IT’S A GAS GAS GASTROPOD

I was talking with a friend last night, and it was getting late. She swung her feet off the couch, preparing to say goodnight, but quickly drew them back up. She had stepped on something that was not quite carpet.

We both looked down at the floor, squinting, trying to make sense of what it was. The kids had been in the room earlier, eating Choco Pies and wafers, so we expected it was some remnant of that feast.

No. No, it was not. The large brown teardrop that began to come into focus was a slug. A slug.

I took it as a sign. A near-biblical portent.

Which is all just to explain my general sluggishness today. I will pick up my sat rad survey in 2006.

Have a safe and happy New Year’s celebration.

And take a little time to embrace your inner slug…

RETURNING FROM A JOURNEY

1st Wave. Alternative rock's pioneering artists and sounds.

Gone Daddy Gone-- Violent Femmes
Dig that googly xylophone! A weird only-in-America conflation of sex, god, and adolescence, busked on a cold Milwaukee street corner.

Be Near Me-- ABC
Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC. Be Near Me, ABC...

Another Nail in My Heart-- Squeeze
The perfect Squeeze moment. It’s winsome but not maudlin, sharp but not snarky, with the ticky rhythm of a sewing machine. And I like the way it stands itself on its head by running straight into the bridge after the first verse/chorus.

Cities in Dust-- Siouxsie and the Banshees
And now those kooky Batcave kids are 40, and buying clothes that camouflage their spider-web tattoos…

Perfect Kiss-- New Order
The plain truth is that they could groove to wear a rut in steel, but there was not a guiding intelligence after Ian left. Here they recycle Blue Monday for the fifth time, and throw in some cheap aural puns (croaking frogs=kiss if death-- ha ha). And it works.

Doot Doot-- Freur
If memory serves, these guys morphed into Underworld of Born Slippy fame. Which makes perfect sense, since this is the same whooshy, echoey concoction, minus 50 or so bpm.

Brass in Pocket-- Pretenders
That brass is money. This probably would've hit No. 1 in America if it had been called I'm Special. Kind of like Train in Vain...

Everything Counts-- Depeche Mode
There are very few bands that I expend energy on actively detesting, but here's a rara avis. And then they go and make me laugh with stuff like “The holiday was fun-packed”...

Don't Stop the Dance-- Bryan Ferry
SAT time again. Don't Stop the Dance is to Bryan Ferry as ____________ is to David Bowie.

Modern Love-- David Bowie
See above.

Some obvious choices, though Freur was a nice touch. Could've done with some Books About UFOs or Wolfman Tap or Away or Make a Circuit with Me.

I'll give it a B.

AIN’T THAT AMERICA

I can remember many nights in 1980 talking on the phone for hours with Cindy, she under the covers to evade her mother’s fine ear for any conversations that involved me, and me sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, one knee pressed against an open container of wide-eyed potatoes.

And what did we do on the phone for hours? Mostly we listened to the radio. WPIX.

Nick Lowe, The Vapors, Split Enz, Sniff and the Tears, Flash and the Pan, The Records, The Only Ones, The Specials, The Kings, Devo.

Girding ourselves for a decade of going against the grain…

Oh Sherrie-- Steve Perry
It’s amazing how the memory trips into video mode when you enter this decade. I remember that Steve emoted like a peacock caught in a thresher. And that Sherrie apparently couldn’t afford a bra…

Modern Love-- David Bowie
A slick mainframe simulation of a genuine David Bowie song, programmed in a lab up in Armonk in late ’82, and released to an unsuspecting public in ’83.

Our Lips Are Sealed-- Go Go's
My big “secret” with my best girl friend Robyn back in ’81 was how this melted me like a chocolate chip in a cookie. That is, I got all soft and runny, but I held my basic form.

Private Eyes--Daryl Hall & John Oates
I know it’s not fair to characterize Oates as an accessory, but if the handbag fits…

Pink Houses-- John Cougar Mellencamp
I give the little bastard some credit. He evolved. Yeah, he's still in Springsteen-manque mode here, but that's a fair remove from I Need a Lover...

Eternal Flame-- The Bangles
The devil of commercial success visited this bunch, and led them down the shit-guilded path to treacle such as this. Bad devil, bad.

Cars-- Gary Numan
First gear, second gear, third gear, fourth gear. And no reverse.

