Imagine you are preparing for the Singing Olympics. You will be competing against all other singers. The competition goes like this: You don't know what you will sing. It might be rock, it might be opera, it might be R&B, it might be jazz, it might be Broadway, it might be a standard, it might be a folk song.
How the hell do you prepare for these Singing Olympics? (Now that I've imagined them I desperately want them to happen and I want to compete...)
Here is what I would suggest. Put Stevie Wonder's 'Innervisions' on repeat and sing along. If you do that for a year, you will be in great shape. And you will have touched on just about any style you might need to draw on in order to win the Singing Olympics.
Unless of course Stevie himself is entered into the competition.
Then you might as well drop out and watch because you ain't winning. I first heard this album in college and as I wrote about in my reviews of The Who and The Stones, it was still a shock that I would find something I liked in the mainstream. But on closer inspection there is nothing mainstream about this music at all. Sure it is wildly popular but mainstream? Nope. This is experimental, personal, angry, wild, unpredictable, passionate and BIZARRE music.
When you realize that every sound you hear is pretty much being made by Stevie himself, the impact grows. When you know that he fought for creative control and left Motown so that he could stretch away from being the cute kid who played the harmonica, it explodes. 'Living For The City', the famous centerpiece of the album, is shocking TODAY. Imagine how it sounded a mere 5 years after Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated.
But let us go back to the imaginary Singing Olympics for a moment, shall we? In 'Living For The City', we hear the Stevie we've all come to know and love. That voice, clear as a bell, opens the song and we settle into it like you settle into your favorite outfit. It is familiar but perfect. Then the song breaks down into a narrative at the center of it, telling the story of a young black man coming to New York and immediately being railroaded into the penal system by a desperate drug dealer and racist cops. When the vocal line comes back in, Stevie Wonder is virtually unrecognizable.
The melody is still there, yes. But it is buried in a bark, a growl, the voice of a man who is unable to even see the difference in skin color that is somehow at the heart of the tragedy he has imagined. His anger is palpable. It drips in every word and Stevie Wonder, the smiling warm-hearted genius is TERRIFYING. The mere tone of his voice has indictment INSIDE of it somehow.
Flip that emotion on its ear and you will have 'All In Love Is Fair' which just might be the single saddest most beautiful recording of Wonders' career. The plaintive pain that informs the vocal arrangement is so perfectly articulated that you barely notice the effort it takes to achieve it. In other words, the Pyramids have an effect simply by being there. You have to force yourself to imagine a moment when they weren't there. And the work that went into them has completely disappeared but for the final product.
Pop this song on when you are in the shower so you won't be embarrassed. I have been PAID to sing professionally and let me tell you...this shit is IMPOSSIBLE. It goes so high, the lyrics are deceptively simple but hard to articulate clearly, and all of it has to be filled to the brim emotionally or else it will sound like a bad Hallmark card opened on a Grandma's birthday. Opening yourself up to the attempt of singing this song is to almost guarantee that you will burst into tears at some point.
Oh, right, let's go back to the fact that he played every instrument on the album. This is literally the music that happens inside of his head. My ex-wife used to say that his stuff sounds ALIEN, as if it were created by a higher power, or an outside force, something beyond humanity.
Stevie Wonder. Perennial Gold Medalist in the Imaginary Singing Olympics. In fact, let's cancel the competition until he decides to hang it up.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
10 Greatest Albums: The Who - 'Who By Numbers'
I blew off The Who in high school. There was no 'Beggar's Banquet' as there was with the Stones. I lumped them in with the establishment rock and roll that I had come to despise. Boy, was I wrong.
Even now it is hard to look at The Who with a fresh perspective. To imagine you'd never heard them, heard of them, knew anything about them at all. If you could create such circumstances you would have some hypnopomp indeed.
My college years were like most, I suppose, intense partying, new people, new experiences. My world centered around the theater department which was a world like any other undergrad world, with maybe a higher percentage of out-of-the-closet gay folks. This was the late '80's the difference between then and now is like the difference between answering machines and cell phones.
My tastes weren't really expanding into more mainstream areas. The new stuff I was hearing was mainly euro-pop like Erasure, New Order, Bronski Beat, etc. I wasn't crazy about this music. It had technical perfection and glossy beats but there seemed to be some sort of hole at the center of it.
Into that atmosphere came a couple of guys. One was actually a high school friend who'd briefly played bass in my band. Joe was a DJ at WRIU and took classes in the theater department. He was a good actor but mainly he enjoyed being behind the scenes. Stage managing, building sets, etc. He and another guy named Bill had similar tastes in music and they became friends.
I still can remember the first night I wound up hanging out with them down by Narragansett Beach. Bill had a huge record collection and we got beer and sat down to enjoy it. While he and Joe had nothing against punk rock, they held The Who, The Stones, Roy Orbison, and Buddy Holly in as high esteem as I did The Replacements, Husker Du, and The Clash.
Bill went to play a Who record and I made some sort of nasty snorting sound and said something negative. You'd have thought I'd insulted his mother. He and Joe then proceeded to lecture me for (I'm not kidding) an hour and a half about why I was wrong, how full of shit I was, and how I simply did not have the information I needed.
I begrudgingly admitted that I had heard 'My Generation' and maybe 'Pinball Wizard'. To this day I don't like those songs because the shadow of my punk prejudice hangs over them.
Then Bill opened me a Budweiser and played The Who's 'Who By Numbers' from front to back. And by the time it was over I was apologizing to Bill, Joe, and the members of The Who for my ignorance and malarkey.
I also found it ironic that in a year in which I'd been introduced to a whole subset of gay artists that the gayest thing I'd hear would be an album by The Who. To me it is clear that Pete Townshend is struggling to define his sexuality here, chafing at the restriction that fame puts on his interactions with people, and feeling as if the perception that people have of him is at odds with his real truth.
Many have doubted that Townshend ever ventured into any gay relationships. But here is the opening stanza of 'How Many Friends', a blistering self-excoriation that comes at the close of the album.
I'm feelin' so good right now
There's a handsome boy tells me how I changed his past
He buys me a brandy
But could it be he's really just after my ass?
Now, I might be jumping to conclusions here...um, is it me?
In any case, whether he is or he isn't gay, did or didn't sleep with men, the point is that he is introducing the subject matter as a reality unto itself. The greater questions at the heart of the album are all about identity and what happens to a person when they are seen as something that they are not, or as something they desperately want to be but cannot.
This album is one long howl of pain, all dressed up in beautiful melody, bouncing bass lines, pounding drums, and soaring guitar solos. If you didn't know English your basic response might be enthusiasm, or vigor. These songs are calls to action musically. But when you climb inside the lyrics they are a morass of self-doubt, hatred, and questioning.
To a sheltered kid at college it was like a bolt of lightning from the sky. I had been wrong! The Who were as amazing as everyone said. And subversive! And ballsy! At the height of their fame they're singing about getting picked up in a bar by a young guy and being a 'well-fucked sailor'. I mean, are you kidding me? Total bad ass-ness.
In the middle of the album is a small song. It doesn't call much attention to itself but I think it is The Who's finest moment. It is called 'Blue Red and Grey'. I'm going to include the entire lyric sheet here...
