I wrote and played everything on this album. Here's why this entry isn't merely tooting my own horn.
For me, this top 50 list is not really even about quality in any comparative way. It is all about the emotional connection I feel to whatever album I choose to highlight. Going by this criteria alone, my top six would go like this...
Bull Cancer - ...Meets The Brown Recluse of Hwy. 54
Bomer B - Id City: Act 1 - Out of Charactor
Bomer B - Id City: Act 2 - Americana Subversive
The Mahoneys - Live From The 20th Century
Rhode Island Red - Cocksure
onion - beauty is ordinary
Are these albums as GOOD as The White Album by The Beatles? Of course not. But they are more important to me than any album I own because they came from inside of me, I found a way to put them on tape or little digital bits, and they perfectly represent what I was going through at the time I recorded them.
The Mahoneys album is recorded live in a basement in 1993, Cocksure and Beauty Is Ordinary are in essence compilations of work I did from '93-99, preliminary attempts at using a 4-track, and both Bomer-B albums were recorded after being influenced by Timothy and his expertise with drum machines and mixing/editing. They are more advanced. They were mostly done after 2000.
But for me, the first true ALBUM I recorded wound up with the title Bull Cancer...Meets The Brown Recluse of Hwy. 54. It was recorded between March and November of 1999. All of my previous recording had been more or less a process of delving into the vault and deciding which song I'd already written that I was ready to codify. This was more a process of actual writing through the 4-track itself.
The album was spurred by three cataclysmic events in my life. First was the disintegrating character of my marriage. Second was the chance meeting of Melody Garren at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC on Feb. 20 or 21 of that year, and third was the new sense of manhood that had come along with the arrival of Cashel two years prior.
Upon my arrival in North Carolina, I'd hunkered down to get to work on my first Equity acting job. I'd purposefully not brought my guitar with me so that I'd be forced to laser in on the process. Well, I met Melody (chronicled elsewhere on this blog under 'Cat's Cradle Pts. 1, 2, and 3 Til Now') and she happened to have an old guitar lying around. How could I resist Melody having found me? Or melody, for that matter.
The album, save for one song, was written chronologically.
1. Hymn to Her
The first song on it I'd written before I met Melody but after I'd gone to North Carolina. It is called 'Hymn to Her', a title I thought very meaningful and clever. Which Chrissie Hynde could have agreed with, having written a song of the same name many years earlier. I'd rented 'Night of the Hunter' in my first week in NC and it had perfectly echoed the terrible struggle going on in my heart. I felt like Robert Mitchum, like I'd have no choice but to leave the woman I was married to strapped to a car at the bottom of a lake. But also that I was married to her for false reasons. For Mitchum it was the $10,000 hidden God knew where. For me it was some unknown, no less wrong for being ill defined.
I walked all over campus singing this song in my head without a guitar to play along. But I knew I'd write it as soon as I got back to NYC to my guitar.
The recording is one vocal and one acoustic guitar.
Then I met Melody. (See rest of blog.)
2. Underestimated Melody
First I wrote a song for her on the guitar she lent to me. It is the second song on the album and it is called 'Underestimated Melody'. The title might seem like a slight but in actuality it is self-directed. I'd neglected to bring my guitar out of some hair-shirt bullshit philosophy. I'd underestimated melody. And I also could sense that the world took Melody at face value, expecting certain things from her because of the way she looked. I played this song for her in her small apartment off of Highway 54.
The recording is one vocal and one acoustic guitar.
3. Mel & Jeff
I also wrote this in NC and played it for Melody before I returned to NYC. Jeff was the guy she'd been going to meet the night that we met. Ex-boyfriend. Turbulence. I'd seen him before I met her and somehow linked them in my mind anyway, one of the more astounding bits of ESP I've ever heard of. This song imagines them as hyper-masculine high school football playing best friends who spend all their time chasing tail and never admitting that they are actually in love with each other. They fight over a girl but really they are angry because they'll never be able to admit their love.
The recording is one vocal and one acoustic guitar.
4. Hellbent
I return to NYC. I am now in a strange mix of heaven and hell. I am in love. I am still married to a woman I care deeply for and loved. I have a gorgeous young son who is the light of my life. I must contemplate leaving them. I am happy, unhappy. This song attempts to portray all of this at once. Key line?
If Nature made me as I am
If what I was is what I'll be
That Mother's running quite a scam
Charging all a mighty fee
Just for leaving Pangea behind
To do this continental drift
Disparate lands become aligned
And mountains out of valleys lift
From the depths a sky-kissed gift
The recording is one vocal and one acoustic guitar.
5. Wise
This song actually had its beginnings many years earlier. I'd had a dream in which I was at a bowling alley trying to sing a song called 'Wise'. Chaos reigned at this bowling alley. I re-read this dream journal entry one day randomly when I'd had to drop my car off to get serviced. The only place to wait was a bowling alley across the street. I happened to have this old journal with me and read the entry. More ESP. So I transposed the old dream into a new song which also examined the strange pressure that love can bring.
Key line?
But I can't do it
I can't be wise
I can't even try
To be wise
Buddha would tell me not to try to win
Buddha would tell me not to force my grin
Buddha would tell me not to kick old men in the shins
But I killed him too
I guess that makes me wise
The recording is one vocal and one acoustic guitar.
6. Miss St. Tropez
The album takes a stylistic turn here. Acoustic becomes electric and the folk vibe gives way to a strange claustrophobic sensuality. The song title is a play on the word 'misanthrope' which when spoken in a French accent can be pronounced Miss St. Tropez. I was in agony, feeling guilt over the giant sexual attraction I felt for Melody. Was I considering throwing away hearth and home for a swimsuit model? Was I blaming her for being so pretty? Could I fight a tidal wave? Should I?
I imagined myself as a corrupt judge of a beauty pageant. Hence, 'Miss St. Tropez'. One of my favorites.
The recording is one vocal and one electric guitar.
7. Miseducation of a * Fucker
This was a collaboration. Melody sent me these lyrics, one of the few times we communicated once I got back to NYC. I set them to music. This in itself was a powerful thing for me, not only had she truly transformed my music but we were actually together in a way by me writing this song. I like its placement here because it gives her side in the midst of mine. This balances it out for me and is like a second voice on an overheard telephone call. Without it everything is one-sided.
The recording is one vocal and one electric guitar.
8. Myth Maker
This is the song that is out of order. When I finished recording this song I knew the album was done and I knew it would come in after 'Miss St. Tropez' and 'Miseducation of a * Fucker'. Why? I thought it would be funny to create an inadvertent lisp.
'Miss St. Tropez'
'Miseducation of a * Fucker'
'Myth Maker'
It also had to follow '* Fucker' because both deal with the mythification of what had happened between us...this myth has been hard for us to deal with in everyday life. It has a different feel to it than much of the album, an ethereal jam-like quality, more melodic than rhythmic.
The recording is one vocal and one electric guitar.
9. Wonders Never Cease
This little ditty is as close as I get to a celebration. Hard to celebrate the arrival of something that shines a bright light on dark corners you'd done your best to conceal for years. But this song could actually be an up-tempo rave-up extolling the virtues of the new love that had infused my heart. As it is, it is a muted cry.
Key line?
Wonders never cease
I'm tucked inside the crease
Of the diary of a titan
So nothing more can frighten
Me not in the least
The recording is one vocal, one acoustic, and one electric guitar.
10. Summers Torture
This I wrote in Santa Fe. I'd been home from NC for a couple of months when the chance to work on a Shakespeare play in Santa Fe with the director of 'Beauty Queen' came up. I took it. At this point Maria knew nothing about Melody and I struggled along in hypocrisy and torment. The chance to get out and work on the Bard was, needless to say, one I could not turn down.
The heat and sand of Santa Fe did not rejuvenate me, it merely mirrored the arid wasteland between my heart and my life. The song reverts back to the stark approach of the beginning of the album, stripping away the little bells and whistles that had been creeping in over time. Have to include all the lyrics.
