A Magical Musical Journey to ... Here?!

Words Fail

2009-07-07T06:59:00.002-04:00

I need to put the blog on indefinite hiatus.

Bereft of freelance gigs for the time being, I'm cranking out anywhere between four and seven articles for various content Web sites every day. The pay per piece is poor, so volume is key.

Either staring down a day of producing 2,000 publishable words by dawn's early light or mentally panting from the effort of having typed out 2,000 words as the sky turns reddish-orange from the sun's set, I am finding it impossible to muster the energy to type for fun and no profit.

I will eventually resume this project, edifying you at some future time on the wonderments of The Wonder Stuff and warning you away from Wilco.

Thank you for reading. Hope to be back soon.

Perfection Takes About 17 Minutes

2009-07-04T05:53:00.003-04:00

I have several Smithereens' albums queued up for the next round of posts, so I won't go into depth about what makes the band's debut EP Beauty and Sadness such a perfect distillation of the essence of power pop.

Instead, I'll just steer you to the songs themselves, link you to this rave retrospective review of the album and others, and remember at you that the cover art for Beauty and Sadness spent many years as a huge panel attached to the outside wall of the Tracks record store at Wards Corner in Norfolk, right next to the Arc of a Diver panel. I loved driving past -- and going into -- that record store.

Check out the Beauty and Sadness tracks for yourself. You'll be lad you did.

Up Next: The Smithereens, Especially for You, 1986

The Thought Counts

2009-06-29T06:29:00.003-04:00

Album: Sex Pistols, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, 1979 (UK Import)

Best Track: "My Way"

Lasting Memory: Two video clips always run through my mind when I think about or hear any Sex Pistols' song. The first clip is the one of Sid Vicious singing "My Way" on French television. (I actually conjure the Sid and Nancy movie scene, but here is what purports to be the original performance.)

The second mind film I always see is Johnny Rotten ending the Sex Pistols' final show in 1978 by asking a San Francisco audience, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Because, yeah, I end up feeling a little disappointed by the experience of listening to the Sex Pistols.

The band always worked much better as an idea than an act. Sex Pistols founder, producer, and manager -- but never performer -- Malcolm McLaren never made any bones about that, even naming the group's postbreakup collection of studio outtakes, hits, overseas remixes and ephemera, as well as its accompanying documentary, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Just in case anyone missed the joke at their expense, the first track on the Swindle soundtrack is a spoken-word piece in which McLaren explains that he selected the members of the Sex Pistols based on the eventual members' looks (Sid), attitude (Johnny), criminal background (Steve Jones), and proximity (Glen Matlock and Paul Cook) rather than musical vision or ability.

Taking McLaren at his word, it's easy to convince yourself that the Sex Pistols were either a latter-day Monkees or a forewarning of the Spice Girls. In fact, the Pistols did produce a credible garage band version of "Stepping Stone" and a disco remix of "God Save the Queen," both of which appear on Swindle.

But then the party line on Swindle is that the story McLaren tells is highly fictionalized and self-flattering. I'm not so sure. The Sex Pistols never would have succeeded on their musicianship alone. It's more than telling when the lads try and fail to perform covers of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode" and the Modern Lovers' "Road Runner," only to have Johnny Rotten ask his bandmates, "Don't we know any other fucking people's songs" before requesting, "Stop it! It's fucking awful."

Where the Sex Pistols did excel was in pushing attitude and image. "Anarchy in the U.K." was absolutely a thumb in the eye of British culture, and the song certainly hit the airwaves as a much-needed corrective to the music of the Atlanta Rhythm Section. But the sentiment of "Anarchy" is more bratty than rebellious, and for all of their wussiness, the boys in ARS were far superior musicians.

All of this is not to say that I dislike the Sex Pistols. My point is that I have to appreciate them as a concept instead of as an actual band. The Sex Pistols did inspire dozens of other groups that did channel ennui and disenfranchisement into powerful rock songs, though, and that deserves respect. Also, Sid Vicious' "My Way" is punk through and through in the way it embodies the message of the lyrics while subverting the paradigm from which the song emerged. And then a song like "Friggin' in the Riggin'" is just plain fun.

On balance, then, I'll take the Sex Pistols' legacy even as I feel, well, swindled by the band.

Up Next: The Smithereens, Beauty and Sadness, 1988 (cassette reissue)

Serenade You Like a Gentle Rain

2009-06-25T08:00:00.003-04:00

Album: Scorpions, Love at First Sting, 1984

Best Track: "Rock You Like a Hurricane"

Lasting Memory: I have promised innumerable people innumerable times that I would rock them like a hurricane simply by showing up or doing my job. I have always failed to deliver on the grandiose pledge.

So did the Scorpions on Love at First Sting.

"Bad Boys Running Wild"? More like Rum-Tum Tugger slinking through alleyways.

"The Same Thrill"? More like the same four chords I've heard in every other song you've played so far, only faster.

"Crossfire"? Maybe if I duck and cover my head, I won't be able to hear this song any longer.

But you know what? You would have to pry this album from my cold, dead boom box. I revel in the lameness and inanity. If that's a crime, lock me up and throw away the key.