Blue, Red and Grey
Some people seem so obsessed with the morning
Get up early just to watch the sun rise
Some people like it more when there's fire in the sky
Worship the sun when it's high
Some people go for those sultry evenings
Sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every second, so long as you are on my mind
Every moment has its special charm
It's all right when you're around, rain or shine
I know a crowd who only live after midnight
Their faces always seem so pale
And then there's friends of mine who must have sunlight
They say a suntan never fails
I know a man who works the night shift
He's lucky to get a job and some pay
And I like every minute of the day
I dig every second
I can laugh in the snow and rain
I get a buzz from being cold and wet
The pleasure seems to balance out the pain
And so you see that I'm completely crazy
I even shun the south of France
The people on the hill, they say I'm lazy
But when they sleep, I sing and dance
Some people have to have the sultry evenings
Cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every minute of the day
_______________________________________________
I was on the verge of adulthood. But I was still a kid. I had no responsibilities other than finding my favorite party or rehearsing some new play. This hint of optimism in the middle of that dark pool of regret and pain moved me very deeply.
The bravery it takes to say, "Hey, I love EVERY SECOND THAT I'M ALIVE", the determined absence of jaded cynicism in that sentiment, got me through many of my darkest college days, days when I felt like a paint-by-numbers sketch myself, when it felt like I was an outline for others to fill in.
When I had no idea who I really was.
Even now it is hard to look at The Who with a fresh perspective. To imagine you'd never heard them, heard of them, knew anything about them at all. If you could create such circumstances you would have some hypnopomp indeed.
My college years were like most, I suppose, intense partying, new people, new experiences. My world centered around the theater department which was a world like any other undergrad world, with maybe a higher percentage of out-of-the-closet gay folks. This was the late '80's the difference between then and now is like the difference between answering machines and cell phones.
My tastes weren't really expanding into more mainstream areas. The new stuff I was hearing was mainly euro-pop like Erasure, New Order, Bronski Beat, etc. I wasn't crazy about this music. It had technical perfection and glossy beats but there seemed to be some sort of hole at the center of it.
Into that atmosphere came a couple of guys. One was actually a high school friend who'd briefly played bass in my band. Joe was a DJ at WRIU and took classes in the theater department. He was a good actor but mainly he enjoyed being behind the scenes. Stage managing, building sets, etc. He and another guy named Bill had similar tastes in music and they became friends.
I still can remember the first night I wound up hanging out with them down by Narragansett Beach. Bill had a huge record collection and we got beer and sat down to enjoy it. While he and Joe had nothing against punk rock, they held The Who, The Stones, Roy Orbison, and Buddy Holly in as high esteem as I did The Replacements, Husker Du, and The Clash.
Bill went to play a Who record and I made some sort of nasty snorting sound and said something negative. You'd have thought I'd insulted his mother. He and Joe then proceeded to lecture me for (I'm not kidding) an hour and a half about why I was wrong, how full of shit I was, and how I simply did not have the information I needed.
I begrudgingly admitted that I had heard 'My Generation' and maybe 'Pinball Wizard'. To this day I don't like those songs because the shadow of my punk prejudice hangs over them.
Then Bill opened me a Budweiser and played The Who's 'Who By Numbers' from front to back. And by the time it was over I was apologizing to Bill, Joe, and the members of The Who for my ignorance and malarkey.
I also found it ironic that in a year in which I'd been introduced to a whole subset of gay artists that the gayest thing I'd hear would be an album by The Who. To me it is clear that Pete Townshend is struggling to define his sexuality here, chafing at the restriction that fame puts on his interactions with people, and feeling as if the perception that people have of him is at odds with his real truth.
Many have doubted that Townshend ever ventured into any gay relationships. But here is the opening stanza of 'How Many Friends', a blistering self-excoriation that comes at the close of the album.
I'm feelin' so good right now
There's a handsome boy tells me how I changed his past
He buys me a brandy
But could it be he's really just after my ass?
Now, I might be jumping to conclusions here...um, is it me?
In any case, whether he is or he isn't gay, did or didn't sleep with men, the point is that he is introducing the subject matter as a reality unto itself. The greater questions at the heart of the album are all about identity and what happens to a person when they are seen as something that they are not, or as something they desperately want to be but cannot.
This album is one long howl of pain, all dressed up in beautiful melody, bouncing bass lines, pounding drums, and soaring guitar solos. If you didn't know English your basic response might be enthusiasm, or vigor. These songs are calls to action musically. But when you climb inside the lyrics they are a morass of self-doubt, hatred, and questioning.
To a sheltered kid at college it was like a bolt of lightning from the sky. I had been wrong! The Who were as amazing as everyone said. And subversive! And ballsy! At the height of their fame they're singing about getting picked up in a bar by a young guy and being a 'well-fucked sailor'. I mean, are you kidding me? Total bad ass-ness.
In the middle of the album is a small song. It doesn't call much attention to itself but I think it is The Who's finest moment. It is called 'Blue Red and Grey'. I'm going to include the entire lyric sheet here...
Blue, Red and Grey
Some people seem so obsessed with the morning
Get up early just to watch the sun rise
Some people like it more when there's fire in the sky
Worship the sun when it's high
Some people go for those sultry evenings
Sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every second, so long as you are on my mind
Every moment has its special charm
It's all right when you're around, rain or shine
I know a crowd who only live after midnight
Their faces always seem so pale
And then there's friends of mine who must have sunlight
They say a suntan never fails
I know a man who works the night shift
He's lucky to get a job and some pay
And I like every minute of the day
I dig every second
I can laugh in the snow and rain
I get a buzz from being cold and wet
The pleasure seems to balance out the pain
And so you see that I'm completely crazy
I even shun the south of France
The people on the hill, they say I'm lazy
But when they sleep, I sing and dance
Some people have to have the sultry evenings
Cocktails in the blue, red and grey
But I like every minute of the day
I like every minute of the day
_______________________________________________
I was on the verge of adulthood. But I was still a kid. I had no responsibilities other than finding my favorite party or rehearsing some new play. This hint of optimism in the middle of that dark pool of regret and pain moved me very deeply.
The bravery it takes to say, "Hey, I love EVERY SECOND THAT I'M ALIVE", the determined absence of jaded cynicism in that sentiment, got me through many of my darkest college days, days when I felt like a paint-by-numbers sketch myself, when it felt like I was an outline for others to fill in.
When I had no idea who I really was.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
11 Greatest Albums: The Z-Digs - 'Scared Crows'
A boy watches his father die. He is the youngest of many children and yet he is already somehow the head of the household. He is an odd mix of achiever and artist. His wanderlust led him to the Peace Corps. During his time in Guinea Bissau he happened to read 'The English Patient'. Now, 15 years later, after a world traveling circuitous path, he works for the United Nations helping nations deal with unexploded land mines. If this trajectory were all you paid attention to you would have a lot to unearth.
But there is another side to his story.
In high school he was the wild card guitar player in Fecund Youth. Seemingly from the instant he picked the instrument up he was a lead guitar player. Not everyone has this impulse. I have played guitar now for 20 years and it is still difficult for me to 'solo'. Justin Brady was soloing almost before he knew how to play the damn thing. That's probably why he's so good.
