MY HEART HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN

There was a lot of interesting stuff happening musically on the West Coast in the early '80s.

You had Slash with bands like X, Dream Syndicate, and Green on Red.

SST with Black Flag and The Minutemen.

The 415 bands: Romeo Void, Red Rockers, Wire Train. And Translator.

For some reason, I’ve been thinking about Translator a bunch the last couple of days.

I’ve been thinking about how great Everywhere That I’m Not was. You know the song—it goes like this:

Well, that impossible, that’s im,
That’s impossible, that’s im-poss,
That’s impossible, that’s im-poss-ible…

It’s a gas to hear them build the word “impossible” —it sounds like a kid trying very hard to understand what it actually means.

More particularly, I’ve been considering Un-Alone as one of the great “lost” songs of that era.

It shimmers and chimes like the best contemporary R.E.M., Let’s Active, Plimsouls material, with just the right amount of ache.

If it’s not part of your collection, I’d recommend dropping the buck-minus-a-penny at iTunes. You won’t regret it…

WHELK

Whelk.

AND A ONE-A, AND A TWO-A

Yesterday’s post regarding my perfect drive-time playlist initially contained a couple of additional paragraphs after the list of songs.

And I kid you not, this was the last sentence:

“Those moments when you channel the sounds coming out of the whelk shell pressed against your ear.”

For some reason, about halfway through the day yesterday it became a weird imperative for me to use the word “whelk” on sliced tongue.

I didn’t hear it anywhere, or read it anywhere, and believe it or not, it didn’t come up in conversation.

But there it was, rattling around my brain, looking for an escape hatch. Whelk, whelk, whelk…

So when I reflected on the songs that I’d heard on the way home, I found a vague yet visceral connective thread. Something to do with the public communion of private insecurities…

And by way of vague yet visceral explication, out came the whelk-shell image.

Holy shit, am I glad that I employ a team of editors to go over this stuff. Because, you know, that would have been mortifying if I had actually posted it…

I DON'T KNOW NO SHAME

Goddam, was this a great soundtrack for the commute home on a cool blue Virginia spring evening:

Heart Full of Soul-- The Yardbirds
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea-- Neutral Milk Hotel
Shine a Light-- Wolf Parade
Mandinka-- Sinead O'Connor
Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead-- Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
Happy Hour-- The Housemartins
Tobacco Road-- The Nashville Teens
I Am a Scientist-- Guided by Voices

I FOUND THE F

I was cleaning my PC keyboard today with a can of 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane-propelled compressed air, and I realized that there is something immensely satisfying about the whole experience.

You aim a long thin straw at the crevices between all the jumbled numbers, letters, and symbols on the keyboard, pull a trigger to release the air, and a mix of dust and debris jumps out of the cracks.

The longer you hold down the trigger, the colder the can gets, so you need to take periodic breaks. Which is a good thing, because you’re only supposed to use it in well-ventilated areas, and I’ve seen folks get a little lightheaded after protracted exposure.

Coincidentally, I’ve made the exact same observations and come to the exact same conclusions regarding Broadcast’s Tender Buttons…

DAMMIT I’M A MAN

Another number of note on my trip was 295. As in used CDs for $2.95.

Now, used-CD stores are like mammoths with one foot in the tarpit, and you feel a bit sorry for them when they don’t seem to realize it.

So please note, Used-CD Store, that trying to sell used copies of the Arctic Monkeys’ disc for $9.95 is not going to fly. Not when the big-box retailers are featuring it new for $8.99, or when it’s a couple of clicks away on iTunes for $9.99.

If you want to forestall that inevitable moment when your trunks go under and you’re blowing sad little tar bubbles into the gloaming, you need to rethink your paradigm. The $5.95 range might buy you some time.

But $2.95? Well, back up the truck.

Amidst all the overpriced, cracked-cased, heavily fingerprinted $8.95/$9.95 nonsense clogging the racks at Empire Discs in Garden City, I found the following for $2.95 a pop:

R.E.M.- Automatic for the People
Neu!- Neu! 75
Primal Scream- XTRMNTR
New Order- Movement
Can- Ege Bamyasi

I'M NOT A NUMBER

I hope you'll allow me the indulgence of sharing the companion piece to yesterday's poem. Same origin story, same fate...


Suburban Gossamer

Ho
That's
Not
A
Rail-
Road
That's
A
Crease
In
The
Map

FEEL LIKE A NUMBER

Random moment #1 from my time away from home...

I saw a tunnel clearance sign on the parkway on my way out of NYC that read 10’01”.

Which reminded me of a poem I wrote a while back:


THERE ARE NO FREE BEARS IN NYC

Gentle Ben
Took the 10:01
Out of Kennedy.

He was tired of scratching his ass
On a lamppost caked with poster paste
And handbills.


I had put this together about ten years ago for a friend who was working on a zine named Doggone It, which was aimed primarily at Japanese ex-pats living in NYC.

The person running the zine was in the states illegally, and she was deported after running off a few issues, so this poem never saw the light of day.

So, light of day, meet slight, whimsical, and slightly poignant poem for Japanese ex-pats living in NYC…

MIKE RENO'S HEADBAND

A little business/pleasure (well, the equation is actually more like
business -> pleasure) time afoot. Be back next Wednesday.

DO YOU REMEMBER?

News of The Replacements adding two new tunes to an upcoming "best of" got me to thinking about the greatest bands who have broken up, and never felt the urge to reform, even though all of their original members are still alive. (And still sentient, for you space proggers who would nominate the original Floyd...)

Sure, I thought of The Smiths. The Jam too.

However, one band keeps placing itself at the top of the list: Husker Du.

Maybe I'm missing an obvious choice, but from where I sit in 2006, Husker Du is the one.

Now go turn on the news...

TAKE IT, IT'S YOURS...

Random Friday thoughts-- now with 20% more gratuitous profanity!

-Removing the “And buses might skid on black ice” line from the single version of Senses Working Overtime was a dumbshit move.

-Lenny Kravitz. How the fuck did that happen?

-Andrew Loog Oldham is now more entertaining than the Stones.

-Frank Blank has nice jugs.

-I worry about Chan Marshall...

BORN TOO LOOSE


One of the other pleasures of satrad is the incidental exposure to unexplored levels of Suck.

Just the other day I listened in slack-jawed awe to something called The Scum Lives On.

The name of the band was Demolition 23, which it turns out was basically a mid '90s solo project for Michael Monroe.

Now Michael Monroe was the lead singer for Finnish Dolls jackers Hanoi Rocks. Their main claim to fame was the fact that their drummer Razzle was killed by Vince Neil in a drunk-driving escapade.

Yes, Finnish.

And yes, Razzle. As in, “first it's a candy, then it's a gum”...

So anyway, this song starts out by lamenting the deaths of Monroe's friends Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators, then mourns the passings of Brian Jones, Keith Moon, Bon Scott, and Rob Tyner, and slips in a line questioning whether Abbie Hoffman's death was really a suicide, which seems like an oddly placed little conspiracy theory.

There is then a long list of the scum that still lives on (or at least lived on in '95)-- Jimmy Swaggart, Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan, Donald Wildmon, etc.

It's all so ham-fisted that it borders on cute. But its true country of residence is indeed the land of Suck...

I STARTED SOMETHING I COULDN'T FINISH

In the course of my half-assed exegesis last week of shyness in Smiths' songs, brain coral reminds me that I completely forgot Half a Person:

“Sixteen, clumsy, and shy...”