Whatever auditory sins the Scorpions commit when they strive for the heavy side of metal, they more than atone for by including the powery-est of ballads like "Still Loving You" (see above) and "I'm Leaving You" on Love at First Sting. Those songs just tug at the heartstrings, or maybe someplace else.

Up Next: Sex Pistols, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, 1979 (UK import)

Know This Now

2009-06-23T19:20:00.007-04:00

Even when I don't post for a spell, know that

I'm still loving you.

What's the Hurry?

2009-06-21T05:57:00.003-04:00

Album: Rush, Moving Pictures, 1981 (dub)

Best Track: "The Camera Eye"

Lasting Memory: Rush's Moving Pictures was the third album I ever bought with own money. It's probably among the first five acquisitions of every man who matches my demographic of 40, paunching and white. Sometimes it's good to be part of the gang.

It is always great to hear "The Camera Eye," Rush's 10-minute rock ode to rock opuses. Jam bands like Phish and Rusted Root could learn a lot from studying "The Camera Eye" (or Rush's other masterwork "YYZ," for that matter). The song never hurries, but it also never meanders. "The Camera Eye" is, for my money, the tightest 10 minutes in rock 'n' roll.

Of course, Rush did not have a hit with "The Camera Eye." Where Canada's answer to Yes made its splash was with the one-two punch of Moving Picture's "Limelight" and "Tom Sawyer." Both tales of alienation -- the former through fame and the latter through, apparently, sociopathy -- practically compelled the suburban adolescents of the early '80s to run to their local record shops and fork over $7.99 for Moving Pictures. Why these songs still hold such appeal for me and millions of other classic rock radio fans is probably speculation left unspeculated.

What I will cop to is that I'd dearly love to jump in MP's fabled "Red Barchetta," crank up the "Spirit of Radio," and "Fly by Night" out of the "Subdivisions" and get "Closer to the Heart." Even though not all those songs are on Moving Pictures. But you know what I'm saying.

Up Next: Scorpions, Love at First Sting, 1984

Stones Soup

2009-06-19T11:33:00.004-04:00

Album: The Rolling Stones, Gigantes del Pop, 1982

Best Track: "Get Off of My Cloud"

Lasting Memory: This exceedingly eclectic collection of Rolling Stones songs produced for the Spanish market includes the band's cover of "Not Fade Away." I have always loved that song. So have dozens of other people judging by the no-doubt partial list of covers appearing on Wikipedia. In fact, the "Not Fade Away" has been covered so many times so faithfully that I almost always forget that Buddy Holly and the Crickets performed the song first and best.

But I'll resist trying to get back into my go-nowhere rant about the Rolling Stones being a covers band (see below) to gape at the jukebox-style discography of the band's volume of the Gigantes del Pop series:

Side A
Carol
(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66
Fortune Teller
I Wanna Be Your Man
Poison Ivy
Not Fade Away
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Get Off My Cloud

Side B
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Connection
All Sold Out
Citadel
Parachute Woman
Live With Me
Honky Tonk Women

Now that's what I call olio!

But you know what? It works.

The Stones installment of Gigantes del Pop comes nowhere close to qualifying as a greatest hits compilation, or even a hits collection. It sure does present a comprehensive overview of the best years of the band's career, though. Hell, throw "Sympathy for the Devil," "Dead Flowers," and "Miss You" on the album, and call it day for what you need to know about the Stones' influence and legacy.

Good job anonymous Spanish song licensing negotiator.

Up Next: Rush, Moving Pictures, 1981 (dub)

Following in Footsteps

2009-06-17T08:26:00.005-04:00

Album: The Rolling Stones, Stone Age, 1971 (cassette reissue)

Best Track: "Paint It Black"

Lasting Memory: This past weekend while hanging out with some friends who are way more into music then I am, I went off on a rant about how the Rolling Stones stole their shtick wholesale from underrecognized American bluesmen and R&B acts. Suspecting I was being unfair I gave myself a few days to back off from that observation. And I will, a little bit.

Certainly several songs on the singles and studio outtakes compilation Stone Age are true originals. "Paint It Black" and "As Tears Go By" stand out and stand up as worthy contributions to the rock canon from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But then there are the too-faithful covers of songs like "My Girl" and "The Spider and the Fly" that make me wonder if the Stones did anything more creative than Pat Boone did when he had the hit with "Tutti Frutti" rather than Little Richard.

Having thought on this longer than probably necessary, I'll give the Stones credit for being artists rather than appropriators. For one thing, the Stones always called attention to the sources of their material, and it may well be the case that far fewer people would ever have heard "It's All Over Now," for instance, had the Stones not recorded the Bobby and Shirley Womack song.

Second, and something I only learned this morning, the Stones had no intention of making their career on the work of others. The band didn't want their versions of "My Girl" and the like released on album. So good on them for that.

Shame I had to waste that rant, though. I'll just have to wait and see what else I can get myself work up about.

Up Next: The Rolling Stones, Gigantes del Pop, 1982

Les Is Most

2009-06-10T06:58:00.021-04:00

Happy belated birthday to Les Paul, who for all intents and purposes invented the electric guitar. Mr. Paul turned 94 yesterday, and he is shown seated here (in a video I tried to load directly all damn day) playing a duet with Chet Atkins.

