Mr. Moderator

Mr. Moderator

When not blogging Mr. Moderator enjoys baseball, cooking, and falconry.

Cool Corporate Playlists

 Posted by
Jun 102010
 

Organic, farm-fresh herb.

I’m home sick again, surrounded by way too much pollen! Following a visit to the doctor I found myself ready for an early lunch, so while waiting for a prescription I drove over to our local Chipotle, a fairly new (to our area, at least) burrito chain. We love the place. It’s simple; portions are large, tasty, and reasonably priced; and it’s hippified! What little decor they have is earth-toned and ’60s-based. There are signs touting the free-range, voluntary cow-and-chicken-to-slaughter nature of the meats. Even the napkins are healthy and hip – you know, those rough, multi-grained ones that never quite get all the grease off your hands and face but make you feel great about helping the planet in not doing so. There’s this note on the back of the napkins:

Our napkins are made without bleach and from 90% post consumer recycled paper. Use them again to wipe the guac off your chin.

I’m not a big fan of “guac,” but doesn’t that blurb make you feel warm and fuzzy?

Next to the food and the always-pleasant, young staff (the kids in our Chipotle, at least, are like the fast-food equivalents of Apple Store staff: energetic, hip, ambitious… You know they’re not going to be stuck behind a fast-food counter the rest of their lives), however, the thing I dig most about Chipotle is the music they play. One time I walked in and The Clash‘s “Washington Bullets” was blaring over the soundsystem. How I love that song, and how it seemed to fit – more or less – in Chipotle’s progressive take on fast food! Today, while paying for my burrito, I heard something from The Clash catalog that, in 1979, I never expected to hear on a corporate playlist and then a few years later regretted having to hear in the form of the singles from Combat Rock. Today, in Chipotle, I heard something hipper than “Washington Bullets.” It wasn’t “Bankrobber.” It wasn’t even “Bankrobber Dub.” It was the Mickey Dread-toasting dub version of “Bankrobber,” a version so hip and obscure that even this Clash fan can’t remember the exact name without having to look it up (and I’m not doing that right now, sorry).

Which corporate chain has your favorite playlist?

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The 10 Greatest Debut Singles Ever?

 Posted by
Jun 092010
 

King Strasburg

In honor of pitcher Steven Strasburg‘s remarkable debut for the Washington Nationals last night, can we compile the Top 10 Debut Singles in Rock ‘n Roll? Let’s keep it to singles rather than albums, which we’ve been over before. We’ll have to don the Pince Nez to make sure our suggestions are actual debut singles. If a small indie release is an artist’s first single before a better-known single on a larger label, them’s the breaks, but there are those who might argue that R.E.M.‘s original “Radio Free Europe” single is worthy of inclusion on this list.

OK, let’s get to it. This shouldn’t be too hard, right?

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Game-Changing Interviews in Rock

 Posted by
Jun 082010
 


Has an interview with a musician ever changed the way you hear that musician’s music, for better or worse? I recently caught the tail end of a little piece on Janis Joplin on NPR that reminded me of this. Joplin’s appearances on Dick Cavett, excerpts of which, when I first saw them as part of some documentary on her that already began to turn my head on an artist I once despised, sealed the deal in helping me like her and even her music! As rock experts, we usually pride ourselves in not falling prey to the Sincerity Fallacy and issues of Look and the like and, instead, focus directly on the music, man. But sometimes the human side of an artist, as seen in an interview, is too powerful to overlook – and so powerful that it informs the artist’s work.

The quote that NPR used, which reminded me of all this, begins at the 25-second mark, but any clip I’ve seen of her few Cavett appearances since that documentary contains a raw, open, feisty, sexy spirit that, for me, is one of the payoffs in dealing with people, let alone the arts. Most folks really need some scratching to show this side of themselves, but Janis is overflowing with what makes her tick. I know, that’s a trait that can wear thin in a hurry, and to this day you won’t find me listening to more than three Janis Joplin songs in a row, but these interviews helped me see this overweight, ance-scarred freak as beautiful – and that’s not meant as a knock on overweight, acne-scarred freaks. I hope we all have moments when our inner beauty shines through.

The 5:35 mark of the following clip is also pretty cool in building empathy for this artist, not to mention her guitarist’s sloppy fuzztone in the partial clip that closes this segment. Continue reading »

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Musical Lifelines

 Posted by
Jun 072010
 

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While seeing if you can ever like the music of a particular artist whose music has not appealed to you to date, do ever find yourself hanging onto the musicianship of a particular band member? Growing up I couldn’t stand Janis Joplin except for the song “Piece of My Heart.” That song, in fact, initially appealed to me only because of the sloppy, fuzztoned lead guitar and the throaty, off-key backing vocals of the dudes in Big Brother and the Holding Company. Over the years, whenever being confronted with the music of Janis Joplin, I’d see out the guitar player(s?) in Big Brother and the Holding Company and see if the sloppy guitar playing and funzztone could get me through the next 3 to 4 minutes of Joplin’s blooz wail. The stuff she did after Big Brother never worked for me because that guitarist, whose name I’ve never bothered to learn until seeing it in this video (James Gurley), wasn’t in the mix.

About 10 years ago I began to come around on Joplin with the help of other aids, which I’ll get into another day this week, if not for the lifeline that guitar player through me I’d have had no shot!

Another example for me is Phil Lesh, whenever I’m revisiting the Grateful Dead, again, a band I no longer hate but still feel the need to thank Lesh for thinking of me with his long, loopy bass runs.

How about you: has a particular musician in a band or backing an artists you did not otherwise like thrown you a lifeline?

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Summer Rock Reading

 Posted by
Jun 052010
 

NOT a summer rock read.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for summer – not the sweat, which I’m already feeling, and not so much the imagery of Beach Boys’ songs, which is only so attainable as a middle-aged guy in my part of the country, but fresh tomatoes and hot peppers, baseball’s dog days of summer, and my wife and kids being done with school and having more time to relax and be in a good mood when I get home from work. I’m also looking forward to some vacation time and a little more time to read. I’m just beginning to read The World in Six Songs, by Daniel Levitan, with Bulgakov’s A Dead Man’s Memoir on deck. I expect that these will both pull on my brain power, so I’d also like to have some summer rock reads in my back pocket, for those hot days on the beach, when all I can handle are previously unheard tales of creativity and debauchery. I’m sure we could all use some suggestions for summer rock books. What would you suggest?

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