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.

Steve Kimock Band – Eudemonic

steve kimock eudemonic

The first time I saw Steve Kimock play was during the summer of 1998. He was one of two guitarists (the other being Mark Karan) filling the big gap left by Jerry Garcia in the Grateful Dead reincarnation The Other Ones.

Kimock’s stage presence was slight. Sitting on a stool, guitar in his lap, head bent down he looked more like some Buddhist monk contemplating the mysteries of the universe on a lonely mountain than a rock star.

In fact, many Deadheads were complaining about his lack of presence during this tour. This always seemed ironic to me considering that Garcia had spent the last decade of his life, standing motionless on stage, with his chin resting on his chest.

While others complained about how Kimock looked on stage, I was awed by his chops as a guitarist. His playing was both fluid and tight. Technical and yet full of emotion. Much like Garcia himself, in his better days.

Soon after The Other Ones show, I did some tape trading for a live KVHW show. This was a short-lived band Kimock formed with Babby Vega, Alen Hertz, and Ray White. Again I was knocked out by Kimock’s virtuosity on guitar.

For whatever reason, though Kimock’s name was often batted about in musical conversations amongst online groups, I never gained another piece of his music. Various albums, live tapes, and concerts landed on my list of things to get but never managed to materialize into reality.

So, it was with great anticipation that I found myself with the Steve Kimock Band’s newest release, Eudemonic. The dictionary says the title means “producing happiness and well-being.” That’s a lot to ask for in 66 minutes of music. I definitely had a few moments of happiness brought to me by the music on this album, but I’ll leave my well-being to a higher authority.

I have to admit right upfront here, that I’m not a fan of instrumental music, especially instrumental rock music. Sure, I’ve got some classical music, your Beethoven some Mozart, and whatnot. But I generally regulate this to background music; something to play when I’m a little sad, or to back me up during a romantic dinner. But with the music coming out of my car stereo, or pulsating through my home, my music life consists of some lyrics, some singing.

Don’t get me wrong I can totally dig a 10-minute improvised jam in the middle of a song, but in the end, I want it to come back to a melody, a hook, a chorus. Walking down the road, I need a lyric to sing.

Eudemonic, in fact, feels like the middle jams to some really great songs. I just keep waiting for them to go somewhere, to have a crescendo and soar back down to a rousing final verse or a sing-a-long chorus.

The instrumentation is admittedly quite good. I still hear the passion and performance behind the Kimock guitar, and the rest of the band plays extremely well. Alphonso Johnson especially proves his ability to hit the right groove on bass.

The standout songs are the retro groove opening track, “Eudemon“, the moe. inspired “Ice Cream”, and the bouncy “Bouncer”. The songs are often lengthy, averaging about 6 minutes per song. There is plenty of grooves laid down in all the songs, I just wish there was either consistency throughout the entire album or a bigger hook-to-song ratio.

Fans of instrumental guitar rock will have a lot to dig into with Eudemonic. The jams are flowing, and Kimock is a fine guitar player. It is, in fact, my predilection for turning instrumental music into background fodder that gets me in trouble here. There is just too much going on here, musically, to allow it to stay in the background. A person needs to really listen to the interplay between musicians on this album. Because of this, I’m afraid Eudemonic is something that will probably not get a lot of play around my house. But for those of you willing to take the time to dig into a piece of music, there are many treasures to be found.

2 Days in the Valley Soundtrack

2 days in the valle

Once in a while, I’ll leave the movie theatre and head straight to the music shop, knowing I simply must purchase the soundtrack album. I leave thinking the music was just so perfect, so wonderful, that it would simply be a shame to not have it in my collection.

Usually, the soundtracks turn out to be absolutely friggin’ brilliant. To this day I play the Swingers soundtrack and dig nearly every swinging note. When I’m jonesing for some classic 90’s grunge I always turn to the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe’s less-than-stellar film, Singles.

But sometimes, as it turns out, the music on a soundtrack turns out to be better suited for the cinema. The songs fit the scene perfectly but taken outside of the Hollywood lights, the sounds fail to perform. Somehow the mix of images, lights, and sounds gelled, but when left alone, the music falls flat.