Blues and whites stream towards my eyes
Make me wish for 3-D shades
Yellow axes from the sky
I squint but still everything fades
Short skirts make the earth seem small
And midriffs crash 10,000 cars
Rollerblades make you so tall
Stick out your tongue
And you'll kiss Mars
I'm digging up through dust
I've been burning at the core
I'm coming up out through the crust
In time to hear the ocean's roar
Dear please tie me to the rack
Leave me here I'll beat that sun
I'll take the clouds and throw them back
I'll shoot the sky out from a gun
But blue and white and yellow win
They've got summer on their side
Just like a bouncing dolphin's fin
Not full in view nothing to hide
I'm digging up through dust
I've been burning at the core
I'm coming up out through the crust
In time to hear the ocean's roar
At summer's torture I will crack
I'll tell you what you want to know
Then like a fish you'll throw me back
And tell me just where I can go
The birds will pick I'll drift and float
I'll hear you singing far ashore
For spiders I'll be one large boat
They won't mind the blood and gore
I'm digging up through dust
I've been burning at the core
I'm coming up out through the crust
In time to hear the ocean's roar
You're like a siren in reverse
You send me off and then you sing
I'm still not sure which one is worse
The wound or salt-in-water sting
The recording is one vocal and one acoustic guitar.
11. Eulogy for a Death Wish
Here is the false ending, the epic almost. After paring everything back for 'Summer's Torture' I add sound with a vengeance. Compared to a full lineup band with drums keys bass etc. it isn't full but after the bleak singularity of 'Torture' it sounds like a punk anthem. And for the first time ever in song I say the words 'I love you'.
There is even a dual rip roaring guitar solo after I say 'You know that I will love you forever/You know that I will love you when I die'.
The recording is one vocal, one acoustic, and two electric guitars.
12. Go to LA
After the emotional bombast of 'Death Wish' and 'Torture' there is a gentle quality to this song, a mixture of the melody of the earlier songs on the album and the muscularity of the later ones. In essence I tell Melody with this song that I would want her to follow her dreams even if it meant that she weren't to follow me.
It ends on a colossally bizarre note with whispering and chanting 'go to la' competing against a strange guitar figure for attention.
The recording is one vocal, one acoustic, and two electric guitars.
As I finished 'Myth Maker' I knew what it meant to have written an ALBUM and not just a collection of songs thrown together in as good an order as you could choose. These songs are one, they could not be extricated from themselves. My friend Jon, a great musician in his own right and far more polished than I, cringes at a lot of this stuff because it is so crude. He implored me not to try to release it as it stood but to refine it, hone it, rewrite it.
Maybe someday I'll take him up on that. But do you know anyone who goes back and rewrites their diary?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
30 Greatest Albums: Pimp Fu - 'Coffee, Pot'
Cousin Timothy had disappeared from my life. If you know the O'Malley's, you know how unthinkable this is, to LOSE track of a cousin. But that's what happened. Timothy's father (my uncle Joe) passed away when we were both 6 or 7. His parents had already divorced so after this ultimate tragedy it was just not a common occurrence for our paths to cross.
In college we both were up for Irene Ryan Scholarships and we couldn't believe it when we ran into each other at the regional competition. But we each had scenes to prepare so that was a short-lived reunion.
Before Timothy moved in with me in Brooklyn, I'd seen him at my grandmother's funeral in college, my uncle's funeral in '96 after I'd moved to NY, and then my own wedding that same year.
Now, my marriage was over and Timothy was coming to live with me in Brooklyn. He'd been traveling America demonstrating digital cameras in a giant van. Needless to say he was exhausted. And I wasn't much better.
We discovered that we'd each been recording music on our own almost all our lives. I had a 4-track recorder and we decided to collaborate. Thing was, I was a folk/rock singer and he was a rapper/beat producer. Strange bedfellows, yes. But we thought it'd be a hoot to put the two together.
At the same time we started a rigorous exercise program. And when I say rigorous, I mean rig-the-fuck-orous. We were up at 5AM and in the gym shortly thereafter. We used creatine, protein powder, and 5 protein packed meals a day for fuel.
Arms as heavy as anvils I'd drag myself over to pick up Cashel, bundle him up into the stroller, haul that damn thing over turnstiles and head into the city to audition for a commercial or two, TV shows, plays, you name it. I auditioned a lot in those days. By the time I dragged Cash back in the evening I'd be spent beyond belief.
Timothy wasn't working. He was shell-shocked from having been on the road for almost a year. He showed me a postcard he'd gotten that came to his address but was labeled not for Timothy O'Malley but 'Pimp Fu'. I told him the universe had given him his rap-handle. There he sat all day, drinking coffee, smoking pot. Thus, 'Coffee, Pot' was born.
He went with it. I'd re-enter the apartment and he would play me what he'd been working on that day. Often there was space left on the tape for me to give my modest performance, either rapping as Pink Fu or playing some guitar to beef up the track.
I can't tell you how much fun it was to come in and get to witness this act of creation.
Pimp Fu is hard to describe. He is part sage, part fuck up, part hard case, part tragedian, part comedian, part lover, part bad ass, part juvenile delinquent, and all beat.
The first thing he ever played for me was called 'Cot In The Corner' which described his sleeping arrangement. This never made the final cut of the album.
The first thing we ever recorded together was called 'Goddamn King Kong' which involves a story of its own. A buddy of mine had spent a summer working in a fish packing plant in Alaska. A giant of a man would sell whippets on breaks. He constantly belittled the size of the hit the whippet purchaser would take. My friend avoided him all summer. Then on the last day he decided he wasn't going to let the summer end without doing a whippet at lunch. He was determined to avoid the scorn of this Grizzly Adams drug dealer. So he paid and then took the biggest hit he could muster. The giant looked down at him, almost perplexed, and said, "God Damn King Kong."
I always swore I would use the phrase in a song.
I told Timothy the story and we set about crafting an appropriate piece of music. Imagine a distorted little punk guitar gently scratching its back on an early hip hop drum machine. To this day it is still one of my favorite songs.
The track list is as follows...
1. O2
2. Pimp Fu Style
3. The Wistle Song
4. God Damn King Kong
5. Blind
6. 37 Yeti
7. It's Alright, yeah...
8. Open Your Mind
9. Anybody?
10. Take It On
11. Q-U-I-T After I D-I-E
12. Interstelic
13. The Joe Gene
14. The Mike O'Malley Song
What is great about Timothy's songs, style, and production, is that he veers wildly across the emotional spectrum. One second he is telling you his balls hurt and the next he is contemplating the specter of his very real demons. It is intensely personal music that perfectly reflects who Timothy is. He's funny, scary, fucked up, wise, lost, found, sexy, stupid, angry, quiet, kind, perceptive, empathetic, and FUNKY.
Now, you can't buy this album in stores. You can't download it off of the internet. But if you ask me to, I'll make damn sure you get a copy of it. Because it will blow your balls up behind your ears. Unless you're a chick in which case it will tie your nipples together and swing 'em on a chain.
Bitches!
In college we both were up for Irene Ryan Scholarships and we couldn't believe it when we ran into each other at the regional competition. But we each had scenes to prepare so that was a short-lived reunion.
Before Timothy moved in with me in Brooklyn, I'd seen him at my grandmother's funeral in college, my uncle's funeral in '96 after I'd moved to NY, and then my own wedding that same year.
Now, my marriage was over and Timothy was coming to live with me in Brooklyn. He'd been traveling America demonstrating digital cameras in a giant van. Needless to say he was exhausted. And I wasn't much better.
We discovered that we'd each been recording music on our own almost all our lives. I had a 4-track recorder and we decided to collaborate. Thing was, I was a folk/rock singer and he was a rapper/beat producer. Strange bedfellows, yes. But we thought it'd be a hoot to put the two together.
At the same time we started a rigorous exercise program. And when I say rigorous, I mean rig-the-fuck-orous. We were up at 5AM and in the gym shortly thereafter. We used creatine, protein powder, and 5 protein packed meals a day for fuel.
