I read the news today, oh boy. Neil Hefti died! Neil Hefti was, of course, one of the greats in the world of TV theme composition. Among his stellar accomplishments in that field was the theme for “Batman.”
In addition to the tune just being a flat-out *rocker* of the first order, I’ve always felt it possessed one of the greatest drum sounds on *any* recording, teevee theme or not. This factor pushes it up to the top of the list of teevee themes, sez me. So I’m sending my loving memory of Neil Hefti into the ring to claim the belt for the theme to “Batman.” Who’s got a challenger? Who thinks there’s a TV theme song that rocked harder than Hefti’s “Batman”?
Townsman Mwall suggested we take up the broader discussion of a rock artist’s relevance, or lack thereof, in a separate thread. Great suggestion. I’m bringing his comments from the ongoing XTC/Nonsuch discussion to The Main Stage. Here’s what Mwall had to say. Add to the man’s thoughts as you see fit!
The concept of relevance/irrelevance is certainly worth saying more about at some point, and debating, perhaps in another post. For me it usually begins at that point at which a band starts making albums that no longer contribute significantly to the value of their own musical legacy, or at best (which I guess is under discussion here re XTC) are dotting a few final i’s and crossing a few t’s. It tends to correspond, although not always exactly, with that same moment at which any new fans of the band (of which there are likely to be fewer and fewer) tend to “discover” them as something to look back at. If you first heard the Stones in 1988, for instance, you still don’t think that 1988 was “when they were really great.”
Here are some moments like that: Graham Parker after The Real Macaw, The Stones after Tatoo You, REM after… well, what? I’ll be damned if those later albums aren’t so deeply indistinguishable that I’ve never bothered to tell them apart.
There’s no tomorrow, Dodgers fans. Until Shane Victorino unleashed his inner soldier and tied the game with a line-drive homer and then Phils manager Charlie Manuel dipped into his canvas lp bag and pulled out Matt Stairs, Professional Hitter, and his Stone-Cold Steve Austin theme song to dash the Dodgers’ hopes of claiming home-field advantage, Joe Torre was pumping up the jams just fine for the home crowd.
Torre’s not been afraid to toy with his playlist. For Game 4, Torre inserted Juan Pierre, who from his Marlins days was a truly-despised-yet-appreciated thorn in the side of the Phils, in center field. Matt Kemp and his at-bat intro tune were not getting the job done, despite what Kemp had to say about his tune’s power:
“Your walk-up music is everything to you. It’s your at-bat, man. It gets you ready. It gets you going, and they gotta play it loud so you can feel it and get hyped. Get hyped, boy … it is what it is. When a new song comes out, I usually think if that would be a good walk-up song. That is how I did it in the past: ‘That would be a tight walk-up song.’ It always changes.”
Pierre not only brought his mad, pesky, small-ball skillz to the lineup but this bad azz walk-up diddy:
Kemp wants to be a punk; Pierre is – in the good way that can benefit a his team’s battles in the NLCS. Pierre was 2-3 with a double and a run scored, but his sparkplug effort out of the 8-hole (too little, too late in Torre’s playlist, if you ask me) was overshadowed by the work of his counterpart in center:
But that’s yesterday’s news. Tonight there’s no tomorrow for the Dodgers unless Torre can dig deep into his canvas record bag and pull out the perfect mix. Perhaps he’ll find a killer German import-only B-side to rock the dancefloor and bring the series back to Philly. Let’s see what Joe’s remaining options might be after the jump!
I’m a huge fan of XTC. I consider their run of albums from Go2 through The Big Express one of the most impressive runs of albums in rock. I even think Skylarking is a pretty great album, although I don’t wholly embrace its constricted production. However, I was never a fan of Nonsuch. I tried to like it for a few months and finally decided to cast that devil out of the house!
Click here for a fascinating look at a band in the studio at a time when they forgot to change the batteries in their bullshit detector. (Unfortunately, this is one of those YouTube videos that the owner will not allow other sites to embed, so you’ve got to go to his specific URL.)
