I figure I will just get this one out of the way. Otherwise it will hang over this whole blog silently, the White Elephant that none of us will acknowledge.
In many ways, there is no comparison between these two bands. I have childhood memories of The Beatles. They were important to me as a cultural lighthouse before I went to kindergarten. My mother is a wonderful guitar player and I thought she'd written 'When I'm Sixty Four' until an embarassingly late age. A large canon of songs were mistakenly attributed to my mother by me early on, old folk songs and new standards alike.
So there is something primal about The Beatles to me, something that goes back so far in my consciousness that it coincides with my infancy and the sense of being totally provided for and catered to. I was listening to The Beatles and crapping my pants, ok? I didn't hear The Stones til much later.
I vividly remember being in my cousin Ken's basement listening to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This would have been the late 1970's. Somehow the idea came up that The Beatles had broken up. I don't think I'd ever even thought of The Beatles as being real people, they were more like the air, or the mountains, or God. They simply WERE. This being so, they couldn't simply STOP being. But they had 'broken up'. I heard that term applied to The Beatles before I ever heard it applied to a romantic couple.
A gulf of sadness enveloped me as this realization hit me. They'd broken up??? Huh? How could this music happen and then be rejected? What they hell were they thinking? It was at this moment that I first understood that being a grown up was going to suck. And then they started scaring the hell out of me. If The Beatles couldn't be happy, how the hell was I going to manage it?
The moment passed and Ken and I probably went outside to pretend The Red Sox were finally winning the World Series.
Aside from The Beatles, I was primarily listening to 'Oliver', 'Oklahoma', Don McLean, and The Raunch Hands, a vocal group from Yale. This wasn't really music fandom yet as it was imaginary play. I was IN 'Oliver', I was IN 'Oklahoma', the story songs of Don McLean and The Raunch Hands were platforms for play. The Beatles were the first band that I was a fan of, that weren't means to an imaginary end.
Strange connection to The Stones in there. While listening to Don McLean's 'American Pie', we were somehow aware that the whole Devil portion was a metaphor for Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones at Altamont. I've come to hate the conservative 'things were more authentic way back then' bullshit attitude of this song in spite of its undeniable melody, but this song was so powerful to me as a youngster that I had a built in distaste for The Rolling Stones.
Flash forward to high school. I've now become a dyed-in-the-wool punk rock aficionado. I have disdain for all things classic rock. Led Zeppelin are bloated bullshit artists. The Stones are hopelessly passe. The only songs I really know are 'Satisfaction', 'Jumpin' Jack Flash', etc. I'm still not crazy about either of these songs to tell you the truth.
But then I heard 'Sympathy for the Devil' on the radio. I find it hard to believe that there was a first time that I heard that song, but there was and it was during my adolescence. Now, I know this song has almost become a cliche itself with the falsetto background and all, but I remember the specific bit that first caught my interest. I remember the DJ saying, "The Stones! Sympathy for the Devil". The title alone was more interesting than any of the music I'd heard from them up to that point. All of a sudden Mick Jagger is singing about driving a tank during the Blitzkrieg??? About making sure that Pontius Pilate washed his hands??? What's more, it was as if this was an answer song to Don McLean. Oh, you think I'm evil??? Take this!
My definition of punk rock expanded to include The Rolling Stones.
Flash forward to 1999. I am doing a play in North Carolina. Since high school, my taste has become almost pathologically eclectic. I can't stand not having the best of any genre, even if I don't particularly care for the genre itself. Hence the Miles Davis and John Coltrane albums. I've continued to dig The Stones, buying 'Beggars Banquet' to get 'Sympathy for the Devil', and 'Exile on Main Street' to get the inside scoop on the madness.
But I would still not really characterize myself as a FAN. They are dinosaurs that I can enjoy, that continue to be alive in spite of the meteor shower of modernity.
And then I met Melody. Someday I'll write a music post about that first meeting. Suffice it to say that her name doesn't feel like an accident to me. The first few weeks of knowing Melody barely feel real to me, they feel like a great romantic comedy that had to have happened to some other lucky guy.
At one point in these early days, we pulled out of a restaurant we'd just eaten at. She was driving off in her car, I in mine, and we were at a light waiting to go our separate ways. She was blasting 'Beast of Burden' and she yelled that it was her favorite song at the moment. Needless to say, The Stones grew in my estimation along with my exploding heart.
She appreciates The Beatles, but for her The Stones are more real, more fun. The Beatles just make her sad. And when you think about it, she's right. The Beatles were destroyed by their union, The Stones are still making music almost 50 years after they started.
In an amazing footnote, we were lucky enough to score free tickets to The Rolling Stones 2006 concert at Dodger Stadium. There they were, teeeeeny tiny action figures blasting an ungodly noise that they'd begun honing in the 1950's. Sure The Beatles recorded 'Sgt. Pepper's', 'The White Album', 'Revolver', etc. etc. But The Rolling Stones are continuing to gather no moss in their own unparalleled fashion.
If I was stuck on an island by myself, I'd take The Beatles. If I was lucky enough to have Melody with me, I'd happily take The Stones and dance away in beautiful isolated unity.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Top 10 Music Movies
These movies all are about people who make music. This makes them musicals of a sort, but what make them interesting to me is that they examine the creative process. Rent away!
1. Hustle and Flow: Being a lo-fi home recording artist myself, I am always skeptical when anyone tries to depict the creative process that goes into recording a song. If you are a music fan of any of the legions of performers who have released recordings that they did at home, I suggest you watch this movie. It will give you keen insight into the highs and lows of lo-fi. My parents even loved it. And I guarantee you they don't listen to gangster rap in their spare time.
2. That Thing You Do: Maybe it is the sight of dewy Liv Tyler cheering the boys on in a succession of 60's outfits; maybe it is the fact that Tom Hanks wrote some songs for his pet project; maybe it is the unadulterated joy that the group gets when they hear themselves on the radio for the first time and dance around the drummer's dad's appliance store; maybe it's Steve Zahn; I don't know what IT is, but That Thing You Do has it. Did I already mention the dewy Liv Tyler? Well, she's Liv Tyler and she is DEWY.
3. Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny: I am tempted to put this first on my list because I can't stop watching it right now. And when I say I can't stop watching it, I mean that I have watched it almost every day since I bought it 3 weeks ago. I am not kidding. Trying to write a FUNNY song that also rocks hard enough to be a legitimate rock song doesn't seem impossible in their hands. Each song is tasty, ridiculous, hilarious, and catchy-as-Dave-Grohl-in-hell. Seriously, give this one a chance. I don't know if I can be completely objective and I might be one of the people who drank the Kool Aid, but I can't imagine anyone not getting a kick out of this movie. And yes, I just did some sort of weird triple-negative thing that I can't explain. Jack Black and Kyle Gass are rock AND comedy gods in an unholy alliance of tune-age and laughs.
4. Prince: Sign o' the Times: Everyone knows Purple Rain. I'll write about it later on down the list. But this is the one to see. Why? Well, for one thing, we don't have to watch the pure hilarity of Prince acting. Seriously, he and Madonna should do a movie together. I think the whole medium of film might implode into the ether at the badness. No, this is a CONCERT film. But not your ordinary concert film. It doesn't have that back-of-the-arena after thought feel of most concert films. It has a gorgeous visual style and lavishes the viewer with treats. And then there are the songs. He does a medley of his old hits but for the most part the film goes song by song through the double album 'Sign o' the Times'. Sure he's a weirdo. Sure he's a demagogue. Sure he thinks he's the only one who ever had a sexual fantasy. But man can he give a concert.
5. 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould: I can't even remember anything about this movie except that I can't recommend it enough. Glenn Gould is a kooky Canadian concert pianist who rocketed to international acclaim very early in his career and then spent decades defying expectations. The film doesn't have anything to do with any of that, but I can't remember what it is about. Watch it.
6. Purple Rain: I just wrote about Prince right above so I'm bored with it already. Great movie though. I always wondered how small that motorcycle was in real life. Like, was it a Matchbox motorcycle? Was it a moped with a Halloween costume on?
7. Come Feel Me Tremble: Paul Westerberg's weird-ass home movie of his tour/recording sessions for the album of the same name. He asked for fans to send in footage they'd shot at his solo tour of 2002. He toured without a band for the first time ever and stayed behind after almost every show to sign autographs and chat with his longtime fans. It didn't make any headlines, but this was something akin to the Grinch cutting the Christmas ham. The live footage is interspersed with stuff he shot in his basement while recording. Seriously, this is a WEIRD movie. But awesome.
8. Don't Look Back: D.A. Pennebaker's awesome documentary about Dylan in London. This should probably be at the top of the list because if you watch it, it is supremely disconcerting. You know it was shot in the '60's but it is so MODERN feeling that none of the movies from 1-7 would be possible without this one. (Well, Tenacious D would be possible but you catch my drift!) You forget that Dylan was young, tough, and crazy until you see this flick. And you'll forever be glad that he dumped Joan Baez. He's smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and she's strumming some stupid folk song in the background trying to steal the spotlight. You want her to shut up so you can watch Dylan type.
9. Amadeus: Somehow this movie gets us inside Mozart's head. It makes a rock star out of him and forces us to deal with him in the way we deal with superstars of our day. The genius of this is placing Salieri right there along with him...this contextualizes him so that we see him more clearly. Imagine a movie about, say, Bruce Springsteen in which John Cougar Mellencamp must constantly compare 'Pink Houses' to 'Born in the USA'. Poor Jonny Cougar!
10. This is Spinal Tap: I won't even go into it. Don't even talk about it. We all understand so let's just...shhh.
If you watch these movies back to back it will be a full day of joy.
1. Hustle and Flow: Being a lo-fi home recording artist myself, I am always skeptical when anyone tries to depict the creative process that goes into recording a song. If you are a music fan of any of the legions of performers who have released recordings that they did at home, I suggest you watch this movie. It will give you keen insight into the highs and lows of lo-fi. My parents even loved it. And I guarantee you they don't listen to gangster rap in their spare time.
2. That Thing You Do: Maybe it is the sight of dewy Liv Tyler cheering the boys on in a succession of 60's outfits; maybe it is the fact that Tom Hanks wrote some songs for his pet project; maybe it is the unadulterated joy that the group gets when they hear themselves on the radio for the first time and dance around the drummer's dad's appliance store; maybe it's Steve Zahn; I don't know what IT is, but That Thing You Do has it. Did I already mention the dewy Liv Tyler? Well, she's Liv Tyler and she is DEWY.
3. Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny: I am tempted to put this first on my list because I can't stop watching it right now. And when I say I can't stop watching it, I mean that I have watched it almost every day since I bought it 3 weeks ago. I am not kidding. Trying to write a FUNNY song that also rocks hard enough to be a legitimate rock song doesn't seem impossible in their hands. Each song is tasty, ridiculous, hilarious, and catchy-as-Dave-Grohl-in-hell. Seriously, give this one a chance. I don't know if I can be completely objective and I might be one of the people who drank the Kool Aid, but I can't imagine anyone not getting a kick out of this movie. And yes, I just did some sort of weird triple-negative thing that I can't explain. Jack Black and Kyle Gass are rock AND comedy gods in an unholy alliance of tune-age and laughs.
4. Prince: Sign o' the Times: Everyone knows Purple Rain. I'll write about it later on down the list. But this is the one to see. Why? Well, for one thing, we don't have to watch the pure hilarity of Prince acting. Seriously, he and Madonna should do a movie together. I think the whole medium of film might implode into the ether at the badness. No, this is a CONCERT film. But not your ordinary concert film. It doesn't have that back-of-the-arena after thought feel of most concert films. It has a gorgeous visual style and lavishes the viewer with treats. And then there are the songs. He does a medley of his old hits but for the most part the film goes song by song through the double album 'Sign o' the Times'. Sure he's a weirdo. Sure he's a demagogue. Sure he thinks he's the only one who ever had a sexual fantasy. But man can he give a concert.
5. 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould: I can't even remember anything about this movie except that I can't recommend it enough. Glenn Gould is a kooky Canadian concert pianist who rocketed to international acclaim very early in his career and then spent decades defying expectations. The film doesn't have anything to do with any of that, but I can't remember what it is about. Watch it.
6. Purple Rain: I just wrote about Prince right above so I'm bored with it already. Great movie though. I always wondered how small that motorcycle was in real life. Like, was it a Matchbox motorcycle? Was it a moped with a Halloween costume on?
7. Come Feel Me Tremble: Paul Westerberg's weird-ass home movie of his tour/recording sessions for the album of the same name. He asked for fans to send in footage they'd shot at his solo tour of 2002. He toured without a band for the first time ever and stayed behind after almost every show to sign autographs and chat with his longtime fans. It didn't make any headlines, but this was something akin to the Grinch cutting the Christmas ham. The live footage is interspersed with stuff he shot in his basement while recording. Seriously, this is a WEIRD movie. But awesome.
8. Don't Look Back: D.A. Pennebaker's awesome documentary about Dylan in London. This should probably be at the top of the list because if you watch it, it is supremely disconcerting. You know it was shot in the '60's but it is so MODERN feeling that none of the movies from 1-7 would be possible without this one. (Well, Tenacious D would be possible but you catch my drift!) You forget that Dylan was young, tough, and crazy until you see this flick. And you'll forever be glad that he dumped Joan Baez. He's smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and she's strumming some stupid folk song in the background trying to steal the spotlight. You want her to shut up so you can watch Dylan type.
9. Amadeus: Somehow this movie gets us inside Mozart's head. It makes a rock star out of him and forces us to deal with him in the way we deal with superstars of our day. The genius of this is placing Salieri right there along with him...this contextualizes him so that we see him more clearly. Imagine a movie about, say, Bruce Springsteen in which John Cougar Mellencamp must constantly compare 'Pink Houses' to 'Born in the USA'. Poor Jonny Cougar!
10. This is Spinal Tap: I won't even go into it. Don't even talk about it. We all understand so let's just...shhh.
If you watch these movies back to back it will be a full day of joy.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Clowns to See Clowns
College. My life is a loop of audition, rehearsal, performance, party. There are 4 main stage productions each year and I am determined to appear in each.
An evening of Moliere one-acts has been scheduled and I am cast in 'A Doctor in Spite of Himself.' My Meisner/method teacher has decided to do the whole show as clowns. We all wonder how sense memory and independent activity is going to help us know when to throw the bucket of confetti.
The three plays are rehearsed independently of one another and virtually everyone in the theater department is involved. One of the plays has been transformed into a modern day Italian American gangster/guido comedy and one is being done as a traditional mask extravaganza with corsets, powdered wigs, and small faux birthmarks above each painted lip.
Everyone is having a blast. Our cast is smaller than the other two and rehearsals are quite strange in that we don't wear clown costumes. I don't know how to describe how uncomfortable this is. But imagine going around on Halloween and asking for candy in your regular clothes and trying to convince people that you are some sort of ghoul. It ain't easy.
As the show approaches, my friend Joe and I find out that The Replacements are playing on a Friday night in Providence. We immediately buy tickets and then try to convince our drill-sergeant director/mentor that he should cut rehearsal short so we can see the show. On principal he refuses. We offer to rehearse at another time over the weekend. He refuses. On principal.
We have fevered drunken meetings where we contemplate outright mutiny. What's he gonna do about it? Cancel the show? What if we both get sick? (Let's do another shot, yeah...) It's ridiculous, the show is 10 minutes long and we are rehearsing for 4 hours, why can't he...(insert baby crying noises).
In retrospect I gotta hand it to the director. He stuck to his guns. And he was right to. We had no business buying tickets to a show that started during a rehearsal time. But we did.
If rehearsal went well, we could get out on time and zoom the 40 minutes up I-95 to the Veterans Hall. Up until this rehearsal, things were not going well. We could not find the pace, we couldn't execute the bits, we felt self-conscious and silly. My character was a drunk and a lech and I felt funny with the girls in my lap and the bottle in my fist and the ogling and everything.
Somehow, though, with the urgency of wanting to get the hell out of there, I got it. I actually CLOWNED. I had no clown training, thank god, to draw on, so to feel true clown behavior emerge was quite shocking and obvious. All of a sudden, I didn't want to cut rehearsal short! I wanted to keep going! I was finding it!
Needless to say, our director/drill sergeant had mercy on us and let us go...sure we missed the first few songs of the show but we made it. And I always thought it was ironic that the clowniest band ever The Replacements helped me find my inner clown.
I also was somewhat shocked to realize that I cared more about the show than seeing my heroes perform. I wanted to be the best damn Moliere clown ever. That evening's rehearsal had given me a glimpse of how far humor could be pushed when you gave up the illusion of reality.
I'll never forget seeing my costume for the first time. True to form, the shoes were huge and floppy. The wig was garish. The buttons were gigantic. Somehow I developed a face with the makeup kits we were all required to buy. Our set was a gypsy wagon that was dressed to look like a house, as if we could set out on the road and perform this show anywhere. There were large colored boxes strewn around the stage to be used as necessary as tables, chairs, horses, trains, or beds.
The mask show preceded us in the evening and they ended their hilarious show in a tableau. The applause rang and then clowns attacked! We pushed our set onto the stage, grabbed the bosoms of the ladies, kicked the butts of the gents, dumped confetti on their heads, mocked them, and shooed them off stage.
What ensued was 10 minutes of chaos and hilarity. The best part about it was seeing my friends on stage with me buried in their clown costumes. There was something surreal about how complete the disguise was, something disorienting and ticklish. Yes, it was Alec who played the father of the girl I was trying to woo, but it was also this strange growling primary color toad who shook his fist and stomped his big feet.
At one point, Alec had to chase me around the stage. I ran up the steps to the top of the gypsy caravan, across the window, and down the steps on the other side. He followed. I ran back up the steps, across the window, and down the other side. The effect was of me entering the house, going through a room and out the other door.
The third time up, I stopped before crossing the window. Alec continued. Thus I've tricked him. He goes down the steps and I lean out the window and wave to him. Why this was so funny, I can sort of understand, but the level of laughter was ginormous.
The gypsy platform was about 4 feet wide, plenty of room for us to run across. But somehow Alec tripped the third time through. I don't know if he was just over eager to nail the joke, or what, but as I stood hidden from the audience, I watched my clown nemesis/real life friend trip over his large clown shoes as he traversed the platform and go shooting out into theater space.
Somehow he seemed to fly upwards and away from the platform instead of down the steps. The audience saw a clown ejected from a doorway 7 feet up. I'll never forget his face as he fell. He was looking back at me through his clown makeup, still playing the part, shaking his fist at me as he plummeted towards the stage. But deep within the makeup I saw him KNOW he was going to hit the ground hard. And oh did he ever hit the ground hard.
I am laughing out loud as I write this, nearly 20 years later. And every time The Replacements come on my iTunes and make me cry, there is always a little giggle to be had.
An evening of Moliere one-acts has been scheduled and I am cast in 'A Doctor in Spite of Himself.' My Meisner/method teacher has decided to do the whole show as clowns. We all wonder how sense memory and independent activity is going to help us know when to throw the bucket of confetti.
The three plays are rehearsed independently of one another and virtually everyone in the theater department is involved. One of the plays has been transformed into a modern day Italian American gangster/guido comedy and one is being done as a traditional mask extravaganza with corsets, powdered wigs, and small faux birthmarks above each painted lip.
Everyone is having a blast. Our cast is smaller than the other two and rehearsals are quite strange in that we don't wear clown costumes. I don't know how to describe how uncomfortable this is. But imagine going around on Halloween and asking for candy in your regular clothes and trying to convince people that you are some sort of ghoul. It ain't easy.
As the show approaches, my friend Joe and I find out that The Replacements are playing on a Friday night in Providence. We immediately buy tickets and then try to convince our drill-sergeant director/mentor that he should cut rehearsal short so we can see the show. On principal he refuses. We offer to rehearse at another time over the weekend. He refuses. On principal.
We have fevered drunken meetings where we contemplate outright mutiny. What's he gonna do about it? Cancel the show? What if we both get sick? (Let's do another shot, yeah...) It's ridiculous, the show is 10 minutes long and we are rehearsing for 4 hours, why can't he...(insert baby crying noises).
In retrospect I gotta hand it to the director. He stuck to his guns. And he was right to. We had no business buying tickets to a show that started during a rehearsal time. But we did.
If rehearsal went well, we could get out on time and zoom the 40 minutes up I-95 to the Veterans Hall. Up until this rehearsal, things were not going well. We could not find the pace, we couldn't execute the bits, we felt self-conscious and silly. My character was a drunk and a lech and I felt funny with the girls in my lap and the bottle in my fist and the ogling and everything.
Somehow, though, with the urgency of wanting to get the hell out of there, I got it. I actually CLOWNED. I had no clown training, thank god, to draw on, so to feel true clown behavior emerge was quite shocking and obvious. All of a sudden, I didn't want to cut rehearsal short! I wanted to keep going! I was finding it!
Needless to say, our director/drill sergeant had mercy on us and let us go...sure we missed the first few songs of the show but we made it. And I always thought it was ironic that the clowniest band ever The Replacements helped me find my inner clown.
