What you can’t see here is the Purple Rain motorcycle Jeff rode to the photo session.
HVB
Mar 222013
Mar 202013
I dare you…
Three words used to prod each other into doing or sharing stupid things. We’ve all done stupid things in our past. A rock nerd’s past is probably chock full ‘0 stupid things worth being prodded to share. In that spirit, I dare you to play along with the following game, a game in which we dare each other to step into the RTH Confessional…
Mar 192013
Greetings, one and all! I come before you a sleep-deprived zombie, still consumed with amazement at the incredible awesomeness of having a first child. My daughter is very healthy, seemingly happy, and thus far, seems perfectly perfect to me. The possibility that she could have shitty taste in music, be afraid to dance, or (shudder) fall in love with a broke-ass drummer is still far enough in the future that I choose to believe none of those things could ever possibly happen.
But I didn’t make this appearance to talk seriously about years to come. No, I am here as Master of Japery and Lord High Commissioner of Fun & Games to ask you one simple question: what song do you think filled my head in the first 24 hours after my Miss M was born?
Those of you who have had the experience I just did will know that after the birth of a first child (assuming you wanted it), one’s heart is filled to bursting, and all the cares and worries of parenthood are subsumed in a tidal wave of the purest ell-oh-vee-ee LUVV. In fact, the days I spent in the hospital right after my girl was born were surprisingly reminiscent of the first few precious, hazy days I’ve spent locked up with the special girls I’ve fallen in love with over the years — you know that feeling, like you’re in an opium den of pure positivity and nothing-could-ever-go-wrong-ism. You don’t want to leave, but at the same time, you know one day you must. You suck on that love-opium pipe as long as you can, and then cross your fingers as you cross the threshold back into the cold light of day, and inevitable reality.
But, again, what I want to know is: for those first few precious, purely positive days, before the sleepless nights and screaming tantrums — what song was stuck in my head? Give me your best guesses. I’ll guide you with clues and hints as I deem necessary. First Townsman to get to the correct answer wins a coveted RTH No-Prize!
I look forward to your responses,
HVB
Mar 192013
Phil and Don? No, Phil and Joe.
So much sad and disheartening news floating around on my longer-than-usual evening browse through Facebook tonight: Bobbie Smith of The Spinners died. I grew up loving that band. Just this evening, in fact, while driving home from a long client presentation through a wintry mix on the New Jersey Turnpike, one of their songs came on the radio. That’s right, I was listening to sports-talk radio, got sick of hearing people talk about stinking college kids wearing t-shirts under their tank tops and their basketball tournament, which dudes who barely graduated from high school foam at the mouth over in hopes of winning $200 in an office pool. I hate the sight of college basketball players wearing of a t-shirt under a tank top. It’s not right. It’s sad. It’s like watching fat kids in the pool with a t-shirt sticking to their fat rolls. Who are they kidding? You’re playing basketball, kid: wear a tank top! (College football players don’t know how to wear their uniforms either, with their exposed calves…It’s even extended to the NFL, with the whole sleeveless Look. Come on, man, I want to watch big men pound each other as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to see a 360-pound lineman’s fat rolls being squeezed out from his armpits.) Anyhow, I got sick of the March Madness talk and flipped through the couple of music stations I have saved. The Spinners played, and I sang along to whatever old Spinners tune it was the oldies station was playing. (Next they played “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and I bailed. That’s not an “oldie!” That’s the musical equivalent of a t-shirt under a tank top.)
I also read that a guy named Jason Molina died. The name rang a bell. At first I thought he was one of those bearded, mediocre folk-rock dudes who manage to appear on The Tonight Show and other major outlets despite seeming to have generated no organic buzz. Like that Ray Montaigne (sp?) guy. His music’s all right, but you’re telling me there aren’t 2 bearded, mediocre folk-rock dudes in any music scene who couldn’t draw the same amount of people to a club as him? What do I know? Upon further investigation I was reminded that Molina was the man behind Songs:Ohia, an actually good folky band I first learned about through a contribution to a tribute album on which my band appeared. I thought their contribution was the strongest of the batch. This story was especially sad, sadder than the fat kid jumping into the pool in his sopping wet, skin-tight t-shirt. Molina was 39 or so. His body gave out from drinking.
