Discography Year Two - Week 37

It's been another tough week here in the dried up husk of what used to be America.  Somehow we find reasons to climb out of bed in the morning, and at least for me one of the main reasons for that is having extraordinary friends like you.  As the great Canadian philosopher opined decades ago, as a country we seem to be coming apart at every nail.  As we increasingly live in gated communities, both physical and mental, it seems all the more important to actively construct our community, and if nothing else our Discography helps to bring us together every week and reminds us that we're not actually alone in the world.

It's also time to start working on our next theme week, which will be in two weeks during Week 39, as chosen by the truly excellent Dave Kelley.  In his own words:

"There are so many ways that we can experience music, but my favorite by far has always been a great live performance.  Not only can the band or artist flesh out and expand the music they have made in the studio, but the communal sense one gets from sharing the experience with others can often be wonderful.  The Frank Turner show some of us saw in January 2017 on the same day as all of the women's marches was absolutely cathartic and a candle in the darkness of the Trump Inauguration.  Seeing Bruce and the E Street Band for the first time on The River tour is a great memory I will always have.   We have all been lucky enough to see fantastic concerts by many amazing artists over the years.  I am assuming that, like myself, we have all missed out on other shows that would have been amazing.  I decided not to see Pearl Jam in a small club in Cincinnati before they blew up and became hugely popular.  I also passed up an opportunity to see The Talking Heads on their Stop Making Sense Tour.  What a fucking idiot.

Of course, we have not been able to see other wonderful shows because we were too young or not yet born.  I would kill to see a James Brown Show in the 50's or 60's.  The same would be true of Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, etc.

So here is my idea for the next theme week.  You are presented with a time machine and the opportunity to see any live show at any point in history.  It could be Mozart giving a recital, The Beatles at a small club in Hamburg, Bruce on the Darkness Tour, Robert Johnson in a 1930's Mississippi juke joint, or Louis Armstrong in the Big Easy.  It could be Neil Young and Crazy Horse from earlier this week.

So, what band or artist would you choose to see and during what period of time.  Show your work."

I vouchsafe this as a Theme of Excellence.

Dave Wallace

The Kinks - Rock & Roll Fantasy

One of my favorite Kinks albums is Misfits, although it's probably not among their best albums.  However, it was the first Kinks album that I ever bought, and I have a lot of affection for a number of songs on the album.  And it may have my favorite Kinks song ever (although there's a lot of competition for that title), Rock & Roll Fantasy (and, no, I'm not talking about the mediocre Bad Company song that came out a few years later).  The Kinks were going through a tough time when they made this album, and Ray Davies's on-going feud with his brother and band guitarist Dave was at one of its crisis points.  The song sounds like Ray trying to convince Dave, or perhaps himself, that keeping the band going is important and has value:

Look at me, look at you

You say you've got nothing left to prove

The king is dead, rock is done

You might be through but I've just begun

I don't know, I feel free and I won't let go

Before you go, there's something you ought to know

Dan is a fan and he lives for our music

It's the only thing that gets him by

He's watched us grow and he's seen all our shows

He's seen us low and he's seen us high

Oh, but you and me keep thinking

That the world's just passing us by

Especially when I first heard it, I really identified with the fans that Ray wrote about and the importance of the music in their lives.  And I still find Davies's mixed emotions about the music to be insightful and moving.

Kevin Andrews

Inspired by Dave Kelly’s post last week, here are three songs about Dear Leader. If you’ve been following the news you know it hasn’t been a good week for Angry White Men. It seems like you can’t even get a cup of coffee without having to hear so many ethnic voices with ethnic dress. Fortunately for them they learned how to deal with these things from their fathers and grandfathers. It’s the same recycled hate passed down. Never mind that they were once the ridiculed. Fortunately for us there are cell phone cameras and social media.

I saw a great comment in the Washington Post this week regarding the administration’s ineptitude du jour. It said something like Muppets on PCP could rule better than these clowns. That’s inspiring. 

Julianna Hatfield’s When You’re a Star references the Billy Bush recording, graphically. Consider yourself trigger warned. Her album Pussycat has few more songs pointed in that direction.

An Insult to the Fact Checkers is from the latest TMBG record and rocks.

Lake Street Dive’s Shame Shame Shame  is also from their latest. “I bet you think you’re a big man, but I think you’re a sick man.”