Arms as heavy as anvils I'd drag myself over to pick up Cashel, bundle him up into the stroller, haul that damn thing over turnstiles and head into the city to audition for a commercial or two, TV shows, plays, you name it. I auditioned a lot in those days. By the time I dragged Cash back in the evening I'd be spent beyond belief.
Timothy wasn't working. He was shell-shocked from having been on the road for almost a year. He showed me a postcard he'd gotten that came to his address but was labeled not for Timothy O'Malley but 'Pimp Fu'. I told him the universe had given him his rap-handle. There he sat all day, drinking coffee, smoking pot. Thus, 'Coffee, Pot' was born.
He went with it. I'd re-enter the apartment and he would play me what he'd been working on that day. Often there was space left on the tape for me to give my modest performance, either rapping as Pink Fu or playing some guitar to beef up the track.
I can't tell you how much fun it was to come in and get to witness this act of creation.
Pimp Fu is hard to describe. He is part sage, part fuck up, part hard case, part tragedian, part comedian, part lover, part bad ass, part juvenile delinquent, and all beat.
The first thing he ever played for me was called 'Cot In The Corner' which described his sleeping arrangement. This never made the final cut of the album.
The first thing we ever recorded together was called 'Goddamn King Kong' which involves a story of its own. A buddy of mine had spent a summer working in a fish packing plant in Alaska. A giant of a man would sell whippets on breaks. He constantly belittled the size of the hit the whippet purchaser would take. My friend avoided him all summer. Then on the last day he decided he wasn't going to let the summer end without doing a whippet at lunch. He was determined to avoid the scorn of this Grizzly Adams drug dealer. So he paid and then took the biggest hit he could muster. The giant looked down at him, almost perplexed, and said, "God Damn King Kong."
I always swore I would use the phrase in a song.
I told Timothy the story and we set about crafting an appropriate piece of music. Imagine a distorted little punk guitar gently scratching its back on an early hip hop drum machine. To this day it is still one of my favorite songs.
The track list is as follows...
1. O2
2. Pimp Fu Style
3. The Wistle Song
4. God Damn King Kong
5. Blind
6. 37 Yeti
7. It's Alright, yeah...
8. Open Your Mind
9. Anybody?
10. Take It On
11. Q-U-I-T After I D-I-E
12. Interstelic
13. The Joe Gene
14. The Mike O'Malley Song
What is great about Timothy's songs, style, and production, is that he veers wildly across the emotional spectrum. One second he is telling you his balls hurt and the next he is contemplating the specter of his very real demons. It is intensely personal music that perfectly reflects who Timothy is. He's funny, scary, fucked up, wise, lost, found, sexy, stupid, angry, quiet, kind, perceptive, empathetic, and FUNKY.
Now, you can't buy this album in stores. You can't download it off of the internet. But if you ask me to, I'll make damn sure you get a copy of it. Because it will blow your balls up behind your ears. Unless you're a chick in which case it will tie your nipples together and swing 'em on a chain.
Bitches!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
31 Greatest Albums: Paul Westerberg - 'Suicaine Gratifaction'
The first time I heard this album I was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and I'd just fallen in love harder than I ever imagined possible. But I'd essentially given up on Paul Westerberg and I dismissed the album out of hand. My new love was thunderstruck by what she heard but I'd jaded myself into a lack of recognition.
Now? It is his masterpiece. Of course I couldn't hear it at the time. If I had actually let this music in at that point in my life (marriage crumbling, new fatherhood, love I couldn't truly accomodate) I would have had a nervous breakdown. So I filed it under Paul Westerberg slowly slipping away from icon status to nostalgic teenage memory.
Cut to two years later. I've taken necessary steps in my life. I've ended my marriage. I've begun a relationship with the new love who got 'Suicaine Gratifaction' at first glance. I've expanded my own musical horizons in such a way that I've transformed my art forever (thanks, Cousin Tim).
I revisit this album. This time it is a sledgehammer to my soul. It is as if all the pain that I'd been forced to marginalize has now been given free reign through spinning this disc.
He opens with 'It's A Beautiful Lie'. I'd written it off as another pun/wordplay puff piece. I had felt like he was using clever bon mots as shorthand instead of getting to any kind of real psychological truth. Now? This was a desperate man who was clinging to the power to shape words, to morph one thing into another. And who couldn't see any basic truth in the pursuit he'd dedicated his life to. Hmmm...sound familiar? As Michael Jackson said, "I'm starting with the man in the mirror." I knew in a flash that I'd completely misread the entire album because it was simply too painful for me to experience.
I then opened my heart to it completely. And let me tell you, it was a difficult hour. And it dawned on me that that was the true nature of the genius at work. He was absolutely unconcerned with any sense of enjoyment.
And once I gave over I saw that I'd been expecting something else from him, I'd been stingy. I'd not allowed what he actually offered to enter my consciousness. So when he said, "Cheekbones and hormones/He's the accidental man", I was trying to hear something else. Next he called himself "the best thing that never happened" and I superimposed some other sentiment. He then roused himself to declare that he was "lookin' out forever" now. That is quite a journey in three songs. And I completely missed it.
He stops for a poignant song of love, "Born For Me" which drives us right into "Final Hurrah" which states exactly what it implies. This is my final hurrah. Which in itself creates a next moment after that supposed finality. Where was my reaction to all of this bare naked articulation? I was perpetuating an idea I had of him across the actuality of his work.
I'll never do that again.
I sneered at the open romanticism of "Sunrise Always Listens". I thought "Actor In The Street" was deliberately vague and obscure. "Bookmark" was quietly effective but why would he end the album on such a dour somber note?
Hmmmmm...I realized in my new listen that I'd done him a great disservice in my initial response. I had failed him as an audience. An audience must engage what they witness on the terms put forth by the artist in question. Perhaps your taste will eventually decide that it isn't to your liking, but first you must meet it halfway.
So when Paul sang "I'm the fugitive kind/You better make up your mind/I can't wait", all of a sudden I realized that I'd made him wait and that he'd left me behind. I caught up right quick.
This album is Paul Westerberg's flag on the moon. Who am I to claim it was shot in the Phoenix desert?
Now? It is his masterpiece. Of course I couldn't hear it at the time. If I had actually let this music in at that point in my life (marriage crumbling, new fatherhood, love I couldn't truly accomodate) I would have had a nervous breakdown. So I filed it under Paul Westerberg slowly slipping away from icon status to nostalgic teenage memory.
Cut to two years later. I've taken necessary steps in my life. I've ended my marriage. I've begun a relationship with the new love who got 'Suicaine Gratifaction' at first glance. I've expanded my own musical horizons in such a way that I've transformed my art forever (thanks, Cousin Tim).
I revisit this album. This time it is a sledgehammer to my soul. It is as if all the pain that I'd been forced to marginalize has now been given free reign through spinning this disc.
He opens with 'It's A Beautiful Lie'. I'd written it off as another pun/wordplay puff piece. I had felt like he was using clever bon mots as shorthand instead of getting to any kind of real psychological truth. Now? This was a desperate man who was clinging to the power to shape words, to morph one thing into another. And who couldn't see any basic truth in the pursuit he'd dedicated his life to. Hmmm...sound familiar? As Michael Jackson said, "I'm starting with the man in the mirror." I knew in a flash that I'd completely misread the entire album because it was simply too painful for me to experience.
I then opened my heart to it completely. And let me tell you, it was a difficult hour. And it dawned on me that that was the true nature of the genius at work. He was absolutely unconcerned with any sense of enjoyment.
And once I gave over I saw that I'd been expecting something else from him, I'd been stingy. I'd not allowed what he actually offered to enter my consciousness. So when he said, "Cheekbones and hormones/He's the accidental man", I was trying to hear something else. Next he called himself "the best thing that never happened" and I superimposed some other sentiment. He then roused himself to declare that he was "lookin' out forever" now. That is quite a journey in three songs. And I completely missed it.
