Favorite jazz guitarists....that's a tough one. What specific styles do I cover? Who gets left out? Just straight ahead play or does the F-word (fusion) enter into it?

After much deliberation and hand-wringing, I've decided to cover the guitarists that have been the most important to me. By "important" I mean that they've had a big influence not only on how my interests as a jazz fan have expanded but also on what happens when I pick up my own guitar. A player's ear develops slowly over the years but the process can be boiled down to assimilation...or maybe osmosis. Listen to this stuff over time and it kinda seeps in.

So here's the list. There's no pecking order here. Like many other musical topics, I don't see this as a competition. Instead, I'll list them in 'order of discovery'...similar to Rob Fleming's (High Fidelity) biographical method. The one exception to this will be the 'top' entry.

James Blood Ulmer

Jazz is the teacher (funk is the preacher). No kiddin'. That song title just about sums up Ulmer's style. It's a nasty, funky, hardscrabble thing. Check out Tales Of Captain Black. It's a side project for Ornette Coleman & son Denardo, plus Jamaladeen Tacuma on bass. Prime Time-lite this is not. The tangled, knotty guitar lines are like nothing else out there. Add in some of Ornette's squawkin' horn and you've got a recipe for a good time (the listening area may clear out during the session but hey, at least you'll be happy).

John Scofield

Still Warm was my first Scofield record. Not his best, really...but it's the one where his distinctive sound came into its own. With the killer rhythm section of Daryl Jones (bass) and Omar Hakim (drums), Scofield's twisted solos began to sparkle and show evidence of their future: one in which the tunes, "jazz" tunes, have hooks every bit as catchy as a great pop song. Don't believe it? Listen to "Call 911" from What We Do or, better still, "I Break 4 Monster Booty" from last year's Uberjam. Not serious...but seriously fun.

Wes Montgomery

Normally, I don't give much weight to monster chops..but Montgomery knew what to do with his. His solos were soulful, melodic, and full of the blues....all the while swinging like mad. It's best to check out his early work...before the string sections show up.

Best Wes Montgomery anecdote: somebody asked him about his practicing routine, and his reply was that , every so often, he would open up his guitar case and toss in a chunk of raw meat.

Django Reinhardt

The 'Gypsy Guitarist' played stuff that seemed impossible for somebody with a full complement of fingers...never mind just two. When I found out that he had only two working digits on his fretting hand I was more than amazed. That fact is not what drew me to Django. It was the spirit of his play. When it's sad, it's downright depressing. And when it's happy, it's the sunniest musical vision you've ever heard. Check out just about anything he did with violinist Stephane Grappelli...you won't be disappointed.

Bern Nix

The only Bern Nix recording I own is Alarms and Excursions. It's an odd (and great) little record. Nix, a former member of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, takes the ideas of Coleman's "harmolodics" (where melody, harmony and rhythm are all equal players) and spins up some pretty brilliant sounds. To hear his clean-toned guitar slip out what at first sounds like an off-key retort to the bass is to hear not a mistake, but a revolution. If you can 'get' this then your ears will hunger for the rest of the harmolodic universe. You won't leave the rest of your musical world behind, but you will hear it in a different way.

Barney Kessel

Back in around 1990, I started taking my guitar playing more seriously. The cover band I was in was fun, but there was something missing. What drove me to start studying jazz guitar was the solo during "Blues Walk" from Lyle Lovett and his Large Band. I wanted to play like that...but I couldn't. My guitar teacher turned me on to a lot of cool players, one of them being Barney Kessel. We were trying to develop my ability to come up with chord solos (to construct a chord solo you take a given melody and then improvise chord changes over it...keeping in the proper key (or keys) as you move through the changes). I don't remember exactly what record he loaned me but the chord soloing on it was pure magic. The guy had what seemed like an unlimited pool of material to lift ideas from...and it always sounded natural. My favorite Kessel record (and there are lots of 'em) is Straight Ahead, a "reunion" album with his early trio "The Poll Winners" (with Ray Brown & Shelly Manne). It's definitely straight ahead jazz guitar, but there's nothing 'ordinary' about it.

