Category: Music

Railroad Earth – Elko

"railroad

To make a great live album takes several things. First, you’ve got to have a pristine sound. I need to hear all the instruments playing clearly, and the vocals need to be right up front. I wanna hear the crowd cheering, but only sometimes. Give me audience noise between songs and if there is a particularly brilliant bit of playing, otherwise keep the crowd in the far, far background. I really have no need to hear that guy screaming his request for “Free Bird”.

Next, I want a great setlist. Nothing sucks the life out of a concert like bad song choices. For me, this means not playing every song from the newly released studio album. If I haven’t had time to absorb the new songs, what can I sing along to? Man, I dig that you’ve gotta promote the new stuff, just mix it in with the old. A perfect set list includes some new songs, the greatest hits, some obscure b-sides, and a few choice covers.

Yeah, I dig covers. Nothing perks up a concert like hearing a cool cover of something you just weren’t expecting to hear. You get bonus points if the cover song is something totally off the wall or from a different genre even. Like Sam Bush covering Bob Marley, or bluegrass band Hayseed Dixie doing “Hell’s Bells”.

Bonus points go to reworking the melody of one of your old songs. Who can forget the laid-back version of “Layla” on Eric Clapton’s Unplugged?

Of course, all of these things mean bupkis if the music sucks. An absolute must for any live album is that the musicians have to be playing at the top of their game. I’m an old-school lover of improvisation. I dig the crap out of long, interesting jams. Nothing is more boring than an uninspired noodle fest, but a good band can turn a song on its head and create something inspiring out of the air. And if you can’t jam, then crank up the energy and give me something raw. If the song sounds exactly like the studio cut, then why am I paying for a concert ticket, when I can just stay home?

To release a live album takes a certain amount of balls. It’s expecting the audience to pay more money for songs they already have based on your ability to play in the moment. On the road, there is no studio enhancement, no overdubs or producers tweaking every note, every sound. It’s just the band and their songs.

To release a live album after only three studio albums and 5 years together as a band takes a lot more than balls. Yet that’s just what Railroad Earth has done with their latest album, the double live disk Elko.

Railroad Earth is something of a cross between the Grateful Dead and Sam Bush. It’s bluegrass through a jam band funnel. They are old-school songwriters who think nothing about jamming a song out for 15 minutes.

On Elko, they meet all of my criteria for a live album except playing covers. Every song is an original Railroad Earth tune, and it doesn’t hurt the album one bit. Honestly, I’m not overly familiar with any of their studio work, but there is enough improvisation and jamming here to make each song unique and certainly different than anything you’re going to find on a studio album.

Together the sextet plays over twelve instruments including the banjo, dobro, mandolin, pennywhistle, and flute (and that’s just Andy Goessling!) which come together to form a whirling, swirling soundscape. It’s music to get lost in and get up on your feet and boogie to as well.

Out of the twelve songs on this album five of them clock in at over 10 minutes. Improvisation is the name of the game. Mostly the boys carry it off. In songs like “Seven Story Mountain” and “Colorado,” the music stays fresh and remarkable throughout its long ride. Occasionally, the jamming gets a little repetitive, yet just as I’m about to get bored they bring it back get my feet tapping, and mouth smiling.

If I have a real complaint here, it’s that some of the songwriting isn’t all that strong. For sure many of the songs evoke a lovely rural image and a real joy for life. Songs like “Railroad Earth” and “The Old Man and the Land” create lovely images and evoke a sense of a warm sunny day. Yet a few of the tunes, like “Like a Buddha” or “Bird in a House” neither catch me in their lyrics or their melody. A song like “Warhead Boogie” is even quite silly with lyrics like:

They’re building lots of warheads/building them all around
They’re loading them up on pads/loading them up on subs
Flying around on airplanes/driving around on trucks
Driving around on trucks

Though, it must be said that the warhead certainly does boogie. With one of the strongest jams on the album, the music there, more than makes up for its flighty lyrics.

And in their defense, even the Beatles wrote a few less-than-stellar tunes. Railroad Earth is proving they can write some strong songs and be able to put on a live show worthy of a two-disk album. As a lover of live music, Elko is a welcome addition to my collection.

Hot Topic: FM is Stereo

Due to time limitations and a general lack of anything to say of late, I did not participate in the most recent edition of the Hot Topic. And as is the way with these things, this week’s edition became the Editor’s Choice for the week.

From the occasionally troubled minds of this disparate flock of bloggers, the question of whether technological advances weaken our senses is tossed about, and I revisit the lost art of installing car stereos.

Plus, The Duke discusses the medical retraction of jewels, Eric admits he knows not what he does, and Mark ponders the value of internet-savvy refrigerators.

From: Bennett Dawson
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

My lovely wife and I were talking about those “Top-Ten Hit CDs” from the sixties and seventies. You know, the ones that get hustled on those 30-minute late-night infomercials. Me saying that they’re really cool because “…those are all the songs that buzzed out of my candle wax-covered AM clock radio when I was a teenybopper…”

Back in 1970, dig?

My wife looked puzzled, trying to absorb a stone-age concept. AM clock radio?

Before I could explain, a sideways brain connection fizzled through my synapses, and I started wondering about “When did FM start broadcasting?” and “Do I actually remember that historic event?”

Yes, folks, it’s sad but true. In 1970, FM was just like HDTV – meaning I didn’t have it.

This led to a brief discussion about the difference between AM and FM, and to my surprise, my wife couldn’t tell me the profound difference between the two. Now let me say that my wife is brilliant in her field of expertise, and knows many things that I haven’t a clue about. But she had a slightly different upbringing (she’s a girl), and was eight years further down the timeline than me. That being the case, FM radio was all she ever listened to.

“All the music was on FM, and AM was all talk radio and traffic and weather.”

She knew that FM stations “sounded better” in her car, but that’s about it. The “stereo” in the house sounded good because it had two speakers and besides, we paid more money for it than the clock radio, so it had to sound better.

She never truly realized that with stereo, each speaker has slightly different music coming out of it, two distinct tracks. I have no idea what she thought about the sound system in her relatively new Jetta, with speakers every few inches in the doors and body panels. ‘More speakers = better sound’ is what I’d suppose. Understanding that AM is one track and FM is two tracks was not part of her grip on aural reality.

She protests. “That’s not true!” she says. “My CD Walkman has different sounds for each ear, I just never wondered why or how.”

Lemme tell ya, my generation was intensely aware of “stereo” and knew exactly what it was. Dammit, we wanted stereo! Our first used cars (junker cars from the fifties and sixties) had an AM push-button radio with one speaker in the dashboard. NOT cool.

