Since I had so much fun igniting the fires of controversy with my Beatles list, I thought I’d try out the Stones. Artwork by Mr. Nate Fowler.

01. Jumping Jack Flash

02. Monkey Man

03. Tumbling Dice

04. Wild Horses

05. Torn And Frayed

06. Gimme Shelter

07. Happy

08. No Expectations

09. Honky Tonk Women

10. Live With Me

11. Sway

12. Memory Motel

13. 2000 Light Years From Home

14. Almost Hear You Sigh

15. 19th Nervous Breakdown

16. Little T & A

17. Soul Survivor

18. Respectable

19. All Down the Line

20. Slave

21. Before They Make Me Run

22. Dear Doctor

23. Mixed Emotions

24. Ruby Tuesday

25. The Spider And the Fly

26. Baby Break It Down

27. Slipping Away

28. Thru And Thru

29. Stray Cat Blues

30. Connection

31. Lowdown

32. Dandelion

33. Brown Sugar

34. Can’t you Hear Me Knocking

35. Let It Bleed

36. Jigsaw Puzzle

37. My Obsession

38. Lady Jane

39. Play With Fire

40. Let’s Spend the Night Together

41. I’m Free

42. Citadel

43. Loving Cup

44. Moonlight Mile

45. Casino Boogie

46. Dance Little Sister

47. Saint Of Me

48. Rough Justice

49. Heaven

50. Shattered

And just for fun, their best covers:

01. Love In Vain [Robert Johnson]

02. Carol [Chuck Berry]

03. I’m A King Bee [Slim Harpo]

04. Little Red Rooster [Howlin’ Wolf]

05. Down the Road Apiece [Will Bradley Orchestra, though the Stones probably nicked the Chuck Berry cover]

06. Mercy Mercy [Don Covay]

07. Route 66 [Nat ‘King’ Cole]

08. Prodigal Son [Robert Wilkins]

09. Cherry Oh Baby [Eric Donaldson]

10. Hitch Hike [Marvin Gaye]

Generations & Moving On

I found out today that my great grandparents' [my mother's mother's mother and father] house will be put up for auction sometime next week. My mother's cousin who owned the place moved out and it's apparently become bank property.

I really can't remember the last time I was in the house. I know I was never in it when Bernie's family lived in it and they raised a mess of kids there and sent them out into the world, so we're talking a generation... twenty years? Twenty five? I barely remember my great grandfather, Joe Vorderbreuggen. He died when I was 9 or ten. But grandma lived for another 10 years or so, so I can recall her a little better. She always was thin. She had a throaty chuckle when she laughed, which grandma seems to share. I used to love to run up the hill early in the day and say hello to her. Sometimes she's be watching the television, but the best times were just sitting on the porch glider with her.

The house seemed to be huge. Two stories straight up. I don't remember the layout of the upstairs. The only times I was up there was to rush up the main stairs run across the the back of the house and rush down a hidden back stair and pop out into the kitchen. I don't ever remember being in the master bedroom. Most of the time we were in the little living room, in a kitchen with a one tub sink and an ancient gas stove.

But now it will be somebody else's house. Which I guess it was when Bernie and Nellie moved in. But this time it probably won't be family. I found out today that that wasn't built by Grandpap. it was on the land when he bought it, so it was somone's before them and now it will be someone's again. The house IS 110 years old, which speaks to the permanence of the structure. It certainly outlived the barns and the chicken coops which used to be there. Of course one can only hazard a guess at what one would find between the walls and how much upgrading will need to be done by a new buyer... as I said, I have no idea how much upgrading was done on the 80s when it was last empty.

It just brings a certain sadness to those of us who knew it as 'Grandma Vorderbreuggen's house.' Which is nostalgia. A piece of our childhood that we can no longer visit, one chapter closing and all of that. But we have all moved before. I can remember living in 7 houses or apartments while growing up. Some are dim, hazy memories like a dream that fades as you wake up. Some are more etched in the mind, places you played and people you knew. My mother has been in her house since 1980. Before they bought that land, the house didn't exist. Now it does. Mom threatens to sell it every so often and move into an RV so she can just take off when she wants to. I doubt her, but she may have a surprise left in her. Someday - hopefully not soon, but someday it will be empty and it will be sold. And someone may gut it and just start with a shell and rebuild or they may just knock the whole thing down and build the McMansion of their dreams. Hell maybe one of my nieces will inherit it and raise their family there. In thirty years [and counting] I have memories there, sure. Do I want to live there? Not really. It's still too far out of the action for my taste and I have no use for the land or the barn.