Jim Hall

Another recommendation from my guitar teacher, Jim Hall is a great composer of "modern" jazz, a spinner of fantastic melodies, and a beyond-great improvisor. His use of 'odd' harmonies during solos puts him in a class of his own. He also has a pretty danged unique style of comping. I saw him once at a small club called the Regattabar, in Cambridge, MA. During a bass solo he at first dropped in an occasional ringing chord, piano-like, to imply the changes. Then he turned his volume to zero and began to strum chords furiously...as loudly as an 'unplugged' archtop guitar will go (which ain't too loud!) It was pretty cool and made for an inspired moment.

Jim Hall has played in a number of groups in many different styles: from his early work with Jimmy Giuffre and Art Framer to his sides with Ron Carter (give Alone Together a listen) to his own group and solo material. To pick a single recording is to do a disservice to both Hall and you.

Pat Metheny

Metheny's one of those love 'em or hate 'em players. I'm not really sure why that is as he's a genuinely nice guy who just happens to be able to play his ass off! More important than that, he's a player who has distilled his own influences (Miles, Jim Hall, Ornette) and his midwestern sensibility (born in Lee's Summit, Missouri) down to a unique style of play.

The more that I think about it though, the closer I get to understanding why Metheny can draw such venomous criticism. He does have a tendency to lean toward the sentimental in his compositions...which can result in a level of sweetness that's too much to stomach for some folks. The antidote for that 'problem' would be to see the Pat Metheny Group in a live setting. To see these guys pour their soul into the material is to truly understand the "story" they're trying to tell.

I've been a fan since way back in the late 1970's. Pat's biggest influence on my own playing comes from two areas. The first is what I'll call Metheny's "Midwestern Thing". It's a big, open sound..with lots of ringing tones and arpeggiated chords that to me signify reverence for the possibilities of life (I guess I haven't been called a "musical romantic for nothin'). The second is Pat's snarling noise-fest alter-ego. People are rightly surprised to hear the composer of tender ballads like "Farmer's Trust" coming out with things like "Offramp", "Scrap-Metal" and "Faith Healer"...and let me tell you, in the right setting, with a sympathetic group of fellow musicians, it is pure fun to play stuff like that!

...

So, that's it. One last thought to maybe draw all of these players together. As I've said before, I've never been all that impressed by pure technique. There are lots of guitarists out there to fill all available slots in the 'fretboard olympics'. Big deal. It's what you do with it that counts. Early on in Pat Metheny's career he took a fair amout of flak for not making the guitar the centerpiece of his music.

His comments on that idea:

"Most people who like us don't know anything about the guitar. They like the spirit of the music. We don't draw that many musicians; they're more into players who are expanding the vocabulary on a technical level. I think there are a lot of guitar fanatics who can't understand what all the fuss is about. People have come up and told me that they can't believe I'm getting all this attention because I don't play as fast as so-and-so. Our stuff is very human music; we're dealing with more of a 'life' approach, as opposed to just more notes, another chorus or whatever..."

The spirit of the music. For me, that is exactly the point.

A friend of mine, who I just recently turned on to the pleasures the LP (he's hooked for sure now), picked up a copy of 2 A.M. Paradise Cafe at the Goodwill store. He might have paid a buck for it.

As we sat down to listen to it last night I was more than a little shocked to be likin' it...and likin' it quite a bit.

Back in 1984, Manilow made big turn toward jazz. This particular release had a lot of jazz heavy hitters on it including Sarah Vaughn, Mel Torme and Shelley Manne. What's even more interesting is that he took some unreleased Johnny Mercer lyrics and set them to music.

I was never a fan of Manilow back in his heydey. Even if the songs were catchy, there was just something about his voice that was tough to take. It was as though, even when singing a complex melody, he managed to make it be monotone. I don't perceive much of that on this album. Maybe that's because there aren't so many swelling, anthemic choruses here. Thing are more understated.

Phew! I am in shock. First the Red Sox make it into the post season...then I like a Manilow record. What the heck is next?!

Father Of The Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions - Son House

I'm pretty much gettin' cranked up for this weekend's premier of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues.

