WITHOUT GUITARS

I realize that social evolution is a process.

And in many ways I'm proud of the progress that America has made. We are in the second term of the first multiracial presidency, the acceptance of gay unions continues apace, and I remain hopeful that the influence of organized religions will continue to abate.

But none of this will matter without a cure for the country's sad and crippling addiction to violence.

A modest proposal might suggest that reversing the respective annual spending on "defense" ($928B) and education ($141B) would be a constructive initial step...

DIRTY NEW TOWN

We are ill, America. Unspeakably ill...

JET LAG PANAVISIONS

So where was I? Oh yeah, Japan...

• Fage yogurt is great and all, but not at $20 for a 35 ounce container. Sorry, Costco Japan...

• On the other hand, Costco did have Mets Grapefruit soda in the garage vending machines, so points for that.

• Here's the thing about me and karaoke: Conceptually, I am all in. You rent a private box, you order up some food and drinks (more melon soda for me, please), and you have access to a deep catalogue of songs, from both the East and the West. Hell, even my song choices were conceptually sound-- I started off with God Save the Queen (a la Lost in Translation), and followed that up with Surrender. I even tacked on the Budokan intro to Surrender (“This next one is the first song on our new album...”) for good measure. Where it all falls apart, though, is when I open my mouth to sing...

• We drove from Chiba to Nagoya one Friday-- we left early enough in the morning that we breezed through Tokyo, and had the Rainbow Bridge to ourselves. I had aspirations of seeing Mt. Fuji along the way, but it was mostly obscured by clouds when we stopped for a rest near the Fuji River.

• The Pacific Ocean was right outside my window for part of the drive to Nagoya. It was nice to see it up close, but I have still never touched it. I was going to ask if we could pull over just so I could stick a foot in...

• We went to Taeko's childhood home in Seto, which is now empty and on the market. I hadn't been inside the house in 20 years, but I remembered every floorboard...

EASTERN PROMISE

Random, elliptical thoughts on 5 weeks in Japan.

• That John Carter movie is much easier to appreciate when it is doing you the service of eating up 132 minutes of a 13-hour flight. But under no other circumstances should you get close to the damn thing...

• Day 1: Salty Watermelon Pepsi. It has been established that I'll drink for sport any damn summer flavor that Pepsico can dish out (Shiso, Baobob, Cucumber), but this one actually scored high marks. I brought home an additional three bottles, which are now long gone...

• I paid $40 for a haircut, which is more than I spend typically in the states. Like, 2.5X more. But I have to say, it bought me the attention of a veritable pit crew of hair technicians. One person washed, deeply and thoroughly. Another cut, and her touch was incredibly light. After another round of washing, a third person delivered an intense head and neck massage. They basically had to use a spatula to pry me out of the chair when all was said and done...

• If you're reading this and you own stock in Lyon Boulangerie, I'll take the opportunity to say “You're welcome.” This bakery was a frequent lunch destination, and I could not stay away from their crisp and airy garlic rusks. Didn't want to, neither...

• The CD-rental business model continues to thrive in Japan. I spent several evenings ripping the latest J-pop and anime soundtracks for Taeko and Lana, and I was able to score Best-ofs from The Blue Hearts and Yellow Magic Orchestra for myself. We dropped a little more than $20 in rental fees and added about 30 CDs worth of music to our respective iTunes libraries...

• I don't eat a whole lot of donuts, but damn Mister Donut Japan, you are one magnificent bastard. The donuts were yeasty and sweet and a size fit for humans, rather than the dense flotation devices that crowd the cases at our local Safeway here. Plus-- and I can't emphasize the plusness of this enough-- melon soda...

• This was my fifth or sixth time in Japan, and I have to say that squatting toilets and I are still not on speaking terms...

• Conveyor-belt sushi at least keeps my vegetarian ass entertained while it counts the hours until the next trip to Lyon Boulangerie...

To be continued...

DOWN UNDER

Trouser Press, March 1983
Divinyls
Boys in Town/Science Fiction

Divinyls were the antipodean Blondie-- a slightly rough-edged New Wave band with chickfactor style to burn.

While Debbie Harry had a studied New York aloofness, Divinyls' Christina Amphlett struck a petulant pose, all angular bangs, garters, and wrinkled plaid skirts.

Blondie's seminal pop-culture moment was Heart of Glass, a masterstroke that furrowed brows with its Studio 54 sheen. The marriage of disco and punk seemed unlikely at the time, but it would prove to be an enduring match...