The soundtrack to 2 Days in the Valley is one of these disks. I literally walked straight out of the movie theatre and into the record shop and picked up the soundtrack. While watching the film all I could think about is how great the music is.

Truth be told, some of the songs are fantastic. Wilson Picket’s “Hello Sunshine“ and Otis Redding’s “Down in the Valley“ kick out the R and B jams like only they could. One of Lyle Lovett’s greatest and saddest songs “Nobody Knows Me“ is included in the package.

Both Taj Mahal’s “Rolling on the Sea“, and Erin O’Hara’s “Down in the Valley” are very listenable, but fail to be enough to make me want to dig out the album to listen to just them. Other songs, such as Morphines‘ “Gone For Good“, seemed wonderful in the cinema. That song fit the scene perfectly, and brought home the loneliness of the moment, but left playing in my car, or the home stereo, and it just seems rather sappy, kind of silly.

The few bits of the score included failed to gain any interest. And songs like Scott Reeder’s “Gold” are barely palatable. They are the type of songs that go unnoticed in a movie, playing in the background, but get quite annoying when played on their own.

Ultimately I have the Lyle Lovett song on his own album and the two remaining standouts aren’t enough to make me shuffle through the rest to play this album often.

Neil Young – Silver and Gold

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Neil Young’s first acoustic album in seven years, Silver and Gold sounds shamefully thrown together. His last acoustic effort (not counting the MTV Unplugged release) Harvest Moon is one of my all-time favorite albums. There is some lovely songwriting in there, with some nice backup singing by the likes of James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. It was a throwback to Young’s most successful album, Harvest. And it sounded marvelous.

In the time between Harvest Moon and Silver and Gold, he released some seven albums. He paid tribute to Kurt Cobain, rocked live with Crazy Horse, recorded with Pearl Jam, and wrote the soundtrack to a Jim Jarmusch film, all of which were pretty ragged, electric, and very loud.

I was very excited to get some more acoustic Young, but find myself disappointed with this release. That’s not to say it is a bad album, for there are several really good tunes here. The opening track, “Good to See You“ is a fun, jaunty little thing. His ode to his first band, “Buffalo Springfield Again“ is a great deal of fun, and makes me wish that band really would get back together, though I’ve never been much of a fan.

It is when Young decides to sing a ballad that things get difficult here. Eight of the ten tracks on the album are slower numbers. With the exception of “Silver and Gold“ (a song I included in my wedding reception music) and “Razor Love“, the slow songs are boring. There is nothing to set them apart musically, and the lyrics don’t say anything particularly moving.

It is an album worth buying for the standout tracks. But you would be better off importing those tracks onto a mix tape, or your iPod and then selling back the album to someone else.

Blind Boys of Alabama – Higher Ground

blind boys of alabama higher ground

I bought the Blind Boys of Alabama’s 2002 album Higher Ground on one of those whimsical, spur-of-the-moment kind of deals. You know the type; you go into Borders, or Barnes and Nobles, or whatever big chain you prefer to whittle away your troublesome hours amongst the pop culture references. They’ve got various albums on the compact disk sitting in stands around the shop, already cued up in a CD player, waiting for you to press play and then purchase.

This particular album was just sitting there, waiting for me to gather a listen. I had heard good things about the Blind Boys before, and even though I had previously not had any luck enjoying one of their straight gospel affairs, this new disk looked most promising.

Look there, it’s got Robert Randolph on pedal steel throughout, and Ben Harper guesting on a couple of tracks. They cover Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground”, Jimmy Cliff, and even a Prince tune. You can’t go wrong with that.

I was mostly right.

The thing is, and this has happened to me several times before, “Higher Ground” sounded fantastic while I was listening to it in Borders. It’s like how jeans seem to look better while you are looking at yourself in the store mirror, albums sound better while using store headphones. Yet when you take them home, your butt looks too big, the zipper doesn’t go all the way up, and the music sounds like crap.

Truth be told, the album opener, a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” is pretty stinkin’ spectacular. If I must be honest with you, dear reader, I might have to admit that they beat the pants off of the original. It’s the kind of performance that makes me want to raise my hands and shout to the lord of the blind boys,

“Hallelujah!”

