WE LOVE YOU P5!

I love this dagblasted video...


Pizzicato Five-- Twiggy, Twiggy

WHAT WOULD I DO TO BELIEVE?

So here I sit, a committed agnostic. And yet, I am drawn to faith...

The woman I love is a devout and lifelong Buddhist, and I am warmed to see my children kneel before her altar and chant.

My mother, after many years in retrograde, has returned to the very church that I abandoned on that long-ago Christmas Eve, and I find myself encouraging her to attend.

And as long as they do not proselytize too aggressively, I connect very well with folks like Sufjan and Stuart Murdoch. Committed Christians.

I guess that the mystery inside me never truly died away...

ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH

The last time I attended a church service was the Christmas Eve when I was 15.

It was the first time that I recall incense being incorporated into the ceremony. The priest slathered it on until the elderly portion of the congregation was clasping wrinkled silk handkerchiefs to their collective noses. The elongated vowels of Gloria in Excelsis Deo competed with brisk, spirited coughing.

It all seemed so absurd at that moment, in the special unvarnished way that things seem absurd when you’re 15.

I excused myself from my mother’s side and slipped out the front door. I walked the mile and a half home in a damp cool midnight, with still-white streetlamps throwing large dots of light across the periodic darkness. It was peaceful— Christmas Eve peaceful— and all I heard was the faint hum of mystery dying inside me...

CUT LOOSE LIKE A DEUCE

A little Friday rock math...

Oh! Sweet Nuthin' + Blinded By the Light = How a Resurrection Really Feels

TONIGHT I’M GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 199

It’s the Sliced Tongue 200th Post Gala Black Tie Celebration!

Now without further editorial ado, here are the best 10 and worst 10 posts to date...

BEST
August 12, 2005

September 8, 2005

September 16, 2005

October 7, 2005

January 26, 2006

March 3, 2006

March 8, 2006

May 22, 2006

May 24, 2006

June 12, 2006

WORST
August 3, 2006

September 22, 2006

October 3, 2006

November 2, 2006

February 6, 2006

February 7, 2006

February 17, 2006

March 30, 2006

April 17, 2006

May 12, 2006

I AIN’T GOT NO PAPERS ON MYSELF

I periodically spin on my chair to open a drawer and catch my eye wandering out of my sixth-floor window to the green below, where more and more people gather in shirt sleeves to eat, smoke, sun, and gab.

For the last couple of days I’ve played nothing but the Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim CD, in an effort to bring a little outdoors indoors...

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

I spent a couple of hours yesterday scouring the perimeter of the Wolf Trap parking lot, hunting for bottle caps with my three-year old son.

We got a good three-year old’s handful, some shiny and pristine, some rusted, nicked, and flattened.

At one point, I picked up a discarded ticket stub from the New Cars/Blondie Road Rage Tour. I showed it to my son, who threw it on the ground with quick disdain.

“That’s not a bottle cap, silly!”

Rock on, Sebastian. Rock the fuck on...

LITTLE T&A

OK, I have to confess that I'm not above tittering at the fact that El Perro del Mar is the nom de rock of someone named Sarah Assbring.

Damn, who am I kidding-- I'm not even above tittering at the word “tittering”...

BECAUSE THE NIGHT

I got home on Monday a little after midnight, in time to see Larry play on national TV.

Sweet.

But damn, The Tonight Show sucks so hard it's in real danger of turning itself inside out.

Good to be back...

CAPTAIN TRIPS

A new-music fix on the way, courtesy of Newbury Comics, and the raves of brain coral: Art Brut and Danielson.

I really like what I've heard of Art Brut, and I'm getting over my concerns that they're a novelty act.

Haven't heard any of of the Danielson Famile stuff, so my mind is wide open.

I ordered Eno's Music for Airports too. Into every life a little ambience must fall...

I have a business trip following the upcoming holiday, so I won't be posting for a while. What say we meet back here around about June 7th?

Peace.

