Only a Flesh Wound: Bob Dylan as Sadistic Boxer

Andrew Ferguson, music critic for The Weekly Standard, throws a haymaker at the fans of Bob Dylan:

If you needed more evidence, the release this month of Bob Dylan's Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart, should close the case. Dylan fans are like Baby Huey dolls, those inflatable figures with the big red nose and the rounded bottom, weighted so that when you punch them--punch hard, punch with all your might--they bounce right back, grinning the same frozen, unchangeable grin.

We can only make a guess how Bob Dylan truly feels about his fans. But it can be a good, strong guess. He's been punching those Baby Hueys for a long time, hard.

It's not too unusual for a performer to lack respect for his most worshipful admirers; he hears himself as they do not, knowing how far short of his hopes his performance invariably falls, despite their wild applause. Sometimes an artist will even hold his audience in contempt, though he's careful, for business reasons, to keep the contempt at least thinly concealed; Abstract Expressionist painters come to mind. But not since Don Rickles at the height of his powers--the second greatest artist of the past 50 years, some believe--has a performer taken delight in actively abusing the people who pay money to enjoy his act. And when Rickles did it, the people were supposed to laugh, and did. When Dylan does it, the fans pull their chins and think hard. Then they pop right back, Baby Huey-like, and start explaining.

Most Dylan fans I know -- even the hard-core supporters -- would admit that Dylan's career has been a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous, that he's made some 5-star albums, some 1-star albums, and a bunch somewhere in between. He is the most maddeningly inconsistent genius in the musical world. And I use that word carefully, because he is a genius. Sure, there are people who think he can do no wrong. Some of them apparently reviewed that Christmas album. But Dylan has been defying expectations and doing whatever he wants to do forever, and long before the Self Portrait debacle of the early '70s that Ferguson sees as a defining moment. You think the people at his mid-'60s electric concerts were booing because they liked what was going on? In any case, he's been written off (yes, even by well-known music critics; a little more research would be helpful) so many times that I'm sure it doesn't faze him.

I know this. He can follow up a stinker of an album with a stone-cold masterpiece. And he's fully capable of chasing "It Must Be Santa Claus" with songs of great profundity and depth. He's done it again and again. I don't think that means we have to be automatons/Baby Hueys and uncritically laud whatever the man does, so in that sense I'm sympathetic with Mr. Ferguson. I do think it means we need to give him space and grace to fail. There have been several absolute nadirs in his career, and they've now spanned close to forty years: Self Portrait, Dylan and the Dead, Knocked Out Loaded, and now Christmas in the Heart. You know what? I wouldn't bet against him next time out.

He is, by the way, contrary to Ferguson's disavowal, the greatest songwriter of the 20th century, and that has nothing to do with a nostalgic yearning for the halcyon days of yore, as the author claims. I was five years old when he made his first album, and I don't particularly relish the memory of learning how to tie my shoes. The author mentions Virgil Thompson and Cole Porter. Nice songwriters. Maybe I missed the film footage of their roles in changing western civilization. I saw what Dylan did.

The Problem With Lists

So, Paste has published their Top 50 Albums of the Decade list. And they got it so wrong. Where is Joe Henry? Bob Dylan? Nick Cave? Tom Waits? Andrew Bird? The Bad Plus? Neko Case? Buddy Miller? The New Pornographers? Bettye Lavette? Sun Kil Moon? Ezra Furman? Robert Glasper? Al Green? And the list goes on and on, probably well past 50.

I'm also scoffing at some of the "artists" who made it on to the list. Conor Oberst, the Singing Sheep, in the Top 10? Scandalous. Outrageous. Wrong. And baaaad. Evil, even.

But witness the power of music. I can just about guarantee that in the coming days Paste will be swamped with comments on this list, and that the outraged commenters will nominate, oh, probably five or six hundred albums that should have appeared on that Top 50 list. This is because music is powerful, there's a lot of it, much of it is good, and people respond quite viscerally to the albums/songs that have become intertwined with their lives.

It's totally baffling to me why Joe Henry doesn't have three albums in the Top 50 of the decade. I'm not kidding. He doesn't even merit a mention. And part of me really doesn't understand, because those Joe Henry albums are so wise, so beautiful, so far above, both musically and lyrically, some of the common pop pap that does show up, that I want to rend my nice, new business casual shirt and gnash my teeth and consign the lot of Paste critics who voted (minus myself; one has to have standards) to the outer darkness of Rolling Stone and/or Pitchfork. What the hell is wrong with these people?

The thing is, occasionally I remember that my exquisite tastes are not shared by everyone, and that some of those everyones actually appear to be astute, thinking human beings. Behold, I tell you a mystery: I do not run the universe. Damn. I hate that. I really do. So watch the comments roll in. Tally up the votes. Count how many albums actually get nominated for the Top 50. I'll chalk it up to the wonders of music, and that it remains a powerful force for beauty in the world, even as I shake my head in disbelief.

Paste's Top 50 Albums of the Decade

Paste has posted their Top 50 Albums of the Decade list. Guess who's #1?

Lucero -- 1372 Overton Park

This may very well end up as my favorite rock 'n roll album of the year. For those familiar with Lucero's previous work, 1372 Overton Park may come as a sonic surprise. The earlier roots/alt-country influences are nowhere to be found, replaced here by no-frills bar band rock 'n roll. It's the kind of thing The Replacements excelled at during the '80s, and Ben Nichols and company prove themselves worthy heirs to that PBR-soaked tradition. The horn section -- an object of worrisome concern among some longtime Lucero fans -- is actually a great addition. Think The Boss circa The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, and you'll have your sonic bearings. Nichols is a wordy, hyperkinetic motormouth, and the band backs him up with gritty guitar work, slamming drums, and yes, swaggering horns a la The Big Man.

This is intelligent music that rocks like crazy, and Craig Finn and The Hold Steady have some worthy competition for the Best Boss Acolyte of 2009 award. And they've recorded an album that is a far sight better than what The Boss has delivered this year.

Sleep Clinic

I have sleep apnea, which means that, untreated, I stop breathing several times per night. You can imagine how much fun that is. So I am privileged to wear a CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) mask, which looks a lot like the one modeled by our winsome friend shown here. Lots of air blows into my nose, pumped in there through the attached hose/snout, and generated by a big, honkin' grey box of a machine that sounds like a jumbo jet. It all results in the ultra-sleek, incredibly romantic evening wear shown to the left. How you doin', baby?

Oh well. It's better than the alternative, which is death. Barely.

So last night I got to hang out at the Ohio Health Sleep Disorders Clinic. At the sleep clinic they wire you up real good. Not only do you get to wear the mask/snout, but they smear white goo all over your body, and then attach various wires and electrodes to the goo. Then they hook all the wires up to another machine, and tell you not to move and to go to sleep.

I thought about busting out with my mask on, dragging my wires and electrodes behind me and roaming the surrounding suburban neighborhoods. It was the perfect night for it. Hi, kiddies. 'Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world. How you like me now?

I didn't. I pulled the covers up over me like a good boy/elephant and tried not to move. It was a long night. I didn't sleep much, but I hope the hour and a half or so will provide enough data to evaluate the current state of my non-breathing. I look forward to doing it all over again in a couple more years, assuming I keep breathing.

New Car

We bought a 2010 Honda Civic last night. With alloy wheels and moonroof. My wife will drive it. She's always wanted a moonroof, and we're not getting any younger, so it seemed the time to spring for a moonroof.

