Archive for September, 2011

You make a grown man cry

Posted: September 24, 2011 in Miscellaneous, music, Record reviews
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Superheavy
Superheavy
2011

Superheavy (I’m already tired of typing that) is a supergroup with the following super members:

Joss Stone – English soul singer with super hair.
Damian Marley – Reggae musician and son of Bob Marley. Also has super hair.
Dave Stewart – With Annie Lennox, he was The Eurythmics.
A.R. Rahman – Indian composer of film and orchestral music.
Mick Jagger – Whoever this guy is, he does a pretty good impersonation of Mick Jagger, even better than Billy Idol’s impersonation of Billy Idol in The Wedding Singer.

This cross-pollinization of cultures and genres fails to germinate, except for the track “I Can’t Take It No More,” which is almost bearable. The other songs fade from memory while you’re listening to them. Despite its super-heavy origins, Superheavy is nowhere near as good as Soundgarden’s Superunknown, Wayne Shorter’s Super Nova, or Rick James’ “Super Freak.” I’m willing to bet it’s inferior to Liberace’s Super Hits, but I’m unwilling to do the research to find out.

Cover of the Week
Eels is a one-name underground indie god best known for “Novacaine for the Soul.” I was surprised to discover his cover of The Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina,” but I guess you’re never too cool for ’60s pop. Eels retains The Left Banke’s baroque string flourishes, but he speeds things up (his version is about 15 seconds shorter) while plinking away on what sounds like Schroeder’s toy piano. The original featured a male falsetto; Eels is quite hoarse. He sings “Pretty Ballerina” to a crowd that not only doesn’t laugh him off the stage, they cheer. I did too.

“Pretty Ballerina” was released in 1967 when I was a dreamy 12-year-old who didn’t know the difference between love and lust. It took me decades to figure that one out. Hearing the original always zaps me back to junior high, so I’m relieved to have Eels’ tough-love interpretation to drag me home.

The Left Banke had another, even bigger hit with “Walk Away, Renee.” The Four Tops covered this one, though on the chorus they sound like they’re channeling the Baha Men (“Who Let the Dogs Out?”). Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy on Adieu False Heart combined their beautiful voices on “Walk Away, Renee.” It’s too gorgeous – as much as I love this song, I have to say that The Left Banke don’t deserve it!

Fans of ridiculous pop bands that experiment with classical music are asking themselves right now, Should I go back to The Left Banke’s catalog and see what I missed all those years ago? No you should not. This time I did do the research. I can report that “Barterers and Their Wives” is a mildly entertaining juxtaposition of classical music and psychedelia. One song will surprise you: “What Do You Know.” It’s country, there are two guys singing instead of the usual high-pitched male lead, and they’re both slightly flat. I can’t tell if this was meant as a joke.

Steve of the Week
I forgot to list my latest post at The Nervous Breakdown! I write about typewriters, mimeos, and other machines that once decided the fate of empires. I hope they are not coming back.

Kristin of the Week
My friend Kristin Thiel is reading with two other writers on Friday, October 7 at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, here in Portland (our fair city). This event is part of Wordstock, you philistines. Kristin and her colleagues all have stories in a new anthology I can’t wait to read, Men Undressed: Women Writers and the Male Sexual Experience. I’m certainly going to be at Powell’s on October 7. I’m hoping Kristin can clear up a few issues for me.

 

Ultimate smackdown!

Posted: September 20, 2011 in Miscellaneous, music
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Loyal reader Accused of Lurking is an expert in the music of the 1970s, so naturally he had a few things to say at the conclusion of ’70s Week here at Run-DMSteve.

Here are the links to ’70s Week:

ABBA
America
Queen
AC/DC
Disco
Some of my favorite songs of the decade

And here’s what’s on Lurk’s mind:

“Over the course of one week, you managed to disrespect The Cars, John Sayles, and Heart. I don’t mind very much about Heart, but you will pay for your unkindness to the other two.

“I realize that it is impossible for two people to agree on the Top 25 of anything, unless those two have exactly the same sensibility and exactly the same set of experiences. Maybe twins could do it, but certainly not the two of us.