Check out a minibiography of Les Paul here.

Since my original idea for this post was an epic fail, I'll salvage something by posting the following story about an idea that spiral into unimagined success.

I wrote this history of the spirograph for a pittance for a Web site called eHow. The Web site dictates the slightly awkward format Enjoy.

++++

Spirograph History

First sold in England in the spring of 1965, more than 100 million Spirograph kits have been sold worldwide. The overlapping spiral designs created by clipping pens into interlocked gears and moving the pens appeared widely in late 1960s art and fashion and have entertained children and adults for more than four decades.

The Inventor
Denys Fisher invented the Spirograph during the summer of 1963. Born in Leeds, England, on May 11, 1918, Fisher studied at Leeds University but left before receiving a degree to develop machinery for his family’s lubrication firm, Kingfisher Ltd.

Building on work with fine springs he began at Kingfisher, Fisher formed his own company in 1960 and quickly landed a NATO contract to design components for canon shell detonators.

Fisher offered the first Spirographs for sale through a Leeds department store in March 1965, in a box reading “Pattern drawing by revolving stencils.” Spirographs began selling quickly after being featured on the UK children’s program Blue Peter.

Although Fisher’s toy company, appropriately named Denys Fisher Toys, got out of the Spirograph business within four years, Fisher continued consulting on the development of his creation until late in his life. Fisher died Sept. 17, 2002, in Furness.

The Idea
Fisher developed an interest in mathematics and geometric patterns known as hypocycloids, in particular, when a childhood illness confined him to bed with the text An Elementary Course on the Infinitesimal Calculus by Horace Lamb.

The Web site WolframMathworld defines a hypocycloid as “the curve produced by a fixed point on the circumference of a small circle … rolling around the inside of a larger circle.” Less technically, the Pittsburgh Steelers helmet logo includes three hypocycloids.

Fisher began his work on perfecting a way to draw hypocycloids by trying to improve upon machines developed during the 1800s. According to Fisher’s memoriam in the October 26, 2002, TimesOnline, Fisher “was listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and as the choral movement ended he had a vision: the new device would be made out of a series of perforated plastic cog-wheels and racks.”

Early Success
The Spirograph became the largest-selling toy in the United Kingdom in the same year it was introduced. The drawing kit, which Fisher had originally conceived of as a draftsman’s tool, also took honors as the leading UK educational toy for 1965, 1966 and 1967.

The Kenner company introduced the Spirograph to the United States market in 1996, and the kit became the top U.S. toy in 1967. Kenner took full control of the Spirograph brand in 1970.

Cultural Impact
TimesOnline characterized the “trippy, floral” Spirograph patterns as “ideally suited to the era of psychedelia and flower power.” During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Spirographic images appeared on items ranging from evening gowns and op art prints to lampshades and Christmas cards.

Hasbro
Hasbro acquired Kenner in 1991, taking control of the Spirograph brand. The latest version of the toy, Spirograph Deluxe, features seven gears, a gear template, a drawing template, a pen and paper.

A True Musical Artifact

2009-06-08T09:41:00.004-04:00

Album: Martin Roach, If We were Up Your Ass You'd Know Who We Were, 1990

Best Tracks: Every damn one of the six.

Lasting Memory: I was weighing relating how this group took its name from a longtime Virginia Tech student radio program manager who was a self-proclaimed "party cow." Then I was thinking about telling about how in awe of these guys I was that I found it hard to serve them during my brief, ill-fated stint as waitron at Buddy's in Blacksburg.

After writing about either of those things, I was going to share with all the awesomeness of all the songs on If We Were Up Your Ass You'd Know Who We Were. But I found out this morning that the band Martin Roach, in addition to not being up either my ass or yours, is nowhere to be found on the Web.

What a loss. All I've got is an extremely homemade cassette -- the tape is Memorex, and the insert is photocopied and handcut 80-weight coverstock -- the memories that liner note names like George Wade, Mookie, and Howard Petruziello of Rock 105 evoke. If I had the technology, I'd digitize and upload all of the following myself:

Cheeseworld
Dad
Send Me
Eliot's Dog
Buckle Down
Stick Up

I do not have the technology. Should I ever acquire the technology, I'll revisit this post and get Martin Roach the Web archive they deserve.

Anybody else out there have a band from back in the day who they loved and now can't share with anyone else?

Up Next: The Rolling Stones, Stone Age, 1971 (cassette reissue)

An Old Gray Lady

2009-06-07T07:12:00.003-04:00

One of my goals for today is to read the local paper I have delivered to my house every morning cover to cover. It is now a little after 7 am, and I am extremely pleased to report that I am least 80 percent of the way toward achieving that goal. As I noted when first starting this blog, my goals tend to be very modest.

Reading the Virginian-Pilot, though, is an important part of what I consider to be my daily routine. First, it seems like if I don't, no one else will. The leading media story for the past six months has been that printed newspapers are quickly going the way of the mullet -- rarely seen nowadays and never appreciated in a proper fashion.