Because it is a sacrosanct rule that the wife always gets the new car, everybody else shifts accordingly. I get the 2009 Mazda 6, previously driven by my wife. My 23 year-old-daughter gets the 2004 Chevy Cavalier, previously driven by me. It had better last her through grad school. The 1995 Geo Prizm (no, they don't make 'em anymore), formerly driven by my 23-year-old daughter, now sits in the driveway, waiting to be driven by my youngest daughter when she's home on school breaks and needs to get to work.

It is actually this vehicle that started the snowball rolling. The Geo Prizm is a two-tone (blue and rust; blue because that's the original color, rust because it's now mostly rust) monstrosity that is the official scourge of our suburban neighborhood. The defrost, heat, and AC don't work, which means that the windshield fogs up quite menacingly whenever there is a hint of moisture in the air. It is only safe to drive about 4 days per year in Ohio. It is also truly an ugly car. When my testy neighbor complains about the length of my lawn, I tend to park it on the street, close to his mailbox. Just being neighborly, praise God. Perhaps I need to read the post below again.

The Jerk Factory

The trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. "Christianity" has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed "spiritual" substitute. For example, rather than being a decent human being the following is a list of some commonly acceptable substitutes:

Going to church
Worship
Praying
Spiritual disciplines (e.g., fasting)
Bible study
Voting Republican
Going on spiritual retreats
Reading religious books
Arguing with evolutionists
Sending your child to a Christian school or providing education at home
Using religious language
Avoiding R-rated movies
Not reading Harry Potter.

The point is that one can fill a life full of spiritual activities without ever, actually, trying to become a more decent human being. Much of this activity can actually distract one from becoming a more decent human being. In fact, some of these activities make you worse, interpersonally speaking. Many churches are jerk factories.
-- Dr. Richard Beck

I watched the popular television show The Amazing Race last night. One of the competing couples, wholesome Barbie and Ken lookalikes, had made it a point throughout the race to emphasize their faith in Christ. They were racing for Jesus, and trying to win a million bucks for Jesus, presumably on the understanding that their local church would receive the $100,000 tithe. They were smiling and happy, confident in their abilities. Then they hit a bump. Barbie needed to go down a big, scary, nearly vertical water slide to continue in the race. She balked. It was too tall, too fast. She was afraid of both heights and water. Ken encouraged her. Remember, baby, I mean sister, a million bucks is at stake here. You can do it. Then he, umm, exhorted her. Come on, you've got to do it. I mean it. You've got to do it. Now! Then he got behind her and forcibly tried to push her down the slide. Barbie fought back, kicking and screaming. Then she cried. Then she pouted. "I wish I was back in Nashville," she whined.

She never went down the slide. Barbie and Ken finished last, and were eliminated from the race. At the end, summing up their achievements, Ken stated, "I don't hold it against Barbie. There is freedom in forgiveness." Well, yeah. But here's the deal, Ken: you're an abusive jerk. And Barbie is a pampered, whiney, jerkette. Praise God. Or better yet, don't, at least not in front of a camera. It's better that the watching world isn't aware of your life-changing faith.

Dr. Richard Beck, Psychology professor at Abilene Christian University, writes persuasively about the lengths we go to as Christians to avoid the nebulous but incredibly challenging task of living less like jerks. We substitute activity for deep spiritual change. And when I say "we," I mean we, meaning you (if you're a Christian) and me. I understand the appeal of Dr. Beck's laundry list. I once spent an evening in seminary getting drunk and reading 100+ pages that distilled the arguments on whether the apostle Paul was writing to churches in north Galatia or south Galatia. I'm thinking that north Galatia won in the long run. I could be wrong. I know I lost.

And really, as much as I cringed when I watched the interpersonal debacle unfold between Barbie and Ken last night, I felt a great deal of empathy for them. They're broken. He's got anger issues, she's a passive-aggressive princess, and they just happen to love Jesus. They're a lot like you and me. It would take someone far more versed in Church history and polity than me to address all the factors that contribute to a Christian culture of busyness that never quite gets around to addressing systemic life changes; in less fancy terms, how to be a jerk less frequently. I'm content to leave it as the product of settling for the good instead of the necessary. There's nothing wrong, per se, with any of the activities Dr. Beck lists. They simply don't address the deep spiritual wrestling and surrender that needs to take place before real change can come. That can be a real-life horror movie, and most Christians don't approve of horror movies.

In the meantime, I'm going to advocate the radical, anti-evangelistic practice of shutting up, at least for me. I can't control other people, which is one of those deep spiritual lessons I'm still learning. Today's commandment: I say unto you, shut up and be less of a jerk. I can fantasize about how it would have applied on a television show last night. I'm fairly certain that it's a commandment that I need to heed today.

Bob Dylan - Christmas in the Heart

It strikes me that the way one hears this album is very much dependent on the assumptions one brings to the holiday table. Some reviewers give Bob a pass for his charitable inclinations. And certainly donating the proceeds to charity is a noble gesture. Other reviewers have given him a pass because, hey, it's a Christmas album. 'Tis the season to be jolly. Still others have reveled in the contrast between the polished schlock (backing choir consisting of the heavenly host) and the gruff bark of Dylan's "singing."

For what it's worth, I have nothing but admiration for Dylan's charitable goals. And yeah, it's a Christmas album, but that's admittedly a genre that doesn't do much to inspire holiday cheer in me in the first place. However, I do take issue with those who find value in the overproduced schlock/ragged yelp contrast. At its best (e.g., the early albums of Tom Waits), bombastic and ragged can work wonderfully together. The impossibly romantic strings and Waits' gravelly musings could conjure a world of poignancy and sadness. This was love on the wrong side of the tracks, and Waits' cast of losers was illuminated movingly by the raw vocals and the sometimes saccharine nature of the musical accompanment. Waits' cover of "Somewhere (There's a Place For Us)" from Bernstein's West Side Story was such a moment. This was the high melodrama of the Broadway musical, all right, but it was being performed way, way off Broadway, and it was sung by someone who sounded like he was launching his big aria while holding a brown paper bag and slouching against a dumpster. It worked, and it worked beautifully. But it worked because of the inherent tension in the songs, because the desperate optimism and hope of Bernstein's music and Sondheim's lyrics met the dead end of Waits' shattered vocals.

In contrast, Dylan sounds like your old, sloshed uncle banging away on the family upright piano and belting out some familiar carols, with the added "bonus" of production and accompaniment right out of a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic. It's a horrendous idea horrendously executed, incompetence meeting unvarnished hokum. Sorry to be such a Scrooge, but your holidays will be so much brighter if you just skip the music. Donate the money to the charity of your choice.

Country Music in the Aughts

I don't follow mainstream country, so I have no idea what's happening in Nashville. That said, I think there are many artists in the aughts who have made stellar country music. "Country," in this case, refers to any music that has a twang, and that roughly falls into the general categories of country, alt-country, and roots music. If it sounds like country to me, it is, regardless of marketing demographics.

Favorite/Best Artist of the Decade

Buddy Miller, without a doubt. He's been consistently excellent, whether recording solo albums, recording duets with wife Julie, or contributing as a sideman to the work of countless other artists. If Buddy's involved, chances are it's good-to-great. He's got the Richard Thompson (another country artist, although his country is England) triple threat going: great songwriter, great guitarist, great singer.