He stops for a poignant song of love, "Born For Me" which drives us right into "Final Hurrah" which states exactly what it implies. This is my final hurrah. Which in itself creates a next moment after that supposed finality. Where was my reaction to all of this bare naked articulation? I was perpetuating an idea I had of him across the actuality of his work.
I'll never do that again.
I sneered at the open romanticism of "Sunrise Always Listens". I thought "Actor In The Street" was deliberately vague and obscure. "Bookmark" was quietly effective but why would he end the album on such a dour somber note?
Hmmmmm...I realized in my new listen that I'd done him a great disservice in my initial response. I had failed him as an audience. An audience must engage what they witness on the terms put forth by the artist in question. Perhaps your taste will eventually decide that it isn't to your liking, but first you must meet it halfway.
So when Paul sang "I'm the fugitive kind/You better make up your mind/I can't wait", all of a sudden I realized that I'd made him wait and that he'd left me behind. I caught up right quick.
This album is Paul Westerberg's flag on the moon. Who am I to claim it was shot in the Phoenix desert?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
32 Greatest Albums: Prince - 'Under The Cherry Moon'
Prince is one of those artists whose persona eclipses his work. Somewhere along the line the person becomes more of a fascination than the actual music. With some people this is part of the plan. Ahem, Madonna. Britney Spears. In my opinion this helps them because the music isn't all that memorable, the person is.
But with Prince I feel quite differently. And this album more than any other suffers because of it. When Prince released this album he was famous in a way that few other people have ever been. Along with the album came a movie. This movie was the follow-up to 'Purple Rain' which had catapulted him into some heretofore unknown area of celebrity. 'Purple Rain' is quite a good movie, Appolonia and the costumes and the little purple motorcycle aside. 'Under The Cherry Moon' is most definitely NOT a good movie.
This is unfortunate because the music that accompanies it is some of the most sophisticated of all time.
Everyone knows 'Kiss'. The song and video rank right up alongside the all-time MTV moments of Michael Jackson dancing on light bulb pavement and Madonna kissing the Black Jesus and Sinead right up against the camera bald and crying (and singing a song written by Prince, lest we forget).
Prince dancing around the oriental screens in matador pants while licking his hands and caressing himself will never be forgotten. But the rest of the album has been and I must cry out against this injustice.
Imagine a snow globe of Paris. The Paris of Baz Luhrmann's 'Moulin Rouge'. This snow globe is special because it allows you to roam the streets while keeping your modern perspective. Sure there are cobblestones and hansom cabs but all you have to do is snap your fingers and you are back in your well-appointed apartment playing with your iPod.
On this snow globe Paris street, you stop in front of some burlesque theater with a name like "Les Jambes Ouvertes". You take the name to be a good sign so you drop in. The band has somehow gotten hold of modern instruments and electricity. They play music hall tunes for les filles to strip to but they have all the finesse and versatility of Parliamnet Funkadelic.
Now the strange thing about this album is that the songs sound miniature. They are compressed. In 'Purple Rain' you heard a man bursting out of the pressure packed vacuum of an extraordinary childhood. Minnesota would never be the same. On this album it is like he decided to turn that vacuum inside out, rendering the bombast in as delicate a manner as possible.
The songs seem like cubbyholes in a box by Joseph Cornell.
I was one of the many who was underwhelmed when I first heard this album. Where was the kickass? Where was the freakshow? Well, Prince had other things on his mind than what I expected of him. His world had fractured to a level that must have seemed unreal. Thus the music mirrored this. Now that I mention it, a mirror is an apt metaphor for this album. Some imaginary fun house where a kaleidoscope unfurls reflected all around you, using your deepest fantasies and fears as a backdrop.
I would say that if we could listen to Prince dream it would sound like 'Under The Cherry Moon'.
But with Prince I feel quite differently. And this album more than any other suffers because of it. When Prince released this album he was famous in a way that few other people have ever been. Along with the album came a movie. This movie was the follow-up to 'Purple Rain' which had catapulted him into some heretofore unknown area of celebrity. 'Purple Rain' is quite a good movie, Appolonia and the costumes and the little purple motorcycle aside. 'Under The Cherry Moon' is most definitely NOT a good movie.
This is unfortunate because the music that accompanies it is some of the most sophisticated of all time.
Everyone knows 'Kiss'. The song and video rank right up alongside the all-time MTV moments of Michael Jackson dancing on light bulb pavement and Madonna kissing the Black Jesus and Sinead right up against the camera bald and crying (and singing a song written by Prince, lest we forget).
Prince dancing around the oriental screens in matador pants while licking his hands and caressing himself will never be forgotten. But the rest of the album has been and I must cry out against this injustice.
Imagine a snow globe of Paris. The Paris of Baz Luhrmann's 'Moulin Rouge'. This snow globe is special because it allows you to roam the streets while keeping your modern perspective. Sure there are cobblestones and hansom cabs but all you have to do is snap your fingers and you are back in your well-appointed apartment playing with your iPod.
On this snow globe Paris street, you stop in front of some burlesque theater with a name like "Les Jambes Ouvertes". You take the name to be a good sign so you drop in. The band has somehow gotten hold of modern instruments and electricity. They play music hall tunes for les filles to strip to but they have all the finesse and versatility of Parliamnet Funkadelic.
Now the strange thing about this album is that the songs sound miniature. They are compressed. In 'Purple Rain' you heard a man bursting out of the pressure packed vacuum of an extraordinary childhood. Minnesota would never be the same. On this album it is like he decided to turn that vacuum inside out, rendering the bombast in as delicate a manner as possible.
The songs seem like cubbyholes in a box by Joseph Cornell.
I was one of the many who was underwhelmed when I first heard this album. Where was the kickass? Where was the freakshow? Well, Prince had other things on his mind than what I expected of him. His world had fractured to a level that must have seemed unreal. Thus the music mirrored this. Now that I mention it, a mirror is an apt metaphor for this album. Some imaginary fun house where a kaleidoscope unfurls reflected all around you, using your deepest fantasies and fears as a backdrop.
I would say that if we could listen to Prince dream it would sound like 'Under The Cherry Moon'.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
33 Greatest Albums: Billy Bragg & Wilco - 'Mermaid Avenue'
I'll never scoff at a gushing parent again. In fact, I may start some sort of a political action committee designed to stamp out scoffing at baby-struck parents.
To me it is the height of cynicism to view a parent in the throes of new baby love as anything other than the perfect articulation of all that is potential in the fruition of billions of years of DNA. We are supposed to lose our minds in love. Some of us wind up mistreating, beating, even killing our own children, so it seems to me that the new infant love train is one that ought to be cultivated, encouraged, celebrated.
Now, full disclosure. I probably wanted to be a parent more than I wanted anything else. So I am one predisposed to this sort of emotional response. And to top it all off, my kid was so cute people wouldn't let me pay for my morning coffee. Connecticut Muffin on the southwest corner of Prospect Park in Park Slope consistently gave me the 'cute baby' discount, giving Cashel and I free coffee and bagels repeatedly over the years we lived there.
So if you are one of the converted I am preaching to, hello. If not, if you are one of those who smirks when they witness a parent cooing over a little bundle I just feel sorry for you. And I look forward to the day when you have your own kid and you have to look at yourself in the mirror and inwardly apologize to all the people you slighted with your scorn.
In any case, this album is intricately intertwined with my son's childhood. It is a collaboration between a Socialist bi-sexual pop star from England and an eclectic American roots rock band. Woody Guthrie's granddaughter found all these old song lyrics and wanted to pay homage to him. So she gave EVERYTHING in the vault to Billy Bragg who called Wilco. They recorded two albums of material. 'Mermaid Avenue' and 'Mermaid Avenue, Vol 2'.
My wife (soon to be ex) gave me a copy of the album. I'd not heard of it at all so I was shocked at the triple combo. I popped it on the stereo in our little apartment right off the park. My son, under 2 and in diapers, immediately started dancing.
I have film of him on all fours bouncing his rump to the strains of 'HooDoo VooDoo'. The look of delight on his face was almost too much to bear. Kids have a direct line to joy. They chase it relentlessly. When they find it they surrender completely. We hide our pursuit, we temper our release.