Edge Of Seventeen-- Stevie Nicks
Stevie representing for the girls in the 'burbs, on the edge of a chutter-chutter-chutter-chutter guitar line. Cool.

Handle With Care--Traveling Wilburys
Roy Orbison? Check. Bob Dylan? Check. George Harrison? Check. Tom Petty? Um, OK, check. Jeff Lynne? Jeff Lynne?

High On You-- Survivor
So artless and faceless that it's an achievement of sorts.

This small sampling of the Big 80s finds it as melanin-free as pre-Thriller MTV, but I’ll assume I just happened to hit a white patch.

Grade: C.

Tomorrow is Potluck Wednesday—we’ll see what grabs my fancy.

FALLIN' FREE

Totally '70s.

Da Doo Run Run-- Shaun Cassidy
This was what it was, and it is what it is. Never was it cause for handwringing, and never was it an object lesson. Call it teen idol, call it pop idol, call it American idol, call it Billy Idol for all I care. And then just move on.

Instant Karma-- John Lennon
This is sort of the longhair version of what drew me to punk, so I’m all over it.

I’m Not in Love-- 10cc
That “big boys don’t cry” part still gives me the creeps. Fun fact: 10cc was named after the measure of the average human male ejaculation. Less Godley, and more Creme, then…

Use Me-- Bill Withers
Not dry and sapless, this Withers, but rather warm, smooth, and just a little sticky.

Fame-- David Bowie
Harumph.

Never Can Say Goodbye-- Jackson 5
There were five of them? No shit...

Take it Easy-- Eagles
The California sound, all brown(e) outs, dust storms, and cutoff jeans. I once sang it in the back seat of a Corolla at the top of my lungs all the way from the Bronx to Jersey. You know, just to be annoying...

Brick House-- Commodores
For someone who would prove himself to be such an insufferable American Music Award winning prick, Lionel was part of something cool once upon a time. Those are the ones that hurt the most.

Count on Me-- Jefferson Starship
Speaking of which... This finds our wayward travelers nearly complete on their journey from some kind of relevance to total meaninglessness. It's apparent that they're just a puddle hop away from cutting off their Jefferson...

I Feel Love-- Donna Summer
Massive. Hedonistic pillow talk that bounces along on a motorik beat, it's the ultimate '70s fusion of European and American sensibilites. I feel it too...

This was a pretty impressive cross section of '70s radio-- I'll give it an A-.

The Big '80s will have to wait until after Christmas. Peace to you and your families.

DARK SURPRISE

I pulled out of the parking garage, acquired a signal, and entered the '60s.

Dance, Dance, Dance-- The Beach Boys
You can hear the palpable tension between Brian's ardor for artistic growth and Mike Love's desire to continue to get his balding ass laid. Love wins here by a nose.

Come and Get It-- Badfinger
In which Apple's favorite manic depressives take a little slice of Paul nothing and make it into something. I especially like the part where Paul was too lazy to write a connecting lyric, and just sticks in a hum.

Uptight (Everything's Alright)-- Stevie Wonder
16 years old? 16 years old? What were you doing when you were 16? Writing and performing spurts of pure effusive joy that would become the soundtrack to one of the most important social movements of the 20th century? Yeah, me neither. I was getting stoned and pissing outdoors in winter...

Elusive Butterfly-- Bob Lind
The kind of obscure folkimbo that everyone should hear, oh, once every couple of years, which'll give you enough distance to mythologize the sweet production while you gloss over the insipid lyrics.

Sunshine of Your Love-- Cream
This earned my short-term esteem by starting out “It's getting near dark...” at the precise moment that I lowered my car's visor to blunt a setting sun. It crunched along in all its clockwork crunchiness, and in this context I loved it for 4:10...

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)-- Edison Lighthouse
Props for writing a tongue twister for a chorus. And for naming yourselves after a fucking lighthouse.

(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman-- Aretha Franklin
The least of the things I love about this is the fact that Goffin and King lead with the parens-- that's such a cool move.

Midnight Special-- Johnny Rivers
I honestly didn't know that he did a version of this. It sucks, but it's not Secret Agent Man, and I prefer archaeology to the obvious...

Mama Told Me (Not to Come)-- Three Dog Night
See, this would've been hipper if it had been called (Mama Told Me) Not to Come, but what are you going to do. And anyway, the book on early Randy Newman was that he was so unhip that he was hip. Chuck Negron and the dogs basically channel him here...