Close, but No Honorary Stetson: Gillian Welch, Neko Case

Kids to Watch

Okay, some of them aren't kids. But they've all emerged in the past ten years. Here are some upstarts who have contributed to a fine musical decade: Kathleen Edwards, Justin Townes Earle, The Avett Brothers, Devon Sproule, Hayes Carll, Kasey Anderson, Lori McKenna, Mando Saenz, Mary Gauthier, Ryan Bingham, Scott Biram, Southeast Engine, Holopaw, Deadstring Brothers, Dexateens, The Felice Brothers, Heartless Bastards, Lucero, and Two Cow Garage.

The Old Farts Still Have It

Kudos to Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle (minus half the material recorded during the Bush administration; GW was not kind to Steve's creativity), Loretta Lynn, Paul Burch, The Bottle Rockets, Calexico, Old 97's, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Son Volt, Dave Alvin, Chris Knight, Drive-By Truckers, James McMurtry, and Webb Wilder. Some are a little longer in the tooth than others. But they've all been around for multiple decades, with no real diminishment of quality.

Most Disappointing Artist of the Decade

This will be disputed, no doubt, but Lucinda Williams takes the black ribbon. She's recorded one very good album (World Without Tears), one mediocre album (Essence) and three stinkers (West, Little Honey, Live at the Fillmore). She can still muster up a wondrously raw, plaintive sound. But she's forgotten how to write songs.

Favorite Albums

Buddy Miller -- Universal United House of Prayer
Gillian Welch -- Time (The Revelator)
Neko Case -- Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Thad Cockrell/Caitlin Cary -- Begonias
Kathleen Edwards -- Back to Me
Willard Grant Conspiracy -- Regard the End
Jamey Johnson -- That Lonesome Song
Chip Taylor/Carrie Rodriguez -- The Trouble With Humans
Emmylou Harris -- Stumble Into Grace
The Felice Brothers -- The Felice Brothers
Southeast Engine -- A Wheel Within a Wheel
Devon Sproule -- Keep Your Silver Shined

Where the Wild Things Are

What a curious film.

My only real criticism of the movie is that it wasn't what I thought I was going to see. I expected whimsical. And when the kid has just broken up with her boyfriend, and is feeling blue, and you say, "hey, let's go to a movie," I can tell you that you're hoping for something that Where the Wild Things Are was not. In spite of the dozens of toddlers and little tykes around me, this was not a children's film. I can't imagine what the little ones thought, but my guess is that the real-life scenes might have inspired more nightmares than the monsters on the island.

That said, I thought the film was a warm meditation on the frightening hazards of being a kid in a big, scary world. I thought Dave Eggers' script and Spike Jonze's images did a fine job of communicating what life is like in a post-Edenic universe. The yearning for something that had been lost -- on both Max's and Monster Carroll's parts -- was palpable. I'm not suggesting that Eggers and Jonze were making a movie from a consciously Christian worldview. They just happened to get the tone exactly right. The idyllic little model village that Carroll constructed, and its subsequent smash-up, were the strongest images in the film for me. For what it's worth, I didn't find the neurotic whining of the monsters particularly bothersome. I work with neurotic monsters like that every day.

Still, there are problematic elements in the movie. It’s based on a well-known children’s book, and one thing this film was not was a children's movie, although I think it's a fine film for anyone, say, ten years old or older. Why is this a big deal? Well, because it's been billed as a kids movie, and because I saw a lot of parents with toddlers and young elementary age children with them in the theater. And those kids seemed to alternate between being upset and bored. Who could blame them? What young child is going to be able to take in the concept of the end of the universe and a dying sun? If it's confusing for Max at 9, imagine the fun images in the heads of 4- and 5-year-olds.

That's my struggle with the movie. It wants to play it both ways -- kiddie romp and weighty film that addresses the uncertainties of broken families and, God forbid, the impending apocalypse -- and because of that it works well for adults. But those damn muppet costumes are going to fool a lot of parents. And some of them are going to be understandably unhappy. We need a new rating -- E for Existential Dread. G or PG doesn't even begin to cover the issues.

Cancer Sucks

O, cancer, how I hate thee.

For those of you who are praying types, please pray for my sister Libby, who has Stage 4 breast cancer, and who will be undergoing tests in the next few days to determine the progress (what an inappropriate word that is) of the disease, and for my friend Joe, who has inoperable stomach cancer that has spread to other organs of his body. In both cases, there are spouses and kids involved, and in Joe's case, there's a kid on the way as well.

There are no words. But there is great sadness. And love. I believe in miracles, and I'm praying for a miracle. Still, there is great sadness and love.

Neil Diamond -- A Cherry, Cherry Christmas

It's Neil week here at Razing the Bar.

98% of Christmas albums are utter tripe, but I think we may have reached a new low. No, it's not Bob Dylan, although he's a contender. I'm referring to the new Neil Diamond extravaganza A Cherry, Cherry Christmas. This finds Neil in self-congratulatory mode (because, as everyone knows, Christmas is all about lounge singers), with the title track reprising his late '60s hit "Cherry, Cherry," but in a festive, Xmas kind of way. It's the equivalent of Neil Sedaka writing, "God, Mary's Having Your Baby." The rest of the album isn't much better, and finds Neil covering Adam Sandler's beloved holiday classic "The Chanukah Song" and shimmying through the obligatory Vegas version of "Jingle Bell Rock." Yes, we've been a beautiful audience. Bye, Neil.

Neil Sedaka -- The Music of My Life

The press release asks us to imagine a world without Neil Sedaka. It's a pleasant enough fantasy, but alas, Neil Sedaka does exist, not only through his treacly recordings, but through the many hits he has written for others. Without Neil Sedaka there would be no Captain and Tennille or Donny Osmond.

Not content to rest on that legacy, Sedaka returns for his first album in ten years, The Music of My Life, out January 19th on Razor & Tie Records. Having already used the Sedaka's Back title in 1975, Neil offers what appears at first glance to be a career restrospective, but which is, in fact, an album of all new material. I'm hoping that there will be an accompanying tour, if only to see whether an 87-year-old guy is still trotting out "You've Having My Baby." Hey, it worked for Abraham and Sarah.

Muse -- The Resistance

My name is Andrew Whitman, and I am a Muse fan. The admission doesn't come easily. I realize what it means; I have outed myself as a hopeless dweeb. I don't care. I also have a bit of a soft spot for Yes, early Radiohead, U2, Rush, Queen, and every other melodramatic musical precursor this album conjures. You want understated? Look, they don't wear clown makeup or breathe fire. That's the best I can do.

The Resistance, the latest from the Devon, UK trio, ups the already supersized ante. Not content with releasing merely overblown songs, Muse here adopts the most overblown of all musical genres: the prog-rock concept album. And who really cares if the concept is a bit muddled? In the Muse version of reality, the world has been hijacked by faceless corporations, and only a daring, courageous boy and girl dare to resist the commercial onslaught. Opening single "Uprising," with its jack-booted martial rhythms and hammering guitars, sets the tone. "The paranoia is in bloom," lead singer/songwriter Matthew Bellamy sings. Yeah, you might say that.

Naturally, George Orwell figures heavily in the proceedings, nowhere more so than in the ominous "United States of Eurasia," a dystopian take on western-style totalitarianism that features Bellamy in full-throated, multi-tracked "Bohemian Rhapsody" mode. Somewhere Freddie Mercury is smiling. It's lovely dread, and manages to quote Chopin before hurtling into the yawning abyss.

And so it goes for the first eight songs, with Bellamy and band making an unholy racket, reveling in the existential despair, and never settling for dramatic when melodramatic is at their disposal.
It's great, histrionic fun, the kind of kitsch that is all the more funny because one senses that the band doesn't mean it at all ironically. Beneath the rock star veneer, it's not too difficult to imagine the insecure adolescent living out his high school chess club revenge fantasies:

They will stop degrading us!
We will be victorious!