I also was somewhat shocked to realize that I cared more about the show than seeing my heroes perform. I wanted to be the best damn Moliere clown ever. That evening's rehearsal had given me a glimpse of how far humor could be pushed when you gave up the illusion of reality.
I'll never forget seeing my costume for the first time. True to form, the shoes were huge and floppy. The wig was garish. The buttons were gigantic. Somehow I developed a face with the makeup kits we were all required to buy. Our set was a gypsy wagon that was dressed to look like a house, as if we could set out on the road and perform this show anywhere. There were large colored boxes strewn around the stage to be used as necessary as tables, chairs, horses, trains, or beds.
The mask show preceded us in the evening and they ended their hilarious show in a tableau. The applause rang and then clowns attacked! We pushed our set onto the stage, grabbed the bosoms of the ladies, kicked the butts of the gents, dumped confetti on their heads, mocked them, and shooed them off stage.
What ensued was 10 minutes of chaos and hilarity. The best part about it was seeing my friends on stage with me buried in their clown costumes. There was something surreal about how complete the disguise was, something disorienting and ticklish. Yes, it was Alec who played the father of the girl I was trying to woo, but it was also this strange growling primary color toad who shook his fist and stomped his big feet.
At one point, Alec had to chase me around the stage. I ran up the steps to the top of the gypsy caravan, across the window, and down the steps on the other side. He followed. I ran back up the steps, across the window, and down the other side. The effect was of me entering the house, going through a room and out the other door.
The third time up, I stopped before crossing the window. Alec continued. Thus I've tricked him. He goes down the steps and I lean out the window and wave to him. Why this was so funny, I can sort of understand, but the level of laughter was ginormous.
The gypsy platform was about 4 feet wide, plenty of room for us to run across. But somehow Alec tripped the third time through. I don't know if he was just over eager to nail the joke, or what, but as I stood hidden from the audience, I watched my clown nemesis/real life friend trip over his large clown shoes as he traversed the platform and go shooting out into theater space.
Somehow he seemed to fly upwards and away from the platform instead of down the steps. The audience saw a clown ejected from a doorway 7 feet up. I'll never forget his face as he fell. He was looking back at me through his clown makeup, still playing the part, shaking his fist at me as he plummeted towards the stage. But deep within the makeup I saw him KNOW he was going to hit the ground hard. And oh did he ever hit the ground hard.
I am laughing out loud as I write this, nearly 20 years later. And every time The Replacements come on my iTunes and make me cry, there is always a little giggle to be had.
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Positive Choice
I can be brutal. When it comes to music, this characteristic is actually heightened. And, unlike most people who merely like what they like and let it go, I am something of a missionary. My fervor can only really be measured if I have converts. I will show you why you are WRONG.
Of course, I am also prone to abruptly changing my mind and embracing an artist or song that I'd shunned. So I can be maddening in that regard.
Perfect example.
Counting Crows. I literally have a special furnace in my soul that burns with hatred and scorn for this band 24/7 365. From the bullshit ends of his hair extension corn rows to the faux depth of his intentionally coffee stained notebook of trite observations dressed up in bathos and self-pity to resemble searing truths about human nature, I HATE COUNTING CROWS.
To me, they rode the coat tails of my favorite artists and got rich trotting out cheap knock offs of true masterpieces. If you think 'Mr. Jones' is deep, try 'Here Comes a Regular' on for size. 'Mr. Jones'. Sheesh. Give me a fucking break.
Here's what I want to say to Adam Duritz. YOU ARE LYING. This whole song is a lie. It reminds me of acting class, where over and over actors are reminded to PLAY THE SCENE not play the EMOTION. That song asks us to fetishize Adam Duritz' self-pity the same way he does. Well, I ain't gonna do it, Adam. If you think you are so lame that you need fake dreadlocks to appear cool, then I think so too. If 'round here' is so lame and stupid, I'm holding you personally responsible.
Don't get me wrong...I love a great song about despair. It's like the old saw about pornography - I know it when I see it. What is that line in my taste that makes me almost cry with empathy and sympathy when Paul Westerberg draws a picture of disillusionment but I want to poke Adam Duritz in his stupid eye and tell him to get over it? I don't know, but I know it when I see it.
Wait, you say, this post is titled 'The Positive Choice'...what's going on? Well, here's the rub. I still can heave up oceans of derision for Counting Crows. But a side story will shed some further light...
In the fall of 2000 I did a show in Stamford, CT called 'Side Man'. It tells the story of the child of a disastrous marriage between an alcoholic and a jazz musician. The child grows up terrorized by the disfunction. I was the narrator, i.e. the child as adult. Needless to say, the show is dark. As the narrator I had to bounce back and forth from child to adult, from immediate impact to lifelong scar.
My strategy in preparing to go onstage was to get myself into as good a mood as possible while simultaneously listening to music that tore at my heartstrings. This sort of primed the pump but kept it bottled up at the same time. Then when I needed to explode it was ready to go. My pre-show prep was especially important because once I stepped on stage, I never came off until intermission and curtain.
My girlfriend had sent me a mix CD that I'd been listening to a good deal and since it was a meaningful personal gift, it began to be the primary CD. There was a song on the second side that she had included by, you guessed it, Counting Crows. It was called 'A Murder of One'.
This song KILLED me. In writing this post I couldn't remember the title of the song so I had to go look at their website and figure it out and look it up and read the lyrics and all that. As I read them I got a lump in my throat.
Now, how do I reconcile my harsh words about a band that has moved me to tears? I don't know. I can't.
Here are the truths.
I hate Counting Crows. The whole aesthetic of the music makes me cringe and feel embarassed.
Their song 'A Murder of One' is perfect and makes me cry.
That's as positve a choice as I can make.
Of course, I am also prone to abruptly changing my mind and embracing an artist or song that I'd shunned. So I can be maddening in that regard.
Perfect example.
Counting Crows. I literally have a special furnace in my soul that burns with hatred and scorn for this band 24/7 365. From the bullshit ends of his hair extension corn rows to the faux depth of his intentionally coffee stained notebook of trite observations dressed up in bathos and self-pity to resemble searing truths about human nature, I HATE COUNTING CROWS.
To me, they rode the coat tails of my favorite artists and got rich trotting out cheap knock offs of true masterpieces. If you think 'Mr. Jones' is deep, try 'Here Comes a Regular' on for size. 'Mr. Jones'. Sheesh. Give me a fucking break.
Here's what I want to say to Adam Duritz. YOU ARE LYING. This whole song is a lie. It reminds me of acting class, where over and over actors are reminded to PLAY THE SCENE not play the EMOTION. That song asks us to fetishize Adam Duritz' self-pity the same way he does. Well, I ain't gonna do it, Adam. If you think you are so lame that you need fake dreadlocks to appear cool, then I think so too. If 'round here' is so lame and stupid, I'm holding you personally responsible.
Don't get me wrong...I love a great song about despair. It's like the old saw about pornography - I know it when I see it. What is that line in my taste that makes me almost cry with empathy and sympathy when Paul Westerberg draws a picture of disillusionment but I want to poke Adam Duritz in his stupid eye and tell him to get over it? I don't know, but I know it when I see it.
Wait, you say, this post is titled 'The Positive Choice'...what's going on? Well, here's the rub. I still can heave up oceans of derision for Counting Crows. But a side story will shed some further light...
In the fall of 2000 I did a show in Stamford, CT called 'Side Man'. It tells the story of the child of a disastrous marriage between an alcoholic and a jazz musician. The child grows up terrorized by the disfunction. I was the narrator, i.e. the child as adult. Needless to say, the show is dark. As the narrator I had to bounce back and forth from child to adult, from immediate impact to lifelong scar.
My strategy in preparing to go onstage was to get myself into as good a mood as possible while simultaneously listening to music that tore at my heartstrings. This sort of primed the pump but kept it bottled up at the same time. Then when I needed to explode it was ready to go. My pre-show prep was especially important because once I stepped on stage, I never came off until intermission and curtain.
My girlfriend had sent me a mix CD that I'd been listening to a good deal and since it was a meaningful personal gift, it began to be the primary CD. There was a song on the second side that she had included by, you guessed it, Counting Crows. It was called 'A Murder of One'.
This song KILLED me. In writing this post I couldn't remember the title of the song so I had to go look at their website and figure it out and look it up and read the lyrics and all that. As I read them I got a lump in my throat.
Now, how do I reconcile my harsh words about a band that has moved me to tears? I don't know. I can't.
Here are the truths.
I hate Counting Crows. The whole aesthetic of the music makes me cringe and feel embarassed.
Their song 'A Murder of One' is perfect and makes me cry.
That's as positve a choice as I can make.
Friday, February 1, 2008
The Living Room, Pt. 2: 7 Seconds of Bliss
Summer before my junior year in high school. I'm psyched to finally join the ranks of upperclassmen. My comfort level has actually settled in and I'm enjoying myself. The strange underground world of punk rock has started to become a real force in my life. Being a soccer player and good student makes me something of an outsider in the punk world but my Chuck Taylor hi-tops and 7 Seconds t-shirts let the in-crowd know that I'm not that IN.
This has started to cause some tension in my life, but it is an exciting kind, knowing that I am starting to define myself in ways that might threaten other people. Just what a teenage boy could want. And it was sincere! I truly loved this music, how completely unconcerned with mainstream success they were, how they lived their dreams.
The glamour band of the scene was definitely Reno, Nevada's 7 Seconds. We'd been listening to their 'Walk Together, Rock Together' album nonstop. It was chock full of one and a half minute epic anthems of unity and disenfranchisement.
The singer was a broodingly handsome guy named Kevin Seconds. His brother played bass and they'd started their own record label. They had made this band their entire life. They were teenagers and yet they ran a mini corporation. The whole punk teen population had man-crushes on Kevin Seconds, firstly because of his talent, and then because he was doing what we all dreamed of.
When I heard that 7 Seconds was coming to The Living Room that summer, it instantly became the focus of my every thought. I was too young to drive but I knew a couple of punks who were going to the show. 7 Seconds were part of the straight edge movement, which meant that drinking and drug taking were NOT done. I knew if I drove with John Smith he wouldn't get wasted and strand me in Providence.
A whole crew of us piled into his car and we took off. It was an all-ages show, as many of the punk shows were, so we weren't worried about getting in. John and his girlfriend Kristin were sort of the glamourous punk couple of the town. They were both really good looking so their strange haircuts were more like fashion statements than political ones. I never went in for the extreme punk look so I always faced a good amount of scorn from the TRUE punks who thought I was a poser. That word was like the kiss of death in the punk world, it called into question your authenticity as a fan and a person.