You shouldn't feel obligated to thank me. I'm no hero. I'm just a guy who truly enjoys the whole act of newspaper reading. I love the feel of newsprint, and don't get me started on the subject of folding and smoothing and refolding. Plus, I find that I absorb and analyze information most easily when it is presented in an ink-on-paper format. A lot of that has to do with the tactile nature of newspaper reading. A well-accepted learning theory posits that people process information when more than one nondistracting sense is engaged. That is, holding a book or newspaper is conducive to learning, while listening to the radio while driving or watching television while talking on the phone are not.

I took a several days off this past week because for the first time in several months, I could. For me, "time off" means time off from everything. I still walked the dog, ate, and watched a whole lot television and Youtube videos. I also caught up on all my Onion A.V. Club reading while listening to NPR. If you can find a more accurate description of what being white, suburban, middle class and middle aged with pretensions toward maintaining hipster status and achieving intellectualism, you use it!

What I did not do while taking time off was blog (obviously), attend to incoming mail, vacuum, or read the Virginian-Pilot. Three of those "nots" make me lazy. The last made me noticeably ignorant. I can't tell you what the City Council did last week, though I'm sure it would have made me angry. I can't describe what dementedly ingenious new ways the Washington Nationals employed to lose games, though I'm sure the latest installments of this seasonlong Baseball Bloopers audition reel would have left me amusedly amazed. I can't even remark knowledgeably about how Family Circus maintained its Ripken-like decadeslong record of sucking, though I'm sure the streak remains intact.

I know the world is none the worse for me not knowing these things, but I also feel dumber for not knowing them. I got back to work a little unwillingly yesterday, and I'm re-adding the Virginian-Pilot to my to do list today. My next post should be markedly better informed.

A Fine Line

2009-05-30T13:18:00.007-04:00

Album: Lou Reed, Mistrial, 1985

Best Track: "The Original Wrapper"

Lasting Memory: On the rare ocassion that I play Mistrial, I'm always reminded of how cool Lou Reed used to be. On this last paly through, I was struck by how fine a line there is between awesome and awful.

Sure, everyone knows there is a thin line between love and hate, just as there is a fine line between clever and stupid. But note how one of the following rules, while the other drools.

All of Mistrial drools. Especially "The Original Wrapper," which, unfortunately, is the best song on Mistrial. "No Money Down" and "I Remember You" aren't the worst sonic crimes ever committed, but they aren't especially good, either.

In the title track of this album, Lou Reed pleads for a mistrial to clear his name. If I were the judge in such a case, I'd uphold the original judgment against Reed and order him to play nothing but his hits from the 1960s and early 1970s. You know, when he he the very model of a modern major heroin addict.

"Original Wrapper" and "Wild Side" aren't so different in sound and tructure, but one rocks while one blows. Can there be any explanation other than the reduction in Reed's drug usage?

Up Next: Martin Roach, If We Were Up Your Ass You'd Know Who We Were, 1990

I'd Procrstinate, But What's the Rush?

2009-05-26T09:00:00.006-04:00

The less I have to do, the more likely I am to put off doing it.

Declutter Your House

I cannot be alone in this, but I probably surpass practically every other person when it comes to lacking the motivation to do something unless it needs to be done now. Or even better, yesterday.

While this procrastinatory proclivity ill suits someone of whose greatest professional responsibility is to meet deadlines, I have in all but two notable occasions been able to bestir myself in time enough to complete assignments in enough time. Which is why I am much too comfortable typing out this blog post on Tuesday morning instead of working on a handful of one-hour projects that are each due by close of business this coming Friday.

Understand, I am no daredevil. Nor am I under any delusion that I "work better under pressure." The simple truth is that I tend not to work at all unless I'm forced by circumstances to do so. This is why I have tried to keep myself consistently overcommitted for the past year and a half. This is also why my television goes months at a time without being dusted. Most to the point, this is why Thursday and Friday will be quite busy for me.

Self-actualization is purportedly the highest psychological achievement for humans. I wonder what Maslow would say about someone who has come to accept slothfulness, bears no hard feelings toward slackness, and has figured out how to meet deadlines consistently with seconds to spare.

All Their Songs Are Sad

2009-05-24T06:42:00.004-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Automatic for the People, 1992

Best Track: "Nightswimming"

Lasting Memory: The first time I watched the video for "Everybody Hurts," the second or third single off of Automatic for the People, I was convinced that it was the saddest thing I had ever seen. That first impression, as so often happens, was mistaken. I now know this to be the saddest thing I've seen. Followed closely by this.

The "Everybody Hurts" video is right up there on the list of sad artworks, though. That first viewing, in a hotel room about 20 miles west of Knoxville, Tenn., on the night of the first and longest day's drive of a 28-day sojourn through the south and central parts of America with my sister Clair, was like taking a punch to the solar plexus. Every song on Automatic is pretty emotionally raw, which goes a long toward placing the album in the ranks of great art. To quote the immortal G.K. Chesterton out of context but in support of the axiom that sad equals good,

His harp was carved and cunning,
His sword prompt and sharp,
And he was gay when he held the sword,
Sad when he held the harp.

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
(The Ballad of the White Horse, 1911)

I mean, who doesn't love themselves some "Greensleeves" or "Danny Boy" or "Come on Eileen"? Irish eyes aren't smiling, dammit. They're misting.