So sings Matt Bellamy. Right on, Black Knight!

Ironically, it's on the multi-part, 15-minute suite "Exogenesis Symphony" that Muse lets down on the melodrama. I know. A title like "Exogenesis: Symphony Pt. II (Cross-Pollination)" would appear to be a bombastic slam dunk. It has Greek words, Roman numerals, and hyphens, all in the same title, and the music features full-on mellotrons and a Rachmaninoff piano concerto imitation. Alas, it's boring, and the only prog you'll experience is the progressive descent of your eyelids over your eyes.

Still, most of The Resistance is wondrously entertaining, and the high points occur frequently enough to allow me to ignore the glorious inconsistency of a mega-band on a major label railing against corporate excess. Screw 'em, comrade. Where's my cape?

Water

Leave the moon alone. I like the moon. You don't need to crash your rockets into it, NASA. Really you don't. And who cares if there is water on the moon? Instead of treating our ghostly neighbor as the epidermis for a hypodermic needle, why don't we invest in clean, drinkable water for the one-third of our own planet that can't slake its thirst without the threat of typhoid or malaria?

So here's a playlist dedicated to water. Water is our friend. Especially when people can drink it.

Dirty Water -- The Standells
I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline) -- Howlin' Wolf
Living Waters -- Silver Jews
Wade in the Water -- Mavis Staples
Underwater Moonlight -- The Soft Boys
Water -- P.J. Harvey
Don't Ask for the Water -- Ryan Adams
High Water Everywhere -- Charlie Patton
Oily Water -- Blur
Trouble Waters -- Cat Power
Dust and Water -- Antony and the Johnsons
Gone Like the Water -- Freedy Johnston
Moses Smote the Water -- John Lee Hooker
God Moves on the Water -- Blind Willie Johnson

Too Much Music -- C Edition

Today's installment is brought to you by the letter C. There is a lot of mediocre music out there. This is some of it, of fairly recent vintage. None of it is terrible, and it might be worth a listen or two. Or not.

The Cave Singers -- Welcome Joy

Members of The Cave Singers can claim a great but underappreciated punk band as part of their legacy -- Seattle's Pretty Girls Make Graves -- so I had high hopes for this Americana incarnation. Alas, two chords may make for bracing punk anthems, but they quickly grow tedious as the foundation for front-porch hootenannies. Lead singer Pete Quirk has a Stevie Nicks ovine bleat that he almost compensates for through an abundance of raspiness and soulful energy, but in the end there's too little variety in the songs. And when you focus on a genre known for pickin' and grinnin', it helps to know how to pick.

Cetan Clawson and the Soul Side -- White Heat

Lord knows we need another guitar god, another Clapton or Hendrix. The closest we've had for a while is Jack White, but he's not really given to 5-minute solos, so he doesn't quite count. So here is young Cetan Clawson, all of 17 years old at the time his debut album was recorded. The good news is that Cetan rips off dazzling 5-minute solos, plays behind his back, and plays with his teeth. The bad news is that he really, really wants to be Jimi Hendrix; not a bad goal in and of itself, but a bit of a problem when he covers "Killing Floor" and "Voodoo Chile" and comes up the loser in the comparison. More problematically, his originals are often direct Hendrix knockoffs, with "Short Fuse," a note-for-note cop of "Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire," as the most egregious offender. Maybe by the next album Cetan will find his own voice. But the kid can surely play.

Codes in the Clouds -- Paper Canyon

More instrumental post-rock sturm and drang. I've heard this hundreds of times now, and hearing it again doesn't do much to alter the fact that I find this music increasingly tiresome. It's certainly pretty. It's soft. Then it's loud, very loud. Repeat x 6. On the up side, Codes in the Clouds get to those soaring crescendos faster than most of their counterparts, and the first four songs are in the commendable three- to six-minute range, thereby skipping most of the soporific buildup. On the downside, these Dartford, Kent UK brooders are simply fifteen years too late. Perhaps they were contemplating their navels and just missed Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Mono, and Do Make Say Think.

Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons -- Death Won't Send a Letter

In this case, the whole is less than the sum of the parts. Appleton, Wisconsin troubadour Cory Chisel is gifted. He's got a supple, soulful voice. And he's got a sympathetic backing band that can rock out when needed, but otherwise lays down tasteful, unobtrusive Americana that doesn't get in the way of Chisel's well-written lyrics. So what's the problem? Maybe it's the feeling that these are write-by-the-numbers Starbucks odes that will provide the perfect background music for your lattes. Or maybe I'm just being tired and cranky. In any case, he's Mr. Sensitive Troubadour #7,843. He's okay. He sounds like every other M. Langhorne Bright Cutie I've heard in the past few years. Next.

Loudon Wainwright III -- High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project

This one's a lot of fun, although it will leave a lot of Loudon's longtime fans scratching their heads. But hey, kids, the 1930s and Depression-era stringbands are cool. And it's fascinating to hear Loudon eschew the ironic, smartass approach. Some of these songs are so treacly sweet that they will raise your blood sugar after just a few bars.

Charlie Poole, it turns out, visited more than a few bars himself, and he lived out the short, dead-at-39 self-destructive melodrama that would later be followed by Hank Williams and a hell-raising host of country outlaw musicians. But his songs are really fine, and swing like crazy, particularly when ace fiddlers and mandolin pickers like David Mansfield and Chris Thile latch on to them, as they do on most of these tracks.

The whole dysfunctional Wainwright family -- son Rufus, daughter Martha (who once wrote a song dedicated to her old man called "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole"), and musical ex-wife Suzzy Roche -- is on hand as well. And Loudon contributes a handful of originals that are impossible to distinguish from Charlie's old material.

High Wide & Handsome is a fine tribute to a criminally unknown minstrel, and it's another gem in Loudon's criminally underappreciated catalogue.

The '59 Sound, the '75 Sound, and the Church of Rock 'n Roll

From my Image Journal blog ...

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Contrary to the hyperbole you hear from some music critics, rock 'n roll did not save my life. I grew up in the insulated worlds of Worthington, Ohio and Park Forest, Illinois, where I was more likely to die of fertilizer poisoning than gang warfare.

The bucolic cul-de-sacs of Worthington had names like Raven's Nest Court and Hidden Hollow Drive. So I could never claim the blue-collar badge of rock 'n roll authenticity, that old Springsteen trick of rising above the mean streets and the dead-end towns through perseverance, a little faith, and the insistent squall of an electric guitar.

That doesn't mean that I couldn't relate to the sentiments, though. Hidden Hollow Drive didn't value kids who wrote poetry on their lunch breaks any more than the mean city streets did, and fairly early on I pledged my allegiance to anyone who wrote songs that could be roughly translated as "It's you 'n me, babe, against the world." These were the perfect sentiments and the perfect musical anthems for misfits like me: the young, the misunderstood, and those who took umbrage with the universe.

Bruce Springsteen was the first to tap into that reservoir of resentment and pent-up angst. His 1975 album Born to Run rang in my head like an insistent alarm clock, awakening something long dormant in my soul. Wake up and smell the crushing boredom, the tiny, desperate lives that go through their tiny motions, the hollow, pampered, country club existence where the soul checks out a few decades before the heart stops beating.

