Having Tim Kazurinsky on backing vocals (center @ 2:38 mark) seals the deal on this All-Star Jam of All-Star Jams! Why don’t you join in and do your own thing?
Dec 162009
Dec 162009
Walk on by…
I was listening to the first two dB’s albums on my iPod the other night, and I forgot that the CD I burned to my iTunes had some singles tacked on. Years ago I landed a six-pack of early dB’s singles, which along with awesome cover art included some songs I’d never heard on the two albums I’d been playing to death in the year leading up to that purchase. Way back when and again the other night I was underwhelmed by the song “Soul Kiss.” I remembered how hearing that song became a Holy Grail issue for me when I was 18 years old. I remembered how finally hearing it didn’t live up to the advance billing I’d somehow accepted as gospel.
Another Holy Grail that I shouldn’t have bothered chasing was that first Buzzcocks ep, Spiral Scratch. It took me about 10 years to finally shell out for that bad boy, and it sucks. The Buzzcocks aren’t the Buzzcocks, to me, without Pete Shelley singing lead. I never minded Howard Devoto singing for Magazine, despite never finding that band half as appealing as the Shelley and Steve Diggle-led Buzzcocks, but Spiral Scratch is not an ep I’d ever recommend tracking down and paying top dollar for – or even buying at a reasonable price as a CD reissue with bonus tracks, as I did.
You may disagree with my particular nonrecommendations, but I’m most interested in hearing your own walk-on-by nonrecommendations.
Dec 162009
The challenge is self-explanatory. The only thing I ask is that you stay away from listing every odd percussion device that Harry Partch may have invented. Let’s keep this to rock ‘n roll and other forms of popular music.
I’ll start with Jon King’s use of the folding chair.
Dec 142009
I believe it was in a recent issue of People magazine that I was reading at my Mom’s house this weekend that I read about a recovering Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, who survived an sort of overdose of homeopathic pills and who has a recording career underway. I had no idea!
What really struck me in this piece, though, was some song with a quoted couplet that contained the word “healthy.” I can’t put my finger on it just yet, but the word “healthy” has no business appearing in a rock lyric. Do you agree? What other words have you heard or read in rock lyrics that simply don’t belong in this genre?
Dec 112009
Last year, the Whos of Rock Town Hall’s Whoville put together what was only, probably, the GREATEST CHRISTMAS RECORD OF ALL TIME!. There are still a ton of great Christmas songs out there, but beating 2008 will be hard to do. Here is the record, which was sequenced by The Great 48
1. “Santa Claus is Back In Town” — Elvis Presley
2. “Run Rudolph Run” –Chuck Berry
3. “Little Saint Nick” — The Beach Boys
4. “Christmas In Suburbia” — Martin Newell
5. “Father Christmas” — The Kinks
6. “Christmas Wrapping” — The Waitresses
7. “Sleigh Ride” — The Ventures
8. “Blue Christmas” — Elvis Presley
9. “Fairytale of New York” — The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl
10. “Please Come Home For Christmas” — Charles Brown
11. “2000 Miles” — Pretenders
12. “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” — The Plastic Ono Band
13. “Jesus Christ” — Big Star
14. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” — Darlene Love
15. “Christmas Time Is Here” — Vince Guaraldi Trio
You know the rules by now. You nominate a song for inclusion. The moment another villager seconds your vote, it’s in. We keep going until we have 15.
Dec 102009
I read this in today’s Washington Post account of Obama’s Nobel peace prize speech and just about did a spit-take:
… Speaking before an audience of 1,000 that included Norway’s royal family and top government officials, as well as entertainment icons Will Smith and Wyclef Jean…
Will somebody please explain how and why washed-up rapper Wyclef Jean manages to show up at gigs like this? I have been flummoxed by his red carpet magnetism for years now. I just don’t get it. I mean, I understand how he could hoodwink today’s aging rock star set into thinking he’s got hip-hop street cred or something, that he’s the 21st-century version of KRS-One. So I understand why he shows up at things like U2 concerts, or benefits hosted by Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt. But what the fuck is he doing at the Nobel peace prize awards? Or at the UN? Or at — hell, I don’t know, the Hague or the International Space Station, or wherever they’ll invite him next? And why does he get invited to these things in the first place?
I want answers!
Dec 102009
I can’t get into Billie Holiday.
There, I said it.
I don’t like the way she sings. I’ve never liked when white rock singers like Janis Joplin ape her slurred “Baby-you-can’t-imagine-how-my-heart aches” style, and after all these years of not liking imitations of that style, I’m comfortable admitting that I don’t like the style’s root voice either.
I’ve read essays on the song “Strange Fruit” and Holiday’s interpretation of it that make tears well in my eyes. I’m not completely insensitive. I feel a bit of Billie’s pain too and am aware that some of the songs are pretty good, but too much of the Billie love in our culture seems wrapped up in that Tortured Artist thing, and that Tortured Artist thing rarely plays well for me. Coupled with the fact that I really don’t like the way Billie Holiday sings, I’m comfortable with stating that I don’t like Billie Holiday and what her voice suggests to my soul. It’s just too much of da blooz to resonate with me. Sorry.
Have you ever held the fact that an artist projects “too much” of something against that artist? Has the “Englishness” of The Kinks or The Smiths, for instance, ever gotten in the way of your appreciating the music? As much as I love British accents and Syd Barrett‘s solo albums, there are times when I feel like he’s putting it on. I ask myself, Can anyone really have that much of a British accent? The same thing goes for me with various American artists and their “country” accents. I’ve heard people speak that way, but some singers are “too country” for me. I’m uncomfortable. I feel like they’re shoving it in my face.
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