DAD ROCK

The 80s
He might be a father,
But he sure ain't a dad...
-Androgynous, The Replacements

The 90s
I tried hard to have a father,
But instead I had a dad
-Serve the Servants, Nirvana

Did the 00s get this shit sorted yet?

UMBILICAL NOOSE

Chances are that your copy of In Utero is sitting on a shelf somewhere, the walls between the pits of data wearing away slowly. It will one day be a mirror that makes no sound.

I pulled my copy out a couple of nights ago, and listened from start to finish.

And there it was again. The 18th Century repulsion at the physicality of birth, and the 19th Century horror at being born.

And, oh, the 20th Century.

Really, In Utero is already a mirror that makes no sound...

FIFTY ACORNS TIED IN A SACK

The five worst Beatle Number ones.

Which I realize is akin to picking the five worst $100 bills from a stack of $100 bills.

But slag I must…

5. Yesterday
The slow and “serious” song that made it safe for the bluebloods and bluehairs to indulge in a bit of Beatles.

4. The Long and Winding Road
Slathered in strings and Spector's waning relevancy. And frankly, long and winding roads make me carsick...

3. Lady Madonna
Eleanor Rigby done flippantly.

2. The Ballad of John and Yoko
Sorry, but I just can't find a reason to give a measurable fuck. Presaged martyrdom? Yawn. Dawning of the modern cult of celebrity? Strettttch. Bed-inism? Bagism? Onanism? Scratch scratch scratch...

1. Let it Be
These choices make me look like a confirmed balladophobe, but I swear that's not the case. I just don't like them when they're as cloying and unctuous as this...

ONCE THERE WAS A WAY TO GET BACK HOMEWARD

I entered a long weekend distracted and kind of disjointed. The mingled aroma of the past, present, and future was swirling around me, encouraging a fog.

As I set out to drive my daughter to what was ultimately the wrong dojo for her white-belt test, She Loves You came on the radio. Alvin and the Chipmunks’ version.

I heard a giggle rise up from the backseat. “I know this song!” my daughter chirped. My head began to bob back and forth, and I started to sing along in my best approximation of a heliumated Beatle.

We laughed together through two right turns and the length of a stoplight.

Later that same day, as we prepared for her birthday party, I heard All You Need is Love.

And I remembered a moment when I was driving with my mother back from Mt. Sinai Hospital, where my brother laid in ICU recovering from a liver transplant.

I remembered how we listened to the same song on that long quiet drive, and how our eyes met when we heard the line “No one you can save that can’t be saved.”

I remembered how I said to her in a near whisper, “I know. I know.”

I remembered that this same day full of dojos and birthday parties would have been my brother’s 45th birthday.

Happy Birthday Jeff. Happy Birthday…

I DON'T KNOW

The whole thing essentially blew apart with Let It Be, and, hell, have you ever seen a balloon unpop? That should have been The End.

So Abbey Road was a grace note.

It's a very Paul album for certain, but what I really like about it is the fact that two of the best songs belong to George.

Here Comes the Sun is damn near rapturous, and Something is the confusion of longing made melodious.

Peace to you George...

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY

Though their roads diverged, John and Paul’s one commonality was that they each found a kindred soul to share their respective journeys.

Paul came to desire a country idyll unburdened by heavy thought, and he and Linda made together a green world of simple pop and continued commercial success.

John’s chosen avenue was protest, politics, and primal scream, while privately he invested in a course of aggressive self-medication. He and Yoko stumbled through the 70s and emerged ready to face the challenges of a new decade.

Of course, both of these love stories ended sadly, as love stories will by simply ending…

THE WORD

Top 5 favorite Beatles' lyrics

5.
Nothing's gonna change my world
Across the Universe

4.
The movement you need is on your shoulder
Hey Jude

3.
Waits at the window, wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Eleanor Rigby

2.
Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun,
If the sun don’t come, you get a tan from
Standing in the English rain
I Am the Walrus

1.
No one I think is in my tree
Strawberry Fields Forever

HELLO, HELLO

My wife wanted to hear The Beatles.

Familiar Beatles, so I grabbed 1...