It was, of course, utter shite, the kind of arrogant, self-serving twaddle that most people grow out of in adolescence. It just took me a couple decades longer to figure it out. The reality—my reality, in fact—is that people in suburbia experience the same hopes and fears as anyone else, and that they aren’t cushioned in any way from the heartbreaking realities of kids who make stupid choices, and pink slips from their employers, and the looming specter of colon cancer and heart attacks. And so I’m always intrigued and amazed when I encounter those impossibly romantic, escapist sentiments again.

Broooooce, what have you wrought?

In this case, the latest revelation came from a new album by a band called The Gaslight Anthem, Jersey kids just like Bruce, trying to get out while they’re still young, but one generation down the line:

Like Miles Davis, I've been swayed by the cool
There's just something about the summertime
There's just something about the moon
So I'll lay a kiss on a stone, toss it upside your window, by the roof
Before you change your mind, Miles, bring in the cool

Oh, Lord. There it is again; the old, insistent summons to elope from life, that silly, ancient whopper that you can get in the car and outrace the demons that follow you around. The name of the album is The ’59 Sound, a nod to Miles Davis and Kind of Blue, and it’s great, and it’s terrible. It’s great because it recaptures the manic energy and passion of those early Springsteen albums, the impossibly romantic mythos of the poet with a beat-up jalopy and a leather jacket and an electric guitar. And it’s terrible because it locates the solutions in all the wrong places.

It sounds wonderful, by the way. Lead singer/songwriter Brian Fallon has Bruce’s swaggering bravado, even if his lyrics are often little more than a pastiche of Springsteen’s perennial themes. The guitars slam and chime, and the drummer sounds like he wants to pulverize big boulders with his bare arms. All of that is to say that it’s enormously persuasive rock ‘n roll, sure to please the Boomers who haven’t really paid attention for the past thirty years. “No surrender, my Bobby Jean,” Fallon sings on “Meet Me By The River’s Edge,” thereby name checking three Springsteen standards in about ten seconds. There’s little doubt about the inspiration for these songs.

And maybe I would hear it all differently at 24 than at 54. At 24, I was convinced of my towering sensitivity; my ability to see more and feel more deeply than any of the shallow, money-grubbing schmucks around me. All I needed was to blow this pop stand with the right girl in tow, careen off to God knows where, as long as it was anywhere but here. At 54 I find myself living five miles from where I grew up, born certainly not to run, and probably not even to venture very far down the road, but perhaps to deal with the nasty character traits and besetting sins that hinder me from soaring. It’s redemption, to be sure, but it can’t be found beneath a dirty hood.

I still love Bruce Springsteen, and part of me loves Brian Fallon and those music critics who genuinely believe in rock ‘n roll as salvation. I hear the desperation, and I get it, even from suburbia. There’s got to be something, anything, better than this. They are right. The Gaslight Anthem looks back to 1959, and to 1975, the year of Springsteen’s coronation, trying to find the clues in a golden, mythic past.

Me? To quote the punk band The Buzzcocks, I feel a nostalgia for an age yet to come. I can’t wait.

The Boys of October

Kate and I spent Saturday and part of Sunday in Cincinnati, where we stayed in a Catholic convent that had been converted to a B&B/retreat center, visited the sobering Underground Railroad Museum, ate some fantastic Mexican food at Nada, saw a goofy movie in Newport, Kentucky, and got to hang out with the Vineyard Central folks in a beautiful, abandoned Catholic church.

It was all quite wonderful, but the best part of the weekend, for me, were the unexpected connections with the Cincinnati Reds, my childhood love, and a team I later abandoned because they suck. Saturday night at Nada we sat next to Paul O'Neill and family, a great outfielder in his day (late '80s through the late '90s), a member of the Reds Hall of Fame, and later a member of the hated New York Yankees. A guy's got to earn a living, I suppose. Sunday morning we met Russ Nixon, father of Vineyard Central pastor Dave Nixon. I didn't make the connection immediately, but it nagged me all day, so a bit of Googling revealed what I thought I remembered. Russ Nixon was a former major league catcher, and was later the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. He and his wife showed up at his kid's worship service.

These things tend to come in threes, so I was anticipating the prospect of meeting Pete Rose at the gas station or supermarket. It didn't happen. But two out of three isn't bad (it'll get you to the World Series every year), and it was a fun sidelight to a fun weekend.

Forgotten Gems -- The Move

Roy Wood had it going both ways. His hair was not only long, it was wide. Aside from his sometimes fearsome, leonine appearance, he was also a first-rate rock 'n roll synthesist, mixing influences as diverse as Vaudeville, Syd-Barret-era Pink Floyd psychedelia, Elvis rockabilly swagger, and The Beatles' effortless melodicism.

Wood's primary musical vehicle was The Move, the late '60s/early '70s British band that eventually spawned the better-known Electric Light Orchestra. You've no doubt heard the latter, but you're a serious rock 'n roll fan indeed if you've heard the former. Although The Move had several Top 10 hits in their native England, the magic never crossed the pond. These days The Move -- and Roy Wood -- are largely forgotten relics of a bygone era. And it's too bad. Some of those relics still make for very fine listening.

The eponymous debut album (1968), Shazam (1970) and Message From The Country (1971) are all well worth tracking down, but it's Message From The Country that really sticks with me. The album was recorded simultaneously with the first Electric Light Orchestra album. Most of Jeff Lynne's songs ended up on ELO I; most of Roy Wood's songs ended up on Message From The Country. And while ELO did rock/classical fusion as well as anyone, it is Roy Wood and his unapologetic, no frills rock 'n roll that has held up the best over the years. There are at least two songs here that deserve classic status -- "Do Ya," which has one of the greatest bludgeoning guitar riffs ever recorded, and "California Man," a rockabilly/surf pastiche later covered to great effect on Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan. The rest of the album -- recently re-released and fitted out with the usual assortment of outtakes and demos -- is almost as good; a wildly eclectic mix of psychedelic rockabilly country show tunes that are united only by their uniform excellence and their unstoppable hooks.

Do yourself a favor and check out this criminally ignored music.

Cognitive Dissonance

I'm simultaneously reading Kathleen Norris's Acedia and Me and Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. It's the monastic tradition and seedy L.A. detective grit. And it's creating some weird cognitive dissonance in my mind, although it's pretty much an unbeatable combination:

"Hand over the nun, padre" I told him. "And the copy of St. Benedict's Rule while you're at it. Come on, I don't have all day."

The padre hesitated, and I didn't blame him. Sister Stella had a beatific face that would have made an archbishop kick out a stained glass window. She was one righteous nun; sweet, pink, white.

"Not so fast, gumshoe," the monk countered. "Look, a stigmata!"

I looked. I knew immediately that I shouldn't have looked. The monstrance cracked against the back of my head, and I saw stars. And I was nowhere near Hollywood.

The Lost Boy

Matt was fifteen when I met him. He was an acne-ravaged, easy-going slacker, the kind of kid whose life seemed motivated by little more than rock ‘n roll and video games. He went to high school, where he did poorly. He played guitar and sang in a rock ‘n roll band called The Eyes. He worked at Burger King on the weekends. He was aimless, without focus. But he was just a kid, not really formed yet, still very much in process, and he was sweet and amiable. He believed in peace and love. And he claimed to be in love with my daughter.

As parents of a kid in love with a slacker, Kate and I knew we had to walk a fine line. We were concerned. We didn’t have all the details, and we couldn’t see the entire picture, but the picture we could see was less than promising. At the same time, we knew that nothing would drive a wedge more deeply into our relationship with our daughter than the implied or overt criticism of her boyfriend. So we tried to be tactful. We kept our eyes open. And we tried to be friendly to Matt. Matt loved rock ‘n roll, and I loved rock ‘n roll, so we talked about Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. Matt admired them greatly, and I admired their music.

