When it was this one…
When it was this one…
Aug 112012
Mr. Moderator
Aug 102012
"What's your problem now?"
The inclusion of the original web source of this Philly.com article that recently appeared in the print edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer does not do this piece justice. Imagine, if you will, coming home from a long day at the office, being the Elvis Costello fanatic that I am, and seeing Elvis’ face peeking out above the Entertainment section that was loosely buried in the middle of the pile of the day’s newspaper.
“Hmm,” I said to my wife, as she put the finishing touches on dinner, “this looks cool.”
“Yeah, I meant to show you that,” she said, somehow knowing which article I was turning to as she stirred the zucchini and tomatoes from her garden in the saucepan.
The title of the piece was something like, Everyday I Write the Book: Elvis Costello’s Memoirs Are Among the Best by Any Rock Star. There was nothing specifically in the headline about this piece being picked up from Slate. That detail was only listed after the author’s byline, which I did not notice until I had read two thirds through the article and was, regrettably, fairly annoyed.
But good luck finding them. After the Rhino reissue series, Universal Music bought the rights to Costello’s first decade of recordings and reissued them yet again, essay-free, under their Hip-O Select label. Rhino has since stopped releasing even the other ’80s and ’90s records that included Costello’s writings; if you want to own them now, you’ll have to find used copies or pay anywhere from $30 to $80 for new ones on Amazon.
I read the first column of the piece, which ran through the “Books by Eric Clapton, Gil Scott-Heron, Jay-Z and Bob Mould …” paragraph that appears online.
“This thing’s taking a while to develop,” I mumbled across the kitchen as I waited for the piece’s surely buried lead to emerge.
Halfway through the second column I asked, “What is the purpose of this article? What’s the newsworthiness? What’s the commercial angle?”
“I thought it was pretty good,” my wife said, still not realizing the antisocial zone I was entering. “You can buy it now on Amazon.”
“No,” I said as nicely as possible, knowing exactly what antisocial zone I had entered, “the article says you can buy the out-of-print reissues with the liner notes on Amazon.”
I had entered the Rock Nerd Zone, that place where not even sane lovers of music like my wife want to enter.
Aug 082012
Yesterday’s death of composer Marvin Hamlisch reminded me of one of the most annoying performances I’ve ever witnessed. Hamlisch, as you may have been reminded in reading about his life, adapted Scott Joplin‘s music for the fine Robert Redford-Paul Newman film The Sting. It wasn’t the memory of an annoying performance by Hamlisch or any other professional musician that has haunted me over the last 24 hours but a 2-hour performance of the song on the piano in our living room by a 7-year-old boy.
This was years ago. We had friends over for dinner. Our oldest son, who was also in first or second grade, had been taking piano lessons, Like any firstborn, he pleased his parents with painstaking renditions of the simplest 8-bar songs. He played something in the presence of our friends. They made the appropriate fuss over his performance. Then their son sat down to display his chops. This cherubic little boy banged out a perfect version of “The Entertainer.” We were dazzled and heaped on deserved praise. He played the song again, and we were delighted by his wind-up doll dedication. A few renditions later my ear-to-ear grin turned to horror. He kept playing “The Entertainer,” not pausing between takes, not varying his tempo or attack. It went on for a solid 2 hours as we tried to continue our dinner party. This became the most annoying performance I’d ever witnessed, topping (“bottoming?”) the self-indulgent preschooler behavior of Victoria Williams at a small club in Philadelphia in the mid-1990s and any other annoying concert I’ve seen since. More annoying than the time I saw New Order and the drummer did nothing but occasionally play a swishy hi-hat over programmed drum beats when he wasn’t up from his kit, literally standing directly behind the woman on keyboards with his arms wrapped around her front, placing her index fingers on the appropriate keys for the band’s simplistic keyboard parts.
To be fair, this young boy’s chops were astounding for such a tender age. To this day I’ve got nothing against this cool young man and son of great parents. However, 120 minutes of “The Entertainer” was 117 minutes too much of a good thing.
What’s the most annoying performance you’ve ever seen?
I look forward to your responses.
Aug 072012
What's your town's MMI?
Need some kindling for sparking your rock-nerd sense of pride or outrage, as appropriate? Then you would be wise to check out this article on “The Geography of America’s Music Scenes,” as appearing in The Atlantic Cities site.
Thanks to a neighborhood friend who recently discovered my secret life as a blogger for passing this along. Our apologies for the new avenues in time mismanagement we are providing him.
Aug 072012
We here in the Halls of Rock Town are sometimes taken to task for being overly negative, snarky, hyper-critical, and all too often, just downright rude. As part of our collective efforts to bring a bit of sunshine and light to the world wide web, we occasionally make an extra effort effort to find something good to say about, you know, stuff that is clearly godawful.
It is in that spirit that we embark on yet another effort to bring some positivity to our proceedings. Please spend some quality time with the video above, then—if you can—please find something nice to say about it. You’ll feel a whole lot better, I promise you.
I look forward to your comments. Just remember, if you can’t say anything nice about this video… please don’t say anything at all.
Aug 072012
Hey punk, is this what you wanted?
Aug 062012
I want to ♥ Los Lobos.
I want to ♥ Los Lobos. For years I was happy to have no interest in them. I didn’t care for the movie La Bamba and quickly tired of hearing the band’s cover of Ritchie Valens‘ big hit, a song that had already worn out its welcome through its near-“novelty song” status since childhood. I didn’t tune into the roots-rock thing. I associated them with The Blasters and that album cover of the first Blasters record, the one with the cartoon image of the big, sweaty face. Phil Alvin’s voice gave me the willies. Somehow his voice colored my initial ability to ♥ Los Lobos.
After the band had been around for years I finally heard 2 songs that first made me appreciate the band: “Kiko and the Lavender Moon,” off the Mitchell Froom (of all producers!)-produced Kiko (1992) and a cover of the Grateful Dead (of all bands!) song “Bertha.” I’ve always had a soft spot for “Bertha.”
Years passed and I kept trying to get into Los Lobos. They were musicians’ musicians, the kind of musicians my uncle might have turned me onto back in my childhood, when he let me paint Day-Glo designs on his bedroom wall while listening to 8-tracks of Traffic, Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, et al… I bought Kiko and a 2-CD collection of Los Lobos in the late-90s. The former was OK; the collection had a live version of “Bertha” but too much of that jangly stuff from the early albums and live blooz jams, the sort of thing Stevie Ray Vaughn might do, the sort of thing fat guys with ponytails and soul patches might dig.
