Let It Blurt
There’s a lot of talk on various blogs right now about rock criticism. Is it dead? Is ‘rock journalism’ dead? Is there any future for rock criticism? Are we all just pretending we’re Lester Bangs out here? Wasn’t it better ‘way back when?’
The reason I mention it [other than finally posting something new… okay here’s something new to read Lizardbreath!] is because I was just contemplating the same thing before my trip to Pennsylvania to see relations, because I was reading about the arguments of Bangs and Co. circa 1978. [Is 'rock journalism' in decline? What's the next avenue?] Yeah, well, that book is good mind wasting reading; hey I just finished East of Eden and I am halfway through Grapes of Wrath, so eat chain. The short argument is that the rise of garbage like People cut the meat out of real rock and roll journalism, making reviews shorter and articles more about ‘celebrity’ and talent [or relative lack there of]. I think this is important, because it’s something that is never really addressed and it’s something the 10 second TV blurb or the fawning VH1 Behind the Music: Brittany has only made worse. This crap is beginning to get on my nerve. I all ready blocked MTV in this house because I don’t CARE about ‘Cribs’ or ‘The Real World’ or ‘Road Rules’ or whatever. I wanted MUSIC on Music Television, but I have to get digital or satellite to get a real music channel like M2. And if VH1 isn’t running some ‘Worst Hair Decisions’ or ‘Top Bodies in Rock’ or ‘I Miss My Rubik’s Cube and Pac Man and Whatever Happened to My Cheryl Ladd Poster’ show, they’re hip-hopping me to damn death. Listen to me: I don’t care about ‘bling-bling,’ how many cases of Kristal champagne can fit in your party room fridge and I am tired of videos with people in various states of undress shaking big butts in my face. Show me four guys with instruments again, who step up to a mike for a chorus and make guitar player faces during short, noisy solos! Show me the speaker like “Bastards of Young” or the Ramones hitting the black and white TV trying to tune it in on “Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio.”
Oh, but I am forgetting that this is the S.A.S generation. What’s that? Short Attention Span! I blame the original MTV for this, too. Fast cut editing and off the wall angles; yeah they had to get our attention somehow, even if they were the only game in town, eh? But in the SAS Generation, the FIRST thing they learned was get it while you’re on top, cause if you slip for two weeks, people are on to the next thing, pronto, Billy. And the corporations learned it faster. “Man you are it! You’re hot, number six with a bullet, here’s the new video budget, take half a mil!, whoops, new record didn’t sell, blame Napster and the economy, you owe us for that last video, we’ll take it from your one hit album for the rest of your life, you may start seeing some nickels when you’re fifty, see you in the 3.99 bin at the used CD store, NEXT!”
Let’s take Brittany for an example. What the fuck is she? She’s a face and a body. Can she sing? Debatable, but we’ll say for the sake of argument she can sing. Does she have anything to say other than “I am not a role model” and “I wanted my record to address adult issues like sex.” Well hell, this is Madonna all over again! But like the Mo girl, she’s getting press, amazing amounts of press ‘cause she’s a tits and ass show and it brings in viewers. That’s right I said it! Was that ‘kiss’ anything more that Madonna rolling around showing her garters under the wedding dress at the MTV awards whatever year that was? Give it to the girl, she learned from [and apparently has the blessing of] the best: ‘Ain’t no such thing as bad press!’ My prediction, dated, right here, right now: Brittany will utter the F Word on her next record. And it will get a LOT of press and she will sigh and again utter ‘I am not a role model, I want to be seen as an adult. I am not a virgin you know.’ You read it here first.
What has me so cranky? Michael is in town. I love Michael, but he admits he is stuck in a time warp: 1964-1974. I want to do an hour on tape and post our discussion. Ask what was so great about then? What about the 80s? What about REM and Replacements? Do you let your 12 year old daughter listen to the shit that’s out there now?
Man, sitting here with whiskey and coke and remastered Television [reissued by, you guessed it, Rhino again!]; maybe I am channeling the spirit of Lester [big HAW HAW]! Why is Marquee Moon so GREAT and Adventure [2nd] so mediocre? So maybe I am in my own time warp I know I like a lot on Michael’s era…not the Monkees or the Turtles or Dave Clark Five, maybe a couple singles but not ALL encompassing! I don’t need ALL the Monkees, maybe not even a full greatest hits album. On the other hand, Michael is an anal complete archivist. He all ready owns all the Beatles, but he wants the two double CD sets 1962-1966 and 1967-1970! I keep asking why he needs those, can’t he burn them himself or burn BETTER compilations, but he just shrugs and says “I want them, that’s why.” Like owning the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks collection. He doesn’t understand why I am put off by this [IMHO] egregious purchase; part of it is “you all ready own half of this, why pay for it again? You’re playing right to the record company pricks Zappa warned you about! How many Doors Greatest Hits CDs have been released in the last 15 years?”… the other part is it make me grin to know I am grating a nerve.
Now I owe Michael a lot. He turns me onto many things I never would have heard otherwise. Like the other day we were watching football and listening to the first Journey [the Neal Schon-Greg Rollie-Anysley Dunbar, fresh from Santana Journey, not the ‘label says you should get a real singer, how about Steve Perry?’ Journey] and [Leslie] West, [Jack] Bruce and [Corky] Lainge and discussing Robin Trower [Bruce, Bill Lordan and Trower’s BLT, great under rated record!]. He played a Turtles record called Battle of the Bands, [remember battle of the bands? I remebered one night seeing Trying Season lose to a cover band someplace in Arlington… the cover band had a talk box and did ‘Do You Feel Like We Do’ and ‘Those Shoes’ while I am screaming “play something ORIGINAL!”] with the Turtles doing ten different musical styles that was really cool. Discussing the original Alice Cooper band [Alice Cooper was the name of the band and they quit in 1975 because, well, Alice became Alice.] and Alice replacing them with Lou Reed’s Rock and Roll Animal band for Welcome to My Nightmare. I am worried he is becoming that ‘baby boomer, we were the greatest generation’ person. Of course, he is a Rush Limbaugh fan, so I don’t know.
ADD: I think I have just figured it out... I am afraind Michael is going to be some sort of Elitist Completist, which is the ULTIMATE musical snobbery, and we all know I HAVE to be the biggest music snob on the BLOG. I mean I have been trying recently to determine whetjher I am a music collector [i.e. Am I collecting songs and not worried about formats, so what's wrong with burning down CDs I have and selling the 'corporate packaging'] or if I am a record collector [i.e. Am I collecting the music ALONG WITH the sleeve and photos and liner notes and stuff I find so interesting]. So far it's a pretty even split, the sitcking point being Aerosmith Toys in the Attic and Rocks. Do I want people to come in and SEE that little plastic box printed in a factory somewhere and go "Cool album" or do I just need to have it for myself and let people ask when they DON'T see it in my collection? Or do I burn a two on one CD and go buy some used vynil for "showing off?"
Anyway, I am working Thanksgiving and the day after. I’ll take the money, but I know getting off at 800 Thursday night and being in at 700 Friday morning is going to suck. Y’All enjoy your turkey America, I will be thinking of my next rant…
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
More Guilty Pleasures…
Well, I don’t consider this a guilty pleasure because I unabashedly love this band, but last night I got an urge to hear Queen II. I know some people go “Eww, that’s everything that was WRONG with rock and roll in the 70’s.” Some people had a problem with Freddie Mercury’s “flamboyance.” [Like Elton John was a withering flower] Well you can all kiss my big fat happy white ass.
On the first few records, notably Queen and Queen II, they were a fairly progressive band along the likes of King Crimson and Yes, but instead of being virtuoso instrumentalists and trying to throw every flat-7th-suspended 9th chord they knew into the mix, they concentrated more on songs. Of course they always had those layers of vocals and guitars, though the layers would build and build over the next few years, peaking with A Night at the Opera’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘The Prophet Song.’ [The vocals would remain important, but would never get into those numbers of layers again.] I learned a lot trying to sing along with those harmonies, and I suspect that one Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange did, too.It was also important that they had three guys in the band who could take a lead vocal, though Freddie took most of the vocal chores [Yes only had that annoying Jon Anderson]. They were also lucky in that all four members wrote [silent bassist John Deacon wrote the hits ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’ drummer Roger Taylor wrote a lot of up-tempo rockers and Brain May wrote some of the nicer, more introspective pieces.
Though the layers were less dense and the focus sharper, their third Sheer Heart Attack [the song with the same title would appear on 1977’s News of the World, penned by drummer Roger Taylor and featuring a punkish wall of guitars and white noise ‘solo’ ] introduced Freddie’s piano playing into the fore, especially on their hit ‘Killer Queen.’ But they also hit you over the head with the speed drive of ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ and the camp, roaring twenties flavored ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown.’ I have on tape a show from just after Freddie’s death where he talks about Queen’s independent stance on their music; “ A lot of bands will do one thing on their first record, and if that doesn’t work, will say ‘Well, let’s try this…’; No no no no! This is the wrong way to go about it.” Apparently Queen had their own over the top sound they wanted and just waited for the rest of the world to come around to it.
Of course, A Night at the Opera was their major breakthrough. Whoever would have thought that a six and a half minute song with an operatic break in the middle would become a world wide smash? Unfortunately, the follow up, A Day at the Races, is one that I just cannot stand, though I don’t know why… there’s only a couple songs that I like on it, ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘White Man’ and the classic ‘Tie Your Mother Down.’ They came back with the harder edged News of the World. Yeah, it’s got ‘We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions’ but it’s still a good record, powered by the previously mentioned ‘Sheer Heart Attack,’ Taylor’s other composition on the record, ‘Fight from the Inside,’ ‘Spread Your Wings’ and Freddie’s excellent ‘Get Down Make Love.’ I think that has a lot to do with them not working with Roy Thomas Baker [who would do the first few Cars albums, also] and recording in Munich with the producer known only as Mack. [Mack also did Billy Squier’s first couple hit records, before he was prancing around in pink on MTV and a couple of ELO records around this period, too.]
Jazz was the first full length Queen I heard. My friend Mark got it and put up the ‘Start of the Bicycle Race’ poster with all the girls [Mark was a catalyst for a lot of growing up at the time, which is another article unto itself]. Mark’s dad owned a jewelry store at the time on Cooper and Pioneer/303 in Arlington, when that was still a fairly happening part of town in the late 70’s early 80’s, and we would go out there with his mom sometimes when she’d take us to the movies and go to the record store that was a few doors down and just kill time looking through the racks and dreaming of the music we would buy… I remember plainly the guy was going out of business and we were dying to have Live Killers, but the guy wouldn’t budge on the 12.99. As a matter of fact, Mark and I saw Queen [with Billy Squier] in 1982 at Reunion [decent seats on the floor, about 1/3 of the way back on the left], what turned out to be their last US tour, and my second concert [first was ELO in 1981 at Tarrant County with my Dad, the kings of Ohio, the Michael Stanly Band opening]. Mark told me if someone handed me a joint and I saw a cop to flick it into the aisle… he was all ready so much more worldly wise being from New York City [Queens, as a matter of fact] and spending a couple of weeks in the summer back there with a half brother…. but more about me and Mark later.
We moved out to Burleson in January 1980, after ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ had been the surprise hit of the summer of 79 [I remember being in the Pizza Hut in front of the Edison’s at Park Springs and 303 playing a little table top pinball machine when I first heard it, and it knocked my socks off.] When The Game came out, I liked it, but I got sick of ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ pretty quick. The better track was the track that followed it on the album, ‘Dragon Attack.’ And Brian May’s ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ and Roger Taylor’s ‘Rock It [Prime Jive]’ and ‘Coming Soon.’ The Game also marked the first appearance of a synthesizer on a Queen record, something they would embrace heavily on albums to come. Then came the great Queen/Bowie record ‘Under Pressure.’ Then Queen fell off the radar in the US. Now I know Hot Space was a fairly mediocre record [knew it the first time I played it], too much Freddie, too much disco, but the follow up, The Works was a lot better. Now I know some people only heard ‘Radio Ga-Ga’ and went “blah blah” but the second side had a great song ‘Hammer to Fall,’ which I saw the video for ONCE on some second rate video show that used to run after Saturday Night Live back then, and ‘Machines.’ I found A Kind of Magic [remember ‘One Vision’] by sheer dumb luck, wandering into the old Sound Warehouse on Camp Bowie and seeing it on an endcap. [Remember endcaps and wall displays Nate and Ed? Well the SW on CB had a pyramid at the front of the store for new releases. When I was at Forever Young, we’d take down Phillip’s displays and make our own ‘guess the theme’ endcaps, like bands named after animals or bands with people named Jerry in them…] I think I bought that and This is Big Audio Dynamite the same day.
I had just been ‘released’ from Sound Warehouse when The Miracle came out [all songs credited to Queen, not individuals]. It has its moments, but it was pretty clearly dinosaur rock. Innuendo came out a couple of years later with the tough ending track ‘The Show Must Go On,’ and the playful ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad.’ Freddie was still in good voice [Brain said later, “he would come in and be good for an hour or two, then prop himself up at the mixing desk. It was just amazing some of the things he forced out of his body.”] but it was clear from the photograph inside he was not well.
It’s been just over ten years since Freddie died. Some people only see the stigma of him dying of AIDS and being gay. I still love the man’s music. I don’t let what he did behind closed doors color the body of work, the same way I don’t let it color my judgment of Rob Halford [and some of those Priest records just ROCK! But I do occasionally find myself wondering about some of the lyrics; they take on a very tongue in cheek double-entendre knowing that he is what he is. “Better by you, better than me,” indeed.] Freddie maintained a sense of humor about himself. He said of the drastic change in appearance from 1975 to 1980 “If I was running around in long hair and nail polish now, I’d look ridiculous. I mean I looked ridiculous then, too, but it worked!”
