Mr. Moderator

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

Rock Crime: The Cover Art for Duran Duran’s Rio Album

Apr 052013

Ugh!

If you’ve been following Rock Town Hall for even a couple of weeks you probably have an inkling of my severe distaste for the mainstream culture of the 1980s. If you didn’t live through that era and find it “charming” or whatever, I feel slightly worse for the future of humankind. That’s OK, I’m used to feeling that way. What troubles me is how we got to this point considering how great my generation was and how much greater our parents’ and grandparents’ generations were. If we were so great, shouldn’t the youth of today be better?

If you lived through that era and look back on it fondly, I am not-so-secretly jealous of you. I had a lot of youthful energy and love to give to the world at that time, and for all my exquisite taste I would have been happy to spread my energy and love on a mutually appreciative world, as you may have been able to do back then. Bravo, ’80s Mainstream Culture Beneficiaries!

Many of my associations with the ’80s, then and now, were filtered through my not-always exclusive pursuits of rock ‘n roll and girls, as I was young enough to call them through most of the decade. I desired a mastery of both, yet constantly found myself falling short of the mark. Most of the roadblocks encountered were part of my genetic makeup and/or self-erected. I think of all the poor decisions I made and inflexible stances I took owing to my born and bred stubbornness. I did have good taste, however, and I have no regrets about that. The mainstream culture of the 1980s threw its share of roadblocks at me. Perhaps no cultural artifact was a more daunting roadblock than a copy of Duran Duran‘s Rio placed at the front of a stack of albums in a girl’s dorm room or apartment.

Kurt Cobain’s 19th Mortiversary

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 052013

Is there an antonym for “anniversary?” As you probably know by now, today is the 19th “mortiversary” of Kurt Cobain. I didn’t fully appreciate Nirvana until their last album. I was barely bright enough to be able to tell that Cobain had something going on when Nevermind exploded, but I never liked the sound of that album, especially that stringy bass. I still don’t like the way those songs sound.

I was living in Hungary when In Utero came out. There wasn’t a lot of good music to be “spotted in the wild,” as our friend Rockodile Hunter might say. EuroMTV was playing some BritPop, which I liked, but mostly more Pet Shop Boys videos than I ever wanted to see. I was getting a little homesick for the straight-up rock ‘n roll from my homeland. When the video for “Heart-Shaped Box” hit, I jumped on it! The bass was heavier. The spooky imagery in the video was cool. The song reminded me of Pere Ubu. All good things. I ended up buying that album, paying the equivalent of $20 for the CD, which was hard for me to fork over. God bless America! God bless kick-ass stoner rock. Nirvana wasn’t so bad after all, even with Cobain’s string of totally annoying (to me, at least) ODs and other attention-grabbing attempts at disappearing. The whole thing came to a sad, crashing end when he shot himself. I don’t get caught up in the mystique of suicide; in fact, I rage against it. I still don’t feel anything alluring about Cobain’s very public agony, but I am glad I had just enough time to get a taste of what the band’s real fans were missing when he split.

All-Star Jam

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 012013

Clowntime is just getting started! Gotta love Bill Wyman‘s take on the Houston Astros’ “Tequilla Sunrise” uniform!

Last Man Standing: Candy Songs

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Mar 292013

Easter is coming up. I know the holiday is really centered around Jesus and deeply spiritual matters, but the lure for kids is the basket of Easter candy that the Easter bunny leaves on Easter morning. In honor of Easter baskets, I propose a Last Man Standing on Candy Songs, that is, songs specifically about candy or, if not specifically about candy, involving a candy in its song title. Songs that merely mention a candy in passing do not count. Candy must be essential to the song, as is the case with my lead-off entry, Autumn Carousel’s “Lollipop.”

lollipop

Let’s fill a rock ‘n roll Easter basket!

Story Songs: The Good, The Bad, and “Mr. Bojangles”

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Mar 282013

I’m always amazed by well-crafted story songs. This goes back to one of my original favorite songs from childhood, The Band‘s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” I’ve never been much of a story teller. Stories are important. A well-told story set to great music simply dazzles me.

I even appreciate story songs that I can’t stand, such as Don McLean‘s “American Pie” and Billy Joel‘s “Piano Man.” The latter, for all its relative Joel merits, quickly falls prey to the high bar set by telling a story song from the perspective of an old man when the songwriter is, in fact, a young man. That “when I wore a younger man’s clothes” line in “Piano Man,” for instance, is one of the song’s many deal-breakers for me.

Last night, as “Piano Man” played on the radio after a fun dinner out with the family, even our 11-year-old son began cutting up on the lyrics. “The music’s good,” he said, “but the lyrics are stupid.” In the front seat my wife and I began talking about Olde Thyme-themed story songs of our youth. “Midnight at the Oasis” came on next, and we all got a chuckle out of that one, reminding ourselves that it was supposed to be silly.

“‘Mr. Bojangles’!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah,” my wife replied, “what was the deal with ‘Mr. Bojangles’?”

What was the deal with “Mr. Bojangles”?

What’s the Best Jesus Song in Rock?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Mar 252013

Real simple, like the poll asks: What’s the best Jesus song in rock?

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Are there rock ‘n roll Passover songs? It’s one of those Judeo-Christian crossover periods. Peace on earth and good times with family to all!

Last Man Standing: Help Mr. Moderator Identify His List of Actual Hits From the 1980s That He Liked, Even During Those Days When He Was “Too Cool for School”

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Mar 222013

As I may have mentioned a few times over the years, I HATED THE 1980s!

I hated ’80s style and culture in general, but as a music-obsessed person, I especially hated “’80s” music, which I typify as synth-pop featuring Yahmaha DX7s and strained vocals. I hated hair gel and guys with dyed hair. I hated asymmetric hairdos and shirt collars. I hated shirts with shoulder pads and epaulets. I hated puffy socks and women wearing jeans with high-riding waistbands. I even hated Madonna, although stripped of her iconic ’80s style she was my idea of a Hot Woman. Thankfully Madonna provided some opportunities to confirm that suspicion.

I hated what the ’80s did to Michael Jackson. I hated the bright colors. I never aspired to androgyny. I even hated much of the “cool” underground music of the ’80s: hardcore, shitcore, REM, that goth stuff like Bauhaus coming out of England… I even hated bands that were making music fairly similar to my own band’s aspirations because I was jealous of their relative success.

I think I hated myself as much as anything. I grew up in the 1970s, feeling pretty much out of place but certain that I would develop into a well-rounded hipster in my early ’80s college years only to be unleashed in a world where I fit in even less. Damn you, 1980s!

Today, my wiser, kinder, gentler self occasionally hears Human League‘s “Don’t You Want Me Baby” on the radio and thinks to himself, “At least I always liked that song. There must have been another 24 hit songs in the ’80s that I liked, right?”

Well, were there? I am calling on you, my trusted Townspeople, to help me recall whether I liked 25 hit songs from the 1980s. The rules for submission follow…after the jump!

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