He and I wrote a couple songs in high school, a couple good ones, actually, but he was definitely the George Harrison of our band. He came late and his creativity was not the focal point. He got to college and started his own band where he did most of the writing, music and lyrics. I was shocked (and am still shocked) that he chose a fraternity brother of his to be the singer. I wasn't even considered! Can you imagine? Sure I had no time because I was in 8,000 plays every semester and sure he was a member of the fraternity and I wasn't, but still...shocked I tell you. Shocked.
The Mag 7 was a very good band. But Justin still hadn't taken that final step. Once he bought a 4-track recorder it was only a matter of time. He began singing his own material. And that's when shit went crazy.
It is impossible to describe Justin's voice. In all honesty, it shouldn't work. It's like Neil Young. I still wonder whether Neil can sing or not. Justin is the same way. But the authenticity of that voice paired with the idiosyncratic nature of his songs brought his aesthetic out of hiding. The songs didn't have the same impact with someone else singing the melody.
Little by little he built an album. Most of these songs I'd heard at one time or another. Justin and I would have long bouts of creativity where we wrote, sang, improvised, joked, laughed, you name it. Then a few weeks would go by where I didn't see him and he'd play me what he'd recorded. Often I'd recognize some snippet that he'd come up with on the spot out on the turf farm next to his house or in the backyard down by the river.
At some point I expect Justin to make this music available to the public at large.
I include this album on this list for sentimental reasons, yes. He is my best friend. This album probably spurred my songwriting more than any other because it was a direct influence...my friend wrote it. But make no mistake...these are great songs. The production is intricate and balanced even though it is home-made. The emotional scope is vast and I defy anyone to remain unmoved when they hear 'Luka Blooms', the imagined words of a dead father sent back to give his son what he needs.
So, yeah, Justin has saved countless actual lives with the work he has done at the United Nations. That is important. But before he ever became a modern day super hero he had already recorded one hell of a debut album.
But there is another side to his story.
In high school he was the wild card guitar player in Fecund Youth. Seemingly from the instant he picked the instrument up he was a lead guitar player. Not everyone has this impulse. I have played guitar now for 20 years and it is still difficult for me to 'solo'. Justin Brady was soloing almost before he knew how to play the damn thing. That's probably why he's so good.
He and I wrote a couple songs in high school, a couple good ones, actually, but he was definitely the George Harrison of our band. He came late and his creativity was not the focal point. He got to college and started his own band where he did most of the writing, music and lyrics. I was shocked (and am still shocked) that he chose a fraternity brother of his to be the singer. I wasn't even considered! Can you imagine? Sure I had no time because I was in 8,000 plays every semester and sure he was a member of the fraternity and I wasn't, but still...shocked I tell you. Shocked.
The Mag 7 was a very good band. But Justin still hadn't taken that final step. Once he bought a 4-track recorder it was only a matter of time. He began singing his own material. And that's when shit went crazy.
It is impossible to describe Justin's voice. In all honesty, it shouldn't work. It's like Neil Young. I still wonder whether Neil can sing or not. Justin is the same way. But the authenticity of that voice paired with the idiosyncratic nature of his songs brought his aesthetic out of hiding. The songs didn't have the same impact with someone else singing the melody.
Little by little he built an album. Most of these songs I'd heard at one time or another. Justin and I would have long bouts of creativity where we wrote, sang, improvised, joked, laughed, you name it. Then a few weeks would go by where I didn't see him and he'd play me what he'd recorded. Often I'd recognize some snippet that he'd come up with on the spot out on the turf farm next to his house or in the backyard down by the river.
At some point I expect Justin to make this music available to the public at large.
I include this album on this list for sentimental reasons, yes. He is my best friend. This album probably spurred my songwriting more than any other because it was a direct influence...my friend wrote it. But make no mistake...these are great songs. The production is intricate and balanced even though it is home-made. The emotional scope is vast and I defy anyone to remain unmoved when they hear 'Luka Blooms', the imagined words of a dead father sent back to give his son what he needs.
So, yeah, Justin has saved countless actual lives with the work he has done at the United Nations. That is important. But before he ever became a modern day super hero he had already recorded one hell of a debut album.
Monday, April 27, 2009
12 Greatest Albums: Public Enemy - 'Yo! Bum Rush The Show!'
In 1986 the blackest music I had in my collection was Prince, and as we all know he hails from Planet Purple, not Black America. I listened to angry music made by young white suburban males. And show tunes. What can I say, I was confused.
I spent an awful lot of time flipping through album covers at Ritchie's House of Bargains, the only local record store. I come from Rhode Island, supposedly a bastion of the liberal north east, but if you'd observed the stacks of Ritchie's House of Bargains you'd have thought there needed to be a sit-in.
If 5 black people and 5 white people were in the store at the same time they could browse and never cross paths. It is similar today in that music has fragmented to such a degree but the divisions then were startling.
One day I was in the store and it was empty. Now I remind you that I listened to nothing but punk rock at this point. I had disowned Prince briefly. Rap was a burgeoning force but I dismissed it as bubble-gum and silly and not creative enough. They aren't playing instruments? That ain't music. Drum machines? That ain't music. No singing? That ain't music.
For some reason, on this particular day, these prejudices were not sufficient enough to keep me from flipping through the rap section. I must have been curious enough to eschew my regular post, waiting for the latest Neutral Nation, 7 Seconds, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Meatmen, Dead Kennedys or Verbal Assault record to appear in the stacks.
So there I flip. My contact with rap had been limited to Run D.M.C., The Beastie Boys, The Sugarhill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 'The Message' had caused a sensation when I was in sixth grade but I wasn't really plugged in to popular music at the time. (See above reference to show tunes...ahem.)
Then an album cover leaped out at me. A bare light bulb glares directly into the lens. 7 young black men dressed in vaguely military gear gather around a turntable. The vibe is that of a group preparing for battle.
And their name was Public Enemy. Now I came from the punk world with band names like Social Distortion, Corrosion of Conformity, Youth Brigade, etc. But Public Enemy? Before I even heard a note I knew that this was way more punk rock than anything I was listening to. Even if I didn't like the music I connected to the attitude.
I spent some of my hard earned money. I worked weekends at Belmont Fruit occasionally and over vacations. Anything I wanted I had to buy on my own. There was one copy of the album in the store.
I got it home and put it on. In punk rock, the bare-bones production allowed the emotional content to be completely direct, unencumbered by studio polish or even songwriting craft. Much the same can be said for 'Yo! Bum Rush The Show!'. I became quite a Public Enemy fan and when you compare this album to their later greats there is a vast difference. This are no bells no whistles all force and beat.
What I liked (and like) about it is that you can hear the determination behind the sound. We only have this drum machine? We can only record for a short period of time due to finances? Don't matter. What we have to say is all that matters. You could play a metronome behind Chuck D and it would be compelling.
The instant his voice bangs out in the opening songs, 'You're Gonna Get Yours' it is clear that this is no mere front-man, no mere performer. He is incapable of a song that isn't politically charged, historic in significance. Even something that seems like a sexist rant against a 'Sophisticated Bitch' is rife with the implication that a weak personality in a black woman has social ramifications unlike those for a white woman. Incredibly challenging and difficult material.
