The Westboro Baptist Church brought their virulent mixture of hatred, stupidity and religion to the Foo Fighters show in Kansas City Friday. Why? Who the hell knows. But the Foo Fighters fought the foo, counter-protesting the protestors by showing up on a flatbed truck to do "Keep It Clean (Hot Buns)."
"God Bless America! It takes all kinds; I don't care if you're black or white or purple or green, whether you're Pennsylvanian or Transylvanian, Lady gaga or Lady Antebellum. Men loving women and women loving men and men loving men and women loving women -- you all know we like to watch that. But what I'd like to say is, God Bless America, y'all!"
I was very saddened today to hear of the death of Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron, 62, died at a Manhattan hospital Friday. The cause of death wasn't disclosed, but he had a long, painful history of substance abuse.
If you read through some of the obituaries you'll see Scott-Heron credited as a progenitor of rap music. That's true in a way -- a lot of his work was just spoken-word pieces (mostly his poems) set to music, but the music was much jazzier than anything you might consider rap today.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox in 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, brother.
Scott-Heron, who had a masters in creative writing from John Hopkins University, wrote a couple of novels and a couple of books of poetry, and recorded fifteen studio albums and nine live albums. Other noteworthy songs include "We Almost Lost Detroit," "The Bottle," "Home Is Where the Hatred Is," and cover versions of Bill Withers's "Grandma's Hands" and Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues." My favorite was "B Movie," a scathing protest against Ronald Ray-Gun and us for electing him -- "We're all actors in this, I suppose."
Come with us back to those inglorious days, when heroes weren't zeros, before fair was square, when the cavalry came straight away and all-American men were like Hemingway, to the days of the wondrous "B" movie.
Check out singer/songwriter Wesley Ellis. He's working on his first album, "Broke Is the New Black" and is currently competing in the 2nd Toyota Music MySpace contest. If you like this too, go there and help spread the word.
A couple of weeks ago I did a Weekend Assignment post about poetry. The gist of the post was that I didn't care much about poetry unless it was set to music as lyrics. I also made the debatable point that maybe our best poets aren't really poets at all, but are songwriters.
Which brings me to the subject of my favorite new band of the moment (well, new to me anyway), The National. I like their sound, and whoever writes their lyrics -- I suspect lead vocalist Matt Berninger -- has a poet's sensibilities. Instead of just coming out and saying what he means, everything is symbolism and metaphor and hidden meaning -- so much so that I'm really confused about what it all means.
Case in point, "Bloodbuzz Ohio." When he says, "I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees," he surely doesn't mean that literally. It seems like it's related to the old adage that you can't go home again -- "...but Ohio don't remember me." Is he talking about a trip back home or is he just reflecting on the idea of Ohio? And there's all that other stuff -- "stand up straight at the foot of your love," "lay my head on the hood of your car," "I still owe money to the money to the money I owe," etc. -- most of the song actually -- that doesn't seem to have much to do with anything else. It all sounds pretty good though...
LYRICS:
Stand up straight at the foot of your love
I lift my shirt up
Stand up straight at the foot of your love
I lift my shirt up
I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
I never married, but Ohio don't remember me
Lay my head on the hood of your car
I take it too far
Lay my head on the hood of your car
I take it too far
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
The floors are falling out from everybody I know
I'm on a blood buzz
Yes, I am
I'm on a blood...buzz
I'm on a blood buzz
God, I am
I'm on a blood...buzz
I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
I never married, but Ohio don't remember me
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
The floors are falling out from everybody I know
I'm on a blood buzz
Yes, I am
I'm on a blood...buzz
I'm on a blood buzz
God, I am
I'm on a blood buzz.
So what's it all about? Any ideas?
If you're stumped on that one, try your hand at figuring out "Brainy." This is an obsessive love song -- very similar thematically to the Police's "I'll Be Watching You" or Sarah McLachlan's "Possession" -- or is it? I'm especially intrigued by the amazingly enigmatic couplet, "Everywhere you go is swirling, everything you say has water under it." The song is on YouTube, the lyrics are on SongMeanings.com.
As April wraps up, let's not let it get away without celebrating National Poetry Month. For this assignment, please share with us something about poetry. Tell us about your favorite poet, or quote us a few lines of your favorite poem, or if poetry doesn't happen to be something you enjoy, tell us why!
April (and the weekend) wrapped up before I could get to the assignment, but I'll give it a shot anyway.