So we installed a new FM radio under the dash (possibly a cassette or eight-track tape player… woo hoo!) and two speakers in the rear window deck. We cut holes and ran wires and hooked up fuses, and then we cruised down the road grooving to ‘stereophonic sound’.

Nowadays, everything is pre-wired with stereo. Teenagers don’t know how to run speaker wires, what channels are, or how a noise suppressor gets rid of the clicking sound coming from the ignition system. Hell, let’s be real – nowadays, kids don’t even know what an ignition system is. Technology has moved on and the inner workings of a car are as mysterious as the inner workings of a nuclear reactor. If your car breaks down, you use your cell phone to call a tow truck!

What other basic knowledge of ‘how things work’ has dropped from our pop culture? The home fuse box? Batteries? Pilot lights?

Have we morphed into an icon-driven world, with no understanding of what lies beneath the shiny plastic logo-embossed surface? Is it really possible to take stereo so much for granted that folks have no understanding of what they’re hearing? Are we being blinded by science?

Or is this just yer standard progression of technology – unfortunately revealing that I’m one old, and somewhat obsolete fella?

By the way, while I was writing this piece, my 21-year-old stepdaughter called, and she has no idea what the word “stereo” means. “A synonym for sound system” was her best guess.

From: Duke De Mondo
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

This is all the most intriguing in the world. Maybe we ARE those icon-driven hordes ain’t got a clue how the torch works but sod it, it’s sleek an’ white an’ the ladies wanna touch me when I got it in the paw.

I’m a software sort, yes, with nary a clue about hardware. I’m gonna go ahead an’ reveal the age, bein’ 23, an’ i can assure you i ain’t got the faintest a faints regarding how you might wire a plug. They TRIED to teach me, but imma go play a tune or two, if’n it’s all the same. Ain’t got a clue how the amp works, or the guitar, but I don’t especially worry.

Anecdotal aside – way back when I remember my ex-fiancee tellin’ me that her then-ex-boyfriend used to come ’round to help her dad wire electrical stuff. I think most likely my nuts disappeared somewheres midst the liver (still in there, too, fish the fuckers out wi’ a coat-hanger is all a man can do). Felt like I was no kinda MALE if’n I couldn’t fix the telly.

Maybe it’s cause a buncha youngster-types, far more than used to, are headin’ in the direction a university an’ theoretical based stuff, as opposed to learnin’ trades an so on, which is where this kinda knowledge is handed down, I suppose. Maybe that’s not the case at all, maybe I’m just justifyin’ my bum-fluff an no-nuts.

Regarding stereo, it all made sense to me when I played Sgt. Pepper’s in the car stereo back when I was 13 or so, and realized I was only hearin’ half the record. Until that point I probably assumed somethin’ similar, that stereo just meant Better Sound. I suppose there comes a point when a society can forget about stuff like Mono and Analogue. The differences ‘tween these things probably only have any worth to the folks who live through the change-over.

From: Eric Berlin
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

I think we’ve entered the age of the super-user, where we run every aspect of our lives — from brushing our teeth with an electric toothbrush to laying down with an electric blanket of an evening, and all the server-happy Internet play and work-related electronic tomfoolery in between — via technology of which we haven’t the foggiest notion.

Take the words I’m typing right now that cause letters to magically appear on my computer screen. I have a notion that when I type a “v”, a “v” appears, or that when I want to say “ultra tubular with consecrated cream cheese linings for upshot adornment of life-melted dude-scape” I can get that message across and feel quite certain I’ve made an ass of myself in the process.

However, I have no idea how the inner workings go. I imagine there are ones and zeros and electronic processes involved, but I don’t even have a fundamental understanding of the mechanical function behind an activity I sometimes spend 12-15 hours a day hacking away at.

And don’t even get me started with the mouse!

Sometimes I think about the Roman Empire and the descent into the Dark Ages. About how art and technology devolved from one generation to another because everyone basically forgot how it was done before. Obviously, we’re not in that phase. We’re in a phase of astounding innovation and bedazzling art and sights to behold that would blow the mind (a la Scanners) of an 8th-century hombre right straight.

But what if we lost those folks who know how stuff works? What if they end up on the island in Lost (pushing that damned button every 108 minutes) or get herded to the Manhattan of Escape From…. fame?

It’s an interdependent world with all the good and bad trimmings of it, I suppose is the upshot.

That, and it’s utter gold to know a good mechanic who won’t rip you off.

From: Mark Saleski
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

Ah yeah, so here we have another discussion where technology is concerned. More specifically the effects of “the march”.

It’s interesting that it’s mostly taken for granted that advances in technology are a “good thing”. For the most part, I suppose that they are. But then I hear about events like the recent Consumer Electronics Show where concepts such as “digital lifestyle” are touted. Sure enough, we get all of these home devices interconnected and talking to each other. But do we really want to?

This reminds me of back when I used to watch The Jetsons, where dinner consisted of a food pill. Gross. Perhaps even sillier than manufactured food is the very real Internet-enabled refrigerator. Oh yes, it’ll keep an inventory for you. It’ll notify you when it’s time to buy more eggs.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Some of this is an extension of what often happens during software development. Engineers, being the tinkering sort, can’t resist adding features and/or extra layers to things. The result? Bloatware. Sometimes useful, sometimes not. Ever notice how things like “digital lifestyle” are almost always promoted by men? I don’t think this is a coincidence.

Don’t take any of this to mean that I have the fear that these new technologies are going to complicate my life. They won’t, mostly because they’re not comin’ in my front door. No, I don’t need a digital book to take on vacation because the books that I do own work just fine. I can figure out when to refill my refrigerator using the analog method: the notepad attached to the freezer door. Music is still played through tubes and wire because these nice digital files sound like crap.

So what do we lose when nobody knows how any of this newfangled stuff works? I’m not sure. In some cases, particularly when talking about media (books, music, etc.), it puts the consumer at one more remove from the artist. I don’t think that vinyl records are the ‘perfect’ medium, but the expansive liner notes allowed me as a fan to get to know the person at the other end. Sure, this can be done in the digital realm, but is it?

Ah, maybe Bennett’s right. Maybe I’m just old and obsolete.

P.S. In the middle of typing this, the guy in the cube next to me was ‘attacked’ by his Instant Messenger — he floated his mouse over it and it started playing a ringtone-y version of “My Humps”. Now that is an advance.

These bloggers have had their say, now it’s your chance to chip in!

Do you remember an “old way” of getting things done that seemed superior to the “newfangled” way? Do your friends sneer at your approach to fixin’ stuff, amazed that you’ve not a clue? Or are you one of those folks totally comfortable letting “specialists” deal with the inner workings of 90% of your world?

