MEET A BEATLE

My niece took a field trip down here to DC a few weeks back, and she ran into this guy out riding his bike...

When I was a kid, all I ever saw on my field trips was stuff like the back room of the Waldbaum's butcher shop.

Which leads us to this Reese's Peanut Butter Cup moment:

UNDERSTANDS ME WHEN I'M FALLING DOWN

Name me a musical archeological dig that was ever more fruitful than the Velvet Underground's VU.

A dozen years after their implosion it was both an illustration of their enduring brilliance and a demonstration of how thoroughly Lou Reed could lose the essential plot.

For evidence, look no further than the VU version of She's My Best Friend and the solo version that showed up on Sally Can't Dance.

One will make you weep, and the other will make you cry...

I'LL GIVE YOU A MAN WHO WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD

We watched The Spy Next Door for movie night this past weekend.

It's a Jackie Chan family film in which he plays a Chinese spy on loan to the CIA. He is deep undercover as a nebbishy suburban pen salesman. He's dating the divorcee next door, who has two kids and a step kid. The kids all hate Jackie Chan because he's such a square. Little do they know, amiright amiright?

Anyway, the truly surreal aspect of the movie is that it turns on the plot conceit of having the nerdy middle-school son attempt to download a “rare” concert by the early 80s British hardcore band GBH. You see, having this “rare” (and there are those pesky quotation marks again) concert is supposed to be currency with the mouth-breathing bullies who make our young protagonist's life a wedgie-tinged hell.

Well, it turns out that the GBH file is actually an encrypted Russian file, and not an early 80s British hardcore concert. So of course the bullies are enraged. Atomic wedgies ensue.

But here we get our first hint that Jackie Chan is something cool. He comes through for the nerdy boy and burns him a CD of the “rare” Iggy Pop/David Bowie Shanghai concert that all the middle-school bullies are mad for these days.

And how'd he get a hold of it?

He was there, motherfucker. He was there...

NEVER TOOK NO SHIT FROM NO ONE

There it was in my mailbox. A request from a long-ago friend to write a letter to the judge who is preparing to sentence him to prison.

Looks like it will be 12-18 months, and I suppose it's standard practice for lawyers to solicit letters speaking to the character of the accused, in an effort to draw the shorter end of that sentencing range.

So what to do? Well, if you have a stubborn Irish belief in the concept of redemption, you consider writing the letter.

Aw hell, who I am kidding? I wrote it at lunch today...

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this letter to speak briefly about my relationship with X.

X and I became friends when we were both 14 years old. X at that young age was distinguished by his expansive heart and his abundant generosity.

I had lost my father three years prior to becoming friends with X, and my family was in a financially vulnerable state. Unbidden, X would pay for the slices of pizza I sometimes couldn’t afford, or help cover the cost of movie tickets that my summer job would not allow.

I recall in particular the car stereo that had been given to him by an uncle who worked in the electronics business, which X gave to me as a gift when I was 14. This act of largesse was the essence of X: the basic impulse was noble and good, if a bit impractical (I was at that point a few years away from even having a driver’s license). The stereo sat on my bookshelf in its box untouched, a dusty symbol of the type of friend I hope everyone has been lucky enough to have at that age.

My conscience requires me to note that X and I have not been in close contact for over 20 years now. He has made me aware of his current situation, and it has taken me back to that 14-year-old boy. He was impetuous, impractical, and impish. He was generous, kind, and fiercely loyal to those he loved. Even separated as we are by years and miles and circumstances, I trust in my heart that X is still all of those things.

It is my hope that the resolution of the current situation will come with its necessary lessons, but allow X to keep intact the abiding spirit of my 14-year-old friend.

ET CETERA

Just back from a week in Chicago, where I found myself explaining post-rock to a table of people who didn't give a toss. I have got to work on my dinner-conversation skills.

I am going to burn a copy of Millions Now Living Will Never Die for one lucky winner...

PLEASE RELEASE ME

Lots of comfort food on the way this year...

LCD Soundsystem, This is Happening
Happened already. I bought it, but I haven't listened yet. I'm sure it's yummy.

M.I.A., Maya
Watch yourself, gingers.

Panda Bear, Tomboy
Yes!

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
This comes out in August, but if the shitilicious first single is any indication, I suspect they really did shoot their wad with Funeral.

Belle and Sebastian, TBD
DAR Constitution Hall in October? OK, I'll be there.

of Montreal, False Priest
Pretty sure this is still on tap for the fall. So... yay.

Stereolab, Not Music
This is the second half of the Chemical Chords sessions. I'm sure the Lab in their grave will continue to drop music Tupac style...

PHISH

Mother Nature took the brown acid at Woodstock...

IF YOU BELIEVED THEY PUT A MAN ON THE MOON

OK, first there was this.

And now this:

The Mets just completed a three-game sweep of the first-place Phillies, tossing shutouts in all three games. This is something the Mets have done once before, against... you guessed it... the Phillies, in... wait for it... 1969.

Again, just saying is all...

FLICK TO KICK

I realized today that I have two songs with the word "Subbuteo" in the lyrics: All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit by Half Man Half Biscuit, and My Perfect Cousin by The Undertones.

Not sure if I've cornered the market yet: drop me a line if you know of another.

WE WON'T BE SEARCHIN' ANYMORE

Word of the day:

exLostion (n): the quality of langour that attends on a Monday after having stayed up until 11:30 on a Sunday to watch the series finale of a beloved show. (See also, Sopranorific.)

MAKE EVERY SONG YOUR FAVORITE TUNE

OK, so I worked through my hissy fit, and decided to go ahead and buy the 3 genuine alternate Exile tracks: Loving Cup, Soul Survivor, and Good Time Women (protozoan Tumbling Dice).

So now when my Amazon package with the new LCD Soundsystem and Janelle Monae shows up, I can just get on with my life...

DON'T NEED NO JEWELS IN MY CROWN

Exile on Main Street didn't really make much sense to me until I was 18 or 19.

But it's been with me-- and vice versa-- ever since.

Of course I was thrilled when I heard that the Stones were compiling a “deluxe” version.

