music anymore. I sure miss it, though.

I really don't remember the heyday of E, W & F, but like much 70's music, it has over time seeped into my consciousness. "Shining Star" was released in 1975, when I was three, but it's probably their most famous song and has been used over and over again for soundtracks, commericals, and soundtracks, unfortunately to the point that it's almost lost any effect it once had. Although, who can forget Elaine Bennis' dance to it in "Seinfeld"?

And don't you remember Stryper covering it back in the day? One of the all-time classic WTF? moments.

Listening to it again, it's a lot shorter than I recall - not even three minutes. The part of the song that I remember most as a kid is the last few seconds, the "Shining star for you to see / What your life can truly be" that fades the song out and ends in a cappella. I thought that that was the chorus, but it only appears at the very very end. I love so may parts of this song, though. The groovy little guitar lick at the beginning, the Earth, Wind and Fire patented horn fills, the falsetto chorus, the rhythm guitar in the verses, it's all good stuff (and I always like the voice Philip Bailey uses in "Make your body big and strong at 1:27 too). And, as mentioned, I do like the message of the song. Confident, uplifting, positive, and fun. This is one that has gone in mixes I've made for the kids.

"Superman" / Jucifer / Calling All Cars on the Vegas Strip

2009-01-11T21:33:00.002-05:00

Imagine, for a moment, that Black Sabbath began not in Birmingham, England, in the late '60s but in Athens, Georgia in the 1990s.

Imagine , also, that instead of four struggling, working-class lads compromising the band, you had only a blond, five-foot tall, pixieish, Grit-waitressing, guitar-shredding, cooing -screeching Goddess and a maniacal demolisher of drum heads, and you would have The Classic City's own Jucifer.

Though the buzz surrounding Jucifer has cooled off a bit, and it seems that their window for stardom beyond select indie-rock circles may have closed, they are still putting out CDs and touring.

Back when this debut CD was released, they were the talk of Athens and seemed poised for greater heights. I bought the CD not really knowing what to expect, other than "hard", which is how they were most often described in the press. That, of course, is a highly subjective term in the music world. I was a bit skeptical of that label, being a big fan of metal as well, so I was totally floored by what I heard.

Jucifer manage to produce some of the (yes) hardest, fastest, most intense music this side of Pantera, and amazingly, they do it as a guitar and drum duo. As much as I love the CD, it's the live show where Jucifer shines. When I finally caught them at the 40 Watt, I can say without exaggeration, it was maybe the loudest show I've ever heard in my life. They are incredible to see perform. Amber Valentine looks like a doll on stage, all done up to the nines and often waring ridiculously high heeled boots. Her cool demeanor on stage is in sharp contrast to drummer Ed Lovengood, who, no lie, pounds the drums like no one I've ever seen. It's not so much that he plays them; he attacks them. Punishes them.

To Whit: Holy Fucking Shit!

Yeah, ninety minutes of that, and you are absolutely spent.

Here we have "Superman", one of my two or three favorites on this CD. This is, at it's heart, a spooky song, all minor keys and what not. It has a very, very quiet intro, just Valentine whispering over a tapped out guitar beat almost to the point that one has to turn the music way up to hear. Don't turn it up too loud though, because at :30 in comes the explosion. One thing I like about Jucifer's sound is the huge dynamic swings - Valentine can go from a whisper to a full-throated scream in a flash, and of course the volume and intensity of the music can as well. That's what happens at the :30 mark - that little tapped out guitar riff becomes immense, fuzzed out and distorted, and Valentine howls ("...cut you down to SIIIIIIIZE!").

Then, we get the main theme of the song at :44, the dark riff that is straight out of the Toni Iommi playbook, with Valentine screaming "SHOOOW...MEEEEE" over it. One part I love about the riff is the little syncopaed, descending notes at its very end (check :50-: 51 to see what I mean). It's a cool little touch.

"Superman" is all loud, crunchy goodness after that, save for an evil, sexy giggle at 1:44 and a really cool break at 2:21 in which a piano plays the ominous riff (making it even ominous-er) with some strange squeaking effects under it.

I was really happy to find a video for this song on YouTube; I seriously didn't expect that (and is that Athens' Oconee Hills Cemetery they are in in the video?). So have a go at it, and I would recommend picking the song up below for your own library. (By the way, the video is about eleven seconds off of the times I posted in the song above, for what it's worth)

http://www.mediafire.com/?hammmltuqmm

"Die, Alright!" / The Hives / Veni Vidi Vicious

2009-01-04T21:05:00.003-05:00

Back around the beginning of the aughts (the double 0s, whatever - have we ever named this decade?) there was a very short lived "garage rock" revival in music led by The Strokes, The Vines, and these dudes, The Hives. Though it was a short lived phenomenon (and as an unfortunate by product spawned groups like Jet), it did produce a few memorable singles, most notably the Nivana-esque "Get Free", the brilliant "Last Nite" and a couple off of this CD.

I got hip to this CD from a co-worker who fancies herself quite the unearther of the latest indie hipster shit, and I have to admit she's pretty good for a lot of it (I mean, thank goodness she gave me the sublime Vampire Weekend a couple months back). She copied this CD back for me in '01, and it's always been an enjoyable listen. The songs are brief, noisy , incomprehensible, nonsensical blasts, (maybe because we're talking about a group of Swedes not exactly translating to English very well) but in the right mood it can be just what you might be craving. Plus, who can resist a White Stripes-like gimmick of always dressing in only two colors, in this case black and white?

Natty, yes?

I don't think The Hives ever had any bit of pretension about them; it really and truly seemed to be all for fun, and therefore pretty charming and hard to knock.

This song in particular is one of my favorites on the CD. I checked on the lyrics, but again, that's not really the point here. Something about money, CEO's, and a sarcastic view of how money may or may not make you happy. As you can hear in the video (linked below), they have a strong, dirty guitar sound that they mix way up front, overwhelming almost any other part of the band, most notably and especially the vocals. This song functions as most on the album do, with a riff and a simple two or three chord progression. There's a frenzied chorus, with the "Die!" and "Alright!" from the song title shouted without accompaniment at the end of the verse, which is pretty cool. My favorite part, though, is that very final chord after the song finishes. It's a dissonant, strange sound, but all the same pretty classic and a nice callback to the genre they've chosen to emulate.

I'm not a huge fan of the video, which I honestly hadn't seen until tonight, as I think this band doesn't lend themselves to concepts as much as live energy, but they get a good fake performance in there one the chorus hits.

No embedding allowed, so click heuh

"Celebrity Skin" / Hole / Celebrity Skin

2008-12-28T21:11:00.002-05:00

Hole had a couple of pretty solid CDs in the 1990s which I really liked, and it's really despite the performer. Well, it's not that I dislike Courtney Love, as I actually find her fascinating. A former stripper / failed actress who meteorically rose to fame with Nancy Spungen / Yoko Ono comparisons hounding her, a tour de force performance reading Cobain's suicide note at his wake, actually having to defend herself against accusations that she killed or arranged the death of her husband, a veritibale trainwreck of a personal life, in and out of rehab, charged with being a greedy whore who is raping her husband's legacy - she's a pretty solid object of endless fascination.

I really miss seeing the soap opera of her life played out before us all, and I kind of hope she gets it back on track. The last I heard she recorded an album produced by Linda Perry (you remember her) that was supposed to resurrect her career. It seems to have been shelved and may never be released. I actually enjoyed her solo release "American Sweetheart" a few years ago, and thought it had a pretty kickass single with "Mono", in which she really gets to unleash one of the best screams in rock.

I've never been a big fan at all of Billy Corgan or the Smashing Pumpkins, but if the scuttlebutt on "Celebrity Skin" is true that he more or less wrote it (as Cobain was said to have written "Live Through This"), then it's by far the best stuff he's done. It's really hard to deny that the main riff (the one that starts the song) doesn't sound like a Corgan creation (if not the whole song structure) . The first four songs on this CD, this one being the first, are dead on awesome, most notably "Malibu" and "Awful", and there are some good ones down towards the end, but to be honest, if I ever pull this CD out these days, it's for those first 4-6 tunes.

The lyrics of this song always intrigue me, too. Look at the first couplet:

"Oh make me over / I'm all I want to be
A walking study / in demonology"

Here she starts, right after the monster riff, by giving a big "Fuck you" to everyone who criticized her for her new "makeover" of a slim , California body and a new nose and acknowledging what many many people were thinking of her at the time (i.e., a she-devil). Notice, as well, that she delivers these lines with no musical accompaniment, so she makes DAMN sure you hear what she's saying.

Then later (again, unaccompanied):

"Oh look at my face / my name is might-have-been
My name is never was / my name's forgotten"

Again throwing the gossip back at the haters that she was a talentless, derivative, coattail-riding hack.

And the final coup de grace:

"You want a part of me? Well I'm not selling cheap"

Wow. That was a pretty big "Piss Off!" back then, more or less sarcastically playing the whore role of which she was accused. Just look at all the other slurs she thows out during the song ("sluts like you", "beautiful garbage", "hooker waitress, model actress", "fading in Hollywood"). It's really an angry, defiant song, but you know what we all remember - that gorgeous, incredibly catchy chorus rising out of the bile. It almost feels like the chorus and the verses belong to two completely different songs. It's complex, disorienting, and exciting, and it's all over in a mere two-and-a-half minutes, leaving you to wonder what the hell just happened and inviting you to hear it all over again.

Taking a Holiday Break

2008-12-24T09:28:00.002-05:00

Be back sometime next week. In the meantime, here's my Christmas present to you:

Beaker from The Muppet Show singing Coldplay's "Yellow"

"You Wouldn't Believe" / 311 / From Chaos

2008-12-14T22:19:00.006-05:00

When I started this blog I knew that there was the ever-present chance of digging up embarrassing songs from my playlist. I soldiered along, unedited, in an attempt to analyze myself and for the voyeristic pleasure of the reader. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

This could very well be one of those times.

311 is, inexplicably, a guilty pleasure of mine. They and Kenny Rogers are the two biggest musical skeletons in my closet (and yes, you may know that Rush is my favorite band, but I made peace with that long, long time ago and have no regrets about it).

In my own defense, I do not own any albums of theirs. OK, technically, I bought "Music", their debut, back in 1993 due to hearing "Do You RIght" and "Visit" in the nascent days of 99x, but I sold that CD back at some point. I have five of their songs on my itunes, but I have honestly enjoyed almost every single they have released over the years.

You don't have to kill me on this. I know what makes them horrible, and by all rights I should loathe them. I mean, a group of white boys from Omaha, Nebraska (!) who attempt to make funky, reggae-and-ska-inspired rock music, with perhaps the world's worst whiney voiced rapper and a "singer" who is absolutely tuneless? I know. And perhaps their greatest crime is inspiring a generation of angry white boys to combine rap, rock, metal, and funk into a sound that just dominated alternative radio in the late 90's making it effectively unlistenable. I can picture a young, skinny red-capped Fred Durst sitting in his Jacksonville Florida home, hearing 311, rubbing his chin and thinking. "Hmmmmm....." The results speak for themselves:

Yikes

Anyhow, I know these guys got pretty popular there, mostly in the mid 90's and the "Down" days, but their popularity waned after alternative music went bust. They still are kicking around, though, and seem to be one of those bands that have carved out a little niche and have their core groups of followers.

Why do I have this song? Again, I couldn't really tell you why. It defies explanation. I'm relistening to it now, and there's nothing obviously great or even good about it. It has a nice, singable, catchy chorus, which is pretty much a mainstay with 311, and may be part of my soft spot for them. Oh, at 1:09, here comes their little rapper. Seriously, that dude is just bad, but he's so damn earnest and "tough" that it's just adorable. You go, 'lil fella! Oh, a bass solo from 1:40 to 2:00 - there's some points right there. Back comes the rapper at 2:58 for one more round, followed by an awful "Woah-oh-oh-oh, yeah!" as punctuation.