Basically I flipped my lid. And wouldn't you know it? A few of my punk rock compadres showed their true colors (pun intended) in their reaction to the mere possibility of putting these black punks up against the white punks they so revered.
Much like many of the choices I highlight here, there are many caveats. I don't even feel that this is the best pure Public Enemy album. That honor for me would go to 'Apocalypse '91: The Enemy Strikes Black'. But I will never forget the thrill I got when those manufactured beats came roaring out of my shitty little speakers.
Public Enemy. Just take a second to say the name stripped of your previous knowledge. PUBLIC ENEMY # 1.
I never looked at the world the same way after hearing that album for the first time. How many works of art can say they affected ANYBODY that way? Let alone the millions Public Enemy reached.
Indeed, it took a nation of millions.
I spent an awful lot of time flipping through album covers at Ritchie's House of Bargains, the only local record store. I come from Rhode Island, supposedly a bastion of the liberal north east, but if you'd observed the stacks of Ritchie's House of Bargains you'd have thought there needed to be a sit-in.
If 5 black people and 5 white people were in the store at the same time they could browse and never cross paths. It is similar today in that music has fragmented to such a degree but the divisions then were startling.
One day I was in the store and it was empty. Now I remind you that I listened to nothing but punk rock at this point. I had disowned Prince briefly. Rap was a burgeoning force but I dismissed it as bubble-gum and silly and not creative enough. They aren't playing instruments? That ain't music. Drum machines? That ain't music. No singing? That ain't music.
For some reason, on this particular day, these prejudices were not sufficient enough to keep me from flipping through the rap section. I must have been curious enough to eschew my regular post, waiting for the latest Neutral Nation, 7 Seconds, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Meatmen, Dead Kennedys or Verbal Assault record to appear in the stacks.
So there I flip. My contact with rap had been limited to Run D.M.C., The Beastie Boys, The Sugarhill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 'The Message' had caused a sensation when I was in sixth grade but I wasn't really plugged in to popular music at the time. (See above reference to show tunes...ahem.)
Then an album cover leaped out at me. A bare light bulb glares directly into the lens. 7 young black men dressed in vaguely military gear gather around a turntable. The vibe is that of a group preparing for battle.
And their name was Public Enemy. Now I came from the punk world with band names like Social Distortion, Corrosion of Conformity, Youth Brigade, etc. But Public Enemy? Before I even heard a note I knew that this was way more punk rock than anything I was listening to. Even if I didn't like the music I connected to the attitude.
I spent some of my hard earned money. I worked weekends at Belmont Fruit occasionally and over vacations. Anything I wanted I had to buy on my own. There was one copy of the album in the store.
I got it home and put it on. In punk rock, the bare-bones production allowed the emotional content to be completely direct, unencumbered by studio polish or even songwriting craft. Much the same can be said for 'Yo! Bum Rush The Show!'. I became quite a Public Enemy fan and when you compare this album to their later greats there is a vast difference. This are no bells no whistles all force and beat.
What I liked (and like) about it is that you can hear the determination behind the sound. We only have this drum machine? We can only record for a short period of time due to finances? Don't matter. What we have to say is all that matters. You could play a metronome behind Chuck D and it would be compelling.
The instant his voice bangs out in the opening songs, 'You're Gonna Get Yours' it is clear that this is no mere front-man, no mere performer. He is incapable of a song that isn't politically charged, historic in significance. Even something that seems like a sexist rant against a 'Sophisticated Bitch' is rife with the implication that a weak personality in a black woman has social ramifications unlike those for a white woman. Incredibly challenging and difficult material.
Basically I flipped my lid. And wouldn't you know it? A few of my punk rock compadres showed their true colors (pun intended) in their reaction to the mere possibility of putting these black punks up against the white punks they so revered.
Much like many of the choices I highlight here, there are many caveats. I don't even feel that this is the best pure Public Enemy album. That honor for me would go to 'Apocalypse '91: The Enemy Strikes Black'. But I will never forget the thrill I got when those manufactured beats came roaring out of my shitty little speakers.
Public Enemy. Just take a second to say the name stripped of your previous knowledge. PUBLIC ENEMY # 1.
I never looked at the world the same way after hearing that album for the first time. How many works of art can say they affected ANYBODY that way? Let alone the millions Public Enemy reached.
Indeed, it took a nation of millions.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
13 Greatest Albums: The Sex Pistols - 'Never Mind The Bollocks'
Ever since I can remember I've been angry. It has taken me 40 years to realize that this is not anything brought on by external forces. It is primal. It is soulful. Denying that anger is a baseline for me would be like arguing that my teeth were artificially implanted in my head.
I don't know of any other album that more perfectly captures the sense of what a fit of anger feels like.
The Sex Pistols 'Never Mind The Bollocks' album is a work of art so perfectly realized that you can almost be fooled into thinking that it is artless, that it is the pure form of what it expresses. In other words, it so perfectly embodies rage that one could mistakenly label it as merely an after-effect of rage, instead of a masterful evocation of it.
The music industry was so threatened by these guys that they thought they had no choice but to deride this as mere juvenile ranting, the bark and howl of an underclass that is not worth a nickel. They didn't mind making money off of it but they sure as shit weren't going to hold it up and say, "This is a flawless work." Which it is.
In the 32 years since it was released (!?$#?), music has exploded. Rage has become an economic juggernaut. Volume has increased, censorship both implied and explicit has ebbed, and no one is shocked when they encounter uncomfortable topics presented with all the unpleasant details right out front.
But when The Sex Pistols hit the scene, this was far from the case. They were unseemly. They were unruly. They had unabashed scorn for anything that smacked of the establishment. They hated hippies as much as businessmen. Those baby boomers who thought their softly strummed odes to fucking while stoned were going to change the world were the biggest resisters to the noise and clamor of these hooligans.
Lost in all of that is a gem of a record. Sid Vicious killed more than a couple of junkies that night in the Chelsea Hotel. He also killed any real chance that The Sex Pistols had to be viewed as anything other than an aberration, instead of a meteor.
Getting back to the changes in the record industry, what strikes me is that, as comfortable as everyone has gotten with rote expressions of anger and disappointment (nu metal, grunge, rap/rock, gangsta rap, emo-core, etc.), 'Bollocks' puts it all to shame. Even me with my affinity for anger, for loud uncompromising music, even I find myself wanting to tell Johnny Rotten to shut the hell up, to behave, to act like a gentleman. He is relentless in his vocal attack, seeming to rip convention to shreds with every line.
And this clarity extends right into the production of the album itself. This was no mere angry spurt. The sound of that album is like a chainsaw with a grudge. It is as clear as a bell which gives the emotional content even more weight because they aren't willing to let you escape one second of it via a muddy mix, a muffled drum beat, a garbled lyric. Each musical moment is like a shining dagger headed right for your chest.
Thrilling challenging exasperating alienating incriminating and exterminating. The Sex Pistols killed the 1960's and it was about the fuck time.
As I mentioned at the top, I am almost always angry on a cellular level. Somehow if you were able to test my DNA for rage you'd get an off the charts reading. If you could trace anger itself as an evolutionary force you would slide into the DNA and travel back in time through each scream, each punch, each threat, each explosion. And lo and behold, at the beginning of it all, at the moment that God created anger, you would hear his booming voice in the halls of heaven. He would warn you about the evils of this emotion, how it will warp you and rob you of human connection.
