Blogging In Plain Site

Deep Tracks: Sometimes the Lyrics just Can't Capture an Era More...

My Ipod on deep track run came up with this. Seeing the lyrics in type just made me chuckle at what a time machine moment this was in the Groovy Sunshine 70's. Remember the movie with John Travolta, "Boy in the Plastic Bubble?" This song must have been ripped right from that era where teenagers with feathered hair road horses with bare feet and strummed guitars under trees in the filtered sunshine while smoking commuters with loud shirts and big, long cars discarded their pop top bud cans on the freeway making Indians cry all over the tri-state area...

THOSE SUMMER NIGHTS, I DO REMEMBER, IN MY YOUTH
I DO RECALL, THOSE WERE THE BEST TIMES, MOST OF ALL...

IN THE HEAT WITH A 'BITCHIN' GIRL, BURNING LOVE FOR ONCE IN A LIFE TIME
SHE FOUND ME SINGING BY THE RAILROAD TRACKS, TOOK ME HOME, WE DANCED ON THE MOONLIGHT

THOSE SUMMER NIGHTS ARE CALLING, STONE IN LOVE
CANT HELP MYSELF I'M FALLING IN, STONE IN LOVE

I'm sure Steve Perry got laid and all, but...really?? I guess I'm just amazed what a different time that was.

VH, BABY!

First off, everyone at the concert looked like my High School football coach.

Second, I thought I could smell some of the 'Wacky Baccy' during the show, though I'm not sure exactly where it came from.

Eddie and chubby son Wolfgang share a mic and a rehab moment.

A ripped, wood-cut Eddie finger tapping away, looking like an extra from "Fight Club"

The ole' stripes on the Fender Strat

Yes, Jana, Dave was wearing leather pants.

Lasers, dude, lasers...

The consummate showman, Diamond Dave regaled us with tales of growing up in the  So Cal suburbs and using a friend's dad's ice cream truck to keep beers cold for the party that night.

He talked about sitting around party circle in 1972 with joints being passed around both ways. Dave was cool as shit.

Thanks, Kristen, for the amazing shots and for sitting close enough even though Dave's crotch was looming over your head most of the evening. You're a brave woman.

This Week, I Deal With My Troubles, but Tonight, We Rock

Me and 20,000 other 30-40 somethings are going to feel better about how old we've become. But, Diamond Dave is back. To me, that is like the reincarnation of Sean Connery. DD is behind the mic, all is right with the world. For one night, I will sport some mulletude and enjoy some butt-rock.

I'm So Not Into Reba

I finally updated my lame typelist of Music. I was disappointed that Typepad/Amazon did not recognize so many of the artists I'm into. I was even MORE disappointed that when Amazon doesn't recognize the artist or the album they insert the Album Art (and link) to Reba McIntyre's Duets. It took me a while to get over the shock of thinking she did a duet of "Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood." Hmm. That doesn't sound like a song Reba would cover - but who knows??

I can't get rid of it.

It's a special kind of torture to see Reba's face next to "Panda Bear" and "Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah!"

Songs That Kill

I have a thing with music. Well, most people do but I think mine is unique. There is some music that bores me. Ok, there is some music that bores everyone. And I'm not talking bored like listening to the Carpenters, or Henri Mancini's "Lujon," I'm talking bored as in if I ever hear this song again I'm going to take a flame thrower to whatever this place is that I'm in and take at least 50 people with me in a fiery ball or torment and rage. 

Why, you might ask do I have such a strong reaction to some music and what is that music. Excellent two part question.

In College I played in a cover band. Sounds funny but it made sense at the time. Play frat parties, chicks, roadies, beer, money, and not bad money either. It beat doing other college jobs like valet parking, lumber mills or working Pizza or selling adds in fledgling hip-hop magazines - all of which i did. But nothing beat playing gigs. I mean, i got to play rock and roll that other people wrote - for money. Sometimes, even women.