Now, I'm not enough of a trainspotter to go chasing after outtakes and such, but I'd certainly be a willing consumer of Exile-era flotsam if it showed up on a silver platter.

And if the Beatles could squeeze three double-disc anthologies out of their archives, surely the Stones could support at least one disc's worth of interesting 1971-2 material.

But the Stones being the Stones, they apparently decided we couldn't handle the rough stuff, so they went and added new vocals and such to a bunch of the old tracks.

And again their legacy is ill served.

Well, that's $20 that will stay in my pocket, at least...

ARC OF A HOLY DIVER

To us dwellers outside the gates of Heavy Metal, Ronnie James Dio means Holy Diver.

Plus, we know he was a replacement for Ozzy in Black Sabbath. But we only know this because we once had friends on the inside...

So yeah, it's a reductive view, but it's the best I can do.

RIP, RJD...

PROUD TO BE A PART OF THIS NUMBER

Saw The Doors Soundstage performances last night. These have been out on DVD for years, but I’m long past the point of spending money on The Doors.

Still, it was an interesting watch.

The first footage was from 1967, before Light My Fire blew up. They performed The End in front of a group of slightly baffled teens and twenties.

The next clip was When the Music’s Over from 1968. Even though there was no audience, Jim played to the camera with that reptilian charisma he had, leather panting and lip licking for a solid 10 minutes.

The last segment was the PBS footage from 1969. This was post Miami, and feels like it. Jim seems drunk, disinterested, and demeaned as he works his way through some old stuff and inconsequential new tunes (Tell All the People, Wishful Sinful).

But he snaps to life about halfway through The Soft Parade, and it’s like seeing a jet fly with one engine out…

THE TIME TO HESITATE IS THROUGH

Used to be that unless you were Like a Rolling Stone or Hey Jude, you were cut down to 3 minutes for a 45. No need to prattle on with your moon/June/spoonisms for 7 minutes. Hence, this:



This logic prevailed into the video age. So unless you were Thriller...

Hence, Stereolab made a video of the single version of Jenny Ondioline, and not the 18 minute album version. After all, 18 minutes is 15% of 120 minutes.



So now that both radio and MTV are long dead, I find this hard to explain. Titus Andronicus goes and makes a 3 minute single/video out of a 7 minute track...

THIS GREAT BIG WORLD

When I look for a song that best demonstrates the genius of the Beach Boys, I tend to land on one I don’t actually like very much: California Girls.

First the bad stuff: it’s callow, insipid, and it’s got too much Mike Love by a mile. But then…

The great early Beach Boys songs are additive-- they accrete and grow, melodically and in their narratives. And by this measure, California Girls is a great early Beach Boys' song.

The first verse is spare: Love’s vocal, a bouncy little keyboard line, and a discreet rhythm section. The lyrics are descriptive, observational: East Coast girls are hip, Southern girls are knock outs, Midwest farmer's daughters make you feel alright, and Northern girls keep their boyfriends warm.

Then comes the chorus, which like many Beach Boys' choruses might cloy, were it not for the activity and temporal growth happening in the verses.

The second (and last) verse kicks in, and the drums are perkier. Backing vocals have been added, first smooth and steady, and then contrapuntal (oo-wa-oo-wa-oo-wa)-- the effect is one of pure forward motion. Likewise the lyrics, which pick up initially where the first verse left off, and then make a crucial shift from simply cataloguing to catapulting-- a shift to action: “I couldn't wait to get back in the states [oo-wa-oo-wa-oo-wa]... ”

It would probably sound ungenerous to call this a formula, but it really is the essence of great early Beach Boys' songs. It is why I Get Around and Don't Worry Baby are great songs. It is also why Help Me Rhonda and All Summer Long are merely very good songs-- they run, but they run in place.

Oh, and we'll talk more later about the prelude that opens California Girls, OK?

CONTROLLER SPHERE

How do I love thee, Hissing Fauna?

Enough that I tossed my dusty old 128 kbps files for some fresh 320 kbps files from the Polyvinyl site this past weekend.

Five bills, and they threw in a PDF of the CD art, and most of the Icons tracks.

And you can bet I'll be dropping cash on the whammo-blammo 10^th anniversary injectable edition come 2017...

KIKI DEE

Had lunch with an old friend today.

We shared some honey-vanilla Greek yogurt, and talked about wax museums and vertigo and death and phlox.

I need more lunches like this in my life...

LIVING FOR THE CITI

OK, the Mets just wrapped a 9-1 homestand, which they have done twice before: 1988 (won NL east, lost to Dodgers in playoffs) and 1969 (walked on moon, won World Series).

Just saying is all...

THEY REALLY THINK WE'RE GETTING OUT OF CONTROL

When I hear tea-party talk radio blasting from BMWs in the Capital Gymnastics parking lot, I am reminded of these wise words:

"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."

A NICE DAY TO START AGAIN

Marrying Taeko was such a solid idea that I did it twice, and today is the 17th anniversary of the second time.

And as Rog is my witness, I'd do it all over, twice and again and again.

My love to you, dear...

WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT?

Woke up this morning with Absolutely Sweet Marie in my head. It had the yips and eeyahs of the Scorchers version.

Not sure about the dream that put it there, but I've got no complaints...

COME ON NOW CHILD, WE'RE GONNA GO FOR A RIDE

Lucinda Williams was responsible for one of the most awkward nights of my life.

One afternoon back when Lana was around 4, we were playing in Pottery Barn Kids. Mind you, I don’t think I’ve ever bought so much as a pillowcase from a Pottery Barn, but they had a good selection of toys for freeloaders of fun like us.

Lana started playing with a little blonde girl, and Taeko struck up a conversation with the girl’s mom. I was floating around the edges of the store— a satellite, unaware.

When my orbit finally crossed theirs, I found them talking about Lucinda Williams. Car Wheels On a Gravel Road had been out for some months, and Taeko knew I was a fan of the album.

It turned out that the girl’s mom was the organizer of a benefit that Lucinda Williams was going to be playing that weekend at Old Westbury Gardens. She asked if I’d like to bring Lana, so that our daughters could play together some more. I said sure thing, and after a couple of phone calls, we had arranged for me to pick up tickets and meet them in the event staging area.