And The Sex Pistols would burst in and say, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
I don't know of any other album that more perfectly captures the sense of what a fit of anger feels like.
The Sex Pistols 'Never Mind The Bollocks' album is a work of art so perfectly realized that you can almost be fooled into thinking that it is artless, that it is the pure form of what it expresses. In other words, it so perfectly embodies rage that one could mistakenly label it as merely an after-effect of rage, instead of a masterful evocation of it.
The music industry was so threatened by these guys that they thought they had no choice but to deride this as mere juvenile ranting, the bark and howl of an underclass that is not worth a nickel. They didn't mind making money off of it but they sure as shit weren't going to hold it up and say, "This is a flawless work." Which it is.
In the 32 years since it was released (!?$#?), music has exploded. Rage has become an economic juggernaut. Volume has increased, censorship both implied and explicit has ebbed, and no one is shocked when they encounter uncomfortable topics presented with all the unpleasant details right out front.
But when The Sex Pistols hit the scene, this was far from the case. They were unseemly. They were unruly. They had unabashed scorn for anything that smacked of the establishment. They hated hippies as much as businessmen. Those baby boomers who thought their softly strummed odes to fucking while stoned were going to change the world were the biggest resisters to the noise and clamor of these hooligans.
Lost in all of that is a gem of a record. Sid Vicious killed more than a couple of junkies that night in the Chelsea Hotel. He also killed any real chance that The Sex Pistols had to be viewed as anything other than an aberration, instead of a meteor.
Getting back to the changes in the record industry, what strikes me is that, as comfortable as everyone has gotten with rote expressions of anger and disappointment (nu metal, grunge, rap/rock, gangsta rap, emo-core, etc.), 'Bollocks' puts it all to shame. Even me with my affinity for anger, for loud uncompromising music, even I find myself wanting to tell Johnny Rotten to shut the hell up, to behave, to act like a gentleman. He is relentless in his vocal attack, seeming to rip convention to shreds with every line.
And this clarity extends right into the production of the album itself. This was no mere angry spurt. The sound of that album is like a chainsaw with a grudge. It is as clear as a bell which gives the emotional content even more weight because they aren't willing to let you escape one second of it via a muddy mix, a muffled drum beat, a garbled lyric. Each musical moment is like a shining dagger headed right for your chest.
Thrilling challenging exasperating alienating incriminating and exterminating. The Sex Pistols killed the 1960's and it was about the fuck time.
As I mentioned at the top, I am almost always angry on a cellular level. Somehow if you were able to test my DNA for rage you'd get an off the charts reading. If you could trace anger itself as an evolutionary force you would slide into the DNA and travel back in time through each scream, each punch, each threat, each explosion. And lo and behold, at the beginning of it all, at the moment that God created anger, you would hear his booming voice in the halls of heaven. He would warn you about the evils of this emotion, how it will warp you and rob you of human connection.
And The Sex Pistols would burst in and say, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
14 Greatest Albums: The Rolling Stones - 'Beggar's Banquet'
Stones fans will most likely take issue with this choice and I understand. They have better albums. 'Exile On Main Street' is like a time machine...it prefigures about 8 different musical genres. It is like its own cottage industry. 'Some Girls' is probably my favorite with a sound that is like the collective energy that accumulates from every stripper in New York City the split second before they start their burlesque.
But 'Beggar's Banquet' is the one that came first for me.
In high school, as I've repeatedly said, I was a punk. I rejected a lot of the mainstream music I heard, a prejudice which was retroactive to hits of the '60's. Anything that wasn't written and recorded in a teenager's basement by angry 1980's punks was a golden oldie for me.
Into that wall of judgment came 'Beggar's Banquet'. At this point I knew 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' and didn't like it. I probably knew 'Start Me Up' and didn't like it. And I especially didn't like 'Sympathy For The Devil' which was the ULTIMATE establishment rock song. They played it 3 times a day on the classic rock station. Everyone knew the 'woo-woo' bit and everyone over-inflated the depth of the thing itself.
How I wound up with the cassette is a story that has escaped my memory. Why I delved in at all when I considered The Stones to be hopelessly passe...this too has flown into the mists of the past.
I'll tell you what I do remember.
Our station wagon didn't have a tape deck so I would pile 27 gigantic batteries into my boom box and tote the thing around with me wherever I went. Usually it held The Replacements, or 7 Seconds, or Minor Threat, or Husker Du, or The Descendents.
But every now and then I'd pop in 'Beggar's Banquet'. Usually the second side. I have a giant streak of the contrarian in me so 'Street Fighting Man' is something of a touchstone. The ease with which The Stones delve into religious territory while keeping all of their edge and raucousness infuses 'Prodigal Son' with, dare I say it, an ecstatic tinge. 'The Stray Cat Blues' is sex on wheels. 'Factory Girl' has a hard-won ramshackle ease that brings to mind a whole neighborhood of good time bars and late night hook-ups. And then 'Salt Of The Earth' shoots a cupid's arrow through it all, tying it up with a shout out to the collective.
If you'd never heard of The Stones and listened to this album, you might do a jig and say, "At last! Wilco had a few cups of coffee before they recorded for once!" Or maybe "Damn, who knew The Jayhawks could actually write good songs?" Or even "Thank God Ryan Adam finally grew some nuts."
Point is, this is the best alt.country album of all time and it was recorded 30 years before there was ever a blank dot blank anything.
I must also turn this review back to the personal and admit a deeper reason for my affection for this album. My girlfriend Shannon and I would cruise around the mean streets of South County and crank this sucker. Its echo would still be ringing when I fumbled with her buttons in the parking lot of the Great Swamp under a gorgeous summer night sky.
And that moonlight that visited us, that lit her young beauty from the reaches of outer space, that moonlight, though noiseless, that moonlight sang in my head as I explored the wonder of what lay under her shirt.
But 'Beggar's Banquet' is the one that came first for me.
In high school, as I've repeatedly said, I was a punk. I rejected a lot of the mainstream music I heard, a prejudice which was retroactive to hits of the '60's. Anything that wasn't written and recorded in a teenager's basement by angry 1980's punks was a golden oldie for me.
Into that wall of judgment came 'Beggar's Banquet'. At this point I knew 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' and didn't like it. I probably knew 'Start Me Up' and didn't like it. And I especially didn't like 'Sympathy For The Devil' which was the ULTIMATE establishment rock song. They played it 3 times a day on the classic rock station. Everyone knew the 'woo-woo' bit and everyone over-inflated the depth of the thing itself.
How I wound up with the cassette is a story that has escaped my memory. Why I delved in at all when I considered The Stones to be hopelessly passe...this too has flown into the mists of the past.
I'll tell you what I do remember.
Our station wagon didn't have a tape deck so I would pile 27 gigantic batteries into my boom box and tote the thing around with me wherever I went. Usually it held The Replacements, or 7 Seconds, or Minor Threat, or Husker Du, or The Descendents.