Tell us the truth, are you completely happy being a “user”, with no idea how these damned things actually work?

Harry Connick Jr and Branford Marsalis: A Duo Occasion (2005)

harry and branford a duo occasion dvd art

In support of their new album Occasion: Connick on Piano, Vol. 2 Harry Connick, Jr., and Branford Marsalis played a gig at the Ottawa Jazz Festival. Marsalis Music, in conjunction with Rounder Records, has just released a pristine DVD release of that concert.

Both musicians fall under what I’ll call the popular jazz genre. Connick is an accomplished jazz pianist. He grew up in New Orleans studying under such greats as James Booker and Ellis Marsalis. By age 18 he had moved to New York and headed his own jazz trio for Columbia Records. Yet unlike many jazz musicians, he isn’t afraid to delve into sheer pop territory like his Christmas records or the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack.

Branford Marsalis comes from a long line of jazz musicians. The Marsalis name is synonymous with great musical skill. Branford has lived up to his family name and is a well-accomplished, Grammy award-winning musician. Yet he too has not shied away from the popular spectrum. For several years he was the bandleader for The Tonight Show and he has performed with such popular rock bands as the Grateful Dead.

For this performance, the duo mostly leaves the popular music behind, sticking to a more strictly jazz format. However, Connick starts things off with his interpretation of the pop standard, “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” A rather stilted, tonal version, I’m afraid.

I honestly expected to be a little disappointed with this performance. As a general rule, I don’t really care for duos or even trios. I like my music robust and full of interplay. I want to hear a multitude of instruments playing together to form a cohesive sound. Before I had even put this DVD into play I was already writing a review in my head stating that it needed some bass, more keyboards, and perhaps a cello or two.

After about the second song I had to rewrite my internal review for the two performers were filling out the music just fine on their own. The interplay was smooth, interesting, and fun. Nowhere did I miss the sounds of other instruments, just the saxophone and piano were ample enough.

Harry Connick, Jr is the leader here. Not only are the majority of songs his compositions but he is the only one miked for between-song banter. He is a natural talker and showman whereas Marsalis tends to hide behind his instrument, letting his saxophone do the talking for him.

The music here is excellent. Both musicians are obviously having a great time performing together and have a long history of collaboration. They skillfully weave their instruments together, never trying to outdo or show each other up. Musically, it is easy enough to be background music for a dinner party and yet complicated enough to stand up to repeat listens with the lights turned off and the headsets on.

The concert was shot by award-winning director Pierre Lamoureux in a high-definition video. It looks and sounds spectacular. The editing is smooth and exciting. Or as exciting as a jazz concert DVD can be.

Duo Occasion is a remarkable performance for fans of Harry Connick Jr., Branford Marsalis, jazz, and popular music alike.

Confessions of An Easy Listener

I have been listening to a lot of Internet radio of late. Time and time again, much to my dismay, I have found that the station I tune into is labeled as “Adult Alternative” or as I like to call it “Easy Listening for Generation X.”

How did this happen? I used to be hip, I used to rock. My CD collection was once filled with ripping guitars, pounding bass, and plenty of punk attitude. I should have known it was over when I began humming along to Bruce Hornsby while at the bank. Bruce Hornsby? I love Bruce Hornsby, he freaking rocks. Um, no, they play him at banks, anyone played in a bank most assuredly doesn’t rock.

But really, how did this happen? How could my musical tastes go from The Edge to the old man? As usual, the answer lies in Willie Nelson.

I grew up with hair metal: Def Leppard, Whitesnake, and Poison. Loud guitars, lyrics about sexy chicks, and power ballads. I remember playing hide and seek with my cousins while taunting them with the chorus to Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Many an afternoon was spent pondering the deeper meaning behind Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” (ok, so maybe the time was spent ogling the hot girls in the video, but still.)

I knew the Sex Pistols, Operation Ivy, and Fugazi. As a teenager, I laid my long hair on the floor and let the Smashing Pumpkins panoply of sounds whirl around my head.

In college, I met, and subsequently fell in love with a girl by wearing a Dinosaur Jr. t-shirt. She was one of those Punker Than Thou chicks, always out to prove that her music was hipper, that she was cooler, and had more edge in her fingernail than I did in my entire body.

Without fail, every time, she beat me. Sure I knew who Jello Biafra was, and watched Gas, Food Lodging just to see J Mascis. I can name 5 Ramones albums and drove all night to see Sebadoh play at Tipatinas in New Orleans. But she walked circles around me in terms of the bands she had seen, the records she owned, and in general punk cred. I would always lose.

It didn’t help much that I also had a soft spot for Hootie and the Blowfish.

There was a breakup. A long, hard break up.

Most people would have retreated into the loud angst of punk and metal, letting their middle finger of attitude kick out the hurt and loss.

Instead, I found Willie Nelson’s subtle, quiet, and aching album Stardust.

For months, every night after the breakup, I retreated to a friend’s place who was also experiencing The Heartbreak.

We would sit up well past the After Hours burning candles, lighting incense, and letting Willie sing our blues away. Often we would talk and curse and holler about the stupid women that left us. More often than not, we would sit and think and listen.

Stardust is an album of covers of Willie Nelson’s favorite songs. Standards and classics like “Sunny Side of the Street” and “Moonlight in Vermont.” Songs that have been sung a million times, by a million voices; yet Willie sings them like they have never been sung before, as if they were the greatest songs ever sung. And we believe him.

I think I turned away from Punk music because it reminded me of the girl. The anger and the angst didn’t bring me release, only more pain. In something softer, in Willie Nelson, I found the emotional release I needed.

My CD collection is embarrassingly light on the rock and the roll. Gone are the Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies, and Alice in Chains. Now the shelves are filled with Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, and Lucinda Williams.

Periodically, when those pissing matches on who is the most punked punk around get going, I get a little nostalgic for my youth. I break out my old Sonic Youth records, crank up the stereo, and feel way too inadequate to jump into the argument.

Adult Alternative listeners just don’t have those types of conversations. No one boasts of seeing Bill Monroe before he got too commercial. Blood is never shed at a folk festival. Hipsters aren’t saving their sweaty t-shirts they wore when they saw Robert Earl Keen at the Tennessee theatre back in ’88.

There just isn’t the attitude with a folk audience. We bring our families, dance with our kids and talk about the weather between sets.

Whenever I start looking in the mirror wondering how I’d look with a nose ring, or a snarl begins to creep upon my lips I turn on Gillian Welch singing “Snowin’ on Raton” or Lucinda William’s “Jackson,” then settle back and tune into the Adult Alternative station.

I’ll never be punk again.