I guess this sits somewhere between You've Got Everything Now and How Soon is Now? on the barometer...

DEATH IS A STAR

Amidst the celebratory nature of The Pogues show a couple of weeks back, there were various opportunities for remorse and regret. It was a typical Irish funeral, I suppose…

The one pointed item that has remained with me, though, is this: I miss Joe Strummer.

I was speculating with brain coral before the show that Joe’s death was just a cosmic fuck up. Like the Blaggard of Rock Death sharpened his scythe and went to lay a finger on the lead singer of The Pogues, but didn’t realize Joe was only a fill-in...

SPRYNGE

A found poem from your friends at the A.C. Moore craft store chain:

Silk-like spring candle rings
& decorative spring wood

DARLING...

My favorite Smiths’ songs generally grabbed me right upfront with one image made adhesive by its humor and/or audaciousness.

Here’s my top 5.

(1) Shoplifters of the World Unite
“But last night the plans of a future war
Was all I saw on Channel Four.”

(2) Ask
“Spending warm Summer days indoors
Writing frightening verse
To a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg.”

(3) Panic
Not for a given lyric, but more for the general fin-de-something vibe.

(4) How Soon is Now?
And here, for the general fin-de-something vibrato…

(5) This Charming Man
“Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate…”

COME OUT AND FIND THE ONE YOU LOVE

“Shyness is nice, and Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
You'd like to…”

Fame is a weird poison.

As time wore on, Morrissey fought wars with the media, who portrayed him alternately as a pernicious layabout, a racist, an opportunistic exploiter, et cetera, et cetera.

Closer to home, he engaged in pissy border wars with his band.

While the poison slowly withered the body of The Smiths, it had a restorative effect on Morrissey’s general view of humanity. He came to feel a certain level of responsibility for the disaffected youth whom he had affected so deeply, and began to discourage them from wallowing too much in their sadness, their despair.

Their shyness…

SWEET SMELLING WIND

Stereolab in DC last night was golden sweet.

They peeled the roof off the club and stirred it up with a psychedelic licking stick.

Um, yeah…

The group appeared to be having fun, playing a nice mix of new songs and semi-obscure older stuff like Mountain and I Feel the Air (Of Another Planet).

My inner Mary was ba-da-ba’ing and ooh-la-la’ing throughout the night, particularly during Miss Modular and Cybele’s Reverie...

Au revoir to you too, Laetitia.

A CRACK ON THE HEAD

“I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar”

This time the shyness is referenced in the service of a couple of clever and telling homophones. Morrissey simultaneously bemoans this inherited shyness and announces his rather elevated place in the world: “I am the Sun, and the Air…”

But How Soon is Now? sounded like 2005 from where I sat in 1985, which made the whole pill easier to swallow.

My vegetarian ass had little use for Meat is Murder, and I liked but did not love The Queen is Dead.

I was developing all along a sneaking suspicion that The Smiths were primarily a singles’ band…

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WRONG

“No, I’ve never had a job
Because I’m too shy”

So says the burgeoning rock star as he traipses across the stage, slamming his naked chest with a bouquet of gladiolas to keep the beat…

As much as Morrissey appeared to be sharing his real feelings of dislocation and general ambiguity, he came across equally as a manipulative sharp.

And though I had some appreciation for the artistry of it all, at this point it was hard for me to escape the feeling that it was all rather smug and one sided…

THAT MYSTICAL AIR

My first reaction to The Smiths was uniformly positive.

Hand in Glove was self-serious, furtive, and capital R Romantic:

“And everything depends upon
How near you stand to me.”

What Difference Does it Make? was fat with dramatic overstatement:

“But still I'd leap in front of a flying bullet for you.”

I chuckled each time I heard that line, but gave them points for commitment. Points for making such a cool/dark Motown/glam racket, too…

So when I saw the first album on sale as an import at Titus Oaks in the early spring of ’84, I jumped at the chance to own it.

I didn’t have a record player, so I had a friend make a cassette copy for me.

A week later I was back at Titus Oaks looking to sell the slightly used album. Soon after, I recorded over the tape— I don’t recall what. Probably one of those radio mixes that still has Make a Circuit With Me and Love Will Tear Us Apart running together in my head.

So what went wrong?

THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT BECAUSE IT'S US

Here's a piece of a poem I wrote when I was 11:

“Friends are people you can trust,
As you can see, friends are a must.
So if you are friendless, come to me
And I'll show you how good a friend can be.”

My teacher melted, and wrote on the paper in big dripping script “Will you be my friend?”

But the truth of the matter is that I was a bit of a manipulative, passive/aggressive bully.

Kind of like Morrissey, I suppose.

Coming up: some thoughts on a conflicted relationship with The Smiths...

BELLE POGUE

March concerts to date.

Belle and Sebastian still feel vital— they have morphed into this weird T-Rex/Nick Drake/New Order amalgam, and while it might not always work, it’s often pretty damn thrilling.

The Pogues were a kick of nostalgia, with some predictably complicated strata of memory and meaning. I met myself in a dream, and I just want to tell you, everything was alright…

Whatcha got Stereolab?

THE SONG WENT ON THOUGH THE LIGHTS WERE GONE

Shane MacGowan ambled on stage like a golem, each size-12 foot pointing outward like a strategically placed plank, with a couple of hours of tenuous balance the end goal.

He sprayed the mike with something resembling “Misfarbinshungtumonibushgreadcodpiecefuggerwakinklickcick.” I caught mrs. brain coral’s eye and we both kind of shrugged and applauded.

As the night went on, it became apparent that these utterances were generally the song intros. I think I finally figured it out when I heard “sislymacnen” and then the band started playing Sally MacLennane…

And the band was great—rollicking and sloppy enough to remind you that for all the trad trappings, there was a significant punk undercurrent behind their formation.

Shane would lean over slightly between each song and peer at the set list taped to the stage, with a teeter here and a totter there. But when the band started playing, he actually did a fine job of delivering the goods. Where I expected gobs of garbled lyrics and more missed cues than a third-grade production of the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat, I got a surprising fealty to the original content and structure of the material.

Sure, a couple of verses came too soon, and a couple of lines never reached their intended destination, but this was not Bicentennial Elvis or anything like that.

I am not an apologist, but anyone who tells you that it was a train wreck on a musical level must have an agenda.

As far as being a train wreck on a human level, well, yeah. But you had to know that going in. And it was then up to you to either celebrate it or make your peace with it.

The drunken 40-year olds driving the mosh pit down on the dance floor came to celebrate it, cheering loudly when Shane switched from a glass of whiskey to a bottle. They all had their reasons, I’m sure.

I made my peace with it, and I had my reasons as well…

TWENTY-FUCKING-FIVE TO ONE...

Things I expect from The Pogues show tomorrow:

-A raucous noise from the band.
-Brief flashes of equipoise and lucidity from Shane.
-90% of the audience will know 95% of the lyrics, which will be especially helpful in that half the time Shane will know a quarter of the lyrics.
-I have a sneaking suspicion that some folks in the crowd might get drunk.

Back Monday to confirm or refute these predictions...

YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE SO HELPLESS TOO

Guilty pleasure.

Could it Be I'm Falling in Love?— The Spinners

The Spinners, like the '73 Mets and Gerald Ford, were emblematic of an era that saw the repeated triumph of mediocrity.