A couple of songs in, she asked a question.

“Did you ever wish you could see The Beatles in concert?”

Before I knew it, the geek in me was yammering on about screaming teenyboppers, eroding musicianship, 1966, blah, blah, blah, yeah, yeah, yeah...

But what she was really asking me about was magic.

Ineffability.

So dear, here is my delayed response: Yes.

All this week-- random thoughts on The Beatles...

MAN IN THE BOX

OK, so me and Doonesbury go way back.

But even a generous suspension of disbelief will not allow me to accept that uber-genius Alex is now choosing between attending her pick of prestigious schools or... taking a year off to follow “influential Seattle band” Alice in Chains on tour.

Alice in Chains? Is this really what the uber-genius kids are grooving on these days? So much so that they don't even care that the singer's been dead for five years, and had chalked up a good five years of heroin-induced inactivity before that?

Um, Garry, 1994 called-- it's looking for its relevancy...

NO MORE WILL MY GREEN SEA GO TURN A DEEPER BLUE

The last time I heard my brother's voice was a couple of days after he was gone.

There was nothing mystical about it. My mother mentioned that his answering machine was still turned on, so I called to listen to the recording.

It was a pretty standard greeting, except for the fact that Paint It, Black was playing conspicuously in the background.

I said "Goodbye" before the beep and I did not leave a message...

ALMOST FAMOUS

So You Are a Star-- The Hudson Brothers

Return with me if you will to the land of Suck, where we intrepid travelers will find the Hudson Brothers, catching a quick shave and splashing on some Hai Karate…

These guys actually had their own TV show once upon a time, genus Varietius crapus maximus, and one of them went on to marry Goldie Hawn and breed the Kate that we all know and love.

This one finds them making odd Mind Games type Lennon noises. There’s a hint of ELO in there too.

Gaze in awe, friends, but don’t get too close—you might get some Suck on you…

LOVER'S LANE

For years I've kept The Go-Betweens in reserve.

I always figured that during some fallow point to come, I would build the relationship, and that it would probably turn out to be strong and lasting.

And that has not changed.

But in a strange sense I feel like I have betrayed them.

Grant McLennan died over the weekend, and I am now one extra number that never showed up in his ledger...

MAKIN' IT

It's not often that I get to reference Mr. Rogers, Stuart Smalley, and David Naughton in the same day, let alone in the service of describing a single individual.

So thanks for the opportunity, vaguely unsettling New Age-inflected Health and Wellness seminar guy...

THIS IS YOUR CORRESPONDENT, RUNNING OUT OF TAPE

Eisenhower Avenue has been stripped of news vans, save for a lone Fox truck that lingers on, agitating for an execution...

WE WANT TO DO WHAT WE WANT FOREVER

Last night I needed to hear Room With a View by Let's Active.

I never picked up the CD pairing of Afoot and Cypress, and my cassette copy of Afoot, if indeed it still exists, is hugging the corner of some box that I haven't unpacked in at least a couple of moves.

The best that iTunes could offer was a version by Marti Jones from some tribute album populated by the likes of Failed Energy Giants and The Trolleyvox (yeah, me neither).

I dug up one or two Mitch Easter fansites, but no one seemed to have any media files on offer.

I took a slight right turn and headed to YouTube, thinking maybe I could at least see that Every Word Means No video with the puppy dogs. No dice.

Put on my trenchcoat and searched Morpheus as a last resort, and didn't get a single hit. Not even any similarly named porn...

In the end, my fix was a 29 second sample from Amazon.

Sigh.

MOLLUSK HATCHET

I choose to believe that the image on p. 30 of this month's Wired is of a whelk shell.

Because, you know, I must...

YOU DID IT AGAIN

There's a picture of me in my high school yearbook with Adam Ant face paint and rings of sprayed color encircling what looks like a helmet of hair.

Thanks to the tender mercies of cropped photos, there is no official record of the leopard-skin tights I wore the same day...