YouTube has spared you the embedding, so click here, if you are willing (Shaq? What the effing eff?).

Well, have at me in the comments, if you must. Part of me kind of welcomes it for the punishment I so richly deserve.

And now, a word from our reader(s)

2008-11-30T21:55:00.005-05:00

Last week's Sonic Youth post got me thinking about one's personal "theme music". You know, the song or songs that loop in your head as you go through your daily life, giving you inspiration, purpose and making you feel like you're living the movie of your existence.

I say this because Sonic Youth provides one of those soundtracks for me. It's a testament to how badass Kim Gordon is that it's a song performed by a girl, and I'm not even ashamed of it.

That song? "The Sprawl", the seven minute epic and second track off of "Daydream Nation".

I love the whole thing, even the long, trippy ending (which for some reason, has always brought forth the spooky image of a car in a crash flipping over and over), but really it's the grungy (sorry), dirty verses (see 1:10-2:10) to that get the lion's share of my mental energy. To wit:

And the second song needs no real explanation. So funky that it screws up your face like you smelled somethin' rotten.

"Freddie's Dead" by Curtis Mayfield

So my question to you, dear reader(s) and commenter(s) - What's your theme song?

"Kool Thing" / Sonic Youth / Goo

2008-11-23T21:13:00.004-05:00

Solid. Finally get a song from Sonic Youth, one of my very favorites. And this song, incidentally, is the first song I heard from them, way back in 1990.

This was a song that really was a surprise hit for Sonic Youth (and by "hit" I mean a song that got some plays on MTV) and was reaaaaaly close to being the song that signaled the arrival of alternative music going mainstream before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" did it.

I was immediately impressed with this one because of the inclusion of Chuck D, who at the time was rocking my little suburban white boy world. That gave them some instant cred with me, then throw in the fact that the song was an ode to LL Cool J (i.e., "Kool thing, walking like a panther", "play with your radio" and the repetition of "I don't think so") and I was more than willing to listen.

Yeeeeh. Tell 'em bout it. Hit 'em where it hurts.

Plus, the organic sex appeal and sultry delivery of Kim Gordon, possibly the coolest girl in rock music, didn't hurt either.

I believe I bought "Goo" along with "Dirty" from good buddy and sometime contributer ej my freshman year of college, and I was totally hooked (especially by "Dirty", which still might be my favorite album of theirs pound for pound). I subsequently went back in the catalogue, buying the seminal "Daydream Nation" at one of Downtown Records many incarnations, getting an approving comment from the clerk and feeling all fuzzy inside. As soon as I heard "Teenage Riot", it was another one of those, "So that's what the fuss is all about" moments.

Since then, I've been a loyal fan, buying each new release as it comes out (although I didn't get the last one, "Rather Ripped", which I remember getting great reviews. I should probably check that one out, no?). Their 1995 album, "Washing Machine", is one of those albums that is incredibly evocative of a particular time and place. You know what I mean. That album always takes me back to 1995, being in grad school, living in the baseball house, and, let's say, living the life of a young single man in Athens. Good times indeed. That year culminated in seeing Sonic Youth at Legion Field, which was an altogether fantastic experience.

What I really love about this band boils down to their marriage of noise and melody. They can establish a beautiful, catchy song early on, then at some point they meander away from what they've established and launch into a free form explosion of chirps, feedback and distortion, but then always being you safely back to the familiar by the end of the song. That, or the opposite - they throw you in the deep end immediately, make you find your bearings, then offer you a gorgeous hook out of nowhere to land you. It's unpredictable, demanding, and I never get tired of their songs becasue I can always find something new to unearth within them.

Let's take "Kool Thing", for instance. It begins with a simple 16th note pattern (on the CD, it's actually continued from the previous song) and early on hits the main riff at :13 (all song times are from the recording, not the video, if you're keeping score at home). It rocks along, seemingly straight forward (though the guitar squeaks at the end of every line and the howling guitars that answer Gordon in the chorus hint at something to come). At 1:25, the inevitable break begins, softly at first, and then we get our Chuck D / Kim Gordon interplay. That culminates at 2:21, where you can barely hear Gordon whisper "Come on, come on, come on", inviting the chaos. And it does come - perhaps not as heavy as their other songs, but let's remember, this was a pretty mainstream attempt.

My favorite part of the song happens right after this break. Gordon speaks: "When you're a star / I know that you'll fix everything". Then the briefest of pauses, then BAM at 3:14, right back into the main riff. That's awesome. I suppose this song accomplished what it was supposed to. Get someone interested in your band through an attractive, palatable bait, then get them to dig deeper. I'm glad I did, after all.

http://www.mediafire.com/?w1kzo4hzzdw

"Got To Get You Into My Life" / The Beatles / Revolver

2008-11-16T21:07:00.006-05:00

Really? No Beatles yet? *Runs off to check archive*

OK, then. Wow.

What more could possibly be said about The Beatles that hasn't been written thousands of times over? I can't say that I liked them too much growing up, and I believe one reason for that is just obstinence because I was supposed to like them (and the fact that my parents loved them too).

Strangely enough, the first I probably remember about them is hearing The Beatles remix on "The Stars on 45" (you guys remember those?) and liking the songs pretty well. If you grow up and pay any attention at all to pop culture, the Beatles' hits somehow worm their way into your brain without you even knowing it.

So, like anyone else, I knew all the big hits, and I knew they were supposed to be great, but I never really appreciated them. Then in 1995, things began to change.

First of all, The Beatles Anthology movie and soundtrack set came out to huge fanfare that culminated with the release of "Free as a Bird", their first single in 30 years. The Beatles were back on the map and were everywhere again. Also, this was the year that I first heard "Revolver", at the late, great Engine Room in Athens, Ga.

A place like the ER carefully vetted the music it player for maximum hipster approval. In fact, it was also my introduction to Big Star, as mentioned in a previous post. So when I happened to hear "Taxman" cue up, followed by "Eleanor Rigby", I began to critically reexamine this group. Having never really been exposed to their albums, only their Fox 97 singles, I was pretty blown away by what I heard. I mean, a song like "She Said She Said" (and check out Ringo's drum fills in that one - wow!) or "Tomorrow Never Knows" sounded as fresh to my ears as anything that was being put out by Matador or Sub Pop at the time.

I went out not long after and bought Revolver, followed by "Abby Road", "The White Album", and "Rubber Soul". I finally "got" The Beatles, and was beginning to appreciate what everyone was crazy about all along. These guys were really a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, but are also able to speak to all subsequent generations. It's a trip to see the kids down the street (10 and 7) discuss with me their favorite Beatles songs and go crazy over the release of the movie "Across the Universe" last year.

(That being said - in the age old "Beatles versus Stones" argument....I'm a Stones guy. So there)

After reading the above, it may not surprise you to know that, for the longest time, I didn't know "Got To Get You Into My Life" was even a Beatles song. Indeed, I considered it an Earth, Wind and Fire song, as heard in that classic 70's movie flop, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" (starring the BeeGees)

This song is a Paul song, and it's an ode to weed done in a Stax style, thus the incongruous sound of the Beatles with horns. Oh, and speaking of Paul, let me digress for a minute here. I've always thought Paul was never given due credit as a Beatle (and that goes for Wings and solo material also, for that matter).

When I think back on my favorite Beatles songs, usually they are the poppier "Paul" songs. This is especially true when you consider each person's solo work. I think Paul still had that great pop sound, full of hooks and melodies. Lennon, in my opinion, is very overrated. I think there are two reasons for this: the first is, of course, the tragedy of his death. The second is the inability of the Baby Boomers to cast a critical eye at any aspect of their youth and mythologize it to an unbearable degree.

Paul gets a lot of flack for producing formulaic, adult contemporary crap, like "Maybe I'm Amazed", but come on, think about "Woman" by Lennon. Why does he get a free pass? And what kind of music do you suppose Lennon would be making today, if he were still with us?

Anyway, although this isn't one of my favorites on "Revolver", it's a groovy, soulful little pop tune by the group that perfected pop.

"Human Beat Box" / Fat Boys / Fat Boys

2008-11-05T22:02:00.002-05:00

It turns out that I have five Fat Boys songs on my itunes, which indicates this is either the result of a drunken itunes store spending spree or a spur -of-the-moment Limewire search. Either way, it's good to hear again.

I don't remember exactly how I heard of the Fat Boys back in sixth grade. My family didn't have cable (thus bringing me MTV and BET), and I'm pretty sure they weren't on radio, so I suppose I just heard it here or there from friends at school.

I do specifically remember saving up to buy the cassette and sitting in Georgia Square Mall after just purchasing it at Record Bar, harldly being able to wait to get home to pop it in my "box". Seriously, how easy was it to make a record back in the day, especially the early days of rap? What a concept- three fat dudes rapping about....eating and being fat and stuff.

Brilliant!

But damn, we loved it. That was a pretty popular album back then; a whole lot of fun to listen to, spawning many beat box imitators in Patti Hilsman's boys locker room day after day. And much of that had to do with the fantastic skills of the subject of this song - The Human Beat Box.

Really, there was nothing to compare to him up to that point. The dude was amazing, and I remember having debates as to whether or not he was really making all of those beats with his mouth or if he was faking. Of course it was all legit, and the spirit of THBB lives on today through countless incarnations. In fact, one of me and the kids' favorite show, Yo Gabba Gabba, has introduced beat-boxing to a whole new generation, and if my brood is any indication, it's still just as fascinating.

Witness the Biz

Oddly enough, the song begins with the "Brrrrr - stick 'em , ha ha-ha stick 'em!" refrain from another song, but then settles in to let the man show his skills. If I'm remembering correctly, most Fat Boys songs used the beat box part of the song almost like a guitar solo in a rock song, but in this one, his voice forms the beat of the song throughout. The lyrics are sparse, but essentially all about him and his greatness, which is something I miss about old school rap - the song on every album that was the shout-out to the DJ (see Public Enemy's "Terminator X to the Edge of Panic", Run DMC's "Perfection", LL Cool J's "Go Cut Creator Go" for examples)

After (strangely) skyrocketing to mainstream success, (and what says 80's success like a Swatch commercial?)the Fat Boys lost it just as quickly.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: (and I warn you - this is painful)

So let's pour one out for the Fat Boys, an innovative, surprisingly influential hip hop group that takes us back to the early days of rap when shit was just fun and a good ass time.

Taking a TO

2008-10-28T16:30:00.002-04:00

I missed last week due to family stuff and will miss this week due to the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.
Check back in a week or so.

In tribute to the Georgia / Florida game, here's James Brown with "Dooley's Junkyard Dawgs".

Not too many schools could boast a performance as cool as this...

"Oi To The World" / No Doubt / A Very Special Christmas 3

2008-10-19T21:48:00.002-04:00

It looks as though my itunes has caught the early Christmas impulse that the rest of the world has these days.

What is considered "the Christmas season" has been slowly inching up earlier and earlier each year, obliterating Thanksgiving completely and making Halloween nervously look in its rearview mirror.

Just today in the grocery store I saw the first of the Christmas themed magazines on the shelves, which pisses me off and makes me anxious. Yuck.

So here's my shuffle piling on and picking a Christmas song in the middle of October. But at least it's one of my favorites from possibly the best Christmas CD ever.

This song is actually a cover of another ska / punk band called The Vandals. It's a little odd to think that a word with ominous racial and skinhead overtones as "Oi!" would figure prominently in a Christmas song, but maybe it's "reclaiming" the word for good, or something.

Peace. Goodwill. Skinheads.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and cop to being a No Doubt fan, as I do like the ska. Between the wife and myself, I think we own all their albums (Gwen Stefani...that's another story). They obviolsly have a good time with this one, racing through it at a cozy two and a half minutes.