So were R.E.M.'s, obviously, when they threw together an album that included two heartfelt tributes to Andy Kaufman, a retrospective piece on Montgomery Clift, several cry-it-out-and-move-on message songs, and the most wistful song about lost youth committed to tape by any rock band since Traffic gifted the world with "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" in 1971.

Automatic opens with the morose "Drive," which, as all rock songs should, employs the road as a metaphor for life. The album closes with "Find the River," which substitute a waterway for a highway and gently implies that listeners can get clean by returning to where they once went swimming at night.

While driving, you're bound to hurt when your personal hero -- be he a sidewinder or a man on the moon -- pulls off on the great exit to the sky far to soon. And when someone you admire gets a raw deal, that can make you catch your breath. But don't dwell. Sweetness follows.

Up Next: Lou Reed, Mistrial, 1986

An Album Too Far

2009-05-22T06:44:00.004-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Green, 1988

Best Track: "You Are the Everything"

Lasting Memory: During the week before Green was released in September 1988, MTV engaged in an absolutely over-the-top promotional campaign for the album and for R.E.M. that, in retrospect, appeared specifically designed to Def Leppard's yearlong stranglehold on the number-one spot on the Top 20 video countdown. The 6 pm EDT Monday world premier of the video for "Orange Crush" was teased several times each hour. The band was interviewed repeatedly. Kurt Loder all but ordered every viewer to camp out on the sidewalk outside their nearest record store so they could purchase Green as soon as it was uncrated.

I complied. Kurt Loder is not a man you want to cross. When the last time you heard anything from Tabitha Soren?

Shame, then, that Green is such a mediocre album. Despite producing the great-when-you-first-hear-it-but-poke-your-own-eardrums-out-on-the-fourth-listen hit "Stand," fails to make much of any impression at all, good or bad.

For listeners willing to focus, "You Are the Everything" and "The Wrong Child" can be sweetly and melancholicly moving, respectively, but it's easy to zone out on both songs because of they are embedded in such a mire. It was probably inevitable that R.E.M. would put out a relatively weak album in 1988, especially since the band had been touring nonstop and releasing a studio record every year since 1983.

The band recovered its fastball later, and it was welcome relief in the fall of 1988 to finally have videos to watch that were not "Pour Some Sugar on Me," but my copy of Green has spent all but a couple of days of the past 21 years in its tape box slot for a very good reason -- it's not great.

Back to box, Green.

Up Next: R.E.M., Automatic for the People, 1992

The One Positive

2009-05-19T13:27:00.009-04:00

My official period of underemployment has begun. The one positive in this situation is that I can honestly report

Or I will be for most of Wednesday.

I haven't had any proper time off from work in months. It is only minisculely overstating the case to report that since January 1, if I've been awake, I've been working in one way or the other. This leads me to hope two things. First, I hope I haven't forgotten how to enjoy time doing nothing. Second, I hope I'm busy again very soon.

Line Readings

2009-05-18T09:23:00.004-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Dead letter Office, 1987

Best Track: "Bandwagon"

Lasting Memory: Dead Letter Office features one of my all-time top-10 favorite songs, "Bandwagon." I'd actually forgotten that until yesterday, which was the first time I had listened to the album in going on 20 years. What I have never driven from my mind through either the acquisition of new knowledge or the thorough washing of gallons upon gallons of Irish whiskey and American beer is this liner note regarding the last song on DLO, "Walter's Theme"/"King of the Road":

I suppose if we had any shame we would have never allowed this little gem to see the light of day. This was recorded at the very end of a long alcohol soaked day, and I can barely remember cutting it. This first part was an attempt at writing a commercial for Walter's Bar-B-Q. The second part is King of the Road, kind of. If there was any justice in the world, Roger Miller should be able to sue for what we did to this song.

R.E.M. guitarist peter Buck wrote -- even signed -- that statement included on the cassette insert by of explaning how and why the conjoined songs wound up on DLO, which was a contract-fulfilling final Island recording that cleared R.E.M. to switch labels to Warner Brothers. Buck annotated each of the outtakes and (mostly) Velvet Underground covers that make up DLO's discography, and all the notes are classics of insightful concision.

For instance, regarding "Burning Hell," Buck observed

Sometimes you write a song without even trying. Sometimes those songs are the very best ones. That's not quite the case with this one however.

Outtake from Fables of the Reconstruction.

Buck was also maybe too honest about the cover of Pylon's "Crazy":

A song by Pylon. I remember hearing their version on the radio the day that Chronic Town came out and being suddenly depressed by how much better it was than our record.

Outtake from Fables of the Reconstruction.

As the model for delivering recorded music moves away from the use of physical media, the loss of liner notes is inevitable. When there is no longer a vinyl LP, cassette, or CD, there can no longer be a sleeve or insert that captures the identities of all the contributing musicians and whatever 1,00 words or less thoughts an artist wants to share with listeners. And that strikes me as more than shame.

To my way of thinking, liner notes have several advantages over Web sites, blogs, and MyFriendsterFaceSpaceBook pages. First, liner notes are permanent and frozen in time. Written in the moment and at the end of what were often long and stressful recording sessions, liner notes compelled artists to share information that would stand the test of time. But since they were written then, that information could be subject to dramatically different readings years or decades later. You know, like a book.