Time and again, the thoroughly ordinary would find themselves lifted to unanticipated heights.

More often than not they quickly lost their footing and slid back to the middle level, but they could hold tight to the memory of that brief moment when fortune was their franchise.

I personally found it a great comfort to live in such times.

One afternoon in the late fall of '73 I came home and was greeted by my mother, her face contorted in hard grief and hysteria: “Do you know what it's like to have no friends? Do you?” she screamed.

I did not.

I turned on my heels and retreated quickly, so I don't know how the rest played out. I only know that I didn't see her again until a few days before Christmas.

She returned home and brought with her one of the few gifts I received that year: a leather belt, hand-tooled in the psych ward of Central General Hospital.

It was a very mediocre Christmas...

STREAMING OUT OF THE MAGNETS

The New Pornographers/Belle & Sebastian show was cool. Both groups were in fine Sunday-night fettle—loose, casual, and interactive.

Best of all, though, was the opportunity to hang with mr. and mrs. brain coral, who wouldn't know from a third wheel if you willed them a tricycle factory.

Bring on The Pogues, for better or worse...

QUE SERA SERA

Guilty pleasure.

Baby Hold On— Eddie Money

It has that one glorious moment, when the faceless voice rises from the swamp of the LI bar-band circuit and gains the flint to self-mythologize:

"Mama's always told you girl
That money can't buy you love..."

The moment glows like a flash pot, hangs in the air for an afterbeat, then vanishes, leaving behind a fine residue of pearlash...

MY ENGINES DIE

Guilty pleasure.

The Ghost in You—Psychedelic Furs

This bunch had all the superficiality you’d expect from the bastard offspring of PiL John Lydon and solo Bryan Ferry.

It’s right there in the name, people: Psychedelic. Furs.

But boy, did this one work its melancholic magic on an 18-year old cruising around in his friendly green Maverick, trying to forget a Nancy…

ME GOT GOD

OK, Pull Up the People has convinced me that I probably need at least a little M.I.A. in my life. We'll see how much...

ONE

I suppose one of the strange things about yesterday’s soul-searching shuffle was the fact that it produced songs by all three bands I’ll be seeing with brain coral during our March Month of Concerts: Belle and Sebastian, The Pogues, and Stereolab.

I once had it in me to be a mathematical proficient, but now I’d have to defer to greater minds to crunch the numbers and figure out the odds of this happening.

So here are the raw numbers:
-The condition that needs to be met is the appearance of all three of these bands at least once in the five-song data set.
-The universe of available songs is 286. (It is, after all, a 2GB nano, and there’s still about 500MB that I have not yet filled.)
-The sub-universes are as follows: Belle and Sebastian, 34 songs; The Pogues, 38 songs; Stereolab, 17 songs.

I’m waiting Will Hunting…

PLAY SOMETHING FAMILIAR

Last night I had a disjointed panel of dreams that involved exile, a boat, a man in a wheelchair, and a secret return.

I woke up with a lingering sense of unease, but the definite opinion that my brain was trying to cleanse itself of some jumble of concerns.

My friend brain coral has a theory that the iPod can see into your soul, and that a simple shuffle will often deliver an accurate soundtrack of your state of mind.

I suppose what I'm looking for is more a definition of my state of mind. So have at it Nano...

Beautiful— Belle and Sebastian
Whiskey You're the Devil— The Pogues
Junior Kickstart— The Go! Team
Pause— Stereolab
Billy Liar— The Decemberists

Yup, that about sums it up...

FLIPPIN' LIKE A PANCAKE

The greatest TV theme song ever? The Tra-La-La Song from the Banana Splits Show.

On this I will brook no dissent.

Have a mess of fun this weekend!

SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE COME AND GONE

Guilty pleasure.

More Than a Feeling—Boston

The walls in my sister’s room were painted red. Red as a toreador’s cape and the blood of a bull.

She hung beads in the entryway to her room, at a 90-degree angle to the door, from ceiling to floor.

On the door was pinned a cardboard star, about 7” across from point to point, covered with fluttery tin foil.

As a kid, I was more likely to hover in the hallway outside her room than to actually enter.

When I was 7 and she was 15, she moved out. Went to live in New Jersey, and then Minnesota, with a motocross racer who had three fingers on his right hand.

Several years later she was back on the East Coast, living in Vermont.

I went to visit her, and came across the first Boston album as I was thumbing through her record collection. I had just discovered this album, and was developing a preadolescent allegiance to it.

For the first time, I perceived a point of intersection between us. A shared interest.

And it was more than a feeling…

MYSTIC CRYSTAL REVELATIONS

Guilty pleasure.

Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)—The 5th Dimension

Now, we all remember when Fred dreamed Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm became baby singing sensations. Their manager was the memorably named Eppy Brianstone.

The song that swept a prehistoric nation? Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In.

A few years after that episode, Let the Sunshine In showed up in the musical Hair.

Damn you thieving hippies. Damn you all to hell.

But The 5th Dimension made everything OK with this awesome medley.

I’ll willingly swallow gobs and gobs of nonsensical astropharmaceutical doggerel when it goes down so sweet and mantric.

A shiny new poncho for anyone who knew about that parenthetical in the title…

A FREE RIDE WHEN YOU’VE ALREADY PAID

OK, so the Sam Donaldson sighting from a couple of weeks back was not the only bit of excitement from that particular day.

For on that day, a seed was planted, a seed which bore today a wondrous fruit…

My former company was exhibiting at the conference wherein I spotted Sam, and I stopped by their booth to chat. While I was there, I filled out an entry for their prize drawing.

And today I got a phone call informing me that I am soon to be the owner of a sleek black 2GB iPod Nano.

Don’t you just love it when your ex gives you valuable prizes?

WHERE THE HELL DID I DINE?

Guilty pleasure.

Do You Feel Like We Do— Peter Frampton

At the onset of 7th grade, I made a fairly conscious effort to become cool.

Up until that point, I had been a high achiever academically, and very involved in extracurricular activities.

On top of my aforementioned slot in the Joycitones, I was the lead in the 6th-grade play, knocked out attendees at the school’s annual talent show with my performance of a song I co-wrote with my pianist (Rock and Stroll), and held first sax in the band.

Uncool.

So I began to forge tentative associations with the Jordache/Member’s Only/better-haircut crowd. The ones who seemed to be drawing an enviable level of interest from the girls…

Musically, they were all about Frampton Comes Alive! and Aerosmith.

In too many ways to count, though, I did not feel like these guys did…

BRACE YOURSELF

Guilty pleasure.

Unbelievable—EMF

Because when we were first dating, my wife and I would sit on the bed talking until the threat of dawn, with the local altrock station playing in the background. This one always made us pause and giggle…

Ecstasy motherfuckers!

A REAL PRESSURE COOKER

Guilty pleasure.

Paradise By the Dashboard Light—Meat Loaf

It dripped nostalgia for ‘60s teenage drama and Phil Spector.

It was the hit of the Bar Mitzvah season of 77/78, echoing through catering halls as I broke Tam-Tams over illicit cups of Manischewitz.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up the second Old Grey Whistle Test DVD, which contains a bizarre live performance.

Mr. Loaf is hanging on to his voice by a thread, and Karla DeVito is vamping in a black blouse with large tit-revealing slits on each side.