Unless we're holding our newborns. Then we remove the obstacles. Then we say, 'Nothing will stop my joy.' And some of you have a problem with that?
Shame on you.
To me it is the height of cynicism to view a parent in the throes of new baby love as anything other than the perfect articulation of all that is potential in the fruition of billions of years of DNA. We are supposed to lose our minds in love. Some of us wind up mistreating, beating, even killing our own children, so it seems to me that the new infant love train is one that ought to be cultivated, encouraged, celebrated.
Now, full disclosure. I probably wanted to be a parent more than I wanted anything else. So I am one predisposed to this sort of emotional response. And to top it all off, my kid was so cute people wouldn't let me pay for my morning coffee. Connecticut Muffin on the southwest corner of Prospect Park in Park Slope consistently gave me the 'cute baby' discount, giving Cashel and I free coffee and bagels repeatedly over the years we lived there.
So if you are one of the converted I am preaching to, hello. If not, if you are one of those who smirks when they witness a parent cooing over a little bundle I just feel sorry for you. And I look forward to the day when you have your own kid and you have to look at yourself in the mirror and inwardly apologize to all the people you slighted with your scorn.
In any case, this album is intricately intertwined with my son's childhood. It is a collaboration between a Socialist bi-sexual pop star from England and an eclectic American roots rock band. Woody Guthrie's granddaughter found all these old song lyrics and wanted to pay homage to him. So she gave EVERYTHING in the vault to Billy Bragg who called Wilco. They recorded two albums of material. 'Mermaid Avenue' and 'Mermaid Avenue, Vol 2'.
My wife (soon to be ex) gave me a copy of the album. I'd not heard of it at all so I was shocked at the triple combo. I popped it on the stereo in our little apartment right off the park. My son, under 2 and in diapers, immediately started dancing.
I have film of him on all fours bouncing his rump to the strains of 'HooDoo VooDoo'. The look of delight on his face was almost too much to bear. Kids have a direct line to joy. They chase it relentlessly. When they find it they surrender completely. We hide our pursuit, we temper our release.
Unless we're holding our newborns. Then we remove the obstacles. Then we say, 'Nothing will stop my joy.' And some of you have a problem with that?
Shame on you.
Friday, February 6, 2009
34 Greatest Albums: Del Amitri - 'Waking Hours'
College is cataclysmic. All parental restriction removed. All home town perception washed away. Reinvention reigns.
Unless you go to college in your hometown and live at home. Which I did. University of Rhode Island, Kingston. My parents house is about a mile off campus. My dad worked for 42 years in the library there and walked to and from work every day. So college was much less of a shock to the system for me as it was for my friends who went out into the great wide world.
I don't know how they did it frankly. Because it still blew my mind, as slight as the transition was. My freshman year I stayed in a dorm. Hated it. Sophomore year I moved back home, saving a lot of money and headache. I also didn't have to share a room with anyone anymore. Junior year, the year in which I first heard Del Amitri's 'Waking Hours' I lived in a house 'down the line' which in URI terms meant a rental house 15-20 minutes off campus near the beach.
I shared the house with Todd and Christian, both seniors. Christian I knew from the theater department and Todd was a friend of his. CD players were still quite new but all three of us were music junkies with wildly different taste. This led to many evenings playing what we called 'The DJ Game' where we would rotate song choices and whatever you chose had to somehow connect to the song before it. Beer was involved.
The fun part of this was getting to know someone elses record collection through their eyes. I gained a new appreciation for classic rock that hadn't bloomed yet due to my punk roots. Suddenly .38 Special could somehow be connected to The Dead Kennedys.
I don't know if I can adequately describe the atmosphere in the house. An 8 foot road sign that Christian had dismantled rested against the wall in the living room. We arbitrarily decided that our next door neighbors were our enemies. We saw them studying on a Saturday night once and wrote them off forever. Things came to a head one night because we could see one of them wearing a terry cloth bathrobe. Shortly thereafter a bottle rocket streamed from our elevated porch through their kitchen screen door.
The cops arrived. Our friend who'd actually set the bottle rocket off told us to hide in my bedroom. He then spent a good half hour trying to convince the cops not to take him in. Once he realized that wasn't going to work he took his sweet time getting ready. He decided he wanted to change his clothes. They said no, let's go now. He changed his clothes. He decided he wanted a glass of milk. They said no, let's go now. He drank his milk. He reverted back to his original argument. He's a lawyer now. All the while Todd and I lay in a dark room on the floor half petrified half in hysterics.
Christian's car the Wax Bean Bomber was a danger to the public at large. When taking a right turn flames would stream out of the engine. I am not kidding. He avoided right turns.
He once was kidnapped by a bachelorette party. They came into a bar he was at and picked him out. He then spent 14 hours with a group of amoral hotties who were determined to torture their friend who was getting married with the fact that she couldn't do X anymore, they could still do Y if they wanted, she'd never get to Z now that she was headed to the altar. The red plastic handcuffs used to keep him in line hung on his wall. He had pictures to prove it.
Most of the time Todd and I sat back and watched him go. Occasionally we'd get drawn into his shenanigans and then we were a true force of chaos. We called each other Skippy. 3 Skippys.
Somewhere this year I heard a song on the radio. It was called 'Kiss This Thing Good Bye' and it struck a chord with me. I bought the album. For quite a time it cancelled out the DJ Game as we only listened to this album. All 3 of us were mired in the midst of the usual college dating nightmare. This album spoke to us directly.
We went to The Living Room and saw Del Amitri in front of a crowd of maybe 40 people. They'd been on tour the better part of a year and a half and were clearly going stir crazy. They'd had a 'weird facial hair' competition. One guy had stripes shaved into one side of his beard. The other side was shaved clean. They blew the place apart.
Later over the summer, after the album had become quite a hit, we saw them open for Melissa Etheridge at Great Woods. We may have been the only people who left after they performed.
I'll forever remember standing on the roof with the 2 other Skippys, Del Amitri playing at call-the-cops levels, looking over the tops of all the houses down the line, seeing the sun reflect off the ocean, and having no idea what was going to happen next.
I miss those guys.
Unless you go to college in your hometown and live at home. Which I did. University of Rhode Island, Kingston. My parents house is about a mile off campus. My dad worked for 42 years in the library there and walked to and from work every day. So college was much less of a shock to the system for me as it was for my friends who went out into the great wide world.
I don't know how they did it frankly. Because it still blew my mind, as slight as the transition was. My freshman year I stayed in a dorm. Hated it. Sophomore year I moved back home, saving a lot of money and headache. I also didn't have to share a room with anyone anymore. Junior year, the year in which I first heard Del Amitri's 'Waking Hours' I lived in a house 'down the line' which in URI terms meant a rental house 15-20 minutes off campus near the beach.
I shared the house with Todd and Christian, both seniors. Christian I knew from the theater department and Todd was a friend of his. CD players were still quite new but all three of us were music junkies with wildly different taste. This led to many evenings playing what we called 'The DJ Game' where we would rotate song choices and whatever you chose had to somehow connect to the song before it. Beer was involved.
The fun part of this was getting to know someone elses record collection through their eyes. I gained a new appreciation for classic rock that hadn't bloomed yet due to my punk roots. Suddenly .38 Special could somehow be connected to The Dead Kennedys.
I don't know if I can adequately describe the atmosphere in the house. An 8 foot road sign that Christian had dismantled rested against the wall in the living room. We arbitrarily decided that our next door neighbors were our enemies. We saw them studying on a Saturday night once and wrote them off forever. Things came to a head one night because we could see one of them wearing a terry cloth bathrobe. Shortly thereafter a bottle rocket streamed from our elevated porch through their kitchen screen door.
