The Pleonastic Hussalonian

Fantastic: Will.i.Am (2007) I have no idea what makes one song...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:39:10 -0400

Fantastic: Will.i.Am (2007)

I have no idea what makes one song really popular and leaves another virtually unheard. I don’t listen to a lot of Top 40 radio, but then, I’m no stranger to it either. I borrowed a copy of Will.i.Am’s Songs About Girls from the public library when it first came out. I can’t say that I was wild about “I Got it From My Mama,” but his production work on Nas’s Hip Hop is Dead was interesting enough that I wanted to hear a full album of his work (sans Fergie). Two years later, I don’t remember anything about Songs About Girls except for this song. And what a great song! At the time, I was so convinced that it was going to blow up. I would have bet money on it. And then, nothing happened.

I suspect that “Fantastic” revolves around a sample from the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” I hear a tiny snippet taken from the major pentatonic guitar part, found in the left channel of the original song, best heard at the 1:25 and the 1:55 mark.

Ah, but what the hell do I know?

Pretty Lady: Lighthouse (1973) What? You’re telling me that you...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:16:00 -0400

Pretty Lady: Lighthouse (1973)

What? You’re telling me that you won’t listen to a band with nine long-haired members on a matter of principle? But the singer sounds like a cleaned up Lou Reed fronting the Raspberries! With a horn section! In Vegas!

I heard this song for the first time yesterday. In a record store, of course. I think it’s a perfect record store song because it embodies so many things that record geeks are into: Lou Reed, power pop, pretty ladies, complete obscurity. And yet, the odds of even your most fervent record geek having actually heard it before are pretty slim. I think this is because any reasonable shopper would pass on this album based on the cover image alone. Sorry, dudes. I can’t feel it.

Doesn’t it remind you a little of Sloan’s “Everything You’ve Done Wrong”? (Both bands are Canadian!)

Mediocre Live Music

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:48:14 -0400

‘Just finished the latest Nick Hornby book, Juliet, Naked. Having sat through hundreds, if not thousands of mediocre live bands, I found myself sagely nodding at the following passage.

“The trouble with going to see bands is that there wasn’t much else to do but think, if you weren’t being swept away on a wave of visceral or intellectual excitement… Mediocre loud music penned you into yourself, made you pace up and down your own mind until you were pretty sure you could see how you might end up going out of it.” (167)

Cum On Feel the Noize: Slade (1973) If you’re an American,...

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:32:00 -0400

Cum On Feel the Noize: Slade (1973)

If you’re an American, you’re probably more familiar with Quiet Riot’s 1983 cover version. It peaked at #5 on our Billboard charts, while, a full decade earlier in 1973, Slade’s original version barely cracked the top 100. I’ve always been vaguely aware that it was a Slade song, but up until this week, I have (believe it or not) never heard the original.

Now, like many American boys in the 80s, I grew my hair out and pumped my fist in the air. I wore patches on my jean jacket. I was a good kid unwittingly listening to astonishingly offensive anthems of misogyny, substance abuse, and demon worship – all in the name of rock. Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize” ranked high, and remains high, on my chart of Rock-dom. It’s the “Let’s Get It On” of heavy metal – one of those songs that everyone in a room can usually agree on.

Listen to the two versions back to back, and the first thing you’ll notice is that Quiet Riot’s version is far more menacing. It’s in the canon-fire drums and Kevin DuBrow’s vocal that manages to out-banshee Noddy Holder. Ah, but so what? When I first heard Slade’s version a few days ago, I was bowled over by how incredibly fun it sounded – the huge chorus of people singing along, the hand claps, the major key intro, the never-ending maraca shaking, the feel-good Chuck Berry guitar work. But more than anything else, it’s the shifting downbeat of the snare drum that gives Slade’s version its playful wiggle.

It may be because the two versions exist an exact decade apart, or perhaps it’s because one is English and one is American, but the two versions reveal two distinctly different attitudes towards teenage sex and rebellion. Slade’s version is about social outcasts finding solace and a good time in sexual experimentation and rock and roll. Quiet Riot’s version is about those same kids using sex and rock and roll as a weapon. Rather than celebrating the good times, it feels like a threatening message directed at parents, teachers, and anyone else who just doesn’t understand.

Having now heard them both – hands down – I prefer Slade’s version. But then, I just don’t understand.

Running Scared: Roy Orbison (1961) I’ve been reading Chronicles,...