Sadly, like the Clash, radio only plays a handful of the work: ‘Bohemian,’
‘Killer Queen,’ ‘Fat Bottomed Girls,’ ‘Champions,’ ‘Rock You’ and occasionally ‘Dust,’ or ‘Crazy Little Thing.’ That’s a hand full of singles from almost 20 years of work [the posthumous Made in Heaven, plus Live at Wembly ’86 and Live at the BBC [circa 1973-74] not withstanding]. That’s more than the Clash can lay claim to. But I wonder if, in the grand scheme, they’re really going to be any more than a one hit wonder.
Well, I don’t consider this a guilty pleasure because I unabashedly love this band, but last night I got an urge to hear Queen II. I know some people go “Eww, that’s everything that was WRONG with rock and roll in the 70’s.” Some people had a problem with Freddie Mercury’s “flamboyance.” [Like Elton John was a withering flower] Well you can all kiss my big fat happy white ass.
On the first few records, notably Queen and Queen II, they were a fairly progressive band along the likes of King Crimson and Yes, but instead of being virtuoso instrumentalists and trying to throw every flat-7th-suspended 9th chord they knew into the mix, they concentrated more on songs. Of course they always had those layers of vocals and guitars, though the layers would build and build over the next few years, peaking with A Night at the Opera’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘The Prophet Song.’ [The vocals would remain important, but would never get into those numbers of layers again.] I learned a lot trying to sing along with those harmonies, and I suspect that one Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange did, too.It was also important that they had three guys in the band who could take a lead vocal, though Freddie took most of the vocal chores [Yes only had that annoying Jon Anderson]. They were also lucky in that all four members wrote [silent bassist John Deacon wrote the hits ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’ drummer Roger Taylor wrote a lot of up-tempo rockers and Brain May wrote some of the nicer, more introspective pieces.
Though the layers were less dense and the focus sharper, their third Sheer Heart Attack [the song with the same title would appear on 1977’s News of the World, penned by drummer Roger Taylor and featuring a punkish wall of guitars and white noise ‘solo’ ] introduced Freddie’s piano playing into the fore, especially on their hit ‘Killer Queen.’ But they also hit you over the head with the speed drive of ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ and the camp, roaring twenties flavored ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown.’ I have on tape a show from just after Freddie’s death where he talks about Queen’s independent stance on their music; “ A lot of bands will do one thing on their first record, and if that doesn’t work, will say ‘Well, let’s try this…’; No no no no! This is the wrong way to go about it.” Apparently Queen had their own over the top sound they wanted and just waited for the rest of the world to come around to it.
Of course, A Night at the Opera was their major breakthrough. Whoever would have thought that a six and a half minute song with an operatic break in the middle would become a world wide smash? Unfortunately, the follow up, A Day at the Races, is one that I just cannot stand, though I don’t know why… there’s only a couple songs that I like on it, ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘White Man’ and the classic ‘Tie Your Mother Down.’ They came back with the harder edged News of the World. Yeah, it’s got ‘We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions’ but it’s still a good record, powered by the previously mentioned ‘Sheer Heart Attack,’ Taylor’s other composition on the record, ‘Fight from the Inside,’ ‘Spread Your Wings’ and Freddie’s excellent ‘Get Down Make Love.’ I think that has a lot to do with them not working with Roy Thomas Baker [who would do the first few Cars albums, also] and recording in Munich with the producer known only as Mack. [Mack also did Billy Squier’s first couple hit records, before he was prancing around in pink on MTV and a couple of ELO records around this period, too.]
Jazz was the first full length Queen I heard. My friend Mark got it and put up the ‘Start of the Bicycle Race’ poster with all the girls [Mark was a catalyst for a lot of growing up at the time, which is another article unto itself]. Mark’s dad owned a jewelry store at the time on Cooper and Pioneer/303 in Arlington, when that was still a fairly happening part of town in the late 70’s early 80’s, and we would go out there with his mom sometimes when she’d take us to the movies and go to the record store that was a few doors down and just kill time looking through the racks and dreaming of the music we would buy… I remember plainly the guy was going out of business and we were dying to have Live Killers, but the guy wouldn’t budge on the 12.99. As a matter of fact, Mark and I saw Queen [with Billy Squier] in 1982 at Reunion [decent seats on the floor, about 1/3 of the way back on the left], what turned out to be their last US tour, and my second concert [first was ELO in 1981 at Tarrant County with my Dad, the kings of Ohio, the Michael Stanly Band opening]. Mark told me if someone handed me a joint and I saw a cop to flick it into the aisle… he was all ready so much more worldly wise being from New York City [Queens, as a matter of fact] and spending a couple of weeks in the summer back there with a half brother…. but more about me and Mark later.
We moved out to Burleson in January 1980, after ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ had been the surprise hit of the summer of 79 [I remember being in the Pizza Hut in front of the Edison’s at Park Springs and 303 playing a little table top pinball machine when I first heard it, and it knocked my socks off.] When The Game came out, I liked it, but I got sick of ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ pretty quick. The better track was the track that followed it on the album, ‘Dragon Attack.’ And Brian May’s ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ and Roger Taylor’s ‘Rock It [Prime Jive]’ and ‘Coming Soon.’ The Game also marked the first appearance of a synthesizer on a Queen record, something they would embrace heavily on albums to come. Then came the great Queen/Bowie record ‘Under Pressure.’ Then Queen fell off the radar in the US. Now I know Hot Space was a fairly mediocre record [knew it the first time I played it], too much Freddie, too much disco, but the follow up, The Works was a lot better. Now I know some people only heard ‘Radio Ga-Ga’ and went “blah blah” but the second side had a great song ‘Hammer to Fall,’ which I saw the video for ONCE on some second rate video show that used to run after Saturday Night Live back then, and ‘Machines.’ I found A Kind of Magic [remember ‘One Vision’] by sheer dumb luck, wandering into the old Sound Warehouse on Camp Bowie and seeing it on an endcap. [Remember endcaps and wall displays Nate and Ed? Well the SW on CB had a pyramid at the front of the store for new releases. When I was at Forever Young, we’d take down Phillip’s displays and make our own ‘guess the theme’ endcaps, like bands named after animals or bands with people named Jerry in them…] I think I bought that and This is Big Audio Dynamite the same day.
I had just been ‘released’ from Sound Warehouse when The Miracle came out [all songs credited to Queen, not individuals]. It has its moments, but it was pretty clearly dinosaur rock. Innuendo came out a couple of years later with the tough ending track ‘The Show Must Go On,’ and the playful ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad.’ Freddie was still in good voice [Brain said later, “he would come in and be good for an hour or two, then prop himself up at the mixing desk. It was just amazing some of the things he forced out of his body.”] but it was clear from the photograph inside he was not well.
It’s been just over ten years since Freddie died. Some people only see the stigma of him dying of AIDS and being gay. I still love the man’s music. I don’t let what he did behind closed doors color the body of work, the same way I don’t let it color my judgment of Rob Halford [and some of those Priest records just ROCK! But I do occasionally find myself wondering about some of the lyrics; they take on a very tongue in cheek double-entendre knowing that he is what he is. “Better by you, better than me,” indeed.] Freddie maintained a sense of humor about himself. He said of the drastic change in appearance from 1975 to 1980 “If I was running around in long hair and nail polish now, I’d look ridiculous. I mean I looked ridiculous then, too, but it worked!”
Sadly, like the Clash, radio only plays a handful of the work: ‘Bohemian,’
‘Killer Queen,’ ‘Fat Bottomed Girls,’ ‘Champions,’ ‘Rock You’ and occasionally ‘Dust,’ or ‘Crazy Little Thing.’ That’s a hand full of singles from almost 20 years of work [the posthumous Made in Heaven, plus Live at Wembly ’86 and Live at the BBC [circa 1973-74] not withstanding]. That’s more than the Clash can lay claim to. But I wonder if, in the grand scheme, they’re really going to be any more than a one hit wonder.
Monday, November 10, 2003
Rock and Roll?
From the first five seconds, it’s clear that Ryan Adams new record is an ELECTRIC record. Ryan made this one with just drummer Johnny T. and three or four guest bass players and a couple guest vocalists [including current flame I guess, Parker Posey, who is also given a co-writing credit on one song]. On a lot of the early cuts, it’s just Ryan screaming vocals over layered power guitars ala Foo Fighters or Smashing Pumpkins. As a matter of fact, I think on this record Ryan is really trying to BE Billy Corrigan [without shaving his head].
‘This Is It’ opens with a slice of pure power pop [amazingly not the first single]. ‘1974’ [note similarity to Smashing Pumpkins title ‘1979’] has a good Fun House era Stooges groove, very similar to ‘TV Eye.’ ‘Wish You Were Here’ is musically interesting, but is dragged down by awful lyrics [CHORUS: “It’s all a bunch of shit/And there’s nothing to do around here/ It’s totally fucked/ I’m totally fucked/ Wish you were here”]. ‘So Alive’ is a great eighties groove [‘Strength’ by the Alarm meets U2’s ‘I Will Follow’] with some Morrisey meets Bono vocal styling. ‘Burning Photographs’ has a really cool reverbed and tremoloed [change in volume vs. vibrato :change in pitch] guitars. Who is this about? [“Pretty pictures in a magazine/ Everybody is so make believe it’s true/ I used to be sad/ Now I’m bored with you/ You’re doomed to repeat the past/ Cause nothing is going to last/ I burned all your photographs”] ‘Note to Self: Don’t Die’ is Ryan’s ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings.’ Of course the title track, ‘Rock and Roll’ features just Ryan on piano, but he admits his problem out load: “Send all of my best to the band/ I don’t think I’ll make it to the show/ There’s this girl I can’t get out of my head.” ‘Anybody Want to Take Me Home’ is a nice song with it’s chiming 12 strings and sad boy alone in NYC lyrics, but it would be better for Adam Duritz / Counting Crows. ‘The Drugs Are not Working’ has more cool guitars with viobrato arm / wang bar dives over another Stooges groove winding up to the last two minutes of some wah-wah guitars and cheesy synthetic strings finally ending with about ten seconds of piano.
It’s not a bad record. I can even see myself enjoying it as mindless pop entertainment in a sort of U2 October meets Smashing Pumpkins kind of way. But as any sort of artistic statement, forget about it. There’s no real EMOTION to this record at all, and that’s one of the things that made Ryan’s other solo and Whiskeytown enjoyable; there was a joy in just playing or an underlying sadness or anger that is totally NOT present on this record.
Love Is Hell [Part 1, Part 2 is due out the first week on December] on the other hand is the return of brooding Ryan and definitely [or ‘defiantly’ rumor is that the label rejected this project as Ryan’s new full length disc] more acoustic and sad. One could hardly wonder why if you’re pop star whiz kid turned in this brooding, unpretty [read: no hit single or radio potential, no VH1 videos] album. However, all of you that have been griping about Ryan’s ‘new pop sound’ should be happier.
Leading off with ‘Political Scientist’ a tale of people living out on the edge of someplace and sinking in a life in which “There’s no guarantees.” ‘Afraid Not Dying’ seems to be Ryan’s take on the end of the movie Titanic, or someone drowning in their life. It’s a way better song than my quick summation may suggest, with lines like “She started freezing/ Lungs all collapsing/ The momentum is passing/ But the moment is eating us whole.” ‘Love Is Hell’ has nice chiming guitars and sounds like it could be a Stranger’s Almanac out take. Adams also covers Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall,’ a great acoustic take with one plaintive keyboard note droning underneath and a great subdued string arrangement towards the end. ‘World War 24’ is another tale of people sinking in their own lives for something “tasting sugar sweet, she love it when it hits her teeth.” The album/EP ends with ‘Avalanche’ one more song about someone who’s lost someone else: “I found your photograph/ In a box in a magazine/ I can’t remember you/ Remember us or anything…” “I watch the window and listen for the cars/ I can’t remember the last time it was yours…” and features the guitar lick that will turn up on Rock and Roll in 'Burning Photographs.'
Overall, I’d say this is a deeper, much more artistic work than Rock and Roll, but knowing the state of the music business, it’s not hard to see why it was rejected. It’s deep enough to compare to Lou Reed’s brilliant but depressing Berlin or Sprinsteen’s spare look at America, Nebraska. I’m not sure of the emotional content or commitment, but this sure feels better than Rock and Roll.
RANDOM NOTES: Saw Cheap Trick at Next Stage Saturday and they rocked the house and shame on you if you missed it, though the house was about 95% full. We were FAR FAR left and I think the sound could have been better on our side, but NS is definately designed for concerts. Whoever decided to charge $ 12 for parking needs a kick in the pants, and getting out of there is a disaster, far worse then Reunion or the AAC. But the band was tight, even if Robin Zander never took off his hat [not cap, hat, the same one he was sporting on Letterman and Conan]. Tom Peterson looked like he just rolled out of bed, but they played great, opening with a three song acoustic set, and played 'I Want You to Want Me' early in the set and whipped out 'Big Eyes' and 'Down on the Street' [aka the 'That 70's Show' theme]. Frankly I had forgotten some of their hits, like 'If You Want My Love' and 'I Can't Take It,' but they didn't whip out any 'Southern Girls' 'ELO Kiddies' or 'California Man' and I personally think that 'Voices' would have been great for the acoustic set. But they rocked the house.
At the same time, the CBE [Can't Beat the East] Dallas Stars were losing to Boston... ha ha 1-6 vs the East. If 'Iron Mike' Keenan' get fired for underachieving with a bunch of kids in Florida, has the clock began ticking for Dave Tippet in Big D? From what I have seen, Sergei Zubov is playing just AWFUL this year [it seems to be going through the D one player at a time, two years ago it was Hatcher, last year Rich Matvichuk...]. Mike Modano is underachieving and Bill Geuirin can't score on the road... well, NO ONE can score on the road. Unfortunately, they play 41 game on the raod again this year [nice how that works out, eh?]. But hey, they didn't give up a 9-0 whitewash to the red hot Tampa Bay Lighning [yet] like the Pens did the same night. How hard is that on a young team, especially a 21 year old goaltender who gave up 8 of the 9?