7 Seconds took the stage and it was like a peace rally. Tom and I remarked that we'd thought Kevin Seconds would be taller. But he was still an amazing presence, all positive energy and openness. They barely paused between songs and barreled along, sweeping us up with their energy.
I was in a small crowd with John, Kristin, and their circle, a circle I wasn't too familiar with. In front of me stood a girl with a shirt on that clasped at her neck and draped down in two sheaths of fabric. Her back was bared but from the front you would not be able to tell. My attention was split away from the music as I stared at this brazen fashion choice. I couldn't see her face but her back sure looked great.
At some point during the show we were introduced. Her name was Maria and she was spending the summer in Rhode Island. She was from Ireland. She responded favorably to my Irish name and she was unfazed by this crazy American punk music. And, come on, she was wearing a shirt that didn't have a back.
Through no fault of my own, we began to make out. Now, up to this point in my life, I had kissed exactly one girl. So the quick moving kiss was certainly not my initiation and I'll always be grateful to her for her bravery. 7 Seconds roared away on stage and my hands had nowhere to go but her bare back.
One doesn't often think of romance when listening to hardcore punk music. But all across this great country of ours there are legions of middle aged men and women who first bridged the puberty gap with other horny misfits at dirty all ages shows.
Maria went back to Ireland, Junior year began, and before you know it, here I am.
Don't let anyone ever tell you that youth is wasted on the young.
This has started to cause some tension in my life, but it is an exciting kind, knowing that I am starting to define myself in ways that might threaten other people. Just what a teenage boy could want. And it was sincere! I truly loved this music, how completely unconcerned with mainstream success they were, how they lived their dreams.
The glamour band of the scene was definitely Reno, Nevada's 7 Seconds. We'd been listening to their 'Walk Together, Rock Together' album nonstop. It was chock full of one and a half minute epic anthems of unity and disenfranchisement.
The singer was a broodingly handsome guy named Kevin Seconds. His brother played bass and they'd started their own record label. They had made this band their entire life. They were teenagers and yet they ran a mini corporation. The whole punk teen population had man-crushes on Kevin Seconds, firstly because of his talent, and then because he was doing what we all dreamed of.
When I heard that 7 Seconds was coming to The Living Room that summer, it instantly became the focus of my every thought. I was too young to drive but I knew a couple of punks who were going to the show. 7 Seconds were part of the straight edge movement, which meant that drinking and drug taking were NOT done. I knew if I drove with John Smith he wouldn't get wasted and strand me in Providence.
A whole crew of us piled into his car and we took off. It was an all-ages show, as many of the punk shows were, so we weren't worried about getting in. John and his girlfriend Kristin were sort of the glamourous punk couple of the town. They were both really good looking so their strange haircuts were more like fashion statements than political ones. I never went in for the extreme punk look so I always faced a good amount of scorn from the TRUE punks who thought I was a poser. That word was like the kiss of death in the punk world, it called into question your authenticity as a fan and a person.
7 Seconds took the stage and it was like a peace rally. Tom and I remarked that we'd thought Kevin Seconds would be taller. But he was still an amazing presence, all positive energy and openness. They barely paused between songs and barreled along, sweeping us up with their energy.
I was in a small crowd with John, Kristin, and their circle, a circle I wasn't too familiar with. In front of me stood a girl with a shirt on that clasped at her neck and draped down in two sheaths of fabric. Her back was bared but from the front you would not be able to tell. My attention was split away from the music as I stared at this brazen fashion choice. I couldn't see her face but her back sure looked great.
At some point during the show we were introduced. Her name was Maria and she was spending the summer in Rhode Island. She was from Ireland. She responded favorably to my Irish name and she was unfazed by this crazy American punk music. And, come on, she was wearing a shirt that didn't have a back.
Through no fault of my own, we began to make out. Now, up to this point in my life, I had kissed exactly one girl. So the quick moving kiss was certainly not my initiation and I'll always be grateful to her for her bravery. 7 Seconds roared away on stage and my hands had nowhere to go but her bare back.
One doesn't often think of romance when listening to hardcore punk music. But all across this great country of ours there are legions of middle aged men and women who first bridged the puberty gap with other horny misfits at dirty all ages shows.
Maria went back to Ireland, Junior year began, and before you know it, here I am.
Don't let anyone ever tell you that youth is wasted on the young.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Living Room, Pt. 1: One Shoe On
Like many of my rock and roll tales, this one concerns the now defunct Providence club The Living Room.
Now, I've seen shows in totally unmemorable places that became memorable through the performance itself, or through what happened to me while I was there (Emmitt Swimming at Cat's Cradle in 1999 immediately comes to mind but that's for another day). But for sheer character, give me The Living Room.
You can go to The Living Room today, but it is not in the same location as the club that dominated the punk rock scene in the 1980's in Providence. In fact, the old club meant so much to me that I never went to the new location even though I lived almost within walking distance during my years living in Providence.
The old club was in an ancient mill complex just West of I-95 in the heart of Providence. You could see it from the highway as you whizzed past...the complex began at the bottom of a steep incline. If you parked at the bottom of the hill there were several ways to enter. You could walk up the sidewalk until you reached a small archway that led onto the courtyard outside of the club. Or you could walk across the flat parking lot to a set of steps that wound up from the base of the brick basement level to the club level. The overall effect was of a giant set of steps from the parking lot with the club being on the first level.
Nestled into the left hand corner of the courtyard was a small nondescript door. From the parking lot you could see the giant bubble window that protruded from the inside of the club. I can remember standing inside the club nursing a beer slowly leaning out into the inverted arc of the bubble and looking down on the tailgaters and ejectees who lingered in the parking lot.
Everything except that window was red brick.
As you entered the club, the stage was immediately on your right hand side facing the interior which stretched away from the entrance. The bar was a hard U pushed up against the left with a small walk space that let you look out the bubble window. At the rear right hand side was the entrance to the bathrooms. The wall space between the bathroom doors and the bar was broken up by a few couches.
Side note on the couches. I saw countless shows here, at most of which I was exhausted beyond measure from exertion and elation. At no time during any of these shows did I ever consider EVEN FOR A FRACTION OF A SECOND sitting on any of these couches. If it is possible for furniture to be hostile, these were. Upon closure of this incarnation of The Living Room, the couches were whisked away to Langley to be used in clandestine torture by the CIA.
I don't know what the capacity of The Living Room was, 500 legally, 800 death wish style, I couldn't say. When I saw The Ramones, I literally felt as if I were a particle of sausage in a vacuum packed container. There was absolutely no room. At that show the slam dancing ejected me up several feet and onto the bar.
These well attended shows seemed to clue us all in to the fact that the image being pedaled in the mass media was not quite commensurate with reality. I rarely was at The Living Room when it felt empty. The audience for this type of music was vital and growing. It was like being a member of a secret society.
I'd already seen my The Replacements tear the roof off of the place the summer before in 1986. I'd seen The Violent Femmes. I'd seen The Ramones. A let down seemed inevitable as I experienced my heroes up close. Would Husker Du be the first to disappoint?
Ah, no.
In retrospect I was massively lucky. The Huskers had just put out their latest double album Warehouse: Songs and Stories. The recording of this album had been, to put it mildly, contentious. The band was coming apart at the seams and tearing each other to pieces as they went. Just before they were to kick off the tour to support the double album (which Warner Brothers had pressured them to condense into a single album...) their long time tour manager committed suicide. The tour went on in spite of the tragedy and they were a fiery furnace of grief and rage.
If you don't know their music, suffice it to say that adding that layer on top of their combustible mix of distortion and volume was like lacing the A-Bomb with Napalm.
They played for what seemed like hours. They were a power trio with two primary songwriters, guitarist Bob Mould and drummer Grant Hart. Each sang their own compositions. The bass player bounced around silently sporting a handlebar mustache. I have no recollection of the songs they played, although I assume they focused primarily on the new double album. But they also played almost an hour's worth of material I had never heard.
They broke up a few months after this concert, cutting the tour short. The intensity of their performance made me wonder how they could maintain it even for the rest of the evening, let alone a world tour.
Now, there are all sorts of places you can go to find out what happened to Husker Du. It is a sad story of ruined friendship, creative competition devolving into bitter fueding, and drug abuse.
But this is a post about my shoe.
As I mentioned, Husker Du whirled all over The Living Room like a distorted dervish, all beat and propulsion and scream. The audience reacted appropriately. A sort of death dance gripped everyone as they ricocheted off of one another. The overall effect was of a souped up jalopy accelerating down a one way street towards a munitions factory.
They didn't do the normal 'leave the stage' til everyone claps loud enough encore bullarkey. They played so long that it soon became clear to everyone that they would simply stop when they couldn't go any further. And we did the same.
When I say I was sweaty, I don't mean a light mist that could be dabbed at with a hanky. No, the knees on my jeans were soaked through. My knees were sweating. MY KNEES.
All of a sudden it was over. The lights came on. Everyone was stunned. I remember it being really quiet. I had no idea where my friends were in the club. Total individual dance expression had been necessary and we'd all splintered off into our own Astaire-in-a-meat-grinder whirlwinds.
It was only after standing and breathing heavy for a few minutes and waiting for the club to clear out enough for me to find my crew that I realized something. I was missing a shoe. Somewhere it had been ripped off of my body and I hadn't noticed until I stopped dancing. I know that sounds hard to believe but I promise you it is true.
Here's the strangest part of all.
I waited until that club was empty. I searched high and low. I found many other single shoes. I walked past the infamous bubble window down the million red brick staircase and into the family station wagon. I pressed the clutch in with my sock and drove my sweaty ass home.
Now, I've seen shows in totally unmemorable places that became memorable through the performance itself, or through what happened to me while I was there (Emmitt Swimming at Cat's Cradle in 1999 immediately comes to mind but that's for another day). But for sheer character, give me The Living Room.
You can go to The Living Room today, but it is not in the same location as the club that dominated the punk rock scene in the 1980's in Providence. In fact, the old club meant so much to me that I never went to the new location even though I lived almost within walking distance during my years living in Providence.
The old club was in an ancient mill complex just West of I-95 in the heart of Providence. You could see it from the highway as you whizzed past...the complex began at the bottom of a steep incline. If you parked at the bottom of the hill there were several ways to enter. You could walk up the sidewalk until you reached a small archway that led onto the courtyard outside of the club. Or you could walk across the flat parking lot to a set of steps that wound up from the base of the brick basement level to the club level. The overall effect was of a giant set of steps from the parking lot with the club being on the first level.