Why do people hit a musical wall at a certain point in their life? They stop listening to anything put out after their high school (or college) years. Worst of all: they just stop listening. Music is no longer a part of their life.

Of course, there are a whole lot of reasons. They mostly boil down to the pressures of adult existence: career, marriage, kids, rent, car payments, divorce, etc. I can see that, though I have yet to hit "the wall" (and suspect I never will). But hey, priorities do shift. Some things become 'unimportant'.

But the one excuse I can't deal with is the "there's just nothing good out there anymore" waffle (yes, I know this really can mean "I can't find anything that sounds like my old Stones records"...but I'll ignore that for now). Sorry, if you can't find something to interest your shakin' cochlea, well, you're just not trying. There's a boatload of great music being made today...but you've got to ignore the obvious and do a little digging.

Take the jazz world. Sure , you've got your young lions (who really aren't that young anymore), the smooth jazzers (not for me but, hey, you never know) and also the giant jazz reissue machine..maybe there's something for ya in that big pile. But look beyond that and surprises can be found.

I'll use today's cd, Nicholas Payton's Sonic Trance as an example. Now here's some music that's not easily pigeonholed. A few years ago they woulda slapped the "Acid Jazz" (never liked that term) tag on it. Sonic Trance takes the spirit of trip-hop and trance music (which you can hear in the beginning moments of "Praalude (sonic trance)" and smashes it headlong into early fusion, particularly Weather Report and electric Miles. Mixed in is a little of the groove-mining found on many of Bill Laswell's projects (see: Radioaxium: A Dub Transmission and Panthalassa to see what I'm talkin' about). What you end up with is a whole lotta funk..from many different directions. A musical hologram.

"Fela 1" shows off the electric Miles thing with a screaming wah-trumpet solo. It sounds to me like a person going insane...and made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. "Cannabis Leaf Rag 1" starts off with a twisted snippet of "The Entertainer", then uses that melody as fodder for more explorations. My favorite track is "Velvet Handcuffs". It's built around a sparse drum vamp and a single echoing trumpet stab that shows up every couple of bars. The sax begins a response to the horn as the bass and percussion start up to imply a deep groove. Last to enter is a druggy keyboard, dripping angular notes here and there. I'm just love ensemble workups like this. Instead of just playing changes the group starts with a single idea and takes it from there.

So is this stuff too much for your Mr. NothinGoodOutThere? Dunno....but it sure wouldn't hurt him to give it a try.

I can't sing. Not a note. Not with the family during "Happy Birthday". Not even for a beery, sloppy New Year's "Auld Lang Syne" (well...ok, maybe then).

Apparently, Seal doesn't have this problem. The guy can flat-out sing...with a voice equal parts Sam Cooke, Al Green and Curtis Mayfield. Toss all those influences into the pot and you've got one tasty instrument.

So as I'm giving Seal IV a few first listens, I notice that on some tunes I'm drawn right in. Held there. Yet on others there's a letdown. At first I think it's the speed: ballads like "Touch" stand out while the 70's disco-raveup "Get It Together" quickly melts into my past.

But then I get it. It's the freedom given to his voice. It's not just that "Touch" (a gorgeous love song, by the way), "Tinsel Town", and "Don't Make Me Wait" are held back in the tempo department: it's that the stripped down arrangements allow the aural spotlight to be focused on Seal's voice.

It wouldn't be fair to say that the rest of this record is a total loss. The gospel-influence of "Love's Divine" is inspiring, "Waiting For You"'s uptempo R&B is fun, and the reggae-ish "When There's Gold" is fine modern pop music.

But, at the end of the day, I really want to hear that voice. It's a beautiful and powerful thing, and can stand on its own.

We all knew this would happen eventually. Will these young people never learn?!!

I have a confession to make. The other morning, while munching on a bowl of hemp granola and slurping my first cuppa, I watched a Justin Timberlake video...and I really liked the song (Senorita). Not the vocals so much 'cause let's face it, Timberlake is doing Michael Jackson better than the GlovedOne himself can probably manage these days. No, it was the keyboard riff. Simple, yet funky & slinky. I started wobbling back & forth at the breakfast table, and started scheming to sneak a copy of Justified into the house (or maybe just the cd single, if I can find it).