Divinyls are best known in the states for 1991's I Touch Myself, and if you subscribe to the notion that every generation gets the female masturbation song that it deserves, you'll recognize I Touch Myself as the perfect precursor to the Clinton era. There is no Reagan-age She-Bopian angst over the act here, just “When I think about you, I touch myself.”

I honestly do.

The two early '80s songs featured on this clear flexi were hit singles in Australia, and it's easy enough to see/hear why.

If you don't have the patience to sit through both songs, I would urge you to at least skip ahead to the 1:21 point of Boys in Town, where Christina does something I've never heard before in the history of recorded music...

POSITIVE, NEGATIVE

Trouser Press, October 1982
Positive Noise
Get Up and Go!/End in Tears

OK, I ain't gonna front: To my knowledge, I've never heard Positive Noise.

So I'm coming at this with fresh ears, 30 years after the fact.

They were apparently a Scottish synthpop band, and Get Up and Go! was released as a single in 1982. End in Tears was a B-side from that same year.

Get Up and Go! doesn't quite earn that exclamation point-- it's bright and mannered like ABC, but without the oily style of Martin Fry. There's a chance that JoBoxers took some notes from it, but you'd have to ask them to know for sure.

End in Tears is by-the-numbers New Wave guff, punctuated by a springy bass line that I admit makes me smile a bit every time it sproings...

FRUSTRATION, HEARTACHE 

Trouser Press, September 1982
David Johansen
Personality Crisis

The New York Dolls were one of my gateways to punk rock.

I started listening at 16, and it was then a short line to the Clash, the Sex Pistols, X, etc.

Soon enough, I was 17 and red spray painting “Kill someone, kill yourself!” on the mustard brick walls of JFK HS.

(I believe it was Howie who then added “DWI:” as a prefix to my handiwork, thus turning a perfectly good act of nihilistic teenage vandalism into a Public Service Announcement with the stroke of a can.)

Former Dolls lead singer David Johansen released Live it Up that same summer, and an Animals medley from the album was all over the radio and MTV. It earned him a spot along with the Clash opening for the Who at Shea Stadium, where I watched from a distant blue loge seat as he belted out Personality Crisis to a largely disinterested crowd...

ANONYMOUS COLLECTIVE

We went to see Japanese pop collective AKB48 at the Lincoln Theater the other night. Their performance was the ceremonial closing of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in DC.

How to explain AKB48...

Well, first off, there are actually more than 48 of them, when you count the “trainee” members.

While they are literally big anywhere they go, they are figuratively huge in Japan. Their bubbly J-pop dominates the charts, and they are as ubiquitous in the country as sashimi and Shiba Inus.

In a more churlish mood, I'd be inclined to point out the identikit nature of their aggressively chirpy songs. I might also have a thing or two to say about their whole sapphic schoolgirl vibe...

But my critical impulses were dulled considerably by a few glances down the aisle at Lana, who was pumping glow-stick studded fists, singing along, and screaming herself hoarse for a solid hour.

It was, she reported later, the “most exciting night of my life!”

And how on earth could I argue with that?

BANGING LIKE CHARLIE WATTS

Trouser Press, June 1982
John Hiatt
Doll Hospital/Some Fun Now



I'm afraid I have to admit that I don't know much about John Hiatt, subject of this sky-blue flexi.

I know he's been at it since the mid '70s, and continues to this day.

I imagine that if he came to your midsize town, he'd probably sell out the local. You'd go on the advice of a friend who swears by him, maybe have a couple of domestics and something off the bar menu and have a great time that you'd remember for a week.

Hiatt's impact on my listening life has been limited to Drive South, Slow Turning, and Perfectly Good Guitar, of which Slow Turning definitely takes the prize.

It's a (w)ry, Stones-referencing reflection on growing old/up that sounded swell in 1988 and still does today...

CATCHING SIGNALS THAT SOUND IN THE DARK



Thoughts on Jeff Mangum at the Lincoln Theatre, 1/28/12

-My usual stance is that I don't pay to hear the audience sing, but this show was an exception. And as phobic as I am about singing in public myself, I even made it a point to join in on at least one line, out loud. I ended up choosing “And this is the room, one afternoon, I knew I could love you”...