They do the basic pantomime of the song’s narrative, including some quite explicit groping by Mr. Loaf. But where it gets truly weird is at the end…

The end of the studio version is a relatively subdued coda—the calm after the preceding storm. In this version, however, the end is the storm.

“I hate you so much! You make me wanna spew up!” screams Mr. Loaf, right in Karla’s face.

“I think you just did, fat boy,” deadpans Karla as she wipes her upper lip.

The histrionics continue, with Mr. Loaf pounding the top of an amp, then picking up a mike stand and taking a run at Karla, brandishing the business end. She ducks the charge.

Mr. Loaf eventually ends up behind Karla and lets out a soul-curdling bellow: “Fuuuuuuuucccccckkkkk yoooooooouuuuuuuu!!!”

Damn.

It was a train wreck that I had to replay immediately. And I promise you, I’ll surely watch it again…

LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE

Don t worry, it is not the last of pea-time...

Do not kill the clock!

GET YER YA-YAS OUT

Guilty pleasure.

The Walls Came Down— The Call

(Here it comes...)

Political portent hangs thick in the air:

“Sanctuary fades,
Congregation splits,
Nightly military raids,
The congregation splits.”

(Here it comes...)

And more pointed:

“It's a song of assassins
Ringin' in your ears,
We got terrorists thinking
Playing on fears.”

(Here it comes...)

And then a Statement:

“I don't think there are any Russians
And there ain't no Yanks,
Just corporate criminals
Playin' with tanks.”

Here it comes...

“Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Yes, come on
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Come on, come on, come on
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-ya, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-ya, Wake, wake up
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Go, yeah-eah
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Woh-woh
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Come on, come on, come on
Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa, Ya-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya-yaa…”

Don’t lie—you know that’s what you were waiting for…

EAST DETENTION

Guilty pleasure.

Informer— Snow

Dirk.

I first met Dirk when I was about 15. He was dating my friend's sister. They would one day marry and have a beautiful boy with kiwi-brown eyes.

Dirk was six or seven years older than us, sharp, wildly funny, brooding, and volatile.

One midnight as we were leaving his apartment, he began throwing peanuts and coins at us from his second-story window, in protest of our exit. We laughed, until the coins gave way to full beer cans. Then we ran.

Some years later, on the eve of my friend's wedding, we barreled down the LIE on our way to Brooklyn with Dirk's Deadhead friend James behind the wheel. We licky-boom-boom-downed all the way, giggly and goofy. It was great.

That was the last time I saw Dirk. Several months later, he walked out to a field behind his house and lit himself on fire.

And now the weather forecast is calling for real snow tomorrow.

It is winter.

Fuck.

Dirk.

ALL DANCE THE POOT

If my kids start asking me for this, I will know that I have done my job well...

THINK OF ME AND TRY NOT TO LAUGH

Guilty pleasure.

You Wear It Well— Rod Stewart

First comes the voice. That hoarse, weary malted milk and gin rasp. That voice you wish Tom Waits had...

And then the words, wise beyond anyone's years:

“I'm gonna write about the birthday gown that I bought in town
When you sat down and cried on the stairs...”

Who would've expected this to devolve into vapid tabloid fodder? Who could've predicted the schoolyard snickering about a gallon of cum in his stomach?

What a colossal fucking waste of a prodigious talent.

So today it's not my guilt— it's Rod's...

A SHIRT OF VIOLENT GREEN

Forgive me, but there was a dearth of guilty pleasures today…

The day was highlighted, if you will, by the fact that I ate lunch two tables over from Sam Donaldson.

I was tempted to accost him at his table screaming “Where did you hide my Bomb Pops, Jerry?!?” or some other non sequitur in the same class as “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”

Because it just seems like the thing to do when you spot a random male newscaster in public…

JOHNNY REB WHAT'S THE PRICE OF FANS...

Guilty pleasure.

Superman—R.E.M.

This is the story of a love gone wrong…

My first cassette copy of Murmur had bum mechanics, so I could only listen to the first side, and I lived with that for months. It was enough.

Murmur was lovely, warm, and gauzy and oblique. I cried sometimes, without knowing quite why.

Reckoning was more direct in spots, and I made the journey with the band as they began to look the outside world in the eye.

It seems strange to me now, but for some reason I have never in my life owned a copy of Fables. I liked the songs well enough, but I suppose competition from The Replacements, Husker Du, The Pogues, etc. kind of froze R.E.M. out.

And really, the more public they became, the more Stipe’s oddly shaped ego became a problem for me...

Fall on Me was enough to bring me back to the band for Lifes Rich Pageant, but I did not like what I found.

Stipe was now articulating, but it was apparent that he had lapsed into some kind of harebrained demagoguery. There were minions he was looking to lead, and I was not among their number.

If you really pressed an aesthetic argument, I’d probably cop to Flowers of Guatemala being the best thing on Lifes Rich Pageant. But out of principle, I’d name Superman…

EASYBEATS

Back Monday, bringing the guilt...

STREETCARS

Guilty pleasure.

Old Days—Chicago

We were the Joycitones. We were the elite of the sixth-grade chorus at Joyce Road Elementary School.

Our leader was Ms. Dwyer, a taciturn former Rockette.

I was an alto, and part of the all-county chorus that year.

This was before puberty, cigarettes, and cheap black beauties worked their ravage on my voice.

Old Days was our showstopper...

LOVE IS GOOD

Guilty pleasure.

Right Back Where We Started From—Maxine Nightingale

This song might’ve been conceived under the most cynical, coke-fueled, disco cash-in conditions. Or it might’ve been conceived by a pair of bunny rabbits nuzzling in the shade of a yew tree. I am so beyond giving a fuck.

Just remember a moment— a youthful moment or a moment from yesterday afternoon— when it was a joy to be alive. This is that moment, in a can.

And it easily makes Maxine my second favorite nightingale, behind Florence, but ahead of the bird…

I EXPECT TO FIND HIM LAUGHING

Guilty pleasure.

Blasphemous Rumors—Depeche Mode

I swear I’m not doing this to be perverse.

As well focused as my distaste for Depeche Mode is, I can’t get around the fact that I really like this song.

Yeah, it’s as dumbly earnest and adolescently questioning as anything they ever did. Girl of 16, wants to die, tries by her own hand, does not succeed, mother prays, girl finds Jesus, girl gets hit by car, girl dies.

Are you there God? It’s me, Martin.

But still, for some reason it works for me.

Maybe it’s the life-support machine that sounds like it’s churning out Orange Fanta Slurpees…

ROCK AND ROLL GIRLS

Begging your leave, but today finds me dealing with the after effects of my six-year old daughter's sleepover at the house last night.

It was just one friend, but for those of you not familiar with Parent's Math, the equation goes something like this:

If you double a six-year old, it has the odd effect of simultaneously adding three years and subtracting one year from any three-year old over whom the six-year olds exert centripetal force. You then apply Planck's constant liberally and with no discretion, and you arrive at diminished sleep capacity for mom and dad. It's just that simple.

Back with more guilty pleasures tomorrow...

THE MUSIC'S HIGH

Guilty pleasure.

Dancing Queen—ABBA

OK, it’s not Knowing Me, Knowing You, which is like Scenes From a Marriage dusted with confectioner’s sugar, but it’s still pretty regal.

The whole Rachmaninoff meets Spector meets Eurovision vibe caught everyone from Elvis Costello (see Oliver’s Army) to Madge to Stereolab.