One poignant side effect of this fun hobby/part time job was you had a collection of "old standby songs" that everyone asked for (at the time). And, the band was filled with dorks from the south end, which meant they were holding desperately to their cultural glory years of 1983-4 and all the shite, white boy music that came with it. My pleas for Public Enemy, Violent Femmes, Smiths, Jesus Jones, Run DMC, Living Color, were met with Johnny Cougar, Billy Idol, Bryan Adams, INXS. And the hicks we played to liked those bands so we developed The Standby list. We all know these songs. They're played at weddings, sporting events, but to me, they are a special kind of poison.

Imagine a song you really hate. Imagine practicing it over and over to get it perfect. Now Imagine having to perform it in public. Then imagine having to "sell it" such that people want to dance to it. Then imagine people digging on you selling this piece of shit music holding the bile in your stomach just below your esophagus. Then imagine doing this EVERY WEEKEND for four years.

 

When I hear these songs, I go mental. I know them inside and out. Hell, I can play them backwards and forwards. But they make my skin and eyes and ears burn. Some people hear these songs and want to dance. I want to (quoting Johnny Rotten) GET-PISSED-DES-TROOOOOYYYYYYY....

Mony Mony
What I like About You
Rebel Yell
Dancing With Myself
Twist and Shout
Careless Whisper
Walk This Way
Don't Dream Its Over
Something About You
Don't Be Cruel
La Bamba
Summer of 69
R-O-C-K in the USA
New Sensation
Devil Inside
Need You Tonight
She Drives Me Crazy

Feel free to add others...

 

I Like The Shins...

Because they use words like "conundrum" in their songs. I don't think the Beastie Boys ever used that word. Nor the Ramones. Nor Metallica. Nor Korn. Because I sing the song and don't know what that word means, I feel compelled to look it up and maybe even use it in a sentence going forward, but I'm torn...I can't make myself look it up because I would face what a truly illiterate person I am. Yet ,I need to know in order for the song to make sense. Hmmm. Not sure what to do...

Rediscovering Unappologetically Aggressive Cloned Funk

Funk upon a time
In the days of the Funkapus
The concept of specially-designed Afronauts
Capable of funkatizing galaxies
Was first laid on man-child
But was later repossessed
And placed among the secrets of the pyramids
Until a more positive attitude
Towards this most sacred phenomenon,
Clone Funk,
Could be acquired
There in these terrestrial projects
It would wait, along with its coinhabitants of kings and pharoahs
Like sleeping beauties with a kiss
That would release them to multiply
In the image of the chosen one:
Dr Funkenstein.
And funk is its own reward.
May I frighten you?

Parliament - 1976

Just The Same Way

I went back into my 70's folder on the drive in and was listening tosome old Journey (trust me, it had been a while). Say what you will about Journey (Butthead watching Separate Ways Video: "Hey Beavis, these guys should go to the Doctor and say I sure do suck") but Neil Schon just RIPS on guitar solos. He's such a sweet player with the best sense of melody I've ever heard. Plus he can play guitar and chew gum at the same time. I can't do that.

Down Tempo Syndrome

OK, something is happening to me. I'm nearing 40 and my music tastes (maybe it's just a phase) are transitioning to down tempo electronica. This took root in my late 80's interest in electronica and my e-induced early (OK, and late) 90's fascination with electronica's second wave. Since I discovered Chill on Sirius and started staying at the W exclusively again, the third wave is taking hold now and it's taken a shift, maybe more age appropriate. I've turned into down tempo electronica 40 something hipster dufus dude. And my IPOD shows it.

Let me be clear:This is not adult contemporary. This is not classic rock. This is not new age. It's electronica. Goldfrapp, Air, Royksopp, Board of Canada, Lemon Jelly, Lebanese Blonde, Zero 7, Lady Tron, The Sea and Cake, Swayzak as well as some rekindling of remix driven oldies but goodies, Depeche, William Orbit, Cold Play, even Nancy Sinatra. As my life has gotten zanier, this music is more immersing, atmospheric shelter than cathartic release.

I think Jen's influencing me too. She would have me make dinner party mixes of songs that were more down tempo like that didn't contain, as she put it, "British Yelling." So, i went to what I called the "Vagina Play lists." To mix it up, I started infusing mellower versions of the songs I liked and came up with play lists like "Euro-Vagina," "Christmas Vagina," etc. All of the sudden, this must have worn me down or warmed up to me.

Goodbye Libertines, hello Lemon Jelly.