The cops arrived. Our friend who'd actually set the bottle rocket off told us to hide in my bedroom. He then spent a good half hour trying to convince the cops not to take him in. Once he realized that wasn't going to work he took his sweet time getting ready. He decided he wanted to change his clothes. They said no, let's go now. He changed his clothes. He decided he wanted a glass of milk. They said no, let's go now. He drank his milk. He reverted back to his original argument. He's a lawyer now. All the while Todd and I lay in a dark room on the floor half petrified half in hysterics.
Christian's car the Wax Bean Bomber was a danger to the public at large. When taking a right turn flames would stream out of the engine. I am not kidding. He avoided right turns.
He once was kidnapped by a bachelorette party. They came into a bar he was at and picked him out. He then spent 14 hours with a group of amoral hotties who were determined to torture their friend who was getting married with the fact that she couldn't do X anymore, they could still do Y if they wanted, she'd never get to Z now that she was headed to the altar. The red plastic handcuffs used to keep him in line hung on his wall. He had pictures to prove it.
Most of the time Todd and I sat back and watched him go. Occasionally we'd get drawn into his shenanigans and then we were a true force of chaos. We called each other Skippy. 3 Skippys.
Somewhere this year I heard a song on the radio. It was called 'Kiss This Thing Good Bye' and it struck a chord with me. I bought the album. For quite a time it cancelled out the DJ Game as we only listened to this album. All 3 of us were mired in the midst of the usual college dating nightmare. This album spoke to us directly.
We went to The Living Room and saw Del Amitri in front of a crowd of maybe 40 people. They'd been on tour the better part of a year and a half and were clearly going stir crazy. They'd had a 'weird facial hair' competition. One guy had stripes shaved into one side of his beard. The other side was shaved clean. They blew the place apart.
Later over the summer, after the album had become quite a hit, we saw them open for Melissa Etheridge at Great Woods. We may have been the only people who left after they performed.
I'll forever remember standing on the roof with the 2 other Skippys, Del Amitri playing at call-the-cops levels, looking over the tops of all the houses down the line, seeing the sun reflect off the ocean, and having no idea what was going to happen next.
I miss those guys.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
35 Greatest Albums: The Refreshments - 'Fizzy Fuzzy Big And Buzzy'
I first heard this album on the 7th floor of an office building directly south of Central Park. I was working for The Hub, which was a 'channel' on AOL back when you still paid by the hour to get online. The Hub was a joint venture between AOL and New Line Cinema and the fact that their business model included throwing money at me should give you an indication of just how far that internet bubble had expanded.
My journey to The Hub had been a strange one and it all started in my ex-wife's brain.
She had been temping for a conglomerate of the magazine industry. Her job was to take their content and shoe-horn it into an AOL format. During this process she had to deal with many AOL execs and she eventually heard about something called AOL's Greenhouse Project. Their mission was to find, acquire, develop and promote original AOL content.
Maria thought that the rabid world of romance novels, novelists and their fans would be a great community to bring into the online world. She used her knowledge of AOL platforms to design a sample cross section of the interactive site dedicated to bodice rippers and forbidden petticoat exploration.
AOL Greenhouse was intrigued. They ran it all the way up the corporate ladder and it looked like they were going to buy it. At the last second they declined but they liked Maria's ideas so much that they asked her if she wanted to join the team of one of the ideas they HAD picked.
This site was dedicated to the collecting and retelling and debunking of urban legends. It was to be called...Urban Legends. They hooked Maria up with the creator of this site, a woman named Wendy. They rented office space in the Village and set about building the site.
At the time I was temping and auditioning like crazy. When they asked me if I wanted to pose for pictures as the fictional host of the site I said sure, why not. I dressed a little like Indiana Jones and they took a bunch of photos. The actual host of the site then had to back out and they asked if I wouldn't mind re-writing some of the legends up from existing source material, which was pretty dry and scholarly.
This became a part time job. I was working during the day and cranking out internet size re-creations of those myths we all know. Well, as the deadline approached it became clear that they weren't going to have enough material. I came on full time as the primary writer of the legends and also embodying the character I'd only been in pictures up to that point.
Legs Urbano. Get it? Urban Legends. Legs Urbano.
For the next two years I was on deadline. The show was quite a success right out of the gate. I wrote an article a week examining the legends from an investigative journalist/private eye perspective. People responded, pouring local legends in from all over the country.
Our show lived on The Hub, the channel on AOL's front page that was aimed at the MTV crowd, 18-35 white males. We were enough of a success that The Hub wanted to buy us out, have us join their company and not just live on their website.
The creator of Urban Legends is one of the most colossally insecure and narcissistic people I've ever met. In our little 4 (by this time my sister Sheila was also working with us...) person outfit she could stand back and let us do all the work while taking credit for it. On a team of larger proportions she'd be exposed. In our discussions with the President of The Hub, I made sure to let him know that I was a working actor and that I would be pursuing acting work while working at The Hub. She saw this as a terrible betrayal. On our last day in the Greenwich office, all her fears boiled to a head and she attacked me. I didn't answer the phones, I didn't check with her about topics I'd been working on, etc. I quit.
As I gathered up my stuff, I realized that I didn't want to quit. So I walked back into her office and told her I wasn't quitting. I told her that her complaints were unfounded and that her complaints were all secondary to the contributions I'd made to the ACTUAL CONTENT OF THE SITE. My writing had struck such a cord in the ether that we were being picked up by the big fish. I didn't say this but I knew it threatened her. I'd rendered her unnecessary.
The Hub itself was very different. 20-30 people in a cliche internet boom loft like space. Pool table. Bean bag chairs. Loud music. Unconventional dress.
One of the perks was that we got sent free music by the cartload. Everyone wanted to get their music mentioned on this new thing called 'the internet'. Amazing how far we've come.
Today's album is something I'd never have heard without going to work at The Hub.
To me, 'Fizzy Fuzzy Big And Buzzy' is about that time in life when you are no longer a kid but you aren't adult yet. Very Douglas Coupland. Too much intoxication, too much meaningless sex, too much sun, too many road trips, too few destinations. When Jimmy Buffet sings about it, you long for it. When The Refreshments do, you feel like you need to dry out, straighten up, set some goals, turn things around.
I became absolutely obsessed with this album. This doesn't happen to me often. I am in the middle of it right now with 'Chinese Democracy' and that is how I know when an album will be with me forever. I can sing the guitar solos on 'Fizzy Fuzzy Big And Buzzy'.
Which brings me to the primary reason that this album is on here. The guitar playing is DELICIOUS. The tone of the leads is just a hare heightened from the rhythm, leaving them linked and potent. The singer has what I consider to be the best straight rock voice from the '90's, more Vedder than Cobain but with none of the self-conscious bad acting that mars much of Pearl Jam's work.
These guys go to Mexico. They pay for hookers and regret it. They fish. They beg their girlfriends to just kill them already and get it the fuck over with. They start fights when they are called 'faggots'. In other words, they drink and face the consequences.
A few songs in you start to feel the sun brow-beating your hangover, trying to convince you just to have a beer to cut the edge. And while you're at it, why don't you just call that chick and straighten things out with her? She'll see your point of view. Sure she threw your photo album into the pool but she was pretty fucked up too.
The scariest part is that you are enjoying your descent. So you can't see any reason to stop it.
And that is why it resonated with me so much. I was not where I was supposed to be. I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was not with who I was supposed to be with. Times like that drunk seems like the best idea there is.
My journey to The Hub had been a strange one and it all started in my ex-wife's brain.
She had been temping for a conglomerate of the magazine industry. Her job was to take their content and shoe-horn it into an AOL format. During this process she had to deal with many AOL execs and she eventually heard about something called AOL's Greenhouse Project. Their mission was to find, acquire, develop and promote original AOL content.
Maria thought that the rabid world of romance novels, novelists and their fans would be a great community to bring into the online world. She used her knowledge of AOL platforms to design a sample cross section of the interactive site dedicated to bodice rippers and forbidden petticoat exploration.
AOL Greenhouse was intrigued. They ran it all the way up the corporate ladder and it looked like they were going to buy it. At the last second they declined but they liked Maria's ideas so much that they asked her if she wanted to join the team of one of the ideas they HAD picked.