“So what do you think you might do after high school, Matt?” I asked him one day.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “If our band really takes off, I’m thinking that maybe we could all move out to California, sleep on the beach, live off the land, man. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Oh,” I said.

As it turned out, my worries over the destitute hippie future of my eldest daughter were half-unfounded. My daughter dated Matt for a few months, then broke up with him. She never shared the reasons why with us, but I can guess. They both graduated from high school a couple years later. My daughter headed off to college. Matt worked at Burger King. My daughter graduated from college. Matt worked at Burger King. They encountered one another periodically in social settings, and I occasionally inquired about his present prospects. “He’s a mess,” my daughter would say, shaking her head. “His idol is Kurt Cobain. What does that tell you?” It told me enough.

Matt died on Saturday of a heroin overdose. He was 22 years old. I can only imagine that his parents, whom I’ve never met, moved to the suburban idyll of Westerville, Ohio for the same reasons that many people head to the suburbs. They wanted safety, protection, pleasant neighborhoods, good schools. They wanted to give their kids a fighting chance. But you can’t protect people from themselves. Many people saw this coming, but no one was able to stop it, primarily because the protagonist didn’t want to stop. And when your kid wants to be Kurt Cobain, or Jimi Hendrix, or Jim Morrison, things can only end badly.

They did. I feel awful for my daughter and her friends, who knew Matt well, and for his parents, who have to embark on the unthinkable and horrendous task of burying their child. Mostly I feel bad for Matt, a lost kid who never once figured out that it was possible to be found, and who was thoroughly engaged in the business of checking out long before he officially left the scene of the abdication.

He was only a boy, a little kid who wanted to play. May he rest in peace.

The Mountain Goats -- The Life of the World to Come

His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
-- Matthew 25:21

The prolific John Darnielle and his revolving cast of bandmates, collectively known as The Mountain Goats, are about to release a new album called The Life of the World to Come. As with all Mountain Goats albums, this one is a lo-fi indie folk hootenanny, not too concerned with technical instrumental prowess or vocal pitch. And like the others, it's pretty great.

Darnielle's always been a literate songwriter, and this time the entire album is based on impressions from a book; in this case, the Bible. Every song is Darnielle's idiosyncratic take on a Bible verse or verses. Representative titles include "1 Samuel 15:23," "Hebrews 11:40," and "Matthew 25:21." This being a Mountain Goats album, you won't hear those verses quoted in the lyrics. Darnielle is too quirky and too introspective to write about anything but himself. But there is a generosity and an open-heartedness in his scriptural musings that is astonishing. What we have here is a musical lectio divina; the Word interacting with a life that is fully cognizant of the pain and suffering of others; and a life interacting with the Word. It's the farthest thing removed from a rote CCM Scripture Quote fest:

They'd hooked you up to a Fentanyl drip
To mitigate the pain a little bit
I flew in from Pennsylvania
When I heard the hour was coming fast
And I docked in Santa Barbara
Tried to brace myself
But you can't brace yourself when the time comes
You just have to roll with the blast

And I'm an eighteen wheeler headed down the interstate
And my brakes are gonna give, and I won't know 'til it's too late
Tires screaming when I lose control
Try not to hurt too many people when I roll

Find the Harbor freeway and head south
Real tired, head kind of light
I found Telegraph Road
I'd only seen the name on envelopes
Found the parking lot and turned right
I felt all the details carving out space in my head
Tropicana's on the walkway, neon red
Between the pain and the pills, trying to hold it at bay
Stands a traveler going somewhere far away

And I am an airplane, tumbling wing over wing
Trying to listen to my instruments, they don't say anything
People screaming when the engines quit
I hope we're all in crash position when we hit

And then came to your bedside
And as it turns out I'm not ready
And as though you were speaking through a thick haze
You said hello to me
We all stood there around you
Happy to hear you speak
The last of something bright burning
Still burning beyond the cancer and the chemotherapy

And you were a presence full of light upon this earth
And I am a witness to your life and to its worth
It's three days later when I get the call
And there's nobody around to break my fall

That one's called "Matthew 25:21," and the biblical reference is quoted at the beginning of this post. It makes me want to weep and gnash my teeth and bang my head against the wall, which can be problematic when you're listening over iPod earbuds, and there's a co-worker on the other side of the cubicle wall. But it's great because of the little details, because Darnielle understands that cancer is always particular and personal, that it involves real people with real names and faces, and with real friends and family members they leave behind. Maybe I react the way I do because I know too many people right now who are facing that kind of fate. But that's why the song succeeds so well. We all have those stories. Fucking cancer. Darnielle's story is our story, too, but it's magnificent and worthwhile because the life he celebrates was a presence and a light in a specific time, in a specific place, known and communicated by a guy with a wobbly tenor and a tentative guitar technique and a hole in his big, big heart.

This is a fabulous album, and a profoundly Christian one, although I suspect the artist might deny the charge. That's okay. I'm not God, nor do I play Him on the internets, but I'll still give him a hearty "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Jesus the CEO

Back when I lived in the conservative midwest bastion of Mount Vernon, Ohio, I was a member of a board of elders at a mainline Protestant church. We elders took our jobs seriously, and every month we debated whether it was worth paying the same old guy $125 to shovel snow from the church sidewalks and parking lot, or whether it was worth looking for someone else to serve as part of the Snow Ministry.

Occasionally -- maybe once or twice per year -- somebody brought in a real suggestion that had ideological implications, and that's when things heated up, as they are wont to do once ideologies enter the mix. And one day, one of the elders suggested that we bring a program into the church called Jesus the CEO, the gist of which was that Jesus was the greatest organizational leader the world had ever seen, and that by following his policies and techniques we would expand our church membership, attract new and vital interest from the Younger Generations[TM], and enhance the church coffers.

At first I thought it was a joke. It was not a joke. The aforementioned elder, and several other members of the board, were dead earnest. Our church was failing because we had neglected sound business principles in its operation, business principles established by Jesus, our Lord, Savior, and yes, CEO.

I pointed out that Jesus' leadership style took in attracting the dregs of society, the dubiously impractical business model of leaving the 99 behind and searching for the 1 who was lost (what was the cost/benefit ratio on that one?), and a disastrous close-the-sale deal involving a crucifixion and the flight of his closest followers, and that was made right only by the whole resurrection bailout.

In short, I was not in favor of the Jesus as CEO paradigm. They went ahead with the program anyway. I don't know if it was the last nail. But it was a nail in the coffin. It was time to go. And we went.

Michael Moore, provacateur, pest, and amazingly entertaining guy, is about to release a new film called Capitalism: A Love Story. In it he interviews several members of the clergy, all of whom avow that the basic principles of capitalism are incompatible with the basic principles of Christianity. That's Michael Moore, and he stacks the deck. Nevertheless, we're about to have the Jesus the CEO debate all over again. I'm just giving you fair warning. Me? I figure that I still need to be rescued from a failed project. I'm way behind schedule, and I've missed several critical milestones. I need a CEO who rewards me not on my merits, but in spite of my screwups. It's not very Darwinian of me, but I'm hoping for a non-Darwinian solution.