It caught me too, one shiny American Bandstand Saturday afternoon, and never let go…

THE LADDER OF MY LIFE

Guilty pleasure.

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me—Elton John

When I was 8 or 9 years old, I was a big Elton John fan. There, I’ve said it…

Rocket Man was inextricably linked to cold winter nights looking through a small telescope in my best friend’s backyard. If there happened to be Apollo astronauts walking on the moon, we strained our eyes to see them jump…

Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me was the soundtrack to bike rides to Cold Spring Harbor, where we’d sit on the dock and watch folks unspool string droplines, hoping to stir a stray flounder to bite.

Harmony was playing at my friend’s house up the street when he jumped off the eave of his roof and landed on the middle finger of my right hand, flattening the tip and stunting its growth.

And on May 18, 1977, my best friend and I sat on adjacent swings in our local park, arms wrapped around chains and weight shifted slightly forward. We kicked at the sand, and sang loudly against the death that day of my father. We sang Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

All things considered, I guess there’s no reason to feel guilty…

I'M SUCH A FOOL FOR YOU

I’m going to step away from the satrad channel survey for a bit. I’ll probably revisit at some point, considering that I haven’t even covered a bunch of my main presets.

Instead, in honor of yesterday’s tangent, I’m going to sail the guilty-pleasure seas.

Each day I will go off in search of a song that, for one reason or another, I’m embarrassed to admit I love, like, or perhaps just tolerate…

I Could Be Happy—Altered Images

Yesterday’s Lulu confession served to expose a soft spot, and I’ll allow today’s admission to elaborate further.

I am an out and out sucker for the winsome and the wistful.

The weird thing is that it is a definable subset, consisting of the following songs:

To Sir With Love—Lulu
I Could Be Happy—Altered Images
Fade Into You—Mazzy Star
Here’s Where the Story Ends—Sundays
Linger—The Cranberries

These five songs—and these five songs only, to date— target the exact same longitude and latitude on my emotional map.

The only moment that imperils things for I Could Be Happy is when an ever-so-brief hint of Martha Davis from The Motels creeps into Clare Grogan’s vocals.

LIKE FLIES ON SHERBERT

Today as I wound my way through the parking garage, fiddling with my access card, preparing to swipe it in front of a gray panel to raise the gate, it became clear that I had an itchy remote finger...

I reached open air, began surfing the satellite, and soon landed on a guilty pleasure: To Sir With Love. Hard cheese, I know.

But I especially like the weird jazz phrasing Lulu drops into the line “What, what can I give you in return?”

And then, 3:12 from my driveway, I found the Replacements doing Alex Chilton. Another pleasure, with which I have never associated a measure of guilt.

The line I really love here? “Check-checkin' his stash by the trash at St. Marks Place.”

Their respective lyrical hiccups put in high relief the fact that these two paeans are actually very closely bound.

And that realization made my journey home today feel oddly satisfying. It was like rounding a perfect circle...

THE ART OF DECEPTION

All Rolling Stones, all the time…

It’s a pretty nice piece of viral marketing for A Bigger Bang, and it makes satrad relatable for the boomers.

Somebody somewhere is surely getting a Corvette and a seersucker suit out of this deal…

Take It or Leave It
Wrapping their orneriness for the same marketplace that was buying Herman’s Hermits and Gerry and the Pacemakers. For all their charges to the barricades, they were ultimately an accommodating bunch…

You Can’t Always Get What You Want (live)
No, not live when it mattered. But it’s not Love You Live, Still Life, or Flashpoint either. Sounds more recent, with Mick giving the audience “You can’t…” and then letting the folks in the $1000 seats handle the “…always get what you want.” Soulless, perfunctory, and cynical in concept. At least it’s not completely cynical in execution.

Diddley Daddy
One of the great rock-historical gaps is the lack of officially released Stones outtakes/rarities. If they could squeeze six CDs out of the Beatles, I’d have to think the Stones can do better than the half-assed single disc that was dropped recently. This would be a nice start…

Fool to Cry
Etymology of falsetto: Italian, from diminutive of falso false, from Latin falsus.

Driving Too Fast
Someone should really hide their metaphors from them. I’d be much more interested in hearing songs about 60 with an Exile twist…

Jumpin’ Jack Flash
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If I need to explain this, you’ll probably never ever ever get it.

Grade: B

HEY JOE

Last night was a symphony of earaches and hazy bad dreams, so I'm taking off today. Be back on Monday.

Man, I could sure use a cup of coffee around about now...

PITCH BY MY DOORSTEP

Of the several dietary oddities that dot my life, this gives some people the deepest pause: I have only ever had one sip of coffee.

One midnight on a whim I bought a brimming styrofoam cup full of the stuff, to complement my Marlboro reds. I lifted the dimpled cup to my mouth, pursed my lips, blew small ripples across the surface, wet my lips... and poured out the cup.

Just something to keep in mind as we grab a seat in the acoustic coffee house...

Wasted on the Way—CSN
Making '82 sound like '72, as if '77 had never happened.

Need You Tonight (unplugged)—INXS
Kind of slinky and sexy and minimal in its original incarnation, this unplugged version actually manages to strip it up, rather than strip it down. Should've stowed those bongos, random Farriss brother...

Long Way Home—Norah Jones
I'm sorry, did you say something?

Three Little Birds—Bob Marley
Don't get me wrong, it's a nice song. But I can't help thinking that right now there's a kid sitting in a Starbucks, tapping his foot while this plays in the background, telling his friends that he loves the “Reggie music” because it's so “happy.”

Broke Down—Slaid Cleaves
OK, I confess it took me a minute to realize that Slaid Cleaves was not the name of the song. Because I'd really be interested in hearing a song called Slaid Cleaves...

She Belongs to Me—Bob Dylan
It's fascinating that Dylan has made the trip from the early '60s coffeehouse to the early aughties coffeehouse, which are two very different places...

Possession—Sarah MacLachlan
Perhaps you'd like a little stalking with your double vente latte frappacino? Quietly unsettling, and very effective.

Grade: A rich Columbian B-

THE RESOLUTION OF ALL THE FRUITLESS SEARCHES

The last band my wife cared anything about was Spandau Ballet. She knitted Gary Kemp a sweater, and air mailed it from Nagoya to London.

She was always more likely to fall for Gary Kemps than Tony Hadleys...

I'll tell you more about her one day, but this is just to say that yesterday was our 13th wedding anniversary.

And as a result, today the satellite is all about romantic ballads and soft pop music, featuring lyrics of love.

That's right, lyrics of love...

You Make Me Fell Brand New—Simply Red
Goddam, what a punk out. You could've played The Stylistics' original, a smooth piece of Philly soul with the potential to make any living creature on the planet go moist, but you opt for this pointless, arid remake. Why?

If You Leave Me Now—Chicago
Where their former muse was Got to Get You Into My Life, here we find it shifting to Maybe I'm Amazed. Saccharine kills, babies...

Send One Your Love—Stevie Wonder
This might be closer to Splenda than saccharine, but one thing's for sure-- it ain't real sugar.

Vision of Love—Mariah Carey
See, nothing says true love like melisma...

Just Once—James Ingram
NBC's Must See Thursdays, now with 15% more soul. If a Cosby sweater could sing, surely it would sing this...