Hmmm, Jaromir Jagr doesn't like the coach and he's underachieving and not playing to his potential. Remember when I said Mario traded him because he was a whiny selfish brat and locker room poison, that it WASN'T all about money [though that was a factor, for sure]? No? Well, trust me I did. And I heard Bary Melrose say that Jagr hasn't had anyone who could tell him to act like a grown up since Ron Francis left Pittsburgh. So I feel vindicated.
Detroit falling apart all ready? Cujo [the over-rated] sucking and Dominic has a groin strain, depth tested all ready and they're not making the cut... could Dallas and Detroit BOTH have fallen to the lower half of the playoff tree so early? Neither looks like they could make it out of the first round right now. Look out for St Louis and Chicago and the surprising LA Kings.
Speaking of LA, rumor is that Jason Allison [the oft-injured] has worn out his welcome in La La Land. Detroit could use the depth, but what do they have left to give? Could one of the grind liners [Kirk Maltby or Darren McCarty] be sent West to shake up the Wings? Would LA take Cujo on a dare, because Chechmanek continues to show flashes of lunk-headedness that got him shipped out of Philadelphia...
I forgot about the Mike Comrie saga in Edmonton... hometown boy makes a million then says 'I can't take playing at home.' A good young center, if small, he could be a fine addition to any team, but look for someone with a deep system to make a pitch, because Edmonton still can't take on salary... could the Wild, Nashville or Atlanta make a run for him? See if underachieving Patrick Stefan in Atlanta get a ticket to Edmonton for Christmas...
How do the Devils keep winning when they can only score two goals a night? With a healy Johnny Vermont [LeClair] and Tony Amonte, the Flyers look like a dangerous team again, if they can get Simon Gagne or Jason Williams scoring again. Can the underachieving NY Hockey Rangers EVER get on the same page together? Will Slats hire Mike Keenan again to take himself out of the frying pan? How is it the underachieving Toronto Maple Leafs are ahead of a run and gun team like the Ottawa Senators?
From the first five seconds, it’s clear that Ryan Adams new record is an ELECTRIC record. Ryan made this one with just drummer Johnny T. and three or four guest bass players and a couple guest vocalists [including current flame I guess, Parker Posey, who is also given a co-writing credit on one song]. On a lot of the early cuts, it’s just Ryan screaming vocals over layered power guitars ala Foo Fighters or Smashing Pumpkins. As a matter of fact, I think on this record Ryan is really trying to BE Billy Corrigan [without shaving his head].
‘This Is It’ opens with a slice of pure power pop [amazingly not the first single]. ‘1974’ [note similarity to Smashing Pumpkins title ‘1979’] has a good Fun House era Stooges groove, very similar to ‘TV Eye.’ ‘Wish You Were Here’ is musically interesting, but is dragged down by awful lyrics [CHORUS: “It’s all a bunch of shit/And there’s nothing to do around here/ It’s totally fucked/ I’m totally fucked/ Wish you were here”]. ‘So Alive’ is a great eighties groove [‘Strength’ by the Alarm meets U2’s ‘I Will Follow’] with some Morrisey meets Bono vocal styling. ‘Burning Photographs’ has a really cool reverbed and tremoloed [change in volume vs. vibrato :change in pitch] guitars. Who is this about? [“Pretty pictures in a magazine/ Everybody is so make believe it’s true/ I used to be sad/ Now I’m bored with you/ You’re doomed to repeat the past/ Cause nothing is going to last/ I burned all your photographs”] ‘Note to Self: Don’t Die’ is Ryan’s ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings.’ Of course the title track, ‘Rock and Roll’ features just Ryan on piano, but he admits his problem out load: “Send all of my best to the band/ I don’t think I’ll make it to the show/ There’s this girl I can’t get out of my head.” ‘Anybody Want to Take Me Home’ is a nice song with it’s chiming 12 strings and sad boy alone in NYC lyrics, but it would be better for Adam Duritz / Counting Crows. ‘The Drugs Are not Working’ has more cool guitars with viobrato arm / wang bar dives over another Stooges groove winding up to the last two minutes of some wah-wah guitars and cheesy synthetic strings finally ending with about ten seconds of piano.
It’s not a bad record. I can even see myself enjoying it as mindless pop entertainment in a sort of U2 October meets Smashing Pumpkins kind of way. But as any sort of artistic statement, forget about it. There’s no real EMOTION to this record at all, and that’s one of the things that made Ryan’s other solo and Whiskeytown enjoyable; there was a joy in just playing or an underlying sadness or anger that is totally NOT present on this record.
Love Is Hell [Part 1, Part 2 is due out the first week on December] on the other hand is the return of brooding Ryan and definitely [or ‘defiantly’ rumor is that the label rejected this project as Ryan’s new full length disc] more acoustic and sad. One could hardly wonder why if you’re pop star whiz kid turned in this brooding, unpretty [read: no hit single or radio potential, no VH1 videos] album. However, all of you that have been griping about Ryan’s ‘new pop sound’ should be happier.
Leading off with ‘Political Scientist’ a tale of people living out on the edge of someplace and sinking in a life in which “There’s no guarantees.” ‘Afraid Not Dying’ seems to be Ryan’s take on the end of the movie Titanic, or someone drowning in their life. It’s a way better song than my quick summation may suggest, with lines like “She started freezing/ Lungs all collapsing/ The momentum is passing/ But the moment is eating us whole.” ‘Love Is Hell’ has nice chiming guitars and sounds like it could be a Stranger’s Almanac out take. Adams also covers Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall,’ a great acoustic take with one plaintive keyboard note droning underneath and a great subdued string arrangement towards the end. ‘World War 24’ is another tale of people sinking in their own lives for something “tasting sugar sweet, she love it when it hits her teeth.” The album/EP ends with ‘Avalanche’ one more song about someone who’s lost someone else: “I found your photograph/ In a box in a magazine/ I can’t remember you/ Remember us or anything…” “I watch the window and listen for the cars/ I can’t remember the last time it was yours…” and features the guitar lick that will turn up on Rock and Roll in 'Burning Photographs.'
Overall, I’d say this is a deeper, much more artistic work than Rock and Roll, but knowing the state of the music business, it’s not hard to see why it was rejected. It’s deep enough to compare to Lou Reed’s brilliant but depressing Berlin or Sprinsteen’s spare look at America, Nebraska. I’m not sure of the emotional content or commitment, but this sure feels better than Rock and Roll.
RANDOM NOTES: Saw Cheap Trick at Next Stage Saturday and they rocked the house and shame on you if you missed it, though the house was about 95% full. We were FAR FAR left and I think the sound could have been better on our side, but NS is definately designed for concerts. Whoever decided to charge $ 12 for parking needs a kick in the pants, and getting out of there is a disaster, far worse then Reunion or the AAC. But the band was tight, even if Robin Zander never took off his hat [not cap, hat, the same one he was sporting on Letterman and Conan]. Tom Peterson looked like he just rolled out of bed, but they played great, opening with a three song acoustic set, and played 'I Want You to Want Me' early in the set and whipped out 'Big Eyes' and 'Down on the Street' [aka the 'That 70's Show' theme]. Frankly I had forgotten some of their hits, like 'If You Want My Love' and 'I Can't Take It,' but they didn't whip out any 'Southern Girls' 'ELO Kiddies' or 'California Man' and I personally think that 'Voices' would have been great for the acoustic set. But they rocked the house.
At the same time, the CBE [Can't Beat the East] Dallas Stars were losing to Boston... ha ha 1-6 vs the East. If 'Iron Mike' Keenan' get fired for underachieving with a bunch of kids in Florida, has the clock began ticking for Dave Tippet in Big D? From what I have seen, Sergei Zubov is playing just AWFUL this year [it seems to be going through the D one player at a time, two years ago it was Hatcher, last year Rich Matvichuk...]. Mike Modano is underachieving and Bill Geuirin can't score on the road... well, NO ONE can score on the road. Unfortunately, they play 41 game on the raod again this year [nice how that works out, eh?]. But hey, they didn't give up a 9-0 whitewash to the red hot Tampa Bay Lighning [yet] like the Pens did the same night. How hard is that on a young team, especially a 21 year old goaltender who gave up 8 of the 9?
Hmmm, Jaromir Jagr doesn't like the coach and he's underachieving and not playing to his potential. Remember when I said Mario traded him because he was a whiny selfish brat and locker room poison, that it WASN'T all about money [though that was a factor, for sure]? No? Well, trust me I did. And I heard Bary Melrose say that Jagr hasn't had anyone who could tell him to act like a grown up since Ron Francis left Pittsburgh. So I feel vindicated.
Detroit falling apart all ready? Cujo [the over-rated] sucking and Dominic has a groin strain, depth tested all ready and they're not making the cut... could Dallas and Detroit BOTH have fallen to the lower half of the playoff tree so early? Neither looks like they could make it out of the first round right now. Look out for St Louis and Chicago and the surprising LA Kings.
Speaking of LA, rumor is that Jason Allison [the oft-injured] has worn out his welcome in La La Land. Detroit could use the depth, but what do they have left to give? Could one of the grind liners [Kirk Maltby or Darren McCarty] be sent West to shake up the Wings? Would LA take Cujo on a dare, because Chechmanek continues to show flashes of lunk-headedness that got him shipped out of Philadelphia...
I forgot about the Mike Comrie saga in Edmonton... hometown boy makes a million then says 'I can't take playing at home.' A good young center, if small, he could be a fine addition to any team, but look for someone with a deep system to make a pitch, because Edmonton still can't take on salary... could the Wild, Nashville or Atlanta make a run for him? See if underachieving Patrick Stefan in Atlanta get a ticket to Edmonton for Christmas...
How do the Devils keep winning when they can only score two goals a night? With a healy Johnny Vermont [LeClair] and Tony Amonte, the Flyers look like a dangerous team again, if they can get Simon Gagne or Jason Williams scoring again. Can the underachieving NY Hockey Rangers EVER get on the same page together? Will Slats hire Mike Keenan again to take himself out of the frying pan? How is it the underachieving Toronto Maple Leafs are ahead of a run and gun team like the Ottawa Senators?
Saturday, November 01, 2003
I am beginning to wonder if Paul Westerberg laughing at us, the faithful. With Come Feel Me Tremble and Dead Man Shake he has sold us 2 CDs of lo-fi goods. Oh, granted they’re some of the most soulful and heart-wrenching goods you’re likely to encounter anywhere else, certainly not on the radio or VH1. I will even go so far as to say there is more soul in one of Westerberg’s fucked up solos [purposeful or not] on ‘Dirty Diesel’ than the whole catalog of Brittany / N’Synch / The Strokes AND insert popular flavor of the month band here. But this set doesn’t break much, if any new ground. It’s less polished than last year’s Stereo /Mono set. Stereo was mixed much prettier. There were definitive highs and the vocals were pushed out front, though they were left intentionally raw and rough. Here, the songs seem to be mixed [or NOT mixed] to be very raw. ‘Dirty Diesel’ for example has a hard separation of guitar hard left, bass, handclaps, lyric and drums hard right, and the lyrics are buried in the rumble of Paul’s none too pretty bass playing.
Also I have to mention right away that the track listing is whack. Track 3, ‘Hillbilly Junk’ is really track 9, so you have to play along with the scorecard. Whether this is another of Paul’s jokes, I do not know, but I wondered about making twelve different versions with no numbers on the label, so you’d have to number them yourself. Or making collector’s items trying to gather all twelve mixes. Hey, if people will buy a CD of every stinkin’ Pearl Jam [or Grateful Dead or Phish] show on a tour, they could buy twelve Westerbergs! Or sell the set as 14 separate single song discs you can download to your computer and burn one final CD in your own favorite running order.
Now before you get too down, let’s run through some first impressions. ‘What A Day [For A Night]’ is a nice easy track, proving Westerberg’s not ALWAYS as serious as ‘Boring Enormous’ or ‘Let the Bad Times Roll.’ ‘Wild and Lethal’ is five minutes is almost joyful [a word rarely associated with Westerberg] and includes a fun harmonica solo! The ‘Alternate Take’ [quiet] of ‘Crackle and Drag’ seems to be the more fitting, given the dark subject matter [think ‘Blackeyed Susan’ from 14 Songs], but the electric version is pretty damn catchy and infectious, like an awful lot of Mono was. ‘Pine Box’ is a full out rocker, the closest thing to the Mats he’s pulled off since the first solo record. It’s nice to know PW can still pull off things like this, but then again I think it’d been a whole lot more effective with a full band ala 14 Songs, where Paul could lay back and let someone else carry a few bars or go against him with a descending bass line or something. ‘Meet Me Down the Alley’ is back to typical PW of Suicane or Stereo, not as blue as ‘Bad Times Roll,’ but still searching for something, still “not too young to die.”
Westerberg’s cover of Jackson Browne’s ‘These Days’ has been getting some ink because we all know PW can turn out some good songs on his own [now Joe Cocker is a great interpreter of songs!], but I think it’s a good track. It’s probably not as pretty as Jackson’s version… Jackson has a silky voice and usually hires top talent like David Lindley, Russ Kunkle and Waddy Wachtel [admit it, Westerberg’s voice can be shaky and nasal, though that’s part of his charm], but Paul lays down some pretty good slide guitar and puts a lot of feeling into Browne’s song about growing older [and even growing up a little]. If there was any justice and/or real radio, this would be a great late night/ pre-dawn morning track.