But back to my original thought: Do I think about the places I used to live and the people that are living there now? no. Do I wonder if they painted the house a different color or how the trees that were there are now? No. But is it weird to think that someday, someone who is not one of the family could be living in the house that my grandfather built from the ground up? Most definitely! It seems harder to bear that thought than someone living in the house I spent my teenage years... ahem and a GOOD PORTION of my twenties. I think part of it is that it's "Grandma and Grandpap's House." Those carefree summer days of youth spent there. [Youth? I sleep better in that house than anywhere on Earth. My next to last visit I spent half horizontal on a couch or bed, I think.] The smell of dinner cooking or reaching in the cookie jar or the early evening "dish" of ice cream - sometimes with a little Hershey's syrup, sometimes a little float with 7 Up or Sprite! Grandpap holding court in the living room watching his shows - Hee Haw or Gunsmoke always seemed to be on. Catching fireflies or games of freeze tag or croquet with the cousins. [No horseshoes for me after I saw what they did to Milo.] Walking into a room and kissing Grandpap on his beautiful bald dome. Lazing in the hammock or on the swing. All the memories there. Someday - again, hopefully not soon but someday] someone else' family may live in that house and their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids will make memories there like we have. And one day, maybe a couple of generations down the road, the cycle will move on for them also.

I guess my point is this: This is part of life. I don't like it, but it is. People move on, either physically they move away or they pass away and all we are left with is structures and memories. When our parents are gone, their memories will be gone, but things will remain. When we are gone out memories will be gone, but we will live in the memories of those who knew us until a few generations down the road we are nothing but a picture in a family album or a line on a genealogy tree and a head stone in a cemetery. I guess this is the hard part. We have funerals to say goodbye to our loved ones and be comforted by our friends and families. But I guess some things we have to face alone with our own thoughts.

So long, baby and amen.

Rock And Roll, Part 2 [OR "Radio Gaga"]

I was thinking again today about this Almost Famous and "Whatever happened to my Rock & Roll?" [a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club tune, by the way....] conenction and another thought struck me. [Ow!] Specifically I was thinking about Sapphire's speech where she's talking about 'falling in love with some silly little song...' and how I used to hear all this great music. "Invisible airways crackle with life / bright antennae bristle with the energy / Emotional feedback on timeless wavelengths / Bearing a gift beyond price almost free..."

Then I though about Marty's son - the 15 year old drummer dude - [and maybe some of your kids] don't know about radio. They don't know how we used to live to get to a radio after school. "Busted out of class / Had to get away from those fools / We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school..." They don't know of a time when you couldn't log onto a computer and download a song.They don't know about DJs and waiting [AND waiting ... AND waiting] for the DJ to play your request... if they ever really did.

Marty, a real go getter and at one time a music business management major [in a class with Trisha Yearwood at Belmont, right?] used to call and talk to all the DJs and program managers. ["Why do you play this? Why don't you play that?"] What do today's kids know about program managers? Anyone else remember on WKRP when the 'consultant' came in and said his 'service' could program the music [i.e. make up the play-list] better than Andy? Well that's what radio became. It's all programmed from one coast or the other and it's all the same all up and down the dial, unless you hit a college station or a real independant like KXT here in DFW. There's no such thing as a regional hit anymore. You can't have Tommy James' Hanky Panky suddenly break out in Pittsburgh and then begin making national waves. You can't have Celeveland or Detroit breaking a band like Rush or Meat Loaf or the J. Geils Band. It's all down to one guy giving the thumbs up or thumbs down for the whole nation!

I don't know how it was where you grew up. I grew up partially in the north when AM radio was king. AM radio then was a lot of top 40. My parents are fairly young so I was also exposed to some stuff via the miracle of the 8 track, and I still have a fondness for a lot of those bands - Steve Miller, Elton John's Madman Across the Water, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Creedence Clearwater's Pendulum, the Ohio Players' Honey... When I moved to Texas, I found FM and AOR [Album Oriented Rock if you don't recall or never knew]. Yeah, some hits like Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, ELO, Jackson Browne, the Eagles - but also some stuff a little more out there... Billy Thorpe's Children Of the Sun, Zebra's Who's Behind the Door, the Kings' The Beat Goes On / Switching To Glide, the long version of Slow Ride and of course those deep cuts of Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Who and lots of ZZ Top in Texas. Plus you could get things that seemed to be regional, like Joe 'King' Carasco's Party Weekend.

In DFW there were three stations that were the rock and roll champions - KEGL [The Eagle or Eagle 97 - originally they were Z97 and a little more AOR, but they went a little more pop in the early 80s and kind of fell off my radar], 98 KZEW - The Zoo and Q102. The Zoo and Q102 had a long running battle for supremacy. Q102 had the wild men of the morning, BNo Robert and 'Long' Jim White [still on the air here, now at 92.5 KZPS, still slinging tyhe same old songs on 'classic rock radio. Good God, how many times can you play .38 Special before you just want to shoot yourself?], while the Zoo threw up the smarmy, wise guy, Steely Dan of the radio LaBella and Rody. John Dillon on mid morning on the Zoo - I'd listen while grading papers as a TA my senior year. Sally Diamond on 102? Tempie Lindsey on the Zoo afternoon drive, Redbeard [who got great guests - he got Joe Walsh to cover for him one week while he was on vacation] on Q102. Evening on the Zoo was Chas Mixon...I'm blanking on the Q person - not bad for 25 to 30 years ago. You can see what an impact radio had on me!