In contrast to these stories I took a modicum of delight in news that Michelle Shocked spouted off on some hateful anti-gay rant at a recent show in San Francisco, I believe. She declared that “God hates fags,” or something like that, and expressed a fear of gay marriage. Much of her audience walked out. The club shut down her performance, and 8 of her next 11 scheduled venues canceled her coming appearance. My mild sense of delight was in no means related to the content of her shocking new beliefs but in the fact that I never liked her music, her entire schtick, and all the people who bought into that schtick in the mid-’80s or so. She was at the fore of a wave of “serious” artists whose stance seemed to be way more important than their music. Too many of those artists struck me as being props for people who couldn’t take a stand of their own. It was “package-deal” music. “I’ve got no beef with homosexuals,” God said when informed of Shocked’s comments. “I simply never found Michelle’s music that interesting.”
The musical discussion that really made me stop and think, however, came from Crystal, the wife of a Townsman, and a former contributor herself, in fact. I hope she and her husband don’t mind me reposting her status:
Quick! Think of a song that makes you happy. Putting together a playlist for someone. I’ll start, Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation…
I wanted to chime in and play along, but you know what? I’m not sure that any song actually makes me “happy.” All the favorite songs that came to mind that make me feel the wonder of life and the cosmos, or whatever, inevitably make me feel a little sad as well. Not sad in an I’m-drinking-myself-to-death way or even sad like the kid in the pool in his t-shirt, but a little sad at the knowledge that the beauty of the song I’m hearing cannot last forever. Maybe it’s like that orgasmic state some French thinker dubbed la petite morte.
Mar 162013
The All-Star Jam is the place to let it be.
Mar 152013
NEITHER musician is the “pretty boy wuss” in question, but hot damn they are pretty…
I believe I’m asking the right crowd, given the strong opinions in this forum: Do you ever felt conflicted about particular music you like because it’s impossible to enjoy it without complicated personal involvement?
There’s an up-and-coming indie band currently enjoying their moment in the SXSW spotlight. They’re derivative, but they appeal to my Cure/Cocteau Twins side, and I found myself whistling one of their songs this morning. I told Ladymiss Jade, “I like them, but I feel so conflicted because I hated that kid!” She smartly suggested that I launch this little op-ed concern.
Do you ever felt conflicted about particular music you like because it’s impossible to enjoy it without complicated personal involvement?
I won’t mention the band, out of respect, but though I enjoy their music today, I had their leader as a student. He was a pretty boy wuss. It drove me crazy, because I was always trying to support him to stand up for himself and fight back, but he’d just collapse in whining resignation. A pansy whose mom did all his fighting for him, and I was attracted to her whenever she came into my class to plead for him.
Cut to the present, and I’m listening, grooving, to his stuff, and I like it. I want to congratulate him. But him? He probably hates me too, because he probably has nothing but resentment for those days, and that’s the very thing that fuels his music, and now he and I have something in common (being a 90-pound weakling myself, when I was his age).
Is there music you would not normally listen to, but because you’re buds with them, you do listen and support them?
D’you see what I’m getting at? The question arises: Is there a performer you admire, but your personal association just makes it impossible to listen objectively?
Nor is Slim referring to any of these pretty boy wusses.
Mar 132013
The Rock Town Hall game anyone can play gets easier than ever with a special word-association edition. The rules are simple: give your first music-related response that pops into your head to the following list of words. It can be an artist’s name, a song, an instrument, an album title, a subgenre, you name it. All we ask is that it’s the first musically relevant word that pops into your head. Are you ready? Let’s get it on…after the jump!