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:25:00 -0400

Running Scared: Roy Orbison (1961)

I’ve been reading Chronicles, Volume One and was especially delighted to read Dylan’s musings on Roy Orbison:

He was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he’d start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, “Man, I don’t believe it. (33)

Well said, Bob. But while his voice is crucial to the effect, I’ve always felt that it was the structure of Orbison’s ballads that made one feel so self-destructive. They are pop operas that drive themselves off of cliffs. They are short stories with no denouement. A slow and steady climb to nowhere.

“Running Scared” begins as a march, the anxiety of being left for a former lover a mere seed. One man and his guitar. But as the thought develops, so does the march, reigning in along the way pianos and drums and brass and strings and singers that sing like angels. An army! It is not until the final section (“Then all at once, he was standing there.”) that the spark finally ignites – private anxieties become a nightmarish reality, and the march becomes a full-on trot as if imbued with fight or flight adrenaline. But what of it? The girl chooses him. The hero wins. All that worrying for naught. The final pulses of the march are rich with brass and strings, matrimonial perhaps. We stand on the sidelines, not sure if what we witnessed was love or war, shaking our heads in disbelief and (yes, Bob) muttering, “Man, I don’t believe it.”

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If you ever doubted the genius of Jim Henson for a second (Good...

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:11:48 -0400

If you ever doubted the genius of Jim Henson for a second (Good god, have you no heart?), this video is here to shame you back into belief. (You lousy heretic!) “Time Piece” is a short film (8 minutes) that is at once strange, whimsical, profound, and even (a big Kermit gulp, here) sexy. Long before there was the family-friendly “Rainbow Connection,” Henson debuted this experimental piece at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965. It was nominated for an Oscar in 1966. The brilliantly percussive soundtrack was composed by jazz arranger Don Sebeski.

Read more about Henson’s early experimental work at this fine blog. (Make certain you download his offbeat 1960 single, “Tick Tock.”)

What a handsome young man he was! He looks like Andrew Bird with a beard.

Shake, Rattle and Roll: Santo and Johnny (196?) Meaning ruins...

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:54:00 -0400

Shake, Rattle and Roll: Santo and Johnny (196?)

Meaning ruins everything.

Take today, for instance. I was in a camera shop and heard the song “Shake, Rattle and Roll” on the radio. I guess I didn’t even notice it until I was back in the car. I had that line, “I’m like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store” endlessly repeating in my head. How absurd, I thought. A one-eyed cat. Peeping in a seafood store. And I’m like that cat. Strange!

I said it aloud and my wife looked at me like I was insane. She, too, had heard the song a million times and never once thought about the weirdness of that sentence. I used it throughout the day. If I was accused of being cranky, I’d say, “Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.” If the dog was doing something funny, I’d say, “Look at him; he’s like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.” If I needed a metaphor for national healthcare, I’d say, “It’s complicated… like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.”

I vowed to use the sentence whenever possible. I saw myself saying it to the mayor as he handed over a key to the city. Sir, to be bestowed this honor is privilege beyond words. I feel like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.

But then I Googled it. And I’ll say only this: it’s a double entendre. Yuck!

Silkworm: Arlo (2002) Generally Positive Things That Can Be Said...

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:03:00 -0400

Silkworm: Arlo (2002)

Generally Positive Things That Can Be Said of This Song or Arlo’s “Silkworm” As a Way of Life:

It reminds me of Cheap Trick, while not actually being Cheap Trick nor an overt rip-off of Cheap Trick. And Cheap Trick-ness, to me, is a very good thing.

It has been clinically proven that pop songs with “oooo” as a pivotal lyric are guaranteed to reduce or eliminate depression. “Ooo-wee,” “ooo-wee-ooo,” and variations of “woo-woo” will work also.

For the life of me I cannot figure out what this song means – and this may be its greatest asset. It might come off as a little anti-intellectual, but there is something to be said for subscribing to a good gut instinct every once in a while. By nature, I am an over-thinker, a great follower of reason and logic. But it’s tough! Very taxing on the spirit. Sometimes, the healthiest thing to do is to let it all go and get meaningless.

And if one cannot manage a vast empty void of nothingness, attribute everything to love. I find it the next greatest thing to meaninglessness.

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Do U Lie?: Prince and the Revolution (1986) Parade: Music from...

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:50:00 -0400

Do U Lie?: Prince and the Revolution (1986)

Parade: Music from the Motion Picture “Under the Cherry Moon” was largely panned by critics, and this may or may not have something to do with the fact that the movie was a total bore. But the soundtrack is – unequivocally – my favorite Prince album. Funk meets European orchestration, with steel drums on several tracks for a rather arresting effect. Some songs seamlessly blend into each other, while others (like “Do U Lie?” and “Kiss”) stand on their own, worlds apart from anything Prince (or perhaps anyone) has ever done before. Unlike many albums from the late 80s, the recording techniques have dated well and are often quite provoking. It’s eclectic and strange, artsy and esoteric. But never sinks under its own weight, remaining loose and fun.