But that was what I had - of course I had some records and a tape deck in my car, but radio was still good enough where you could cruise and listen to the radio. Now I get in the car, spin around 12 FM stations twice in three minutes and push a CD in. Partially this is because I have become my parents: I've heard that so many times if I hear it once more I'm gonna throw up. I never thought I'd get sick of some songs, but now I have songs I will willingly give up days at the end of muy life not to hear again. Dream On by Aerosmith? Three days. Kashmir by Led Zeppelin? Maybe two. Wonderful Tonight, Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton and Layla [Derek And the Dominos] - take a week. Candle In the Wind by Elton John - two days. When the Zoo was flipped in the winter of 88, the war was over. The Zoo had been trying some other stuff - incorporating newer music both from the college end like R.E.M., Kate Bush and XTC and some of the 'Metal' like Dokken, Poison, Tesla, etc. I guess it didn't work. Or maybe Belo was tired of them. After that it seemed like there was nuthin' good on the radio, no matter what station you were tuning to. And that's when I became a tape junkie.

But what saddens me with the loss of radio, is the loss of the magic moments that sometimes happen. The first time something new comes blasting out of those speakers - the first time you hear the Black Crowes' Jealous Again or U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday or the Foo Fighters' Monkey Wrench or Pearl Jam's Evenflow and you go "What was THAT?!?" Or maybe you hear a song you've heard before, but this time it clicks and you go "Oh. OH! Now I get it." Or the DJ pulls some moldy oldie that you haven't heard in ages - or maybe you never heard and it sends you scurrying to the record store [or I guess iTunes now]: Dylan's Shelter From the Storm, Springsteen's The River, the Who doing Summertime Blues, Aerosmith's Rats In the Cellar, Neil Young's Powderfinger, Joe Walsh's County Fair.. or almost anything by the Kinks or Johnny Winter or Frank Zappa or PiL or X or Roxy Music... Where will kids find out about such things? It's what Michael Leone did for me and I try to pass it on. I guess people who make connection with the music will always find someone to say "You should check this out." At least I hope so.

I Miss My Rock & Roll

"These people want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of rock stars and they will strangle everything you love about it. They're trying to buy respectability for a form that is gloriously and righteously dumb. And the day it ceases to be dumb is the day it ceases to be real. Then it just becomes an industry of 'cool.'"
- Lester Bangs to William Miller, Almost Famous

Whether the real Lester Bangs uttered these words or words to this effect to a very young Cameron Crowe somewhere about 1973 will never be known except to the two persons involved in the conversation. Or is this Crowe's view from a standpoint almost two decades later as he wrote Almost Famous? Or some combination of both? Having the 20/20 hindsight and a review of the history of music from roughly the start of the rock and roll era, the words strike me harder this time I view the film [on Turner Classic Movies!]

Having read some Lester, the words are in line with Lester's thinking. And he was right - 'They" won. When the suits got the numbers from albums like Frampton Comes Alive, Rumours, Hotel California and [shudder] Saturday Night Fever, the war they had been fighting to have that blockbuster album that everyone "had" to have was won. And it did become and industry of 'cool,' heavy emphasis on 'industry.' There's a reason the record companies were taken over by big multinational conglomerates like Sony and Phillips in the 1980s. There was money to be made. And eventually, this is what killed the 'record company' or the 'music industry.' Being tied to an old business model, it wasn't able to adjust to the new technology once the CD was no longer the prime medium of delivery of the product [music]. Except to hard core idiots like me who still like holding the plastic and reading liner notes. But even I am slowly succumbing to the lure of the download, having hit up the Rhino and Merge websites for a few digital music purchases this year. [If Sony /Legacy would set this up instead of trying to make me go through Amazon, it would be a great day for music!]

I look back at the 1980s now... yes there was a lot of dumb resurfacing - some on purpose [The Replacements], some accidentally dumb [Poison] - and a lot of pushing 'cool.' At Sound Warehouse, we had a monthly music sampler the corporate pushed on us to make sure it played every two hours or whatever. Basically, someone had an album they were pushing and paid some dollars to get 'guaranteed airplay.' [Now you can't do that on radio - that's 'payola' and highly frowned upon, but to push it in the store? *sigh* This was the 80s and I guess greed was still good.]

I have been working on a maddening and enlightening set of projects - for myself really - making car CDs of two of the three major eras of my music listening. One is called 8 Track Flashback, covering an era from the late 60s to about 1980. The other is called Walkman Favorites, covering from about 1978 to about 1995, when cassette was my primary source of music playback - mostly in my vehicle. And I wonder as I wander though, looking for the tunes: Why that album? Why Then? Why was the world ready for [insert album] at this time and not before? And why not [insert more obscure band and/or album]? Why Frampton Comes Alive? Why was Springsteen / Born In the USA so huge in 1984-85, but when the follow up came out [Tunnel Of Love] it sank? Why did Billy Joel connect with so many people? Yeah, Billy made some good albums between 1977 and... say 1984, [and he made 52nd Street, which had its hit singles, but otherwise - bleh.] but why? Why do most casual music fans only know about one or two Thin Lizzy songs, but a whole wealth of the Zeppelin catalog? Why did Metallica explode into what they are while Megadeth or Anthrax are 'also rans?' Why R.E.M and not the Long Ryders or Lone Justice? Why are Pete Townshend and Andy Partridge so smart and Paul Westerberg the 'brain damaged cousin'?