The weather forecast for that night was terrible, and the early returns were in— heavy rain, and stiff, persistent winds. We parked the car, picked up our tickets, and ran across the grounds, dodging widening puddles.

We finally made it to the staging area, after some twists and turns. I reintroduced myself, and Lana and the girl made some tentative attempts to reconnect.

But really the girl was too distracted by the night’s events to spend much time with Lana. Her mom was caught up in the welter of her responsibilities, and did not have any time for us beyond the initial greeting.

It was a tony affair, and I felt way out of place, particularly now that my connection to the whole thing had pretty much fizzled before my eyes.

The saving grace would be when the concert started, I thought— until I realized that our tickets were lawn seats. There was a large tent set up with actual chairs, and all but the most peripheral residents of the tent remained dry. But we were out on the grass.

Lana and I crouched under a golf umbrella on the lawn, angling it against the prevailing winds. I gave up after 4 or 5 songs, concerned for Lana’s health, and just wanting to be home. Not to go home— just to be home.

We drove all the way back with the wiper blades on high. I called the next day and left a message for the girl’s mom, thanking her for the tickets— I never heard back, and I never considered calling again…

HUMBLE FOLKS WITHOUT TEMPTATION

Lana came home from school earlier this week singing Poker Face.

Now I got no qualms with Lady Gaga. Girlfriend works waaaay too hard at being “ “unique” ” (she earns those bonus quotation marks), but whatevs.

Anyway, I think she made it into my house via a recent episode of South Park. One of the more vocal boys in Lana's class seems to be a big South Park watcher.

And this is when I wonder if I'm sheltering Lana too much. I make an effort to monitor her pop-culture intake, and I would not willfully expose her to South Park.

Don't get me wrong-- I fucking love the show to this day. It remains one of the few viable outlets for true satire in our culture, as most of the others have pissed their slacks and devolved into easy cynicism and lazily referential irony. South Park still cares enough to be angry.

And I care enough to keep that anger from my 10-year-old daughter for just a little while longer...

SONGS MEAN A LOT WHEN SONGS ARE BOUGHT AND SO ARE YOU

I still remember the first vinyl album I bought with my own scratch. K-Tel's Fantastic. 22 original hits, 22 original stars, a cheap plastic dream.

My first cassette purchase was Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine, a two-tape brick of pyrite that set me back $14.98. A princely sum for a 14 year old whose mom was still buying the groceries with food stamps.

The first CD was Megatrax Vol 2, a Rolling Stones bootleg that I picked up in Japan before I even owned a CD player.

But I'll be damned if I can remember the first MP3 I ever bought...

ANYTHING THEY GOT

That Kidz Bop version of Career Opportunities on Sandinista! is more poignant now that those little Olivers are pushing 40...

LIFE SO SWEET

When I told Babs that Sugar, Sugar meant more to me than Beethoven, it was designed to provoke.

We were having one of our endless High Art/Low Art arguments, and you can probably guess my position on the matter (I favor a peaceful coexistence, for the record).

But it's true, dammit. I have been lifted spiritually by The Archies, and I ain't ashamed...

SUGAR, SUGAR

When I was a kid, we used to dream of the blessed day when Quaker Oats would make a cereal out of nothing but crunch berries.

Come the late 90s, America was feeling good about itself again, and lo and behold, our friends at QO dropped Cap'n Crunch Oops! All Berries on us.

We also hoped one day for an Entenmann's Crumb Cake made entirely of crumbs, but to my knowledge this has not yet come to pass.

Now Vitamin Water has answered a prayer we never placed, and released a flavor called Spark. Which, make no mistake, is nothing more or less than liquid SweeTarts. With vitamins. Yummy, yummy vitamins...

CARELESS MEMORIES

I try not to get too peevish here (I swear), but I've been chafed recently by a number of people who, upon hearing me drop some useless bit of pop-culture trivia, will share that they weren't aware of it because they “played outside” when they were kids.

OK people, I played baseball all day in the summer, then hide-and-seek from dinner to dusk. I played Nerf football in the snow, and mapped the craters of the moon in the subfreezing cold.

I caught fireflies, butterflies, garter snakes under planks at the lumberyard, and bullfrogs in empty peat-moss bags at a swampy pond a couple of miles from my house. To which I rode my banana-seat bike...

Hell, I rolled hoops and whitewashed fences and rafted down the ole Mississipp. Practically.

So don't deride me for being able to do all that AND watch TV, read books, and listen to the radio. And, heaven forfend, remember some of it in detail.

Y'all need to step off...

THE MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY

So my absolute first thought about Titus Andronicus (that's the band, Poindexter) wasn't actually a thought at all. About two minutes into The Monitor, I just busted a big crooked grin.

But gosh, didn't we do the “tramps like us” riffing with The Hold Steady already?

And much like The Hold Steady, I've yet to work out whether there's more than some decent words and Clash/Pogues/Replacements/blah blah blah going on here.

I'm encouraged that they at least seem to recognize the second civil war when they see it...

AMERICAN HOT WAX

Three key demographics (collectors/cranky old dudes who think “everything was better back then”/hipsters) collide to give us this-- the top 10 best-selling artists on vinyl in the US for 2009, sourced from Record Collector (total sales in parens):

(1) Radiohead (45,700)

(2) The Beatles (38,800)

(3) Michael Jackson (30,400)

(4) Metallica (30,200)

(5) Wilco (29,600)

(6) Bob Dylan (24,500)

(7) Animal Collective (20,600)

(8) Pearl Jam (19,900)

(9) Bon Iver (17,100)

(10) Iron & Wine (16,600)

A PLACE FOR YOU IN BETWEEN THE SHEETS

I'll always remember my MLB bed sheet. It was cheap and thin and I wore it through.

I would pull the covers up past my chin on autumn nights and see all the team names on the underside written in reverse. Some were just meaningless strings of backward letters, but others seemed to be secret messages, dyed in the low-thread-count cotton.

“Boston” was “not sob”-- a fair state of mind for any New England baseball fan at the time.