Dead Man Shake by Westerberg’s alter ego [or split personality] Grandpaboy on blues label Fat Possum is more blues tinged than Westerberg’s fucked up Faces “pop” [I hear a lot of Ronnie Wood in his playing]. Very lo-fideleity again. There’s not a lot of high frequencies on this until late in the record, making it feel claustrophobic at times. ‘MPLS’ and ‘Take Out Some Insurance’ are pretty good ronk and honk blues reminiscent of Jimmy Reed. ‘Vampires and Failures’ is a good track, if a simple throwaway, but it’s followed by the 5 ½ minute drag of ‘No Matter What You Say,’ which is just bar band blues [pre- Stevie Ray Vaughn; no guitar pyrotechnic, feedback and whammy bar shit here!] bum notes and all. Think the Doors ‘Cars Hiss by My Window’ meets the Allman Brothers ‘Stormy Monday’ as played by your cousins in their basement. ‘Get A Move On’ is another of the original tracks that could have been something if it had been polished a little. Here it sounds like Neil Young and Crazy Horse warming up circa Ragged Glory, before they turned the Marshalls on. The cover of John Prine’s ‘Souvenirs’ is a pretty nice country-ish track, but Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ sounds like it was run through a bullhorn. ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’ which closes is a nice touch. Another great song Grandpaboy can make the lyrics really hit home on, ala ‘Good Day’ from PW’s Eventually.
But sadly, on the two CDs it’s a lot of hit or miss. We were shown on Stereo that PW can still churn out heartbreakingly great stuff, even if it’s a little rough. Here it feels like he’s just spinning his wheels, or even worse, popping the clutch and stalling out. Maybe it’s my fault for expecting so much from the artist.
On the other hand, there are still those who remember and can play ‘Real Rock and Roll’ the way your Mom and Dad or you may remember it, with crunchy guitars and hooks that would make Rick Neilson proud. This I can attest to have attended the recent CD release party for Nope, who shared the bill with Nate Fowler’s Elixir, at the Double Wide in Dallas.
First, let me say that me and my friend Casey from work dug the motif of the Double Wide. Bad velvet art, bad 70s lamps and lampshades, pretty good jukebox from what we heard [X, Kiss, Ramones, Devo] and reasonably priced drinks. Both said we wished it was closer to home because it’s just a nice ‘hanging out’ bar. Probably the martinis are not as good as Cosmo’s but as a neighborhood BAR, like the old Elm Street Bar or the Lakewood Landing, I think it has promise.
And while I am at it, I will declare off the top that Nate has been a friend of mine for a long time. I have seen him grow from a Van Halen / Steve Vai hairspray and technique freak to a damn fine rock and roll guitarist. He still regularly abuses an old old stomp box analog delay that I traded to him at one time for a pink [and I mean PINK] Ibanez guitar [since painted lime green by my Dad].Though I wish he’d trade in one of those Les Pauls and use a Tele once in a while [the 71-reissue that Nope had on stage would be great!], that’s our old argument. So I have some affiliation here. But Nate’s been in the woodshed a long time, like since February, so it’s a new experience seeing him again. Nate [and his lovely wife… hi Sandy!] and I also trade a lot of “Have you heard this album?” And one album he got a hold of and played me way before this release was Nope. And I liked what I heard right away: real guitars [and bass and drums], real songs, good vocals and lyrics. No synthesized drums and I didn’t hear the words “baby” “oops” or voulez-vous” at all. And it’s not a really danceable album, although now that I’ve seen the boys, they strike me as really choreographically challenged anyway.
Nope, Chris Purdy and Herman Suede, cousins I believe, kicked off the night with longtime Dallas mainstays Kinley Wolfe [who would do double duty backing up Fowler, too] on bass and Earl Darling on drums. Seeing Suede [sometimes hatted, sometimes showing off a mowhawk] on Angus Young’s mainstay cherry red Gibson SG enlightens a rock and roll heart like mine, because only rock and rollers pull out the SG. Purdy’s Tele was a little low in the mix [from the right side of the stage where I was, anyway], but they just stood there and rocked for 45 minutes or so. No frills, no keyboards, no bullshit.
Unfortunately, I did not grab a set list, so I don’t know the order of the songs they played, but I got the CD. You’re going to ask me why I like this CD, and I'll be damned if I can tell you. I can hear snatches of influence from other bands I like. I can tell you what it ISN’T. It’s not the Marshall amp and power chord ‘power pop’ like Jimmy Eat World or Green Day or even Clumsy. It’s not progressive [Television / Talking Heads]. It’s not country or even country flavored Americana [Ryan Adams / Wilco]. I don’t hear a stick of any Stones/Georgia Satellites/ bar band E-A-D bash and thrash. It’s got to be kind of like hearing that first R.E.M. record [Chronic Town or ‘Radio Free Europe’ I mean, still not a fan of Murmur, and my first R.E.M. was Life’s Rich Pagent] or the first Pretenders and thinking “Boy, that doesn’t sound like anything else!”
‘Great Little Loser’ is a great two chord self depreciating stomp. “Can’t Put My Finger on It’ is classic power pop like the Goo Goo Dolls used to do, minus the Marshall stacks. [Nope also know when to NOT hold a power chord for ten bars over a verse… sometimes it’s what you don’t do that makes you different!] ‘It’s Up to You’ reminds of R.E.M. with all those arpegiated chords, but Purdy’s vocals really make it closer to the Church. ‘Nite Cap’ is another ode to hanging at the bar, but with the twist of having the “night cap during the day.” Anyone who’s ever played hooky and gone day drinking can appreciate how funny it can feel to start drinking while it’s still full daylight outside. ‘All Over Town’ is a great acoustic ‘everything’s going wrong’ song Ryan Adams would have been proud to write. ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ is more power pop more in a Replacements / Bash and Pop vein. ‘Clifford’ has a great Westerberg feel [ala ‘Here Comes A Regular’]. The “bonus” track is a fan-fucking-tastic rock and roll take of Mary J. Blige’s ‘Real Love.’ I’d hate to sell this album on a cover tune, but someone needs to get that song on the radio. Buy this album because there isn’t much original rock and roll like this out there anymore!
So after a really good set by Nope, Fowler and Wolfe and drummer Mike Wood took the stage and let loose a killer set of rock and roll. AlterNATEly sounding like the New York Dolls / Johnny Thunders meets Ronnie Wood and Izzy Stradlin, Fowler grabbed that heavy Gibson by the neck and didn’t let up for 45 minutes. He’s said ever since completing the Elixir record he wants a second guitarist, but the way he played, he may have found a way to make a trio work [I suspect liberal use of the delay to get that ‘twin guitar’ signature sound ala ‘Bleeding Years’ and ‘Shiver in the Sunshine’]. He also laid down some tasty slide work on the last two songs of the set. And most pleasantly, Fowler’s vocals continue to improve. Again, I don’t have a set list, and EVERYTHING Fowler played was new, but I hope it’s not another nine months before he plays again. Dallas can use more bands like Nope and the Elixir [and Marc Soloman’s Clumsy… I saw him at the show, but I don’t know him well enough to just walk up and ask the guy what he’s doing.].
As a matter of fact, why not start our own rock and roll revival right here in Dallas? Dallas hasn’t had a scene or identity since the New Bohemians era and that was [believe it or not] almost 15 years ago. Why not make Dallas the Detroit of the early 1970s, [Stooges, Bob Seger before he sold out, Kiss and J Geils breakthrough markets] where good rocking bands come and break or get broken? Somehow get someone like Irv at Idol to snag these guys up and make him the new Vangaurd or Epitath or Sub Pop… hey a guy can dream can’t he?
Also ran into Ron Geida, the Mick Taylor to Ed Voyles Kieth Richards, of Jasper Stone at the show, who advises that they are waiting for the return of their new CD from mastering in the next couple weeks. Spoke to Ed and he advises, for the record, that this record “rocks like fuck.” They will be releasing sometime early in the New Year, check here and the Jasper Stone site for info.
NOPE: www.nope.us
Jasper Stone: www.jasper-stone.com
Also I have to mention right away that the track listing is whack. Track 3, ‘Hillbilly Junk’ is really track 9, so you have to play along with the scorecard. Whether this is another of Paul’s jokes, I do not know, but I wondered about making twelve different versions with no numbers on the label, so you’d have to number them yourself. Or making collector’s items trying to gather all twelve mixes. Hey, if people will buy a CD of every stinkin’ Pearl Jam [or Grateful Dead or Phish] show on a tour, they could buy twelve Westerbergs! Or sell the set as 14 separate single song discs you can download to your computer and burn one final CD in your own favorite running order.
Now before you get too down, let’s run through some first impressions. ‘What A Day [For A Night]’ is a nice easy track, proving Westerberg’s not ALWAYS as serious as ‘Boring Enormous’ or ‘Let the Bad Times Roll.’ ‘Wild and Lethal’ is five minutes is almost joyful [a word rarely associated with Westerberg] and includes a fun harmonica solo! The ‘Alternate Take’ [quiet] of ‘Crackle and Drag’ seems to be the more fitting, given the dark subject matter [think ‘Blackeyed Susan’ from 14 Songs], but the electric version is pretty damn catchy and infectious, like an awful lot of Mono was. ‘Pine Box’ is a full out rocker, the closest thing to the Mats he’s pulled off since the first solo record. It’s nice to know PW can still pull off things like this, but then again I think it’d been a whole lot more effective with a full band ala 14 Songs, where Paul could lay back and let someone else carry a few bars or go against him with a descending bass line or something. ‘Meet Me Down the Alley’ is back to typical PW of Suicane or Stereo, not as blue as ‘Bad Times Roll,’ but still searching for something, still “not too young to die.”
Westerberg’s cover of Jackson Browne’s ‘These Days’ has been getting some ink because we all know PW can turn out some good songs on his own [now Joe Cocker is a great interpreter of songs!], but I think it’s a good track. It’s probably not as pretty as Jackson’s version… Jackson has a silky voice and usually hires top talent like David Lindley, Russ Kunkle and Waddy Wachtel [admit it, Westerberg’s voice can be shaky and nasal, though that’s part of his charm], but Paul lays down some pretty good slide guitar and puts a lot of feeling into Browne’s song about growing older [and even growing up a little]. If there was any justice and/or real radio, this would be a great late night/ pre-dawn morning track.
Dead Man Shake by Westerberg’s alter ego [or split personality] Grandpaboy on blues label Fat Possum is more blues tinged than Westerberg’s fucked up Faces “pop” [I hear a lot of Ronnie Wood in his playing]. Very lo-fideleity again. There’s not a lot of high frequencies on this until late in the record, making it feel claustrophobic at times. ‘MPLS’ and ‘Take Out Some Insurance’ are pretty good ronk and honk blues reminiscent of Jimmy Reed. ‘Vampires and Failures’ is a good track, if a simple throwaway, but it’s followed by the 5 ½ minute drag of ‘No Matter What You Say,’ which is just bar band blues [pre- Stevie Ray Vaughn; no guitar pyrotechnic, feedback and whammy bar shit here!] bum notes and all. Think the Doors ‘Cars Hiss by My Window’ meets the Allman Brothers ‘Stormy Monday’ as played by your cousins in their basement. ‘Get A Move On’ is another of the original tracks that could have been something if it had been polished a little. Here it sounds like Neil Young and Crazy Horse warming up circa Ragged Glory, before they turned the Marshalls on. The cover of John Prine’s ‘Souvenirs’ is a pretty nice country-ish track, but Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ sounds like it was run through a bullhorn. ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’ which closes is a nice touch. Another great song Grandpaboy can make the lyrics really hit home on, ala ‘Good Day’ from PW’s Eventually.
But sadly, on the two CDs it’s a lot of hit or miss. We were shown on Stereo that PW can still churn out heartbreakingly great stuff, even if it’s a little rough. Here it feels like he’s just spinning his wheels, or even worse, popping the clutch and stalling out. Maybe it’s my fault for expecting so much from the artist.
On the other hand, there are still those who remember and can play ‘Real Rock and Roll’ the way your Mom and Dad or you may remember it, with crunchy guitars and hooks that would make Rick Neilson proud. This I can attest to have attended the recent CD release party for Nope, who shared the bill with Nate Fowler’s Elixir, at the Double Wide in Dallas.
First, let me say that me and my friend Casey from work dug the motif of the Double Wide. Bad velvet art, bad 70s lamps and lampshades, pretty good jukebox from what we heard [X, Kiss, Ramones, Devo] and reasonably priced drinks. Both said we wished it was closer to home because it’s just a nice ‘hanging out’ bar. Probably the martinis are not as good as Cosmo’s but as a neighborhood BAR, like the old Elm Street Bar or the Lakewood Landing, I think it has promise.
And while I am at it, I will declare off the top that Nate has been a friend of mine for a long time. I have seen him grow from a Van Halen / Steve Vai hairspray and technique freak to a damn fine rock and roll guitarist. He still regularly abuses an old old stomp box analog delay that I traded to him at one time for a pink [and I mean PINK] Ibanez guitar [since painted lime green by my Dad].Though I wish he’d trade in one of those Les Pauls and use a Tele once in a while [the 71-reissue that Nope had on stage would be great!], that’s our old argument. So I have some affiliation here. But Nate’s been in the woodshed a long time, like since February, so it’s a new experience seeing him again. Nate [and his lovely wife… hi Sandy!] and I also trade a lot of “Have you heard this album?” And one album he got a hold of and played me way before this release was Nope. And I liked what I heard right away: real guitars [and bass and drums], real songs, good vocals and lyrics. No synthesized drums and I didn’t hear the words “baby” “oops” or voulez-vous” at all. And it’s not a really danceable album, although now that I’ve seen the boys, they strike me as really choreographically challenged anyway.
Nope, Chris Purdy and Herman Suede, cousins I believe, kicked off the night with longtime Dallas mainstays Kinley Wolfe [who would do double duty backing up Fowler, too] on bass and Earl Darling on drums. Seeing Suede [sometimes hatted, sometimes showing off a mowhawk] on Angus Young’s mainstay cherry red Gibson SG enlightens a rock and roll heart like mine, because only rock and rollers pull out the SG. Purdy’s Tele was a little low in the mix [from the right side of the stage where I was, anyway], but they just stood there and rocked for 45 minutes or so. No frills, no keyboards, no bullshit.