But every now and then I'd pop in 'Beggar's Banquet'. Usually the second side. I have a giant streak of the contrarian in me so 'Street Fighting Man' is something of a touchstone. The ease with which The Stones delve into religious territory while keeping all of their edge and raucousness infuses 'Prodigal Son' with, dare I say it, an ecstatic tinge. 'The Stray Cat Blues' is sex on wheels. 'Factory Girl' has a hard-won ramshackle ease that brings to mind a whole neighborhood of good time bars and late night hook-ups. And then 'Salt Of The Earth' shoots a cupid's arrow through it all, tying it up with a shout out to the collective.
If you'd never heard of The Stones and listened to this album, you might do a jig and say, "At last! Wilco had a few cups of coffee before they recorded for once!" Or maybe "Damn, who knew The Jayhawks could actually write good songs?" Or even "Thank God Ryan Adam finally grew some nuts."
Point is, this is the best alt.country album of all time and it was recorded 30 years before there was ever a blank dot blank anything.
I must also turn this review back to the personal and admit a deeper reason for my affection for this album. My girlfriend Shannon and I would cruise around the mean streets of South County and crank this sucker. Its echo would still be ringing when I fumbled with her buttons in the parking lot of the Great Swamp under a gorgeous summer night sky.
And that moonlight that visited us, that lit her young beauty from the reaches of outer space, that moonlight, though noiseless, that moonlight sang in my head as I explored the wonder of what lay under her shirt.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
15 Greatest Albums: Rufus Wainwright - 'Rufus Wainwright'
In a dream we all go to the same sad place to mourn our lost love. How such a place can be so beautiful is maddening to us. We wish we could dream ourselves into some post-apocalyptic barren landscape, scorched earth mirroring the inner wasteland that still serves to beat blood into our extremities. But no. Our subconscious is much crueler than that.
That feeling rises in us, that wave of love which is as pristine as the first moment it rose up to break on our shore. This wave contains every moment of passion, every stolen glance, every small gesture of intimacy, every ecstatic coupling, every tearful reunion, every tragic parting, every shared hilarity, every every every. And that wave washes us, in our dream, up the delta of a bursting river. The salt of the ocean slowly ebbs away and the fresh water takes up our weight. It is as if the tears we shed at the end have been dissolved, brought back to a more primal place.
The river, now free of the bitterness of that terrible end, picks up steam as it rushes backwards away from that all-encompassing wave.
On the shore of this river sit monuments to the failed love, gorgeous statues hewed from whatever rock lay closest at hand, trees whittled into murals, birds preening and singing familiar melodies, flowers clutching stems and trying to hold onto the fragrance that once wafted down and over your entwined limbs.
The river speeds. The detail of the passing banks becomes a bit blurred as you move towards the inevitable. You wish the inevitable were a holocaust made visible, a nightmare of epic proportions. But again, our hearts don't help us. The easy out of an awful vision is not afforded to us.
The trees blur, the moments mingle, the river speeds. You can't be going any faster. All of a sudden you stop.
Your dream, the result of your tragic lost love deep in your subconscious, is a waterfall going up. You see fish leap from it and walk away, evolved. Clouds form and elevate. It is the most romantic sight you've ever witnessed.
But everything is over. Everything is over.
In that distant dream mist, in that backwards cataract, this album was born. And the scales on the fish that walk out of that impossible river have a vague memory of the one that got away.
If only we could forget so easy.
That feeling rises in us, that wave of love which is as pristine as the first moment it rose up to break on our shore. This wave contains every moment of passion, every stolen glance, every small gesture of intimacy, every ecstatic coupling, every tearful reunion, every tragic parting, every shared hilarity, every every every. And that wave washes us, in our dream, up the delta of a bursting river. The salt of the ocean slowly ebbs away and the fresh water takes up our weight. It is as if the tears we shed at the end have been dissolved, brought back to a more primal place.
The river, now free of the bitterness of that terrible end, picks up steam as it rushes backwards away from that all-encompassing wave.
On the shore of this river sit monuments to the failed love, gorgeous statues hewed from whatever rock lay closest at hand, trees whittled into murals, birds preening and singing familiar melodies, flowers clutching stems and trying to hold onto the fragrance that once wafted down and over your entwined limbs.
The river speeds. The detail of the passing banks becomes a bit blurred as you move towards the inevitable. You wish the inevitable were a holocaust made visible, a nightmare of epic proportions. But again, our hearts don't help us. The easy out of an awful vision is not afforded to us.
The trees blur, the moments mingle, the river speeds. You can't be going any faster. All of a sudden you stop.
Your dream, the result of your tragic lost love deep in your subconscious, is a waterfall going up. You see fish leap from it and walk away, evolved. Clouds form and elevate. It is the most romantic sight you've ever witnessed.
But everything is over. Everything is over.
In that distant dream mist, in that backwards cataract, this album was born. And the scales on the fish that walk out of that impossible river have a vague memory of the one that got away.
If only we could forget so easy.
Monday, April 20, 2009
16 Greatest Albums: The Beatles - 'The White Album'
This is not your ordinary Top 50 List. First of all, the albums are not in any real order in terms of quality or ranking. I merely search through the muddled ether that serves as my cerebral cortex and I grab onto whatever seems weighty enough to drag my fingers down to the keyboard from their normal position, which is on my skull tearing my hair out.
Putting The Beatles up against anyone else in pop music is unfair. Being a musician in the wake of The Beatles is like claiming to be the Messiah anytime after this guy named Jesus was hanging around. You might be able to do it, you might get a few people to believe in you along the way, but the scope of history is not going to pay you much heed.
So let me state that if this were any kind of conventional list, the 13 official album releases of The Beatles would be #'s 1 thru 13 and everyone else would be a very distant 14 thru 50.
Since it is an unconventional list, I am picking the album that is sort of like the Sesame Street song...'one of these things is not like the other'.
'The White Album'. Right away there is something subversive going on because everyone knows the album by a title which is incorrect. Out of all of their albums, THIS one is the one The Beatles were comfortable saying, 'This is The Beatles' about. As an artist, I look on that as a very significant gesture on their part.
The two previous albums had been 'Sgt. Pepper's' and 'Magical Mystery Tour', both of which fictionalize the band to a certain degree. There is a level of myth and creation that sets them apart, that separate the listener from the band. This has its own set of pleasures. And as I said, either of those albums could go at # 1 on any list and it would not be inappropriate.
But if you want a real idea of what it was like to be one of those 4 guys trapped inside of that nuclear bubble of fame, creativity, politics, cultural upheaval, Cold War posturing, media explosion, the dismantling of accepted sexual structure...this is the album to listen to. And those 4 guys collectively said, "This album is The Beatles."
(In a very interesting side note that undercuts everything I've just been typing, legend has it that they wanted to call the album "A Doll's House" but some band called Family released a similarly titled album earlier in the year. I could write 17 books about this one fact. Or read 29 books about it. Or both.)
I just got overwhelmed by merely looking at the track list. I can't go into it. I feel mildly like Nigel Tufnel forbidding Marty DiBergi from even looking at a certain guitar in his collection.
I'll go back to the simple fact that these 4 guys, clearly at the top of their game, having completely restructured the music business, shot a youthful jolt through the crusty bullshit of a decaying outdated moral framework, experienced fame in a completely unprecedented manner...these 4 guys together decided that THIS particular album didn't need an intricate cover, didn't need a clever title, didn't need any trappings WHATSOEVER. All it needed was the packaging material it came in and two words on the cover.