The Doc Watson Family – Tradition

doc watson family tradition

Music is all around us. Pouring out from the radio and the concert halls. Dripping from the internet stream and the podcast. Booming from the crowded discothèque and blues bars. Music is everywhere.

Some of the best music comes from places few have ever seen. In the empty pool halls, the backyards, the living rooms, and thousands of garages there is beautiful, passionate, amazing music being played. Right now, from every corner of the globe, someone is playing a tune, singing a song.

Before there was DVD audio, CDs, 8 tracks, and even vinyl records, there was a caveman sitting around a fire howling out a song about his battles to his cavewoman. Through time we moved out of the cave into cozier dwellings, but we’re still sitting around a fire, singing about our lives, loves, and losses.

Years ago I had the experience of sitting around in a living room with a bunch of people and singing and playing. And it was like a spiritual experience. It was wonderful. I decided then that was what I wanted to do with my life was to play music, do music. In the making of records I think over the years we’ve all gotten a little too technical, a little too hung up on getting things perfect. And we’ve lost the living room. The living room has gone out of the music. –Emmylou Harris

In 1977 Doc Watson released Tradition, a record designed to put the living room back into the studio. It is not so much of a studio record, as a family sing-a-long – quite literally since Watson uses his real family as a band. Doc is playing Grandpa here, picking the guitar and singing songs older than the entire family put together. Dolly Greer is the grandmother singing silly children’s songs on the porch and lonesome fiddle tunes in the kitchen. The rest of the family pitches in on guitar and banjo singing old-timey tunes while we gather ’round to listen.

The record is like an old photograph found buried in the back of the closet in your great-grandmother’s closet. It’s not the prettiest picture ever taken, nor something to take out and hang on your living room wall. It’s a little tattered and worn, faded by the sun. Yet there is something familiar, comforting, and beautiful about it.

Simple tunes like “Reuben’s Train”, and “Biscuits” will surely put a smile on your face, and if they don’t make you get up and dance, you’ll at least be tapping your foot along to the tune.

There are lots of little half-songs and snippets of tunes. Dolly Greer sings a medley of four children’s songs that lasts less than three minutes in total. Her country accent is so heavy that you can hardly understand what it is exactly, that she’s singing, but she does it with such a happy zeal you can hardly fault her for any of it. There are other half-played fiddle tunes and songs that seem so spur of the moment and forgotten halfway through that the album really does feel like a family sitting on the back porch watching a lazy summer day float away.

It is definitely not an album for everyone. Fans of tightly wound, well-crafted pop songs will surely find disappointment in the casual feel of the songs. I suspect even bluegrass and country music fans may find themselves looking back at the record bin through part of the 45 minutes of music here. But for anyone interested in traditional music, for a patient listener willing to wait for something special, there is a wealth of beautiful music on this disk.

Bela Fleck – Crossing the Tracks

bela fleck crossing the tracks

It is always interesting to revisit the roots of an innovative artist who has been around for a long time. Bela Fleck has been playing professional banjo since the 1970s. He played with the new-wave bluegrass band New Grass Revival to start out before creating blu-bop (an impressive mix of bluegrass, jazz, funk, and rock) with his own band, the Flecktones. Rounder Records just re-released his first solo album, Crossing the Tracks, originally released in 1979.

It is mostly a straightforward bluegrass album with some acoustic swing tossed in for good measure. Though you can already see the bluegrass innovator wanting to branch out. What other bluegrass musician would dare to cover Chick Corea’s masterful “Spain”? And that with a lead Dobro part!

For his first solo outing, Bela managed to find some of the premier bluegrass players around to join him. The band includes Mark Schatz, Bob Applebaum, and Russ Barenbert. Everyone’s favorite mandolinist, Sam Bush, joins the fun on fiddle, and Jerry Douglass plays Dobro on a few tracks.

All but two tracks (the spry ode to a broken heart “How Can You Face Me Now”, and the mournful “Aint Gonna Work Tomorrow”) are instrumentals. Often Bela lays back, allowing the other musicians to step up and shine. Though, in the title, it is a solo album, he never puts his own picking ahead of the song.

Crossing the Tracks is a fascinating glimpse into the beginnings of a masterful musician’s journey into innovation. For bluegrass lovers, Bela Fleck fans, and even jazz junkies looking for new takes on a favorite tune this should be of interest.

Jerry Garcia Band – Pure Jerry: Theatre 1839

pure jerry Jerry Garcia was a guitar-playing mofo-son-of-a-ho. For thirty years he played 100+ shows with the Grateful Dead annually. When he wasn’t playing for his day job, he was gigging in clubs with an ever-changing assortment of characters in the Jerry Garcia Band. Or he’d hit up Merle Saunders for a jam session and stop by David Grisman’s home to fiddle around. They tell tales of Garcia jamming on a few tunes for the Dead’s opening band, then sitting in with the New Riders of the Purple Sage on steel guitar; and then playing some five hours with the Grateful Dead. The man loved to play music.

In a move akin to the Grateful Dead’s release every note played policy, the Jerry Garcia estate has quickly been releasing a series of Jerry Garcia Band shows. The first in the series titled Pure Jerry is three disks from July 29 and 30 1977. Like a lot of the Dead sets from this year, these shows smoke!

The Garcia Band usually contained very little music that the Dead played. This was Garcia’s chance to play music that didn’t necessarily fit within the scope of the Grateful Dead. These disks are no different. There are numbers from Motown, Jamaica, God, and several tracks from Bob Dylan.

Garcia loved a soulful ballad. And though no one is gonna put Garcia’s voice on any all-time list, he has a way of projecting emotion that reaches down, far into his very guts.

For my money, it’s the upbeat numbers that make this set worth the price of the ticket, er CD. The opening track, “Mystery Train” is a barn burner showcasing both Garcia’s talent for ruminating on a theme, and Keith Godchaux’s ability as a piano man. The two take some nice leads and dance around each other in a glorious ballroom mania.

As with the Grateful Dead, the Jerry Garcia Band could jam a song out into beautiful, mysterious places. Yet this improvisational, take-it-as-it-comes approach to music could also lead to dead-ends, barren desserts, and meandering trails leading to nowhere. More often than not, Garcia was able to lead his comrades into rock-n-roll nirvana, but sometimes, like here during “Russian Lullabye”, the song loses control of itself. After a lovely, melody-shaking groove the song breaks down into a pointless, boring bass solo.

Nearly every song includes something of a jam, and mostly the band is able to pull it off. Whether it is the soft, rock-a-bye lilt of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, or the get off your keister and dance bebop twist to Dylan’s “Tangled Up In Blue”, Garcia and Co. are ready to take you out there, to find new spaces for music.