I love the bass intro (of course), setting the tone right off the bat. (Tony Kanal was, in my opinion, a pretty big part of what made this band great. Stefani got all the publicity, but he was the main songwriter and the biggest ska fan in that band). You got to have the horns to make it an official ska song and here they come right on the heels of that bassline. Also, check the little bass / horn breakdown there in the middle of the song - am I making this up, or do they play a little snippet of "Frosty the Snowman" right before Stefani comes back in? I've always thought so.

The song has a nice little narrative, too, about a dude named Haji (a Pakistani, maybe?), a punk who is playing at the local pub when Trevor (a skin) comes in with his boys and doesn't take kindly to such. They scuffle in the pub, set a time to brawl later, then as they both are severely hurt (as Trevor had "nunchucks" and Haji had "a sword like the guy in Indiana Jones") and abandoned by their crews, they spy the North Star, Haji makes a tourniquet from his turban to save Trevor, the guys make up and go bond over shots of bourbon (which, conveniently, is a liquor that rhymes with "turban").

Say what you will about No Doubt (and I know some of you will), but you can't deny that by the time this song was released they had become a pretty solid, tight band. They also eventually outgrew the pop / ska thing and had some really nice tunes on the underrated "Return of Saturn" and their (seemingly) final album, "Rock Steady". If you seriously hate them, I think you can still safely enjoy this song once a year.

Embedding disabled by request, so click here for the video.

Here's the Vandals performing the original:

And here's the song so you can include it on all those cool Christmas mixes everyone likes to make:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zjm2dkikf3j

"D.A.N.C.E." / Justice / The Cross

2008-10-10T12:41:00.005-04:00

Justice is a French electronia (do people still use that term?) duo from France, I guess you might say they are the younger, cooler brother of Daft Punk in that sense.

I sort of bought this CD on a whim looking for something new and out of my normal sphere of music, and this seemed to fit the bill. Usually at the end of the year I like to buy all of the "Best of 200_" editions of the music magazines and check out what they like. If you read a few of those, you will see the same CDs pop up over and over. Every now and again I'll take the chance on a CD that gets great reviews and buy it out of the blue. It's how I discovered Arcade Fire, Fountains of Wayne, and Rilo Kiley, among others.

"The Cross" was one of those CDs that got great press at the end of 2007. I'm not a huge fan of dance music, but the reviews sounded interesting enough that I though I'd give it a shot. One I saw the badass cover, I was sold.

The music's pretty sweet - almost a rock feel to it instead of a Pet Shop Boys kind of deal. The guys weave quite a pastiche of different sounds into some new and wholly original creation, not unlike The Chemical Brothers did in the mid 90's or Public Enemy's Bomb Squad did back in the 80's.

Their music has lots of commerical potential as well, and Cadillac jumped on them first. Justice's "Genesis" appears in this ad:

(By the way, who expected Cadillac to be that hip? I mean, Justice in one ad, and freakin' Lieutenant Cedric Daniels from "The Wire" in another? Damn!)

As to this song in particular, I think I read somewhere that's it's written about Michael Jackson. Here are the lyrics, as it were, which I've written before, is entirely NOT the point with this type of music:
Do the D.A.N.C.E
1234, fight!
Stick to the B.E.A.T
Get ready to ignite
You were such a P.Y.T
Catching all the lights
Just easy as A.B.C
That's how we make it right

It does sound like a bit of advice to The King of Pop - "You were such a P.Y.T, now you've lost your way. Just stick to funky dance music (The 'B.E.A.T') to find your way back - it's as easy as 'A.B.C'". There's also "The way you move is a mystery" in the verses of the song, which, if you remember the moonwalk, should explain itself.Pretty clever, and I guess the acronymic title of the song is a shout-out to those former hits.

I like how the beginning of the song gives the impression of someone dialing through looking for a radio station. You can barely hear the song at first, until the dialer hits the right frequency at :17. The sing-songy way they have the chorus does make it sound like a kids' playground song, stressing the "easy" part of the advice. The trademarks of Justice are in full effect here in this song: the bubbling, busy, electic bass sound, and the string flourishes. That's really about the entirety of the musical accompaniment, until the "breakdown" at 2:42. Let's check the lyrics there again and you can see the Michael Jackson references:

Under the spotlights
Neither black nor white
It doesn't matter
Do the Dance (do the dance)

As strong as you might
Working day and night
Whatever happens
Do the DANCE (do the dance)

Hmmm..."Neither black nor white, Working day and night?" not hard to see.

A very interesting song indeed. A good tribute to a fallen idol and a funky ass dance tune, too. And, as you might expect from French artistes, a cool video too:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=48585a8d07b0b9e0d2db6fb9a8902bda

"Like a Virgin" / Madonna / The Immaculate Collection Vol. 1

2008-09-28T16:42:00.002-04:00

You ever notice how any analysis of Madonna has almost nothing to do with her music, per se, but more about her cultural impact?

I mean, whenever she puts out a new CD, the stories practically write themselves: "Madge reinvents herself....again!" or "Madonna still pushing boundaries!" or "Sexy sex sexpot! Sex!". I guess she brought some of that onto herself, as her image and "meaning" always seemed more important to her than did her music. Early on she decided she was going to challenge peoples' perceptions of femininity and sexuality, and she seems to have trapped herself in that, even 25 years later.

I'll try to focus on the music here - although I will say that with the exception of maybe Prince or Michael Jackson, no one else's music takes me back to the 80's and Hilsman middle school like Madonna. If you're my age, you probably remember the girls in your school wearing the bangles up and down their arms, the fishnets, the bow in the hair, the bright lipstick - there may not be a more iconic figure of the 80's than the first Madonna incarnation.

Hello, puberty!

As I mentioned, I think Madonna's music gets the short end based on her image, but I've always liked her stuff. I think my favorite song of hers is "Like a Prayer", just an epic, career-defining song. I'm also a fan of "Crazy for You" (ah, the memories of many an awkward middle school party) and more recently, "Take a Bow". It's cool to have an artist stick around so long and have so many great songs that you almost feel like you know them, that for every part of your life they have had a song for you.

"Like a Virgin" wasn't the first most of us heard from Madonna, as we had "Borderline" (another favorite) and "Lucky Star", but "Like a Virgin" felt different the first time I heard it. It seemed specifically formulated for pop dominance and social confrontation.

I knew, technically, what a "virgin" was when I was 12, but it was part of the greater mysteries that involved women and sex. I was, at the time, still pondering the greatness of my first open-mouth kiss and wondering about the implications of it all.

I knew as well that (at the time) the subject was a little bit taboo, and I would get embarrassed when I was in the car with my Mom and this song would come on. Lines like "touched for the very first time" and "feels so good inside" will do that to you, even if I couldn't explain what they meant if you asked me.

Then Madonna performed it at the first MTV video awards and removed any doubt as to the songs subtext, launching her into the pop stratosphere

Well, now I've gone and done it...I've spent this post writing about Madonna and her impact on my sexual identity during her first bout of superstardom instead of her music. As I mentioned, though, you just can't separate the two.

So here's an attempt at reviewing the song: The dated 80's keyboard riff that opens the song pretty mush sustains it all the way through, giving some depth to Madonna's paper thin voice (she was smart enough early on to realize this was NOT her strength and play up other parts of her performance and personality). The best part is the bridge right before the chorus, with the cymbal crashes in the back at the beginning of each of the bars. I also like the "gonna give ya" pickup after that goes right into the next verse (1:15 on the video). Nice, short little bridge at 2:10 consisting of, well, panting and moaning, back to the "You're so fine - and you're mine" line.

Hell, it's no use. I can't think of this song without the video. Madonna cavorting, grinding and writhing on a Venetian gondola pretty much was the epiphany which made me realize that girls were not at all yucky and that I would be amazed, frustrated, intimidated and manipulated by them for the rest of my life.

"Angel Band" / Ralph Stanley / O Brother, Where Art Thou?

2008-09-21T22:16:00.003-04:00

This is a good one from one of my favorite movies. I don't think this movie did much at the box office, but as an English teacher (and Cohen brothers fan), it certainly has a place in my heart.

See, this movie (Merk, Josh, Christian - just skip this part) is the Cohen brothers' version of Homer's "Odyssey" set in rural Mississippi in the Great Depression. George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill is Odysseus, trying to return home to his wife after being away for several years and encountering any number of supernatural and dastardly obstacles along the way. The movie is full of similarities to the original story, as well as quite a few in jokes that only dorky, quasi-literate people would get.

It's a great companion piece to show to my students after reading the Odyssey, and I'm always pleasantly surprised at how much the kids usually like it. And how can you not love a movie with scenes such as this - Ulysses and the boys meeting the "Sirens"

Most of the public, though, remember this movie for the soundtrack. It was a minor sensation, selling eight million copies and building primarily through word of mouth. It even spawned an near hit with "A Man of Constant Sorrow" on some country stations.

"O Brother Where Art Thou?" seemed to presage America's brief dalliance into roots music, the reverberations of which are still being felt in indie rock by way of alt country (Ryan Adams, Jenny Lewis, DBT, etc.) I'm always interested in the deeper sociological meanings behind popular phenomena, especially as it pertains to music, and I'm still trying to figure out what the popularity of this soundtrack "meant" at the time. Maybe it was a backlash against the highly synthesized, prefab, sheen of the teenpop explosion of Brittany Spears, The Backstreet Boys and N' Sync who were huge at the time? I'm not really sure, but that's my best guess.

The version of "Angel Band" in the movie is not performed by Ralph Stanley, however. It's done by the Peasall Sisters, a real gospel group who provided the songs that Ulysses' daughters performed in the movie. You can hear the song at the very end of the movie, as Ulysses and his reunited family (Spoiler!) stroll across town.

I probably shouldn't say it, as Ralph Stanley is one of the iconic bluegrass / folk singers, but I like their version better. Part of that may be that Stanley provides the voice to "O Death" during the KKK scene in the movie, the scariest part by far, and it's hard to hear his voice without thinking of it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?jjmfvn34bq2

"Blow Out" / Radiohead / Pablo Honey

2008-09-14T21:42:00.006-04:00

I have to give my wife credit for buying this Radiohead CD way back when before they somehow became the be-all-end-all of modern music.

Although, to be fair, my wife had a habit back then of buying CDs for the one "hit" song (like this, this and this - thank God for itunes, huh?), so she just bought it for "Creep" obviously. Not that that's anything to be ashamed of, as obviously many, many people did the same.

I know it's been mentioned and discussed a bit, but it really is amazing that what looked to be another 90's alternative one-hit-wonder somehow blossomed into a full fledged juggernaut.

I remember hearing "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" off of The Bends back in the mid 90's and thinking it was interesting to hear from Radiohead again, as I fully expected not to. Then one summer's day I caught the video for "Paranoid Android" and was completely blown away, causing me to rush out and buy OK Computer, perhaps the best CD released in the 1990s and still one of the best ever.

Love! Love.

Then, holy shit, the hype went into overdrive, and this is where Radiohead and I parted ways. With great fanfare they released Kid A and Amnesiac on the same day (a douchey move in itself - Correction: not on the same day - actually a year apart.) and I remember some of my coworkers being in such a lather to buy these that they slipped out of work to run to the store the Tuesday they were released.

When I finally got around to listening to them, I had a full on ..."Meh". I was OK with that, and I know some of my best friends and people who's musical tastes I respect very much will disagree with me here, but I find them to be boring now. The worst part of it all is the critics and hipsters absolutely fawn over whatever these guys put out, giving anyone who doesn't like their stuff the ol' Emperor's New Clothes, condescending "Oh, you just don't get it" response.

Radiohead has reached the point that they could put out an entire CD of feedback and test pattern noises and it would be hailed as revolutionary, futuristic genius, and I just find it all really really dull and annoying. Sorry. That's one reason I don't get into the big Coldplay pile on, either. To everyone who says they are just making a living on what Radiohead used to do, I say "Yeah!" Radiohead used to put out lovely, mellow stuff like Coldplay does now. Dammit, somebody's got to have melody and proper song structure! Lay off Apple and Moses' Daddy!