Somewhere also there is a video of me at a Sweet 16, wearing the dirty cap from a standing ashtray on my head, miming Whip It with a couple of friends.

So I can imagine how Al Jourgensen feels about the video for Revenge...

NOW, THAT SIDE WAS MADE FOR YOU AND ME!

My daughter is an American citizen and a Japanese citizen.

When she comes home from school singing the Star Stangled Banner or America the Beautiful, I take comfort that the reverberating militancy and Manifest Destiny will be counterbalanced by Japanese folk songs about raccoons, kindly bears, and magic pockets. Or something.

But when she comes home singing God Bless the USA, that scary-bad piece of Reagan-era tripe by Lee Greenwood? Cut that shit out, public school system. Just cut that fucking shit out…

I SAW A MAN HOLD A CHICKEN TO HIS HEAD

I work right around the corner from where the Zacarias Moussaoui trial is being held.

Every night I drive past the media trucks lining Eisenhower Avenue, with their random assemblage of antennas and satellite dishes poking at the dry air in search of a signal.

This morning I sat in traffic sandwiched between two sparkling black Mercedes-Benz SUVs, the exhaust from my $3-per-gallon gas mingling with theirs.

And with the courthouse in plain view, I heard The Mekons again: "Vengeance is not ours, it belongs to those/Who seek to destroy us/How much more is there left to lose?"

I neared the parking garage, and yielded to a car with an oval "W" bumper sticker, allowing it to enter ahead of me.

When I reached my assigned parking spot, I found a disoriented VW sitting there. The license plate read NY1DC, and carried the custom "Fight Terrorism" logo of the World Trade Center surrounded by the Pentagon.

It was a pretty confusing morning...

ICE CREAM FOR CROW

Someone burned me a copy of Pour Down Like Silver by Richard and Linda Thompson, which made me realize that Richard Thompson is one of my many musical blind spots. I don't think I've heard more than two songs total from him and all his various iterations.

Captain Beefheart's another one.

And forgive me, but I've never actually owned a Stooges album.

It feels so good to come clean...

HE AIN'T HEAVY

Nature equipped me with a brother whose temperament was nothing like my own.

We did not see eye to eye on anything, until I grew enough so that we saw eye to eye literally, at which point we forged a hard-won agreement that he would never again push me around.

Around this same time, I walked into the basement of a new friend, and my eyes were drawn to a room on the left at the bottom of the stairs, which looked to me for all the world like Aladdin’s cave.

The floor was covered with copies of Musician, Rolling Stone, and The Village Voice, to the point where actual floor was really just a rumor. The bookshelves were thick with Doonesbury compilations and music books, and charged with a couple of mini Realistic speakers.

This was Larry’s room. He was my friend’s older brother.

Once he adjusted to my unkempt hair and my occasionally lidded eyes, Larry and I bonded rather quickly over our shared love of music, shared sense of humor, and shared sardonic tilt.

He was a professional drummer, and at the time he was also the artist behind the ads for the Lone Star Café that appeared in the Voice each week.

He played with bluegrass bands, zydeco bands, you name it. He even spent several years playing with Tony Williams of the original Platters.

Larry was the one who sent me the music that became Spanish Wings, and had the infinite grace and patience to wade through all my private mutterings for many years.

Larry has a new gig now, and to say I’m proud does not do my real emotions justice.

If you happen to catch Bruce Springsteen playing out or on TV in support of his new disc, take some time to take note of the man in the hat on the drum riser, the man helping to lend the perfect beat to a regular hoedown of a hootenanny.

That man on the riser is Larry.

That man is my brother.

WUNNERFUL

Turns out that Blue Velvet was originally published by... The Welk Music Group.

There but for the grace of an aitch...

WARMER THAN MAY

The only song I sang out loud this weekend was Blue Velvet.

And that was just because my kids were playing with these reusable Mr. Potato Head body-part stickers, and my daughter affixed a big old ear to the green grass section of a Winnie the Pooh tapestry that is hanging in my son’s room.

So it was a natural.

On the agenda this week: More singing out loud…

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+