In Your Eyes—Peter Gabriel
Really, it's everything that Lloyd Dobler was not supposed to be...

Woman in Love—Barbara Streisand
Time was when they put the Bee Gees in just about everything. Hell, most breakfast cereals were fortified with at least one Bee Gee back in the day. But still, it took a certain sort of mad brilliance to Bee-Gee up Babs. Between this and Guilty, I'll be damned if it didn't half work.

What, no True? Grade: C

I'm out of town on business tomorrow-- back on Thursday...

IS THIS A LASTING TREASURE?

Roots y'all.

It Hurts to be in Love—Gene Pitney
An uncharacteristic rocker from a FOMAK (Friend of Mick and Keef)...

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow—The Shirelles
I like how they slip by the censors on a sweet melody and a shoop the question: If we fuck tonight, what happens when the sun comes up?

Hushabye—The Mystics
Maybe there’s something here to set this apart from other white-boy doo-wop, but I confess I’m not hearing it.

(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons—Sam Cooke
OK, I’m slow dancing with myself now. That voice… that phrasing… that use of leading parens in the song title…

Sheila—Tommy Roe
It’s fascinating in retrospect to hear these once commercially viable artists at the moment before they were about to be rendered obsolete by The Beatles. It’s like walking through Herculaneum with a spray bottle and a fine brush…

I’m Ready—Fat Domino
The fat man, on the other hand, will not be rendered obsolete by anyone...

Rag Doll—The Four Seasons
Part of their success in America was surely due to the fact that they plied some pretty reactionary territory. Billy Joel lifted their implicit smarm, trebled it, and rode “I love you just the way you are” straight from his ex-wife to Christie,,,

Nicely done. Grade: B+

A FREE-FORM STYLE

Top 2 OMD Bands
1. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
2. Ozark Mountain Daredevils

And really, if not for Jackie Blue, it wouldn't even have been close.

Battling a bug today-- back on sat rad tomorrow...

CAN YOU IMAGINE NO LOVE, PRIDE, DEEP-FRIED CHICKEN

Pulse. It’s "the ‘90s and now," though I didn’t hit much “now.”
But man, is there some kind of thesis built into what I got of the 90’s…

Hard to Handle—The Black Crowes
Exhibit A, for example, is an ersatz R&B group who were most convincing when they aped the Stones, rather than when they aped the Stones progenitors. So Remedy, yes; Otis cover, no…

Run-Around—Blues Traveler
One of the many jam-bands that attempted to fill the void left by Jerry’s death. And here’s a parking lot in which to peddle your tie-dyes and hash pipes…

Hey Jealousy—Gin Blossoms
Baby, I’m ersatz again, thought it time I let you in…

Ironic—Alanis Morisette
I suppose I should reserve some manner of awe for such fine and well-cut stupidity. Observe: It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife…

Enjoy the Silence—Depeche Mode
Must you continue to taunt me, satellite radio?

Bad Day—Daniel Powter
Um, is this the snow-white kid in that Lance Henriksen movie? Because it sure sounds like it...

Closing Time—Semisonic
Semiliterate, semimeaningful, semimelodious, semishit, semibland, semicomatose, see my toes, see my nose, see my gin blossoms…

Drops of Jupiter—Train
And if you put Semisonic and Gin Blossoms in a blender and pureed until smooth and pinkish brown, this is the sludge with which you’d fill your ewer. The Wallflowers would be licking their lips waiting for you to pour it into their cups…

It’s pretty impressive how this simultaneously defines the decade and lies through its fucking teeth about it. Grade, for the sake of gumption: A+

SPLIT LIKE LIGHT REFRACTED

Three scary words: adult album rock.

Everybody Wake Up—Dave Matthews Band
Every decade gets the Depeche Mode it deserves. I'm looking at you '90s...

Don’t Get Me Wrong—The Pretenders
They had such a messy history, and were defined more by profligacy than prolificacy, but when Chrissie was on her game, they were almost without peer. This isn't quite Talk of the Town or Back on the Chain Gang, but it's still pretty sweet.

Hey Hey What Can I Do—Led Zeppelin
This is definitely in my Zep top five. My Zep top five:
1. Hot Dog
2. This
3. Communication Breakdown (instrumental track)
OK, so my top five only has two and a half...

Ballad of John and Yoko—The Beatles
Most folks, when they write a self-referential song, don't actually go that extra self-mythologizing mile. Who Are You doesn't crawl up Rog and Pete's ass. In a Big Country? Nah. Belle and Sebastian? Obliquely, at best. Clash City Rockers? Getting warmer, I suppose. But this shit is like Antmusic for navel gazers...

All the Way Home—Bruce Springsteen
From Devils and Dust, apparently. Sorry, that's the best I can do. Feel free to drop me a line if you know anything more...

Don’t You (Forget about Me)—Simple Minds
The former Mr. Hynde always seemed to have a hard time reconciling the fact that he didn't write the group's biggest American hit. It hurt to be a whore for John Hughes, I suppose, but it paid the rent. I'm sure they encore with it at numerous European festivals every summer these days...

Talk—Coldplay
Yellow was cute, in all its hoodie-on-the-beach earnestness, but I fail to see how the world needed anything more than that...

Grade: C+

SOMETHING MUST'VE HAPPENED OVER MANHATTAN

All Dolled Up is a DVD of pixelvision-quality film of the New York Dolls from back in the '70s, and it's like having footage of Moses on the mount. If Moses was a bunch of snotty assholes from Queens/Staten Island, that is. In, um, fishnets. And troweled-on makeup.

Needless to say, it's essential.

Back on the satellite tomorrow...

COCA LEAVES AND PEARLS

Deeper cuts from classic rock legends. And how deep do the deeper cuts cut?

Cortez the Killer—Neil Young
Neil playing that long, slow river of a guitar. Paisley skirts twirl, puka shells gently grind, and I grow bored…

Bodhisattva—Steely Dan
These boys is smart, so their Orientalism is sly and knowing-- their Japan is a varnish before it’s a country, their China is a plate before it’s a place on a map.

Me and the Boys—NRBQ
Some bands seem fated to live on the margins, and it’s often hard to figure why. What was it with NRBQ? Bad timing? Lack of sex appeal?

Everything’s Coming Our Way—Santana
Sorry, I’m still thinking about NRBQ. And fortunately, this is not at all distracting…

Leave It—Yes
OK, this chipmunkery is distracting. Goodbye goodbye goodbye bad, goodbye goodbye goodbye bad…

White Punks on Dope—The Tubes
Sometimes even the unremittingly obnoxious can deliver the goods, whether by luck or by design. And as statements of upper middle class ennui go, “Other dudes are living in the ghetto/But born in Pacific Heights don’t seem much betto” is OK by me.

Some unexpected twists and turns here. Grade: B

WORKIN' ON MYSTERIES WITHOUT ANY CLUES

Up next is Classic Rewind, classic rock from the cassette years, or so it says here...

I Want You to Want Me (Live)—Cheap Trick
This was one of the soundtracks to the summer of '79. I fell asleep on the beach with this echoing off the dunes, and burned my pasty ass to a crisp. Spent a week in bed, nearly naked, recovering, and read the novelization of Alien.

Night Moves—Bob Seger
At the midpoint between Detroit rocker and turd, we find the genus arena-friendly rocker. And this is one of its finest products. Littered with lyrics that I misheard back in the day. “We weren't in love, oh no far from it”? Yeah, I got “We were in love, holdin' on the fire front”...