This short survey earns '60s Vibrations a B+. Now if I turn it on next week and hear Bob Lind again, I mght have to adjust downward.

Tomorrow: Totally '70s.

SATELLITE OF LOVE

Given my history with the radio, the suits behind satellite would have needed to fuck the concept right off the rails for it not to be my crack pipe...

I grew up following Top 40 radio like a Belmont tout. I marked chart movement from week to week, looking for trends and tendencies. Was this Manilow a mudder? Could Barry White run the stretch?

Near as I can tell after being plugged in for a week, satellite has legs.

It narrowcasts to all my narrow persuasions.

The only real problem so far is that I can't stay put on any given channel. Mad surfing.

In an effort to get a little traction, I'm going to spend some time focusing on a single channel on my upcoming drives home. I'll report the results here.

Tomorrow: 60's Vibrations...

JAI GURU DEVA

The Pogues and Stereolab are stored in completely separate compartments of my memory.

They are not meant to coexist in my world as going entities. If they did, time would surely double back on itself, and the glue of the universe would become unstuck.

Well, about a week and a half after The Pogues concert in March (which I will be attending by the grace of brain coral), Stereolab will be playing the very same venue.

And you can bet that I'll be attending, peril to the fabric of existence be damned.

This one's on me brain coral, if you're interested...

BALLAD OF A THIN MAN

And to be honest, I think that while one of the layers of that "break out of the apron" thing was an expression of a desire for freedom from conformity, another layer was the expression of a desire for the freedom to conform.

I wanted either to get on the stage or to take a seat in the pit. Or perhaps to take a seat in the audience.

I am in the audience now. My seats are good, but I am in the audience...

LET IT OUT AND LET IT IN

So what did Jimmy see in Jude?

Some of it had to be the general obliqueness. He was a big R.E.M. fan, and they were still relatively murky back in 1987 (and the better for it, I might add).

And if you had never read Jude the Obscure, I suppose this was even more, um, obscure…

I liked this little epigram:

“A fool and his philosophy
Will soon part
Faithfully.”

The “break out of the apron” image was a pretty layered expression of desire for freedom from conformity, and it was a nice move to repurpose the portent of the Hardy-via-Corinthians “The letter killeth” as a message of slightly blinkered optimism.

It is more than a little odd sitting here behind my large ell-shaped wood-grain desk nearly 20 years later, on a lunch break from writing staff performance evaluations, to consider all this...

CRACKED BELLS AND WASHED-OUT HORNS

OK, a couple of quick points to start.

(1) Maybe Bob Dylan could safely use the word "organ" in a song, but under no circumstances should anyone anywhere ever use the word "organs" in a song's chorus. This should be like a Talmudic law of songwriting...

(2) And if the above is part of the Mishnah, then surely there is something in the Gemara regarding the use of the word "fiber." I was looking to convey the idea of moral fiber, but I think I came closer to conveying the idea of Metamucil...

JUDE

You and I were never afforded
The one peace which we sought,
Preachers scoff and we move off
Down the road, where we know
A fool and his philosophy
Will soon part
Faithfully.

And I feel it coming Jude,
And I know you feel it too.
And I feel it coming Jude,
And I know you feel it too.
Bell towers will not ring,
Organs will play no hymns,
Bell towers will not ring out...

And I know that we have the fiber
To stand when it is done,
To stand when the matter is won.
And we will break out of the apron,
And not the letter live,
For we know that the letter
Killeth.

(CHORUS)

(FIRST VERSE)

(CHORUS)

I DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO USE MY BRAIN ANYMORE (THERE'S NOTHING LEFT IN IT)

Office party tonight-- see you Monday.

WE ALL SHINE ON

Spanish Wings did not have much exposure in the outside world beyond these brief excursions.

I gave it to Jimmy before he left for Athens, but he was more interested in something wordier I had written called Jude.

He demoed Jude, with just a guitar, a whistle, and a well-full of echo-- I still have the C30 tucked away in a battered orange case...

But Spanish Wings, this brief, elegant, wistful, weightless thing, this song that does not exist in your world, is the most important song in my life.

It has elevated me, and carried me over difficult times. It has given me hope, comfort, and inspiration.

It is my introduction and my valediction, and the eternal life in between.

Come fly away...

IN RESTLESS DREAMS

The somewhat pathetic truth is that this was not the original version that I sent to my friend.