Which is not to say I haven't enjoyed hearing some older stuff I haven't visited in a while. But side 2 of Billy Idol's Whiplash Smile? Uh... no. And I was so excited when that came out, too. Why do I still like side 2 of Billy Joel's Glass Houses so much? Or the Cars Panorama? How come me and Marty [and now Marty's 14 year old son] seem to be the only people who love the Black Crowes Amorica?

To Be Continued [or not]....

"I used to get a little speed, you know - a little cough syrup. And I'd just sit and write for hours. 20 pages of nothing but dribble on Coltrane or the Faces. Just to fuckin' write."
-Lester to William again, Almost Famous

In honor of the publication of Rolling Stone's Top 100 Beatles Songs, I have put together my own little list for your approval [or not], in as close to an order as I can muster. Now RS included cover tunes in the catalog, I have opted not to. I have also not opted to go to 100. I'll stick to 33. This leaves a lot of really good stuff off, but I think this is a good 'Desert Island Beatles' list. And so: 1. A Day In the Life 2. Strawberry Fields Forever 3. Hey Jude 4. Tomorrow Never Knows 5. Dear Prudence 6. Help! 7. Day Tripper 8. Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds 9. Here Comes the Sun 10. Penny Lane 11. Paperback Writer 12. She Loves You 13. I Am the Walrus 14. For No One 15. Helter Skelter 16. Ticket To Ride 17. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away 18. If I Needed Someone 19. Oh! Darling 20. Let It Be 21. Dr. Robert 22. Lady Madonna 23. Nowhere Man 24. I Feel Fine 25. When I Get Home 26. What Goes On 27. In My Life 28. Mother Nature's Son 29. You Can't Do That 30. This Boy [Ringo's Theme] 31. You Won't See Me 32. I'm A Loser 33. Julia

The Curmudgeon I Have Become

It's September 12th [well 13th now - and good morning to you!] and the start of the football season. And while I consider myself a fringe fan - really a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers more than "Football" or the NFL. But a week in - two if you count college football, and you might as well - I am all ready worn out by it all.

First, I live in a major sports market that has none of my favorite teams in any sport. The Dallas [Arlington? North Texas?] Cowboys? No, thanks. But from the day training camp starts until their exit from the season, whenever it is I am awash in the media hype about them. Not just the sports stations but the tie-ins to supermarkets and all the news broadcasts. The only thing that wears me out more is the American Idol minute on the local Fox station. American Idol has NO FUCKING PLACE on the news. *sigh*

I can take or leave baseball. When I was a kid I was a Pirates fan but 18 or 19 losing seasons leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I watch some, a couple innings here or there but never the Yankees or the Red Sox. God I hate them both.

In hockey, I like the Pittsburgh Penguins. I stuck through some terrible seasons between Mario and Sid the Kid, so I am glad to see them return to respectabilty. But I find the Dallas Stars 'fan' is as fair weather as the Dallas Cowboys fan. It only took one short, loud-mouthed fan to turn me off of them. Thought I respect them. I liked Sergei Zubov, Mike Modano, Daryl Sydor...

I don't follow basketball at all, so who cares. I hate that the NBA playoffs take over T.V. when the NHL playoffs are so much more exciting.

Anyway, it's two weeks into the season and I'm all ready tired of football. Because there has to be a game on every night now. College football on Monday - Labor Day at that! Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday - just TRY and get away from it! But if there's not a game [or replay of a game] on, there's the NFL show ot The Cowboys Press Conference Show or The Analysis Of the Week Past Show or the Predictions For the Next Week Show or The Injury Show ["Well Doc, thanks for that update on the cause and treatment of Turf Toe! Coming up next: 'The difference between a groin strain and a quad strain!"]

And as I say every year, Chris Berman... is there any worse whipping than his "WHOOOOP!" or "HE -- COULD -- GO -- ALL -- THE --WAY!"?

As if it wasn't bad enough with college and pro games, ESPN is now showing high school games. HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL ON NATIONAL TELEVISION?!?!? Give me a break. What the hell are we teaching kids with this? I see this and I am reminded of the great line from North Dallas Forty: "Every time I start thinking this is a game, you tell me it's a business; every time I start thinking it's a business, you tell me it's a game! It's driving me crazy!"

I can't watch the games right now. I can't take the Chinese Water Torture of the pace of the game, especially the last two minutes of a half. [Which is PART of the reason I can't watch basketball, but I just find basketball BORING. Dribble, dribble pass, pass, shoot, basket. Ho hum!] I can't take six replays of the play I just saw while they huddle and call the next play. I certainly can't take all the talking. Yap yap yap! "That grass sure is green today, isn't it Fred?" "It sure is really green grass, Tom. I once played on some greener grass in Cincinnati in 1997, though..." Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

So good viewing, football fans. I'll be watching NCIS and The Big Bang Theory and waiting for the NHL to start up again.