Though there are a few misses, and some all too long rambles (the 27 minutes of “Don’t Let Go” is about 15 minutes too much) these three disks are filled with so many moments of brilliance, it is a definite must-have for any Rock lover. It is also a brilliant place to find one of the all-time guitarists genius outside of the Grateful Dead.

The Hot Topic: Secret Pop Cult Shames!

From out the head-holes of a buncha self-appointed “cultural commentators” comes a weekly side-swipe at the issues of the day, the issues of the night, the issues of the late-afternoon when the telly’s crap and it’s too early to eat.

This is The Hot Topic.

This week – “Um, I Haven’t Seen It / Heard It / Read It” – Our Secret Pop Cult Shames!

From: The Duke De Mondo
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Secret Pop Cult Shames

Couple days past, myself and Sir Fleming sat debating the in’s and out’s of pi to a couple hundred decimal points, sat discussin the elusive wonders of Scorpius Gigantus starring Jeff Fahey, sat discussing the whys and wherefores of Land Of The Dead (Is it shit, is it amazing, who the hell knows? Neither of us two, that’s for sure, since ain’t a single syllable of agreement to be found).

In the course of it all, plenty banter about Jimmy Stewart, crops up least nine or twenty-four times in any given conversation, half a hundred jokes referencing the spin a the wheelchair this way or that in Rear Window.

Rear Window, least 48% of all punchlines uttered by yours truly in the course of a day involve Hitchcock’s flick about the nosey ol’ bastard an the diabolical goings on.

Who knows why, or for what reason, or what ungodly voodoo mania led to it all, but all a sudden I get slapped upside the knackers with the kinda guilt most often results in grown-men fryin neath the desert sun chewin locusts an hollerin bout the prophet Isaiah.

All a sudden I feel the need to fess up.

What it is, I say, what’s got me sweatin out my teeth, what it all relates to, see, is that, well…

I never actually seen Rear Window.

For shame! And you, The Duke, joking about it every day in existence, and you ain’t even laid an eye on the monochrome splendor of it all ever even once!

And worse.

The other day, chat heads in the direction of Quentin Tarantino, how unless Robert Rodriguez is involved, then anything Q.T related that isn’t actually directed by the uber-chinned whelp, best avoid the fucker altogether.

“Like what”, asks Sir Fleming?

Like, I dunno, like Four Rooms, for example.

“Four Rooms? It was alright!”

Forced into a corner, forced to make my point about no, it’s not alright, when really, when the truth of it all comes staggering into the bar-room buggered raw at five in the morning, what it coughs out the throat is, to be honest, I haven’t actually seen Four Rooms.

Because this is what we do. We have all the knowledge in the world regarding a certain flick, a certain book, a certain piece a music, we could talk about the fucker all week, we could draw diagrams and pie-charts that illustrate in no uncertain terms just what effect it has had on The Society and The Consciousness and So On. And yet when we get right down to it, when the guts are torn out the poultry and inspected by moonlight, what they reveal is that we ain’t got a right in the world to make these proclamations, we ain’t ever even seen / read / heard the bastard!

No-one’s gonna get upset about a fella never seen The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, it ain’t the easiest slab a celluloid to get hold of. But what about the fella sat in the corner of the bar scared to pipe in with his thoughts on Coppola because he ain’t ever seen Apocalypse Now?

We all have them. These hidden shames. Maybe we never actually seen Goodfellas, or Terminator 2, or we never read On The Road, even though we quote it endlessly, or we never heard any of Neil Young’s 1980’s recordings, yet we still insist they suck.

So what I wanna know, what’ll get me through life even though I still haven’t seen Rear Window, is the facts of the case re the following;

What’s your secret Pop Cult shame?

From: Aaron Fleming
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Secret Pop Cult Shames

Popular culture discrepancies then, a topic that can only wield a plethora of embarrassing confessions, no priest or religiose could even begin to take in the admissions of gaps, holes and chasms of knowledge hitherto unseen by the masses. Luckily the Hot Topic Team far surpasses any supposed virtue possessed by the propagating and hypocritical harbingers of organized religion (although that’s for another hot topic debate perhaps), and it is here to grant amnesty to those with guilty concealments.

So let the flood begin.

Movies, then. As I write this a university screening of Toy Story 2 is occurring that I would have been at, had I chosen to depart my warm abode today. The truth is I’ve never seen that one, although from all I hear it seems to be even more praised than the prequel, which I have seen and is great. This leads onto a number of other CGI movies
which I haven’t bothered to see; Monsters Inc, A Bugs Life, Antz, Ice Age etc. I’m not too bothered about these, really. Hey, The Incredibles was great, but the interest just ain’t there.

Another topical one is the Harry Potter flicks. Never seen em, never read the books, never bought the action figures, never swam the waters of synergistic marketing. I’m sure it’s an interesting mythos, but I just don’t care.

I’ve never seen The Godfather Part 2 (or 3, although I think this is less heathenish). Saw the first one, it’s fine, bit overrated, but I couldn’t be bothered watching the sequel. I know I probably should, I’m sure it’s fantastic, but who has the time these days?

Titanic! Never saw the whole film, and I doubt that’ll ever be rectified, I’m not prepared to give over 3 hours of my life to that, especially when I know what happens (love story, historical ship sinking yadda yadda). I certainly won’t be purchasing that mammoth new 4-disc DVD box.

Haven’t seen Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Das Boot, Singin’ In The Rain, Metropolis, Stand By Me, Blood Simple, to name a few big ones I should have seen (some I’d like to see, some less so).

Oh, and Top Gun and Days Of Thunder. Fuck them.

But something to remember here; everyone has gaps, no one has the perfect record. And for every big film missed there’s a Porcile, or a Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies, or a Punishment Park that has been seen.

From: Mark Saleski
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Secret Pop Cult Shames

Oh my….do I really have to divulge this information? OK. Here goes…

Every so often, folks will be yammering on about all things political. The conversation will slide around to particularly brutish social situations. Then somebody will say, “Yes, just like in Lord Of The Flies.” And then I will nod my head in agreement. But of course, I’ve never read that book so I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. The closest I’ve come is to listen to Aerosmith’s “Lord Of The Thighs” from Live Bootleg. Right. So we all know that a vinyl record is not a book and Thighs are certainly not Flies (and we will not go down the road of disgusting jokes here) so there’s the truth, I’ve never read Lord Of The Flies. There are probably other books I haven’t scanned my eyes over, though none as ‘important’ as this (and I’m not about to count Ulysses here as that seems more like an Olympic intellectual event than just plain old reading).