The “Astros” were “sortsa,” which was sorta “sorta.” Which was sorta how I felt about the team.

The “Yankees” were “seek nay.” A quest for negation. How appropriate.

And the Mets. The “Mets” were “stem.” Like an apple's umbilical connection to the tree.

Like goddam Eden before the fall...

SAY IT AIN'T SO

This is a story about Joe Jackson.

No, not the shoeless one. The chinless, Gumpish New Waver.

During his transition from Elvis Costello-manque Joe to easy-listening Joe, he released a song called Right and Wrong, which contained this unexpected lyric:

“So what you think,
You like the Yankees or the Mets this year?”

This seemed to be less voice-of-Joe and more man-on-the-street, kind of like Mark Knopfler's loathsome Money for Nothing.

It sure was a sop to 1986, and guaranteed some extra airplay on contemporary New York radio.

Savvy bastard...

THE GIANTS AND METS WILL PLAY

I love it when my twin obsessions intersect, all the more so when it happens unexpectedly.

I don't think it's any surprise when a Simon or a Fogerty or a Springsteen drops a baseball reference into a lyric. But when a Scottish pop band does it-- and with a startling level of specificity at that-- I tip my cap.

Piazza, New York Catcher is a fine piece of Belle & Sebastian, baseball content aside. But then it drops in details like Piazza's lifetime batting average at the time (.318), and a great play on words regarding the Giants' statue of Willie Mays: “The statue's crying too/And well he may”...

That's a doubleheader sweep right there.

TALKIN' BASEBALL

My twin obsession to music is baseball.

I am a Mets fan. Have been since I was 4. Given my essential melancholia, there was never any other choice.

Because I think I knew even then that being a Yankees fan means living a lie.

And it's the worst kind of lie, I'm afraid-- one that tells you that the only thing worth celebrating is championships.

Being a Mets fan means that you learn to savor your own little victories. You will bear a 66-96 season if Craig Swan leads the league in ERA.

You learn to elevate the mundane to ridiculous heights and savor it beyond all reasonable measure.

And this is a valuable skill for those who would dare to enjoy life...

O MY SOUL

“Who's Alex Chilton?”

Even a small measure of grief can make it hard sometimes to speak with the unaffected.

“Alex Chilton. Singer for Big Star.”

“Big Star?”

Some are older, some are younger, so it's not just a generational thing.

“Big Star. They were like The Raspberries with a chemical imbalance.”

“Who were The Raspberries?”

OK, fuck y'all. Alex Chilton died. In 1973, he made music that I cared about in 1993. He didn't do too much that registered with me after that. But 59 is too young.

And December boys still got it bad...

COUNTING YEARS

I didn't do anything more profound to celebrate my Irish heritage today than listen to If I Should Fall from Grace with God.

Come to think of it, I guess I did plenty...

TIME HAS COME TODAY

Nothing better illustrates what an abstract concept time is than trying to explain DST to a 7 year old.

“You can't just change time!” exclaimed Sebastian more than once, as the clocks conspired to steal from him an hour of sleep again...

THE M-Z

By popular demand, here is the rest of the alphabet in songs that share titles.

And the "Strange Bedfellows" award goes to... Bananarama and Television! Take a bow, boys and girls...

Maria, Blondie
Maria, Leonard Bernstein

Modern World, The Modern Lovers
Modern World, Wolf Parade

The New World, X
The New World, Damon & Naomi

Old Man, Love
Old Man, Neil Young

One of These Days, Camper Van Beethoven
One of These Days, The Velvet Underground

Polly, The Kinks
Polly, Nirvana

Shine a Light, Apples in Stereo
Shine a Light, The Rolling Stones
Shine a Light, Wolf Parade

Ship of Fools, John Cale
Ship of Fools, The Doors

Silver, Echo and the Bunnymen
Silver, Pixies

Sixteen, The Buzzcocks
Sixteen, Iggy Pop

Special, The Mekons
Special, New Order

Spoon, CAN
Spoon, Cibo Matto

Surrender, Cheap Trick
Surrender, Elvis Presley

Take It Or Leave It, The Rolling Stones
Take It Or Leave It, The Strokes

Temptation, Heaven 17
Temptation, New Order

These Days, Joy Division
These Days, R.E.M.

Tonight, Iggy Pop
Tonight, Marnie Nixon & Jim Bryant
Tonight, TV On the Radio

Underwear, The Magnetic Fields
Underwear, Pulp

Valentine, Liz Phair
Valentine, The Replacements

Venus, Bananarama
Venus, Television

Victoria, The Kinks
Victoria, Shane MacGowan & The Popes

THE WHITE STAR LINER SANK IN THE DOCKS

This is... well, I have no fucking idea what this is.

Near as I can tell, it was intended to be part of the "songs of celebrities" series, like Thomas Pynchon, Gedde Watanabe, and Russ Tamblyn. But the wheels came off before the first ellipsis:

"The thin-lipped spawn of Suzy Amis and Jim Cameron
Was sipping a Corona down by Venice Beach..."

YOU CAN CALL ME A-L

It's spring cleaning time, so I'm going to clear out a few abandoned posts this week.

The ambition behind the first one was to catalog all of the songs I have in iTunes that share a title but are discrete entities, ie, no covers. Then, I wanted to determine through a complex Olympic-style scoring system just which title was the best, overall.