Rock And Roll Nights

In a sweaty bar
In a formerly grand theater
At the local grass bowl or civic arena
The band kicks it off
The band kicks it off

We rise to our feet
Greeting the wall of sound with a roar of approval
A wall of guitars! Guitars!! Guitars!
And the band revs it up
The band revs it up

Tales of the outsiders
Tales of the cutters
The lost souls and junkies
And the power of music
The crowd cheers each one
And sings the sing along songs
I don't know the man
Or Craig Finn's big plan
But on a warm July night
I'm in for the ride

The band blows the roof off
We're back on the streets
Ears ringing loudly
The crowd all abuzz
Comparing to others and seeking the next beer
The communal ritual is over for now
Encore! Encore!

Revisiting the Music Library

I was remaking my Stones CDs for the car last week since I gave away my last set to a nice young man who had 'never heard a whole lot of the Stones.' Well, I fixed that for him. [Just as I fixed young Nate Fowler's lack of Beatles. I don't understand how someone can call himself a musician - a ROCK musician - and NOT like the Beatles. Well, at least he found a song to like - John's I'm Only Sleeping. My gateway to the Beatles was Hey Jude... when I was 12!] And since I couldn't use the stored projects on my external - new computer, drive letters changed, DON'T ASK- I wound up doing them again from scratch. Which is kind of fun because you really have to go through the catalog again to fill out 4 CDs [27 albums on my drive - almost 50 years for the Stones! And their last, A Bigger Bang really isn't bad. For comparison, I did 3 Beatles CDs for the car off 15 CDs. But I love the Beatles that much!]

When I got to disc 4, I noticed I had a lot of tracks from Exile On Main Street. And they kept off some of the stronger tracks from the late 70s albums [Black & Blue, Some Girls, Emotional Rescue]. Now a lot of critics and 'people who know' things will tell you that Exile the Stones best, but I have never agreed. It's very very good in spots, but the Stones loose energy about three quarters of the way through it - just where the album needs an energy boost. But, since I hadn't listened to the album in its entirety in a long, long time, I loaded it into the MP3 player this weekend.

The first two sides [or tracks 1 - 9 on you CD] contain some of the Stones best music. Add track 10, Keith's Happy, which used to kick off side 3 of the vinyl and it's a brilliant album on its own. Rocks, Off, Rip This Joint, Casino Boogie, Tumbling Dice [!!], Torn and Frayed - just absolutely classic Rolling Stones. Sweet Virginia is okay, Sweet Black Angel, less so, could probably have been cut. But after Happy, you get Turd On the Run - interesting as an upbeat blues, good harp work from Jagger, but ultimately mediocre [and with a rare songwriting credit for Mick Taylor]. Ventilator Blues is okay - much like filler that would pop up on Emotional Rescue or Black and Blue - maybe better than Hey Negrita from the latter. I Just Want To See His Face is just awful. Let It Loose is a track I like, but I could see it being cut. The album closes again with a blast of classic Stones again - All Down the Line, Stop Breaking Down, Shine A Light and Soul Survivor.

I have to say the experience of having the album up close in my earbuds hasn't changed my opinion of the album as a whole. I appreciate the difference between Keith Richards and Mick Taylor a whole lot - Taylor plays the really pretty parts in the left ear while sometimes Keith is muddy in the right ear but really locking everything down with little licks. Check out the difference on Rocks Off. Both play really excellent slide but in different styles. Also in the earbuds, background vocals become clearer. Still, this needed to be a three sided album, like Johnny Winter's Second Winter, or trimmed to one really strong single album. Lord knows Goat's Head Soup would have been improved with a few of these songs.

On a separate note, as part of my ongoing conversion of my vinyl to MP3, I had a chance to review Billy Idol. Rebel Yell is an extremely good record,. but it was the follow up, Whiplash Smile, that really scrunched up my nose. And I know why, now. All the good stuff is on side one! Side one - World's Forgotten Boy, To Be A Lover, Soul Standing By, Sweet Sixteen [merely okay] and Man For All Seasons - all good strong rock and roll stuff. But side two? Maybe worst complete side ever. All the songs have ten or fifteen second fade outs and there's not a real drum on the whole side as far as I can tell. There seems to be no emotion to it at all. I probably played it like twice when I first got the album and never played it again. Did Idol know he only had to grab you with the first side? Who knows?

NHL Notes

As we enter the last week of the regular season, my Pens sit in 2nd in the east and atop the Atlantic Division. Which is great because it means we'll get some team struggling to enter the playoffs like the Rangers or Boston. I'd hate to see Montreal because their goaltender is getting hot. Speaking of goaltending, I think it's biting the Philadelphia Flyers at exactly the wrong time. You cannot go 2 - 6 - 2 down the stretch like this. I don't think they're going to make the playoffs. Which should be fine because Ovechkin and the Caps would have destroyed them in the first round anyway.