Then there’s films. Let me just get it right out in the open: E.T. There, I’ve said it. But hey, I’ve seen Citizen Kane about thirty times. Does that make up for it? Probably not, since there are others: Schindler’s List, Lawrence of Arabia (I did try there, but I nodded off and the back of my head whacked into the wall behind the couch), Taxi Driver, The Manchurian Candidate (I own a copy, surely that means something), Titanic. OK, I put that last one there because the snotty side of myself thinks its proximity to The Manchurian Candidate is kinda funny.

Music? Forget it. Everybody knows I own every recording ever made.

From: DJ Radiohead
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Secret Pop Cult Shames

OK… there is no way really I can come up with a truly exhaustive list. I will have to settle for naming just a few of my sins in this regard.

Most of them would come in the reading department. I am not as well-read as I should like to be. I have only read Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. I never read a lot of the ‘great’ literature (even if it was assigned in high school or college… I just faked it).

Movies… I am missing a lot of the so-called classics here. I have never seen Taxi Driver or Citizen Kane or High Noon. I must also admit… I claim to be a Tarantino fan (and I am) but I have never seen either of the Kill Bill films or Jackie Brown.

Musically… hmmm… I don’t feel like I have really missed anything or at least don’t feel bad about what I have missed. Well… let me change that. I have only heard one or two songs by the Ramones or The Clash. I am not real well schooled at all in the 70s punk movement. I am not sure how much I would like that music or not but some of that material is considered classic so I feel out of the loop there.

From: Mat Brewster
To: The Hot Topic Group
Re: Secret Pop Cult Shames

The Duke has never seen Rear Window! Well, pluck my eyes out with a pogo stick! Look over the horizon boys, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse should be trotting by any moment.

A fella I know that’s the entertainment editor of one of the newspapers in Dallas sends out an annual list of recommended movies from the first talkies to present day. It’s a big, grand list and also creates plenty of discussion. It is also daunting to look at and see just how many flicks I haven’t seen, nor even heard of. I added it up one time and it would take over 200 back to back to back hours of movie watching to see them all.

Truth of the matter is that unless you are independently wealthy, or it is your job to sit and watch the flickery, there ain’t no way you can watch all the films out there. In college, I went to the movies nearly every weekend, and usually, I got to see every film that I wanted to see. But even then I didn’t see every piece of cinema released. Now I’m lucky if I get to the theater once a month.

So we all make choices as to what we’re actually going to be able to see. A couple of days ago I had to decide between the more critically acclaimed Jarhead, and the completely panned, yet somehow appealing Doom. We take in what we can, lie through our teeth about what we’ve missed, and chastise those who haven’t consumed all the things on our list.

Do I have a secret shame list? Sure. I’ve only made it through half of Gone With the Wind. Though I own copies, I’ve never seen reel one of either Rashomon or Ran, or even Laurence of Arabia. I can’t recall a single John Wayne picture that I’ve seen from top to bottom, including Rio Bravo.

Ah, man there is just too many to list. The sense of shame barrels a man over. I can’t even get into all the literature I’ve never read (including not a novel one of William Faulkner) or the music I’ve never heard (anything by the Sex Pistols, and *cough* the Clash).

From: Eric Berlin
To: The Hot Topic Group
Re: Secret Pop Cult Shames

I’m reminded of the scene in High Fidelity, where the record store troika is forced to admit they’re music snobs. Once they admit it, though, they’re proud of it.

And let’s face it: we all want to be cultural snobs. We all want to know everything there is to know about our “area,” whatever that can be defined as: books, alt rock bands, Charles Bronson films, television programs featuring children and robots, and so on.

And as I wrote the above words I wanted to stop at each mini-moment and write, I own Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk! Does that make me a cultural snob? Not at all, it just makes me crazy on many a level, Zig Zag Wanderer that I am.

Since I’m a generalist and tend to soak up tidbits of various pop cultural arcana without ever delving into the dank cauldrons of true alchemic geekery (think There Are Some Who Call Me… Tim circa Monty Python and the Holy Grail for argument’s sake), I’m constantly on the outside looking in upon cultural snobbery in fear and abject awe and, more and more of late, relief!

It’s a relief when you let go of the pretensions, isn’t it? If it’s not in the blood, move on, my brotha, right? So I’ll never read Balzac and I couldn’t get through the first bloody page of any James Joyce novel I tried my mental motors at. Jethro Tull and Rush and The Mr. T Experience and The Alan Parsons Project will never be names I can summon at will in the midst of a snap-cracklin’ music conversation. That’s so early Jerthro Tull, bro! I’ll never get to utter those glorious words. What’s a fella to do?

I tried to soak myself in television for several months this year, which may have been my personal cultural Waterloo (and I can summon Waterloo but Ropespierre or James II? Not so much), but it’s all too much, really.

It turns out that I don’t care if Joan is from Arcadia or Pasadena or Burbank or wherever. I don’t care about William Shatner’s late career run on Boston Legal.

I just want to watch The Real World and Arrested Development and Rome.

And so at long last, I hope, I can rest easy in my own cultural digs.

So there you have it, The Hot Topic Team have coughed their confessions left and right cross cyberspace.

Now, it’s over to you. Don’t be scared, we won’t tell nobody. What’s your Secret Pop Cult Shame?

Thanks folks.

The Hot Topic: Coffee and CDs

The Mondo Gentlemen’s Club has started a group discussion (Editors Note: we started it in 2005 and it didn’t last long). It will hopefully run weekly and be on every topic under the sun. It will be hosted each week by a different member of the club, and the topic is to their choosing.

Parental Warning: This week’s topic, and probably future topics, contain some filthy curse words you aren’t used to hearing around these parts. The Mondo Gentlemen’s Club is for adults only, so if you are underage, or offended by the humorous use of four-letter words, tune out now. Brewster’s Millions is usually a family-friendly affair, but we don’t believe in censorship, so The Duke’s beautiful, filthy tongue remains uncut.

From: Greg Smyth
To: The Hot Topic
Re: Coffee and CDs

Dear Gang,

I’ve been hanging out in my local Starbucks way too much lately and I was perusing some flyers for their latest exclusive CD offering (a hideous slight on Herbie Hancock’s genius). That set me wondering about if, were they actually selling anything I might want to purchase, would I be willing to buy my music from a coffee company?

Starbucks’ appeal is that it sells you back the very thing you can get for practically no dollars right in your own living room – a cuppa joe in a homely environment. Setting aside the deep and potentially disturbing personal problems that might make you feel the need to buy into this fake lifestyle in the first place, part and parcel of the patented Starbucks experience is the idea of fitting into this Americanized, homogenized idea of respectable alt-cool. The idea being that, if you’re in Starbucks, you’re Hip and you Belong.