Then about halfway through the exercise, I got tired. So here's the list up to the L's (and I'd say the early leaders were Come Together, Good Times, Heaven, and Let's Go Crazy-- Lust for Life could be a comer):

Airplane, The Beach Boys
Airplane, Pizzicato Five

All I Need, Air
All I Need, Radiohead

All I Want is You, John Cale
All I Want is You, U2

All My Friends, LCD Soundsystem
All My Friends, Pavement

Beautiful World, Devo
Beautiful World, 宇多田ヒカル

Blue Moon, Big Star
Blue Moon, Damon and Naomi

Candyman, Cornershop
Candyman, カヒミ・カリィ

Cars, Gary Numan
Cars, To Rococo Rot

Changes, David Bowie
Changes, The Zombies

Clouds, Cibo Matto
Clouds, The Go-Betweens

Come Together, The Beatles
Come Together, Spiritualized

Contact, Big Audio Dynamite
Contact, Stereolab

Cool, Russ Tamblyn and the Jets
Cool, The Simpsons
Cool, Superchunk

Don't Stop, Fleetwood Mac
Don't Stop, The Stone Roses

Dreams, Fleetwood Mac
Dreams, TV On The Radio

Electricity, The Avalanches
Electricity, OMD
Electricity, Spiritualized

Emily, Joanna Newsom
Emily, John Cale

The End, The Beatles
The End, The Doors

Eyes on the Prize, Bruce Springsteen
Eyes on the Prize, M. Ward

Flower, Liz Phair
Flower, Sonic Youth

Flowers, Cibo Matto
Flowers, Chug

The Fool, Camper Van Beethoven
The Fool, Neutral Milk Hotel

Glass, Gang of Four
Glass, Joy Division
Glass, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

Gloria, Laura Branigan
Gloria, Patti Smith

Go, Moby
Go, Tones On Tail

God Only Knows, Cornelius
God Only Knows, The Beach Boys

Gone For Good, Morphine
Gone For Good, The Shins

Good Times, Jim O'Rourke
Good Times, The Rolling Stones
Good Times, Chic

Grass, Animal Collective
Grass, Robert Wyatt
Grass, XTC

Halloween, Dream Syndicate
Halloween, Sonic Youth

Harvest Moon, Jason and the Scorchers
Harvest Moon, Neil Young

Heaven, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
Heaven, Talking Heads

High and Dry, The Rolling Stones
High and Dry, Radiohead

I Believe, The Buzzcocks
I Believe, R.E.M.

I Don't Know, Chris Bell
I Don't Know, The Mekons
I Don't Know, The Replacements

I Should Have Known Better, The Beatles
I Should Have Known Better, Yo La Tengo

I Want You Back, Bananarama
I Want You Back, Hoodoo Gurus
I Want You Back, Jackson 5

Leave Me Alone, Altered Images
Leave Me Alone, New Order

Let's Dance, David Bowie
Let's Dance, The Ramones

Let's Go Crazy, The Clash
Let's Go Crazy, Prince

Liar, New Order
Liar, The Sex Pistols

Lies, The Knickerbockers
Lies, Thompson Twins

Little Bird, The Beach Boys
Little Bird, The White Stripes

Lust for Life, Girls
Lust for Life, Iggy Pop

SPARKLE AND FADE

MEOW MIX

And the difference between "Kissing cunt in Cannes" (Casino Boogie) and "I bet you keep your pussy clean" (Starfucker) is essentially the difference between Exile on Main St and Goat's Head Soup...

CAN OF TASTY FOAM

So, yeah-- “Star Fucker” (or, if you prefer, “Starfucker”; or, if you are prudish and prefer, “Star Star”).

It is really quite sad as it strains to offend.

The only saving grace is this, which sounds more like a cry for help than a cocksman's boast:

“Honey, I'm open to anything/I don't know where to draw the line...”

OK, OK, there are a few other saving graces:

-It's, um, catchy. However, you might not want to catch it, nor will you likely know what to do with it once caught.

-The sudden spasm of guitars in the last verse, which I assume are there to obscure John Wayne's name in the lyrics.

-And I swear that amidst all the “you're a star fucker”-ing Mick slips in an “I'm a star fucker” somewhere toward the end. Damn straight, you are...

WHEN WILL THOSE CLOUDS ALL DISAPPEAR?

I suppose that for the 70s Stones of the Month club to serve its educational purpose, I'm actually going to need to listen to the damn things.

I bought Goat's Head Soup last week, and tried one night to listen start to finish on my iPod.

But I was tired, and I fell asleep about halfway through. One minute Mick was whispering “Angie” and the next thing I knew he was bleating “Star fucker, star fucker, star fucker, star fucker, star.” Now I don't mean this priggishly, but that right there is not a pleasant way to wake up from a nap.

The weird thing about “Angie” the song is that there's another version floating spectrally right beneath the surface. This sounded intentional on the radio when I was 8, but now, listening through headphones, it's so pronounced that it seems like plain old sloppiness...

MERSH

It should not go unremarked that the current McDonald's filet-o-fish commercials, um, borrow from of Montreal.

I see three potential scenarios here:

(1) With the evidence of the Outback commercial in hand, McDonald's assumes that of Montreal are whores to be had for some filet-o-cash. Kevin Barnes rebuffs them, and they stick out their tongues and write a nonactionable pastiche.

(2) Someone in the McMarketing department is a fan, and decides to do a bizarre, sideways homage.

(3) The same theory that postulates that, given enough time, 100 monkeys with 100 typewriters would eventually produce Hamlet.

I'm not going to sweat the whys and wherefores, I'm just going to enjoy...

SUCKING IN THE 70s

I realized last week that the most-recent Stones album I own on anything other than cassette is Exile on Main Street.

So, seeing as I'm in a bit of a new-music dry spell, I've decided to start my own 70s Stones of the Month Club.

Each month, I'm going to buy one of the studio albums between Goat's Head Soup and Some Girls, chronologically.

Some Girls is the one I know best from front to back, so it will be interesting to get more familiar with the outer edges of things like Black and Blue...

DOES YOUR CHEWING GUM LOSE ITS FLAVOR ON THE BEDPOST OVERNIGHT?

I first encountered Trident gum as a kid, when I found it swimming between
bangle bracelets and Kleenex at the bottom of my grandmother's purse.

I picked up a 3-pack the other day, based more on price than Proustian
resonance.

And now I'm here to say that original flavor Trident is just damn refreshing...

GRANDPA'S THEORIES

Somehow, Danielson snuck a single by me back in November.

It's called Moment Soakers, and I have it now. It would not sound out of place on Ships, so you know what to do. (Um, buy or don't buy.)

The B side is an Abba song called Eagle, which serves to remind you that, hey, Abba made albums. For some reason...

MARKS THE SPOT

It’s amazing what’ll stick in your craw…

I have held a grudge against Ira Robbins for years, because he referred to X once as “appalling noise.” I assumed it was in an issue of Trouser Press, even though their old rekkid guide treats X generously.