When I first saw the assignment, I was all set to start a diatribe about how much I really don't like poetry. I studied it enough in my younger days that I understand the concept, but as Heinlein would say, I don't grok it. I don't get it on some basic level of understanding. If you want to tell me about something important, give me a few solidly written paragraphs of prose and I'll understand it better.
But after thinking about it some more, I realized that I do like poetry. Just make it rhyme (even if just a little), put it to music and sing it, and I'll get it.
When I was a young tyke, my mother went back to school. One of her textbooks treated some of the pop and rock lyrics of the day -- Simon and Garfunkel, the Byrds, Bob Dylan songs -- as poetry. As I leafed through the book and picked out songs I knew, it gave me a deeper appreciation of them -- that they were important enough to be considered "poetry." Even now, I sometimes have the crazy notion that some of our greatest poets are not exactly poets after all -- they're songwriters.
Continuing on that idea, I'll tell you about a favorite poem, the Baby Boomer generation's "Beowulf "(or maybe it's their "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"). In the late '70s, the rock band Jethro Tull released the album Aqualung. Ian Anderson, the leader of the band, was dismayed that rock critics were calling it a concept album, and said, "If the critics want a concept album we'll give the mother of all concept albums and we'll make it so bombastic and so over the top."
The next album really was over the top -- a parody of the progressive rock album from groups like Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, one long, continuous, seamless 44-minute song that stretched over both sides of an LP. In addition to their standard guitar, drums, piano, Hammond organ and flute (yes, flute), they added the harpsichord, xylophone, lute, trumpet and string section. The concept was that the lyrics were a poem written by a fictitious eight-year-old English schoolboy named Gerald Bostock.
The album cover was another parody, a spoof of an English community newspaper. The main story was about young Gerald being disqualified from a literary competition "following the hundreds of protests and threats received after the reading of his epic poem 'Thick as a Brick' on B.B.C. Television last Monday night."
The entire epic poem, "Thick as a Brick," actually written entirely by Ian Anderson, is after the jump if you're interested. You can hear the song by Googling "Thick as a Brick."
I'm of the opinion that decades and centuries and the like should start with the Year One -- that is, the 20th century should have started on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, and the 00's should have started on January 1, 2001 and shouldn't end until December 31, 2010 -- but I'd like to get this decade from hell over with as soon as possible so I'm bowing to popular convention. And since a lot of sites are doing some sort of end-of-the-decade roundup, I thought I'd roundup some of my favorite songs from the 00's.
I originally planned a more complete year-by-year roundup, but it all seemed a little much. This is a more concise collection. This is not a history of the decade in music or a list of the biggest sellers or the most critically acclaimed music; it's just a collection of songs that made me say, "Wow!"
A Perfect Circle - "3 Libras"
The frontman for Tool started A Perfect Circle with a guitarist buddy. It took Tool a while to grow on me, but the side project was a little more accessible. I am a Libra so this worked out nicely.
Reprise Records rejected Wilco's fourth album and severed ties with the bands. As part of the buyout deal, the label let the band keep the rights to the album. Wilco eventually sold Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to Nonesuch Records. The punchline? Reprise and Nonesuch are both subsidiaries of the same company, Warner Music Group.
Nickel Creek - "When In Rome"
I don't care too much for country music, but I love bluegrass...and whatever it is, a bluegrass/rock jazzed-up fusion, that Nickel Creek does.
Radiohead - "The National Anthem"
Radiohead really started to test the limits of the envelope in the early 00's. This video was the first runner-up in MTV Latin America's "Make Your Radiohead Video" contest.
Sarah McLachlan - "World On Fire"
Instead of spending the money to produce a lavish video, they shot a stripped-down video with just the singer in a chair with a guitar and spent the money in other ways.
John Mayer - "Neon"
When Mayer released his first album Room for Squares in 2001, rock critic Erik Crawford asked, "Is he the consummate guitar hero exemplified when he plays a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'Lenny', or is he the teen idol that the pubescent girls shriek for after he plays 'Your Body Is a Wonderland?'" I don't know, but he does pretty well in this live acoustic album track.
KT Tunstall - "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree"
I didn't think too much of this song until I saw the performance that generated all the attention, the performance on Later...with Jools Holland where she did the whole song by herself.
U2 and Green Day - "The Saints Are Coming"
U2 and Green Day performed this song on Monday Night Football before the Falcons-Saints game on September 25, 2006, the first game played in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina.
