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Somewhere in time between Janet Jackson's "Great Boobie Incident" and Jim Morrison's "Showing Mister Happy" episode, a band from San Francisco was producing such family favorites as Mondo Bondage, Don't Touch Me There, I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk ("...you want some action, I'll put your ass in traction!") and White Punks On Dope. This was delivered with a stage show featuring nudity, simulated (I guess) oral sex, violence, ballet (sort of), bondage and other assorted fun.
This live album documents the late-70's Tubes at their excessive best. In addition to the aforementioned 'hits', there's a great crime medley (Dragnet->Peter Gunn->Perry Mason->Untouchables), an appearance of rock star-archetype "Quay Lude", a game show (of sorts) and a fun cover of "I Saw Her Standing There".
What Do You Want From Live is also one of those records that for whatever reason comes with autobiographical information still attached (High Fidelity's Rob Gordon organized his records autobiographically, a cool concept...but I don't think I'm up to the task). I bought the record on a Saturday back in high school. Me and a friend hitchhiked to the town (Waterville, Maine) with the record store (DeOrsey's). It was the first (and only) time I ever hitched a ride. Pathetically, a friend (Sherry) of mine's mother picked us up on the way down. Anyhow....bought the Tubes record as well as the first Cars album. There's no information about the ride home so we must have avoided any weirdos.
(P.S. This being Memorial Day weekend, my first thought was to pull out some prototypical 'summer' record, like Pet Sounds or something. But my current schedule has me more than a little wiggly due to sleep deprivation)
on the way to work i listened to Avril Lavgine's "Let Go". heck, i started down the guilty pleasure slippery slope several years back when Christina Aquilera's "Genie In A Bottle" came out. this is maybe a little difference but, really....who cares?!!! "Sk8er Boi" is fine power pop that makes me grin ear-to-ear. Plus, it kept me from driving off the road and hittin' a cow or something.
Gotta work on that Guster review tonight...
Heh, you can just feel those conservative forehead veins a-throbbin'!
is it friday yet?
please?
For the past month or so I've been wedged into a boiling pit of work (the deadline approaches) and work (the house sale approaches). After a few weeks of this stuff I started to feel like I was caught in an extended scene from Koyaanisqatsi.
Yessiree, life is just a little out of balance. What's worse is that I start to hear music in my head...that I haven't listed to in months if not years. One unwelcome bit was Philip Glass' Einstein On The Beach. While I really do like that particular chunk of music, I don't want my brain dredging up pieces of it.
So this morning I thought it'd be fun to chase away the mental music demons. Mudvayne's stuff is aggressive, chaotic and full of adrenaline-producing twists and turns. It's fun in a music-as-rollercoaster kind of way. What's he saying/singing/screaming/belching? Don't know. Don't care.
Easily one of my favorite movies. I love the expression on peoples' faces when they see it for the first time. The ending arrives and the comment is usually "wha??".
That's OK. I love it for the bizarre combination of numerology, the Kabala, technology, intrigue, claustrophobia (enhanced by a shoot in grainy black and white) and tense electronic music. Clint Mansell, Oribital, Autechre, Massive Attack, Roni Size, David Holmes, Gus Gus, Psilonaut, Spacetime Continuum and Aphex Twin put together a nice brew of digital weirdness.
Not recommended for family movie night.
Every so often I think about what it would be like if the emotions people experience were automatically displayed as little floating neon signs. We wouldn't have any control over this...it'd just happen. You walk by a woman you've known (and secretly admired) for years and:We all know life's complicated enough, so this little Fellini thought experiment probably shouldn't be wished for. Angry or otherwise tense situations would only be magnified (and perhaps pushed into darkness) by the neon eruptions of aggressive and spontaneous thoughts.
For some people, this type of thing does happen when listening to music. The odd structures, rhythms and juxtapositions of textures can evoke seemingly random bits of emotion and memories. At other times, the effect is less clear (and maybe even a little unsettling). More familiar sounds may bring thoughts of clichéd film scenes: the echoey click of castanets can make a person think of a shadowy, wet street scene from a detective movie.
But what happens when a circular saxophone figure (from Evan Parker!) is in the room with a guitar pick being roughly scraped across the strings? Are you annoyed? Intrigued? Upset?