Unfortunately, I did not grab a set list, so I don’t know the order of the songs they played, but I got the CD. You’re going to ask me why I like this CD, and I'll be damned if I can tell you. I can hear snatches of influence from other bands I like. I can tell you what it ISN’T. It’s not the Marshall amp and power chord ‘power pop’ like Jimmy Eat World or Green Day or even Clumsy. It’s not progressive [Television / Talking Heads]. It’s not country or even country flavored Americana [Ryan Adams / Wilco]. I don’t hear a stick of any Stones/Georgia Satellites/ bar band E-A-D bash and thrash. It’s got to be kind of like hearing that first R.E.M. record [Chronic Town or ‘Radio Free Europe’ I mean, still not a fan of Murmur, and my first R.E.M. was Life’s Rich Pagent] or the first Pretenders and thinking “Boy, that doesn’t sound like anything else!”
‘Great Little Loser’ is a great two chord self depreciating stomp. “Can’t Put My Finger on It’ is classic power pop like the Goo Goo Dolls used to do, minus the Marshall stacks. [Nope also know when to NOT hold a power chord for ten bars over a verse… sometimes it’s what you don’t do that makes you different!] ‘It’s Up to You’ reminds of R.E.M. with all those arpegiated chords, but Purdy’s vocals really make it closer to the Church. ‘Nite Cap’ is another ode to hanging at the bar, but with the twist of having the “night cap during the day.” Anyone who’s ever played hooky and gone day drinking can appreciate how funny it can feel to start drinking while it’s still full daylight outside. ‘All Over Town’ is a great acoustic ‘everything’s going wrong’ song Ryan Adams would have been proud to write. ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ is more power pop more in a Replacements / Bash and Pop vein. ‘Clifford’ has a great Westerberg feel [ala ‘Here Comes A Regular’]. The “bonus” track is a fan-fucking-tastic rock and roll take of Mary J. Blige’s ‘Real Love.’ I’d hate to sell this album on a cover tune, but someone needs to get that song on the radio. Buy this album because there isn’t much original rock and roll like this out there anymore!
So after a really good set by Nope, Fowler and Wolfe and drummer Mike Wood took the stage and let loose a killer set of rock and roll. AlterNATEly sounding like the New York Dolls / Johnny Thunders meets Ronnie Wood and Izzy Stradlin, Fowler grabbed that heavy Gibson by the neck and didn’t let up for 45 minutes. He’s said ever since completing the Elixir record he wants a second guitarist, but the way he played, he may have found a way to make a trio work [I suspect liberal use of the delay to get that ‘twin guitar’ signature sound ala ‘Bleeding Years’ and ‘Shiver in the Sunshine’]. He also laid down some tasty slide work on the last two songs of the set. And most pleasantly, Fowler’s vocals continue to improve. Again, I don’t have a set list, and EVERYTHING Fowler played was new, but I hope it’s not another nine months before he plays again. Dallas can use more bands like Nope and the Elixir [and Marc Soloman’s Clumsy… I saw him at the show, but I don’t know him well enough to just walk up and ask the guy what he’s doing.].
As a matter of fact, why not start our own rock and roll revival right here in Dallas? Dallas hasn’t had a scene or identity since the New Bohemians era and that was [believe it or not] almost 15 years ago. Why not make Dallas the Detroit of the early 1970s, [Stooges, Bob Seger before he sold out, Kiss and J Geils breakthrough markets] where good rocking bands come and break or get broken? Somehow get someone like Irv at Idol to snag these guys up and make him the new Vangaurd or Epitath or Sub Pop… hey a guy can dream can’t he?
Also ran into Ron Geida, the Mick Taylor to Ed Voyles Kieth Richards, of Jasper Stone at the show, who advises that they are waiting for the return of their new CD from mastering in the next couple weeks. Spoke to Ed and he advises, for the record, that this record “rocks like fuck.” They will be releasing sometime early in the New Year, check here and the Jasper Stone site for info.
NOPE: www.nope.us
Jasper Stone: www.jasper-stone.com
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Last year, like quite a few people watching the NHL, I made the mistake of saying San Jose should go far. Well, Nabokov's hold out sank a lot of hopes and the Sharks were dead before they even left the gate. More on them later. So, with the season about to start and also with the caveat that I have seen zero of these teams this year, except one Dallas - Colorado preseason game, I boldly issue the following predictions:
COLORADO will win the West. They're fast, they're super skilled and they can outscore anybody like nobody's business. Not since the 84-85 Edmonton Oilers [WITH Paul Coffey] has the NHL seen such an offensive powerhouse. No, this is not Patrick Roy's Colorado Avalanche anymore. They will win games 5-4 and 6-5.
On an interesting aside, and a question I have never seen addressed: Would the Quebec Nordiques have taken the East in 1995, let alone win the Stanley Cup? With Colorado/Quebec in the East, they run into Detroit in the finals... now I remember the Western conference final that was a dog fight...
All right, the other Pretenders and Contenders in the West:
ANAHIEM : curious to see what Sergei Fedorov brings to the table. Good playmaker, real fast, who is he passing to? Need Steve Rucchin to stay healthy again all year. Giguere need to stay strong and not flop like Jose Theodore last year...
DALLAS: curious to see how well Marty Turco plays for the first three weeks. If he is bad, this team can sink. Curious to see how who emerges as a the great team leader now that Hatch is gone. Curious to see how the D plays, period. Power play could be a killer, Finnish line looked good with Meittenen [?]. If Barnes can keep fire lit under Turgeon and Young all year, Dallas can be dangerous.
DETROIT: Can this "Over the Hill Gang" suck it up for one more run at the Cup? Considering Chris Chelios was done LAST YEAR, I'd say... maybe. Brett Hull, Brendan Shannahan still dangerous, Zetterberg and Datsuk seem to be real deal, Hasek will be good, but Detroit will go as far as Steve Yzerman carries them. If the captain goes down, [or anyone, really] they do NOT have the depth to recover.
ST LOUIS: Another team that on paper has a good enough team, but they've had questions in goal and injury to Doug Weight and Chris Pronger. Chris Osgood would love to stick it to the Detroit management who sent him to Long Island... With Pronger returning this team could be deep if they can commit to defense.
VANCOUVER: Mostly stayed pat. Let Trent Klatt go to LA and brought in goaltender Johan Hedberg to spell Dan Cloutier and return Alex Auld to the minors for more seasoning. With Todd Bertuzzi and Marcus Nasland, this teeam continues to be dangerous. If one of the Sedin twins can step up and produce some points, they could go far.
PRETENDERS: CHICAGO [home of the BLACKHAWKS; remmeber they were an original 6 team?] is a major market, so why does their management continue to operate like a small market team. SAN JOSE committed to rebuilding, but could sneak in at a 7 or 8 seed. LA conitinues to seek direction. MINNESOTA wants to start the year without its two leading scorers, Marian Gaborik and Pacal Dupois? HA HA. If NASHVILLE can stay healthy, they also could sneak in at a 7 or 8.
Alll right, here's a surprise: NEW JERSEY will win the East again. They now have the best goaltender in the game and they still have a defensive system in place and three lines that can score. They have a couple guys who can be high scorers [Elias, Friesen and Langenbrunner, who I am predicting will emerge to take Joe Nieuwendyk's place, and John Madden, who remains a dangerous two way player] but do not have a dominant line since the Jason Arnott - Peter Sykora - Patrick Elais line was broken up. But scoring by committee works for them. I think Marty Brodeur remains the X factor who gets the job done over Ottawa.
OTTAWA remains the # 2 pick in the East. They have great scoring and great goaltending, I just think Martin Brodeur continues to dominate the game and make runs at all of Patrick Roy's records. The full time addition of Jason Spezza will add to a ferocious offensive attack and many are predicting that this is year Wade Redden come into his own of the blue line. Havlat, Alfredsson, Hossa still the best right side in hockey. Still, I will take the Devils. They just KNOW how to shut people down!
BOSTON continues to be a threat because of Joe Thornton, Glenn Murray, Sergei Samsonaov [after missing much of last year after wrist sugury] and Mike Knuble, but their D has questions, is Felix Potvin an upgrade, and will they have a second line? But the B's can make teams miserable with a big, if inexperianced defensive group. Boston is also a major market team with poor management [ala Chicago] problems. Hard Line Harry Sinden is one of the top "How does he keep his job?" GMs in the league... I HOPE if the B's falter down the stretch he becomes Homeless Harry.
The NEW YORK Hockey RANGERS will finally earn their slalries and make the playoffs this year. And it will be a rejuvenated commitment to defense by Brian Leetch,Tom Poti and Greg de Vries that will make it happen. They WILL decide to sacrifice points for defensive coverage and the whole team will follow suit, led by Bobby Holik and Mark Messier. They will have a top 20 scorer in Alexi Kovalev. Questions remain of the left side though and Mike Dunham will be worn out by the time the playoffs roll around. Bet on them to lose in the first round.
PHILADELPHIA, led by "How does he keep his job?" GM Bobby Clarke is in trouble. They hadve a decent mix of older and younger talent led by a good coach who will get his team to play defense [Ken Hitchcock], but still they are one or two injuries from falling out of contention. John LeClaire and Tony Amonte MUST return to the 25-30 goal plateau and this team must play defense in front of Jeff Hacket, who replaces noted nut Roman Chechmanek who was shipped to LA for poor playoff performance. Chechmanek IS right that the team did not supprt him with goals in the playoffs. He was made the scapegoat by a GM who is complacent.
TAMPA BAY, not WASHINGTON will win the South-Least in a runaway. John Grahame will allow Nick Khabibulin to sit once in a while, like when the Montreal comes to town, and Vincent Lecavilier and Brad Richards will continue to spark plug a good offense.
PRETENDERS: Washington, like Philly, will continue to search for production from overpaid aging stars liek Jagr and Bondra. They will miss the playoff entirely when Carolina sinks them with two weeks left in the season, The NY ISLANDERS tried staying pat and are hoping a full season with Michael Peca will improve the team. If they don't find a way to light a fire under Alexi Yashin's ass and get him some scoring wingers, look for 'Mad Mike' Milburry to be out as GM. Success for the PITTSBURGH PENGUINS will be leading the league in power play percentage with Mario Lemieux, and 20 wins. Other than that there is litle hope for my Pens. TORONTO, good offense, no defense, Eddie the Eagle back to 2001-02 numbers and going crazy by year's end. Niewendyk back with Gary Roberts, though, give offsensive depth. Still, blue line a joke.
FINALS: COLORADO over NEW JERSEY in 6.
Anybody else watching "The Blues" on Channel 13 this week [in Dallas]? I watched the Piano Player tonight [no comments from the peanut gallery on my 'lack of life' please] with Clint Eastwood and I was AMAZED by the late Professor Longhair... it seems his style is not only based on the blues but those rolls he makes makes the piano almost seem like a percussion instrument, espacially on his trademark "Tipitina". Check that one out when it is re-aired! DEFINATELY worth two hours of your time!
Does anyone else have a lost love that haunts their dreams? I had a dream about one last night and I am still just.... and like a fool I fall right in with her again...
Word to the wise: DO NOT drink and type without a good spell checker, and even it cannot spell Nabokoz and Nieuwendyk.
COLORADO will win the West. They're fast, they're super skilled and they can outscore anybody like nobody's business. Not since the 84-85 Edmonton Oilers [WITH Paul Coffey] has the NHL seen such an offensive powerhouse. No, this is not Patrick Roy's Colorado Avalanche anymore. They will win games 5-4 and 6-5.
On an interesting aside, and a question I have never seen addressed: Would the Quebec Nordiques have taken the East in 1995, let alone win the Stanley Cup? With Colorado/Quebec in the East, they run into Detroit in the finals... now I remember the Western conference final that was a dog fight...
All right, the other Pretenders and Contenders in the West:
ANAHIEM : curious to see what Sergei Fedorov brings to the table. Good playmaker, real fast, who is he passing to? Need Steve Rucchin to stay healthy again all year. Giguere need to stay strong and not flop like Jose Theodore last year...
DALLAS: curious to see how well Marty Turco plays for the first three weeks. If he is bad, this team can sink. Curious to see how who emerges as a the great team leader now that Hatch is gone. Curious to see how the D plays, period. Power play could be a killer, Finnish line looked good with Meittenen [?]. If Barnes can keep fire lit under Turgeon and Young all year, Dallas can be dangerous.
DETROIT: Can this "Over the Hill Gang" suck it up for one more run at the Cup? Considering Chris Chelios was done LAST YEAR, I'd say... maybe. Brett Hull, Brendan Shannahan still dangerous, Zetterberg and Datsuk seem to be real deal, Hasek will be good, but Detroit will go as far as Steve Yzerman carries them. If the captain goes down, [or anyone, really] they do NOT have the depth to recover.
ST LOUIS: Another team that on paper has a good enough team, but they've had questions in goal and injury to Doug Weight and Chris Pronger. Chris Osgood would love to stick it to the Detroit management who sent him to Long Island... With Pronger returning this team could be deep if they can commit to defense.
VANCOUVER: Mostly stayed pat. Let Trent Klatt go to LA and brought in goaltender Johan Hedberg to spell Dan Cloutier and return Alex Auld to the minors for more seasoning. With Todd Bertuzzi and Marcus Nasland, this teeam continues to be dangerous. If one of the Sedin twins can step up and produce some points, they could go far.
PRETENDERS: CHICAGO [home of the BLACKHAWKS; remmeber they were an original 6 team?] is a major market, so why does their management continue to operate like a small market team. SAN JOSE committed to rebuilding, but could sneak in at a 7 or 8 seed. LA conitinues to seek direction. MINNESOTA wants to start the year without its two leading scorers, Marian Gaborik and Pacal Dupois? HA HA. If NASHVILLE can stay healthy, they also could sneak in at a 7 or 8.
Alll right, here's a surprise: NEW JERSEY will win the East again. They now have the best goaltender in the game and they still have a defensive system in place and three lines that can score. They have a couple guys who can be high scorers [Elias, Friesen and Langenbrunner, who I am predicting will emerge to take Joe Nieuwendyk's place, and John Madden, who remains a dangerous two way player] but do not have a dominant line since the Jason Arnott - Peter Sykora - Patrick Elais line was broken up. But scoring by committee works for them. I think Marty Brodeur remains the X factor who gets the job done over Ottawa.