Nestled into the left hand corner of the courtyard was a small nondescript door. From the parking lot you could see the giant bubble window that protruded from the inside of the club. I can remember standing inside the club nursing a beer slowly leaning out into the inverted arc of the bubble and looking down on the tailgaters and ejectees who lingered in the parking lot.
Everything except that window was red brick.
As you entered the club, the stage was immediately on your right hand side facing the interior which stretched away from the entrance. The bar was a hard U pushed up against the left with a small walk space that let you look out the bubble window. At the rear right hand side was the entrance to the bathrooms. The wall space between the bathroom doors and the bar was broken up by a few couches.
Side note on the couches. I saw countless shows here, at most of which I was exhausted beyond measure from exertion and elation. At no time during any of these shows did I ever consider EVEN FOR A FRACTION OF A SECOND sitting on any of these couches. If it is possible for furniture to be hostile, these were. Upon closure of this incarnation of The Living Room, the couches were whisked away to Langley to be used in clandestine torture by the CIA.
I don't know what the capacity of The Living Room was, 500 legally, 800 death wish style, I couldn't say. When I saw The Ramones, I literally felt as if I were a particle of sausage in a vacuum packed container. There was absolutely no room. At that show the slam dancing ejected me up several feet and onto the bar.
These well attended shows seemed to clue us all in to the fact that the image being pedaled in the mass media was not quite commensurate with reality. I rarely was at The Living Room when it felt empty. The audience for this type of music was vital and growing. It was like being a member of a secret society.
I'd already seen my The Replacements tear the roof off of the place the summer before in 1986. I'd seen The Violent Femmes. I'd seen The Ramones. A let down seemed inevitable as I experienced my heroes up close. Would Husker Du be the first to disappoint?
Ah, no.
In retrospect I was massively lucky. The Huskers had just put out their latest double album Warehouse: Songs and Stories. The recording of this album had been, to put it mildly, contentious. The band was coming apart at the seams and tearing each other to pieces as they went. Just before they were to kick off the tour to support the double album (which Warner Brothers had pressured them to condense into a single album...) their long time tour manager committed suicide. The tour went on in spite of the tragedy and they were a fiery furnace of grief and rage.
If you don't know their music, suffice it to say that adding that layer on top of their combustible mix of distortion and volume was like lacing the A-Bomb with Napalm.
They played for what seemed like hours. They were a power trio with two primary songwriters, guitarist Bob Mould and drummer Grant Hart. Each sang their own compositions. The bass player bounced around silently sporting a handlebar mustache. I have no recollection of the songs they played, although I assume they focused primarily on the new double album. But they also played almost an hour's worth of material I had never heard.
They broke up a few months after this concert, cutting the tour short. The intensity of their performance made me wonder how they could maintain it even for the rest of the evening, let alone a world tour.
Now, there are all sorts of places you can go to find out what happened to Husker Du. It is a sad story of ruined friendship, creative competition devolving into bitter fueding, and drug abuse.
But this is a post about my shoe.
As I mentioned, Husker Du whirled all over The Living Room like a distorted dervish, all beat and propulsion and scream. The audience reacted appropriately. A sort of death dance gripped everyone as they ricocheted off of one another. The overall effect was of a souped up jalopy accelerating down a one way street towards a munitions factory.
They didn't do the normal 'leave the stage' til everyone claps loud enough encore bullarkey. They played so long that it soon became clear to everyone that they would simply stop when they couldn't go any further. And we did the same.
When I say I was sweaty, I don't mean a light mist that could be dabbed at with a hanky. No, the knees on my jeans were soaked through. My knees were sweating. MY KNEES.
All of a sudden it was over. The lights came on. Everyone was stunned. I remember it being really quiet. I had no idea where my friends were in the club. Total individual dance expression had been necessary and we'd all splintered off into our own Astaire-in-a-meat-grinder whirlwinds.
It was only after standing and breathing heavy for a few minutes and waiting for the club to clear out enough for me to find my crew that I realized something. I was missing a shoe. Somewhere it had been ripped off of my body and I hadn't noticed until I stopped dancing. I know that sounds hard to believe but I promise you it is true.
Here's the strangest part of all.
I waited until that club was empty. I searched high and low. I found many other single shoes. I walked past the infamous bubble window down the million red brick staircase and into the family station wagon. I pressed the clutch in with my sock and drove my sweaty ass home.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Frere Jacques, Bitches!!!
As I revealed in an earlier post, I spent a year living in Orleans, France, as part of a student exchange program through URI. This experience continues to echo strongly in my psyche and will forever be a landmark on my timeline.
Today's post tells the story of my last night in France.
My circle spent a good deal of time in Paris throughout the year, making the hour long train trip or borrowing a car to cover the distance. A French friend of a friend had a studio apartment somewhere in Paris. His father was an international businessman who had recently insisted that his son start to take part if the gravy train were to continue. So he was frequently out of France and he left his crazy American friends a set of keys.
5, 6, sometimes 7 of us would traipse up to Paris and squat for a couple of days. Dingy, miniscule, the apartment held all the mystique and flavor that you could ask for. A futon and a fridge. No other furnishings to speak of but for a boom-box and the recently remastered Led Zeppelin box set.
Now, I've been very up front about my punk leanings. I had rejected Led Zeppelin as part of the old guard and had never paid them any attention at all. Sure, I tried to make out with girls at the end of dances when they played 'Stairway to Heaven' and I knew 'Communication Breakdown' but I had purposefully denied them any space in my listener head.
Well, to anyone else who won't bow down to the fiery Hindenburg of monstrous rock and roll, I invite you to spend a weekend in a small French studio with cheap wine, baguettes and cheese, fruit, and the remastered box set of Led Zeppelin's complete works. By the end of the first weekend at the place, I was a total convert.
But that isn't what this post is about.
The year was drawing to a close. The feeling of nostalgia in the present tense was overwhelming. Every day was vivid and intense, dreamlike. This universe that we'd existed in, which always seemed to be oustide of reality somehow, was now going to pass out of reality and into the realm of memory. In other words, the partying was out of control.
We'd started a tradition earlier in the year. On campus there was a small man-made lake with an island reachable via foot bridge. The island was a domed hill that sunk to a small brick amphitheater. The base of the theater was below water level and thus hidden from sight from the rest of the campus. Adding to the privacy was the fact that there were no dorms or classrooms near and the lake was at the center of the campus far from the public eye.
Thus the fire at The Tit was born. The domed hill that made up the bulk of the island had once had a flagpole on top of it. It had been torn down so all that remained was the concrete base. At night, the hill would silhouette into a perfect breast replete with a nipple. I am proud to say that none of the Frenchies had noticed this but to this day, thanks to the crazy American, the hill is known as The Tit.
We scraped together as much driftwood as we could, raiding pallets from construction sites around the campus. We lugged them across the footbridge and down into the dell. Then we lit that shit on fire and started partying. We toasted marshmellows, sang songs, made rules of participation, basically started a party cult.
If you wanted to join The Tit, you had to burn something of yours and you had to sing a song for everyone. This wasn't so bad at first but by the end of the year, this might entail belting out a Stones song for 80 people. Guys primarily burnt pictures of girls that they pulled out of their wallets and girls primarily burnt lingerie. That they'd worn that evening. Needless to say, this party quickly became the toast of the town.
It is also the reason I finally really learned to play the guitar. I bought the cheapest classical acoustic guitar I could find, probably $60 or so. And I set out to learn. I would come back to America and immediately start a band. Thanks, Tit!
Again, the history of The Tit is not the true subject of this post but it is necessary context.
As June approached and we Americans prepared for repatriation, we wondered how the year was going to possibly climax. We'd road tripped to the Mediterranean, sand surfed the Dunes of Pyla, kissed French girls, burned personal items in our ceremonial pyre, and had our lifelong image of how the world worked daily challenged with a new (to us) and ancient society. How could we possibly plan anything to sum this up, to cap it, to exceed it?
Turns out, we couldn't possibly plan anything like that. But MTV could.
Earlier in the year Guns 'n Roses had released their bloated awful quadruple album masterpieces, Use Your Illusion I & II. I am an unapologetic fan. These two albums became a soundtrack to much of the above and to this day I hear 'Breakdown' and feel as if I am in France.
The Gunners immediately hit the road behind the album, in spite of the departure of Izzy Stradlin. In hindsight this would seem to be the beginning of the end for the group, but at the time they were still the biggest band on the planet. They planned a live broadcast to be aired on MTV as a Pay Per View event. An unprecedented occurrence and quite a big deal. The date of the concert was June 6th and it was to take place at a horse racing track on the outskirts of Paris. My ticket back to the States was for June 7th.
We got in touch with our friend with the Paris apartment and he gave us the go ahead to crash for the weekend. We bought a host of tickets and encouraged anyone who could to make the pilgrimage to see Guns 'n Roses and give us Americans a proper send off.
The symbolic nature of going to see a group that embodied everything distasteful about American culture in the city that represents the height of French culture was not lost on any of us. We weren't going to honor Frenchy on our way out, we were going to rock.
It was a beautiful spring night and we all took the subway from our crash pad out to the race track. We'd had a lovely afternoon of French partying, eating meats and cheeses and sipping wine. But we were gearing up to blow off all the steam we'd accumulated in the run-up to our departure. The evening didn't disappoint.
Soundgarden opened the evening to a crowd barely assembled and distracted. But I was entranced. They had 40 minutes as an opener and I was impressed that they only played 4 songs. They could have tried to jam as many in there as they could but they just played the way they wanted.
Faith No More came up next and the lead singer kept shouting 'Je suis laid!' and 'Quoi?' over and over. Translated: 'I am ugly!" And 'What??' They were tight and fun and got the crowd primed for the headliner. We were drinking lite beer by the boatload and revving our engines. We repeatedly urged the crowd to let loose a little bit. We took pleasure in shouting in heavily accented French orders along the lines of, "Come on people! This is rock and roll! Let your hair down! No one's looking!"
In our general vicinity this had a galvanizing effect. Our party merged with most of the blankets around us so that by the time Guns 'N Roses took the stage, we were a club sized enclave of revelers.
The show lived up to our unreasonable expectations. Axl was at the height of his powers and shape. He seemed like the Tazmanian devil...never still, different costumes at certain points in the show, playing the piano to 'November Rain' while 70,000 mostly French people lit lighters. Sure it was cliched but in the way that chocolate is a cliche. It totally satisfies in predictability.
As the night grew to a close, our looming departure gave the proceedings a surreal sensation. We reminisced and basked in the glory of the moment simultaneously. The band finished their bombastic encores and the lights went on all around the sprawling landscape. To exit the arena there were roads that actually tunneled through man made hills and dales. For maybe a quarter of a mile you left the beautiful night air and entered what felt like a corrugated tube with fluorescent lighting. Surreal and strange, the crowd hushed as they moved shoulder to shoulder towards the exit point.