Thirsty Ear's Blues Series has presented the world's eardrums with a fine assortment of aural treats. Spring Heel Jack's The Sweetness of the Water should make some neon thought generators work overtime.
Let's see...
"Track Four". In the right channel, reverby guitar arpeggios and artificial harmonics ring out, while the left channel is home to eerie guitar string scrapes and 'elephant noises'. It's 'The Good, The Bad & The Ugly'...on acid. Nervous percussion, trumpet and bass follow, building the mood. The thought?
"Quintet". Shards of dissonant chords fall off John Coxon's fingers. Percussion, soprano sax and trumpet circle slowly around the guitar structure in a kind of group improvisation ritual.
"Duo". Clattering percussion and extended guitar techniques give way to psychotic call and response (of sorts) passages between the two instruments.
"Track One". The piano chords are used as support structure for a slowly morphing group improvisation.
"Inlet". A Braxton-meets-Lounge Lizards improv with droplets of percussion , staccato trumpet, bowed bass and sax.
"Autumn". For some reason, this reminds me of Ornette's Prime Time. A soaring three-chord (sampled?) figure is fleshed out with layers of improvised sounds. Harmolodic? Maybe. Thought-provoking? Definiteley.
What's interesting about this 'generated thought' phenomenon is that, like other arts, the result is different for everybody. The listener brings as much to the experience as the musician.
Does that mean that some music is too 'difficult', making it impossible to 'get'? Not at all. There are as many elements to perceive in music as there are reasons for its creation. Heck, a lot of music has no meaning beyond the ideas followed by the musician. One idea spawns another just because it made musical sense at the time.
I've gotta give the guys in Spring Heel Jack extra points for their 'big ears'. The collective improvisations manage to be both introspective and and inclusive, not an easy thing to get right.
The Sweetness of the Water will be released on June 8th, 2004.
One of the 'fun' things about spring cleaning is the possible discovery of items you've 'lost'. This happened to me on Saturday. I was going through a box of old guitar cords, effects pedals and the like and I stumbled upon several old dusty index cards. They were stuck together with bits of duct tape that can only be described as 'crusty'. Ahhh....old set lists from the band I used to play in back in the late 80's.The list displayed above was from a Halloween party we played at. Let's go over the individual sets to see what pathetic chunks of nostalgia can be dislodged.
Set #1
Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top
Tush - ZZ Top
Keep Your Hands To Yourself - Georgia Satellites
Mississippi Queen - Mountain
I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide - ZZ Top
What's The Matter Here - 10,000 Maniacs
When Things Go Wrong - Robin Lane & the Chartbusters
Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
Helter Skelter - The Beatles
Brown Sugar - The Rolling Stones
You Really Got Me - The Kinks
From the heavy ZZ Top content it probaby comes as no great surprise that the entire band was dressed as 'Sharp-Dressed-Men' (and in our case, one sharp-dressed woman). I tell ya, it was hot playin' in that thing. The sweat was flying. The ZZ two-fer was a fun way to get the house pumped up (not that the beer wasn't helping). I might have to question the choice of the slower mid-set material but I think we might have needed a breather by then anyway.
Set #2
She Loves My Automobile - ZZ Top
Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix
Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
City Of Dreams - Talking Heads
Burning For You - Blue Oyster Cult
Funk 49/Moby Dick - James Gang/Led Zep
Lawyers, Guns & Money - Warren Zevon
Love For Sale - Talking Heads
Like The Weather - 10,000 Maniacs
Next To You - The Police
The Ocean - Led Zep
Wow, I'd forgotten just how much of a ZZ Top jones we had goin' on. Don't know why we insisted on playing "Behind Blue Eyes", since we kinda sucked at it. The Talking Heads ballad was a favorite of ours. "Burning For You" was a blast, though I think I played a friggin' uber-clam during the outro choruses, missing by a half-step (ouch). The "Funk/Dick" thing was an excuse for my old pal Ty to let loose on a drum solo. It wasn't half bad either. By this time, some of Ty's fake beard had fallen off, making him look more Amish than ZZ. The Zevon tune was also tons of fun as was "Love For Sale". The next 10,000 Maniacs song was my idea. Dang, I loved Natalie Merchant back then. The set ended with a rushed, almost punkish "Next To You" (with considerable jamming) and Zeppelin's "The Ocean".
