Saturday, June 25, 2016

Discography - Week 10

We're back on track this week after our first, and I think successful, thematic week.  We're due for another one in Week 17 which has already been agreed to based on secret negotiations and a binding oath between the excellent Gary Beatrice and myself.  Until that point we'll be following our usual beautifully anarchic path of proposing whatever pops into our fevered brains.

Dave Wallace

Tom Petty, American Girl

Counting Crows, American Girls

Doubling up this week!  Two different songs with almost the exact same titles, and I love both of them.  Petty's first great song (although it arguably shares that distinction withBreakdown, also off his first album), American Girl serves as a great introduction to the early Petty sound.  Chiming guitars, background vocals evoking the Byrds, sneaky bassline, and a great solo from the perpetually underrated Mike Campbell.  I had a huge crush on an "American girl" one summer when I was a teenager, and I essentially listened to this song non-stop,


So, a couple of decades later, the Counting Crows have the nerve to write a song with essentially the same title as this rock classic.  I should have been outraged, right?  And I would have been, except that American Girls is terrific.  I'm not a huge Counting Crows fan, but this song is awesome. Ultimately as unattainable as Petty's American Girl, the object of Adam Duritz's affection makes him feel great but gets away (maybe because he didn't treat her so well!). Fantastic backing vocals by Sheryl Crow.  And the repeated "Oh, oh, oh, oh" chant at the end is amazing.

Gary Beatrice

X, The Have Nots

Dave Wallace has exceptional musical taste and he has turned me on to a ton of great music. We don't often disagree about music, but we disagree about X.

X was the third best band of the punk era behind only The Clash and The Ramones. Not only were they criminally underrated as a punk band, they remain one of the great underrated American bands of any genre. Four of their first five albums are well worth listening to, but I'd refer the uninitiated to their great two disk compilation Back to the Base.

What makes X so compelling is not just John Doe's songwriting, and the way he and Exene Cervenka traded vocals in such an unorthodox but hypnotic manner, but the tight, driving rhythm section with Doe on base and Bonebreaker on drums, and Billy Zoom's driving guitar work. Back to the Base includes an instrumental version of The Hungry Wolf and it is as powerful a rock anthem as you will hear, even without the great vocals and lyrics that the more well known version of the song features.

"The Have Nots" captures X with one of their best performances and also at a lyrical peak, emphasizing two of their common themes: the plight of the working poor (This is the game that moves as you play) and the Los Angeles music scene. Rock 'n' roll at its finest.

Miranda Tavares

Bottle Rockets, Smokin’ 100’s Alone

This was the first Bottle Rockets song I ever heard, and it caused an immediate obsession. This song is not really representative of their sound, and I truly love their sound, but this song is still my favorite. Is it because it is about a girl bereft, and I, too, have felt the pain of a girl bereft? Possibly, but that doesn’t feel right. Is it because the subject of the song is regretting making a hard, healthy decision, and is debating doing the easy, self-destructive thing by taking it back, and come on, who can’t relate to that? No, still not resonating. Is it, as my husband says, because I am from Cleveland, and a lyric contains the Cleveland-esque unnecessary preposition at the end of a sentence (“where’s he at?”)? No. 

It’s the guitar. That easy strum, followed by the rolling, melodic plucking after each line that makes you look up from whatever you’re doing in piqued interest and vague recognition, similar to a dog’s head tilting at the sound of his master’s voice. That guitar that feels like a stroke of your hair followed by an absent-minded, affectionate drumming of fingers by your spouse on the tender part of your neck. The guitar that’s akin to settling into bed, taking a deep breath, and letting out all of the frustrations of the day on exhale. 

The lyrics are good, but forget them. The vocals are solid, but who cares. If you need some chill time, you have two choices: fold yourself into the lotus position while trying to look at the tip of your nose, or throw on this song and let the guitar heal you from the inside out.

Nate Bell

Little Richard, Long Tall Sally

I was recently reading 11/22/63, and with Stephen’s King’s love of 50’s music, I couldn’t help but muse on it, and think about the very earliest roots of rock and roll, when things were simpler and tamer…perhaps.  I was also thinking a fair bit about Prince, and the many tributes we have heard from him, on this blog, and elsewhere.  Which made it dawn on me how incredible and revolutionary Little Richard has been.