But even as I imagine listening to "Senorita" again on some future drive to work or something, I can't shake the feeling that I just shouldn't be liking this stuff!

A new guilty pleasure is born.

Everybody's got 'em, so why not just let 'em fly? So here are a few more of mine. The listing is mostly chronological beginning with high school (where peer pressure started the 'closet listening' phenomenon) and going through, well...last week.

Knock On Wood - Amii Stewart

Yea, that disco-fried version from back in the leisure suite day. Right there in the middle of my 'disco sucks!' years I would sneak over to our local dance radio station in hopes of catching a listen to this gem. Who know what attracted me? The sound was classic disco, practically dripping with dance floor reverb. I bet it was just the pure 'danger' of listening to 'forbidden' music. Man, I woulda been laughed right out of my disco-hatin' circle of friends.

Hello - Lionel Richie

Ok, the chick in the video was hot...but that wasn't it. It was the guitar solo. A soulful, slightly jazzy thing that was just perfect for the song. For some reason I remember listening to "Hello" backed with The Thompson Twins' "Hold Me Now" as I sat in the daily 20-mile traffic jam heading back into southern New Hampshire.

State Of Shock - Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger

Mick has always been pretty capable of producing awful things in his non-Stones career. This song rates right up (or down) there. I like it anyway. Hmmm...now that I think about it, this just might be the very last 45rpm disc I ever bought.

Crazy For You - Modonna

Geezuz, not only was it a ballad, it was a ballad by Madonna! Even worse, it was a ballad by Madonna from a cheesy 80's movie. Oh well, it was nice. A sappy love song. Certainly not the last one that would get to me...and to this day it reminds me of a time when I had absolutely no idea of what I wanted to do with my life - but was having a blast tryin' to figure it all out.

Adult Education - Hall & Oates

Really, the entire Hall & Oates catalog was a guilty pleasure. Guys who like Black Sabbath were not supposed to like things like "Rich Girl"...but I did. "Adult Education" was tacked onto the end of the Rock & Soul collection as one of two new tracks. I first heard it though, on a live radio broadcast. Kinda hard to imagine these guys rocking out, but they did. (Bonus points if you can remember G.E. Smith and T-Bone Wolk in the "Maneater" video)

Karma Chameleon - Culture Club

Never had much use for Culture Club back in their heydey...but they were all over the place: print, radio, TV. So, a couple of years ago, I caught the VH1-Storytellers thing and enjoyed it from beginning to end. Weird. Anyway, both "Karma Chameleon" and "Church Of The Poisoned Mind" were loads of fun.

Get The Party Started - Pink

I really should not watch videos while I'm eating breakfast. Maybe I'm too mentally vulnerable at that hour. Pink was kinda cute there, acting all dorky & whatnot. The song's a blast and makes me remember the anticipation of Friday night debauchery.

Work It - Missy Elliott

No video here (though I have seen it). The tune is pure pop madness. Backward vocal tricks, skittery rhythms, silly (and sexy) lyrics, and a perfectly-placed elephant sample.

Honorable Mentions:

Still The One - Shania Twain Genie In A Bottle - Christina Aguillera Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners Waterloo - Abba Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band

I'm so sick of reading articles like this. Microsoft, always annoyed at any company that does something better than they can (read: something that they're not the leader in in dollar terms), has decided to put a huge effort into unseating Google as the top Internet search engine.

The crux of the above article centers around whether Microsoft should buy the technology or build their own.

Here's some of the marketing-blather:

"The decision to build or buy came down to our ability to innovate," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, strategy manager at Microsoft's MSN Internet portal. "Our ability to innovate is predicated on our ability to own the platform," he added, a clear sign that Microsoft thinks it can only beat Google if it owns the technology.

Note the I-Will-Do-As-Simon-Says usage of the term 'innovate'. It's in nearly every communication that comes out of these people. I'm still waiting for their first 'innovation'.

Can't they just spend a little time coming up with a fricken' robust and secure operating system?