-The most popular singalong moment came from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea: “Can't believe/How strange it is to be anything at all.” But I've always been underwhelmed by this particular line-- strikes me as the sort of lazy philosophizing that goes down between bong hits. So I kept my mouth shut.

-Mangum himself was strong voiced and sonorous, and it was impressive to hear him stretch out vowels like taffy: “I am listening to hear where you aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrre”...

-His stage manner was open and engaging, but with an undercurrent of guardedness. “If you sing along at home, there's no reason you shouldn't do it here,” he said early on. Later he encouraged the crowd to ask him questions.

“Where have I been for the last decade? Being happy and enjoying life,” he answered in response to one...

-This was the second show I've ever seen that had what appeared to be a real honest-to-goodness curtain call. After Mangum played the two pro forma curtain-call songs, he left the stage and the house lights went up. The crowd continued to cheer, but began moving reluctantly toward the exits. Well, we were halfway down our aisle when he came out on stage again, and sat down to play Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone. I didn't see anyone returning to their seats-- we all kind of just froze where we were and listened on our feet.

-While Oh Comely is a powerful song, I have to admit that I have skipped over it more than once. But this passage from the middle of the song was a highlight of the show:

The father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies
While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park.
Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums
The music and medicine you needed for comforting
So make all your fat, fleshy fingers fingers to moving
And pluck all your silly strings and
Bend all your notes for me and
Soft silly music is meaningful, magical
The movements were beautiful
All in your ovaries
All of them milking with green fleshy flowers
While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines,
Smelling of semen all under the garden
Was all you were needing when you still believed in me

I realize it doesn't scan quite as well as, say, prime Dylan. But when you parse out the movement in the lyrics from a degraded sort of fecundity ("The father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies") to a more pure and natural one (“All of them milking with green fleshy flowers”), and the role of music in that transfiguration, it gains immeasurable gravity. And then when you hear the song itself rolling like “thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums” the frisson is palpable.

-Oh Comely is a song both for and against sex...

PICTURES CAME AND BROKE YOUR HEART

Trouser Press, May 1982
The Buggles
Fade Away/On TV



There are one-hit wonders, and then there are one-hit wonders...

The Buggles are of course best known for Video Killed the Radio Star.

I've always thought of fellow one-hit wonder Pop Muzik by M as an aural twin of Video Killed the Radio Star.

Both songs burble along with bleeps, bloops, bubbles, and highly processed vocals.

They are crisp, cool New Wave Lite in colorful aluminum cans.

But where Pop Muzik is a reverie, Video Killed the Radio Star is a lament. It is Helen Twelvetrees cursing the dawn of the talkies...

Another key point of divergence for the two songs is their performance on the 1979 US charts. Pop Muzik made it all the way to number 1, while Video Killed the Radio Star just scraped into the top 40.

But two years later, the iconic status of the latter song would be sealed when it became the first video played on MTV. (And somewhat shockingly, Pop Muzik was not even among the first 200 videos aired by the station.)

This clear flexi contains two songs by the Buggles that are not Video Killed the Radio Star: Fade Away and On TV. Both tracks play like the intersection of synth-pop and prog that they are-- kind of like Heaven 17, if Heaven 17 were unconcerned with making you shake your groove thang...

TRYING TO TAKE THIS ALL IN

Trouser Press, April 1982
XTC
Blame the Weather/Tissue Tigers (The Arguers)



What better way to start 2012 than ecstatically...

This flexi is a plumb pretty piece of clear red plastic.

Both Blame the Weather and Tissue Tigers (The Arguers) saw the light of commercial day as B-sides of Senses Working Overtime. They are very strong tracks, and only when measured against something as transcendently great as their A-side do they sound like B-sides.

Back in the summer of '83, I took a job doing landscaping work. I was truly awful at it-- I had none of the practical sense to clean a yard efficiently, nor the strong back and clear lungs to do it for any meaningful stretch of time.

I drove my '73 Ford Maverick to the job each morning. The car didn't have a radio, so I'd sling my boombox across the back seat and let it suck down D batteries. I wore out a copy of XTC's Waxworks cassette that summer, many times reaching over the seat to hit auto-reverse so that I could hear Senses Working Overtime again.

The foreman kept me on the job for a month or so as a favor to my brother, but ultimately we all came to our senses and I moved on...

COLUMN INCHES

Saw a headline today that Scorpions are calling it quits, which reminded me of my '05 interview with the band's Rudolf Schenker...

Halten rocking, mein dudes. Halten rocking.