OTTAWA remains the # 2 pick in the East. They have great scoring and great goaltending, I just think Martin Brodeur continues to dominate the game and make runs at all of Patrick Roy's records. The full time addition of Jason Spezza will add to a ferocious offensive attack and many are predicting that this is year Wade Redden come into his own of the blue line. Havlat, Alfredsson, Hossa still the best right side in hockey. Still, I will take the Devils. They just KNOW how to shut people down!
BOSTON continues to be a threat because of Joe Thornton, Glenn Murray, Sergei Samsonaov [after missing much of last year after wrist sugury] and Mike Knuble, but their D has questions, is Felix Potvin an upgrade, and will they have a second line? But the B's can make teams miserable with a big, if inexperianced defensive group. Boston is also a major market team with poor management [ala Chicago] problems. Hard Line Harry Sinden is one of the top "How does he keep his job?" GMs in the league... I HOPE if the B's falter down the stretch he becomes Homeless Harry.
The NEW YORK Hockey RANGERS will finally earn their slalries and make the playoffs this year. And it will be a rejuvenated commitment to defense by Brian Leetch,Tom Poti and Greg de Vries that will make it happen. They WILL decide to sacrifice points for defensive coverage and the whole team will follow suit, led by Bobby Holik and Mark Messier. They will have a top 20 scorer in Alexi Kovalev. Questions remain of the left side though and Mike Dunham will be worn out by the time the playoffs roll around. Bet on them to lose in the first round.
PHILADELPHIA, led by "How does he keep his job?" GM Bobby Clarke is in trouble. They hadve a decent mix of older and younger talent led by a good coach who will get his team to play defense [Ken Hitchcock], but still they are one or two injuries from falling out of contention. John LeClaire and Tony Amonte MUST return to the 25-30 goal plateau and this team must play defense in front of Jeff Hacket, who replaces noted nut Roman Chechmanek who was shipped to LA for poor playoff performance. Chechmanek IS right that the team did not supprt him with goals in the playoffs. He was made the scapegoat by a GM who is complacent.
TAMPA BAY, not WASHINGTON will win the South-Least in a runaway. John Grahame will allow Nick Khabibulin to sit once in a while, like when the Montreal comes to town, and Vincent Lecavilier and Brad Richards will continue to spark plug a good offense.
PRETENDERS: Washington, like Philly, will continue to search for production from overpaid aging stars liek Jagr and Bondra. They will miss the playoff entirely when Carolina sinks them with two weeks left in the season, The NY ISLANDERS tried staying pat and are hoping a full season with Michael Peca will improve the team. If they don't find a way to light a fire under Alexi Yashin's ass and get him some scoring wingers, look for 'Mad Mike' Milburry to be out as GM. Success for the PITTSBURGH PENGUINS will be leading the league in power play percentage with Mario Lemieux, and 20 wins. Other than that there is litle hope for my Pens. TORONTO, good offense, no defense, Eddie the Eagle back to 2001-02 numbers and going crazy by year's end. Niewendyk back with Gary Roberts, though, give offsensive depth. Still, blue line a joke.
FINALS: COLORADO over NEW JERSEY in 6.
Anybody else watching "The Blues" on Channel 13 this week [in Dallas]? I watched the Piano Player tonight [no comments from the peanut gallery on my 'lack of life' please] with Clint Eastwood and I was AMAZED by the late Professor Longhair... it seems his style is not only based on the blues but those rolls he makes makes the piano almost seem like a percussion instrument, espacially on his trademark "Tipitina". Check that one out when it is re-aired! DEFINATELY worth two hours of your time!
Does anyone else have a lost love that haunts their dreams? I had a dream about one last night and I am still just.... and like a fool I fall right in with her again...
Word to the wise: DO NOT drink and type without a good spell checker, and even it cannot spell Nabokoz and Nieuwendyk.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
“Where have all the good times gone?” A letter to a long lost friend
Indeed, the question is “Where has all the fun gone” period, but for our discussion, the greater question is ‘What the heck happened to rock and roll?”
Yes, it’s been a long time since we sat and chewed the fat on the subject. To the best on my recollection, before the flannel clad, unshaven Generation X brats embraced Nirvana and Pearl Jam and deemed that Cobain kid as the “Next Spokesman for His Generation” and watched as the thorny crown they placed on his head shattered in a shotgun blast. Is that too harsh? Maybe. But the kid didn’t have it in him to be an emotional recluse like Dylan or larger than life like Springsteen or even hide behind an “alcoholic boob” façade like my beloved Paul Westerberg. I mean I feel for the guy in that he was the “lonely kid who suffered so much for what he did” as Robbie Robertson once wrote [Stage Fright], but his band wasn’t what everyone claimed; they weren’t punk, they weren’t the ‘saviors of rock and roll’ [though selling six million and kicking the door open for a bunch of other flannel clad navel gazer bands probably kept the ‘Music Industry’ from drying up for five years there]… I’m not sure what they were. I’m not sure at 25 that I was supposed to ‘get it.’ Black Sabbath sounding bands, I could get; not Nirvana.
Oh, rock and roll was dying [again] was going before them. We were tired of the party all the time hairspray bands and it was pretty clear critical college radio darlings were not going to sell the tons of records needed to keep the music industry giants alive unless they polished their apples and played fairly mainstream, like REM chose to do. Matter of fact I recall ‘The Music Industry’ holding its breath for another Guns ‘N Roses record that turned out to be the sprawling unfocused Use Your Illusion records. The rise of the Seattle sound, heavy swirling Black Sabbath influenced bands like Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, the criminally unheard Gruntruck and Soundgrarden along with Pearl Jam’s raging against the machine effectively and mercifully killed the ‘hairspray bands’ [except Bon Jovi and Def Leppard], but they also sucked all the fun out of rock and roll. What’s the last song you can think of with ‘party’ or even ‘rock’ in the title? One just popped into my mind: You’ve Got Me Rocking by the Rolling Stones [1996], but they’re a hold over band [see Cheap Trick, below].
Don’t get me wrong, songs like I Wanna Rock [Twisted Sister] , Nothin’ But A Good Time’[Poison], Rock and Roll All Night [Kiss] and Rock and Roll Party in the Streets [Axe?] were mindless and stupid, but they were harmless. Even when Rush, Genesis, Yes, ELP, et al were trying to bore us [although I think with enough drugs some of that could sound interesting, but that would take about ½ the tea in China] to death with 12 minute songs like ‘Opus to the Grandeur of the Electric Triangle,’ there was still fun, mindless and harmless rock and roll being made like Cheap Trick. The fact that Cheap Trick is STILL making mostly harmless [but only half good] records is not the point here; they are holdovers from another era. Same as the Kinks and the Rolling Stones. Aerosmith, however, has seen fit to join the other side. They’re making unapologetically commercial records. They’re being seen at the Super Bowl with Brittany and Justin and Nelly. They won’t quit playing Walk This Way. For some reason I was encouraged by the single Jaded. It sounded fresh and it looked like the band could do something more than they did. That’s the frustrating part: You know what they can do, what they’re capable of, but they’re slaves to the Corporate Master now. And it’s killed a once great band. But I also think Joe Perry could be a man and stand up to Steven Tyler and tell him to shut up once in a while, to really BE the Keith Richards to Tyler’s Jagger.
I’ve been dabbling in country music recently. There’s something happening there now that they’ve decided that electric guitars are here to stay. But they’re getting stuck in the same ‘pretty boy’ rut that’s gumming up pop music. The Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith are pretty good and there’s a bunch of Texans keeping things interesting, folks like Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green and Cross Canadian Ragweed [well, they’re Okies, but they’re okay]. Plus I am finding the old school outlaw country guys like Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Hank Jr. and Billy Joe Shaver. But my problem now is that I am more interested in good songs, which I am finding on Wilco and Paul Westerberg and re-issues of the Uncle Tupelo and Elvis Costello catalogs. [What a TREASURE I have found in Elvis! I wonder now why I didn’t have all these records before, but I wonder if I could appreciate them then as I can now.]
So what is the current state of rock and roll? Is it dead and buried or is it out of town and the kids are having a big old party? What I can stand to hear of today’s music is all bass… all the guitars are tuned down, the bass drum is all electronic THOOM DOOM that the rappers all like [don’t even get me started on M&M and all that crap, although if the idea is ‘this is gonna drive your parents nuts and define a generation gap,’ well it succeeds in SPADES]. This used to be the kick drum, but who uses real drums anymore besides the third wave of garage bands like the Strokes [who have one or two really good songs that they somehow turned into a whole album, but they need to learn another chord REAL FAST], Hives, White Stripes… none of whom have impressed me. Or it’s pretty boys and girls in tight clothes or various states of undress. Hmm, now that I think about it, that is vapid, mindless, stupid and harmless… I may have just shot my own argument in the foot.
On the other hand, rock and roll seems to be cyclical thing, every so often it turns and devours itself. Usually about the time one generation quits buying music CDs so they can pay the mortgage, ‘The Industry’ comes up with the next big thing or scene to capture the interest of the 16 year old. The interesting thing about this period is the emergence of the Internet as a viable tool for exposing people to new music, allowing an incredibly diverse universe of artists [not all musicians are artists and vice-versa] to be consumed. But ‘The Music Industry’ doesn’t want the masses to have this tool because it goes completely against the way the industry is set up. TMI will no longer be able to set the trends and control the spin to garner large dollars for their greedy stockholders. Don’t believe for a SECOND that the RIAA suing people over ‘copyright violations’ has ANYTHING to do with protecting ‘The Artist’ or ‘The Artist’s Work.’ It is all about protecting the music industry recouping the dollars they put into ‘Artist Development’ which they don’t do anymore because they buy artists from the indie labels. It is about keeping a dinosaur system that has all ready devoured its own from becoming an extinct dinosaur. The small independents are probably right where they need to be for Internet sales and allowing samples and all that and being in the right place for the future. But the Big 5 [3, depending on how you count] aren’t in position for Internet sales, in spite of Apple’s iTunes selling 10 million downloads at a buck a pop. [This is now being held back from PC owners as the Beatles Apple Corps suing Apple Computers over the name Apple, stating iTunes is violating a 1991 agreement that allowed Apple Computers to use the name Apple as long as Apple did not get into the ‘music business.’] And anyway, the Big 5/3 are only interested in selling yesterday’s hits re-remastered so you can own it a fourth time and they make easy money on something all ready long paid for.
Anyway, getting back to the original question: “What happened to rock and roll?” This was a puzzling question until I had a talk with Holey Mikey the Amazing Pierced Boy. Creep popped out with “It’s been destroyed by the commercialization and idolization perpetrated by the music industry. Kids today want shock rock, they want rap-rock, they want pseudo-punk; they don’t LIKE [what used to be known as] rock.” He also blamed the record companies for forcing bands down on people and “as soon as the flavor of the week band starts losing popularity, they have someone ready to take their place. That’s what’s on the radio and MTV, it must be good.”
Mikey went on to explain that part of this comes from the kids being taught from day one not to be emotional. Their parents are both off working and that emotional people are weak. But they have these emotions and they don’t have an outlet. And he played me some tunes. I asked what the answer was. It’s one thing to say “I feel like you do” but another to offer an answer or an idea. “We need some garage bands with guitars and drums,” he told me. Well, that’s going on, sort of. But what I find missing from this whole thing is that lightning rod, shake up the world band, the great unifying IT like the Beatles.
And maybe that’s it. We discussed where this splintering began and I think we have narrowed the period down to 1986/87, with the rise of Run DMC, Anthrax’s crossing the rap-metal barrier and the rise of the Beastie Boys. Now everything is so pigeon holed there is no real ‘Rock’ anymore. You’ve got the Emo bands like Good Charlotte and Jimmy Eats World, but they lack the introspection of the Replacements. Westerberg learned to put his heart out on his sleeve around the time of Let It Be. Is there anyone out there who could throw out “look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re satisfied’ [Unsatisfied]? ANGER, yes. Remember Fionna Apple and Alanis Morisette and how pissed off they were? John Lydon once quipped ‘Anger is an energy,’ but he’s notorious for not offering any answers either. Anger we have, but not introspection or answers. Have the kids today gotten to the point of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, afraid to be “caught red handed showing feelings”?
Mike mentioned Woodstock 99 and those people destroying everything. I tried to tell him that people went to Woodstock looking for something they were missing, to make a connection with some MAGIC THING or Ghost of Protests Past that would make their lives have meaning or point them at an answer. And when all they got was $ 5 water and $ 10 hamburgers, they realized they had been duped. Which does not excuse people for burning and looting. But it does show that there are some people looking for answers instead of sinking into a dope induced, Play Station fed stupor.
I asked, “Who cares anymore Mike? The kids don’t want to know ‘the ones we love the best/ are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least/ are the one’s we’ll die to please/ if it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them’. [‘Bastards of Young’ – Replacements]” Mike, being a fairly intelligent individual in spite of appearances, said, “Someone should keep reminding people that it’s there. Someone has to keep telling the kids about real music.”
I don’t know anymore. I still have some hope because there are bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Foo Fighters, Dallas band Nope and my friend Nate who still play it like the Stones, Faces and the ‘Mats did. I know there’s an untapped underground of people who still listen to Cheap Trick, the Smithereens, the Black Crowes and AC/DC and wonder why there are no bands like that anymore. Then again, there is the crowd that listens to ‘The Bone’ and sing along with Sammy Hagar, Van Halen, Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Boston, Billy Squier, etc and think they are still rockin’. The same dudes who wear their Van Halen 1984 or Hagar Kicks Ass ’85 tour jerseys changing the oil in their driveway on Saturday morning in Burleson. Which raises an interesting connundrum. I saw X last winter at Trees, a small club about the size of a high school gym [all four originals touring for the first time since 1985] and they played great, but they played so loud my ears literally rang for three days. It was way TOO loud. And if it was too loud, does that make me ‘too old?’