In a couple of previous posts, I mentioned how much I enjoyed attending a Bob Dylan show this past August. What I neglected to talk about was the ticket stub.

So why would anybody care about the ticket stub? Just take a look at it.

No Weapons? Words fail me. Is there some legal hokum going on here? If somebody is shot, the venue is absolved of responsibility ("...look, it says right here, "No Weapons"!)?

Man, it's a big 'ole world out there.

Further In - Greg Brown

Needin' a little uplift this morning. Greg Brown always does it for me. He's got a way of gracefully describing both life's dark moments as well as its joys (sung in the deepest, warmest baritone you've ever heard).

The song "Two Little Feet" is a perfect example of his approach. Both a lament about modern society and a love song to life itself:

John Muir walked away into the mountains in his old overcoat a crust of bread in his pocket we have no knowledge and so we have stuff and stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there it just won't get you there

But...all is not lost:

a culture exploded into knickknacks and memories Eagle and Bear trinkets I don't think it's good old man what am I trying to say it's a it's a messed up world but I love it anyway...i love it

That last line says it all.

There's a great article over on Salon about Parliament: their influence on hip-hop and how today's pop music climate would not allow such a group to form (or survive).

It ends with:

It's almost impossible to imagine P-Funk arising today, says Vincent. "Someone would have to have both the vision and access to the pop industry, which is tough because they're just cycling pop stars in and out," he explains. "By the time you're 22, you're over the hill. It's going to be really tough to pull something together that puts a collective vision out; the industry is usually in control of vision, and it's not democratic in that respect. It's not democratic, period. "But the idea that there's a transcendent vision for the world we're living in? How are you going to get that when the kids are watching the Disney Channel, the teenagers are watching MTV, and the adults are listening to the oldies stations? No one's trying to get out of their situation, they're trying to cope within it. And the music industry feels like it's losing the battle or its frame of reference. It once was a movement that opened people's eyes. They need to go buy these Parliament albums and understand that it is possible. It can be done."

Read the whole story here.

i am very worried.

i saw a danged Justin Timberlake video this morning...and i liked the song.

...i am very worried.

Kill 'Em All - Metallica

Nope, not a mini-essay on our approach to fighting terrorism, or protecting our country.

I was awoken at 5am yesterday morning by the voice of my mother (her and Dad live with us, a rare extended family in suburbia) who said "It's Eric....he died". My nephew, only in his early 30's, had been killed in a horrendous motorcycle accident.

Me & Eric spent a lot of time together when he was a kid. One of the things we had in common was music...especially the heavy variety. We would often swap tapes. Some of the stuff he lent me was kinda cool (Flotsam & Jetsam), some not (Cannibal Corpse). But, hey, we were having fun.

So yesterday I just had to go to work. Didn't want to but it was unavoidable. So I picked something for the drive, and that was Metallica's Kill 'Em All.

It was maybe the only time in my life that heavy metal music made me cry.

Today my thoughts are with his mom, his girlfriend, but mostly his little kids.

It was a bright, sunny day...exactly like two years ago.

Someday I'll learn to walk straight to the music store checkout without being sucked in by any display/promo material. Someday I will grow up.

Not today though...

This afternoon I was on my way to pay for the handful of Neil Young and Warren Zevon (I didn't have Learning To Flinch) cds' when I spotted a cardboard display for Light Of Day: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen. What this is is a tribute record, the proceeds of which go to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation and the Kristen Ann Carr Sarcoma Fund.

I haven't been able to give this thing a full listen yet but I've gotta say that Elvis Costello's version of "Brilliant Disguise", Billy Bragg's "Mansion On The Hill" and Graham Parker's "Pink Cadillac" have already made me glad I picked the cd up. The tunes seem to come from all era's of Bruce's career: early stuff up through the Lucky Town years.

For more information you can check out the Light Of Day Website.