Cindy Morgan

True confession: my musical library is a fairly even mix of 1980s/1990s British Pop/Rock and Classical. Depeche Mode and Dvorjak; Bowie and Bach. I often go to Trader Joe's just to sing along with my junior high and high school soundtrack after listening to Schubert liede in the car. I liked my tunes dark and depressing back in those formative years--IT WAS MIDDLE SCHOOL FFS. Tears for Fears was never a favorite but if you were going to listen to KROQ then you were going to get a good dose of them. Mostly I found them just a little too. . .sappy? Pleading? Earnest? A few years ago I heard one of the best remakes in the history of music, and it took me a minute to realize it was a Tears for Fears song. And it was GOOD. The Gary Jules redo of "Mad World" imagined it in such a different way--it's like the now slowed down, pathos-laden track brought out just how sad the song really is--something that never rang true for me in the original version. Written in 1983, the words capture for me the alienation of childhood and adolescence but not until the Gary Jules recording did I really feel that dark place so many of us dwell in as teens. It's a madder world (read with both meanings as I assume the band originally intended) now than ever and I listen to this to confirm it not to escape it (as if we can). 

Phillip Seiler

I recently read Thomas Dolby's memoir, The Speed of Sound, and as a result have been revisiting his catalog of music. The book is a fun read and I was very surprised about the connections Dolby has within the musical world. His first paying keyboard gig was to rewrite and play the intro to Foreigner's "Waiting For a Girl Like You". His musical career was almost certainly scuttled by a dispute between his US label, Capitol, and a cabal of pay-for-play DJs right when his second album hit. Which is a pity because he really had an ear for melody and a hook. He also had the lovely ability to pull in different styles and influences into his own work. That must come from his technological noodling and love of home-made synthesizers.

I revisit his 1992 album, Astronauts & Heretics, for this week's song: Silk Pyjamas. The creole influence is evident right from the start and gives the song a cool groove throughout. I love the vocals, sung and layered at two different octaves for the chorus and then they split for some wonderful harmonies on the verses. It is a nice little inversion from how many songs are done. I also fully appreciate that Dolby never tried to hide his accent in his work.

She wandered off into the smoke

For a slurpee and a tofu dog

Kathy Seiler

John Legend – Love Me Now 

I like some of John Legend’s music and some is kinda meh; he’s a little light on the beat and heavy on ballad for me most of the time. His last album, Darkness and Light, is the only one of his albums I’ve bought and I’ve listened to it pretty heavily. I have several favorites from it, but this one has struck home recently.

With loss comes gratitude and a renewed sense of appreciation for those we love. In that vein, this song seems particularly appropriate. I love that John Legend never shies away from making a political statement and he does so in this video as well, while at the same time completely getting the song’s message across: love those in your life now, because you never know what will happen tomorrow. And in the light of all the tragedy in the world right now, this is so apropos. I dream of a world with more love and compassion and so much less tragedy and loss.

*And if you didn’t see Legend play Jesus in the live TV performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” this spring, you missed an amazing performance. Go watch if you can, the videos appear to be broken down by song on YouTube.*

Dave Kelley

This week is my ode to the instrumental.  We all love great lyrics, and there are not a huge number of rock/pop instrumentals.  Classical music and jazz are the forms where instrumentals are much more common.  But by gum, there are some amazing rock/pop instrumental songs that deserve some love!  And some love they will receive.

I was prompted to choose the following songs by watching the most recent Rock Music Hall of Fame ceremony on HBO.  They have a new category this year where they induct great songs by artists who are not in the HOF themselves.  Steve Van Zandt was chosen to do the honors, and one of the 6 is my first selection.  As he pointed out, it is the only instrumental actually banned from radio play due to its title and the aggressive nature of the music.

"Rumble"  Link Wray

This is just one of the great guitar tunes ever and was very important to a number of younger guitarists.  Jimmy Page singles it out for great praise.  I would love to learn to play guitar just so I could do this one over and over.  Turn it up loud and enjoy.

"Green Onions"  Booker T and the MG's

That organ.  That guitar.  That rhythm section.  You all know it.  You all love it.  Play at volume.

