I’ve written about my love for the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song “Trains and Boats and Planes” in the past. For me it’s a “can’t fail” melody, impervious to any cover treatment imaginable. Here’s yet one more example of the song’s strength. (Plus, you’ve gotta dig the piper’s Look at the setting of this performance.)
Check out this 1981 performance by Kevin Ayers and John Cale. They don’t make ’em like that anymore, do they?
What I’d like to discuss is whether, aside from your personal musical tastes, this is a good or a bad thing. In other words, have any useful rock building blocks been abandoned along with this particular style of music and performance? In other words, have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater?
Love is in the air.
Not a lot to say, but I thought the Hall’s Prock enthusiasts might enjoy this, especially Travelin’ Townsman Hrrundivbakshi.
I’m comfortable admitting to you that I’m mildly funny, and even if I’m wrong about that, I’m confident that I’m funnier than Pauly Shore. That’s not admitting much, but in terms of my comedic skills I’m willing to go out on a ledge and suggest that I may be funnier than Adam Sandler.
I’ve since been thinking about how my humble musical skills match up with the pros. Excluding Sid Vicious, how far out on a ledge am I willing to go in admitting that I think I’m a better musician (amateur guitarist/songwriter, specifically, in my case) than someone well known? In all fairness, I will not claim to be “better” than any artists whose music I despise yet acknowledge displays superior skills. I am not willing to admit that I’m better than anyone in Journey, for instance. Musically better, that is.
As a guitarist, I am comfortable admitting to you that I’m – at the top of my game – “capable of playing within my means.” I’m confidant that I’m a better guitarist than anyone in The Shaggs. That’s not admitting much, but in terms of my guitar skills, I wonder if I’m technically better than one of my heroes, Joe Strummer. As a guitarist, I must stress!
How about you? Admit it: regardless of your instrument and your level of skill, what’s the furthest out you’ll go in suggesting that you top the musicianship of a well-known musician? Is there some musician more accomplished than a musical Pauly Shore that you think you can edge out in terms of talent?
If you’re going to answer this hard-hitting question, please don’t cop out on us. Admit it.
If I were a real, professional blogger with industry cred, I might be compelled to cover the following topics:
Sorry, I’m in a bit of a grumpy mood today after a blow-out, fun weekend only interrupted by my boys’ soccer team’s second-half collapse and news of a friend dying. My friend Tim never wrote anything as catchy as “People Who Died” or chronicled his life as a teenage basketball star and junkie, but in his short life he lived through more hardships (eg, heart transplant at 16, loss of his seemingly healthy nonsmoking wife to lung cancer at the age of 33, a few battles with cancer himself until this last one beat him) than any hardships most celebrities can cook up to induce on themselves. Tim was a solid, soulful guy from the time my friend Mary Beth first introduced him to me as her new boyfriend to the last time I saw him. I’ll always remember the penultimate time I saw him.
Last October, my friend Pete and I met up with Tim and his brother at the prescribed inning along the concourse down the third base line at Citizens Bank Park to watch an inning of the Phils-Brewers’ division playoff game. Throughout the second half of the 2008 Phillies season, we’d been making a habit of meeting during the same inning of all games on our season ticket plan. It was becoming a good luck inning, and that night we got to witness Brett Myers‘ shocking and epic at-bat against CC Sabathia, which was punctuated by Shane Victorino‘s grand slam! As the ball traveled before our eyes, we grabbed each other and hugged with all our might. We hugged anyone in reach. Man hugs. Women hugs. Kid hugs. Love was in the air, and it wouldn’t surprise me if a couple of complete strangers conceived that night, seconds after the ball cleared the leftfield wall.
I still have no interest in discussing Kanye West, but I’m now better able to empathize with whatever some of you may be feeling about Jim Carroll.
Flipping channels one night last week I came to a screeching halt on the skateboarding documentary Dogtown and the Z-Boys. When this movie came out in the theaters I initially turned my nose up at it. I was never a skateboarder or had any interest in related “extreme sports.” That stuff always ran counter to my interest in team sports. My younger brother, however, has always run with that X crowd, and I do have a lot of interest in him and try to get my head around what he cares about. He loved the movie, so a few years ago I finally broke down and rented it. It was great! From now on, I’ll stop flipping channels whenever I come across that documentary, and I’ve since watched a few other documentaries on skateboarding and surfing.
My oldest son thinks I’m trying to relive my youth, but I tell him I’m not. I’m really trying to better understand my younger brother and prepare for the road I can see my younger son taking. Watching Dogtown and the Z-Boys again the other night I was struck by the marriage of music and extreme sports. What other sports have ever been so closely related to a form of music? I guess some extreme sports lean more toward metal than punk, but I’m not yet sure when one X Games competition requires the cueing of speed metal rather than hardcore punk. I know nothing about NASCAR. Are NASCAR docs fueled by some special country or Southern Rock mix of music? Is there any other equivalent to skate punk? Wait, what am I saying – skate punk is the direct descendant of surf rock, both in terms of the sport and, to some extent, the music.
OK, are there any equivalents to skate punk and surf rock? And whatever particular X Games sport is closely identified with speed metal…
Getting my head around the SoCal skater/surfer scenes has recently had the added effect of helping me tune into the music related to those scenes. I can hear how the music relates to the motion of the sport. I wonder if there’s a rhythm to the sport I love most, baseball.