It just doesn’t make sense. Prince is a genius – a gifted vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and consummate showman. (So, he’s a mediocre actor – forgiven!) And yet the bulk of his career consists of insipid dance jams about party life.

I know there many avid Prince fans that would disagree (and how!), but from an objective, critical standpoint, Prince just hasn’t lived up to his potential. Yes, he has released some amazing work (Purple Rain, Chaos and Disorder and Crystal Ball are all ambitious and remarkable). But where is the life-changing masterpiece? The genre-smashing experimental work that will forever alter the way music is written and recorded? He can do it! But why hasn’t he?

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I Forget It’s There: Lay Low (2008) According to the bio on...

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:22:00 -0400

I Forget It’s There: Lay Low (2008)

According to the bio on Last.fm, Lay Low (the nom de microphone of Lovísa Elísabet Sigrúnardóttir) has topped the Icelandic charts with her 2006 debut, Please Don’t Hate Me. Now, I don’t doubt for a second that Icelandic music charts exist – I know they do – but a brief search on the Internet yielded nothing reputable. How are we non-Icelanders to know what’s hot in Iceland?

I prefer to think of Iceland as another planet, a distant place I’d like to go to if only I had a rocket ship to take me there. Lay Low is not only living proof that this planet exists, but also that they have been observing us. “I Forget It’s There” simultaneously invokes Patsy Cline, Howlin’ Wolf, and Mazzy Star. I don’t know about you, but I find this interplanetary exchange of culture inspiring.

But seriously folks, the record is great. Go get it. No rocket ship required.

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Honesty Is No Excuse: Thin Lizzy (1971) There is an undercurrent...

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:04:41 -0400

Honesty Is No Excuse: Thin Lizzy (1971)

There is an undercurrent of classical influences in this song – the synthesized strings, the baroque-tinted guitar solo, the vamping chords. But the overall effect, the emotional impact, is something nonexistent in classical music.

It makes me wonder if rock music hadn’t invented new emotions. I listen to a song like this and try to find a word (or words) to describe the emotion(s) conveyed. Can’t do it. It’s kind of sad, desperate, maybe a little angry, definitely romantic in a tragic sense. But it feels so good in all its head-hanging, indulgent glory – a genuine sense of relief to let all those messy emotions hang out in the open.

It’s in his voice, in the drums. It’s what composers cannot notate – spontaneity, instinct, impulse, reckless abandon. Like it took Western composers one thousand years to finally get honest.

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Electric Stories: Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons...

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:26:00 -0400

Electric Stories: Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (1968)

Everyone and everything eventually becomes irrelevant. Somewhere, someone has a drawer filled with S&H Green Stamps. Or skee ball-tickets from an arcade long since closed. A thin strip of paper printed with lucky numbers from a fortune cookie consumed eight years ago. We protect our valuables under lock and key. We must! And even when, one day, it is brought to our attention that our prized possessions have become worthless, well, it’s just impossible to throw anything away. No, not worthless, you’ll tell yourself, just irrelevant. There are worse things to be.

One could argue that in 1969 The Monkees were occupying the space that was previously filled by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Check the fine print and you’ll likely find the same circle of session players on both group’s records (L.A.’s The Wrecking Crew). The Four Seasons’ sound had become irrelevant. (There are worse things to be.) “Electric Stories” is an unsuccessful, albeit charming, attempt to reinvent, to revive, to rescue Frankie Valli. It seems like it should have worked. Kooky!

I’ll keep this one in a drawer with my Smurf-Berry Crunch box tops. You know, just in case.

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To Keep My Love Alive: Blossom Dearie (1960) Have you a mean...

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:09:00 -0400

To Keep My Love Alive: Blossom Dearie (1960)

Have you a mean streak? A dark sense of humor? A love of word play? A tendency towards sweet things that bite? Well then! I’ve got an album for you: Blossom Dearie’s Soubrette Sings Broadway Hit Songs. My vinyl copy – pressed under the alternate title Blossom on Broadway – has been enjoyed so much that the only thing left to do is to eat it.

A soubrette, in case you wanted to know, is a stock character in opera and theatre. She is a comedic character known for her sauciness. She will love you and maybe kill you and then light-heartedly complain about where to dispose of your body. The audience will love her.