Anyway, enough with my Radiohead issues. I'm really hearing this song for the first time myself, and I like it. Judging by the many Youtube clips, it seems to be a pretty popular track of theirs too. It starts off with the good old, dreamy Radiohead we used to know, all falsetto singing and noodlely guitar, until they turn the petals on at 1:22 and start in with the "loud" part of the "soft/loud" structure that made "Creep" so successful.

Yorke comes back in with the second verse at 1:48, but he full thoated now, and they keep the distortion turned up now. Nice. Then, they drop completely down at 2:16, almost to a whisper in what serves as a short bridge of sorts. Then the song ever so slowly builds back up, adding a little bit of instrumentation at a time, until 3:12 when they begin the longest, awesomest guitar note I've heard.

I mean, this thing starts out sounding like an air raid siren, and keeps going, and going and going, slowly ascending in pitch all the while. Just when you think it will finally stop...no. It keeps on and keeps on, with the drum and bass going the heck off behind, until it finally releases at 4:27 or so. That's over a full minute of straight, Sonic Youth-esque noise, and I loved it. I'm willing to bet that's a concert highlight, and just to prove it, I found a clip of them preforming "Blow Out" from 1994. (Wow, Tohm Yorke hasn't changed a bit, has he? yeesh)

Overall, I'm happy when itunes give me a new discovery, and this is just found money right here. Well done Radiohead, and I'll still hold out hope that one day you will bring the fuckin' rock again.

MP3
http://www.mediafire.com/?fqm4apqvvxy

"Moonlight Feels Right" / Starbuck / AM Gold

2008-09-07T20:46:00.007-04:00

Starbuck?

No.

Nope - Uh-uh.

Oh, hell yeah!

I'll have you know that one of my very favorite music genres is 70's AM pop. I don't mean disco stuff, or Zeppelin / Stones songs (though I love that too) , I mean the lite pop hits, often by one hit wonders, that played on AM radio back in the 1970's. And I don't like it in a kitchy, ironic way either. I really do enjoy listening to it, and this song might be my favorite of the bunch.

I really don't know how I came to know this song, or any others like it. For some reason these songs give me a huge wash of nostalgia, even though I can never put my finger on a specific instance that I remember hearing them. Almost all of them remind me vaguely of living in Barnesville Ga (when I lived from year one to year five before moving to Athens), riding around in the family's huge red Pontiac with my Mom, me leaning over the middle seat (car seats? In the 70's? Pshaw) and listening to the radio as we drove around town. I think I somehow just absorbed all of these 70's songs into my memory banks though pure osmosis, and even today when I hear one I haven't encountered in a while I get a sudden rush of recognition and an instant return to feeling four years old again. It's amazing how music can do that.

So, that's all to say that I have no idea who or what Starbuck is or was, but damn I love listening to this song. It begins with very warm synth sounds (futuristic!) backed by a funky little guitar chord on the backbeat. The delivery of the verse is great - the singer (Bruce Blackmon) delivers a lazy, swingy, loungey kind of vocal, just cool and hip as the 70's could get. My favorite part of the song actually happens at the end of every verse, just before the chorus (at :50, 1:38 and 3:13 on the clip)- a throw off little "ha-ha" that he just tosses in there. Something about that is so silly that it's almost magical.

The chorus just repeats the song's title , answered by a "bling bling" from the keybord, while the synth is repeating the five note hook. Then we're back to the verse and doing it all over again. Let's take a look at the second verse's lyrics:

We'll lay back and observe the constellations
And watch the moon smilin' bright
I'll play the radio on southern stations
Cause southern belles are hell at night
You say you came to Baltimore from Ole Miss
Class of seven four gold ring
The eastern moon looks ready for a wet kiss
To make the tide rise again

There is some pretty nice imagery there for a pop song, and I like the narrative idea too. Not too often are "southern belles" mentioned in pop hits, and it's got to be the only song ever to hit the charts to name check Ole Miss. A check of Wikipedia shows me that Starbuck is actually from Atlanta (!), so there's your southern vibe right there.

Then, following this verse, we get the kicker that could only be recorded in the 70's, the part that takes this song over the top....MARIMBA SOLO! (1:55 on the video) Seriously, listen to it. It kicks ass, and it's so out of left field that it works perfectly.

So here's the song and an appropriately cheesy youtube clip of it too. If you choose to download it for your collection, but don't want to admit it, it's OK. I can love 70's music enough for the both of us.

http://www.mediafire.com/?xq1qatjw5wh

Taking a break this week

2008-08-31T08:35:00.001-04:00

In the meantime, enjoy this 11 year old girl playing Rush's "YYZ".

On an organ.

By herself.

Madder Rose / "Margaret" / Panic On

2008-08-24T10:09:00.009-04:00

Unfortunately, for those of you who are dying for the rock, you have to fall prey to one of my musical soft spots - alternative bands with chick singers.

This band was pretty much a one off back in the post Nirvana alternative band boom, I'll say 1994 or so. It's the only CD I've ever heard of theirs, and it may be the only one in existence.

I came about this in a curious way. Back in 1993 or so, I was watching an MTV report about some big festival, and they showed, literally, about five seconds of Madder Rose playing live (didn't see the band's name, though). Something about the song really struck me, and I was pretty obsessed with tracking it down (and let's remember, this is pre-internet, pre-DVR, pre-itunes days when that was a major focking chore).

Fast forward a bit, and I'm goofing off, reading or something, half listening to 120 Minutes (don't you miss that show?), and I hear it. The song was "Car Song", and it was (and is) still great. I will lay my soul bare here and let you know I included that song on more than one mix tape over the years.

Here's "Car Song", still a great 90's hit. (The hook that originally got me is from :4o-:49)

(Wow- one of the YouTube comments says : "The lead singer, Mary Lorson, is my english teacher"! Sounds like a lie, though.)
Kind of a Mazzy Star, Sundays, Velocity Girl,Lush kind of thing. Singer's easy on the eyes too. Good stuff.

Overall, this CD reminds me of 1994, from student teaching at Loganville High, to dating a fellow music loving Loganvillian. I still take it out for a spin every now and again, and always enjoy it.

As for "Margaret", this is the, ahem, "rocker" of the CD, clocking in at a quick 2:40. I'm not really sure that the singer's voice is good for this type of song. Kind of a monotone delivery, hers is more suited for the slower, more mellow songs. There are some nice harmonies on the "Margret" part of the song (1:01-1:14), and an interesting, tuneless little bridge from 1:21-1:41. Nice little bass / vocal interplay around 2:00 too.

As I mentioned, this really isn't indicative of what this CD sounds like. You may want to grab the MP3, but I'll also give you the "Car Song" MP3 if you care for it.

And, wow, I can't believe there's a video for this online, as it was never a single. At Glastonbury, too, no less! Now I'm beginning to wonder if the original footage I saw of them way back when was from that Glastonbury show. Hmmmm...

"Margaret":
http://www.mediafire.com/?pfg037ozj0z
"Car Song"
http://www.mediafire.com/?jsiagxhnwmp

"Thank U" / Alanis Morrissette / Supposed Former Infactuation Junkie

2008-08-17T21:18:00.006-04:00

Sigh

**hangs head, embarrassed**

Yes, this is technically my wife's CD, but I can't tell a lie; it's one I like too. Don't lie and say you weren't a little (a) intrigued or (b) turned on by her when you first heard about going down on the Full House dude during a movie ("You Oughta Know", of course).

Imagine his "O" face

Poor Alanis has fallen on hard times now from her 1990's heyday, but you have to like this song just a little bit, don't you? If nothing else, give her a little credit for making a pretty heavy stylistic shift from the music that made her a megastar on her former CD.

Plus, give the girl props for the great shot at Fergie when she covered "My Humps" last year. Funny stuff.

The keyboard chimes in the intro and chorus of this song, strangely enough, always reminded me of the Who's "Won't get Fooled Again" (that part right before Daltry's big scream), only much slower and not quite as awesome.

The real secret weapon to this song, though, is the bass. Just listen to a little bit of the song and focus on that - "WHOOM - pish/ WHOOMpish" bit in there. When you add those two parts together along with a nice melodic chorus (and again, the keyboards), you are starting to get something pretty good. Overall, I think it's her best song.

One thing I've noticed about Alanis, though (and I've heard most all of her CDs, as the wife has them all) that bothers me is her lyrics (1) They make no freggin' sense (2) they are way, WAY too wordy, she crams so many syllables in all over the place , and (3) her verses never rhyme! I can't listen to her music without this bothering me ever since I noticed it.

I mean, "Thank you India, thank you terror, thank you disillusionment / Thank you frailty, thank you consequence, thank you thank you silence"? What? What are you talking about? Just stop. Just stop, get nekkid, and um...walk around town. Wait, what?

"Maybe Sparrow" / Neko Case / Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

2008-08-10T21:05:00.004-04:00

The sublime, intoxicating Ms. Case. I alluded to her and her incredible voice back when I was posting about Kelly Hogan of the Jody Grind. These two ladies have the most beautiful voices in my collection, and I can't imagine any being lovelier.

Neko Case is one of the main cogs of Alt supergroup The New Pornographers, and some of my favorite songs of theirs prominently feature her (ie. "These Are The Fables"). I had the great fortune to catch them in Athens at the Georgia Theatre last April, and as you can see in the video, she was laid up from falling in DC a few days prior. I'm just happy that she made of a go of it, lame leg and all. Hearing that voice in person...it's amazing. I don't know how to technically say it, but it's so pure. There's no warlbling, showoff running octaves or strings of notes, just a freaking laser beam that can cut diamonds and fill up a hall without a microphone.

Unfortunately, the evening was almost ruined by Mike (good buddy and commenter) continually making snide remarks about how terrible and old she looked. He's shallow like that. You watch, I guarantee he does it if he responds to this post. That show was capped by a killer cover of ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down"

I bought "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" in the summer of 2006. I figured if I liked TNP that much that I'd like her CD as well. It is, indeed, amazing. A bit different than TNP stuff, as it's more country / roots inspired, but in it's own way, it's as strong as anything I've heard. A curious thing about it, though, is the songs structure. She doesn't go for that traditional verse/ chorus /verse / bridge stuff. Her songs kind of meander, with no real "parts". The lyrics are really, really vague too. She challenges the listener just a bit I think, but the rewards are many. To be fair, she has had a few other solo records, and commenter Eric swears that her CD Blacklisted is the real shit.

I'll never forget the first few times I listened to it either. I bought it in preparation for a solo road trip I was making to South Georgia that summer. Playing this brief CD over (and over and over) in my car as I was driving through desolate stretches of peanut fields on sizzling blacktop - well, it was just one of those instances in which the music perfectly matched the environment and it all just fit. Everything was right with the world for about three hours.

Here's the video for "Maybe Sparrow". The best part is at 1:04 when she just unleashes her voice. I also like the minor key guitar fill that you keep hearing in there. It sounds a little bit jarring within the song, but it's cool. Plus: owls!

"Knights of Cydonia" / Muse / Black Holes and Revelations

2008-07-27T23:05:00.003-04:00

My buddy Eric (who, on occasion, will pop in a comment) once said to me that the first time he heard Muse he thought...."That's a Bryan band".

And, yeah, he's dead on there. With the exception of Arcade Fire, I don't think there's a band that I've been more stoked about in the 00's than Muse. They've been around a little while, but really started to break here in America around 2003 or so. You may have heard a couple of their more popular tunes, "Time is Running Out" and "Stockholm Syndrome".

And speaking of "Stockholm Syndrome", let me just stop right there before I go any further. This song has rocketed into my personal top five list with a bullet. One big contributing factor was looking them up on the Youtubes and finding this performance of that song when they headlined England's famous Glastonbury festival in 2004. Honestly, I watch this about once a week, just to revive my faith in music and make me love life and people. It's five minutes of proper song, nine total minutes of awesome.