Liner notes also forced artists to write short and edit. Infinitely to Buck's credit, the liner notes for DLO are exactly the opposite of Fred Durst's apparently dormant blog.

The last and best thing about liner notes was that they only let listeners as far inside the artist's head and work as the artist allowed. Now that literally everything can be learned about an artist by someone with Web access and too much time to kill, there is no real distance been musicians and audiences. It has become impossible to truly idolize anyone anymore because it is inevitable you will learn that he or she had an unfortunate incident on an airplane, for instance.

I'm with Aerosmith on this one. Toys should be kept in attics.

Up Next: R.E.M., Green, 1988

When Good Things Happen to Great Bands

2009-05-16T07:34:00.003-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Document, 1987

Best Track: "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"

Lasting Memory: As I wrote a long time ago, I saw R.E.M. in concert in 1987, when the band was touring in support of Document. While the boys from Athens were largely outshone as a live act by their Atlanta-based opening act Drivin' n' Cryin', R.E.M. did deliver for me my first lighter-waving moment.

It is such a cliche to wave lighters overhead when a band slips into its iconic power ballad that it can only be done ironically now -- and with cell phones.

Twenty-two years ago, standing on a basketball court, listening to "King of Birds," I would have raised my lighter high if I'd had one. I was already swaying like a mofo, and I may even have gotten a lump in my throat. I couldn't have told you then what the song was about, and I can't tell you now, but dang if "King of Birds" doesn't still grab me and make me all emotional and shit.

Document grabbed many millions of people. The Mrs. Now quatrain "The One I Love" broke R.E.M. into the Billboard Top 10, and the apocalyptic party anthem "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" secured R.E.M.'s promotion from "120 Minutes" poster boy to MTV after school staple.

The other thing Document did was set a rigid template for every subsequent R.E.M. album. It's a great template. Don't knock the template. But also recognize that every post-Document recorded document from R.E.M. contains precisely the same mix of mild political protest, quasi-electronica noodling, and sunshiny pop with a dark core. Further, almost all the later songs sound like slight variations of ones on Document.

By 1987, no band deserved superstardom more than R.E.M., and I'm glad the band got its due. R.E.M. just maybe didn't deserve its due for Document. Even though Time.com lists Document as one of the greatest albums of all time (only American, English, and Irish acts need apply), there is a strong case to be made that Document is only the fourth or fifth best album in R.E.M.'s own catalog. It is certainly not seminal in the way 1983's Murmur was, nor is it iconic in the way 1991's Out of Time would become.

Still, there is not even the faintest whiff of the sell out about Document. It's not as if R.E.M. completely changed its sound and look just so the band could enjoy some chart success. So, good on them.

Up Next: R.E.M., Dead Letter Office, 1987

A Modest Proposal

2009-05-13T08:56:00.004-04:00

According to estimates made public late yesterday, Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt sooner rather than later. A commentator on today's NPR Morning Edition said that securing the financial viability of these federal safety net programs would be as simple as noticeably raising payroll taxes or substantially lowering payments to beneficiaries.

I believe I have a better idea. Legalize narcotics and encourage people to use them in copious amounts. Get preteens smoking cigarettes again. Convince everyone that Jerry Springer-guest fat really is where it's at. Lift all speed limits and remove seat belts, airbags, and child seats from cars. Do away with most environmental and food safety regulations.

The underlying problem with Medicare and Social Security is that too many damn people are sticking around long enough to collect benefits. When president Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935, eligibility began at age 60 and the average life expectancy for Americans born in 1900 was just longer than 47 years. Ah, the good old days of promises the government didn't have to keep.

But even more than that, it seems like everyone has just lost their interest in doing right by society by checking out early. Anymore, no one seems willing to ignore that lump. Fewer and fewer people want to do their civic duty and not call 911 after that chain saw accident.

So here's the choice: Pay more and get less or work to keep people out of the pool. But, you know, only those people who aren't related to me. And certainly not my friends and aquaintenances. All of those people deserve every cent the government can spend and more.

Once Through This Portal, There Is No Return

2009-05-09T05:24:00.004-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Life's Rich Pageant, 1986

Best Track: "I Believe"

Lasting Memory: A good portion of every paycheck I got from every job I worked in high school was spent on cassettes. No sooner would I have deposited my $167 for 80 hours of labor, then I'd be at the mall record store spending about a quarter of that money on magnetized cellophane encased in plastic.

I don't want to give myself too much credit, but I think it's fair to say that I was the fuel that drove the engine of the mid-1980s American music industry. Without my weekly contributions of 30 or 40 bucks, the whole system of rock 'n' roll would have come crashing down and the world would never have been able to basic in the sonic wonders of big stars like White Lion and Pebbles.

Being unschooled in the ways of art and unable to appreciate the true awesomeness of such radio staples, however, I always opted to spend my hard-won cash on album's like R.E.M.'s Life's Rich Pageant. I should probably feel foolish -- if not outright ashamed -- to this day for making such choices, but the ear's heart wants what it wants.