“As I read through your list, I bounced violently back and forth between ‘Of course!’ and ‘What the f$#k?!?’ With artists that I am particularly fond of and familiar with (Springsteen, Costello, Zeppelin, Guess Who), I disagree with your choices, but would enjoy the conversation about why you chose them. With artists whose oeuvre is less familiar to me (Bowie, Clash, Harrison), I don’t even know the songs. When I then listen to the songs, I wonder how they could have been chosen over songs by these artists that got more airplay.

“The upshot is that I am now trying to compose my own list (which will certainly include The Cars and a whole bunch more women than you). As I re-read your list, I am left with the strong feeling that Run-DMSteve is even more complex than the already complex individual I know, with musical proclivities that may not be mainstream, may not be FDA-certified, and may not be Oxford-comma-worthy, but are certainly proclaimed loudly, with verve, and in almost complete sentences.”

That’s great, Lurk. Now let’s look at the facts.

John Sayles
I’ve never written a word about John Sayles. Until now. David Denby once wrote that John Sayles “doesn’t trust the camera.” I don’t know what that means. I do know that Sayles’ movies don’t look like anyone else’s movies. When I watch one I always feel that I’m sitting farther back in the theater than I actually am.

I enjoyed The Brother From Another Planet and Lone Star. I used to believe that The Big Chill was a cynical rip-off of The Return of the Secaucus 7, but after re-watching both I decided that it didn’t matter because The Big Chill is the superior film. Though if I’m going to watch a movie about a group of like-minded people brought together under stress, I’d rather see The Breakfast Club or Aliens.

Score: Run-DMSteve 1, Accused of Lurking 0. W00t!

The Cars
I saw Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr at a club in Harvard Square in the late ’70s. They were a folk act and they knew how to work the room. The one bon mot I remember came when someone in the crowd asked if they had a record deal. “Almost,” one of them replied. “Arista wants to hear our disco stuff.” I wish they had ventured into disco, but they didn’t and it’s still not feasible to travel back in time and shoot their grandfathers.

I confess that I enjoy two of their songs, “Since You’re Gone” and “A Dream Away,” both from Shake It Up. I would also like to state that, as much as I dislike this band, The Cars at their peak could have disintegrated Hall & Oates with a look. Lastly, Benjamin Orr died recently. He was a huge part of the Boston renaissance in pop music. So I’ll judge this one a tie.

Score: Run-DMSteve 1.5, Accused of Lurking 0.5

Bruce Springsteen
I was kidding when I said that “Backstreets” was one of the few times that Springsteen surpassed “Wild Billy’s Circus Story.” I love The Boss, particularly Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska, and about half each of The River and Born in the USA.

I’ve also come to hear The Rising (2002) for what it is: Springsteen’s great achievement of his late career. Magic (2007) pales next to this. There are 15 songs on this disc and I only like seven, but those seven are solid. “Worlds Apart” and “The Fuse” are particular standouts; they’re very different for him, and really haunt me. The Rising isn’t going to make anyone forget Born in the USA, but as uneven as it is I like it better than anything since that album. It packs a punch, even though some of these cuts pull their punch. Actually, the album reminds me of The River, which was a mess but still had “Independence Day,” “Point Blank,” “Cadillac Ranch,” etc. The Rising is a much more focused mess.

I’ve misled my readers. All three of them.

Score: Run-DMSteve 1.5, Accused of Lurking 1.5. Looks like we got a real pressure cooker going here.

“A whole bunch more women than you”
Accused of Lurking promises us a ’70s All-Star list that redresses the female imbalance that was so apparent in my list. I can’t contest this one at all.

Score: Run-DMSteve 1.5, Accused of Lurking 2.5. Pain train’s comin’, baby!

“May not be Oxford-comma-worthy”
Accused of Lurking, you are witty, incisive, and perceptive. You are fair, principled, and one might even say funky. But on this point you are mistaken, or misled, or possibly deluded. I’ve always believed in what is called the Oxford comma, or the serial comma, or in some quarters the Harvard comma. If in reading this blog you’ve discovered a list of terms, items, or proper nouns that are missing a comma, please bring this lapse to my attention. I’ll fix it tonight, tomorrow, or certainly by the weekend.