This site was dedicated to the collecting and retelling and debunking of urban legends. It was to be called...Urban Legends. They hooked Maria up with the creator of this site, a woman named Wendy. They rented office space in the Village and set about building the site.
At the time I was temping and auditioning like crazy. When they asked me if I wanted to pose for pictures as the fictional host of the site I said sure, why not. I dressed a little like Indiana Jones and they took a bunch of photos. The actual host of the site then had to back out and they asked if I wouldn't mind re-writing some of the legends up from existing source material, which was pretty dry and scholarly.
This became a part time job. I was working during the day and cranking out internet size re-creations of those myths we all know. Well, as the deadline approached it became clear that they weren't going to have enough material. I came on full time as the primary writer of the legends and also embodying the character I'd only been in pictures up to that point.
Legs Urbano. Get it? Urban Legends. Legs Urbano.
For the next two years I was on deadline. The show was quite a success right out of the gate. I wrote an article a week examining the legends from an investigative journalist/private eye perspective. People responded, pouring local legends in from all over the country.
Our show lived on The Hub, the channel on AOL's front page that was aimed at the MTV crowd, 18-35 white males. We were enough of a success that The Hub wanted to buy us out, have us join their company and not just live on their website.
The creator of Urban Legends is one of the most colossally insecure and narcissistic people I've ever met. In our little 4 (by this time my sister Sheila was also working with us...) person outfit she could stand back and let us do all the work while taking credit for it. On a team of larger proportions she'd be exposed. In our discussions with the President of The Hub, I made sure to let him know that I was a working actor and that I would be pursuing acting work while working at The Hub. She saw this as a terrible betrayal. On our last day in the Greenwich office, all her fears boiled to a head and she attacked me. I didn't answer the phones, I didn't check with her about topics I'd been working on, etc. I quit.
As I gathered up my stuff, I realized that I didn't want to quit. So I walked back into her office and told her I wasn't quitting. I told her that her complaints were unfounded and that her complaints were all secondary to the contributions I'd made to the ACTUAL CONTENT OF THE SITE. My writing had struck such a cord in the ether that we were being picked up by the big fish. I didn't say this but I knew it threatened her. I'd rendered her unnecessary.
The Hub itself was very different. 20-30 people in a cliche internet boom loft like space. Pool table. Bean bag chairs. Loud music. Unconventional dress.
One of the perks was that we got sent free music by the cartload. Everyone wanted to get their music mentioned on this new thing called 'the internet'. Amazing how far we've come.
Today's album is something I'd never have heard without going to work at The Hub.
To me, 'Fizzy Fuzzy Big And Buzzy' is about that time in life when you are no longer a kid but you aren't adult yet. Very Douglas Coupland. Too much intoxication, too much meaningless sex, too much sun, too many road trips, too few destinations. When Jimmy Buffet sings about it, you long for it. When The Refreshments do, you feel like you need to dry out, straighten up, set some goals, turn things around.
I became absolutely obsessed with this album. This doesn't happen to me often. I am in the middle of it right now with 'Chinese Democracy' and that is how I know when an album will be with me forever. I can sing the guitar solos on 'Fizzy Fuzzy Big And Buzzy'.
Which brings me to the primary reason that this album is on here. The guitar playing is DELICIOUS. The tone of the leads is just a hare heightened from the rhythm, leaving them linked and potent. The singer has what I consider to be the best straight rock voice from the '90's, more Vedder than Cobain but with none of the self-conscious bad acting that mars much of Pearl Jam's work.
These guys go to Mexico. They pay for hookers and regret it. They fish. They beg their girlfriends to just kill them already and get it the fuck over with. They start fights when they are called 'faggots'. In other words, they drink and face the consequences.
A few songs in you start to feel the sun brow-beating your hangover, trying to convince you just to have a beer to cut the edge. And while you're at it, why don't you just call that chick and straighten things out with her? She'll see your point of view. Sure she threw your photo album into the pool but she was pretty fucked up too.
The scariest part is that you are enjoying your descent. So you can't see any reason to stop it.
And that is why it resonated with me so much. I was not where I was supposed to be. I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was not with who I was supposed to be with. Times like that drunk seems like the best idea there is.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Uncollected Works of Umero Nuno
As many of you know I have had the wonderful pleasure, honor, and imposition to be named the executor and gatekeeper of the estate of Umero Nuno, thought by many to be the finest satyrist ever to come out of the region that spans the mountains of Portugal and the valleys of Peru.
To say this task is Herculean is to risk offending every bodybuilder who ever daydreamed themselves into a movie about his exploits, imagining this Grecian turn to be the fulcrum upon which their meteoric ascendancy to the highest ranks of state government ever hinges.
When the order from Mr. Nuno's lawyers came to my door they were accompanied by bootstraps and jackdaws, flowers and incense, kicks and kisses. They were leaving nothing to chance. If I happened to be a masochist they'd convince me. A pansy? Even better. Thankfully I was both and needed very little convincing.
In all honesty it was a dream come true of sorts. Not in any literary sense for I'd never heard of Umero Nuno before that fateful day. No, this dream coming true had deeper roots than any simple recollection or appreciation of any single man's identity. The plopping on my desk of the comprehensive list that I was entrusted with against my will showed me in some final way that I was not in charge. Never would be. My career was over. I was now the Keeper of the Flame. Or at least the guy who had the list of everything he ever wrote and how to get your hands on it. Which can be an equivalent to Keeper of the Flame in some deep jungle dialects which Mr. Nuno was very likely familiar with. And thus the mystery begins...
Who was Umero Nuno? Where did he come from? Why did he come from there? Why didn't he just stay where he was? If he'd stayed where he was, would I still be in the place I'm in now? Would I have been given the Keys to the Kingdom had he refused to budge? Would any of his writing been more palatable in any sense, either in comprehension or enjoyment? Hard to say. But know this...he did come from where he was, he was who he was, and what fell to me and ultimately beyond me and to you dear reader, is something that poses questions far more troubling than these, and most likely harder to answer.
Controversy surrounds his birth certificate, which has defied analysis ever since it fell into the hands of the Carballatran regime in Lower Yeltsa. Nuno had angered a minor bureaucrat by mounting a puppet opera that presented the Department of Licenses and Practices as a crucible of ultimatums and recrimination. No texts survive, only the small notice in the paper which recounted a terrible buggy accident that resulted in the fire which mangled the left hand of a semi-well-known puppeteer of the region.
The bureaucrat decided that the very existence of a document legitimizing this sort of craven idolatry and rabble rousing needed to be at the very least altered. Therefore the date and locus of Umero Nuno's birth is either July 12, 1917 in Hamburg, Germany or October 27, 1933 somewhere on the Ivory Coast.
After fleeing the uproar which attended 'Pupperetta Gargantua: File # 237', Umero Nuno dropped from sight. But thanks to papers which I accidentally fell asleep under my third night living in the storage space he'd rented in Oaxaca, Mexico, I was able to trace his movements to a certain degree. Allegedly.
To say this task is Herculean is to risk offending every bodybuilder who ever daydreamed themselves into a movie about his exploits, imagining this Grecian turn to be the fulcrum upon which their meteoric ascendancy to the highest ranks of state government ever hinges.
When the order from Mr. Nuno's lawyers came to my door they were accompanied by bootstraps and jackdaws, flowers and incense, kicks and kisses. They were leaving nothing to chance. If I happened to be a masochist they'd convince me. A pansy? Even better. Thankfully I was both and needed very little convincing.
In all honesty it was a dream come true of sorts. Not in any literary sense for I'd never heard of Umero Nuno before that fateful day. No, this dream coming true had deeper roots than any simple recollection or appreciation of any single man's identity. The plopping on my desk of the comprehensive list that I was entrusted with against my will showed me in some final way that I was not in charge. Never would be. My career was over. I was now the Keeper of the Flame. Or at least the guy who had the list of everything he ever wrote and how to get your hands on it. Which can be an equivalent to Keeper of the Flame in some deep jungle dialects which Mr. Nuno was very likely familiar with. And thus the mystery begins...