Well, I was looking through the July, 1986 issue of Creem the other day, and there it was in a review of Green on Red/Rain Parade: “A reassuring antidote to even the appalling noise of X.”

And I was pissed anew. Watch where you’re casting those appallings, bitch…

WHITE PUNKS ON SNOW

I gave my car a reverse snowhawk...

A PUT ON

I had tickets to a Who concert once. Shea Stadium, 1982.

Thing is, I had no interest in seeing The Who. I liked their early mod stuff well enough, but in 1982 I was positively oppressed by Eminence Front, in the same way I was oppressed by In the Air Tonight: from the backseat of a black Z-28 with a custom Blaupunkt stereo pumping 100 watts, so I couldn't hear my thoughts think. And it got loudest when the driver really liked a particular section.

“Listen to the drums. Listen. You can practically feel them.”

I hated it like fuck.

So why did I have the tickets? Well, Scott and I were primed to see David Johansen and The Clash, who were opening the show.

After The Clash wrapped up, we made our way back through the bowels of Shea (and Shea did indeed have bowels, make no mistake), and headed for the exit gate. When we got there, we found it closed off with three or four guards sitting sentry.

They stopped us. “Show's not over. You can't leave.”

“But we're done.”

“Whattaya mean, done? The Who didn't even play yet.”

“We came for The Clash.”

After about 5 minutes of this, they finally let us leave, shaking their heads and clucking behind us.

People still shake their heads and cluck when I tell them this story, but they do so in a way that assumes I now recognize that this was all folly, and that I tell the story as a tale of regret.

But I don't regret it for a second...

AMPED

When I think about my 64GB iPod Touch I touch myself...

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

Aaaaaahhhh! The snowpocalypse is coming!

I'ma head to the Public Library and make Jake Gyllenhaal my full-flavored bitch...

EDITORS

Just finished reading Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers.

It's an important story, told artfully and with restraint.

I have to say, though, that the first edition I read was a bit sloppy.

Now, the old Copy Editor in me could bear the injury of the occasional missed space between punctuation. And that missed period that nearly stopped my heart? Over it.

But to see the Strait of Hormuz referred to as the Straights of Hormuz, particularly in the context of this book, and mindful of the events of 1988, well, that stung a little more acutely...

CURSIVE

The kids were talking about “bad” words.

“I know the 'S' word,” offered Lana.

Before she had finished her sentence, Sebastian had revved up his own.

“Oh, I know, I know! It's 'stupid'!”

“Yes,” continued Lana, “And we're not allowed to use it even though daddy sometimes does.” She said this in the melodic, lawyerly tone with which a ten-year old girl will say such things. It was fairly charming.

Sebastian had more to add to the conversation.

“I know the 'F' word.” I was prepared to be charmed again. “It's 'fuck'!”

I was... “Wait, what?”

“Fuck!”

I missed a beat, and Lana noticed I was off rhythm. “What does that even mean?” she said.

I asked Sebastian where he had learned the word. I asked more as a diversion than anything else.

Well, apparently one of his seat mates in kindergarten last year had access to the outer reaches of the “bad” word list, and had shared it with him.

I was actually pretty impressed that he'd sat on it for all this time...

WE PLAYED A SHOW AND NO ONE CAME

A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from brain coral. I won't say it was frantic, because he doesn't do “frantic”-- let's say it was heightened.

And with good cause-- word had come through the wire that of Montreal was going to be playing a late-January show at the 9:30 Club.

I answered excitedly (because I do do “excitedly”), and within 5 minutes, we had our tickets.

As the days passed, I continued to check the status of the show, and tickets continued to be available. I was beginning to think that I was seriously overvaluing of Montreal's currency. Maybe 3 years on from Hissing Fauna, and a bit bewildered by Georgie Fruit, the indie kids had all moved on.

I checked again today, and it looks like it's finally sold out.

Not that it has much bearing on brain coral and me. You'd find us stage right in the rafters whether it was sold out or we were the only ones there...

TAKE OASIS

Reading the Murmur entry in the 33 1/3 series.

I'd recommend it highly if you've ever had a relationship with Murmur.

I'd recommend it even highly-er if you've ever had a relationship with a vintage cassette copy of Murmur...

NIC FIT

I sure hope that Vamp Weekend's Contra doesn't stir up any shit with my copy of Sandinista!

WHITE-WINGED DOVE

It's our wedding anniversary this weekend. I'll leave it to you to deduce from these ingenious clues the number.

I love you, dear...

CHK CHK CHK

Advising a ten-year old to use fewer exclamation points in her writing feels grammatically responsible but spiritually incorrect.

So listen to me, Lana.

But don't listen to me, Lana!

CONTRADICTION

If Vampire Weekend were a movement, I'd hate it for sure.

Got no particular beef wif them as a band, though...

ALL DOWN THE LINE

The Jersey Turnpike reminded me last week just how much I love Exile on Main Street.

Thank you Jersey Turnpike, you magnificent bastard...

HE WANTS TO LOVE AND HE WANTS TO CARE

Sebastian was sprawled across our new king-size bed this morning, which he had clambered into at some point during the night.

The boy has been tired these last few days. The collective weight of a recent birthday, the holiday season, and a quick whirlwind trip to New York has caught up to him and bowed his little shoulders a bit.

I looked at him as I passed through the bedroom. I dodged creaky floorboards, stifled a cough, then paused to watch his eyelids flutter in the gathering daylight.

“Hi daddy.”

If anyone ever comes to measure my success, let them start right here...

CARROT FLOWERS

Cable has taught me tonight that Carrot Top's Chairman of the Board is a better movie than the 2nd X-Files...

WHAT IS AND WHAT SHOULD NEVER BE

I was at BOOKOFF in Manhattan this past weekend, looking over the used CDs. A copy of the Led Zep Mothership collection caught my eye. Two discs, ten bucks.

I carried it around with me for a while, but ultimately I didn't get anything more than a $3 Beulah CD.

I have a burgeoning non-ironic interest in classic rock, but when push comes to shove, I'm not willing to pay for it.