Now, there you can see what I love about this band on display. First of all...chops. Dudes can absolutely shred their instruments. They are a tight band (and I don't mean "tight" like "Those Pumas are tight", I mean "tight" like disciplined, locked in).I'm a sucker for big, melodic, anthemic, bombastic songs. Wagnerian, even. The energy they exude, the cool rock / electronia hybrid thing they have going..it all works for me.

When I picked up this CD back in 2006, it was everything I expected it to be. "Knights of Cydonia", in particular however, was a standout. Since then, it's gained a little bit of notice for it's brilliant video (more on that later) and it's inclusion on the "Rock Band" game. But first hearing this, I alternated between disbelief, hilarity and joy.

I really can't write about everything that's great about this song, but I'll try. It begins with a motif straight out of an Ennio Morricone spaghetti western, leading into a galloping drum line over which the guitar is playing the song's melody. It's really set up like an overture, as we don't really get to any lyrics until 2:07 of the song.

The song does set itself up as some kind of space cowboy epic ("Come ride with me, through the veils of history" reads the opening line) though what or where "Cydonia" is is for them to explain one day or for us to figure out. Anyways, they get through the first two verses quickly (the only two in the song, by the way), and come back in with the opening theme at 2:02. Soon after, the magic happens - the music falls dead away (save for some little electronic bleeps underneath) and at 3:19 we get:

No one's gonna take me alive
The time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive

What the...I almost drove of the road the first time I heard this. So ridiculous, so over the top, so...sweet. What does it mean? Again, I have no clue, but it all fits.

They repeat the chorus a couple more times as the music builds up slowly behind it (I know, the oldest, most manipulative trick in music...but always effective) until we explode at with the new guitar riff at 4:14. Then once more with the chorus, this time, with a feeling of triumph, and we're done.

(Not to gush again about my kids, but this was Quinn's favorite song for most of last year. I was playing it in the car one day, then about twenty minutes of thoughtful silence later, he asks "Dad, why won't no one take him alive?" I smiled and thought - "That's my boy!" He made me put this on one of his CD mixes too, and had to listen to it first every night as he went to sleep. He also refused to let me talk while it was playing, so he could concentrate more on it. Of course, he will remember none of this by Christmas of this year)

The video. Oh, the video. I believe with the video they are letting you know that it's all a big, fun goof, not meant to be taken seriously. What's my favorite part of the video? Too many parts from which to choose, but you gotta love the reappearance of the hero's girl at that 4:14 climax in full on space princess outfit, riding a unicorn, while kung-fu masters practice their kicks and a cyclon projects the bands image in the desert. Or something. Unbelievably awesome stuff.

"Railroad Tracks" / Juke Boy Bonner / Life Gave Me a Dirty Deal

2008-07-20T20:38:00.002-04:00

W. T. F. ?

That was my first thought upon seeing this pop up on itunes. I'm not even gonna try to be cool and say I had any idea who this cat is or why he has a song on my itunes playlist.

Then I remembered...back when Quinn was about two and a half, he went through a HUGE train phase, which I'm beginning to think almost every American boy goes through (maybe like girls and ponies? I don't know) as Isaiah is in the throes of railroad dementia at this moment. Thomas the Tank Engine plays no small role in this , by the way

Click....if you dare!

Anyway, Beegee and I made Quinn a "train" mixtape CD (is that an oxymoron?) by searching the itunes music store for anything with "train" in the title. And thus, we get Juke Boy Bonner. Dude has an interesting backstory, which while typical of most blues artists (tough life, unappreciated as a musician, relatively early death) has a couple of cool tibets as well. It seems he was a poet as well ("ghetto poet", even) and was pretty much a one man band, accompanying himself on drums, harmonica, and guitar.

The song is just a straightforward boogie-woogie, nothing fancy at all. It's really good, solid music, and I think an interesting addition to your collection. I know some of you guys reading are big blues fans and like this kind of stuff; I have to admit that it's an area in which I'm a little deficient. I mean, I give you people Superchunk last week and get two responses, and one is about The Two Coreys?! What do you want from me? *puts head in arms, weeps softly*

Here's Juke Boy!
http://www.mediafire.com/?wwmyfx4ymdy

"Hyper Enough" / Superchunk / Here's Where The Strings Come In

2008-07-13T10:14:00.007-04:00

It's Superchunk, kids! Another pantheon band of mine, with 62 songs on my itunes playlist. If there's ever one band that I looove that I wish you all would jump on immediately, it would be the Chunk. They are the indie rock band nonpareil, in my humble opinion. Plus, they are good southern kids from Chapel Hill which is a plus. (And they have a hot bass player, but that's really neither here nor there). They had a semi-hit in the early 90's with "Slack Motherfucker" which (supposedly) is one of those defining Generation X songs. Or something. (Actually, watch that video for a taste of how amazing these guys are live)

I specifically remember how I got into these dudes too. I was at the old Big Shot records when it was back on College Square in the mid 90's (where Chapel Bar is now) and was browsing around. They were playing Superchunk's "Foolish" CD, which had just been released. I was listening with interest as I looked around, then became really intrigued as more songs came on. It's not often that a song or band strikes you upon your very first listen, but they did it for me. Once the song "Driveway to Driveway" played, that was it, and I had to ask the clerk the group and album playing, and bought it on the spot.

"Driveway to Driveway" = teh shit

(You know what? I've never seen this video. I started to watch it, but then quit because it's obviously a "story" video, and I don't want the song to be ruined for me.)

"Foolish" didn't leave my CD player for weeks and weeks. It's still my favorite CD of theirs, in fact one of my all-time favorites, and I highly, highly recommend it to any and all of you's.

Buuy /steal this

So, "Hyper Enough" is the leadoff song on the CD following "Foolish". It boils down what I love about the band into three minutes and change : great riffs, energy, melody and fun. I love that 12 second hammering intro that leads right into that ecstatic riff. The guy's voice may grate on some of you, as it's pretty high and nasal. It shouldn't work, but somehow it does. Random fact : this song leads of a mix CD that I made for Isaiah, as it's one of his favorites to "rock out" to, and just the title of the song fits that boy pretty well *end parent gushing*

They throw in a little bridge there at 1:55 for about 30 seconds, but it feels more obligatory than anything else. Then they come right back with that riff and steamroll through the remainder of the song. In fact, my favorite point is at 2:44 (3:00 in the video) when they just say "Fuck it" and rock the fucking fuck out of the song until the end. This song, as you can imagine, is kicks ass live, and is a great show opener too.

I must say, as with "Driveway to Driveway", I never saw the video for this until today. It's hilarious, though. Starting with the drummer getting pissy, it takes the band through therapy. Look for Laura to get the best scenes at 2:12 (the trust fall) and at 2:27. (And curiously, they unknowingly paved the way for Metallica's (unintentionally) hilarious therapy sessions years later)

Get the song:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lrcnux1czdm

Completely random addendum: Watch the hilarious "conceptual" video for "Watery Hands" starring Jeanine Garafalo and David Cross

"One More Time" / Daft Punk / Discovery

2008-07-02T10:46:00.003-04:00

Let it never be said that I don't enjoy a great dance tune every now and then. Daft Punk is a duo that specializes in club hits, and they take pride in their anonymous nature (much like Kraftwerk, another electronic based dance band from the 70's and Daft Punk's spiritual forefathers), always performing publicly in space helmets. Of course, they are French.

I think I first heard these guys watching MTV late one night and seeing the awesome, sad, heartwarming story of Dog Head Guy with Broken Leg in their video "Da Funk". Does he know he's got a dog head? Does anyone tell him? Does he care? It was all very intriguing to me.

Seriously. This video breaks my heart

Something strange happened along the way, and these guys got to be pretty popular. There was the Juliette Lewis Gap commercial they did:

And then Kanye tabs one of their songs as the backing track to his hit "Stronger"

They are a pretty unlikely American hit, if you ask me. Still the boys make a damn catchy song, don't they?

"One More Time" is a bit different, it all starts with those lush keyboards that give it a 70's feel right off the bat. The lyrics go a little something like this:

One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah.
Alright.
Don't stop the dancing.

Repeat for six minutes. I realize that lyrics are hardly the key to any good dance tune, in fact, any attempt to be serious or put a message in a dance song is sort of missing the point. But, and here's the key, they use robot voice for the singer. I'm fully convinced, and may examine this in more detail later, that robot voice increases the awesomeness of any song tenfold. Plus, the video is in anime, and you can't really beat that either.

My favorite part of this song is the "Breakdown" at 2:06. They slow the tempo down, and just riff over the keybords. It's taking the piss out of songs that do that, I believe, but it's fun anyway. I mean, they actually sing, "Music's got me feelin' so free". I honestly can't decide if singing lines like that is cooler if you really mean it, or if you're being cheeky.

Here's the song, 'cause I know you want it for your next house party:
http://www.mediafire.com/?koy9emguzpz

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" / Diana Ross / Hitsville USA

2008-06-23T14:38:00.004-04:00

You know, I really do like Motown. I think it's become a little bit cooler these days among musicophiles to say you were really into the Atlantic artists or maybe the Stax / Volt crew, but you have to give it up for Motown, too. I love how Berry Gordy built an autonomous, top to bottom, minority owned and operated juggernaut. Word was he was an asshole, but he had an ear for a pop tune and could sniff out talent from miles away.

I also have some nostalgic feelings whenever I hear a Motown record, which of course makes no sense because they were recorded while my parents were negotiating middle school. I guess when I hear those songs, I imagine how someone that age (baby boomers, I mean) must feel when they hear them. And much of that comes from the incredible Funk Brothers, the instrumentalists who are more or less responsible for that Motown sound. As I said earlier, I love the idea of taking ubertalented artists and plugging them into the songwriting / performance machine you've set up and reeling off hit after hit after hit. You can hear that same sound in every song, but adding a David Ruffin, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, or in this case, a Diana Ross over it just makes it unfair.

I did a little bit of digging on this song, and I found out an interesting fact - it was written by none other than Ashford & Simpson

Solid!

Of course, it was recorded originally by Marvin Gaye, then Diana Ross covered it in this version. I like this version better - it's slower, a bit more dramatic, and I love the intro, with the horn flares and the lovely melody. But you what's really cool about this version? The talking. Ross doesn't sing this song, save for the chorus - she speaks it. Why doesn't anyone do that any longer? In this case, it makes the song more intimate, and makes that awesome chorus more dramatic and effective by comparison. In fact, the structure of this song reminds me a lot of my favorite Supremes' song "Someday We'll Be Together". Listen to them one after the other and see what I mean.

The other secret weapon in this song and in the whole Motown arsenal is the bassist, James Jamerson. I know people make fun of the bass / tuba player always pimping the bass guy, but Jamerson is ridiculous. His lines are so clean on the Motown tracks, they pop right up out of the mix (no accident, I'm sure) and they are so rhythmic and innovative. Just try to imagine "I Want You Back" without him. Listen to this song and concentrate on the bass part. Just watch this white boy do it (he's doing the six minute version, too. And, no, that's not me)

Oh, and here's the song for you:
http://www.mediafire.com/?htyxtm1twpu

"This Hard Land" / Bruce Springsteen / Tracks

2008-06-15T21:55:00.003-04:00

Bruuuuce! The Boss! The American Bryan Adams!

Well, it's about bleedin' time. Fifty posts into this blog, and it's my first Springsteen post. I have a full 160 Springsteen songs on itunes, but for some reason the 'ol random button never seems to pick them (but it loves it some Black Sheep - go figure). Give it credit for picking a great song for his first, though. Well done, random!