Does anyone in this studio look uncomfortable with the mess that’s being put down? All that’s missing is a nodding Derek Smalls, stroking his beard nnd pulling on his pipe.
When people tell me they don’t “get” XTC – or think they stink, I figure this must be what they’re hearing. I ask Townspeople who don’t get XTC, Is this what you’re hearing?
Greetings, seekers of the unusual, the out-of-the-way, the off-the-beaten-track… the downright cheap!
In these troubled economic times, it’s comforting to know that there’s still a world of wonderfully weird music to explore, at practically no cost, right around the corner at your local flea markets, thrift stores and garbage dumps. Please, Townepeople — won’t you give these tunes a home?
Today, I return from “Red Tag Day” in Purcellville, Virginia — a day when the whole freaking town sets its crap out on the curb with price stickers affixed. In addition to driving home with the weirdest chair I’ve ever seen in my life — a plain old folding metal chair that somebody decided to “pimp out” with racing intakes, cooling exhaust pipe and a spoiler (see below) — I also spent a few dollars on a few discs I thought I’d share.
Or, rather, discs I thought I’d share as part of a general shout-out to two of our most faithful Townsmen, Oats and 2000Man.
The first of the three tracks is from an album called “You Turn Me On!” by Ian Whitcomb. Ian Whitcomb had one minor hit with the title track from this LP, then vanished into obscurity. Before he vanished, he penned an editorial screed for the Los Angeles Times that I would love to read, as it reputedly assured his banishment from the halls of late-60s pop hipsterism. Why, you ask? Because in it, he took all the pompous, overblown pop “artistes” of the day to task for their self-important sillinesses, specifically singling out some of the most popular bands of the day and asking why they insisted on replacing good old-fashioned pop music with, you know, the likes of Procol Harum. Anyhow, as a result of this, Ian Whitcomb became dart board target #1 for the emerging “counterculture” inteligentsia. Or, at least the ones who were also music nerds.
I wish I could say that his music shows how foolish the world was for passing him over, that the “You Turn Me On!” album was his great, lasting revenge over those who shunned him. I wish I could say the album I found for 50 cents was a shimmering emerald city of pop magnificence — but I can’t. In truth, it’s pretty much awful, from one end to the other. A real turd. BUT! Hold on a second — buried in the middle of this colossal dump is a really pretty little song, that sounds to me like a long-lost out-take from the Kinks’ “Village Green” or something. Entitled River Of No Return, I present it to you all — but especially to Townsman Oats, who we all know has a huge boner for the Kinks in this era. Tell us what you think, Oats — but please leave your boner out of it.
Next up are two tracks I thought I’d post for our resident Stones obsessive, 2000Man. The first is Del Shannon’s take on Under My Thumb. To my ears, I hear nothing special — but I know (I think I know) that Del has some big fans in this Hall, and this, the InterWeb tells me, is a particularly rare track of his. So here it is.
The last of the tracks, once again posted in 2000Man’s general direction, is a foot-stompin’ cover of the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction. Or, rather, it’s a foot-stompin’ cover of a cover of “Satisfaction,” because the performers — South Carolina frat-rockers The Swingin’ Medallions — clearly took their main inspiration from Otis Redding’s smokin’ cover of this fine tune. I gotta say, though, there are a bunch of things that work in the Swingin’ Medallions’ favor as this track compares to Otis’. Number one, it’s LOUD. Everything is LOUD on this track. The horns are loud. The screamin’ vocal is loud. The drums are loud. And — most especially — that crazy, totally out-of-tune guitar that makes an appearance after the first chorus, then again as the song fades… is really LOUD. Awesome!
Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy these three tracks. As always, your feedback — especially from you, Oats, and you, 2000Man — is gratefully appreciated.
I did some quick research to see if I could identify the at-bat intro music of Phillies game-breaking pinch-hitter, Matt Stairs, Professional Hitter. As well as Dodgers’ manager Joe Torre has played the theme songs of his veteran bench players, Phils’ skipper Charlie Manuel grabbed the turntable and proved he is the DJ. Check out his killer selection after the jump!!! Continue reading »