Neil Young brought his full-on stage show of Greendale to the Verizon Wireless Arena last night. I was impressed. I'm not a big fan of musical theatre, concept albums, rock operas, etc. But somehow this was different. Neil Young always gets cut a fair amount of slack in my book because he's willing to take so many chances, even when there's more than a tiny chance of a 'faceplant'.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse were surrounded by a tall stage and video screen, Greendale Jail to the left, the Green family Double-E house to the right (complete with smoking chimney). As the music progressed the actors lip-synced some of the lines, acted out others. It was surprisingly cool. Sometimes funny, sometimes not (death isn't funny in my book). The slowed down, dirgy song material reinforced the seriousness of the plot. As tunes like "Leave The Driving" grind on and on, that ominous feeling is torqued up to a new level.

Funniest moment of the show: the video screen shows the billboard that sits out near the Greendale town line...the center message, in huge neon red/orange letters says "Support Our War"...but the top of board, in smaller lettering: "Clear Channel".

After they played Greendale in its entirety, there was a short break during which they played some old Rust Never Sleeps footage on the video screen (which must have pleased the morons who sat in front of us and yacked during all of the Greendale segment), then Neil and The Horse came back out to play an absolutely crushing rendition of "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)". For an old rock geezer, the guy can lay it down heavy. The rest of the short 'regular' set consisted of: "Sedan Delivery" and "Cowgirl In The Sand". The show closed with "Cinnamon Girl" followed by "Cortez The Killer".

Great stuff.

i saw the old geezer last night up at the verizon wireless in manchester. the man makes a danged big noise for somebody his age.

review to follow.

Is this the season for corporate execs to take their "stupid pills". The following is not from the Onion:

The makers of the Slip 'N Slide filed a lawsuit Monday over a scene in the hit movie "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" that shows actor David Spade skidding to a painful halt on the summertime water toy. Wham-O is asking a judge to order the film out of theaters as long as it contains the Slip 'N Slide scene, or for a disclaimer to be added urging viewers not to try the maneuver made by Spade. Read the rest here.

Just plain stupid!

Sometimes it's interesting to think about how music flows through my day. Usually there's so much going on, so many details to tie up, that there's not much time left for reflection. But even when things are bordering on chaotic, I almost always have music playing...or I'm thinking about upcoming selections.

Now, none of this is earth-shattering stuff. Heck, the only close to earth-shattering thing I've ever posted on my blog was the item about Elvis Costello and Diana Krall...which is still a little shocking. What interests me here is how the thread of just plain living pushes music toward me....

I woke up this morning...and did not listen to a blues record. Instead it was Pat Metheny's New Chautauqua. On most Sunday mornings I'll get a cup of coffee and read the Editorials and Arts sections of the paper while listening to New Chautauqua. It's as close to a ritual as I ever get.

Just before taking a shower the masochist part of me forced a quick check of the setlist at last night's Springsteen show at Fenway Park. For reasons not worth going into, I failed to get tickets to either of these two events. So do I want to know what happened at that first show? Yes and no. Well, Mr. Masochist discovers that they opened with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". Nuts. Then "Rosalita" has reappeared near the end of the set. Double nuts.

We go out to a late breakfast at our local pseudo-50's diner (I don't think you can legally be served "brunch" at a diner, can you?) followed by a drive down to Cambridge to take Stepson-The-Elder back to college. On the way back we listen to The Wind. It's been getting a daily spin. "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" still gets to me.

A stop at Barnes & Noble on the way back....somehow a copy of Arcana: Musicians on Music finds its way into my hands. The first essay I read is a total winner: Marc Ribot on the nature of distortion and feedback.

Later in the day I read Howard Owen's posting about the pleasures of vinyl...which reminds me that our own Mr. Olsen said I needed to give Saturday Night Fever a chance. I've got a nice LP copy so what the hey. It didn't make me long for my leisure suit (ok...never actually owned one) or anything but it was kinda fun. One thing I noticed was that even though disco was built on repetition, the actual execution of the music was so much more organic than much of today's ProTools-tweaked stuff.

Spoke to an old friend on the phone for a while. We talked about his soon-to-be-dadness, land in rural Maine, possible college majors for Stepson-The-Younger, neutrinos, books, history, and wireless routers. Eno's Ambient 1: Music For Airports played during the call. While you can sit up and pay close attention to that music, you certainly don't have to. I don't use much music as 'background', but this particular piece of music works.