I'm sitting here trying to pinpoint the beginnings of my Springsteen fandom, and it's hard to do. My first brush with him was, probably like most people my age, through the Born in the USA hype in the mid eighties. I really had no context for him then, as far as I knew at the time, he was the dude fighting it out for Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna for 80's pop supremacy. Of course I bought that tape, and of course I loved it, and yes, of course (like Ronald Reagan) I famously misread the subtle irony of the "Born in the USA" song.

I remember there being huge hype for the subsequent Live 75-85 record set, but that included alot of his classic tunes that I wasn't familiar with at the time (though I loved his cover of Edwin Starr's "War"). By the time Tunnel of Love came out, I just casually listened to the singles and moved on. Of course, how could a fifteen year old really grasp the subtle genius of a track like "Brilliant Disguise" or "One Step Up"? It's impossible).

I think I started paying attention again through Bizarro Wuxtry, of all places. In the late 90's, I ventured into that venerable Athens store and availed myself of the famous "records by the pound" offer. One I happened to buy was Darkness on the Edge of Town. When I took that bad boy home, placed the needle on the record and heard the first beats of "Badlands" blast out, I was thinking, "Holy shit. How did I never hear about this before? Why wasn't I told?!" And they kept coming off of that album - "Adam Raised a Cain", "Candy's Room", "Racing in the Street", "The Promised Land", "Prove it all Night", "Darkness on the Edge of Town"...are you kidding me?

Again, are you kidding me?

As soon as possible I went back and bought the other albums from the pile - The River...Greetings From Asbury Park...finally got into Tunnel of Love...and, lord Jesus, Nebraska. I was a convert. Then to seal the deal, my wife bought me Tracks, the four CD set of rarities and B Sides from which this song comes. It all lead up to seeing him play at Philips arena on the next Live CD tour, and that was that. Shoot, my wife and I's first dance at our wedding was to "Happy", another unreleased song from Tracks. Since then, I've gobbled up everything he's released, read tons of books on the dude, and am just as pleased and excited with last year's "Magic". Bruce Springsteen IS Rock & Roll, and screw all you haters.

"This Hard Land" was one that he wrote back in the mid eighties, and he's said that it's probably the best song that he's never released. It's hard to believe he didn't, as it would have been a sure-fire hit back then. Although, I see his point if he didn't want to include it on the Tunnel of Love album, as it's not really about the disillusion of a marriage or the artifice of love. Yikes.

He starts off with a Dylanesque harmonica riff, then goes almost acapella for the first verse, with only a stummed guitar for accompaniment. By the time he hits us with the melodic hook "They've just blown around / From town to town / Back onto these fields" at :32, he's given us two classic Springsteen moments - a "Sir" and a "Mister". Do you know how many "Sirs", "Misters" (or "Mary"s) he has sung to over his career? It's quite a bit.The rest of the song is just that straightforward - verse, chorus, repeat. For all intents and purposes, it ends at 3:43, but he rocks another fuckin' harmonica solo until the song fades out. It keeps going live, as you might imagine. I love the dissonance of this tight, upbeat song against the depressing subtext of the lyrics - the struggle of the main characters to maintain hope in the face of adversity. It's not unlike the "Born in the USA" phenomenon that I mentioned earlier that had all of America fooled.

One other thing I've liked about Springsteen's songs is that they are a steel pedal and twangy dilevery from being kick ass country songs. Those core themes in his songs of family, perseverence, nostalgia, dreams, drudgery, maturity, hope, friendship and loss are universal to all genres of music and to all Americans. That's why a suburban kid from a southern town can count a New Jesey / rustbelt singer as maybe his favorite artist. Ever.

Here's a live video for "This Hard Land", but I actually like the recorded song better...
http://www.mediafire.com/?mkgmmxud90d

"Break On Through" / The Doors / The Doors

2008-06-08T21:16:00.004-04:00

OK, I'm gonna admit to liking the Doors, and I know that they're one of those love / hate bands for a lot of folks. I guess I'd fall on the "love" side, although that's a pretty stong word to use for me with the Doors.

I know that Morrison is the epitome of the pretentious rock star, and Ray Manzerick is pretty much a douche, and normally I'd hate a band with those qualities, but dammit, Morrison was so earnest that I kind of can't help but admire him a little bit for his Lizard King / drunk poet / tribal chief schtick. (By the way, I mentioned Morrison in passing when discussing this curious tendancy of some lead singers to inexplicably reinvent themselves as Native American, made even stranger by the fact that fellow pseudo-Indian Ian Astbury of The Cult toured with the remainder of the Doors recently)

"Break On Through" is the first song on thier first album, but the first time I heard it was on that red double CD "Best of the Doors", which I think came pretty much standard issue in any white kid's music collection (along with probably Bob Marley's "Legend" and later, Pearl Jam's "Ten"). Back then in ninth grade, I only knew The Doors from a few radio hits, like "Light My Fire", "Touch Me" and "Riders on the Storm", although I remember MTV sometimes playing "Unknown Soldier" and "Wild Child" videos in the 80's for some odd reason.

Someone you knew had this

In this song I like the quiet beginning leading up to the loud chourus (that quiet verse / loud chorus dynamic would be populaized by many an alternative act in the 1990s too). My favorite part (and it's a really short song, so there's not much from which to choose) is the last verse where Morrison gets really rolling around the 2:00 mark ("day to day / week to week / hour to hour") - that's good right there, and he's really selling it. Say what you will about the guy, but he really had a hell of a great voice, and one of the greatest howls in rock & roll history (check about 1:50 in)

"Not the Same" / Ben Folds / Rockin' the Suburbs

2008-05-25T22:20:00.008-04:00

Well, here I am with a repeat performer, as I reviewed The Ben Folds Five's "Army" back a ways. I promised myself no repeats unless they are in the pantheon, the Mount Olympus of the B.Mo performers. Mr. Folds most definitely qualifies (although technically, this is a Ben Folds solo song whereas "Army" was with his old band...but I digress).

So, "Rockin' the Subrubs" came out in 2001 and rather than relegating Folds into obscurity, actually made his career skyrocket. It's not often you see an artist leave a successful (even semi-successful) outfit and become biggger, but it happens (Timberlake, Stefani, etc.)

Out of a stong, strong CD, this is actually my favorite tune. I have a pretty vivid memory of this song from a trip to Chicago with my buddy Stephen and Merk (another memory from the same trip was recounted earlier). At one point, Stephen was driving, Merk and Stephen's boy were sleeping in the back, and we were somewhere in the endless cornfields of rural Indiana.

So this CD was playing, and as Stephen and I are huge Ben Folds geeks, we were both digging it. When this particular song came on, we both started singing right along, then we talked about how it was both of our favorite. Then we looked into each other's eyes, leaned a little closer, and...

Nah, not really. But we did play the song two or three more times in a row, singing at the top of our lungs each time. And neither Merk nor the tot woke up. A little memory, but a very happy one.

What I really like about this song is the subject matter. It's pretty much about the big , life changing moments in your life that effectively change it forever. The first line - "You took a tip, and climbed a tree / at Robert Sledge's party / And there you stayed / 'Till morning came / And you were not the same after that" was, according to Folds, inspired by a true story in whcih one of his buddies dropped acid, stayed in a tree all night, then came down and was a born again Christian ("You gave your life / To Jesus Christ"). He always tells this story live (you can hear it on the "Ben Folds Live" CD) and gets a good chuckle out of it. Later on, though, there's a line that goes "'Till someone died / On the waterslide / And you were not the same after that" that hits pretty close to home for your humble author, as I myself had a life-changing moment invoving a death on the water (and I'm not sure what Folds is alluding to here, but hey, we all bring our own experiences into art, don't we?).

Musically, it's a pretty serious sounding tune, broken up by a bright, cheery chorus. I LOVE the deep opening notes on the bottom end of the piano after those three drum beats. That 8th note mostly stays at the bottom of the song through its entirety. There's a nice part right before every chorus (first time is at 1:10) when there is a two note "Ahhh-ahhh" vocal in the background, which Folds makes sure the audience sings in his live shows (check :45 into this clip). My favorite part, though, is near the middle of the song when that background vocal comes in during the verse, instead of before the chorus. It's very subtle, but just so, so cool. It's from about 2:15 to 2:25, and it coincides with the "waterslide" lyric from above. It's hard to describe unless you're listening as you read, but...chills. Every time I hear it. Chills.

Sorry to screw you on the video clip again, but every clip I found was a live version from a cell phone with people singing all around (not that I do that during his concerts, you see *whistles, looks around room*). Plus, the album version is so much better than any live one I've heard.
Click it!
http://www.mediafire.com/?wtoo1lwtywp

"Feel" / Big Star / #1 Record

2008-05-18T22:26:00.006-04:00

What a curious band Big Star was. Led by pop mastermind Alex Chilton (immortalized in The Replacements song of the same name)and named after the old grocery store chain (there was one in East Athens when I moved here long, long ago), they really were never popular during their inital run.

Somewhere along the way, however, they were rediscovered and enjoyed a completely out of the blue Renaissance in which they became to be regared as one of the godfathers of alternative music. It happened gradually in the late 80's and 90's, beginning with the aforementioned Replacements song. When Pavement first came out in 1991, they really played up their debt to Big Star. Then there was the pre-Nirvana alternative band Teenage Fanclub who titled one of their CDs "13" after a Big Star song. Shit, there was even a Bangles cover of one of their songs, too. This rebirth culminated in Big Star reforming and playing a pretty famous show at the University of Missouri (?) in 1993. You may also know Big Star as the original composers of the theme song to "That 70's Show".

My own exposure to them was gradual. Back in 1993 there was a great, great Athens band called Magnapop who I would catch live whenever I could. They put out a CD which included a cover of Big Star's "13", (which I didn't know at the time). Then, there was the Engine room influence. Many of you (er, both of you?) remember The Engine Room, one of the classic Athens bars of my college years. This was THE bar for me and my crew. I went there on opening night and spent many, many years after that drinking $3 PBR pitchers there and shooting pool with hot Asian design majors. Anyway, they played Big Star's "#1 Record" over and over. The awsome song "Way Out West" just ineascapibly got stuck in my head, so one night when it was being played again I finally asked the bartender who it was. Then it all made sense...oh, that's Big Star. I went out and bought this CD, and loved it.

This song is the first on the CD, and it has a nice, quiet picked guitar intro before exploding into the verse. The first time I heard Chilton's voice on this song, it sounded harsh, honestly, but then it settles down by time the lush chorus kicks in. I love the harmonizing "Ahhhhh"s in the background of the chorus, too. The best part, though, happens at 1:25. After the guitar solo, they suddenly go into this extended, revved up instrumental jam with horns blaring a whole new riff, a saxophone solo, and I swear to God I hear some harmonica in there. Then right at 1:50 it smacks right back into the chorus, and it's awesome.

It's kind of a cliche to say a band was ahead of it's time, but I really think that's the case here. "#1 Record" sounds like it could have been released in 2007 on Matador records, and I'll bet no one would think twice about it. Good stuff.

Sorry I couldn't find a clip of this song on YouTube, so you'll have to click the link to get the MP3. It's worth it, though. Instead, I leave you with my favorite tune on that CD, "The Ballad of El Gordo"

And here is the link for "Feel"
http://www.mediafire.com/?3zdjfztm4gx

"Cherub Rock" / Smashing Pumpkins / Siamese Dream

2008-05-11T21:31:00.003-04:00

OK, I'm not really sure why this song is on my itunes library. I don't really fancy the Pumpkins at all, and I consider them to be one of the most horribly overrated bands ever with one of the most egomanical, annoying singers ever. I must say I fall in with Steven Malkmus of Pavement, who once famously sang in "Range Life"? (3:39 in): Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins / Nature kids, they don't have no function / I don't understand just what they mean and I could really give a fuck."