Think about it, this is the very first struggling of rock and roll as an emerging music form.  We talk recently about how revolutionary, genre- and even gender-bending Prince was.  But the man can’t hold a candle to Little Richard.

I was re-listening to Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and the ilk, hearing the lyrics, listening carefully to the music.  And then there was Little Richard.  When you hear Long Tall Sally, the tempo is intensely fast, the piano out-Balls of Fire-s Jerry Lee, the vocals are LOUD, and a little harsh, the sound is raw.  AND - a big AND - those lyrics are raw, bawdy and very dirty---incredibly so for the mainstream of the early 50s.  Here was the true pioneer of rock and roll, more than Elvis with his “racy” dancing, and louder, more graphic, and more, well, Rock and roll than any of his contemporaries.  Long Tall Sally is still a classic that many people play, and it stands up to the test of time.  It is bold, loud, fast, fun and it ROCKS. Which still strikes me with the thought that this was one of the *first* songs that “rocked”.  And it’s sung by a gay/bisexual black man telling a story of the “other woman” someone’s uncle went  to, to step out on his aunt.  It doesn’t get much more Rock and Roll than that.  And all this was coming from an Omni sexual, makeup-wearing black man, in the South.  But even Jim Crow was tapping his foot along to Little Richard.  I don’t think Rock and Roll has had such a true innovative, audacious musician and personality either before or since.  

Cyndi Brandenburg

Ani DiFranco, Hour Follows Hour 

This is officially the first week of summer, and the gloriously boring monotony of summertime days has started to kick in.  Each hour follows hour more like a trickle than the usual rushing flood, which for some of us means that along with extra time on our hands, there’s extra space in our minds.   This is not necessarily a good thing because it invites the sort of wistfully bittersweet self-indulgent reflection that we’ve all engaged in at one point or another.  You know the kind…. An authentic appreciation for all that we have in this life, coupled with a critical look at all that we’ve done, all that we’ve been, and all that we so desperately still hope to achieve. 

Hour Follows Hour is the perfectly-paced sound track for this kind of thinking.   It carries classically Ani themes:  time, water, gravity, imperfection, love, etc., etc., etc.  But in opposition to the Garden of Simple where “you were never anything but beautiful to me,” she challenges us to come to terms with the irrational complexity of our emotions and behaviors.   “Why do you try to hold on to what you’ll never get a hold on? You wouldn’t try to put the ocean in a paper cup.”


In reality, our lives are just one big stretch, and “we can only hold so much is what I can figure.  Try and keep our eye on the big picture, but the picture keeps getting bigger.”   Despite references to “blame” and “bad things,” this one is not about the kind of recklessness she captures in her song Shameless, but rather how we can reconcile the unexpected irregularities and inconsistencies of our lives into something meaningful over the long run--and ultimately (hopefully), come to the same conclusion that she did.   

Dave Kelley


   My parents were older when they had me and had no interest in rock music.  They did not disapprove, it just was not on their radar.  I grew up in a home with big band music, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, and Nat King Cole dominating the record player.  Hell, the Ray Conniff Orchestra was much bigger than The Beatles at 1010 Winding Way.  I was the oldest, so I had no big brother or sister to get me into rock music at an early age.  There I was, bereft of musical taste or knowledge, wondering the hard streets of Kenton Hills humming Captain and Tenille songs, not even aware of the dream to rock and roll all night and party everyday, until.......

     In high school, there were a few guys, Dave Wallace amongst them, that were Who fanatics.  I fell hook, line and sinker.  The first record I ever bought was Who's Next.  I listened to it non-stop and anxiously awaited the opportunity to be the only one home so I could play it at top volume.  As a boring old fart now, there is simply no way any record could ever hit me that hard again.  At one point when I was around 20, my entire record collection consisted of every official Who release, several bootlegs by the band, solo records from Townshend and Daltrey, and Darkness on the Edge of Town.  I am happy that my taste has become slightly more eclectic, but The Who will always be that first band that just blew my mind.  