In the west, Marty's Nashville Predators are solid in 5th place and unlikely to get passed. Unfortunately, that's going to put them up against the Cinderella Story of the owner-less Phoenix Coyotes, who haven't made the playoffs in a decade! I told all of you Dallas Stars fans that Dave Tippett wasn't the problem and did not deserve to be fired! But because you did, he's taken these nobodies - well, Shane Doan. Ilya Bryzgalov, Ed Jovanovski and a bunch of nobodies - all the way to 4th in the conference. he even had them as high as second and leading the Pacific division when San Jose went into their tailspin coming out of the Olympic break. How's Dallas doing? Oh yeah - 12th in the conference and missing the playoffs - AGAIN! They need to rebuild anyway. They have no puck moving defenseman since Sergei Zubov went back to Russia. The top five in the west remain strong - teams that no one wants to face - but Detroit remains a dark horse at number six. They've been riding rookie goalie Jimmy Howard [25 games in a row - and apparently for good reason because Chris Osgood is losing to the Flyers in the third right now] and they are the best team since the break.

Pirate Radio

All right, well I guess I'll see any movie about rock and roll with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in it [and probably Jack Black now that you mention it because I sat through School of Rock on DVD], because this was cheesy. But it was cheesy in an okay way. If you ignore plot and story and all and just concentrate on the soundtrack.

But somehow, it touched a nerve. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here at 245 am and listening to Dusty Springfield - yeah, I said it, Dusty In Memphis after hearing a song on the soundtrack. I must have had a stroke or something because I was singing the Rascals' Groovin' during a bathroom break. That's totally not my speed.

Anyway, it just reminded me of the days when radio ruled. I came up at the end of the golden age of AM - yes, children, my nieces and cousins children, they used to play MUSIC on AM radio way back in the 70s, when your parents were in elementary school. Top 40 am radio, catching Casey Kasem's American Top 40 every week. Times when you could hear Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind and Fire right alongside Hall & Oates and E.L.O. and the Eagles and the Steve Miller Band.

I found FM radio with it's more rigid formats when we moved to Texas in 1977. If AM was a great melting pot, you didn't hear Led Zeppelin, Zebra - remember Who's Behind the Door? - Foghat, Cheap Trick or Pink Floyd on AM radio. They didn't have hits. And I don't remember AM radio personalities - jingles maybe, but not personnel - but I remember a lot of the old KZEW and Q102 crew. Because you listened to the radio when you got ready for school, on the bus if someone brought a radio, when you did [or, in my case, did NOT do] your homework and you listened right up until it was lights out time. The you got up the next day and did it again.

Sure, about my junior year we started getting the Walkman and everyone had a cassette player in the car to blast their Zeppelin / Van Halen / Sammy Hagar / Rush / Judas Priest /etc. But we still spent a lot of time listening to the radio.

I'll still never forget the day the music died for me. It was Christmas of 1989 and I was working the overnight shift at Target - overnight stocking during Christmas with Rich Schulter - where you at now Rich? Rich introduced me to Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime. Anyway, we listened to the Zoo [KZEW] overnight, until the black girls came in at 6am and changed all the radios to K104. Anyway, just before the day shift came in, the Zoo switched from rock and roll to Christmas music and no DJs. By New Years they were something else - I don't even remember the new format because it was so traumatic. Q102 hung on as the last real Album Oriented Rock [AOR] station for a couple more years, but the times had changed. By 1992, I was listening to nothing but taped in my car.

So what's the point, your thinking. Why am I wasting my time with this? Well, there was a time when radio used to be important and occasionally I miss those days. There used to be songs about radio -Queen's Radio Gaga sums up the feeling about 1990, but the Ramones asked Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio. And I still remember rock and roll radio.

A Few Well Chosen Words About A Little Of Everything...

Well, I didn't realize it'd been so long - at last the winter is going away. Now if someone wants to get about 50 pieces of sd and come lay them out in the back yard...

Olympic Hockey and the return of the NHL

Well I am over that gold medal game finally. It really was a great 3 - 2 game, though I still wish the U.S. had won. It strikes me that like Herb Brooks' 1980 team, this U.S. team was built with a plan. Is captain Jamie Langenbrunner really an Olympian? The L.A. Kings' Dustin Brown? Probably not on any other team, but if you're looking for guys who work hard in the corners, who can bring the sandpaper and not take penalties, those are two really good guys. And Langenbrunner had a good tournament. And Brian Rafalski was just awesome for the U.S. The young unrelated Johnsons [The Kings' Jack and the Blues' Eric] and Nashville's Ryan Suter really opened my eyes.

Then of course there was Ryan Miller. Playing for Buffalo, he doesn't get a lot of exposure, especially as up and down as those teams have been the last couple of years. But he's a good goaltender and now a lot of people know it. Crosby put up a great shot and beat Miller and that's that.

Of course, now that Crosby's back scoring for the Pittsburgh Penguins, it's all good. And since he put up 2 goals and an assist and won me a trophy dollar and dinner and drinks versus the Dallas Stars on Sunday, he is forgiven ...until 2014.