Hold the Line—Toto
We're not in Kansas anymore. Or wait, maybe we are. Or is it Boston?

Handle with Care—Traveling Wilburys
See the gratuitous swipe at Jeff Lynne from a previous post.

Tom Sawyer—Rush
Rush fans were cute. They didn't get in your face. Their hearts were in the right place. They had really ugly pets. They liked to play pool. They lifted weights in front of a full-length mirror and cursed their reflection between reps...

Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)—Pink Floyd
I can understand liking Barrett Floyd, I can understand digging Dark Side Floyd. But The Wall Floyd? No. The Wall hates humanity, and that sucks.

Simply Irresistible—Robert Palmer
I would've bought Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley, or Bad Case of Loving You, or Johnny and Mary, or Looking for Clues, but this? This seems to deviate from the mission of this particular channel.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap—AC/DC
Less cock rocking, and more AC/DC. I mean, just go ahead and parse that last verse...

Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)—Billy Joel
Heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack. Ick ick ick ick ick.

Grade: C

HAVE ANOTHER HIT

Classic Vinyl, wherein the classic rock sounds of the '60s and '70s conspire to illustrate just what a dumbass I am. Damn you, classic rock sounds of the '60s and '70s. Damn you to hell.

All Right Now-- Free
Hating this would be like hating a big slobbering puppy that's tripping all over itself trying to lick your face. It might be a little irksome, it might be a little gross, but you'd be a churl to scorn it...

25 or 6 to 4 –Chicago
Here's my first dim moment on the playlist. It was only within the last five years or so, after having been exposed to this for a lifetime, that I discovered what the title means. I always figured it was just a bunch of jazz-rock hippies sitting cross-legged on the floor, so stoned that they were riffing random numbers. I believe it was my friend Tom who pointed out that they are referring to the time. So, more properly, 25 or 26 to 4, or even better, 3:35 or 3:34. OK, you know what? Chicago deserves at least some of the blame here...

Fresh Air-- Quicksilver Messenger Service
Mercurial.

Love Me Two Times-- The Doors
We've been down this road before...

Bad Moon Rising-- CCR
It's built on such a Jimmy-crack-corn foundation that it's easy to miss just how foreboding it really is. It's like Gimme Shelter at a hoedown...

Sugar Mountain-- Neil Young
I like Neil Young. Some of my best friends are Neil Young. But I always found this to be an irritant. Hearing it for the first time in a long time, though, I'm surprised it's not as cloying as my memory had it pegged...

Right Place, Wrong Time-- Dr. John
Seems more like wrong place, right time. This is the least aged piece in the survey. You go, Mac Rebennack!

Low Spark of High Heeled Boys-- Traffic
Shining dumbass moment number 2. I thought this DJ bathroom break was super freaky, what with these boys in their high heels and all. Then about 10 years ago my friend Roger pointed out that “high heeled” was more likely what we'd call “well heeled” in America, that is, moneyed...

Grade: C+

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…

SAYONARA

Hell’s Ditch.

When it is not simply uninspired, it’s just unremittingly ugly, and to no good end.

Syllables gurgle and drown at the back of Shane’s throat, in a welter of slurs and elision.

Where earlier efforts had seemed a reflected impression of degraded circumstance, the songs here shoot straight through a degraded heart.

I have it in me to excoriate this thing at great length, but I don't have it in me...

THE CRUX OF LIFE’S PHILOSOPHIES

For years I could not track down Red Roses for Me on cassette.

These were the pre-Web days, and I tramped from brick-and-mortar to mortar-and-brick in search of the tightly wound relic, to no avail…

So I was left to wonder what Red Roses was really like, tantalized by the fact that there was a Pogues album out there somewhere that I had never heard.

I finally found a copy on a trip to Boston with my future wife.

Just about all I remember from that trip is finding Red Roses, digging Red Roses, and starting to cede a good portion of my heart to a woman I had been dating for six months…

It was a damn fine trip.

IT'S THE SAME WHEREVER YOU GO

Now seems like a good time to say Peace and Love...

The overall spirit of the album is indicated by the bantamweight pug on the cover, posing bareknuckled and slightly hunched in front of a dirty gym wall, with PEACE and LOVE tattooed across his fingers.

For what it’s worth, I call him Tommy.

There is plenty of fine non-Shane material here. Gridlock rollicks. Misty Morning, Albert Bridge brings the strings. Blue Heaven choogles well enough to have earned some medium rotation at the local alt-rock station back in ’89. Lorelai longs. Gartloney Rats spins until it’s dizzy.

So what did Shane bring to the proceedings? Well, White City showed he still had the pith and vinegar, and trumped Townsend’s concept album with a single line: “And it’s just another bloody rainy day.”

Cotton Fields is autopilot stuff, notable mostly for revisiting the electroshock of Shane’s youth and namedropping producer Steve Lillywhite. Down All the Days is almost... there..., but not quite. USA has some epic percussion rattling all over the place, and some nice imagery doing about the same. Boat Train saddens me.

And London You’re a Lady leaves us with Shane’s last great piece of poetry: “While Chinamen played cards and draughts/And knocked back Mickey Finns”…

GOBBLE GOBBLE HEY

Now seems like a good time to say Peace and Love...

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. See you on Monday.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT OLD SONG

The rampaging scourge of late 80s/early 90s pop was the "special remix" version, which took a previously recorded song from a group's canon and decked it out in shiny new togs in order to help flog a useless best-of comp.

The nadir of this particular genre was likely plumbed when the briefly reunited Police let Sting spray his smooth-jazz jizz du jour all over Don't Stand So Close To Me. Yuck.

The Pogues, however, actually got it right.

They recognized A Rainy Night in Soho for the diamond in the rough that it was, and they recut it to fix the flaws.

The most obvious of these flaws is the fact the original dulls the impact of this verse:

"Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there's a light I hold before me
You're the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams"

For some odd reason, the original does not peak with this, but rather goes into the bridge following this verse and then comes back around and repeats the verse.

But the remix realizes that the song is building to this moment thematically and narratively, and puts it in its rightful place.

And where the original seemed a bit embarassed by its sentimentality, the remix embraces its inner schmaltz and lets us have a nice cry...

THE WORMS CRAWL IN AND THE WORMS CRAWL OUT

If I Should Fall From Grace With God (or IISFFGWG, as the kids call it) is probably The Pogues strongest album as a band, but through all the tightness it is possible to hear Shane’s battered muse occasionally cry “Uncle.”

Nothing here rises quite to the level of The Body of an American or Sally MacLennane, but, to paraphrase Lou Reed, at this point Shane could shit other people’s diamonds.

So is Bottle of Smoke just willfully profane and chugged up as hell? Well, yeah, but then there’s this observation: “But the money still gleams in my hand like a light.”

And while Fairytale of New York has reached a kind of anti-standard status, if you look closely, the ache is there:

“I could’ve been someone,” he says.
“Well, so could anyone,” she shoots back.

People write entire novels/plays/operas trying to convey what’s in those two lines.

Birmingham Six is righteously pissed, and Lullaby of London is righteous. The Broad Majestic Shannon embraces Irish fiddle-faddle while simultaneously giving it the lie (“For it's stupid to laugh and it's useless to bawl/About a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball”).

The cracks were showing, sure, but in some ways they just lent a little extra character to the whole affair.