Tom, you need to move down to NOVA and be my motherfucking classic-rock pimp...

GENESIS TO REVELATION

I'll close out the aughts with a quick dispatch from the "I am a dumbass" files.

I never paid much attention to the beginning of The Clash version of Police and Thieves. I assumed the lyric was just part of the Junior Murvin original, which I confess I've never heard.

But listen closer. What Joe sings is "They're going through a tight wind."

Yup. It's from Blitzkrieg Bop. A tip of the hat from Strummer to the brudders from Queens.

Here's hoping you generate some steam heat in 2010...

MATTER OF FACT IT'S ALL DARK

I still have my two dollars.

DO GOODY GOOD BULLSHIT

Amazon is selling Dark Side of the Moon downloads for $1.99 today.

I've never owned Dark Side, but I've been around it plenty.

I don't like its worldview, but I can't deny that the thing has some craft to recommend it.

The question of the day is whether that's worth two bills to me...

IN THE BEGINNING

Abacab in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Well, fuck no!

HERE IS WHERE THE STORY ENDS

ABBA in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Well, fuck yeah!

THE OLD LEFT HANDER

Not sure if it was a sign of incipient madness or a bit of undigested cheese, but last night I had a very vivid dream that I was stuck in a large ditch with Joe Nuxhall. The North Korean army figured in there, too, though I don't recall how exactly.

The thing that stayed with me was Joe Nuxhall's determination that we would get out of the goddam ditch...

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

Four-way stop signs in Virginia are a microcosm of society at its best.

Four-way stop signs in New York are a microcosm of society at its worst.

THIS IS SOMETHING MORE COMPLEX

I don't like to use too many of my music notes to purchase old stuff, but I plunked down $7 last night on Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart by Camper Van Beethoven.

This was one of my favorite albums of the 80's, and I'll go out on a limb and say that She Divines Water was one of the top something something songs of that decade.

Don't know how often I'll actually listen to it, but it feels somehow essential to me...

DON'T DRINK THE BROWN WATER

Pretty sure I just heard Be Gentle With Me by The Boy Least Likely To in a Coke commercial during Monday Night Football.

Or it could have been one of my periodic Pepsi-induced hallucinations.

I tell you, I gotta stay away from that stuff...

THE UNDERGROUND IS COMING?

I suppose it's a little bit sweet that I still need to listen to The Super-It as a digitized version of my old 7", with hisses and pops and all, but come on Stereolab, I think it's about time for Switched On 4...

I WISH I WAS SPECIAL SPECIAL

Random Thursday thoughts...

-I never would have pegged Radiohead for any measurable future success based on the sub-Nirvana pabulum that was Creep. They seemed destined for Bush-hood or Blind Melon-dom for certains...

-Mid-period R.E.M. were basically dead to me, so while I got that they namedropped Wire (It's the End of the World as We Know It), I didn't realize until recently that they had covered Wire (Strange).

-And if Wire and R.E.M. ever collaborate on anything, you can bet your bippy they will call themselves WiR.E.M. Or at the very least, I will call them that...

-To my knowledge, only once did someone ever dedicate a song to me on the radio. The song was Kiss Me by Tin Tin. And I never did kiss her.

-I haven't bought the XX album yet, but am I right that it's just a re-release of Young Marble Giants?

PISS FACTORY

The end-of-year tributes to dead celebs are rolling in. Here is what R. Kelly had to say about working with Michael Jackson:

"It was like hope meeting faith, faith introducing hope to belief, and belief introducing them to love. They all became the best of friends and now hang out at a club called achievement."

Wow.

That's like batshit crazy meeting fucking insane, and fucking insane introducing them to delusional ranting. Then they all became the best of friends and hang out at a club called personality disorder.

Word.

THANKS GIVING

"You didn't have to love me like you did
But you did, but you did and I thank you..."

"Thank you
For lending me your hand,
For sharing time today,
For giving that idea
That made
It a nice and easy day..."

"Thank you falletinme be mice elf agin..."

And thank you Sam and Dave, and Danielson, and Sly, and all the others too numerous to mention. Thank you.

BE IT DEAD OR ALIVE

The distillation of everything that was right about The Who is in that performance of A Quick One, from 4:43 to 5:15 (yes, 5:15). I believe the lyrics are as follows:

Dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang

Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello
Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello
Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello
Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello

And on top of that is the most clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk you've ever heard.

It is the goddam choir celestial, and the essence of rock and roll in 32 seconds...

YOU ARE FORGIVEN

Ever since I heard Chris Michaels when I was half asleep a couple of weeks ago, I've been half obsessed.

So I took the next logical step last night and made a mix CD for my commute-- called it “Taco Lettuce Crunch Mix.” And of course, it led off with Chris Michaels.

The next song after was A Quick One by The Who (Rock and Roll Circus version). Because Chris Michaels is basically A Quick One writ sideways, in secret-twin language.

Like this:

“Plume bloom bloom blaby bloom
Cheep cheep beep bee-bee beep.”

Or, with a slightly more narrative bent, like this:

“But just now she’s angry came up
And said You’re so so stup’
It’s all disrup’
You’re blah blah this this that so now sh’up
You messed it up.”

And don't get me started on Tony of the Franklin Park hockey club...

Plain fucking genius.

HISTORY LESSON PART 2

Amazon is trying to guilt me into buying Double Nickels on the Dime by Minutemen. $5 for the month of November.

Problem is, I never really developed an affection for Minutemen. Liked them more than, say, Black Flag, but it just never clicked. But I liked what they stood for.

Is that worth 500 cents?

OHIO

OK, The Cleveland Show is just as scattershot funny/unfunny as Family Guy (only less scattershot), but I have to give it the edge in theme songs...

HI, HOW ARE YOU?

I don't know much about Daniel Johnston beyond M. Ward's cover of To Go Home from a few years back.

But what I do know from that is that this is genius:

“Dark night on a long highway,
Little lights in the houses say
There's somebody staying up late.”

Damn. That is like Proust in pill form...

NATIVE NEW YORKER

Many years ago, in one of our one-room apartments, I was listening to Lady Godiva's Operation. The part came up where Lou interjects a New York “sweetly” to finish John Cale's Welsh thought.