All that aside though, I must admit I really like their song "Drown" ever since I heard it way back on the "Singles" soundtrack. I just can't do much more than that. Part of that is Corgan's voice (which probably sounds strange coming from a Geddy Lee fan), and part of it is the whining. Like in this song : "Let me out!" Oh boo-fucking hoo. You got famous and now you are disillusioned with fame. What a novel concept. Stop releasing CDs then! And whatever you do, don't give us more shit like Zwan. "Despite all my rage / I am still just a rat in a cage". Are you shitting me? That type of crap lyric belongs on the lit notebook of some tortured high school sophomore.

Having said all that, the first :39 seconds of this song absolutely rock. Maybe that's the whole reason this song is on here to begin with. The only other Pumpkins song on my playlist is "Christmastime" from "A Very Special Christmas", which isn't too bad. And I guess you could say the music he wrote, um, excuse me "produced" for Hole's Celebrity Skin CD was pretty good too. BUT OTHER THAN THAT...shut up, Billy Corgan.

"Shake Hands WIth Beef" / Primus / Brown Album

2008-05-04T22:06:00.010-04:00

"Shake Hands With Beef". Just think about that a minute. Les Claypool and the Primus boys got together to record a new song, found a little groove, banged out the track, then someone said, "Hey, what should we call this one?"
And someone else says, "Uh...Shake Hands With Beef?"

Of course, if you have any experience with Primus, you can expect this sort of thing. One of the more oblique, strange bands to benefit from the early 90's alternative boom, I came across Primus pretty randomly. During my first year of college, I believe, "Sailing the Seas of Cheese" was released. As I was an avid reader of both Rolling Stone (yeah, I know) and SPIN magazine (subscriber, even!) back then, the reviews of this band sounded pretty good. In print, they read like a mix of The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rush. So I picked up the CD and the first thing I hear is:

When the going gets tough and the stomach acids flow
The cold wind of conformity is nipping at your nose
When some trendy new atrocity has brought you to your knees
Come with us we'll sail the seas of cheese

I wasn't very pleased with the music.It was not at all what I expected; it was very odd to me. However, I gave it some time and it did start growing on me. Also, MTV picked up "Jerry Was a Racecar Driver" and it became a semi-hit. My buddy Marty (That's Dr. Murthy to you) and I became full on Primus fans, buying up the back catalogue and even going to see them live in Atlanta on tour (at which I bought a T shirt with the "Cheese" cover and the very words earlier in this post on the back.)
I guess the clincher for me being a Primus fan then was hearing Rush's YYZ intro before one of their songs on their live album.

Primus became a pretty popular band, as a matter of fact. I gave up on being a big follower after the next couple albums (though Marty kept at it, to his credit). It's not that I don't enjoy them, it's just that a whole Primus album at once...eh, it's a little much. The singles are great, though, and one evening I went and bought my favorites on itunes, this being one of them.

The main thing I enjoy about this particluar song is the groove. That nasty, funky, crazy groove that only could come form the mind of Les Claypool. Whatever you think of Primus, it's hard to deny the genius of this dude. He plays bass like it's never been done before, an innovator in every sense of the word. So, that's what gets me about this song - the slap-happy riff, and the utter ridiculousness of the title. What's it about? I'm hoping one of you might know.

"Sleep to Dream" / Fiona Apple / Tidal

2008-04-27T21:19:00.007-04:00

"Tidal" is a purchase made by my wife back when Fiona Apple burst onto the scene, I guess this was back in 1997 or so. This is one of three songs released off of her debut, the others being (my favorite) "Shadowboxer" and the MTV and radio hit "Criminal", which is one of the more disturbing videos that I've seen.

Because of this, and other odd incidents here and there (onstage crash & burns, an 88 word title for her second CD, crazy award acceptance speeches) she got the "batshit crazy' tag, whcih probably is not without some solid reasoning.

(My favorite part? When she starts really going off on her "This world is shit" part, some fans are still "Wooooo!"ing, but a little less as the speech goes on until finally there is confused,awkward applause at the end.)

So, yeah, she goes away for a while and returns with "Extaordinary Machine", which has a pretty interesting , Wilco-ish story about it. Her label refused to release it, but she refused to change it. Word got out and her fans raised hell about it on the internet, until finally there was enough pressure on the label to release it after all. And you know what? That's a pretty good album, I'm not gonna lie.

Bryan's favorite bath, white zin and scented candle album

Back to "Sleep to Dream". First of all, the English teacher in me appreciates the fact that she cribbed her title from Hamlet's immortal "To be or not to be" soliloquy. That speech is basically Hamlet wrestling with the question of suicide, the problem being, as he sees it, that though you "sleep" when you die, there's a chance of a "dream" (the afterlife). I don't think it's coincidental that she chose such a title, as this song has dark, angry, aggressive music and lyrics.

It all starts with an awesome drum part with some deep bass drum kicks. The instrumentation throughout the song is incredibly sparse, with just the drum parts and some orchestral flourishes thrown in (kind of a trademark of her and her producers). The girl has an incredible voice, though - it's tough, deep and sounds like it should be comingn from someone twice her age and size. The song seems to be a kiss off to a no good dude, and she seems to mean it too.

As I mentioned earlier, this is an interesting choice for your first song on your debut album. No doubt she was sending a message with this one. And the gist of the message? "I'm not to be fucked with, yo"

Embedding not allowed, so follow the link

"Rock And Roll All Night" / KISS / Greatest KISS

2008-04-19T20:53:00.005-04:00

Back to the metal again, eh itunes?

If you are my age (35ish), you probably had some kind of KISS encounter in your youth. Literally, a couple of my earliest memories involve KISS.

From the time I was a few months old until I was five, my family lived in the small towm of Barnesville, GA. My earliest years were spent in a little red brick house in this sleepy little town. Up the street there lived an older kid by three or four years named Rip (for real). Well. Rip was the coolest kid in the world in my eyes, because he was an only kid, had some awesome toys, and had a backyard pool. He also had all of the KISS albums, and this was back in their mid 70's heyday.

I can recall going to Rip's house and staring, just...staring at those KISS album covers in wonder. It was exciting, exotic and frightening all at once. Rip and I would play the albums and use his tennis rackets as guitars, and thus began my love of Rock & Roll. The gyp was he always got to be Gene Simmons, and I had to be Ace Frehley. Oddly, neither of us wanted to be Paul Stanley. I distinctly remember Rip playing our favorite, "Calling Dr. Love" and telling me, "Pretend I throw up on this girl and she faints" and then miming vomit. Good times, bro.

Flash to another memory during the same time...I'm sure I bugged my Mom about the KISS stuff leading her to buy me a KISS paint-by-numbers kit. I recall us laying on our floor and coloring in the band in all their black and white glory. God only knows what my Mom was thinking. Then, there was the breathless glory of seeing them in the classic "KISS meets the Phantom of the Park" on TV. How was I supposed to know how bad it was when I was five? It blew my mind back then. Completely.

Caution: 70's awesomeness ahead

I lost touch with KISS over the years, save for the occasional single. I rather randomly recall Caleb Elder and Alan Nimmons arguing during little league practice about how the chorus "went" on "Lick it Up", almost leading to blows. Then there was the time me and some buddies went downtown dressed as "Destroyer" era KISS in ties and all. Yeah, it's kind of played out now, but it was pretty cool in 1995. Oh, and this time I was Paul Stanley. Interesting...

Me, second from the right

Good for KISS for staying around, though. About ten years ago they put the makeup back on and really started to cash in. I guess it was about the time that our generation that first liked them in the 70's became adults with disposable income. I mean, do you really think any young kids these days get into KISS? It's hard to imagine. They are now known for being complete, shameless capatialist whores, but unapologetically, so I guess that's pretty cool.

"Rock And Roll All Nite" is, of course, their signature hit. It's hard to write about KISS' music, because they are more an idea than a band, if that makes any sense. This song, like the rest of their stuff, is pretty unremarkable when merely heard without seeing the accompanying spectacle. I'll give them this, though. This band absolutely deals in cliche, but doesn't give a shit. They have almost zero pretense about them, and when they say their fans are the best and they owe everything to them, I actually tend to believe what they say. My favorite part? Probably the opening drumbeat leading into those unmistakable three opening chords. It's amazing, though, how seeing the classic 70's footage will take me right back to being a kid again.

"Tie Your Mother Down (Live)" / Queen / Live at Wembly Stadium

2008-04-10T22:05:00.019-04:00

I really have some fond memories of Queen. The first album I ever bought with my own money was "Queen's Greatest Hits" back in 1980 when "Another One Bites the Dust" rocked my Skate-A-Round USA world. I knew nothing more about them but they became one of my favorites just from listening (and listening and listening) to that album alone.

Most likely purchased at Record Bar or Camelot Music

I remember loving "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", of course "We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions" (which got me fired up for many a swim meet or little league game, let me tell you). Shit, the whole campy cheese of "Flash" went right over my head; I thought it was flat out awesome. I even memorized the drum dolo on "Keep Yourself Alive" and could beat it out on pillows using screwdrivers or somesuch. I also distinctly liking "Under Pressure", but wondering who David Bowie was and why he was important enough to sing with Queen and have his name on the title. In all actuality, I cut my Rock teeth on these guys, and I'll always love them for it.

Here's another trivial memory: third grade in Mrs. Smith's class. I brought in the single of "Another One Bites the Dust" (obviously before I got the album) and played it on her record player before school started as we were allowed to do. Someone much cooler than me told the group that if you spun it backwards, Freddie Mercury was saying "It's fun to smoke marijuana". Of couse we tried it and determined...True! Even better, the B side of that single was a song called "Don't Try Suicide" (OK, Queen has never been known for subtlety, right?) with the chorus that went "Nobody gives a damn". We thought it was incredibly scandalous to turn up the "damn" part as loud as it would go and then run away. Eight year olds are cretins.

As the years went on, I lost touch with Queen, save for the occasional single. I do remember hearing "Innuendo" in 1991 and thinking, "Damn - that's old school right there. Good stuff". It wasn't until recently (maybe five years ago?) that I remedied my dearth of Queen CDs and bought the three CD "Greatest Hits" set (one huge reason was because it included George Michael's phenomenal rendition of "Somebody to Love" at the Freddie Mercury tribute after his death.

This particular song wasn't on it, but I got a jonesing for a live version of it after seeing Dave Grohl tear that shit up when Queen got inducted in the Rock & Roll hall of fame in 2001.

This song is all Brian May. It's all about that riff from the first five seconds of the song. Brain May is in my all-underrated musicains band along with Dave Lombardo on drums and Klaus Flouride from the Dead Kennedys on bass. His guitar sound is probably the most distinctive out of any of the big bands that I listen to. The great thing about hearing this song live is also the crowd interaction. British fans are celebrated for their particpation in stadium shows by singing, chanting, ydancing, etc., and Queen has songs absolutely tailor made for that kind of show. The might be the best arena / stadium band of all time. Anyone got a problem with that?

By the way, my favorite part of the song - in the breakdown at the end, Mercury gives a short "Give it to me!" right before the last huge chord and the motherfucking fireworks (3:24). Yes, Freddie. Give it to you indeed.

"The Battle of Evermore" / Led Zeppelin / IV

2008-04-03T21:15:00.009-04:00

Dang, I've gone this far without any Zeppelin? That's hard to believe.

So, when was your Zeppelin phase? I think any of us that are big music fans went through a period in which you believed that, truly, this might have been the greast band ever created and there wasn't much point in listening to anything else for a year or two.

For me, I suppose you could say my Zeppelin years were from 1987 - 1989, approximately my Sophomore through Senior years of high school (I'm willing to bet your Zeppelin years were in high school also). In many ways, they remain the epitome of what a Rock & Roll band should be; all the archetypes are represented within the band in some fashion, and unconsciously, that appeals to us (to go a little Jungian on you here): Robert Plant - the King, Jimmy Page - the Poet, John Bonham - the Soldier, and John Paul Jones - the Wise Man.