That version went

"From this day onward, the visions could be ours
That the moon sees when it's standing in the towers
Of the night."

This was more pedestrian than epiphanic-- I didn't want to build to something so pat.

The whole point of leaving in the "Oohooh ooh ooh'" at the end of the first two verses was to give "Of the night" in this last verse some oomph, and I felt like this was undermining that effort.

I did what any reasonable soul would do, and called my friend and made him swear to never open the letter, vow to just rip it up on the spot.

So that night "the moon sees" became "seize the moon"-- I was pretty damn happy it was such an easy fix. With the flip of a homophone, I was able to move the action from the moon to the visions, where it belonged.

Crisis averted, I dropped this repaired version in the mail the next day...

DAHLIAS ON A PLATE

In our universe, it is 1987, and I’m staying up until 3 am most nights, reading and writing.

In this universe, to all outward appearances, I am adrift. My friend sends me a postcard from California with a big picture of Earth as seen from space. “Wish you were here” is all he writes on the reverse. He doesn't mean California.

Internally, however, I am being reshaped, reformed. Redeemed.

A good friend comes to me with several demos that had been put together by some acquaintances of his, who have been playing with Suzanne Vega. The demos are musically polished, but the vocals are just an ethereal oohing.

He gives these to me as an exercise, as a way to cast form the loose words that have been spilling out.

The next day I send him Spanish Wings...

ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE

There is this alternate universe…

It is one where I followed my friend Jimmy to Athens, GA in 1987, three or four years after anyone with jangle-pop dreams had any right or reason to make such a journey…

His friend Mike, the one with clear band-management tendencies, came too. He started booking us some frat parties. Our band went through a couple of name changes and bass players, and ultimately stuck with Cobweb Yard and a girl named Teri on bass.

We played around the South for a year, got tighter, and scored a semi-regular gig back home at the 40 Watt Club. We began to think about doing an album.

We booked some studio time and laid down an EP’s worth of what we felt was our top original material. IRS came sniffing around and agreed to release it.

Cobweb Yard enjoyed some airplay on college stations up and down the East Coast. Shot a chintzy video for $350 that aired for two consecutive Sundays on 120 Minutes. There was a quarter-page writeup in Matter magazine out in Chicago…

But things didn’t really gel after that. Nothing major—our drummer was the first to decide to go back to school, while he could still do so on his parents’ dime. A couple of us hung on for another six months or so, but by and large it was a hair-metal world, and we just didn’t fit.

Our “big” song, the one that got the airplay, the one with the video, shows up on the occasional 80s comp. In fact, the last time the whole band got together was right after we gave Rhino the rights to include the song on Vol. 14 of the Just Can’t Get Enough series—we had a little party down at Ruby Tuesday’s.

The song was Spanish Wings.

SPANISH WINGS

I stand in place here, this cold and ancient ground
Has never moved me, the canyons to the towns
Oohooh ooh ooh...

A simple plan, love, that they can call retreat,
We'll call it inward, redeeming and discreet
Oohooh ooh ooh...

We'll fly away
We'll fly away
Come fly away
On Spanish wings, love
On Spanish wings
On Spanish wings, love
On Spanish wings

From this day onward, the visions will be ours
That seize the moon when it's standing in the towers
Of the night...

We'll fly away
We'll fly away
Come fly away
On Spanish wings, love
On Spanish wings
On Spanish wings, love
On Spanish wings

On Spanish wings, love
On Spanish wings
On Spanish wings, love
On Spanish wings
On Spanish wings, love
On Spanish wings...

THE TAO IS LIKE A RIVER

So Shane and The Pogues blew apart sometime after Hell’s Ditch, and I was more than prepared for it. I had heard the hollow men rustling in the breeze long before…

I didn’t pick up either of the post-Shane Pogues’ discs, knowing that the charms of a Tuesday Morning likely masked a Squeeze/Other Voices/Full Circle type fiasco.

I was still curious enough to buy The Snake when it was released.

Not that it was a return to form or anything, but it was diverting, and not censed with the stink of death that Hell’s Ditch wore.

Soon after this, I met up with Stereolab, and didn’t but occasionally look back down the road. Every so often I’d see Shane’s name pop up in print somewhere, check to see if it was his obit, and move on.

Now I note that the reformed Pogues are scheduled to play the 9:30 Club in DC in a few months.

I tell you what Shane—if you make it, I’ll make it.

Hope to see you there…