Taeko stuck her head around a corner and asked “Did you call me?”

And asked sweetly, I might add...

FOLK IMPLOSION

Album name of the day, courtesy of the early 70s British folk scene and a group called COB:

"Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart"

Fuck yeah.

Betcha by golly wow and just fuck yeah...

BEEP BEEP 'M BEEP BEEP YEAH

I was designated driver for an office field trip yesterday. So yeah, I made a mix.

"Car and Driver"

Come On Get Happy-- The Partridge Family
Drive-- R.E.M.
Airbag-- Radiohead
Crawling From The Wreckage-- Dave Edmunds
Shut Down-- The Beach Boys
I Get Around-- The Beach Boys
Little Honda-- Yo La Tengo
Emperor Tomato Ketchup-- Stereolab
Cars-- To Rococo Rot
Cars-- Gary Numan
Car Song-- Elastica
Killer Cars-- Radiohead
Fast Cars-- The Buzzcocks
I Love My Car-- Belle & Sebastian
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road-- Lucinda Williams
Keep the Car Running-- Arcade Fire
Car Wash-- Rose Royce
Back Of A Car-- Big Star
Motor Away-- Guided By Voices
Gravity Rides Everything-- Modest Mouse
Keep On (Groovin')-- The Brady Bunch

The Stereolab/To Rococo Rot/Gary Numan part was my favorite stretch. Krautastic!

YOUR SCENT IS STILL HERE

In one of those only-on-cable moments, I found myself watching Nirvana play the 1992 Reading festival a few days back.

When I first heard Kurt had killed himself, I hurled my remote control. It helicoptored across the living room and smashed into the far wall, breaking the battery cover.

His suicide was inevitable and stupid and a waste. And I was as unsurprised as I was pissed.

So I clutched my remote tightly for the whole of the Reading show, and I never let it go...

RUN TO THE SEA

In one of those only-on-the-internets moments, I found myself reading about The Joshua Tree a few days back.

Fun fact: turns out that the sequence of the album was determined by Kirsty MacColl, then wife of Steve Lillywhite, and soon-to-be duet partner with Shane MacGowan on Fairytale of New York. (Bonus Pogues connection: her dad Ewan was a noted folk singer, and wrote Dirty Old Town, which the Pogues covered on their second album.)

The final running order is essentially her ranking of the songs, from favorite to least. I think she got it right, mostly-- I'd probably just flip Bullet the Blue Sky and One Tree Hill and be satisfied enough...

BOO!

WHEN I PAINT MY MASTERPIECE

My favorite vision of the moment is the skeleton of midrise construction strung internally with white incandescent lights, at dusk.

This replaces my previous favorite: the first 45 seconds of condensation on a shower door illumined by a globe of vanity light, viewed from a sitting position.

If I had any talent in the visual arts, I would paint these things to be as beautiful as they are in my head...

WRAPPED UP IN BOOKS

At a conference this week...

Today, someone referred in passing to the Federation of Kentucky Academic Libraries.

Or FKAL, as I like to call it.

Or FUCKALL, as I like to call it better still.

It's all about loving what you do, people...

PANDA LAB

I've decided to pretend that the new Atlas Sound album is a single:

Walkabout (w/ Noah Lennox) b/w Quiet Canal (w/ Laetitia Sadier)

So, have you heard the new Atlas Sound single? It's groovy!

I WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT MY TV FOR A DAY

You know, the ability to access my iTunes through the TV seemed initially like feature fluff.

But then I realized that with the convergence and the whatnot and the hoohah, the best speaker system in my house probably belongs to the TV at this point.

Well played, FiOS TV. Well played.

LOVE OF GENIUS

I designed to take a short nap the other day. Unusual behavior, but I've been fighting something, and I had a slot available.

I told iTunes to make a Genius list based on Valerie by Broadcast.

As I really began to nod off, it played Choci Loni by Young Marble Giants and Chris Michaels by The Fiery Furnaces. In my borderline state of consciousness, I would have sworn that these two songs together lasted about 4 hours. And I mean that in a good way.

Apparently, I was out totally for Keep It Clean (Camera Obscura), The Crying of Lot G (Yo La Tengo), and Some Things Last a Long Time (Beach House). Wire's Strange stirred me back awake.

It was short, yeah, but it was the best damn nap I've had in ages...

PICNICKING IN THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE

Sometimes when great bands



splinter, the pieces do things both wondrous



and mundane



And more often than not it becomes clear that the lead singer is a tosser...

SONGS ABOUT CHOCOLATE AND GIRLS

Sometimes when great bands



splinter, the pieces do things both wondrous



and mundane



And more often than not it becomes clear that the lead singer is a tosser...

WOLF LIKE ME

And yeah, Chronic Town came out in 1982 as well.

But I didn't get bit by the R.E.M. bug until Murmur a year later.

Murmur meant so much to me.

Most of my other teenage musical obsessions to that point felt borrowed, secondhand. The Clash, The Jam, The Beat were all going concerns when I became a fan, but they were in varying states of decay.

But then with Murmur (and things like Wild Gift and The Days of Wine and Roses) I felt like I had found something inchoate, something that was gaining its shape right before my very ears. Something that belonged to me...

WOLVES, LOWER

Another dispatch from the I-am-a-dumbass files, 1982 edition.

Back at the dawn of MTV, I caught the Hungry Like the Wolf video on the TV in Kenny's basement. Didn't have cable myself...

I was pretty excited. See, I had just recently discovered the New York Dolls, and I confused Duran Duran with the Dolls' guitarist Sylvain Sylvain. I think it took me a couple of weeks to figure out this all had nothing to do with the Dolls.

Anyhow, everybody knows that Duran Duran actually assassinated Bobby Kennedy. Or something.

On another lupine front, I was rightly excited to see my X and The Hungry Wolf on MTV that same year...

THE INVOICE IT DON'T QUITE FIT

The first thing I heard when I left the office today was the somewhat desultory demo version of Janie Jones that opens the Clash on Broadway box.

Best damn thing I heard all week...