Now late in the evening I listen to Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' only because it happened to be near the top of a pile I was sifting through. Gees, that guy wrote some freakin' great lyrics.

Just about time to turn in. Gavin Bryars' The Sinking Of The Titanic has help me though the latter half of this essay.

Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

If forced into making one of those desert island album lists, I'd just have to have this one. It's one of those recordings that's so odd, so multi-faceted...so fricken' weird...that's it's hard to describe in words. I mean, a list of the musical styles can be constructed (rock, folk, jazz, spoken word, music concrete, country, field recordings), but that doesn't help at all. One thing for sure is that you can listen to it once, ten, fifty, a hundred times...and each time there something new starin' back at ya.

Lester Bangs described it this way:

"...four sides of discordant yet juicy swampbrine jambalaya roogalator..."

Yep, that does sorta sum it all up. Or maybe we should go to the words of Mr. Van Vliet himself:

A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?

It would be so easy to drop into a sneering rant about Rancid. "Not 'real' punk". "...retreaded Clash." "Mohawk's in the year 2003?"

But that's been done before...and it'd be a little lazy.

Also, a little dishonest. Well, maybe not dishonest. See, I don't remember what the year was ( maybe when ...And Out Come The Wolves came out) but I do remember how excited I was to hear "Ruby Soho" while on a CD expedition at Newbury Comics. I was just about ready to bust out in a sweat at the prospect of buying that new, unreleased Clash material. Oh yea, it was gonna be such an unexpected treat. Joe & the boys were off doing, well, whatever 'retired' punk rockers did...but I was gonna revel in the last little bits of punk nostalgia and glory I could find.

"Who?"

"Rancid."

"Rancid?"

"There..."

...and the Newbury kid points to ...And Out Come The Wolves sitting in the "Now Playing" display.

There's nothing worse than feeling like an old fart in the presence of a GenX record store clerk. I usually feel oh-so-superior to them. Whenever I get the occasional "Can I help you find something?" I almost always come back with variants of "No Thanks, just lookin'"....but what I fantasize about saying is "I doubt it".

Not on that day. That was the day I was fooled by Rancid. I wasn't mad at 'em. How could I be? The tune was a big load of punk/pop fun. So what if it wasn't the Clash? It was still good.

There were definitely a few years there where I had a problem with TheNewPunk^TM. It seemed like the music that kicked me square in the back of my faded Levi's had been taken over by kids from the mall. Maybe that wasn't being fair, but that was what motivated my sneer.

But of course I was wrong. Not wrong in the sense that the music doesn't have some ClassicPunk^TM elements...wrong in the notion that the players behind the music were somehow inauthentic. Yes, bands like Rancid do wear their influences proudly on their sleeves. But...they also really care about this stuff. Check out the liner notes to Indestructible's title track:

The human spirit is indestructible. Music has been our savior from day one. If shaken or rattled the only solution is the musicians and the grooves on the record that provide the message. When "The Ramones" put out "too tough to die" we thought fuck yea the Ramones are too tough to die. Our title Indestructible pays homage to that. This ones for Joey, Dee Dee, and Joe because through music you can live forever.

These thoughts alone are enough to make me like the rest of this record. And like it I do. It's not exactly the world's greatest punk record (which is either Ramones or Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols...depending on which day you ask me (today it's The Ramones)), but it'll make you remember the noise, the mohawks and the broken beer bottles that were a big part of Friday nights at college.

And in these more than weird times, that's enough for me.

Hooooweeee! I had forgotten just how crazy Lester could be. I would often finish with one of his reviews in Creem (ah, those were the days) and wonder if the danged magazine was trying to pull a fast one on me.

Nope. They were not.

What I was dealin' with was a guy who, even at his most out of control, had passion for music. He loved the stuff. He hated it. Hell, sometimes he hated a record...and then loved it later. And this made perfect sense.

I'm right in the middle of Main Lines,Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste. It's one of those books that's gonna go too fast for me. Maybe after that I'll take a quick dip into Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung. In any event, if you want to check out one of the true greats of rock criticism, here's a good place to start.

i swear...it was just like, last week...that it was the middle of hot, sweaty July.

wasn't it?