Friday Night Lights Theme "Explosions in the Sky"

This is a great instrumental band, and I really do like this song a great deal.  It is also an excuse to give props to one of the great TV series of the last 20 years.  Too many people assume they will not like it because it is ostensibly about high school football set in Texas.  If you have not given it a chance, please do.  It is fantastic in so many ways.

"Having an Average Weekend"   Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet

Because I mean it was "The Kids in The Hall" theme song.  If I ever start a garage band and you all are foolish enough to come watch, expect this short burst of joy.   

Gary Scudder

Drive-By Truckers, Guns of Umpqua

As is so often the cases, this week's selection was not the first or the second or even the third choice.  Instead, I followed my mood, and yesterday's events not surprisingly shaped that mood. So, I'll apologize if none of this makes any sense because it is essentially free writing. It was a beautiful day, and there was another school shooting. I can remember seeing Bowling for Columbine in a theater and, as a father but also as a human, hopefully, I sobbed during the showing.  Recently I was saddened to see that Columbine doesn't even make the top ten list of US mass shootings any more.  There's the danger that we will all become desensitized to the endless violence.  Nevertheless, I found myself crying on the elliptical machine at the gym yesterday as I was watching the unfolding tragedy on CNN.  It may simply be because I'm fasting, and something about fasting throws off my emotional thermostat (although, as my friends know, I cry pretty easily), but it may also mean I haven't completely lost my humanity.

Not surprisingly, I guess, I chose Guns of Umpqua, another great song from the Drive-By Truckers album American Band.  Patterson Hood wrote it in response to a shooting at Umpqua Community College. In his own words:

"The day I wrote 'Guns of Umpqua' I had just moved to Portland, Oregon.  It was a stunningly beautiful day, and I picked up my phone and they were announcing this shooting maybe a couple of hours' drive away.  We'd spent a night in that town on our journey to Portland, so I could picture the landscape of where it happened. What makes somebody wake up on a beautiful day like that and fuck up a lot of people's lives.  That's one of the reasons why the flag's always at half-mast these days."

Hood does a heartbreaking job juxtaposing the beauty ("My friend Jack just had him a baby") and horror ("Now we're moving chairs in some panic mode to barricade the door") of life in this Trumpian dystopian nightmare, living in a country seemingly on the spectrum.

As to be expected, social media blew up with the normal feeding frenzy.  The shooter followed Trump on Instagram and his father was a big fan of NRA ghoul Dana Loesch.  Idiot Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick blamed these things on schools having too many entrances (and, yes, I've thought of the metaphor).  On Facebook some arch-conservative that I vaguely remember from high school proposed that America doesn't have a problem with guns, but rather a problem with personal responsibility.  Some jumped in a proposed that it's an indication of the rotting away of our spiritual core, which I have some sympathy with as long as it's not equated with the need for more religion (with which we already have too much).  And, typically, others suggested that what we need is more good guys with a gun (which I think is actually such a mythological concept that it should be studied in cryptozoology).

I'll just go ahead and add to the static by suggesting that it's yet another example, as if, to quote the excellent Sanford Zale, we needed another example, of the dangers posed by the most destructive force the world has ever known: angry white men.  These school shootings are almost universally carried out by white men, whose actions are forgiven or diminished by a media that describes them as the acts of loners or people suffering with some form of mental illness.  Over fifty percent of white Americans think that white Americans are discriminated against, which is an indication that if you're used to getting whatever you want whenever you want it even the delay in getting whatever you want feels like discrimination. Take that concept on steroids and it seems to me you have the angry white man.  The Incels (or Involuntary Celibates, if you're not following that story) may be the latest example of the angry white male punishing others for not giving them what they want and they feel is owed to them, but the school shooters are cut from the same cloth (and in the cases of Parkland and Santa Barbara they are merged).  And I would argue, as I did this morning on Twitter, that white male politicians telling women what to do with their own bodies is no different.  And what makes this all even scarier is that somewhere in the dark recesses of Trump's swamp the plan of playing to the angry white male is part of the election process (and, don't fool yourself, if after everything that's happened in this most dysfunctional and unsuccessful of presidencies, Trump sitting at 41% approval ratings leaves him within easy walking distance of stealing another election). And you know, if you're going to depend upon angry white men as part of your election planning, then you need to insure that they're there by helping to create them.

As Hood sings, "We're all standing in the shadows of our noblest intentions of something more/ Than being shot in a classroom in Oregon."