We weren't ready to be hushed. We yelled that we were American, that this was our last night in Paris and that we didn't want to stop partying. And then, the year long ice cream sundae of my time abroad was topped with the strangest cherry of all.
We started singing 'Frere Jacques' at the top of our lungs. At first we were alone, and probably mocked. But we kept on. Slowly the tune spread among the shuffling horde, until it seemed that thousands echoed, wondering if John was sleeping and where all the mornings had gone.
Today's post tells the story of my last night in France.
My circle spent a good deal of time in Paris throughout the year, making the hour long train trip or borrowing a car to cover the distance. A French friend of a friend had a studio apartment somewhere in Paris. His father was an international businessman who had recently insisted that his son start to take part if the gravy train were to continue. So he was frequently out of France and he left his crazy American friends a set of keys.
5, 6, sometimes 7 of us would traipse up to Paris and squat for a couple of days. Dingy, miniscule, the apartment held all the mystique and flavor that you could ask for. A futon and a fridge. No other furnishings to speak of but for a boom-box and the recently remastered Led Zeppelin box set.
Now, I've been very up front about my punk leanings. I had rejected Led Zeppelin as part of the old guard and had never paid them any attention at all. Sure, I tried to make out with girls at the end of dances when they played 'Stairway to Heaven' and I knew 'Communication Breakdown' but I had purposefully denied them any space in my listener head.
Well, to anyone else who won't bow down to the fiery Hindenburg of monstrous rock and roll, I invite you to spend a weekend in a small French studio with cheap wine, baguettes and cheese, fruit, and the remastered box set of Led Zeppelin's complete works. By the end of the first weekend at the place, I was a total convert.
But that isn't what this post is about.
The year was drawing to a close. The feeling of nostalgia in the present tense was overwhelming. Every day was vivid and intense, dreamlike. This universe that we'd existed in, which always seemed to be oustide of reality somehow, was now going to pass out of reality and into the realm of memory. In other words, the partying was out of control.
We'd started a tradition earlier in the year. On campus there was a small man-made lake with an island reachable via foot bridge. The island was a domed hill that sunk to a small brick amphitheater. The base of the theater was below water level and thus hidden from sight from the rest of the campus. Adding to the privacy was the fact that there were no dorms or classrooms near and the lake was at the center of the campus far from the public eye.
Thus the fire at The Tit was born. The domed hill that made up the bulk of the island had once had a flagpole on top of it. It had been torn down so all that remained was the concrete base. At night, the hill would silhouette into a perfect breast replete with a nipple. I am proud to say that none of the Frenchies had noticed this but to this day, thanks to the crazy American, the hill is known as The Tit.
We scraped together as much driftwood as we could, raiding pallets from construction sites around the campus. We lugged them across the footbridge and down into the dell. Then we lit that shit on fire and started partying. We toasted marshmellows, sang songs, made rules of participation, basically started a party cult.
If you wanted to join The Tit, you had to burn something of yours and you had to sing a song for everyone. This wasn't so bad at first but by the end of the year, this might entail belting out a Stones song for 80 people. Guys primarily burnt pictures of girls that they pulled out of their wallets and girls primarily burnt lingerie. That they'd worn that evening. Needless to say, this party quickly became the toast of the town.
It is also the reason I finally really learned to play the guitar. I bought the cheapest classical acoustic guitar I could find, probably $60 or so. And I set out to learn. I would come back to America and immediately start a band. Thanks, Tit!
Again, the history of The Tit is not the true subject of this post but it is necessary context.
As June approached and we Americans prepared for repatriation, we wondered how the year was going to possibly climax. We'd road tripped to the Mediterranean, sand surfed the Dunes of Pyla, kissed French girls, burned personal items in our ceremonial pyre, and had our lifelong image of how the world worked daily challenged with a new (to us) and ancient society. How could we possibly plan anything to sum this up, to cap it, to exceed it?
Turns out, we couldn't possibly plan anything like that. But MTV could.
Earlier in the year Guns 'n Roses had released their bloated awful quadruple album masterpieces, Use Your Illusion I & II. I am an unapologetic fan. These two albums became a soundtrack to much of the above and to this day I hear 'Breakdown' and feel as if I am in France.
The Gunners immediately hit the road behind the album, in spite of the departure of Izzy Stradlin. In hindsight this would seem to be the beginning of the end for the group, but at the time they were still the biggest band on the planet. They planned a live broadcast to be aired on MTV as a Pay Per View event. An unprecedented occurrence and quite a big deal. The date of the concert was June 6th and it was to take place at a horse racing track on the outskirts of Paris. My ticket back to the States was for June 7th.
We got in touch with our friend with the Paris apartment and he gave us the go ahead to crash for the weekend. We bought a host of tickets and encouraged anyone who could to make the pilgrimage to see Guns 'n Roses and give us Americans a proper send off.
The symbolic nature of going to see a group that embodied everything distasteful about American culture in the city that represents the height of French culture was not lost on any of us. We weren't going to honor Frenchy on our way out, we were going to rock.
It was a beautiful spring night and we all took the subway from our crash pad out to the race track. We'd had a lovely afternoon of French partying, eating meats and cheeses and sipping wine. But we were gearing up to blow off all the steam we'd accumulated in the run-up to our departure. The evening didn't disappoint.
Soundgarden opened the evening to a crowd barely assembled and distracted. But I was entranced. They had 40 minutes as an opener and I was impressed that they only played 4 songs. They could have tried to jam as many in there as they could but they just played the way they wanted.
Faith No More came up next and the lead singer kept shouting 'Je suis laid!' and 'Quoi?' over and over. Translated: 'I am ugly!" And 'What??' They were tight and fun and got the crowd primed for the headliner. We were drinking lite beer by the boatload and revving our engines. We repeatedly urged the crowd to let loose a little bit. We took pleasure in shouting in heavily accented French orders along the lines of, "Come on people! This is rock and roll! Let your hair down! No one's looking!"
In our general vicinity this had a galvanizing effect. Our party merged with most of the blankets around us so that by the time Guns 'N Roses took the stage, we were a club sized enclave of revelers.
The show lived up to our unreasonable expectations. Axl was at the height of his powers and shape. He seemed like the Tazmanian devil...never still, different costumes at certain points in the show, playing the piano to 'November Rain' while 70,000 mostly French people lit lighters. Sure it was cliched but in the way that chocolate is a cliche. It totally satisfies in predictability.
As the night grew to a close, our looming departure gave the proceedings a surreal sensation. We reminisced and basked in the glory of the moment simultaneously. The band finished their bombastic encores and the lights went on all around the sprawling landscape. To exit the arena there were roads that actually tunneled through man made hills and dales. For maybe a quarter of a mile you left the beautiful night air and entered what felt like a corrugated tube with fluorescent lighting. Surreal and strange, the crowd hushed as they moved shoulder to shoulder towards the exit point.
We weren't ready to be hushed. We yelled that we were American, that this was our last night in Paris and that we didn't want to stop partying. And then, the year long ice cream sundae of my time abroad was topped with the strangest cherry of all.
We started singing 'Frere Jacques' at the top of our lungs. At first we were alone, and probably mocked. But we kept on. Slowly the tune spread among the shuffling horde, until it seemed that thousands echoed, wondering if John was sleeping and where all the mornings had gone.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Black Godfather in Amsterdam
While this story ends in Amsterdam, it starts in lower Manhattan. Which is rather ironic when you think of those Dutch settlers founding New Amsterdam only to be swallowed up by the American Dream.
My cousin Liam is one of those people who, when he asks, 'Have you ever heard So-and-so?' you pay close attention. Chances are your mind is about to be blown. This has happened on more than one occasion. This story concerns one in particular, but in the interest of credibility, I'll do a quick rundown of the music Liam has turned me onto over the years. (His brother Mike is no slouch in this department either, but we're usually too busy doing improv to bother with tunes...)
Late 1980's: Liam is living in Boston, I'm in college in Rhode Island. Liam's band is playing. I go to see him and I think I visited his apartment. I could be confusing/combining two different days, I'm not sure. He told me about this band Buffalo Tom and gave me a copy of their first (and to my mind without question best) album. This tip, which he passed on to his brother as well, has played out over the years into numerous adventures. I saw Buffalo Tom in England, for pete's sake!
Mid 1990's: After Boston, I went to France, Liam went to San Francisco, but then our paths crossed in NYC again. He'd moved back East and now we would be living in the same city. He and his girlfriend were apartment sitting in an hilarious upper West Side apartment with homo-erotic chess games, potholders, bed-posts, anything-you-could-shape-into-a-phallus, etc. We sat and celebrated their arrival in the city by ingesting various substances, legal and otherwise. Somehow Liam became aware that I'd never heard of Sweet. I can never remember if it is Sweet or The Sweet, but these were the English glam rockers who gave us 'Little Willy', 'Ballroom Blitz', and the one that blew my mind most that first night, 'Fox On The Run'. We rocked out to the impossible helium harmonies and giggled our asses off.
Those are just two examples to set the tone. Basically, when Liam said listen, I did. He called me on a Thursday or Friday and asked if I was free to go see some music at Chicago Blues, an old time blues club in the Village. I said yes. And thus begins the saga that ends with The Black Godfather in New Amsterdam.
Who is The Black Godfather you ask? And so did I as I met Liam at the club. We ordered beers and sat at a small table up against the wall with a sideways view of the small stage. I can't remember if there was an opening band, but we wouldn't have been paying too much attention because Liam would have been filling me in on what I was about to witness.
How he heard of Andre Williams, I don't recall. As Liam told it, Andre Williams was a blues singer from Chicago who'd had quite a following in the '50's but had dropped out of sight and was rumored to have lived on the streets. He was known for playing blue material, underground club type blues that was lewd in lyric and delivery. Somehow someone had rediscovered him and got him back performing again. The show we were about to see, a club date without fanfare, was his first appearance in New York in over 30 years.
The band came onstage. Guitar, bass, keyboard, horns (I think?), drums, back-up singers, the whole nine yards. The overall impression was of that great wedding band you saw once, the kind that brought honor and power to that genre, the kind of band that would leave you sweaty and spent if you gave them an inch. And that was before Andre took the stage.
How to describe him? Small in stature, thin and dapper, pencil moustache, immaculate suit. He proceeded to growl and moan, shout and holler, VENTILATE. Vulgar is too mild a word to describe the lyrical content. I've since bought several of the records he's put out since he began recording again, and they are filthy. Some illustrative titles...
