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It’s one thing for young Courteney Cox to fawn over The Boss before getting pulled onstage for some ’80s-style shimmying, but how’d you like to have this Suzanne woman in your face at every one of your shows? However, considering it’s Lou demonstrating his then-latest example of his music as it was meant to sound, I guess that’s the price you pay.
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?
At the Paris Hotel in Vegas you can now catch Cheap Trick nightly (almost) perform Sgt. Pepper’s live. Two questions:
1. For $150, what band would you pay to see play what album (not one of their own, duh)?
2. Is this a brilliant idea or just a…(wait for it)… Continue reading »
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?
As a tribute the the Mod, who is apparently under the weather today, I propose a last man standing of songs with the word sick in the title.
One rule in addition to the normal LMS rules: the use of the word “sick” must mean “ill,” not just fed up or crazy (unless “crazy” refers to an actual mental illness and not just bad behavior).
I’ll lead off with “Sick as a Dog” by Aerosmith.
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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Sick day: I’ll be checking in now and then, when awake. I trust you, of all people, won’t spoil my day.