R.E.M. in 1986 was a year and an album away from scoring a Top 40 radio and MTV hit, but they were on the cusp of breaking big with Pageant in terms of both sales and sound. In fact, I could not listen to Pageant just now without being struck by how transitional most of the songs on the album are. Pageant stands as the collection where R.E.M. made the switch from Southern Gothic bar band to arena rockers.

The change was not entirely unwelcome, but it was sharp and sudden. In sentiment, lyrical content, and tonality, there is little enough difference between Murmur's "Sitting Still" and Pageant's "I Believe," but the execution of the two songs couldn't be more different. Whereas "Sitting Still" is raucous, "I Believe" is ROCKous. The former is fun, the latter is big.

R.E.M. was obviously swinging for the fences on Pageant, and why the first single off the album, "Fall on Me," wasn't the band's first huge hit is anyone's guess. "These Days," "Hyena," and "Just a Touch" also wrap up the jangle thing on which R.E.M. had made its name in listener-friendly packages that radio programmers largely ignored for reasons known only to themselves.

The problem, if it can be so named, with R.E.M.'s turn to the rock mainstream is that once they put themselves on that path, they could never turn back. From the moment the opening chords of "I Believe" were first written in 1985, it was inevitable that "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" would be written in 1993. R.E.M. had perfected the formula for creating noisy crowd pleasers, and they weren't going to abandon that formula.

To quote some of the band's "I Believe" lyrics back at them,

... practice, practice makes perfect
Perfect is a fault
And fault lines change

Fault lines never return to their original shape, however. Without hating the latter-day version, I miss the old R.E.M. Good thing, then, that I held on to my cassettes.

Up Next: R.E.M., Document, 1987

It's Kind of a Concept

2009-05-06T08:45:00.003-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985

Best Track: "Life and How to Live It"

Lasting Memory: I harbored delusions of rock stardom for exactly 19 years too long. Which is why, at age 19, I toyed with the idea of joining a college friend's cover band as a singer. Specifically, this friend wanted to perform a lot of R.E.M. songs.

I pretty much already knew at that time that I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but trying to master the vocal stylings of Michael Stipe and Mike Mills ultimately shamed me into giving up my never-started music career.

If you need to be similarly disabused of your dreams, try singing "Maps and Legends" or "Driver 8" off of R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction. If you think you have succeeded, you are either lying to yourself, or you are Michael or Mike. If the latter is the case, how you guys doing?

R.E.M. didn't record Fables to crush my groove, of course. Rather, it appears the band's intent was to construct something very much a like a concept album about living in the last days of antebellum Georgia. Peopled with characters such as "Old Man Kensey" and "Wendell Gee," the world of Fables is very much one Flannery O'Connor would recognized.

All the residents are barely harmless madmen like the real-life person whose tale is told in the album standout "Life and How to Live It." In a story that I can't remember why I heard but which I will never forget, Michael Stipe once explained that "Life and How to Live It" was the title of a self-published book Stipe found hundreds of copies of while helping neighbors clean out the house of a recently deceased, familyless other neighbor.

The book, discovered in the basement of a house divided exactly down the middle and having different sets of furniture and clothing in each half, explained that the best thing a person could do to remain sane was live as one person for six months or so, and then live as a completely different person for the next period of time.

To borrow the lyrics of another one of Fable's songs, "Maybe these maps and legends have been misunderstood." But then again, "the power lines have floaters so the airplanes wont get snagged."

Driving home the concept that Fables was aimed at expressing, the original album cover -- not the one shown above -- was printed in such a way that the title could be read as either Fables of the Reconstruction or as Reconstruction of the Fables. Then the band throws a reinterpretation of "Green Grow the Rushes," which describes the collapse of the agriculture-based economy of the rural South, onto the album. Then the band throws the original "Auctioneer (Another Engine)," which describes the collapse of the dual ties to the people and the land alongside the increasing difficulty of escaping from either, onto the album.

The world of Fables was a weird and depressing place, much like most of the American South in the century and change following the Civil War. Good thing, then, that Georgians have finally put their Confederate legacy to rest and fully emerged as the model of twenty-first century citizens of the world who are not at all haunted by their past.

Up Next: R.E.M., Life's Rich Pageant, 1986

And Then for Something Completely Different

2009-05-05T07:45:00.004-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Murmur, 1983 (dub)

Best Track: "Catapult"

Lasting Memory: Arranged chronologically from 1981 through 1985, the record of my album acquisitions would start strongly with the Who's The Kids Are Alright and quickly reach the nadir of Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry. Taping R.E.M.'s Murmur off a friend's dubbed copy of Murmur during the fall of my freshman year of high school righted my musical ship.

In fact, listening to Murmur was a downright conversion experience. I taped the R.E.M. album over my up-to-then revered copy of J. Giels Band's Showtime. Also, as near as I can figure, the only cheesy heavy metal album I bought for the first time after 1984 was Triumph's greatest hits compilation Classics. Still can't get enough "Fight the Good Fight," even to this day. But that's a post for another day.

What is most cromulent now is that there was something about the sound of R.E.M.'s music that grabbed me pretty much instantly and never let go. That reads stupid, I know. All music sounds, but what I'm trying to convey is that the strained-almost-to-breaking jangle and nearly indecipherable not-quite-high-lonesome vocals appealed to me in a way that no other music ever really had.