Sling It, Bang It, And Give It Cab Fare Home
Let Me Put It In
Humpin' Bumpin' and Thumpin'
Jail Bait
These are the clean songs. His delivery reminded me of the character Willem Dafoe played in 'Wild at Heart', the David Lynch film with Laura Dern and Nic Cage. Dafoe basically sexually assaults Laura Dern but is so aggressive and carnal that she responds unwittingly with reciprocity. With Andre Williams, you know you are being molested, but he's so damn cool that you just lie back and let it happen.
Liam and I were transfixed and amazed. We constantly clinked our beer mugs after songs, we hurriedly reviewed each song the instant it was over before the onslaught began anew. We were witnessing something that was tied all the way back to chain gangs and folk songs, Paul Bunyan and John Henry, something that pre-dated the Beatles and the Europe impact on American music. At this point he was still calling himself 'Mr. Rhythm' which had been his moniker back in the '50's and '60's. He was the dirtiest old man you'd ever seen. But I'll bet he took a pretty young thing home with him that night, and who could blame him? Or her?
Suddenly it was over and we were outside in the cold. It might have been summer, but things in the club had been so hot that a New York August seemed glacial. Over the next couple weeks, Liam and I probably reminisced about the show, but new experiences were always around the corner and soon the show was part of the past.
Fast forward to early 2000. My marriage is falling apart. My oldest friend had fallen in love with a woman from The Hague, in the Netherlands. Their marriage was in the spring. We planned a trip to the city of Bruges and then we'd make our way to The Hague for 3 or 4 days to celebrate the marriage. My ex, the mother of my child and a good person, was hoping this trip would rekindle the dying embers of our union. But the romantic setting only brought into focus the gulf between us and how unbridgeable it seemed. By the time we got to Amsterdam, things were tense. To put it politely.
I was relieved to put my friend and his celebration at the center of my attention. I'd been asked to serve as an official witness, signing the union into legitimacy. Another old friend was to serve as the best man, giving the traditional speech. My great friend threw me for a loop by asking me to give a speech as well. This threw me into a frenzy of anxiety, probably exacerbated by The Netherlands' insistence on legalizing hashish and marijuana. To have my own marriage in such a precarious place, to know down in my gut that I would soon be dissolving this holiest of contracts...let's just say I freaked out.
But, before all that, something magical happened. A whole crew of us were wandering around Amsterdam. The wedding was 2 days away and the American crew had to try and wear Amsterdam out. We passed what looked like an old church, a huge gothic European structure that screamed history at you. It was a club. Who was playing that night? Andre Williams. I immediately insisted that ALL PLANS THAT HAD ALREADY BEEN MADE HAD TO BE CHANGED.
We all went to see The Black Godfather in Amsterdam. The primarily African-American wedding band had been replaced by 3 young white punks. The sound had morphed from a party band into a greasy bottle rocket of lust and resentment. Andre alone seemed unchanged, he bullied, he cajoled, he unzipped his fly so slowly that it was up at the beginning of a song and only completely open by the end. It was thrice as loud and relentless.
The group was a bit taken aback by this, the discrepancy between what I'd described and what they were subjected to, and there was the vague feeling that I'd been inappropriate. Like DeNiro inviting Cybil Shepard to the porno in 'Taxi Driver', I'd vouched for something that was so lascivious as to be criminal. Don't get me wrong, they danced, but the group wanted to leave before the show was done and they were more perplexed than entranced. I felt as if I'd bragged to strangers about my porn collection.
Later that night I could not sleep and slipped out of our hotel room to go get a coffee. I saw the red-light district across a canal and it no longer seemed like a tourist trap. It was a universe unto itself which mirrored the easy lust and un-self conscious libido of The Black Godfather and his oeuvre. Was that the best I could hope for? Should I slink across the cobblestone bridge and lose my identity in a staged physical encounter? I paid for my coffee with the strange coins and went back to my hotel.
Somewhere in Amsterdam Andre Williams disapproved.
My cousin Liam is one of those people who, when he asks, 'Have you ever heard So-and-so?' you pay close attention. Chances are your mind is about to be blown. This has happened on more than one occasion. This story concerns one in particular, but in the interest of credibility, I'll do a quick rundown of the music Liam has turned me onto over the years. (His brother Mike is no slouch in this department either, but we're usually too busy doing improv to bother with tunes...)
Late 1980's: Liam is living in Boston, I'm in college in Rhode Island. Liam's band is playing. I go to see him and I think I visited his apartment. I could be confusing/combining two different days, I'm not sure. He told me about this band Buffalo Tom and gave me a copy of their first (and to my mind without question best) album. This tip, which he passed on to his brother as well, has played out over the years into numerous adventures. I saw Buffalo Tom in England, for pete's sake!
Mid 1990's: After Boston, I went to France, Liam went to San Francisco, but then our paths crossed in NYC again. He'd moved back East and now we would be living in the same city. He and his girlfriend were apartment sitting in an hilarious upper West Side apartment with homo-erotic chess games, potholders, bed-posts, anything-you-could-shape-into-a-phallus, etc. We sat and celebrated their arrival in the city by ingesting various substances, legal and otherwise. Somehow Liam became aware that I'd never heard of Sweet. I can never remember if it is Sweet or The Sweet, but these were the English glam rockers who gave us 'Little Willy', 'Ballroom Blitz', and the one that blew my mind most that first night, 'Fox On The Run'. We rocked out to the impossible helium harmonies and giggled our asses off.
Those are just two examples to set the tone. Basically, when Liam said listen, I did. He called me on a Thursday or Friday and asked if I was free to go see some music at Chicago Blues, an old time blues club in the Village. I said yes. And thus begins the saga that ends with The Black Godfather in New Amsterdam.
Who is The Black Godfather you ask? And so did I as I met Liam at the club. We ordered beers and sat at a small table up against the wall with a sideways view of the small stage. I can't remember if there was an opening band, but we wouldn't have been paying too much attention because Liam would have been filling me in on what I was about to witness.
How he heard of Andre Williams, I don't recall. As Liam told it, Andre Williams was a blues singer from Chicago who'd had quite a following in the '50's but had dropped out of sight and was rumored to have lived on the streets. He was known for playing blue material, underground club type blues that was lewd in lyric and delivery. Somehow someone had rediscovered him and got him back performing again. The show we were about to see, a club date without fanfare, was his first appearance in New York in over 30 years.
The band came onstage. Guitar, bass, keyboard, horns (I think?), drums, back-up singers, the whole nine yards. The overall impression was of that great wedding band you saw once, the kind that brought honor and power to that genre, the kind of band that would leave you sweaty and spent if you gave them an inch. And that was before Andre took the stage.
How to describe him? Small in stature, thin and dapper, pencil moustache, immaculate suit. He proceeded to growl and moan, shout and holler, VENTILATE. Vulgar is too mild a word to describe the lyrical content. I've since bought several of the records he's put out since he began recording again, and they are filthy. Some illustrative titles...
Sling It, Bang It, And Give It Cab Fare Home
Let Me Put It In
Humpin' Bumpin' and Thumpin'
Jail Bait
These are the clean songs. His delivery reminded me of the character Willem Dafoe played in 'Wild at Heart', the David Lynch film with Laura Dern and Nic Cage. Dafoe basically sexually assaults Laura Dern but is so aggressive and carnal that she responds unwittingly with reciprocity. With Andre Williams, you know you are being molested, but he's so damn cool that you just lie back and let it happen.
Liam and I were transfixed and amazed. We constantly clinked our beer mugs after songs, we hurriedly reviewed each song the instant it was over before the onslaught began anew. We were witnessing something that was tied all the way back to chain gangs and folk songs, Paul Bunyan and John Henry, something that pre-dated the Beatles and the Europe impact on American music. At this point he was still calling himself 'Mr. Rhythm' which had been his moniker back in the '50's and '60's. He was the dirtiest old man you'd ever seen. But I'll bet he took a pretty young thing home with him that night, and who could blame him? Or her?
Suddenly it was over and we were outside in the cold. It might have been summer, but things in the club had been so hot that a New York August seemed glacial. Over the next couple weeks, Liam and I probably reminisced about the show, but new experiences were always around the corner and soon the show was part of the past.
Fast forward to early 2000. My marriage is falling apart. My oldest friend had fallen in love with a woman from The Hague, in the Netherlands. Their marriage was in the spring. We planned a trip to the city of Bruges and then we'd make our way to The Hague for 3 or 4 days to celebrate the marriage. My ex, the mother of my child and a good person, was hoping this trip would rekindle the dying embers of our union. But the romantic setting only brought into focus the gulf between us and how unbridgeable it seemed. By the time we got to Amsterdam, things were tense. To put it politely.
I was relieved to put my friend and his celebration at the center of my attention. I'd been asked to serve as an official witness, signing the union into legitimacy. Another old friend was to serve as the best man, giving the traditional speech. My great friend threw me for a loop by asking me to give a speech as well. This threw me into a frenzy of anxiety, probably exacerbated by The Netherlands' insistence on legalizing hashish and marijuana. To have my own marriage in such a precarious place, to know down in my gut that I would soon be dissolving this holiest of contracts...let's just say I freaked out.
But, before all that, something magical happened. A whole crew of us were wandering around Amsterdam. The wedding was 2 days away and the American crew had to try and wear Amsterdam out. We passed what looked like an old church, a huge gothic European structure that screamed history at you. It was a club. Who was playing that night? Andre Williams. I immediately insisted that ALL PLANS THAT HAD ALREADY BEEN MADE HAD TO BE CHANGED.
We all went to see The Black Godfather in Amsterdam. The primarily African-American wedding band had been replaced by 3 young white punks. The sound had morphed from a party band into a greasy bottle rocket of lust and resentment. Andre alone seemed unchanged, he bullied, he cajoled, he unzipped his fly so slowly that it was up at the beginning of a song and only completely open by the end. It was thrice as loud and relentless.
The group was a bit taken aback by this, the discrepancy between what I'd described and what they were subjected to, and there was the vague feeling that I'd been inappropriate. Like DeNiro inviting Cybil Shepard to the porno in 'Taxi Driver', I'd vouched for something that was so lascivious as to be criminal. Don't get me wrong, they danced, but the group wanted to leave before the show was done and they were more perplexed than entranced. I felt as if I'd bragged to strangers about my porn collection.
Later that night I could not sleep and slipped out of our hotel room to go get a coffee. I saw the red-light district across a canal and it no longer seemed like a tourist trap. It was a universe unto itself which mirrored the easy lust and un-self conscious libido of The Black Godfather and his oeuvre. Was that the best I could hope for? Should I slink across the cobblestone bridge and lose my identity in a staged physical encounter? I paid for my coffee with the strange coins and went back to my hotel.