Who was Umero Nuno? Where did he come from? Why did he come from there? Why didn't he just stay where he was? If he'd stayed where he was, would I still be in the place I'm in now? Would I have been given the Keys to the Kingdom had he refused to budge? Would any of his writing been more palatable in any sense, either in comprehension or enjoyment? Hard to say. But know this...he did come from where he was, he was who he was, and what fell to me and ultimately beyond me and to you dear reader, is something that poses questions far more troubling than these, and most likely harder to answer.
Controversy surrounds his birth certificate, which has defied analysis ever since it fell into the hands of the Carballatran regime in Lower Yeltsa. Nuno had angered a minor bureaucrat by mounting a puppet opera that presented the Department of Licenses and Practices as a crucible of ultimatums and recrimination. No texts survive, only the small notice in the paper which recounted a terrible buggy accident that resulted in the fire which mangled the left hand of a semi-well-known puppeteer of the region.
The bureaucrat decided that the very existence of a document legitimizing this sort of craven idolatry and rabble rousing needed to be at the very least altered. Therefore the date and locus of Umero Nuno's birth is either July 12, 1917 in Hamburg, Germany or October 27, 1933 somewhere on the Ivory Coast.
After fleeing the uproar which attended 'Pupperetta Gargantua: File # 237', Umero Nuno dropped from sight. But thanks to papers which I accidentally fell asleep under my third night living in the storage space he'd rented in Oaxaca, Mexico, I was able to trace his movements to a certain degree. Allegedly.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Tunnel
He began to inflate like a parade float. His feet disappeared. It became more difficult to scratch his own back. This left him in a particular quandary because in order for his itches to be scratched he now needed to be unclothed and with someone else, both things he wanted to avoid due to his burgeoning girth. The expansion also caused a kind of rebellion in his skin. It continually tried to reject the new expanse by jettisoning what it could like ballast on a sinking ship. So there were flakes to witness shamefaced on dark clothing. But light clothing accentuated rotundity.
Whole portions of his life evaporated. Things which had seemed essential fell by the wayside like so many long distance rabbits at mile five of the marathon. His esoteric existence shrank in direct proportion to this corporeal growth. He was a train backing into a tunnel open on only one end. The horseshoe of light lost its square bottom he was so far in. It was now a pinprick, a circle. He may have been expanding but he was certainly not round enough to get back out of the hole.
Or was he? He was forced to ignore the reality of his body. To take a baby step. One day he walked a mile at lunch. The next he did the same. The day after that he added a half mile after work. Soon he’d logged eight miles in a week, ten. At first this seemed inconsequential, merely a manner in which to pass the time. But after a month the tunnel didn’t seem so tight around him and the pinprick circle had gained some shape along its perforations.
Two months later he was jogging and the tunnel was a quickly fading memory.
Did he will this transformation? Or did the transformation return his will? Who needs the debate when you are eating an egg?
This story takes place two years after that dark time. He’d come so far out of his shell that he was starting to feel like a preacher. He had gathered new friends around him. They bent their schedules to his whim. They made sure he was all right. They checked in on him.
Every so often he would be granted a vivid picture of his life back in the tunnel, flaking his bloated skin into the dark, moving towards a day when there would no longer be tunnel, when there would only be constriction, no delineation between the inorganic and organic. These visions kept him walking, reminded him that it was only through action that he could avoid such a fate. He couldn’t avoid fate per se but it wouldn’t get him that way. That was for damn sure.
Some remnants from his former life were still present in external ways. People. These resisted the new vision he presented them, refused to move along with the new. He couldn’t bring himself to abandon them because he felt he understood, wanted them to shrink from their tunnels and join him out in the light. But as he moved further and further away from that reality there were people he had to let go of. This was painful. He told himself he left a door open for them to come back and surprise him by stepping through but mostly he knew they were gone for good. See, those tunnels work like tractor beams. It might not be yours but you can get trapped in one just the same.
Whole portions of his life evaporated. Things which had seemed essential fell by the wayside like so many long distance rabbits at mile five of the marathon. His esoteric existence shrank in direct proportion to this corporeal growth. He was a train backing into a tunnel open on only one end. The horseshoe of light lost its square bottom he was so far in. It was now a pinprick, a circle. He may have been expanding but he was certainly not round enough to get back out of the hole.
Or was he? He was forced to ignore the reality of his body. To take a baby step. One day he walked a mile at lunch. The next he did the same. The day after that he added a half mile after work. Soon he’d logged eight miles in a week, ten. At first this seemed inconsequential, merely a manner in which to pass the time. But after a month the tunnel didn’t seem so tight around him and the pinprick circle had gained some shape along its perforations.
Two months later he was jogging and the tunnel was a quickly fading memory.
Did he will this transformation? Or did the transformation return his will? Who needs the debate when you are eating an egg?
This story takes place two years after that dark time. He’d come so far out of his shell that he was starting to feel like a preacher. He had gathered new friends around him. They bent their schedules to his whim. They made sure he was all right. They checked in on him.
Every so often he would be granted a vivid picture of his life back in the tunnel, flaking his bloated skin into the dark, moving towards a day when there would no longer be tunnel, when there would only be constriction, no delineation between the inorganic and organic. These visions kept him walking, reminded him that it was only through action that he could avoid such a fate. He couldn’t avoid fate per se but it wouldn’t get him that way. That was for damn sure.
Some remnants from his former life were still present in external ways. People. These resisted the new vision he presented them, refused to move along with the new. He couldn’t bring himself to abandon them because he felt he understood, wanted them to shrink from their tunnels and join him out in the light. But as he moved further and further away from that reality there were people he had to let go of. This was painful. He told himself he left a door open for them to come back and surprise him by stepping through but mostly he knew they were gone for good. See, those tunnels work like tractor beams. It might not be yours but you can get trapped in one just the same.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Every Play I've Ever Been In
Small diversion here from the list of 50 Greatest Albums according to me.
I'm going to try and recall every play I've ever performed in. I'm not including scene-work or anything like that. Starting in 5th grade...
Elementary School: Oliver. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
High School: Puss In Boots. The Madwoman of Chaillot. Grease. A Hatful of Rain. Rope. Guys and Dolls. The Diary of Anne Frank. Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
College: Hay Fever. Old Times. The Rivals. How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Biloxi Blues. The Imaginary Invalid. The Bride of Olneyville Square. Crimes of the Heart. Camelot. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. A Comedy of Errors. Barefoot In The Park.
Summer Stock: South Pacific.
Providence: Kind Ness. True West. Looking Glass Theater Repertory Company - 2 shows a day.
New York: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. Angel Wings. Morning Milking, Evening Milking. Searching For Certainty. David and Allan, Allan and David.
Regional: The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Side Men. Searching For Certainty.
Los Angeles: Searching For Certainy. Bloody Corsets/Body Count. Obsessive/Impulsive. Glory Pie. Diverting Devotion.
That's it so far!
I'm going to try and recall every play I've ever performed in. I'm not including scene-work or anything like that. Starting in 5th grade...
Elementary School: Oliver. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
High School: Puss In Boots. The Madwoman of Chaillot. Grease. A Hatful of Rain. Rope. Guys and Dolls. The Diary of Anne Frank. Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
College: Hay Fever. Old Times. The Rivals. How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Biloxi Blues. The Imaginary Invalid. The Bride of Olneyville Square. Crimes of the Heart. Camelot. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. A Comedy of Errors. Barefoot In The Park.
Summer Stock: South Pacific.
Providence: Kind Ness. True West. Looking Glass Theater Repertory Company - 2 shows a day.
New York: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. Angel Wings. Morning Milking, Evening Milking. Searching For Certainty. David and Allan, Allan and David.
Regional: The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Side Men. Searching For Certainty.
Los Angeles: Searching For Certainy. Bloody Corsets/Body Count. Obsessive/Impulsive. Glory Pie. Diverting Devotion.
That's it so far!
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