The Beatles.
To speak of these things is dangerous and unnecessary. How can you quantify genius on that scope? Tell me what the universe means. Why is the sky blue. What does it all mean?
I am a false Messiah.
Putting The Beatles up against anyone else in pop music is unfair. Being a musician in the wake of The Beatles is like claiming to be the Messiah anytime after this guy named Jesus was hanging around. You might be able to do it, you might get a few people to believe in you along the way, but the scope of history is not going to pay you much heed.
So let me state that if this were any kind of conventional list, the 13 official album releases of The Beatles would be #'s 1 thru 13 and everyone else would be a very distant 14 thru 50.
Since it is an unconventional list, I am picking the album that is sort of like the Sesame Street song...'one of these things is not like the other'.
'The White Album'. Right away there is something subversive going on because everyone knows the album by a title which is incorrect. Out of all of their albums, THIS one is the one The Beatles were comfortable saying, 'This is The Beatles' about. As an artist, I look on that as a very significant gesture on their part.
The two previous albums had been 'Sgt. Pepper's' and 'Magical Mystery Tour', both of which fictionalize the band to a certain degree. There is a level of myth and creation that sets them apart, that separate the listener from the band. This has its own set of pleasures. And as I said, either of those albums could go at # 1 on any list and it would not be inappropriate.
But if you want a real idea of what it was like to be one of those 4 guys trapped inside of that nuclear bubble of fame, creativity, politics, cultural upheaval, Cold War posturing, media explosion, the dismantling of accepted sexual structure...this is the album to listen to. And those 4 guys collectively said, "This album is The Beatles."
(In a very interesting side note that undercuts everything I've just been typing, legend has it that they wanted to call the album "A Doll's House" but some band called Family released a similarly titled album earlier in the year. I could write 17 books about this one fact. Or read 29 books about it. Or both.)
I just got overwhelmed by merely looking at the track list. I can't go into it. I feel mildly like Nigel Tufnel forbidding Marty DiBergi from even looking at a certain guitar in his collection.
I'll go back to the simple fact that these 4 guys, clearly at the top of their game, having completely restructured the music business, shot a youthful jolt through the crusty bullshit of a decaying outdated moral framework, experienced fame in a completely unprecedented manner...these 4 guys together decided that THIS particular album didn't need an intricate cover, didn't need a clever title, didn't need any trappings WHATSOEVER. All it needed was the packaging material it came in and two words on the cover.
The Beatles.
To speak of these things is dangerous and unnecessary. How can you quantify genius on that scope? Tell me what the universe means. Why is the sky blue. What does it all mean?
I am a false Messiah.
Monday, April 13, 2009
17 Greatest Albums: Minor Threat - 'Minor Threat EP/In My Eyes'
I am in high school. I have just become friends with Tom DeVincke via Justin Brady. I'd known of Tom as far back as junior high, mostly because he got a mohawk and rumor had it that he'd almost kicked out of school because of it.
That goes to show you just how much CONTROL was still being exerted over teenagers in 1983. If you cut your hair a certain way they threatened to DISCONTINUE your education.
Preppies. When I look back on this fad I get profoundly disturbed. Teens and pre-teens dressing as if they were figures from a 1950's sitcom. Now, I don't want my teenagers toting guns and shooting heroin but a little rebellion is rather important. At a time when they ought to have been questioning the line of mularkey their parents were giving them, these kids were emulating not even the parents themselves but some sick idealized version of a past their parents wished they had lived. Very creepy.
This was the atmosphere I was in when I met Tom. I remember us in a study hall laughing about some math homework and that was it. Best friends. He Justin and I then spent all of our free time loitering around town or in Tom's room listening to music.
This is where I first heard Minor Threat.
My musical upbringing consisted of show tunes and folk songs, with a little bit of The Beatles thrown in for good measure. I knew virtually no classic rock, none of the punk scene, nothing. I was a babe in the woods. Justin and Tom would continually rag on me when our band would try to cover some classic rock song. They'd play something, ask me what it was, and then roll on the floor when I had no clue. I couldn't tell Zeppelin apart from The Scorpions.
So I'd had no intermediate LOUDNESS in my music. Minor Threat sounded like a bomb going off.
I flipped out.
I went back recently and listened to their entire catalog and was pleasantly surprised at how good the songs are. How instantly catchy. How well-played. Compared to what passed for rock in those days, they sounded like a bunch of monkeys trying to turn Shakespeare into the Sex Pistols but it is almost poppy music. Crude, yes, sloppy? Not a bit.
Minor Threat had broken up by the time I ever heard them so I never got the chance to see them live. I wonder at how few people actually did see them live. It can't be over 10,000 in total. But if you listen to Ian MacKaye bark and growl those songs you hear the future of radio. The poser from Rage Against The Machine? Stole it from Ian. Nirvana's rasp? Cribbed. Linkin Park's almost rap? Minor Threat.
Much like the beginnings of what is today gangsta rap, Minor Threat started something that quickly snowballed into a whole new industry. At the time Minor Threat picked up their instruments the loudest thing you heard on the radio was Led Zeppelin. Maybe late at night you got The Ramones.
When I played Minor Threat for the uninitiated back in those days it was as if I were physically placing their heads inside of giant machinery. People have been trained differently now. They don't automatically dismiss something merely due to the volume at which it is played.
But they sure did back then.
And the guys who INVENTED this music were all teenagers. Minor threat, indeed.
Tom and Justin had guitars. I knew I could sing. Et voila. A band was born. Are Tom Justin and I friends today because we were in a band? I don't know but I sort of think so. In some way we will always be that band. Fecund Youth. And even though we never put out a record (officially!) never toured (farther than a house down the road without parents), we also never officially broke up, either.
Take your time
Try not to forget
We never will
We're just a minor threat
-Ian MacKaye 'Minor Threat'
That goes to show you just how much CONTROL was still being exerted over teenagers in 1983. If you cut your hair a certain way they threatened to DISCONTINUE your education.
Preppies. When I look back on this fad I get profoundly disturbed. Teens and pre-teens dressing as if they were figures from a 1950's sitcom. Now, I don't want my teenagers toting guns and shooting heroin but a little rebellion is rather important. At a time when they ought to have been questioning the line of mularkey their parents were giving them, these kids were emulating not even the parents themselves but some sick idealized version of a past their parents wished they had lived. Very creepy.
This was the atmosphere I was in when I met Tom. I remember us in a study hall laughing about some math homework and that was it. Best friends. He Justin and I then spent all of our free time loitering around town or in Tom's room listening to music.
This is where I first heard Minor Threat.
My musical upbringing consisted of show tunes and folk songs, with a little bit of The Beatles thrown in for good measure. I knew virtually no classic rock, none of the punk scene, nothing. I was a babe in the woods. Justin and Tom would continually rag on me when our band would try to cover some classic rock song. They'd play something, ask me what it was, and then roll on the floor when I had no clue. I couldn't tell Zeppelin apart from The Scorpions.
So I'd had no intermediate LOUDNESS in my music. Minor Threat sounded like a bomb going off.
I flipped out.