My selection this week just happens to be another cover.  The live version of "Young Man Blues".  Originally written by the jazz guitarist Mose Allison, The Who transformed it into a hard rock, bordering on metal, anthem.  The playing on it is other worldly.  Keith Moon was simply the most amazing, energetic, and inventive drummer ever.  On the video which is attached, pay attention to how it is the drummer and not the singer or lead guitarist who just dominates the performance.  He and Townshend are completely locked into each other.  I love the bit where Moon tries to bounce his stick off of the drum and catch it in the air.  He misses, gives a big "well I fucked that up" grin, grabs another stick and resumes playing.  The bass is just amazing as well.  Entwhistle was the only member of the band to just stand there and play, but damn he produced a lot of sound out of that bass.  Daltrey does his early seventies cock rock strutting and screaming while Townshend does his usual combination of rhythm and lead guitar.  I highly recommend picking up the extended version of the Live at Leeds disc to see just how many fantastic sounds can be produced by just three instrumentalists.    

Mike Kelly

Jason Molina, O Grace

Stupid me for not recognizing how good Jason Molina was until after he drank himself to death a couple years ago.  Lucky me for figuring it in time.   

I chose "O Grace" out of everything in the Jason Molina catalogue for a couple reasons.  First, the dude can bust out a simile (I'm still as lonesome as the world's first ghost).  That line is a cigarette burn to the aorta and only those who feel nothing could argue this point.   

But the second and more interesting reason is that this song can be read in two ways depending on how the listener wants to hear it.   At once, this "long way between horizons" can be interpreted as the futile search for something you're never going to find, or it's a reminder to celebrate just how expansive life's possibilities are in between the time you're born and the time you die.   

If read the first way, it is assumed there is a single storyteller lamenting how everything is going, but if you're feeling hopeful, the song is a dialogue between two people and she's telling him to buck up when she scolds, "Oh boy, if you stop believing/that don't mean that it just goes away."  Depending on the day, there's enough ambiguity to go around.   


Either way, it's beautiful.  

Gary Scudder

Neil Young, Like Hurricane

I'm going to show a complete lack of originality and creativity this week and just stick with one of my all-time favorite songs, Young's Like a Hurricane.  Beyond a marked genetic proclivity, this song is the main culprit in my deafness today.  While there were Young songs that I came to earlier in my life (I still can't listen to Helpless without getting emotional), this song was the first one I ever felt. And by felt I mean not only emotionally, as I had with Helpless, but also physically, the way I guess you do with all music but I would argue is especially true with rock (later when I had more experience with women I think I unconsciously retrofitted Cowgirl in the Sand for the same purpose). I included the main link to the version from the Live Rust album, but every one of them, ten thousand listens in, still makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck: the original from American Stars and Bars, the version from the Rust Never Sleeps movie, this odd one from the early 80s in Berlin (maybe his most energetic performance), and even this MTV Unplugged version played on the pipe organ.  I chose the Live Rust version for a couple reasons.  First off, it may be my favorite version, but it also reminds me of my senior year in college when a couple of the underclassmen used to wait patiently in my room and when they saw me walking across campus after my last class on Friday they would put my speakers in the window and play this version much too loudly, which marked the official beginning of the weekend (why the junior faculty don't do that now is beyond me).  It's the version I want played at the end of my funeral.  Now, why did the song speak to me so powerfully and intimately?  I think I reverse engineered it a bit.  I've always felt that way too many people have responded to me very negatively.  To be fair, I've brought a lot of it on myself through my general petulance and bouts of my famous temper and oftentimes snarky sense of humor, but also because of the performance piece that is SCUDDER (as compared to gary scudder, the painfully shy kid from southern Indiana with crooked teeth, a speech impediment and not much intellectual self-confidence, who constructed SCUDDER to hide behind).  I've always felt that I was a pretty calm, grounded and even oddly kind person, the metaphorical eye of the hurricane, but people just saw the gale force winds.  Even today if I'm at the gym and I'm getting ready to lift too much weight on the bench press (because, well, I may be a fifty-six year old male, but I'm still a male, and there might be girls around; we can laugh, but I have dropped the weights on my chest and pinned myself to the bench, brilliantly) I stop and play this version, again way too loudly, with the classic teenage belief that it will somehow give me superhuman strength.


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