Final score: Run-DMSteve 2.5, Accused of Lurking 2.5. Thank you for playing, Accused of Lurking. Too bad you didn’t win a lifetime suppy of Rice-A-Roni or even a lousy copy of our home game.

As for incomplete sentences. What?

The album experience

Posted: September 18, 2011 in music, Record reviews
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Hot Trip to Heaven
Love and Rockets
1994

Tubular Bells
Mike Oldfield
1973

Key Lime Pie
Camper Van Beethoven
1989

Today I will spare you a rant about the vanishing concept of the “album,” a group of songs that are thematically linked or that fix an artist in time. That concept didn’t even exist until The Beatles came along, and if the album is no longer needed in an era of music on demand, well, The Beatles aren’t around anymore either. Things change and I like change.

But I do want to recall for a moment one aspect of the album experience, and that is having to buy an entire album just to get one song.

You might remember Love and Rockets from their 1989 hit, “So Alive,” which sounds very 1970s to me, like a lazy lounge version of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong.” They also did a good job with their cover of The Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion.” Love and Rockets was a sort of goth/psychedelic act with an enthusiastic though small following. I wasn’t enthusiastic about them until I heard “Body and Soul” from Hot Trip to Heaven.

Like most people, I love a 3-minute record with a beat. But I also like a lengthy, mesmerizing song. I write better in a trancelike state (I also write better after I’ve had my shoes shined) and I find that playing lengthy, mesmerizing songs at work keeps people from bugging me. “Body and Soul” (which has nothing to do with Billie Holiday) is a 14-minute chunk of musical hypnosis, even at the 6:45 mark where the song abruptly picks up speed.

(The lyrics are another issue. The main theme in the first half of the song is “Body and soul,” which isn’t explained. In the second half it’s “Spin the wheel,” and I can’t shed any light on that one, either. Love and Rockets graduated from the same school of lyrical obfuscation as did Screaming Trees.)

The rest of the album I never listen to, though a couple of songs (“Trip and Glide” and “Be the Revolution”) are almost sort of catchy. But in 1994, if you wanted to own “Body and Soul” by Love and Rockets, you had no choice but to buy the entire album. That was about a $12 song. The cover art looks cool if you leave the CD sitting on your desk, but people listening to iTunes tend to snicker when they see any CD sitting on my desk so this is not the benefit it once was.

Another example from my experience is Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, a snippet of which became the theme from The Exorcist. The actual title is “Tubular Bells, Pt. 1,” and it weighs in at a hefty 25:49. Don’t let that figure deter you – you don’t have to listen to the entire epic. Thanks to your computer, you can start precisely at 17:04 and immediately get to the meaty, mesmerizing part. It even has an announcer to introduce the dozens of instruments Oldfield played, as he played them. When I bought this album in the ’70s, I had to memorize where on the vinyl I wanted to go and hope I dropped the needle in the right place. (Side two, the cleverly named “Tubular Bells, Pt. 2,” is a mere 23:20. I probably played that side once. It’s way too short.)

Sometimes buying an album to get just one song resulted in a happy surprise. I wanted Key Lime Pie because of Camper Van Beethoven’s cover of the 1960s’ psychedelium masterpiece, “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” Camper Van was an early indie band with a violin and a sly sense of humor, as you can see in their legacy to contemporary music, “Take the Skinheads Bowling”:

Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes
Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same
There’s not a line that goes here that rhymes with anything

For years I took out this CD and skipped to track 13, “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” played that song a couple of times, then popped the disc out of the machine. Even though David Lowery of Camper Van went on to form Cracker, a band I like, it never occurred to me to listen to anything else on Key Lime Pie. But then one day at work I slipped the CD into my computer just as a co-worker came over to speak to me. Before I could punch in track 13 the music started and I found myself listening to the entire album. I loved about half of it! That’s a whole lotta love in my snobby world.

My experience with Key Lime Pie proves that you should always make time to talk to your co-workers. You should always be prepared for change, too. I don’t know what’s going to happen to albums, but I’m looking forward to finding out.