There is some nice vocal harmony, with a sweet high part sung by Ben Harper. Robert Randolph and the Family Band add some nice licks, but play for the song and not to show off their musicality.

While certainly, Mayfield’s song is a spiritual one, it is also a political one. Inspired by the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington Mayfield’s lyrics speak out to a generation tired of war, to a race tired of being downtrodden, to a people ready for something to happen.

The Blind Boys cut out the politics and sing it straight as a spiritual. They make it sing. In the final chorus, they nail a raved-up harmony singing,

“I believe”

And you can hear 60 years of faith coming out in their voices. And in that moment, if only for that moment, we all believe, too.

There are other tracks that tread on similar, higher ground. This rendition of “Wade in the Water” stirs me to my very pancreas. The bass vocals are as about as perfect as one could hope to find from a blind, black man from Alabama. “While Many Rivers” to Cross doesn’t quite reach the power, and humility of the Jimmy Cliff version, there is a weary wisdom in the gravely voices that come out of the Blind Boys that make it a classic in their own right.

The album is at its best when the instruments accentuate the strength of the Boy’s singing. An a cappella band for many years, the Blind Boys have an enormous presence, vocally. When Robert Randolph et al, ramp it up as a blues band, the album suffers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Stevie Wonder classic “Higher Ground”. While Randolph is a fine guitarist, and he shows off more than a fine pair of chops during this number, the Blind Boys seem out of place. The lyrics have spiritual significance, but the song is more of a rock/funk number than down-home southern gospel. The vocals can’t latch onto any significant meaning because the guitar drowns them out.

Yet at the same time, numbers like “Precious Lord”, and “Spirit in the Dark” suffer from a lack of musical interest. The Blind Boys sing it like they are in the choir, but there is no interest in the music, there is no soul in the soul.

When they are able to find a balance in both the vocals and the music, the results, are…well…heavenly.

Buy Jerry Garcia’s Mailbox

From the wide world of weird this just in: you can now purchase the late Jerry Garcia’s mailbox here (link no longer exists).

This mailbox sat in front of the late guitarist’s last home, a custom-made mansion in Nicasio, California. When Jerry died the house was sold and the new owner upgraded the box and put Jerry’s in storage. Apparently, now is the time to bring the thing out and make a profit from the deceased.

In a culture where celebrities are the new deities, even old mailboxes are sacred. The starting bid is $2000 so tighten up your budget if you want to have this one-of-a-kind memorabilia.

The only question I have left is that with all the millions Jerry Garcia was making, why didn’t he buy a better-looking mailbox? That thing looks like it would fit better in front of a beat-up trailer, than a million-dollar mansion.

Fête de la Musique

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Yesterday was not only the longest day of the year, but it also marked the date on which Amy and I only have one month left in France. It was a rather busy day for us as well.

Our water, once again, was being shut off at 9 in the AM and so we awoke early, showered, and breakfasted. We then left for the library to return and check out books, CDs, and a DVD. While we were out and about we decided to check in with Air France to see what an extra piece of luggage would cost us.

Amy has about four boxes full of study material here, which she has to have in Indiana when we get back so that she can study for her Ph.D. exams. The German post office (which is cheaper than the French PO) is going to charge us about 60 Euros per box! Air France will charge us 100 Euros for an extra bag. So, we are now looking at cheap, but durable bags in which we can stash at least a couple of boxes worth of books.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon lounging in the shade at the park. It was a very pretty, yet extremely hot day. Without air conditioning, our apartment is rather unbearable, and thus sitting under a tree is preferable to sitting on our couch.

It was also the annual Fete de la Musique in Strasbourg, which is basically a city-wide music festival. At all of the larger city squares, they set up official stages in which the more popular local bands and a few medium-sized names in French music jammed into the wee hours of the morning. Yet at nearly every block in the city unofficial musicians were playing their tunes. This ranged from a 7-piece zydeco/reggae band to one guy playing a flute with another guy playing an old recorder. No matter where we were in the city, we could hear music.