I went back recently and listened to their entire catalog and was pleasantly surprised at how good the songs are. How instantly catchy. How well-played. Compared to what passed for rock in those days, they sounded like a bunch of monkeys trying to turn Shakespeare into the Sex Pistols but it is almost poppy music. Crude, yes, sloppy? Not a bit.
Minor Threat had broken up by the time I ever heard them so I never got the chance to see them live. I wonder at how few people actually did see them live. It can't be over 10,000 in total. But if you listen to Ian MacKaye bark and growl those songs you hear the future of radio. The poser from Rage Against The Machine? Stole it from Ian. Nirvana's rasp? Cribbed. Linkin Park's almost rap? Minor Threat.
Much like the beginnings of what is today gangsta rap, Minor Threat started something that quickly snowballed into a whole new industry. At the time Minor Threat picked up their instruments the loudest thing you heard on the radio was Led Zeppelin. Maybe late at night you got The Ramones.
When I played Minor Threat for the uninitiated back in those days it was as if I were physically placing their heads inside of giant machinery. People have been trained differently now. They don't automatically dismiss something merely due to the volume at which it is played.
But they sure did back then.
And the guys who INVENTED this music were all teenagers. Minor threat, indeed.
Tom and Justin had guitars. I knew I could sing. Et voila. A band was born. Are Tom Justin and I friends today because we were in a band? I don't know but I sort of think so. In some way we will always be that band. Fecund Youth. And even though we never put out a record (officially!) never toured (farther than a house down the road without parents), we also never officially broke up, either.
Take your time
Try not to forget
We never will
We're just a minor threat
-Ian MacKaye 'Minor Threat'
Thursday, April 2, 2009
18 Greatest Albums: Foo Fighters 'The Colour And The Shape'
This album is a marker for me, a placeholder, a doorjamb. It came out in the spring of 1997 which was a very full time for me, as Cashel would be born on Halloween several months later. If you tested my DNA you would find microcosmic snippets of these songs in there.
I know many people who are big fans of this band and most of them dislike this album. Most of them had flipped over the first Foo Fighters record which I have never gotten into. In fact, I don't own any other Foo Fighters music. I've heard the songs and like them, I enjoy Dave Grohl immensely and root for them, but I never needed anything but 'The Colour And The Shape'.
There are a few albums like this in my collection. I knew they were in the pantheon the first time I heard them, I listened to them obsessively until I could sing every note (and by every note I mean every vocal, every guitar solo, every bass line, every drum roll, EVERYTHING), and I consistently revisit them once the initial obsession has passed.
From what I can tell, Grohl was going through a break up and much of the album delves into this difficult territory. It's hard not to layer Cobain over everything which gives it a whole different level of depth and tragedy, something that doesn't detract at all. It's like Mickey Rourke in 'The Wrestler'. The movie isn't about Mickey Rourke fucking up his movie career but those echoes certainly add to the impact the story has.
So it is with this album. For me, a guy who was in a trying relationship of his own, it hit me like a ton of bricks. From the gentle opening notes of 'Doll' which segue violently into 'Monkey Wrench', it is clear that we are in for a tough ride.
Actors all have little tricks for getting at difficult emotion. Or good actors do. Years later doing my cousin's play 'Searching For Certainty' in Los Angeles, I would use 'The Colour And The Shape' to channel myself into the state I needed to be in. My character has been pining away for 9 years over the girl that got away in college. He takes a road trip to New York and has a dinner with her in which he finally comes clean. They kiss. The pent up emotion lets loose and he begins to cry at this dream which has finally come true.
This is what this album sounds like to me. A triumph, a moment so hard-earned that your celebration has a wide swath of regret braided into it. You wish you could merely jump for joy but you paid such a price in getting there that your capacity for that kind of unfettered positivity has diminished. You receive your trophy, it is in your image, but it needs crutches to stay on its pedestal.
To my taste, the sound on this album perfectly represents that kind of contradiction. The guitars are crisper than crisp but still pack major punch. The drums are powerful and full of abandon but never stray over into bombast. Grohl's singing is emotionally spot on, to the point that he disappears and the song becomes its own performance. This album is alive to me, it has a personality and a point of view. It hurts.
To this day if I need to cry for any reason, all I have to do is try and sing along to 'February Stars'. I simply can't get through that song without having the primal response I had when I first heard it, when I felt as if I'd never be happy again, but at least I was admitting I had to try.
I said you'd find snippets of this album in my DNA which is true. The strange thing is, it hit me so hard it felt like it had been there my whole life. As if I'd been born with this album. Just like Dave Grohl. And I would like to give him a prize for it, one that didn't have to use crutches to hold itself up.
I know many people who are big fans of this band and most of them dislike this album. Most of them had flipped over the first Foo Fighters record which I have never gotten into. In fact, I don't own any other Foo Fighters music. I've heard the songs and like them, I enjoy Dave Grohl immensely and root for them, but I never needed anything but 'The Colour And The Shape'.
There are a few albums like this in my collection. I knew they were in the pantheon the first time I heard them, I listened to them obsessively until I could sing every note (and by every note I mean every vocal, every guitar solo, every bass line, every drum roll, EVERYTHING), and I consistently revisit them once the initial obsession has passed.
From what I can tell, Grohl was going through a break up and much of the album delves into this difficult territory. It's hard not to layer Cobain over everything which gives it a whole different level of depth and tragedy, something that doesn't detract at all. It's like Mickey Rourke in 'The Wrestler'. The movie isn't about Mickey Rourke fucking up his movie career but those echoes certainly add to the impact the story has.
So it is with this album. For me, a guy who was in a trying relationship of his own, it hit me like a ton of bricks. From the gentle opening notes of 'Doll' which segue violently into 'Monkey Wrench', it is clear that we are in for a tough ride.
Actors all have little tricks for getting at difficult emotion. Or good actors do. Years later doing my cousin's play 'Searching For Certainty' in Los Angeles, I would use 'The Colour And The Shape' to channel myself into the state I needed to be in. My character has been pining away for 9 years over the girl that got away in college. He takes a road trip to New York and has a dinner with her in which he finally comes clean. They kiss. The pent up emotion lets loose and he begins to cry at this dream which has finally come true.
This is what this album sounds like to me. A triumph, a moment so hard-earned that your celebration has a wide swath of regret braided into it. You wish you could merely jump for joy but you paid such a price in getting there that your capacity for that kind of unfettered positivity has diminished. You receive your trophy, it is in your image, but it needs crutches to stay on its pedestal.
To my taste, the sound on this album perfectly represents that kind of contradiction. The guitars are crisper than crisp but still pack major punch. The drums are powerful and full of abandon but never stray over into bombast. Grohl's singing is emotionally spot on, to the point that he disappears and the song becomes its own performance. This album is alive to me, it has a personality and a point of view. It hurts.
To this day if I need to cry for any reason, all I have to do is try and sing along to 'February Stars'. I simply can't get through that song without having the primal response I had when I first heard it, when I felt as if I'd never be happy again, but at least I was admitting I had to try.
I said you'd find snippets of this album in my DNA which is true. The strange thing is, it hit me so hard it felt like it had been there my whole life. As if I'd been born with this album. Just like Dave Grohl. And I would like to give him a prize for it, one that didn't have to use crutches to hold itself up.
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