R.E.M. was my gateway to the contemporary urban folk of artists like Billy Bragg, the traditional country of titans like George Jones, and yet-to-be fusioned alt country of bands like Uncle Tupelo. And R.E.M. was so much unlike any other band being played on the radio in the early 1980s that the music it made, for all any high schoolers knew in those pre-Internet days, constituted a genre unto itself.

Of course, it bears mentioning, as someone who I can no longer identify accurately did decades ago, that no album has ever been more accurately titled than Murmur. Without looking them up, just try to figure out all the lyrics to "Radio Free Europe" or "Shaking Through."

But don't they sound great?

Even greater sounding, to me anyway, are "Perfect Circle" and "Catapult," in which the pretty nonsensical lyrics are reasonably audible. Maybe the inverse property applies, meaning R.E.M.'s lyrics make more sense the harder they are to understand. I'll never know because I truly enjoy the murmuring. It's very comforting, especially when heard coming off my 27-year-old third-generation dubbed cassette and through the impossibly cheap speakers of my 19-year-old mini boom box.

Two other standout tracks off the truly seminal debut full-length album that is Murmur are "Laughing" and "West of These Fields." I've no further insights on the songs, but in chasing down the video links, I found myself marvelling at what advanced sound board recording and stage videotaping setups R.E.M. had when they were first starting out. The boys from Athens, Ga., must have know from the beginning that they would be one of the biggest bands in the world.

Time and events proved them were correct, but the presumption seems a little, well, presumptuous.

Up Next: R.E.M. Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985

Up From Under

2009-05-04T07:38:00.005-04:00

Ol' Gil is comin' back. Cha cha cha ...

Last week, I copyedited the equivalent of two scholarly books -- more than 400 pages in all, with extensive bibliographies, tables, figures, and footnotes. Plus, the two sets of manuscripts used different editorial styles.

The week before last wasn't much better workload-wise.

But by noon today, my desk will be clear. WHEW! It'll be nice for a while to not have to work 14-hour days. That written, if you have projects that start after May 15, I'm available.

Expect regular-ish postings to resume tomorrow. In honor of my reentry into the world of the worldly, here's a video:

(H/T Joe Guse)

The Bass Is Base

2009-04-18T09:06:00.003-04:00

Album: R.E.M., Chronic Town, 1982

Best Song: "Stumble"

Lasting Memory: Early R.E.M. was a revelation--a bolt of Americana lightning from a clear blue sky.

So, of course, I didn't pick up the band's 1982 debut EP until 1988, and even only then under duress. I'm always late to the party, and I only arrive after having taken a wrong turn.

An hour after I won my high school's local league heavyweight wrestling crown, my family car stalled out while I was driving home from the tournament. Stranded a dozen miles from my home and in the parking lot of one of Tidewater's foremost music stores, Tracks at Ward's Corner, I called my dad and headed for the $1.99 cassette bin.

Purchasing R.E.M.'s Chronic Town was my true victory of that late February day. I am pleased that I earned a sports title to add to my lifetime resume, and I'm grateful to this day that my father was willing to drive out and rescue me. But I'm karmicly indebted to that shitty Ford Fairlane for forcing me to be in a position to pick up Chronic Town.

Of all of R.E.M.'s 14 albums, Chronic Town is my favorite because it is both charmingly unpolished and a précis on what the band from Athens, Ga., would go on to accomplish.

It bears noting--which I will fail to do in the course of my next seven posts--that what R.E.M. went on to accomplish was taking over the world by making the U.S. airwaves safe for alternative music.

The open secret to R.E.M.'s success is that, following the Who and sometimes the Kinks, lead singer Michael Stipe and guitarist Peter Buck allowed bassist Mike Mills to take the rhythm and melody lines of the band's songs. This not-exactly innovation makes "Wolves, Lower" and "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars) " instant classics.

It also helps to sell R.E.M.'s music when the vocals are mixed way below the instruments. The band would break from this style dramatically on the album that inevitably made me fall out of love with the group whose drummer used to be Bill Berry.

But, good grief, who could resist the siren call of the half-Byrds and half-Velvet Underground anthem that is "Stumble"?

Up Next: R.E.M., Murmur, 1983

Dude, We Call That "Therapy"

2009-04-17T07:48:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, the world learned that an admitted Al Qaeda leader is terrified of caterpillars.

Having an unnatural and highly mockable aversion to moths myself, I could almost relate. That is, I was semiprepared to spare Abu Zubaydah the tiniest bit of fellow feeling until I also learned that he considered it torturous to be placed in a small room with an arthropod.

Dude, that's not torture. That is desensitization therapy.

I also found myself questioning Zubaydah's choice of career and the lifestyle it imposed on him. As an al Quaeda operative, the man was required to spend a majority of his time in caves, swamps, desserts and many other places that were absolutely crawling with insects.

If this terrorist was truly terrified of bugs, wouldn't he have been much happier doing anything else than rising through the ranks of al Qaeda? If Zubaydah can't act in his own best interest, he gets no sympathy from me. He should be made to lay in his own bedbugs.

In fact, if you want to send some bad vibes Zubaydah's way, go here and think in his direction. Your country has pledged not to prosecute you for your service.