Back on point, though, I believe it was their 1987 performance at Live Aid that triggered the interest of me and my friends. The first band we all started loving was Van Halen, but when everyone was making a big deal about Zeppelin reforming for that show, we decided to investigate. My buddy Trey bought IV (on vinyl!), someone else got a tape of Zeppelin I, and it was all over. Not to mention, this was a time when 96 Rock absolutely RULED if you were a teenage white boy. I think they were contractually obligated to play something from Zeppelin hourly.

And there's the rub. Too much of a good thing became, well, too much of a good thing. Especially when that good thing isn't putting out any new music, and there are only eight albums worth of material to listen to. I received the first Led Zeppelin box set for Christmas in the early 90's, and that was about when I became burned out on them. For a pretty good while.

But now, as one might expect, I'm beginning to listen again with fresh ears. When I have the 'ol itunes or ipod on random and I'm hit with Zep tune when I'm not expecting it, it usually knocks me out. It's still good stuff, brilliant in some cases, and I often wish I could listen to them all over again for the first time.

Which leads us to this song. I'm glad this one popped up, as lately I'm ranking it as my favorite Zeppelin song. Back in the day, I was impatient with this song, because I knew "Stairway" was next (dude!). But now, I really dig it. It's very mellow, beginning with Page's picking on the mandolin in the intro, and the absense of a drum or bass part adds t othe stark nature of the song. The minor key it's in helps set the mood too. Plant's vocals are clear and articulate (the more I look back on them, the more I realize I don't understand much of what he's singing, actually).

One strange thing about this song is the alternate vocals after Plant's verses, which is a tactic they rarely employed. I'm not sure who's singing it, but it helps keep that eerie vibe up.I love the melody of the chorus, and I really love the "jam" at the end, for lack of a better term. If you'll notice, too, this song doesn't have many, if any, key changes. It starts in the one key and keeps chugging along, unchanging, almost as if it's a chant or dirge. It builds up the tension in the song that really never gets released!

Of course, the elephant in the room is the lyrics. Yes, they are post Lord of the Rings fantasy nonsense, but what can you do? It's not as embarrassing as their other LOR song, Ramble On, which I've never liked at all. Plus, the opening line, "The Queen of light took her bow, and then she turned to go", while corny, is one of my favoites of any song.

Want to geek out? I found a video of the song set to scenes of the battle of Minias Tirith from The Return of the King, on which the song is based. Break out the 20 sided die! Who's holdin'?

And I know you really wanted to see Heart rock the fuck out of this song. And I'm not even close to kidding.

"Cursed Female" / Porno for Pyros / Porno for Pyros

2008-03-26T20:49:00.008-04:00

One of my unofficial rules here at RTB is that I'm not going to post songs from artists I've previously covered (unless they are B. Mo pantheon artists). Of course, PfP skits close to that line, as they were Perry Farrell's post Jane's Addiction band.

I bought this CD upon its release back in 1992, and because I loved Jane's so, so much and was extremely upset with their demise, I somehow convinced myslef that this CD really was good. Not so much, though. I think it was a CD that I played for a few months, put back in its case and rarely took out again. I finally sold it to a used CD store, but I bought this song on itunes one day because it was far and away the best song on the CD. It still holds up pretty well, and to me it sounds the closest to a Jane's Addiction song as anything that was done after their breakup (that is, until thier short lived reunion.

Overall, I feel really let down by the guys from Jane's Addiction. Dave Navarro had that brief stint with the Chilli Peppers (and did some pretty cool, underrated songs with them) before becoming a complete media whore, marrying Carmen Electra and appearing on MTV reality shows and second-rate band competition shows. I had always thought Perry Farrell was at least above all that, until my brother ("Big D" in the comments) called me one night and told me to turn on ABC to watch their college football intro song. He had taken issue with a post I made chiding Hank Williams II for selling out, and wanted to rub in my face what one of my "boys" was up to now with his new best friends Kelly Rowland and Fitty Cent:

"Cash in now, baby"

Back to the song though - as I said, it's really close to a classic Jane's sound - Stephen Perkins (the JA drummer that was in this band too) begins with that patented tribal beat. Well, it actually begins with a harmonica(?!), which was, inexplicably, all over this CD. It sounds really ominous combined with that rumbling bass part too. The mood of the song recalls those dingy, grimy, underground-of-LA type JA songs like "Whores" and "Pigs in Zen"; it's completely, awesomely sleazy. When Farrell hits those high notes, like on my favorite part, "Two girls in two nights got caught in the back of the alleyway / Fresh as strawberries"(2:13), I could almost believe that this band could have made something of themselves. Alas, it wasn't to be. Maybe 'ol Perry is on the comeback trail, though, after recently seeing him in Jimmy Kimmel's "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck" (3:41 in). He's still a bit of a whore, but at least he still has a a since of humor!

Oh, yeah, the video is pretty badass, too.

"Slave to the Grind" / Skid Row / Slave to the Grind

2008-03-19T13:32:00.005-04:00

The itunes has been digging the metal here lately, and who am I to argue?

Although, I have to admit a bit of sheepishness at this selection. I bought Slave to the Grind when it came out in 1991, when metal (as I mentioned in the Slayer post) was at its commerical peak. If I recall correctly, this album debuted at number one and took everyone by surprise, as it was the first metal album to do so. Sebastian Bach was on the cover of Rolling Stone. Nirvana was still a topic you learned about in your high school world history class. Life was pretty good for metal.

I was happy to buy this CD back then based on the strength of Skid Row's eponymous debut in 1988. They really weren't all that terrible of a band, and like Def Leppard, I hesitate to include them in the "Hair Metal" genre, despite Bach having srguably the most beautiful mane ever before seen on stage.

Skid Row always seemed to have a little bit beter chops than your average hair metal group. I believe bassist Dave "Snake" Sabo wrote the songs (which could be one reason I liked them), and while obviously never reaching the credibility of your Metallica or Slayer, they were tougher and more metal than shit like Warrant, Winger or Firehouse. I mean, this song is a fraction of a time signature from speed metal, but it got heavy play on mainstram radio and MTV back in the day.

One thing about them I always found interesting as well was their lyrics. Sure, there were the chick songs ("I Remember You"), the tough dude songs ("Piece of Me", "Slave to the Grind") and the "let's bang some skank songs" ("Get the Fuck Out", "Sweet Little Sister"), but I appreciate them for at least trying to rise above that. Although, if anyone can explain "They swallow their daggers by turning thier tricks / They tore my intentions apart brick by brick / I'm sick of the jive, talk verbal insecticide" (the bridge in this song), have at it.

Spring Break!!!! Whooooo!!!

2008-03-13T19:33:00.004-04:00

Taking a break this week - be back next Tuesday or Wednesday.

In the meantime, there is a new CD I got last Friday that I have been listening to nonstop since and have been talking up to anyone I've seen lately.

The group is Band of Horses , and the CD is "Cease to Begin".

Here's a song called "Is There a Ghost"

And "No One's Going to Love You" (check out some textbook hipster concert head nodding going on here, too)

"Dissident Aggressor" / Slayer / South of Heaven

2008-03-05T21:11:00.006-05:00

MF'n Slayer, ya'll. Fantastic.

Let me go on record as saying that "South of Heaven" is easily one of the top five metal albums of all time. Ten tracks of soul crushing, leather studded, pseudo demonic speed metal.

I respect the hell out of Slayer. They have stayed the course through the years, never changing their approach or sound, even during the early ninties when metal was scoffed at and derided. One of my co-workers, a likewise unreformed metal fan, made me a copy of one of their most recent CDs and they still pack the same punch. They also have one of my top underrated musicians, drummer Dave Lombardo. Check out the insane double bass work :21 seconds in here on "Silent Scream" (off the same CD, by the way)

Insanity

I've had the good fortune to see Slayer in concert, too. Back in 1991, when metal was at its absolute commerical zenith, I went to see the Clash of the Titans tour at the old Omni. Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer laid waste to the arena, and it was full on wild. Each band took turns closing the show, and that night was Slayer's. Growing up a good Baptist boy, I have to say that the evil energy and demonic roar when the lights went down and Slayer began their show bathed in an eerie green light was frighteningly intoxicating. One of my all time favorite concernt moments came from that show - getting in an old fashioned circle pit with lots of scary, SCARY looking dudes during "Angel of Death".

Wow - learn something new every day. While looking for this song on YouTube, it seems that this is a cover of an old Judas Priest song. That makes sense now, as I always thought it sounded just a bit different from the normal Slayer fare. That's cool. Mainly, I'm thinking about my favorite part, and the part that from time to time pops up in my head during stressful or sticky moments - the "Stab!.....Fight!" refrain throughout the song. It also makes one of the lyrics immediately after, "I know what I am" MUCH more interesting when you know that it came from (at the time) closeted homosexual Rob Halford. Huh. Other than that part, it's pretty much a dirgelike, slow burn of a song. I have many more favorites by Slayer ("Ghosts of War", off of this same CD, is actually my favorite), but that chorus always gets me. Check out the guitar solo too. I alwys find Slayer's guitar solos funny. You could take the solo from every song and switch it with another, and I don't think anyone would notice. Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman's strengths are definitely to be found in the riffs - not the solos (but don't tell them I said that).

Here's a quick listening version (complete with requisite demonic imagery). Hotlink after will get you the song.

http://www.mediafire.com/?beg4nenymjm

"Eggman" / Beastie Boys / Paul's Boutique

2008-02-26T21:05:00.012-05:00

Has there ever been a bigger creative leap between a debut and follow up album than what the Beasties pulled off in 1989?

It's unbelieveable that these dudes were the same group that put out "Fight for Your Right" and "Girls" on "Licensed to Ill" (although you could hear hints of something a little bit better in "Hold it Now"

We call this foreshadowing in the English biz

One thing that always bugged me, though, was that as soon as the Beasties started to get some true cred with this CD and more mainstream popularity with "Check Your Head" ("Paul's Boutique" tanked upon release, but became well respected later. We call that the "Pinkerton" effect, for what it's worth), they wanted to distance themseves from their fratty, party boy past, dismissing it and calling it an obvious joke, which apparently no one was in on except them.

Come on, guys. No one with any sense was buying that. Just because you're all Buddhist and shit now doesn't mean you were a bratty little Brooklyn kid once. The Dali Llama won't think any worse of you. Embrace it!

Anyway, back to "Paul's Boutique" and "Eggman"...I'll admit that I didn't get where they were going at first. I remember seeing the video for "Hey Ladies" and thinking, "Now hold on..."

Not that I didn't like it, because I did (and they were on the 70's retro tip way back before everyone else was , to their credit), but it did take some getting used to. And with this CD, it's so dense with samples and great production that you always are getting something new from it.

For example, "Eggman" starts with a Curtis Mayfield sample. Now, I'm not gonna lie and say I knew who he was back when I was 17, but this is what I mean by appreciating this CD more over time. The structure of this song (like many of their songs)is a traditional verse / chorus / verse, which I suspect had a lot to do with thier success among white audiences who unconsciously find that pleasing. The chorus would be the parts with the siren sound in the background with one of the Boys talking over it. (By the way, if anyone has a clue as to the lyrics or meaning of this song, please feel free to fill us in).

One part I love is the last time they sart the verse at 1:55 : "We - all - dressed in black". Something about how they are all rapping the same part pretty emphatically is cool (check it out in the live version below). They still have that same Beasties meter, though. It's in almost every damn song (One says a line and they all hit the last word / Over and over it gets quite ab-surd).

I also like the couple of Public Enemy shout outs (and given that this CD was in the late 80s, the golden years of rap, it would make sense) the "Boyeeee" at :50, a Flava Flav trademark and a clip from PE's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" at 1:34 ("Now they got me in a cell"). It would take more room than I've already used to unearth all the other great samples in, so I'll just finish by saying that I like thier ending - the "Jaws"attack music. Go figure. Scary Eggman!

http://www.mediafire.com/?zhbgztuyl2n