I think some beer happened after this.
Set #3
Can't Get Enough - Bad Company
Cat Scratch Fever - Ted Nugent
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Turning Japanese - The Vapors
Everybody Got Hammered - Joe Ely
Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
Louie Louie - The Kingsmen
Mystery Dance - Elvis Costello
Gimme Three Steps - Lynyrd Skynyrd
I'm The Man - Joe Jackson
Rock & Roll - Led Zeppelin
Goodbye To You - Scandal
Some serious fun in the last set. "Can't Get Enough" was an 'old standard' for us, being one of the first tunes we learned together (also the first guitar solo I ever learned). "Cat Scratch" was the big stupid (still is). "Psycho Killer" was fun because we all traded off on the verses and I got to sing (well, shout) the French parts. "Turning Japanese" is an exhilarating pop song to play live. When you're all cranked up it's a little like being on a rock roller coaster. You've never heard of Ely's "Everybody Got Hammered"? You should check it out. Benatar's "Heartbreaker" was a pain in the ass to learn but fun to play. It was also the last 'difficult' song of the night as it was all downhill from there. The classic "Louie Louie" segues right into Costello's "Mystery Dance". A little southern-fried boogie with "Gimme Three Steps" and the all-out fun of Jackson's "I'm The Man" and Zep's "Rock & Roll" (pre-Cadillac). We ended the night with "Goodbye To You". Much grousing at practices about this choice, as "Rock & Roll" had been our traditional nightcap. Oh well, I was a little sick of it..plus the Scandal tune was just pure pop fun.
Gees, I'm exhausted (and I haven't even played a note).
Other bits of trivia from that night: best costume - "The Voting Booth". Most prophetic costume: my wife (now "ex") dressed as a witch. The house we had the party in was knocked down a while back to make room for an office building.
Ok, so I'm thinkin' that this week I may have hit an all-time high for low-brow television watching. See, I'm in the middle of a particularly intense period of work, both at 'real' work and at home (insane house-sale preparations)...so there have been a few nights where I was so tired I just sat there and stared at the blue light.
You would think that a single episode of The Swan would have pretty much set the bar for bad TV. That's what I thought...until last night when I watched a Ted Nugent's Surviving Nugent. Maybe I'm easily amused these days, but that show was pretty danged entertaining. I wouldn't put myself through the crap that the kids on the show are enduring, but it'd sure be fun to sit around with Ted in his living room, playing some too loud electric guitar (we'd skip the politics).
Anyway, this particular recording shows Nugent at the top of his game, playing at London's Hammersmith Odeon on May 9, 1979. What's crazy about it is that it was the third show of the night!
Last night, instead of doing something useful, I ended up blowing two hours watching a Friends interview special. When the segment with Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe) came on I was reminded of the crazy songs her character sometimes sings. She confessed to her favorite, called "Barnyard Animals":
Now that's art.
Anyway, we're right in the middle of having all sorts of fun getting our house ready for sale. Good timing...we can sure use the help. Since Ray couldn't lug all of his clothes with him on the bus (from the truck repair shop to our house) he decided to get himself some cheapo work clothes at the Salvation Army.
While he was there, Ray just couldn't resist checking out the stacks of used vinyl. One of the records he brought to the house was Pablo Cruise's Worlds Away. Now's there's a group I hadn't thought about in a while. The hit "Love Will Find A Way" was on the charts during my senior year in high school. I'd bet my entire record collection that I hated it back then...which is kind of silly since these guys share a lot of musical common area with groups like Steely Dan and maybe even Hall & Oates. No matter. It's kinda fun to listen to now.
Ray's truck has been fixed but he's staying on a few more days to paint part of our house. I think he's heading back to the Salvation Army for some cheapo work boots. Maybe some more interesting records will find their way home too.
My cousin was helping me clean out and demolish the 20-something year old woodshed that sits near the house. We got it all cleaned out, attached a rope to the front, hooked it to the Jeep and started backing down the driveway. Now, I was pretty sure that the thing was just going to faceplant into the crushed stone at the top of the hill. Nope. It made another half revolution back onto its roof and began twisting toward our (not to be demolished!) deck. Luckily, we had left our two-stepper ladder sitting there. The poor ladder took one for the team!
Further proof I should stick to software, writing and music.
