{"id":18952,"date":"2013-05-22T09:54:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T13:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=18952"},"modified":"2013-05-22T09:57:50","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T13:57:50","slug":"a-singular-impression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/a-singular-impression\/","title":{"rendered":"A Singular Impression"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jKZjpG9zcno?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>\n<p>Something&#8217;s been bugging me the last 24 hours\u2014well, a number of things have been bugging me, but one in particular that&#8217;s worth sharing here in the Halls of Rock. Before I share, let me note that the ire I&#8217;m about to express toward an old friend and key musical mentor is not to be expressed without tremendous respect and acute self-awareness of my own tendency to do exactly what my friend did to get under my skin.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, this friend\u2014a should-be Townsman who has resisted all efforts at recruitment into our daily bull sessions since Day 1 of our original listserv origins\u2014tipped me off on my Facebook page, in case I wasn&#8217;t aware of them, of videos of <a title=\"Gary Waleik interview!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/big-dipper-waleik\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Big Dipper<\/strong><\/a> at JC Dobbs, an old-time Philadelphia club where my music friends and I (most of whom, this particular friend excluded, patrol these halls on a regular basis) saw the band every time they came through town. I was long aware of these videos, which I didn&#8217;t bother to throw back in his face, rock-snob style, as your slightly younger, less-gentle Moderator was wont to do. Kinder, wiser Moderator that I am I merely thanked him; confirmed that our extended crew was in the crowd the night this video was shot, as was always the case among the 40 people in Philadelphia who could be counted on to come out and see Big Dipper; and asked him if he&#8217;d heard the band&#8217;s latest album, which I mentioned was &#8220;very good&#8221; and very much in the vein of <em>Heavens<\/em>-era Dipper.<\/p>\n<p>My friend&#8217;s response, in the sort of rock-snob tone that&#8217;s too well known to my own voice?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I watched the video for that Robert Pollard song. It was OK, though I didn&#8217;t enjoy it as much as that unreleased album on the Merge triple CD.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I know where my friend&#8217;s coming friend. I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ve said similar things countless times. Yeah, I was disappointed to get such a lukewarm response as we reached to high five over an overlooked gem of our lifetime, but what really bugs me, as I look in my own rock-snob mirror, is my friend&#8217;s conflating the single from the album with his opinion of the entire album, which I bought and have listened to regularly for the last couple of months. Again, I know I&#8217;ve done what my friend has done countless times. I&#8217;ve probably turned my nose up at a new release by an old favorite over way less evidence than a 3-minute single, especially one entitled after and paying tribute to an artist I&#8217;m personally on the fence about and, therefore, prone to squirm over. (I do wholeheartedly like this single, &#8220;Robert Pollard,&#8221; by the way, although at first I squirmed over my mixed feelings of the song&#8217;s titular subject.)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m done beating up on this minor quibble with my friend&#8217;s tepid ending to our high five. I feel a whole lot better for sharing. What I&#8217;d like to discuss with you is <em>times we&#8217;ve made a snap judgment on an album, for better or for worse, on the strength (or weakness) of the album&#8217;s first single<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>An example that immediately comes to mind for me, for instance, is <strong>The Jam<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;A Town Called Malice&#8221; single relative to the eventual album that followed, <em>The Gift<\/em>. I was stoked as a result of the single, which I snatched up upon its release. The album, aside from maybe 2 other good songs, was a mess.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll think of examples of the flipside, which my old friend has experienced, times where I was not that impressed by the first single (or video) and, as a result, overlooked the strength of the entire album.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, here&#8217;s an album track I dig a lot from Big Dipper&#8217;s new album, <em>Crashes on the Platinum Planet<\/em>. The song simply makes me happy and makes me think of all the good times I&#8217;ve spent with this band. It also torments me to an extent: every time I listen to this song I try to figure out what the opening melody reminds me of. I&#8217;m still stuck. Maybe you can help me identify the lift.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Big-Dipper_Crashes-On-the-Platinum-Planet_04_Hurricane-Bill.mp3\">Big Dipper_Crashes On the Platinum Planet_04_Hurricane Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<p>PS &#8211; I hadn&#8217;t seen the video for &#8220;Robert Pollard&#8221; until completing this post. It&#8217;s awesome. Now I&#8217;m getting pissed at my old friend again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Something&#8217;s been bugging me the last 24 hours\u2014well, a number of things have been bugging me, but one in particular that&#8217;s worth sharing here in the Halls of Rock. Before I share, let me note that the ire I&#8217;m about to express toward an old friend and key musical mentor is not to be expressed <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/a-singular-impression\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[819,820],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}