The trade deadline came and went and... well, it's over. Now it's time to ramp up for the playoffs. Can't wait for the Caps - Pens annual meeting.

Ovechkin's hit on Brian Campbell on Sunday was clearly a boarding penalty and he deserved the major. Game misconduct? I don't think he was intending to break Campbell's collarbone, but I can see it. He was suspended for two games today by the NHL. Since he like to play the game hard and his brain quits working - liek Sunday - he deserves that.

Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard last week - clearly not a penalty as the rulebook reads. And as I look at it it, shoulder to the head, no leap, no lead with the elbow - it's a legal hit. But it was ugly and that's the hit that needs to be taken out of the game. Yes, Savard should have had his head up. That doesn't excuse that Cooke did. Nor Scott Steven to Eric Lindross or Paul Kariya years ago, or Mike Richards on David Booth earlier this year. Reviewable? By the league, not at ice level, but give the linesmen a say in it.

The Health Care Debate [OR "What'll You Give My Constituents For My Vote?"]

The Prez and Speaker Pelosi are pulling out all of the stops to try and ram this through. The latest tricks are a rules procedure [the Slaughter Solution] which will allow members to pass the Senate Version of the Health Care bill in a Rules Amendment vote, which will not require the Congressmen to actually vote for the Senate version of the bill, and add it to the Budget. That this violates Artilce I Section 7 of the Constitution be damned.

Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virgina put it this way:

“The public has been outraged by a lack of transparency in this bill,” Cantor said. “If the majority and the Speaker can just deem this bill passed in the rule -- that means no one has the right to even vote on it in the House and to see their level of support. That is certainly unprecedented in a bill of this size and scope.” [3/11/10 - Human Events]

Fortunately, there are people with integrity still out there. Or common sense. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), the pro-life Democrat leading one group of 12 holdouts, says he will not vote to pass the Senate health care bill now and trust the Senate to “fix” it later. And he says he’s not alone. [Human Events - 3/12/10] He also reported that the House members were told they would get seven days to read the President's changes - very tough since they are not yet written. “There’s so much in play here and no one has a final draft of what the bill’s supposed to be [my emphasis] and supposed to vote on and yet they claim in caucus today that you’ll have seven days to look at it,” Stupak said.

In even better news, the Senate Parliamentarian, Alan Frumin has basically told the Dems that their attempt to railroad the changes to the bill through reconciliation after the un-vote by the House would not work.

"A formal ruling would make it official: the House would be required to first pass the Senate health care bill, including the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, GatorAid, the federal funding of abortion, half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare and taxes on higher end health insurance plans mainly enjoyed by union members. House Democrats will just have to trust the Senate to make the changes they want after the bill is signed into law by the President.

That puts Stupak and his entire group of 12 voting in the voting “no” column -- if he keeps his word."

Don't the Democrats remember their own campaign of 1992 when they ran out Bush 41? Remember "It's the Economy, Stupid?" Well, Mr. Obama, It's the Economy, Stupid!!!!

I for one don't believe this would pass the Supreme Court anyway. The Government cannot force anyone to purchase insurance. That's not in their powers. Say this with me: Unfunded Mandate. I'm inclined to agree with those who say we need reforms at the state level with some help on portability, not another bureaucracy.

It's A Starting Point

The Repubs say they're not going to use any earmarks in this year's budget. Whew! No pork for tea cup museums or Congresswoman Kay Grainger's Trinity River Vision Flood Control and Condo deal to give her brother a job? Wowie zowie, thanks, guys! It's too little, too late, but thanks.

I saw Speaker Pelosi on Charlie Rose last week - I could only stomach about 20 minutes of her. How can the Speaker still be going on about this "huge mess President Obama inherited?" And wasn't Speaker Pelosi in Congress, as the Speaker of the Democratically controlled House when this "huge mess" was created? What were they doing about it then?

Oh, and to fuck up the Dems, I sent back a survey that came to the house [Hey, if the old man is going ot register to vote here and his mail comes here, I'm going to use that.] Surprisingly, I gave the President a FAIR rating - good on Afghansitan and Iraq, fair on everything else. Oh, and no check enclosed.

I did NOT go vote in the primaries a couple of weeks back. I don't like either of the Repubs for Governor and I knew Bill White was going to get the Dems nod. [And the Rebubs 'survey?' Hah!] I'll say it again, I'm voting for Democrat Bill White in November. Yes, the Governor is a figurehead in Texas, but after the Texas Monthly article on him, I'm impressed. Frankly, after reading that article, I wish he'd take a run for the Senate [Cornyn preferred - he's a DRIP, but Kay Bailey's if he has to]. I'd like to see SOMEONE with some common sense in the Senate.

Charles Rangel's been in Congress for 40 years. Ted Kennedy was in the Senate for 47 years. Byrd of West Virginia has been in the Senate for 51 years. 10 other Senators have been in office over 30 years. [I could not find a list of the current House seniority.] Isn't it time we put term limits on these clowns? 20 years in he Hosue, and 24 in the Senate? Don't we need new blood every so often?

How About Some Music?