Blossom’s small, high-pitched girly voice, an acquired taste for some, is absolutely perfect for these songs. The primary color arrangements (by Russell Garcia) display a predilection for piccolo, xylophone, and clarinet. This combination of instruments brilliantly lend the album a nuttiness paralleled only by Raymond Scott. It’s like listening to a psychotic children’s record.

Favorite lyric (courtesy of Lorenz Hart): “Sir Athelstane indulged in fratricide, / he killed his dad and that was patricide. / One night I stabbed him by my mattress side…” Or wait, is that “matricide”? Hmm.

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Jazz: Double Dee/Steinski (198?) She heaps herself onto the end...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:14:00 -0400

Jazz: Double Dee/Steinski (198?)

She heaps herself onto the end of my bed as if to climb it. “What’s the difference between lying and when you’re making things up?” she asks.
“I know of none,” I say.
“What about stories in books?”
“They don’t count,” I say. “They’re made of writing.” (45)

- Mary Robison, One D.O.A., One on the Way (2009)

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Honesty (live): Billy Joel (1987) Oh my god. I know I’m...

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:15:00 -0400

Honesty (live): Billy Joel (1987)

Oh my god. I know I’m out of control, but I can’t be stopped. It’s music blog suicide! I’m writing about Billy Joel!

Everything I have to say about Billy Joel can be better said by talking about mashed potatoes. You see, I love mashed potatoes. In fact, I love mashed potatoes so much that I even like instant mashed potatoes. No, they’re not quite the same thing as real mashed potatoes, but they still possess the same essence of mashed potatoes, the same je ne sais quoi that brought me to the white, smooth, starchy food in the first place. Now, hold on. I wouldn’t want to permanently replace real mashed potatoes with instant mashed potatoes. But as a tasty and quick alternative, I’ll take a piping hot bowl of reconstituted dehydrated potato flakes any day.

While I love Billy Joel, I recognize that he’s largely an imitation of other, more respected, canonical artists. So what? Everyone is imitating someone. Some of us are just a little more transparent (or better at it) than others.

This particular version of “Honesty” bowls me over. The control he has over his voice is absolutely incredible. There are five or six different versions of Billy Joel singing this song – subtle shadings of his voice dispatched to deliver specific lines to their utmost. Listen to the seamless transition into the last chorus (around 3:08). Fantastic! Even the piano playing, though quite simple, is extremely dynamic, inextricably linked to his voice, to the lyrics. How you gonna diss this man? I know, I know. Billy Joel is not cool. But he’s not cool because it’s not cool to be honest or sincere without some ironic, snarky, tough-guy distance. Are you even listening to the lyrics, man? Forget the posturing. Get in touch with the Billy Joel in you. The maudlin, misunderstood, delicately desperate, syrupy sweet, low down lonely you.

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Could This Be Magic?: Van Halen (1980) Let me come right out and...

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:51:35 -0400

Could This Be Magic?: Van Halen (1980)

Let me come right out and say it. I love Roth-era Van Halen. There! I feel lighter already.

If it seems incongruent with other things I post on this site, let me reassure you. I like all the normal things there are to like about Roth-era Van Halen: Eddie’s mind-blowing guitar solos; Alex’s wash of cymbals; Michael Anthony’s high harmonies; Roth’s charismatic (and wholly original) vocals; the punctuating howls; the general fist-pumping, head-banging, kick-assness of the tunes. But what I really like is the campiness, the occasional old-timey vaudevillian touch which repeatedly occurs throughout the Roth-era canon. That guy was a real ham. (See: Dave TV)

This song exemplifies the side of Van Halen that doesn’t immediately come to mind when we’re talking about one of the most successful hard rock bands of the Seventies. At the end of the day, it’s sea shanty. It’s loose. It’s playful. It’s corny. Just before the guitar solo, hear Dave say, “Edward?” Edward obliges. Dave thanks him. How great!

Added bonus:
This MP3 comes from my well-worn vinyl copy. Inherited from my (still) longhaired dad!

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Coolidge: Descendents (1987) I don’t know how I would have...

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:11:36 -0400

Coolidge: Descendents (1987)

I don’t know how I would have survived adolescence without the Descendents. And it’s funny, because just as I was ashamed to tell my high school classmates that I listened to Buddy Holly, Frankie Vallie, Carole King and all sorts of music that only parents were supposed to like, I think I was ashamed to be listening to the Descendents in my twenties. The past was still too recent. I squirmed at visions of a young, awkward me – band T-shirts, bad skin, and even worse hair.