So far, so much bullshit. Now, to me, Starbucks selling music isn’t actually the most devilish thing Corporate America has foisted on the world (a CLOWN, selling HAMBURGERS!? WTF?) and it fits with the whole Middle Of The Road aspirational lifestyle that also brought us GAP. The thing is, while Starbucks keeps plugging a new Alanis Morrissette album, I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass. I wouldn’t buy it if they paid me. Likewise, the whole Dylan pseudo-controversy left me nonplussed, simply because (as good as he is) Bob Dylan is part of that whole Pasteurized American Monoculture.

So, when would it start bothering me? Well, call it cultural snobbery if you like (*hands up in surrender*) but the very second they start trying to flog me something cutting edge or indie or FUCKING GOOD, then I’ll be pissed. If, assuming it ever sees the light of day, I was to walk into one of Newcastle’s multiple Starbucks and find the debut album by Babyshambles going for a tenner when you buy a Venti Decaf Mochalocofrangipanifuckaluckachino with Soya Milk. THEN, I won’t be responsible for my actions.

Good day.

From: Eric Berlin
To: The Hot Topic
Re: Coffee and CDs

I’m thrilled to be taking part in this little (dare I say alt-cool?) experiment. That said, let me hereby dish some chips as per request.

A great topic you’ve hit upon, one that’s strangely and nearly disturbingly universal: Starbucks and monoculture and coffee (ah, an item close to my heart, that) and world dominion. And music! You had my head spinning, what with memories of crisscrossing the American South in the ’90s and seeing the same set of megastores at every stop (Wal-Mart, Old Navy, K-Mart, Waffle House, next!), the first brilliant third of Fight Club, and many an afternoon huddled over a scribble pad (oh, how dark and mysterious he is, they think – writing a novel no one will ever read, let alone pay for – and drinking coffee in public, all at once!) at my local Starbucks. Well, there are technically two local Starbucks in my neighborhood, but I think you get my meaning.

And I hear you, as an avowed Starbucks junk fiend, with regard to purchasing music there. I suspect you’d agree that it would be akin to more securely and precisely positioning one’s soul over the corporate hell pits. Just one Ray Charles & Friends compilation away from eternal damnation, right? We’re all forced to toe the line in this scrambled advertisement-rich modern culture, I suppose.

The weird thing (the temptation, perhaps?) is that some of the music played at Starbucks is good. I’ve heard some great reggae and jazz and African rhythms that I’d likely never get the opportunity to experience otherwise, I’m (very) sorry to say.

So on the one hand, I might boil the Big Picture question to: how much of our souls are we willing to sell?

But then I’m forced to counter myself, Devil’s Advocate-like, with: it’s just coffee and music, so chill out, eh?

From: Aaron Fleming
To: The Hot Topic
Re: Coffee and CDs

It’s hard not to repeat the frequent rhetoric espoused by anti-corporate activists and, well, anyone in the condition of sanity, but let me begin by saying corporate powerhouses (like Starbucks) will commence with any procedure that has the chance of increasing profits, the bottom line is the most, and only, important unit in this equation. You could argue about governmental laws (national and international) but that only goes so far, and it could be easily stated that subliminal methods used in advertising/marketing/etc are much more powerful tools within the intention of profit maximization (to which I’d agree).

With vast departments of employees working in these areas, the corporations are constantly evolving and developing new strategies, no demographic or sub-culture is safe from its roaming tentacles. If I were feeling particularly anarchic right now I’d call for a major uprising to combat the machine, or at least for people to continue to strive for constructing a wall of defense against it. Of course, there is plenty of that evident in society (anti-globalization groups etc), but clearly far from enough to have any substantial effect, and, as corporate power expands, it only increases in difficulty.

So to Starbucks. This company has clearly hit gold with its image, and the proliferation of music retail is just another part of this. Eric says that he has heard decent music in the outlets, consider that another success bestowed on the heads of those advanced marketers. It’s all image construction, as is the entire “Middle Of The Road aspirational lifestyle” that Greg discusses.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not faining some personal invincibility here, I too have heard commendable music in Starbucks, and have enjoyed sitting within its stylish interiors (planned down to minuscule detail no doubt). I probably wouldn’t buy music CDs in there, that’s simply due to my musical tastes, but to use a hypothetical situation and assume there was a CD of liking seen to me, then I guess if it were a favorable price then I might indeed purchase said item.

Eric asks: how much of our souls are we willing to sell? The writhing consumerist chunk out to attain a bargain is my answer.

From: Mat Brewster
To: The Hot Topic
Re: Coffee and CDs

My initial, gut reaction is, why would anyone buy anything from Starbucks at any time? It’s a giant corporation trying to pretend it is a local, alt.cool place for hip cats. It’s a faux-trendy mega-store selling brown sludge with a 200% mark-up.

Confession #1: I don’t like coffee. I hate the look of it. I hate the smell of it. I hate the whole hipster-trendy feel of it. And I certainly, without a doubt, hate the taste of it. And for all you people out there ready to offer me the new vanilla/caramel mocho-choca-froca latee-achino with a twist, claiming it tastes just like hot chocolate and you can’t even taste the coffee – stop wasting your time. It tastes exactly like coffee, and it is all nasty. Guess what? If I want something that tastes like hot chocolate, I’ll buy some freaking hot chocolate.

The confession comes in because not liking coffee kind of puts a damper on actually wanting to go to a coffee shop. I don’t think I’ve ever actually set foot into a stand-alone Starbucks shop.

Confession #2: I have actually made a purchase at Starbucks. It wasn’t at a stand-alone Starbucks, but one of those coffee bars inside a Barnes and Noble, or Borders, or whatever giant book corporations they set up shop in. And I know, I know, giant book-selling corporations are evil too. I do frequent my fabulous local bookshop, but I still like the big corporations for the lounging, browsing opportunities they provide.

Sitting in those giant leather chairs with my Calvin and Hobbes collection, or the complete works of Raymond Chandler, I often feel the desire to have a warm, chocolaty beverage. When this happens, I have to admit, I pay way too much for a little cocoa, and sometimes that cocoa comes from a Starbucks.

Confession #3: I bought a coffee at a Starbucks just yesterday. I went through the drive-through, thus not falsifying my “never been to a stand-alone Starbucks” schpeel, and the coffee was for a friend, whom I happened to owe a couple of bucks.

Enough ranting and onto the question at hand, would I ever buy music from Starbucks? Not frequenting the franchise that is hard to answer. I honestly, didn’t even know they sold music. So, I think I’ll change it around to something like:

What if the Antichrist herself, Oprah, put one of my favorite author’s books in her book club, would I buy it?