I took Mikey to CD Warehouse so I could pick up my latest Elvis re-issue, Trust, and he was asking the counter guy about ordering something called Day Glo Abortions and ragging me for buying Train. But then we were discussing punk with the counter guy, as I was considering a Damned double CD [decided against, really Damned Damned Damned is their best and I own that] and Mikey was able to discuss the Ramones, the Clash and Fear, so maybe I am having a positive impact [even though he rarely plays anything that good when I am in the car with him and he thinks Suicidal Tendencies are punk].
So I guess with Lester Bangs dead twenty years, but finally getting some respect and Joe Strummer recently deceased, that leaves ME to carry the torch for ‘Old School Rock and Roll’ and ‘Real Punk Rock.’
Indeed, the question is “Where has all the fun gone” period, but for our discussion, the greater question is ‘What the heck happened to rock and roll?”
Yes, it’s been a long time since we sat and chewed the fat on the subject. To the best on my recollection, before the flannel clad, unshaven Generation X brats embraced Nirvana and Pearl Jam and deemed that Cobain kid as the “Next Spokesman for His Generation” and watched as the thorny crown they placed on his head shattered in a shotgun blast. Is that too harsh? Maybe. But the kid didn’t have it in him to be an emotional recluse like Dylan or larger than life like Springsteen or even hide behind an “alcoholic boob” façade like my beloved Paul Westerberg. I mean I feel for the guy in that he was the “lonely kid who suffered so much for what he did” as Robbie Robertson once wrote [Stage Fright], but his band wasn’t what everyone claimed; they weren’t punk, they weren’t the ‘saviors of rock and roll’ [though selling six million and kicking the door open for a bunch of other flannel clad navel gazer bands probably kept the ‘Music Industry’ from drying up for five years there]… I’m not sure what they were. I’m not sure at 25 that I was supposed to ‘get it.’ Black Sabbath sounding bands, I could get; not Nirvana.
Oh, rock and roll was dying [again] was going before them. We were tired of the party all the time hairspray bands and it was pretty clear critical college radio darlings were not going to sell the tons of records needed to keep the music industry giants alive unless they polished their apples and played fairly mainstream, like REM chose to do. Matter of fact I recall ‘The Music Industry’ holding its breath for another Guns ‘N Roses record that turned out to be the sprawling unfocused Use Your Illusion records. The rise of the Seattle sound, heavy swirling Black Sabbath influenced bands like Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, the criminally unheard Gruntruck and Soundgrarden along with Pearl Jam’s raging against the machine effectively and mercifully killed the ‘hairspray bands’ [except Bon Jovi and Def Leppard], but they also sucked all the fun out of rock and roll. What’s the last song you can think of with ‘party’ or even ‘rock’ in the title? One just popped into my mind: You’ve Got Me Rocking by the Rolling Stones [1996], but they’re a hold over band [see Cheap Trick, below].
Don’t get me wrong, songs like I Wanna Rock [Twisted Sister] , Nothin’ But A Good Time’[Poison], Rock and Roll All Night [Kiss] and Rock and Roll Party in the Streets [Axe?] were mindless and stupid, but they were harmless. Even when Rush, Genesis, Yes, ELP, et al were trying to bore us [although I think with enough drugs some of that could sound interesting, but that would take about ½ the tea in China] to death with 12 minute songs like ‘Opus to the Grandeur of the Electric Triangle,’ there was still fun, mindless and harmless rock and roll being made like Cheap Trick. The fact that Cheap Trick is STILL making mostly harmless [but only half good] records is not the point here; they are holdovers from another era. Same as the Kinks and the Rolling Stones. Aerosmith, however, has seen fit to join the other side. They’re making unapologetically commercial records. They’re being seen at the Super Bowl with Brittany and Justin and Nelly. They won’t quit playing Walk This Way. For some reason I was encouraged by the single Jaded. It sounded fresh and it looked like the band could do something more than they did. That’s the frustrating part: You know what they can do, what they’re capable of, but they’re slaves to the Corporate Master now. And it’s killed a once great band. But I also think Joe Perry could be a man and stand up to Steven Tyler and tell him to shut up once in a while, to really BE the Keith Richards to Tyler’s Jagger.
I’ve been dabbling in country music recently. There’s something happening there now that they’ve decided that electric guitars are here to stay. But they’re getting stuck in the same ‘pretty boy’ rut that’s gumming up pop music. The Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith are pretty good and there’s a bunch of Texans keeping things interesting, folks like Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green and Cross Canadian Ragweed [well, they’re Okies, but they’re okay]. Plus I am finding the old school outlaw country guys like Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Hank Jr. and Billy Joe Shaver. But my problem now is that I am more interested in good songs, which I am finding on Wilco and Paul Westerberg and re-issues of the Uncle Tupelo and Elvis Costello catalogs. [What a TREASURE I have found in Elvis! I wonder now why I didn’t have all these records before, but I wonder if I could appreciate them then as I can now.]
So what is the current state of rock and roll? Is it dead and buried or is it out of town and the kids are having a big old party? What I can stand to hear of today’s music is all bass… all the guitars are tuned down, the bass drum is all electronic THOOM DOOM that the rappers all like [don’t even get me started on M&M and all that crap, although if the idea is ‘this is gonna drive your parents nuts and define a generation gap,’ well it succeeds in SPADES]. This used to be the kick drum, but who uses real drums anymore besides the third wave of garage bands like the Strokes [who have one or two really good songs that they somehow turned into a whole album, but they need to learn another chord REAL FAST], Hives, White Stripes… none of whom have impressed me. Or it’s pretty boys and girls in tight clothes or various states of undress. Hmm, now that I think about it, that is vapid, mindless, stupid and harmless… I may have just shot my own argument in the foot.
On the other hand, rock and roll seems to be cyclical thing, every so often it turns and devours itself. Usually about the time one generation quits buying music CDs so they can pay the mortgage, ‘The Industry’ comes up with the next big thing or scene to capture the interest of the 16 year old. The interesting thing about this period is the emergence of the Internet as a viable tool for exposing people to new music, allowing an incredibly diverse universe of artists [not all musicians are artists and vice-versa] to be consumed. But ‘The Music Industry’ doesn’t want the masses to have this tool because it goes completely against the way the industry is set up. TMI will no longer be able to set the trends and control the spin to garner large dollars for their greedy stockholders. Don’t believe for a SECOND that the RIAA suing people over ‘copyright violations’ has ANYTHING to do with protecting ‘The Artist’ or ‘The Artist’s Work.’ It is all about protecting the music industry recouping the dollars they put into ‘Artist Development’ which they don’t do anymore because they buy artists from the indie labels. It is about keeping a dinosaur system that has all ready devoured its own from becoming an extinct dinosaur. The small independents are probably right where they need to be for Internet sales and allowing samples and all that and being in the right place for the future. But the Big 5 [3, depending on how you count] aren’t in position for Internet sales, in spite of Apple’s iTunes selling 10 million downloads at a buck a pop. [This is now being held back from PC owners as the Beatles Apple Corps suing Apple Computers over the name Apple, stating iTunes is violating a 1991 agreement that allowed Apple Computers to use the name Apple as long as Apple did not get into the ‘music business.’] And anyway, the Big 5/3 are only interested in selling yesterday’s hits re-remastered so you can own it a fourth time and they make easy money on something all ready long paid for.
Anyway, getting back to the original question: “What happened to rock and roll?” This was a puzzling question until I had a talk with Holey Mikey the Amazing Pierced Boy. Creep popped out with “It’s been destroyed by the commercialization and idolization perpetrated by the music industry. Kids today want shock rock, they want rap-rock, they want pseudo-punk; they don’t LIKE [what used to be known as] rock.” He also blamed the record companies for forcing bands down on people and “as soon as the flavor of the week band starts losing popularity, they have someone ready to take their place. That’s what’s on the radio and MTV, it must be good.”
Mikey went on to explain that part of this comes from the kids being taught from day one not to be emotional. Their parents are both off working and that emotional people are weak. But they have these emotions and they don’t have an outlet. And he played me some tunes. I asked what the answer was. It’s one thing to say “I feel like you do” but another to offer an answer or an idea. “We need some garage bands with guitars and drums,” he told me. Well, that’s going on, sort of. But what I find missing from this whole thing is that lightning rod, shake up the world band, the great unifying IT like the Beatles.
And maybe that’s it. We discussed where this splintering began and I think we have narrowed the period down to 1986/87, with the rise of Run DMC, Anthrax’s crossing the rap-metal barrier and the rise of the Beastie Boys. Now everything is so pigeon holed there is no real ‘Rock’ anymore. You’ve got the Emo bands like Good Charlotte and Jimmy Eats World, but they lack the introspection of the Replacements. Westerberg learned to put his heart out on his sleeve around the time of Let It Be. Is there anyone out there who could throw out “look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re satisfied’ [Unsatisfied]? ANGER, yes. Remember Fionna Apple and Alanis Morisette and how pissed off they were? John Lydon once quipped ‘Anger is an energy,’ but he’s notorious for not offering any answers either. Anger we have, but not introspection or answers. Have the kids today gotten to the point of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, afraid to be “caught red handed showing feelings”?
Mike mentioned Woodstock 99 and those people destroying everything. I tried to tell him that people went to Woodstock looking for something they were missing, to make a connection with some MAGIC THING or Ghost of Protests Past that would make their lives have meaning or point them at an answer. And when all they got was $ 5 water and $ 10 hamburgers, they realized they had been duped. Which does not excuse people for burning and looting. But it does show that there are some people looking for answers instead of sinking into a dope induced, Play Station fed stupor.
I asked, “Who cares anymore Mike? The kids don’t want to know ‘the ones we love the best/ are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least/ are the one’s we’ll die to please/ if it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them’. [‘Bastards of Young’ – Replacements]” Mike, being a fairly intelligent individual in spite of appearances, said, “Someone should keep reminding people that it’s there. Someone has to keep telling the kids about real music.”
I don’t know anymore. I still have some hope because there are bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Foo Fighters, Dallas band Nope and my friend Nate who still play it like the Stones, Faces and the ‘Mats did. I know there’s an untapped underground of people who still listen to Cheap Trick, the Smithereens, the Black Crowes and AC/DC and wonder why there are no bands like that anymore. Then again, there is the crowd that listens to ‘The Bone’ and sing along with Sammy Hagar, Van Halen, Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Boston, Billy Squier, etc and think they are still rockin’. The same dudes who wear their Van Halen 1984 or Hagar Kicks Ass ’85 tour jerseys changing the oil in their driveway on Saturday morning in Burleson. Which raises an interesting connundrum. I saw X last winter at Trees, a small club about the size of a high school gym [all four originals touring for the first time since 1985] and they played great, but they played so loud my ears literally rang for three days. It was way TOO loud. And if it was too loud, does that make me ‘too old?’
I took Mikey to CD Warehouse so I could pick up my latest Elvis re-issue, Trust, and he was asking the counter guy about ordering something called Day Glo Abortions and ragging me for buying Train. But then we were discussing punk with the counter guy, as I was considering a Damned double CD [decided against, really Damned Damned Damned is their best and I own that] and Mikey was able to discuss the Ramones, the Clash and Fear, so maybe I am having a positive impact [even though he rarely plays anything that good when I am in the car with him and he thinks Suicidal Tendencies are punk].
So I guess with Lester Bangs dead twenty years, but finally getting some respect and Joe Strummer recently deceased, that leaves ME to carry the torch for ‘Old School Rock and Roll’ and ‘Real Punk Rock.’
Friday, September 12, 2003
Looking Back Down Thunder Road
I was recently re-reading an old Musician magazine, as I am wont to do from time to time. Specifically, I got to reading an article on Bruce Springsteen and how he and Jon Landau put together the Live 1975-1985 set [aka THE Original Box Set] and how they struggled to get the songs in an order to tell a story of sorts, starting with that sparse take of ‘Thunder Road.’ [The truth, just for knowledge, is that Bruce was having a hard time getting the band arrangement down (he even felt like it wasn’t right on the record) so he was opening with just Roy Bittan on piano and Danny Federichi on glockenspiel.]
Now I have always felt a deep connection to ‘Thunder Road,’ more so than the dynamic but over hyped and overplayed ‘Born to Run.’ I think Bruce’s best line EVER is “Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet.” It seems to me to be about two real people [‘you ain’t no beauty but hey you’re all right”] and their beginning of a search for something after high school. It fits the mold of the first scene of a movie, maybe even perhaps even echoing James Dean’s Rebel Without A Cause [“It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win” instead of “What are you rebelling against?”, “What have ya got?”]. And it’s so distinctly American Dream. “Gonna leave the nest and find my place in the world.”
It’s so opposite from my own life, maybe that’s why I connected so deeply with it. I came from [well, I GRADUATED in] a town full of losers, but I never left home. I just stumbled through a couple crappy jobs and struggled to pretend I was going to school still and ‘make something of myself.’ I didn’t discover myself until I was at the record store [my dream job] and hooked up with people older than me who gave me some guide posts. They also taught me to get drunk on weeknights and stumble in sweaty and reeking to do books at 800 the next morning after starting the day with a 16oz Coke and a bag of M&Ms to get a good sugar rush to get me through the day.
But even when I had found my path [I do not believe I have found my ‘calling’ though you kind people tell me I should be writing somewhere… but I HATE deadlines and I don’t have anything really interesting to say myself] I didn’t have that complete sense of freedom found in ‘Thunder Road.’ I don’t know if it’s just because I felt I never did anything, never went anyplace, didn’t take any chances… even looking back now, I know I was jealous of my friends who went off to college in exotic locales like Houston, Nashville and even Abilene.