Random Musical Thoughts -- Dave Perkins, Apples in Stereo, The Knickerbockers, Cotton Mather, Frank Turner

-- Dave Perkins' searing album Pistol City Holiness (I've previously written about the album here and here) has been nominated for a Grammy in the Contemporary Blues category, and a song from that album, "Cherryfish and Chicken" has been nominated for a Grammy in the Rock Instrumental category. This is great news, and it would be even more fabulous if he won. Dave is a one-man music-making, marketing, and distribution company, and an all-around good guy, so it's particularly gratifying when the lofty Musical Powers That Be notice and appreciate his work. Please check out his wonderful album and spread the word.

-- Denver's Apples in Stereo have just released a very fine career retrospective called #1 Hits Explosion. Funny guys (and girl). In spite of the K-Tel title, they've never had a hit, and probably never will, but that shouldn't stop you from checking out a criminally underrated band. This is deliciously sweet power pop with psychedelic trimmings. The guitars go all the way to 11, and there are more hooks here than can be found in a fishing and tackle shop.

-- All the latest Beatles hoopla has sent me thumbing through the old record collection, looking not for Beatles music (that would be too obvious), but rather for bands that have been influenced by The Beatles. I know, there are thousands of 'em. But a couple have managed to fool me in the sense that if I didn't know any better, I'd swear I was listening to a long-lost John and Paul rocker. In the Early Beatles Soundalike category, I give you "Lies" by The Knickerbockers, circa 1966. The Knickerbockers only had one great song, and this is it. Otherwise, they were a frat party band from New Jersey who did nothing memorable. But oh, that song. And in the Latter/Psychedelic Beatles Soundalike category, I give you "Camp Hill Rail Operator" from the 1997 album Kontiki by Austin, Texas misfits Cotton Mather. They were from Texas, but they'd have preferred to be from Liverpool, and they captured the Revolver/Rubber Soul era just about perfectly.

-- London folk punk Frank Turner's new album Poetry of the Deed is a real grower, and is quickly moving up my Best of 2009 list. Turner's earlier music was a little too beholden to Billy Bragg. Nothing wrong with that influence, but sometimes he didn't sound like his own man. He does here, though, with a batch of witty, sharply written punk/pop tunes. "Live Fast Die Old" dares to question the unspoken assumption that real punks need to burn out fast, and "Try This At Home" features the memorable lines:

There's no such thing as rock stars
They're just people who play music
And some of them are just like us
And some of them are dicks

Love that rhyme. And the sentiments.

Hallelujah the Hills -- Colonial Drones

Boston's Hallelujah the Hills release their sophomore album Colonial Drones today. If you were one of the 73 people who listened to and liked Collective Psychosis Begone, the debut, you'll like this one too. I did, and I do. It's more of the same indie angst and angular guitars, with cellos and trumpets thrown in for good measure. Members of Titus Andronicus help out. If anything, the new one is a little more focused, and lead singer/songwriter Ryan Walsh's songs are acerbic, and sometimes quite humorous in a self-deprecating way. They remind me of a slightly more ramshackle Beulah, with typically literate, sadsack lyrics:

Church bells ringing out commercials for Jesus
Future ex-girlfriends all promise to leave us

Life is tough. But at least it's tuneful.

Propaganda or Masterpiece?

You may be familiar with the controversy currently raging over the National Endowment for the Arts' (NEA's) recent conference call with representatives from the Obama administration. The topic: how to enlist "artists" in the fight for health care reform.

Certainly this is a problematic topic, both for artists and the meaning of art. But it is not a new one, and I'm somewhat baffled by the outcry over this particular manifestation of an age-old issue. Commissions -- and frequently state-sponsored commissions -- of works of art have characterized every age, from the Greek and Roman eras to the present day. And governments have employed artists for their own ends since time immemorial. Jacques-Louis David's paintings of the emperor Napoleon glorified and mythologized a tyrant, and they were paintings that were frequently commissioned by Napoleon himself. A significant number of the architectural wonders of Europe were commissioned by governments. In the modern era, we remember with horror the propaganda generated by Goebbels and the Nazis, and the stylized Russian worker posters of Stalin's totalitarian regime. But we overlook the film reels of our gallant boys in World War II, and we tend to think of the massive temples and obelisks scattered around Washington D.C. as national monuments, not propaganda.

It would help if we could define the terms, and not simply label any politcally-motivated art we don't like as "propaganda." Sometimes other people call these things "masterpieces."

I can't imagine that attempts to promote the Obama administration's push for health care reform would result in worthwhile or good art, but I'm willing to give it a shot. To the tune of "Blowin' in the Wind":

How many trips to the emergency room
Can the uninsured make 'til they're denied?
Yes, and how many $462 prescriptions can one man fill
Before all his savings have dried
Up?
The answer, my friend, is health care reform
The answer is health care reform

That will be $2,000,000.00, please. Please?

Chihuahua

I encountered the following comment on Facebook today:

Speaking of dogs being taken by coyotes, my sister's chihuahua was killed by coyotes this summer. It happens more often than you would think!

Today's philosophical conundrum: Is it wrong to root for the coyote?

Two Cow Garage and the Small-Town Blues

Right here.

Down for the Count

This isn't a political post. It's a post about journalistic integrity.

You may have heard about the protest at the U.S. Capitol this weekend. Or not, depending on your news source. Here, the New York Times estimates the size of the crowd as 30,000. And here the Columbia Independent Examiner estimates the crowd size as 2,000,000.

I don't know about you, but one of the things I learned, even as an English major, was how to count. And although I realize that the tiny, dispirited band/massive hordes didn't pass through any turnstyles, and that there wasn't any kind of official tally, it still seems to me that journalistic honesty demands something better than a range of 30,000 to 2,000,000. One estimate is almost 70 times greater than the other. And when I count, I typically don't go 70, 140, 210. Conversely, when I see 70 people, I don't call them a single person.

I have no idea which, if either, of the estimates is correct. But there is something seriously wrong with journalism in America when that kind of discrepancy can exist among news reports. I'd simply like to know the truth. Here's a good first step for all the pundits and talking heads. Counting goes like this: 1, 2, 3.

Another Person Who Died

RIP, Catholic Boy.

I'm going to stop writing about old musicians in Paste.

Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
-- Jim Carroll, "People Who Died"

Jimmy wrote poetry, he was 60 years old
Never woke up from a heart attack
Was a teenaged junkie but he made it out alive
'Til he nodded off and then didn't come back
He wasn't my friend, but he wrote like one
I miss him, he died.

Jim Carroll made soundtracks to the horror movies in his head, but he had a beating heart until this weekend. He never lost sight of that heart.

The Record Store Guy

(h/t to Maureen, who pointed this out to me)

Once upon a time there were establishments called record stores. These were dubious enterprises, often dank and dark, housed in subterranean passages under city streets, and if the surroundings didn't scare you off, the employees often would. On a good day, a dubious purchase might merely merit a smirk or a raised eyebrow from the guy behind the cash register. More typically, an album by, say, Abba or Olivia Newton John, would elicit guffaws, chortling, and outright ridicule. I knew people who would rather lose money than sell you an Olivia Newton John album. It might have been bad for business, but these folks never claimed to be in business for business, and the clueless customers were always good for a laugh. They brightened up the day down in those cellars, and the sharks could always smell the fresh meat.