We were meeting with a group from the university around 8:30 but Amy and I decided to wander around a bit first. We caught a fun French group with a terrible Rastafarian sax player in the Place de Zurich. Then we wandered downtown where there was live music playing every 20 yards or so. These street performers were so close together you could hardly hear them apart from each other. Around the cathedral it was madness. An official stage was set up in the Place de Gutenberg as well as nearby, right in front of the cathedral. Non-sanctioned performers were everywhere in between, as well as a throng of people. The poor choir, in front of the cathedral, could barely even be heard even when I was standing but a few feet from them.

strasbourg cathedral Time came and we went to meet the gang. None of us had any idea about where to go, so we began wandering back toward the center of town. The crowds were expanding and it was quite an experience just trying to keep the 12 of us from getting lost. We caught short snippets of several bands before always moving on. As is always the problem with large music festivals, no matter where you are, you always think something better is around the corner.

Eventually we all tired and amazingly found empty seats at a local café. It was a little removed from the live music, but the block was more than making up for this with DJs playing piped-in music. Our café was unlucky enough to be very near two DJs while employing one itself. This created three separate pieces of music blending together into one loud mess. It was so loud we couldn’t really talk to each other and I quickly developed a headache. Our gang seemed content in sitting there drinking beer, but I became discontent and told them we were leaving. It was not only the annoying DJs, but the fact that I was spending my night listening to canned music while live music was literally playing around the next corner, and throughout the city. I guess we might have seemed rude, but I was sick of sitting there.

We caught a punk/metal band in Place Kleber. They covered Nirvana as we were walking by, so we decided to hang out a bit. It has been a long time since I caught a live metal act and I must admit it was fun. The energy was really strong, and the kids were having fun jumping up and down.

Our feet got tired so we wandered away again to another square in which there was grass to sit upon. The band was playing lots of classic American rock and we decided to stay. They played covers of Dire Straights, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Deep Purple, and AC/DC. And let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve been surrounded by a mass of drunken French people screaming “Highway to Hell” at the top of their lungs.

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The music officially ended at 1 AM, but many of the unofficial acts played much later. The street parties didn’t end until much later as well. We returned to our apartment and tried to sleep. Luckily the official places around us had cleared out early which moved the party a few blocks away. I still was awoken a few times by the drunken hordes singing their lungs out as they returned home, but all was well.

Dark Star Orchestra To Tour Again After Keyboardist Death

I’ve decided to post any news-type items that I post on Blogcritics here as well. The following is a little blurb I did on the Dark Star Orchestra.

Dark Star Orchestra will continue their spring tour after the sudden death of founding member, and keyboardist Scott Larned. After canceling numerous concerts to regroup, the band will restart the tour in New York City on May 27. From there, the band will head to Connecticut and continue to tour the US pretty much nonstop until August.

Scott Larned, passed away suddenly of heart failure this past April while touring with the Grateful Dead cover band. Larned helped found the band in 1997, played keyboards, and even did a stint as group manager in their early days. Much like the Grateful Dead, whom Dark Star Orchestra emulates night after night, they have vowed to continue playing after losing a vital member. During their 30-year history, the Grateful Dead also lost 3 keyboardists to untimely deaths, yet continued to be one of the biggest touring acts in the country.

The band’s website (darkstarorchestra.com) has this to say about the decision:

The decision to resume touring was an easy one to make; one that we’re sure would have pleased Scott. He himself had made many sacrifices in order to continue touring and playing the music that he loved. To do anything but continue onward would be a disservice to his memory and to this incredible group he helped nurture for over the last seven years.

The tour schedule is as follows:

May 27, 28 – New York, NY
May 29, 30 – New Haven, CT
June 1 – Providence, RI
June 2 – Poughkeepsie, NY
June 3 – Red Bankd, NJ
June 4 – Philadelphia, PA
June 6, 7 – Teaneck, NJ
June 8 – Chifton Park, NY
June 10 – Somerville, MA
June 11 – Hampton Beach, NH
June 13, 14 – Burlington, VT
June 16 – Buffalo, NY
June 17 – Erie, PA
June 18 – Bluffton, OH
July 10 – Milwaukee, WI
July 14 – Indianapolis, IN
July 17 – Masontown, WV
July 21 – Detroit Lakes, MN
July 27 – Denver, CO
July 28 – Aspen, CO
July 29, 30 – Bellvue, CO
August 13 – Mariaville, NY
August 17 – Springfield, OH
August 19-21 – Garrettsville, OH