Most horrifying image of 2010.
I hate year-end “best of” lists (in part, I’m sure, because of the disappointment of never finding my own works on them) but I love you, so let this be your place for listing your best, worst, and whatever of 2010!
E., Joe Strummer embodies you in this clip! It’s eerie.
As I shoveled our driveway this morning I came across a patch of yellow snow. That quickly got me thinking about the Frank Zappa song in which he warns listeners not to eat the yellow snow. That quickly got me thinking about why a Southern California kid would have written a song about yellow snow, as if he couldn’t have traveled a bit and at least heard of this thing called snow. Then, complete Zappa NON-fan I am, a seemingly important detail crept into my head: Zappa was born in Baltimore.
That explained it, but what explained my knowing the city of his birth, a city I’ve driven through 50 times but barely spent time in? Considering I’ve never had any interest in Zappa beside wondering what it is people like about his music, I had to check whether this trivial fact was true. It’s true. Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, which probably has little to do with his interest in yellow snow but may explain all the more important details that constantly slip from my brain. This is a case of Rock Stuff I Have No Business Knowing.
What rock-related detail that you have no business knowing most likely gets in the way of you remembering something more important?
Mom!
Tonight’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In starts on a psychedelic vibe and then gets progressively down home, until we’re right by the fireplace, enjoying our new toys.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-8.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 8][Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatically download each week’s podcast.]
Not made for these times.
“Why don’t you listen to the Beach Boys anymore?” my wife asked me, as we watched an awkward, white-suited, Brian-less lineup of the band play “Good Vibrations” on some “best of” the musical acts on The Ed Sullivan Show that was playing on PBS. The question took me by surprise. In our 22 years together my wife, who’s appreciation of the Beach Boys can be described as “mild” and does not extend beyond that song and the two big songs off Pet Sounds (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows”), had never expressed concern for the well-being of my Beach Boys fandom.
“You don’t listen to the Beach Boys anymore,” she continued, as I sat slightly stunned at this glaring lack of musical self-awareness. “You used to listen to them all the time.”
I guess I did. I remembered the early days of our relationship, when I’d spin Pet Sounds frequently, often gracing (or so I thought) her return home from work with the album that I thought celebrated our love and gave her further insight, in case she was not certain, into just how sensitive I was. Side two headed downhill fast, but playing out this drama through spinning the album seemed kind of brave of me, like I was staring down another man’s failure while building off the best bits of Brian’s triumph of love.
“You don’t like them now,” I looked up, “do you?” As soon as that that question left my tongue I felt a little queasy, like she would take this opportunity to suggest we join a swingers’ scene.
“No.”
I was relieved and went back to contemplating the full implications of her question. Continue reading »
Won’t you help me and a young Andy Richter celebrate Christmas? What did Santa Klaus Voorman bring you?
Recently, in a completely unrelated thread, a Townsman thought he could “get me” regarding my longstanding dismissal of that the music on Love‘s supposed masterpiece Forever Changes as “bullfighting music.” I guess some wounds take longer than others to heal.
As 2010 winds down, feel free to use this space to air any ongoing, unhealed beefs you may have with me that you feel may still need to be addressed, be it my dismissal of Forever Changes, why we moved Rock Town Hall from our private Yahoo Groups list to this blog format, how I can possibly prefer George Thorogood to ZZ Top, or some other burning question that refuses to cool off no matter how much wisdom and reasoned arguments I have applied to your blistered sense of perspective. I will do my best to answer your questions—once and for all—and, more importantly, to apply a healing balm before we enter the New Year.
The airing of your ongoing, unhealed beefs may even benefit me. Every 5 or 6 years I come to the realization that an opinon I was certain of requires an adjustment. I’m probably due for one of these moments.
Comments for this thread will be closed at the strike of midnight, January 1, 2011.