But screw it. I’m in my thirties now. I’ve recently rediscovered and embraced my love for the Descendents. It might have something to do with my changing perceptions of adulthood. While I find that it’s less about being cool, it’s also not that much different from being a teen. There’s a whole lot of posturing and fear of your bluff being called.

Being an adult can be good. I’m so relieved that my skin has finally cleared up. And I still think it’s the coolest thing in the world that I can eat candy whenever I want. And stay up as late as I want. I don’t worry about getting beat up anymore. But I often feel just as insecure as I ever did. I’m still burdened with anxiety and doubt and depression. I still feel young in the worst sense, like there are so many people older and wiser out there, just waiting to tell me what I’m doing wrong.

Thankfully, music still works. I’m not a cool guy anymore. As if I ever was before. It still feels so good, after that spastic drum intro, to hear those words come rolling out of my headphones. You can only be a victim, Milo Aukerman reassures me, if you admit defeat. And I haven’t.

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Yassassin: David Bowie (1979) I suspect that I’m allergic to...

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:02:00 -0400

Yassassin: David Bowie (1979)

I suspect that I’m allergic to expectorants. Any time that I’ve taken cough syrup, my muscles tense up. But really. Especially when I yawn – they practically freeze. It sounds strange, but it’s an unnerving and wholly unpleasant druggy feeling. I’m also told that, under the influence of cough syrup, I violently thrash around in my sleep. I believe it! I invariably wake up feeling like I’ve been out carousing all night. Needless to say, when I come down with a fit of coughs now, rather than reach for a bottle of Robitussin, I simply cough away.

I mention this because there’s something about this song that reminds me of the way cough syrups makes me feel. That keyboard sounds exactly how my muscles feel – wound up impossibly tight, yet shaky, quivery. And then there’s the choppy rhythm, the woozy strings, Bowie’s spastic delivery, the overall thin, disorienting sound – it’s a direct translation of the over-the-counter malaise I experience induced by two tablespoons of the red stuff.

Unfortunately, unlike the syrup, “Yassassin” fails to suppress my coughs.

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Wrote a Song for Everyone: Creedence Clearwater Revival...

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:24:24 -0400

Wrote a Song for Everyone: Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969)

Steve Martin once said that writing about comedy is like dancing about architecture. Sometimes I feel that way about music. It is, at times, an unfathomable beast that cannot be tamed into words. I try, but all my utterances are rendered absurd. Powerless in the shadow of a melody. It’s like those dreams when you’re trying to run and can’t seem to go anywhere.

I’ve been trying to write about this song for weeks, but the words never came. Even in more loquacious times. So it seems a fitting moment to finally wave the white flag on this one. The best I could say also happens to be the stupidest thing anyone could say about a song: it’s really good and I really like it.

What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

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Another Girl, Another Planet: The Only Ones (1978) I just had...

Sat, 30 May 2009 10:45:41 -0400

Another Girl, Another Planet: The Only Ones (1978)

I just had this dream. Someone was playing music. It was a live album by an artist that I don’t really care for, one of those late 70s post-punk singer-songwriters. But then this really fantastic song came on. I was excited the way one would be excited if a hundred dollar bill was found on the sidewalk. I checked the sleeve to find out the name of the song and resolved to look it up later. (I was really hoping that I could find the studio version since I generally hate live recordings.) And then I woke up.

At first, I was trying hard to remember who the artist was – still convinced that the song existed, all I needed to do was look up the live album by that artist. But the more I thought about it, the less clear it became, until eventually, I could barely remember anything about the song. And now thirty minutes later, it’s completely gone. The song was so clear in my dream that I could actually hear it. Drums bass guitar and vocals. Lyrics even. It had a title. And an album cover. The details that I was given told me this was real! But the only thing that is clear to me now is the disappointing reality that this song does not exist and never will.

It’s classic. The subconscious mind, safe in the dark recesses of night, invents things while we sleep, behind our backs. And then it cruelly sends the conscious mind off in merciless, harsh daylight to find it. This is why we are unhappy, stumbling about the material world looking for things that don’t exist. This is what drives artists mad – dedicating lives to painfully recreating what the mind flippantly reveals in the night. This is why relationships fail. The subconscious hangs a wanted poster in the mind’s foyer – an amalgamation of all the desirable qualities of our parents, friends, and celebrities rolled into one, impossible, fantasy face. The mind means well, but it will never understand the limitations of life outside the skull. This arrangement represents a reverse universe, one where infinite possibilities exist within a fixed, finite, and unforgiving planet.

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