They were off on their paths and pursuing what they wanted [or thought they wanted at the time]. I never have known what I want out of life. I mean beyond shelter and food and friends. I guess I realized early that I probably wasn’t going to be much beyond a working class Joe. And I probably wouldn’t do as well as my parents. My folks lucked into an area where good paying manufacturing jobs were being filled at that time. My dad went from managing McDonalds and Taco Bell and Red Lobster to making fighter jets. I didn’t want to build jets. I wanted to be Hunter Thompson or Ben Fong Torres and interview Mick Jagger. But I couldn’t or wouldn’t get myself though school. Where does one start? I had this conversation with a friend a few weeks ago about dream jobs. I really couldn’t think of my dream job. I said ‘beat writer for a hockey team.’ I would love to do that. Local music columnist, take Macolm Mayhew or Zac Crain’s jobs from them; record producer, sound man at Gypsy Tea Room… I could name a few now that I’ve had time to think it over.
Oh, I got sidetracked. Well, actually, maybe that’s what happened to me. I had an idea, but I got off the highway and never got back on. Had the dream job working in the record store at 19, fired at 21 and never got back on track. Even got back in school for a while after that, but got wiped out by Algebra again. I never even tried for the college paper or journalism classes. The irony was that I was in a depressed haze for a couple years after high school, writing an awful American Graffiti type screenplay and angry, lonesome free verse… always writing, but not what I should have been, eh? But I always was a late bloomer; I didn’t take journalism in high school until my junior year, so I spent all of half a year on the school paper [deadlines] and the yearbook; I think if Tatum had known what a pain I would be she would have said ‘No’ to journalism. On the other hand, we had some great rock and roll discussions. However, she doesn’t know how lucky she is that I never read Hunter Thompson or Lester Bangs until after high school.
Ah, back where I started: ‘Thunder Road.’ What does the world think of someone who has no dream to follow? Or doesn’t feel the ‘overwhelming call’ to chase a dream or to hit the road and find themselves or whatever? Does that make me an oddball? [Suppress comments, please, peanut gallery.] Burleson was no paradise in 1985. Surprises me every time I come back what’s been built, houses and restaurants and all. From a disconnected ‘bedroom town’ to the ‘south end of the Fort Worth/I-35W corridor’ I guess. Like Irving, Grand Prairie, Grapevine and Southlake, just added into the urban sprawl. But back then, it was just a little hick town and we weren’t even in the city. We were out on the rural route with the cows and the rednecks. I hated growing up out there before I got a car. There was just nothing to do. I was the oldest kid on my little street and the only other guy on the street was about 5 years younger than me. I guess that’s where I learned to entertain myself. But apparently as much as I hated being in the sticks and as much time as I spent in Arlington, I never moved on. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I didn’t do anything.
Springsteen’s characters at least got together and did something. They got out, got married, found out a lot of what the American Dream is based on was smoke and mirrors and things aren’t all wine and roses. But they got out and lived it, bitter day after bitter day [see Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River and Nebraska]. Of course Springsteen’s characters are distinctly colored with New Jersey [or at least Northeastern US] flavor. I was sitting here in the new ‘land of opportunity,’ where things were happening. I wasn’t suffering as steel mills and textile factories were closing, wondering where my next mortgage payment was coming from. Did I know at 20 that the American Dream had been shot, butchered and served up as steak to the Baby Boom Generation and all I was gonna get was hamburger?
It’s funny how things change on you. I thought I was going to write about how realizing that Mom and Dad didn’t know it all was a traumatic or defining moment, but I guess it wasn’t either of those things. It still makes a good sentence, but unfortunately it’s not really true. That wasn’t it. Realizing I had no deep driving ambition, maybe. Realizing that I was in charge of my own life and all my regrets were my own fault, definitely.
I said before that my parents weren’t really vocally supportive or doting or anything. It’s partially true. I have come to realize over the last few weeks how much help I may have had if I hadn’t had my big ol’ ego in the way. What else has not asking for help or not wanting to be a bother kept me from? What else has bad self image kept me from doing?
Anyway, that’s the book of my regrets for the day. I don’t feel like I got out and experienced the gypsy lifestyle I know is buried somewhere inside me, aside from runs up I 35 to Wichita. It’s really funny that I like driving because you can just pop in a tape and let the miles glide by and let your mind just unwind, hypnotized by the freeway hum. Of course you’re gonna run like a maniac when you get where you’re going and you’re going to be beat when you finally pull in your own driveway again, but Springsteen’s characters never mention that. They’re just getting out. Maybe they only make it to the next town or Philly or Pittsburgh or Dallas or Denver or maybe they make it all the way to California and find out that “no matter where you go, there you are.” [I am reminded of Gallagher talking about the old days, where “when you’re wagon broke down, you stayed. Do you think anyone sets out for Tulsa?” I am also reminded that there are a lot of ‘transitional towns’ where people end up for a couple years and move on, Wichita and Charleston W.Va. in my own experience. I mean I know a lot of people who have been through Wichita.]
Every kid growing up in a small town, be it Mellencamp’s Bloomfield, Indiana or Springsteen’s Asbury Park, New Jersey or Buddy Holly’s Lubbock, Texas wants to go somewhere where the action is. They want to blow their small burg and make it big. And they end up like my folks, making jets and building cars and two kids and a mortgage, worried about the economy and struggling through their own realizations that they didn’t ‘make it’ like they set out to [disappointments]. Most end up middle class, though some end up running away or hiding in the bottle or just desperate for something. Then their kids grow up ungrateful and blast “Bastards of Young” at them [“The ones who love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least are the ones we’ll die to please…”]. Then they grow up, leave their burgs, get married, end up with even more ungrateful kids who blast Emenem back at them…
So here I am, an anomaly of the American Dream, looking back down Thunder Road. What happened to the idea of writing the great American novel, screenplay and finding the lost chord? How did I end up here, hopelessly lower middle class, still living paycheck to paycheck [and sometimes floating a week on the Visa], comfortable but not “happy.” My lucky break is that I can still pretty much starve myself to do something and only have to worry about me and the rent. Sounds silly, like a mid-life crisis, to just pack it all up, sell the CDs and start over at 36. But I could, if I wanted to.
I was recently re-reading an old Musician magazine, as I am wont to do from time to time. Specifically, I got to reading an article on Bruce Springsteen and how he and Jon Landau put together the Live 1975-1985 set [aka THE Original Box Set] and how they struggled to get the songs in an order to tell a story of sorts, starting with that sparse take of ‘Thunder Road.’ [The truth, just for knowledge, is that Bruce was having a hard time getting the band arrangement down (he even felt like it wasn’t right on the record) so he was opening with just Roy Bittan on piano and Danny Federichi on glockenspiel.]
Now I have always felt a deep connection to ‘Thunder Road,’ more so than the dynamic but over hyped and overplayed ‘Born to Run.’ I think Bruce’s best line EVER is “Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet.” It seems to me to be about two real people [‘you ain’t no beauty but hey you’re all right”] and their beginning of a search for something after high school. It fits the mold of the first scene of a movie, maybe even perhaps even echoing James Dean’s Rebel Without A Cause [“It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win” instead of “What are you rebelling against?”, “What have ya got?”]. And it’s so distinctly American Dream. “Gonna leave the nest and find my place in the world.”
It’s so opposite from my own life, maybe that’s why I connected so deeply with it. I came from [well, I GRADUATED in] a town full of losers, but I never left home. I just stumbled through a couple crappy jobs and struggled to pretend I was going to school still and ‘make something of myself.’ I didn’t discover myself until I was at the record store [my dream job] and hooked up with people older than me who gave me some guide posts. They also taught me to get drunk on weeknights and stumble in sweaty and reeking to do books at 800 the next morning after starting the day with a 16oz Coke and a bag of M&Ms to get a good sugar rush to get me through the day.
But even when I had found my path [I do not believe I have found my ‘calling’ though you kind people tell me I should be writing somewhere… but I HATE deadlines and I don’t have anything really interesting to say myself] I didn’t have that complete sense of freedom found in ‘Thunder Road.’ I don’t know if it’s just because I felt I never did anything, never went anyplace, didn’t take any chances… even looking back now, I know I was jealous of my friends who went off to college in exotic locales like Houston, Nashville and even Abilene.
They were off on their paths and pursuing what they wanted [or thought they wanted at the time]. I never have known what I want out of life. I mean beyond shelter and food and friends. I guess I realized early that I probably wasn’t going to be much beyond a working class Joe. And I probably wouldn’t do as well as my parents. My folks lucked into an area where good paying manufacturing jobs were being filled at that time. My dad went from managing McDonalds and Taco Bell and Red Lobster to making fighter jets. I didn’t want to build jets. I wanted to be Hunter Thompson or Ben Fong Torres and interview Mick Jagger. But I couldn’t or wouldn’t get myself though school. Where does one start? I had this conversation with a friend a few weeks ago about dream jobs. I really couldn’t think of my dream job. I said ‘beat writer for a hockey team.’ I would love to do that. Local music columnist, take Macolm Mayhew or Zac Crain’s jobs from them; record producer, sound man at Gypsy Tea Room… I could name a few now that I’ve had time to think it over.
Oh, I got sidetracked. Well, actually, maybe that’s what happened to me. I had an idea, but I got off the highway and never got back on. Had the dream job working in the record store at 19, fired at 21 and never got back on track. Even got back in school for a while after that, but got wiped out by Algebra again. I never even tried for the college paper or journalism classes. The irony was that I was in a depressed haze for a couple years after high school, writing an awful American Graffiti type screenplay and angry, lonesome free verse… always writing, but not what I should have been, eh? But I always was a late bloomer; I didn’t take journalism in high school until my junior year, so I spent all of half a year on the school paper [deadlines] and the yearbook; I think if Tatum had known what a pain I would be she would have said ‘No’ to journalism. On the other hand, we had some great rock and roll discussions. However, she doesn’t know how lucky she is that I never read Hunter Thompson or Lester Bangs until after high school.
Ah, back where I started: ‘Thunder Road.’ What does the world think of someone who has no dream to follow? Or doesn’t feel the ‘overwhelming call’ to chase a dream or to hit the road and find themselves or whatever? Does that make me an oddball? [Suppress comments, please, peanut gallery.] Burleson was no paradise in 1985. Surprises me every time I come back what’s been built, houses and restaurants and all. From a disconnected ‘bedroom town’ to the ‘south end of the Fort Worth/I-35W corridor’ I guess. Like Irving, Grand Prairie, Grapevine and Southlake, just added into the urban sprawl. But back then, it was just a little hick town and we weren’t even in the city. We were out on the rural route with the cows and the rednecks. I hated growing up out there before I got a car. There was just nothing to do. I was the oldest kid on my little street and the only other guy on the street was about 5 years younger than me. I guess that’s where I learned to entertain myself. But apparently as much as I hated being in the sticks and as much time as I spent in Arlington, I never moved on. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I didn’t do anything.
Springsteen’s characters at least got together and did something. They got out, got married, found out a lot of what the American Dream is based on was smoke and mirrors and things aren’t all wine and roses. But they got out and lived it, bitter day after bitter day [see Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River and Nebraska]. Of course Springsteen’s characters are distinctly colored with New Jersey [or at least Northeastern US] flavor. I was sitting here in the new ‘land of opportunity,’ where things were happening. I wasn’t suffering as steel mills and textile factories were closing, wondering where my next mortgage payment was coming from. Did I know at 20 that the American Dream had been shot, butchered and served up as steak to the Baby Boom Generation and all I was gonna get was hamburger?
It’s funny how things change on you. I thought I was going to write about how realizing that Mom and Dad didn’t know it all was a traumatic or defining moment, but I guess it wasn’t either of those things. It still makes a good sentence, but unfortunately it’s not really true. That wasn’t it. Realizing I had no deep driving ambition, maybe. Realizing that I was in charge of my own life and all my regrets were my own fault, definitely.
I said before that my parents weren’t really vocally supportive or doting or anything. It’s partially true. I have come to realize over the last few weeks how much help I may have had if I hadn’t had my big ol’ ego in the way. What else has not asking for help or not wanting to be a bother kept me from? What else has bad self image kept me from doing?
Anyway, that’s the book of my regrets for the day. I don’t feel like I got out and experienced the gypsy lifestyle I know is buried somewhere inside me, aside from runs up I 35 to Wichita. It’s really funny that I like driving because you can just pop in a tape and let the miles glide by and let your mind just unwind, hypnotized by the freeway hum. Of course you’re gonna run like a maniac when you get where you’re going and you’re going to be beat when you finally pull in your own driveway again, but Springsteen’s characters never mention that. They’re just getting out. Maybe they only make it to the next town or Philly or Pittsburgh or Dallas or Denver or maybe they make it all the way to California and find out that “no matter where you go, there you are.” [I am reminded of Gallagher talking about the old days, where “when you’re wagon broke down, you stayed. Do you think anyone sets out for Tulsa?” I am also reminded that there are a lot of ‘transitional towns’ where people end up for a couple years and move on, Wichita and Charleston W.Va. in my own experience. I mean I know a lot of people who have been through Wichita.]
Every kid growing up in a small town, be it Mellencamp’s Bloomfield, Indiana or Springsteen’s Asbury Park, New Jersey or Buddy Holly’s Lubbock, Texas wants to go somewhere where the action is. They want to blow their small burg and make it big. And they end up like my folks, making jets and building cars and two kids and a mortgage, worried about the economy and struggling through their own realizations that they didn’t ‘make it’ like they set out to [disappointments]. Most end up middle class, though some end up running away or hiding in the bottle or just desperate for something. Then their kids grow up ungrateful and blast “Bastards of Young” at them [“The ones who love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest/ and visit their graves on holidays at best/ the ones who love us least are the ones we’ll die to please…”]. Then they grow up, leave their burgs, get married, end up with even more ungrateful kids who blast Emenem back at them…
So here I am, an anomaly of the American Dream, looking back down Thunder Road. What happened to the idea of writing the great American novel, screenplay and finding the lost chord? How did I end up here, hopelessly lower middle class, still living paycheck to paycheck [and sometimes floating a week on the Visa], comfortable but not “happy.” My lucky break is that I can still pretty much starve myself to do something and only have to worry about me and the rent. Sounds silly, like a mid-life crisis, to just pack it all up, sell the CDs and start over at 36. But I could, if I wanted to.