In both cases, I think it comes down to whether or not the product is available from any other market. I’m not buying a rehashed Ray Charles greatest hits package from Starbucks, because I can get his music elsewhere. I don’t need to buy any Steinbeck from Oprah, either. There are plenty of other copies around. But if Lyle Lovett puts out a Starbucks-only disks, then I guess, I’d have to start drinking coffee.

In the end if Starbucks or Oprah are bringing wonderful artists to a broader audience than they’d ever get without them, that’s a good thing.

From: Bennet Dawson
To: The Hot Topic
Re: Coffee and CDs

You gotta look at the birthplace of Starbucks (the rainy Pacific Northwest), and the original market of the super-strong coffee industry to understand a bit about why this phenomenon has taken hold. During my days in Seattle, the chill, the numb, and the gray and cloudy week, after week. It sucks the life outta your day and you need stimulants or you will die. After a year my personal Cobainesque urge to end it all was barely held at bay by the six caffeine-charged bevies that I picked up at whatever chichi outlet happened by, and there’s one on every corner. Double shots of espresso mixed into frothy hot milk, plain dark coffee, or some choco-latte richness that sustains and excites both my body and my weather-dulled synapses.

The strong coffee addiction persists to this day, even though I’ve moved on to sunnier locales. French roast brewed strong enough to melt a plastic spoon, a Krupps Mini-Espresso Machine for those all-night jitters of creative madness, the *click* of my brain turning on (after only half a mug) in the wee hours of the morning, and the unparalleled ability of a strong “cuppa joe” to push the haze of too many late-night beers into the distant past.

All hail Caffeine! And to the purveyors of ultra-strong brews I say Thank-ya! Turkish? Oh yeah.

Living in a rural area, the closest Starbucks is now a distant hours drive. It’s tucked into the streetside corner of a Barnes & Nobles, and I see it only when looking to expand my library. But the allure is gone. The hapless yearning to meet someone interesting no longer drives my life. The biscotti beckon, but the corporate atmosphere pales when compared to the warmth and comfort of my own private place. Alas, I hear no music as I chase the register down and scoot out of the store with something guaranteed to provide hours of pleasure and escape. CD’s? Music? If they’re selling, I’m not buying.

Years ago, perhaps. But only if I was still single, still looking for the One. And only if the gal behind the counter looked like a potential snuggle. “Alternative? Sounds great!” But she’d have to smile real purty, and suggest that the purchase would bring us closer to the love, closer to the end of the numbness that comes with living in Seattle.

From: Duke DeMondo
To: The Hot Topic
Re: Coffee and CDs

What this whole brouhaha has me remembering is the time I was sat in Starbucks back in the day, sippin some gargantuan mug a foam and reading some toss or other about zombies. What happened was that next thing I knew, holy shit, it’s Cold Roses by Ryan Adams And The Cardinals blaring out the speakers!

(Well, whispering out.)

What in fucks name to do?

It felt odd, and this gets back to Greg’s concern. I don’t mind shite or at least Old Stuff That Everyone Knows fillin the airwaves in these places, but hearin the new Ryan Adams record in such a cripplingly bland, safe, pseudo-BoHo hive, it did the arse of my soul a good deal of frazzlement.

In the end, what I did was I made sure everyone could see that I knew every word, and the smugness afforded by this, well, it made it all worthwhile.

But you have to start worrying when Starbucks are endorsing records, because not only does it mean that said records have become incredibly hip amongst the kinda vacant terrors who yack about “World Music” (yeah, I’m with David Byrne on that one), but also, it means they’re probably fairly safe and unthreatening.

But part of me also thinks it’s a good thing that these cats are getting turned on to Dylan and the like whilst huddled round the tables sharing a thimble-fulla yak’s milk on account of they’re all school-kids and broke.

It’s the old Us And Them thing. I fucking hate the thought of Our Stuff being bounded ‘pon by these faceless fucks, but at the same time, I’d rather hear Ryan Adams when I’m sippin an overpriced milk / mint / caffeine abomination than, say, 50 Cent.

It would, however, pain me to find out the next Todd Snider record was only available at Starbucks, for example, because not only does it mean he’s gone back on all that leftist pot-soaked banter and instead focused on making money offa leftist-for-a-day pot-soaked posers, but it also means One Of Us has gone gotten snared by the fuckers.

It’s bad enough that Jack White’s writing songs for fucking Coke.

I mean I exist on nothing BUT Diet Coke, but God Almighty, I don’t want Jack White writing the advert music.

(And yeah, it pains me also that Ryan Adams did the GAP ad, that Dylan did Victoria’s Secret, and the whole Bill Hicks “Off the artistic roll-call forever” thing would apply if not for the fact that fuck my eyes, it’s Dylan and Ryan Adams! They can do whatever the hell they want.)

Still, I never did buy that Starbucks Dylan CD. I woulda done had it been the complete Gaslight tapes, but ten tracks when I already have the 17-track bootleg seems like a whole lotta nothing. Even WITH enhanced sound.

And I must point out that I have yet to see that Morissette record in a Starbucks, but it’s in the HMV in town. Curious…

Alas, I can’t go into the why’s and wherefores of how come I can’t get a fucking “large” anything anymore, on account of the ladies at the door needin a crate of speed for the weekend.

(Being sober has it’s advantages, since the ladies know they can trust a fella to get the job done efficiently and with little or no puke.)

U2 – Wide Awake in America

u2 wide awake in america

I first bought this EP, in tape form, from a used record shop for about $3.00. I wore the sucker out playing it on my way to and from high school.

It is really more of a CD single than any real album. Though the sticker price would have you wish for more. It has two live cuts and a couple of B-side singles.

The first track, a live cut of “Bad”, from the newly released (back in 1985) album, The Unforgettable Fire, is tremendous. It has a real laid-back feel to it, with a nice groove running throughout. Adam Clayton’s bass moves the song along while Bono is at his best as a frontman.

Bono sings the song like a preacher at the apocalypse. You can almost see him standing on the edge of the stage, thousands of fans reaching out to him in front, while fires ablaze from behind.

Another live track comes next, A Sort of Homecoming. It doesn’t have quite the same magical feel of “Bad”, but is still played quite well, and is actually quite fun. What with the bouncy chorus, sing-along chanting, you actually forget the darkness of the lyrics.

The final two cuts, Three Sunrises, and Love Comes Tumbling are studio offerings that didn’t make the cut for The Unforgettable Fire. It is easy to see why. They are slower ballads, with little passion in the delivery.

But if you can find the album in the bargain bin, the live version of “Bad” is more than worth a listen.

To read an essay I wrote on U2 featuring some stories culled from this album click here.