Somewhere in Amsterdam Andre Williams disapproved.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Jazz Douche
How do you know if you are a Jazz Douche?
Here are some common indicators...
1. A beret that looks as if it was kidnapped off of the tete of Marcel Marceau's bastard nephew
2. A storage space with alphabetized vinyl in milk crates
3. Your facial hair requires constant attention yet still looks like some sort of rabid animal attack
4. You wear a fanny pack
5. You say things like 'Dig?' and 'Cool, daddy-o.'
6. You know that Hector "Gobble-Neck" Ramsay played on the first take of The Kansas City Trio's version of 'Chatanooga Choo-Choo' but then he ate some bad fish so they had to call in Arizona Smith for the second take. But, see, on the second take, they had Arizona set up in the bathroom and his stand-up bass kept scratching up against the faucet so they wound up using Gobble-Neck's take anyway, in spite of the fish.
7. You can't play an instrument.
8. You play Santana records to get in your wife's pants.
9. You smell like bologna.
10. Your pants have pleats.
11. For a brief shining moment, you thought Yes was going to change EVERYTHING.
12. Listening to Frankie 'Two-Tone' Walters' recording of 'Opus Etude Interlude No. 27 in A Minor' for the first time was the catalyst for ending your second marriage.
13. You wrote a short novel imagining a militia led by Miles Davis overthrowing the MTV Total Request Live set and playing 'Sketches of Spain' on an endless loop.
14. You used to have a hoop earring in your right ear until your boss at the convalescent hospital made you take it out because it was unsanitary.
15. You have an 'I'd Rather Be Be-Bopping' bumpersticker on your Ford Escort.
16. Your eyelids are heavy.
17. After you've had a few cocktails, you start raving about how everything would have gone differently if Chet Baker hadn't died...he'd have been the teen idol, the Beatles wouldn't have made such a splash, and the world would be grooving to Chick Corea a little bit more.
18. You have bad dreams about guitars.
19. You like Pauly Shore comedies.
20. You are deeply ashamed of it, but you secretly prefer Julie Andrews' version of "My Favorite Things" to Coltrane's.
There. If you need any further help in identifying a Jazz Douche, either in the mirror or in your general vicinity, check back in with me.
Here are some common indicators...
1. A beret that looks as if it was kidnapped off of the tete of Marcel Marceau's bastard nephew
2. A storage space with alphabetized vinyl in milk crates
3. Your facial hair requires constant attention yet still looks like some sort of rabid animal attack
4. You wear a fanny pack
5. You say things like 'Dig?' and 'Cool, daddy-o.'
6. You know that Hector "Gobble-Neck" Ramsay played on the first take of The Kansas City Trio's version of 'Chatanooga Choo-Choo' but then he ate some bad fish so they had to call in Arizona Smith for the second take. But, see, on the second take, they had Arizona set up in the bathroom and his stand-up bass kept scratching up against the faucet so they wound up using Gobble-Neck's take anyway, in spite of the fish.
7. You can't play an instrument.
8. You play Santana records to get in your wife's pants.
9. You smell like bologna.
10. Your pants have pleats.
11. For a brief shining moment, you thought Yes was going to change EVERYTHING.
12. Listening to Frankie 'Two-Tone' Walters' recording of 'Opus Etude Interlude No. 27 in A Minor' for the first time was the catalyst for ending your second marriage.
13. You wrote a short novel imagining a militia led by Miles Davis overthrowing the MTV Total Request Live set and playing 'Sketches of Spain' on an endless loop.
14. You used to have a hoop earring in your right ear until your boss at the convalescent hospital made you take it out because it was unsanitary.
15. You have an 'I'd Rather Be Be-Bopping' bumpersticker on your Ford Escort.
16. Your eyelids are heavy.
17. After you've had a few cocktails, you start raving about how everything would have gone differently if Chet Baker hadn't died...he'd have been the teen idol, the Beatles wouldn't have made such a splash, and the world would be grooving to Chick Corea a little bit more.
18. You have bad dreams about guitars.
19. You like Pauly Shore comedies.
20. You are deeply ashamed of it, but you secretly prefer Julie Andrews' version of "My Favorite Things" to Coltrane's.
There. If you need any further help in identifying a Jazz Douche, either in the mirror or in your general vicinity, check back in with me.
Friday, January 25, 2008
A Comprehensive List
I am now going to attempt the almost impossible. I am going to reach back into my memory and try to remember every live show I've ever seen.
Some of these names are well known. Others you will have to trust me that they exist and that I've seen them perform.
The 1980's list is primarily from Rhode Island clubs and the outdoor arena Great Woods in Massachusetts. The 1990's is that list as well plus 6 years of NYC showgoing. I will keep coming back to this list and adding names. If you've been to a show with me that I've forgotten, please let me know.
Time Period: 1980's
The Fixx
The Outfield
Squeeze
Romeo Void
Steveie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Shithaus
Pussy Galore
That'll Learn Ya
Two Guys and Another Guy
7Seconds
Circle Jerks
Verbal Assault
Violent Femmes
The Replacements
Husker Du
The Ramones
UB40
U2
The B-52's
Del Amitri
Stevie Nicks
Jungle Dogs
Neutral Nation
Elvis Costello
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Oingo Boingo
Blues Traveler
Sugar
The Goats
G. Love and Special Sauce
Bob Mould
59 Teeth
fishbone
All
Billy Bragg
Coat of Arms
Plan 9
Neil Finn
Simply Red
Level 42
Indigo Girls
The Hooters
Time Period: 1990's
Sonic Youth
Superbug
Backwash
Neo 90's Dance Band
Jeff Buckley
Morphine
Paul Westerberg
Prince
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Henry Rollins Band
Guns 'n Roses
Faith No More
Soundgarden
The Saints
The Blake Babies
Buffalo Tom
Emmitt Swimming
King's X
Combustible Edison
Barnyard Playboys
The Candy Butchers
The Samples
Andre Williams
Pat McCurdy
Fugazi
Mono Puff
They Might Be Giants
David Gray
Beastie Boys
Smashing Pumpkins
Primus
A Tribe Called Quest
Alice In Chains
Dr. Mars
Viva
Jack Logan and Liquor Cabinet
Rasputina
The Cure
Nine
Luscious Jackson
Hellmen
Spacehog
Sister Hazel
Rev. Horton Heat
Doc Watson
CoCo Cohen
The October Project
Jim Farmer
Dinosaur Jr.
Arrested Development
Tool
George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic
The Breeders
American Music Club
Medicine Ball
The Two Dollar Pistols
The Smoking Jackets
2000's
Weezer
Big Mondays
Superdrag
Shark
Radiohead
Rolling Stones
The Lemonheads
Rufus Wainwright
Tori Amos
The Roots
The Klaxons
Willie Nelson
Rage Against the Machine
Rob Wasserman
10th Planet
Queens of the Stone Age
The Pixies
The National
Broken Remotes
Biirdie
Cold War Kids
Eyes Adrift
Luna
Throwing Muses
Liz Phair
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Barenaked Ladies
Guided by Voices
Fun Lovin' Criminals
Dance Hall Crashers
Elemenopy
Dan Zanes
Sparklehorse
Cake
The Goodies
Huge
Marah
John Williams
Rachel Sage
Wiley
Wheat
Blackmarket
The Realistics
Missy
Jen DeMartino Fugazi Tribute Band
Quincy
Goldspot
Joe Firstman
The Bennett Cale Project
Jay Nash
Neurotic City
Reign for Rent
Manu Chao
Paul McCartney
Some of these names are well known. Others you will have to trust me that they exist and that I've seen them perform.
The 1980's list is primarily from Rhode Island clubs and the outdoor arena Great Woods in Massachusetts. The 1990's is that list as well plus 6 years of NYC showgoing. I will keep coming back to this list and adding names. If you've been to a show with me that I've forgotten, please let me know.
Time Period: 1980's
The Fixx
The Outfield
Squeeze
Romeo Void
Steveie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Shithaus
Pussy Galore
That'll Learn Ya
Two Guys and Another Guy
7Seconds
Circle Jerks
Verbal Assault
Violent Femmes
The Replacements
Husker Du
The Ramones
UB40
U2
The B-52's
Del Amitri
Stevie Nicks
Jungle Dogs
Neutral Nation
Elvis Costello
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Oingo Boingo
Blues Traveler
Sugar
The Goats
G. Love and Special Sauce
Bob Mould
59 Teeth
fishbone
All
Billy Bragg
Coat of Arms
Plan 9
Neil Finn
Simply Red
Level 42
Indigo Girls
The Hooters
Time Period: 1990's
Sonic Youth
Superbug
Backwash
Neo 90's Dance Band
Jeff Buckley
Morphine
Paul Westerberg
Prince
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Henry Rollins Band
Guns 'n Roses
Faith No More
Soundgarden
The Saints
The Blake Babies
Buffalo Tom
Emmitt Swimming
King's X
Combustible Edison
Barnyard Playboys
The Candy Butchers
The Samples
Andre Williams
Pat McCurdy
Fugazi
Mono Puff
They Might Be Giants
David Gray
Beastie Boys
Smashing Pumpkins
Primus
A Tribe Called Quest
Alice In Chains
Dr. Mars
Viva
Jack Logan and Liquor Cabinet
Rasputina
The Cure
Nine
Luscious Jackson
Hellmen
Spacehog
Sister Hazel
Rev. Horton Heat
Doc Watson
CoCo Cohen
The October Project
Jim Farmer
Dinosaur Jr.
Arrested Development
Tool
George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic
The Breeders
American Music Club
Medicine Ball
The Two Dollar Pistols
The Smoking Jackets
2000's
Weezer
Big Mondays
Superdrag
Shark
Radiohead
Rolling Stones
The Lemonheads
Rufus Wainwright
Tori Amos
The Roots
The Klaxons
Willie Nelson
Rage Against the Machine
Rob Wasserman
10th Planet
Queens of the Stone Age
The Pixies
The National
Broken Remotes
Biirdie
Cold War Kids
Eyes Adrift
Luna
Throwing Muses
Liz Phair
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Barenaked Ladies
Guided by Voices
Fun Lovin' Criminals
Dance Hall Crashers
Elemenopy
Dan Zanes
Sparklehorse
Cake
The Goodies
Huge
Marah
John Williams
Rachel Sage
Wiley
Wheat
Blackmarket
The Realistics
Missy
Jen DeMartino Fugazi Tribute Band
Quincy
Goldspot
Joe Firstman
The Bennett Cale Project
Jay Nash
Neurotic City
Reign for Rent
Manu Chao
Paul McCartney
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