One of those sharks was a guy named Bela, who worked for many years at Schoolkids Records and Used Kids Records in Columbus. Bela has started a blog, where he remembers those days. I've met Bela, and Dan and Ron and Curt, and all the other guys he writes about whose approving nods would always validate my existence. If you've never spent a Saturday afternoon (yes, an entire Saturday afternoon) in a record store, or gotten in a heated argument over whether Elton John lost all credibility after Tumbleweed Connection (1971), or whether he held out until after Honky Chateau (1972), then none of this will make much sense to you. But some of us will recognize these folks, and will say, "Yeah, those are my peeps." On Bela's blog you will find things like this:

I admired a man named Craig Regala who worked alongside his longtime girlfriend at Magnolia Thunderpussy records, I had an undying crush on her but with her being with him and at least twenty-six years old was way out of my league. When the north location of Magnolia’s closed, I hired Craig at Discount where we laughed at the insanity of a corporate record store. We would sometimes crouch below the counter as the other one rang up a pain-in-the-ass customer and pull our penises out and wiggle them around, just out of eye shot of the customer. Craig had about seventy-seven ear piercings in his ears and tattoos that didn’t consist of roses or naked ladies on his arms, he was funny as hell and insightful.

If you're put off by that, then don't read. And some of us will think, "Man, I've always wanted to do that to some snarky customer." What can I say? I liked Jack Black in High Fidelity, too.

Number Nine, Number Nine

In case you've been hiding in a cave, tomorrow (9/9/09) marks the release of the remastered Beatles catalogue. Me? I'll be holding on to the French and English pressings of the vinyl albums on Odeon and Parlophone, respectively. The newfangled reissues can't possibly sound better than that. It means that I occasionally have to puzzle out album titles like 4 Garcons dans le Vent (whatever that is, it's not A Hard Day's Night), but this garcon is still happy to have relatively pristine versions of the vinyl.

And isn't it amusing that those were considered moptops?

More Top 10

Over at Paste, they're taking nominations for the Best Albums of the Decade. Readers are supposed to list their Top 10, in order. There you'll find that approximately 18,350 Top 10 albums have now been nominated, along with the always-incisive "I can't believe you didn't list [Album_X], you lame-ass posers" comments.

The Buck Stops Here

Buck Owens, ladies and gentlemen. Give him a big hand.

I have a love/hate relationship with country music. I can't abide the contemporary Nashville variety; aerobics instructors all duded up in Stetson hats, playing arena rock with a twang for all the people who couldn't get enough of .38 Special and REO Speedwagon thirty years ago. But I surely love the classic stuff. Give me George Jones, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Waylon Jennings, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams, and I'm a very happy man. And yessir, buckaroos, Buck Owens.

Buck came out of Bakersfield, same as Merle, and created the best honky-tonk music on the planet, all weeping pedal steel and rumbling Fender Telecaster. It sounded great pumping out of a truckstop jukebox, and it sounds great fofty-five years down the line. It's unfortunate that Buck is best known as resident buffoon on the long-running cornball variety hour "Hee Haw." He was a country music giant, and he understood, in the same way that the great blues masters understood, that singing about your sorrows can actually make people feel good:

Hello trouble, come on in
You talk about heartaches, where in the world you been?
I ain't had the miseries since you been gone
Hello trouble, trouble, trouble, welcome home.

He had a thousand of 'em like that, cliched little ditties that still struck a nerve because they were funny and wry and true. You can find his best music compiled on the 3-CD The Buck Owens Collection (1959-1990). Some of you will wonder if you actually need 3 CDs of this music. Yes, you do. A one-volume greatest hits collection doesn't get at the breadth and scope of the man's greatness. And make no mistake. He was great for thirty years.

The Brutal Season

It has begun. Several 50-year-old women in my workplace are carrying pom poms, and wearing earrings in the shape of a poisonous nut. Marching band music blares in the corporate elevators. "O-H," one of my co-workers chanted in the elevator. "I-O," another chanted in return, proving that cooperative spelling is one of the special little touches that make Columbus so charming at this time of year. Several of my neighbors now sport 8-foot inflatable Brutus Buckeyes in their yard.

Every year at this time several hundred thousand central Ohioans lose their minds. I've lived here most of my life, and I still can't get used to it. It is, and always will be, a bizarre phenomenon for me. Look, to the extent that I care, I want the Buckeyes to win their games, if for no other reason than it makes most of the people around me happier. But it also makes them crazier. I'm not sure if it's an even tradeoff.

Geography and Music

Musicians love geography. Maybe it's all the touring, which leads to increased atlas consultation. I don't know. But the music world is littered with bands who take their names from various geographic/topological landmarks.

I've long held the view that there is an inverse relationship between the geographic components of a band name and musical quality. The bigger the geographic reference, the worse the music. The more obscure the geographic reference, the better the music. Let's test out the theory.

Obscure Geographic Features

Okkervil River, Speck Mountain, Nickel Creek. Who knows if they even exist on maps? But the bands are great.

City/Town Bands

City/town bands can teeter either way. They often achieve commercial success that is commensurate with their relative urban importance (Chicago, Boston), but that doesn't make them particularly great from a musical standpoint. On the plus side, we have Beirut, Architecture in Helsinki, and The New York Dolls. On the minus side, we have Atlanta Rhythm Section, Orleans, and The Bay City Rollers. Call it a Wash(ington, D.C.).

State Bands

Here things start to deteriorate rapidly. Alabama. Georgia Satellites. Kentucky Headhunters. Black Oak Arkansas. Kansas. Granted, I'm not a fan of good ol' boys or '70s arena rockers, but I'm also convinced that there is a twisted bravura at work here that leads to hairy guys in overalls staking out hundreds of thousands of square miles in their band monikers.
Possible counter-argument: Oregon. No, they were New Age hippie dipshits. Never mind.

Country Bands

No, not the dudes in Stetson hats. The band that prompted this post, called These United States, has just released a new album called Everything Touches Everything. Except for Alaska and Hawaii. The album sucks, I think. It's honestly just kind of nondescript. It's not the worst music I've ever heard. It might be the most forgettable. Maybe. The same goes for Spain, Page France, and England Dan and John Ford Coley. If you can name even one song (no cheating, this has to be from memory) from anyone on that list I will personally award you with the National Geographic foldout map of my choice.
Counter-argument: Afghan Whigs, Japan, and Mission of Burma were/are actually good. Maybe the crap is limited to bands named after countries in the western hemisphere. But then there are ...

Continent Bands

Asia. Europe. Mercifully, the contagion appears to have stopped there. More dreaded and dangerous than Bubonic Plague, these two bands are personally responsible for inflicting the most bloated, pretentious music ever. Ever. Compared to Asia and Europe, William Shatner's albums are understated and low-key. Compared to Asia and Europe, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey and every other scale-trilling robodiva is a paragon of nuance and tastefulness.

If my theory is correct, sometime in the future a megaband will adopt the name of a galaxy or distant solar system. This will mark the end of the world. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Cotton Mather -- Kontiki

I totally missed this band when they were in their heyday (to the extent that obscure Austin, Texas bands with a serious late-period Beatles obsession have a heyday). At any rate, I know lead singer/songwriter Robert Harrison from his albums as Future Clouds and Radar. And really, this is more of the same -- wildly eclectic psych/power pop, anchored by jangly guitars and multi-tracked John Lennon vocals courtesy of Mr. Harrison, who probably missed his shot at the big bucks by passing on the Beatlemania revival.

But you know what? This is a 5-star album. There are fourteen songs here and fourteen winners, a pitch-perfect Beatles homage bursting with hooks and swooning harmonies. The album came out in 1998, 34 years too late for Ed Sullivan. Oh well. The kids haven't screamed hysterically since John married Yoko, but I'd sure like to holler about the virtues of this album.