The new Glossary is out - Feral Fire. It took me a couple of listens because this is so much more polished - as in recorded in a real studio sounding, not like it was done in someone's basement - but the songs finally grabbed me.

I was watching Live From Abbey Road and watching some new band - well, someone I'd never heard of - Manchester Orchestra - and Fleet Foxes. I found myself missing the old days when we'd show up at Dunnigan's and he'd have something else no one had even heard about and play it for us.

For some reason yesterday... well very early this morning as I was cutting over more vinyl to MP3 [Hoodoo Gurus anyone?] and cleaning up some files that I had of old tapes I'd cut over to MP3 when it hit.

Really, I was disgusted with myself for missing a song or two off a couple of important tapes that Jim had made for me [and one tape that will remain with me, a relic from another time]. So I sought out the tapes to make matters right again. Then as I looked at this pile of relics I was overcome with a sadness and a major dose of reality.

The tapes weren't at fault - they were just quietly sitting on the shelf there collecting dust. But I began thinking - what am I holding onto these for? Yes, I have a Walkman knockoff I bought in 1997 to take to the gym because... well, because no one would want to steal it. I haven't had a tape player in my car for about 3 years now. Yes, I really had one on my car up until like 2007. When I first bought my little 2000 truck, I took it to Best Buy and had a CD player taken OUT and the tape deck put in, much to the confusion of the little installer kid. But how was he to know I had enough music on tape to drive for about 12 days straight without repeating a tape [Notice: I did not say song, but tape!] But the time has come. As noted, the car tape deck died, then my honorable Pioneer double dubbing deck, bought when I was working at Forever Young back in 1996. Now Dad's old Optima is going - the right deck is out and I don't know how long the left deck has left. As I type this I am trying to pull songs off a double fistful of tapes before it goes.

But this wasn't how it started. I though originally just to clean up the stacked ones and toss a few stragglers. Tapes to the trash, index cards and cases into the recycling. [I'm sure the shells of the tapes themselves can be recycled, but I was also betting the miles and miles of tape will gum up whatever they smash / sort/ etc. with.] Pretty soon I'm on the floor and it's like shelling nuts - crack, remove pod, shells here...

Occasionally, I would look at one and remember. The Famous Chaz Labella Tape [and Son Of...] that I used to play out in the warehouse at Albar. "The OKC 98" tape, hitting the Moore curve way to fast blasting Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos. International Chaz which I played up and down the Queen Elizabeth Way between Toronto and Burlington ON [and the original "Portable Superchunk"]. Two dating back to 1985 / 86 - Lybbert's Records featuring Alice's Restaurant, Santana and John Lennon and the Marty Magical Mystery Tape which was a 'Stump the Chump' exercise sent from Belmont. Marty cheated - he put on some dude's class project take on Roger Miller's King of the Road.

Out of about 225 tapes, I have about 30 that I'm keeping. They'll park behind my DVDs and keep collecting dust but I'm not ready to cut them. 5 of them are the wonderfully ear opening tapes made for my by Jim Dunnigan. When I think about all the albums I bought because of the things I heard on those tapes, it's pretty damn scary! Patti Smith, Television, Superchunk, the Damned, Soul Asylum [before their 'hits'], Supergrass, the Gits... One tape from 1988 that reminds me of... a few store bought tapes...

When I was done, I felt dusty and a little bit sad.I used to have tapes going about 95% of the time I was in one of my vehicles. To work. From Work. To second job. To Jim's. To the bar. To Dallas. Blasting songs at ear splitting volumes on the back roads of southern Tarrant County when I was clearly in no condition to be driving. Shouting the blues with the Allman Brothers the night my friend pulled the girl I was making a play for - and the mofo never called her! The Motown / Stax compilations I used to make and play at Forever Young. Exploring all kinds of musical avenues from Eddie Cochrane to Sam Cooke and Percy Sledge to the deep catalogs of the Beatles and the Stones to Aerosmith and the Steve Miller Band and Little Feat and the Cars to Faster Pussycat, Soundgarden, Wilco, Whiskeytown all the way up to the Foo Fighters.

Any song on any album I owned between 1986 and about 2003 could wind up on one of these tapes. They got me from Burleson to Houston a few times, to Wichita more than a few and once from Euless to Nashville to Pittsburgh and Cleveland and back again over a ten day stretch.

I guess it was inevitable. To quote those plucky Canadians, Rush: "Changes aren't permanent, but change is." But some changes are permanent. I've just tossed a connection to the last 25 years of my past. Yes, I still have a lot of that music on LP, CD and MP3. And I love the convenience and quickness of burning CD comps for my friends, I sometimes miss the time a song is being taped to think about the next song. I miss the adventure of a mix tape that just goes someplace you weren't expecting. And that last song of the first side jam -"Only about 2 and a half minutes, what can I squeeze in there that doesn't sound like a time filler?"

One day they'll be excavating under some building they've built on the landfill and they'll come across this mass of plastic and magnetic recording tape and wonder - but will only be rock and roll on an outdated medium. So long baby, and Amen.