I’M A FREE-BORN MAN OF THE USA

Words again.

“The Cadillac stood by the house
And the yanks they were within
And the tinker boys they hissed advice
'Hot-wire her with a pin' “

As much as Shane liked to play that he didn’t care about fuck all, words like this are no accident.

Words like this make it all the sadder that he got ensnared by a mythology as pissant as the whole “bardic Irish drunk" thing.

Because to write a line like “the tinker boys they hissed advice” takes work.

Sober work— not in the dry sense, but in the sense of a serious sit-down approach to a craft.

A line that evocative and metric can only come from someone who gives a fuck.

Go listen to The Body of an American this weekend.

Go read it too…

A HUNGRY SOUND

My father died of cirrhosis at the age of 44. My brother died of the same at 33.

My alcohol intake is limited to an annual St. Patrick’s Day Guinness that I buy and occasionally neglect to drink.

This is just to say that my love of The Pogues was never fueled by a misguided romanticization of auld sod drunk blarney. Mostly it was the words.

I bought Rum, Sodomy and the Lash on cassette when it came out in 1985. The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn started out the album all stately and slow, and then suddenly shifted into this torrent of words, each bound to the next by phlegm and piss and wisdom and genius…

It took weeks for me to believe that Shane MacGowan had actually written the likes of Sally MacLennane. I was convinced that it had to have been drawn from some deep well, where it had steeped for ages, periodically bucketed out and improved by a generation’s poets:

“Well Jimmy played harmonica in the pub where I was born
He played it from the night time to the peaceful early morn
He soothed the souls of psychos and the men who had the horn
And they all looked very happy in the morning

“But Jimmy didn't like his place in this world of ours
Where the elephant man broke strong men's necks
When he'd had too many Powers
So sad to see the grieving of the people that he's leaving
And he took the road for God knows in the morning”

Billy’s Bones was the other MacGowan original that stood out, partly for its humor (I especially like that Billy knew an “Arsenal from Tottenham blue” and to start the Solomon Grundy-esque ending with “Have a Billy holiday” was pretty inspired), and partly for the way it manages to encapsulate The Pogues’ sense of hard-edged pathos:

“Now Billy's out there in the desert sun
And his mother cries when the morning comes
And there's mothers crying all over this world
For their poor dead darling boys and girls”

It helps to know that the last line there is spit out with a smirk.

This then was the stuff of life…

AMERICA’S BOY

I really hoped that Broadcast’s Tender Buttons would pull me into a new obsession.

The Noise Made by People had some moments of admirable melancholia, and weird forward/backward sonics. It dragged a bit in spots, but overall it was several ticks above simply distracting.

I had high expectations for Ha Ha Sound, and they were met. The sonics remained weird, in a different, percussive way, and the songs were more illuminated. This was lushness with hard corners…

So when Tender Buttons rolled around, I was ripe for the plucking. But while I find it to be a logical evolution from Ha Ha Sound, there is a clinical air that is keeping me at bay. And secretly I wonder if the cover— a mirror close-up of singer Trish— is a bit of a cry for help.

I suppose a move from Stereolab to Broadcast would’ve been pretty lateral, in the end. Not like the last shift, from The Pogues to Stereolab.

Ah, The Pogues. Let me tell you a little about The Pogues…

HOLD YR TERROR CLOSE

If you can't extract any joy from The Go! Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike, I'd say your joy-extracting abilities are well-nigh fucked.

That being said, I don't think there's room in my life for more than one of these, so I'm not necessarily planning a long-term relationship. Go ahead and surprise me Team...

TOO AULD TO RAWK AND ROLL

Back from vacation, I’ll ease in by shooting some fish in a barrel.

There was an amusing story in the Washington Post this morning about today’s teens and their newfound love of Classic Rock.

Some kids from TJ HS started a club called the Classic Rock Appreciation Society, with no apparent indication that the resulting acronym is meant to be ironic…

Ian Anderson got wind of this and flamingo hopped his way over to the school when he was in town playing a supermarket opening. He regaled the children with some of his fluttery flutery, and told a minstrel’s tale. Yea, verily.

There’s a priceless quote in the story by one Charles Cross:

"But maybe the ultimate offense -- the new, best way to offend your parents -- is to listen to the music they were embarrassed to listen to. Like Jethro Tull.”

Crap, does this mean my kids are going to subject me to a steady diet of Stone Temple Pilots ten years from now? Because I assure you, that will really piss me off...

IT'S SELF-LOCKING

If your X IQ does not go beyond the totally appropriate cover of Breathless and/or the totally inappropriate cover of Wild Thing, I implore you to dig deeper.

I'd suggest that you download Under the Big Black Sun for starters. The album of the same name was informed in part by the death of Exene's sister Mary, and this particular song is a dizzying conflation of adultery, death, and Jesus:

"If it isn't men it's death
It's the same old testament
At the cross her station keeping
Stood the mournful mother weeping
Where my man extended hung
Driven with nails to wood"

Then this passage hits me like a sucker punch, I think because it seems so painfully verite:

"The sly brown fox pulled up a glass
Pulled up a chair
And yanked out my hair
When I tried to sit I fell down
When I woke up he was gone"

And then the ending is just so damn existentially pithy:

"The man is gone, Mary's dead
Good morning midnight"

The rest of the album is pretty sweet too, but this song comes from another planet.

I'm vacation-bound, so no posts for a week or so. Enjoy your X...

LETTERS

In honor of day 3 of my conference, and the attendant alphabet soup being ladled out 'til dusk, I give you the best strictly alphanumeric bands ever. No room for after-the-fact acronyms (or Electric Light Orchestra, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer so would've dominated) or interfering articles (The B-52s are grounded). I'm a reasonable man, so I will let a little stray punctuation slip by...

5.
AC/DC

4.
XTC

3.
U2

2.
R.E.M.

1.
X


See, I always preferred Sandy Koufax to Phil Niekro. I'll take five years of white-hot shit over 25 years of floating knucklers to a .537 winning percentage any day...

WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

In the post 9/11 chill, the concept of "disaster recovery" gained serious traction. Providing businesses with a fallover operational model in the face of cataclysm became a growth industry.

All things considered, disaster recovery falls about dead center between corporate forethought and throwing money down a hole.

I was at a conference today, and it appears that the linguistic shift is on, with movement afoot to rename the concept "business continuity plan."

I guess they're hoping for some of the same magic The Bangs rang up when they became The Bangles, or when Southern Death Cult became Death Cult became The Cult...

NOW WITH 50% MORE NOUGATY GOODNESS!

Watching my son puke up a small package of M&Ms, half a mini Milky Way, and a single Milk Dud last night got me thinking about candy songs. So now, without any further filigree: Best. Candy. Songs. Ever.

5. (tie)
Candy Girl, New Edition
The Candy Man, Sammy Davis, Jr.

4. (tie)
Some Candy Talking, Jesus and Mary Chain
Candy's Room, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

3.
Candy-O, The Cars

2.
Candy, Iggy Pop/Kate Pierson

1.
I Want Candy, The Strangeloves and Bow Wow Wow


Number 1 slips by Iggy and Kate on the combined strength of its two primary versions, which perhaps isn't fair... but who ever said candy was fair? The Strangeloves rock an Eric von Zipper wetsuit dream, while Bow Wow Wow richocets Burundi beats all over the beach.