At Outpost Mavarin, Karen wants to know about our handyman skills...
Weekend Assignment: #297: There are times when we hire professionals to build or fix things for us, and other times when we attempt the job ourselves. Some people pride themselves on their DIY skills or electronics geekery, while others leave it to the experts as much as possible. How about you? Is your first instinct to call for help, or do it yourself?
Like last weekend's assignment, you can put me down for somewhere in between. As Clint Eastwood once said, "A man's got to know his limitations," and I'm pretty good at knowing mine. If it's a simple project like changing the oil in the car or something similar, I'll tackle it myself. The last such job was replacing some of the drain pipes under the kitchen sink. If it's a little more complicated I'll try to find someone who knows what they're doing to come over and help me, i.e., make sure I don't screw it up worse than it was before I started. If it's still under warranty or absolutely necessary, I'll send it in for repairs or call someone to come out. It all depends on how complicated it's going to be. I'm not real handy, but I do have some skills.
With cars, I can usually figure out what's wrong with it by what it's doing, or at least narrow it down to a couple of possibilities. I may or may not know how to fix it, but I can tell you what's wrong with it. Around the house, I can saw a board or hammer a nail or connect some PVC pipes, but forget about any kind of major renovations. Computers are a special category. I've often stated that I know just enough about them to turn a minor problem into something major.
Of course, the whole topic reminds me of that song by Peter Gabriel...
Twitter has a very active thread (or topic) called MusicMonday. The idea is to mention what you're listening to and maybe even link to it. I linked to a YouTube video -- "1901" by Phoenix. Even if you're not familiar with the song, you've heard parts of it. Part of the intro and part of the chorus is featured in a Cadillac commercial that seems to play fairly constantly on TV.
Anyway, I linked to the video and it played fine for about a day, then suddenly started going to a page that says that the video is not available in my country. I'm fairly used to YouTube making videos unavailable, though usually for copyright violations. I don't understand it, but I'm used to it. If I link to a video of a song and someone happens by and plays it and likes it, what's the downside for the record company? That they might accidentally sell an album or a single that they wouldn't otherwise?
Until they make this one unavailable, this is another version of the song, a live version from June when Phoenix appeared on the David Letterman show. See if you recognize the song from the commercial...
Taco Bell has been blitzing the airwaves with a new commercial, and the music was driving me nuts. It's the one with the chorus that keeps repeating "One more time" over and over. I knew the song from somewhere in the dim recesses of my youth, and narrowed it down to one of those late '70s or early '80s New Wave ditties. I just couldn't figure out who in the hell did the song. I finally had to break down and Google it. If you'd given me a thousand guesses I never would have gotten Joe Jackson...
The best cover versions are those where the artist doesn't try to recreate the original song note for note, but reinterprets it to fit their own style. Like this version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" by the Muppets...
I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I've been something of a Luddite, shunning some of the more popular sites around the web, content to just do my thing here at the old Blogspot, but my wife basically forced me onto and into Facebook. A few days later -- actually in the wee hours of this morning -- I finally broke down and, on the advice of several friends, signed up for a Twitter account.
One of the first people I found on Facebook was my best friend in high school. That got me thinking about the days when "when in doubt, I whip it out" seemed like a viable personal philosophy. Led Zeppelin was a favorite back then and this song still kicks a generation later...
In the 1980s, Echo and the Bunnymen were pretty big deals in their native England, but were never able to achieve much more than a cult following here. Their dark, moody sound threw me off when I first heard them, but I learned to love them. This song is one of their best. In this performance, recorded at Royal Albert Hall in 1983, the basic quartet is joined by a host of other musicians in order to achieve the sound of the studio version. I love the way the intro draws you in...
An incredible case of serendipity: I had no idea when I first posted this in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, but Echo and the Bunnymen have reunited for a new album, The Fountain. If you click the link above, you'll go to the band's home page and hear their new single, "Think I Need It Too." They'll be appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC) on October 23 in the middle of a small American tour.
I like the video, but I wonder how they managed to make it without someone in the band drowning. I also wonder why they cut the third (and best) verse of the song.
Jim Carroll, poet, punk rocker, and author of The Basketball Diaries, passed away Friday. He died of a heart attack at the age of 60. I first became aware of him back during my college radio days when The Jim Carroll Band released "Catholic Boy." This song from the album seems like a fitting tribute...
R.E.M.'s "Imitation of Life" is one of their great pop songs but, like most of their stream-of-consciousness ditty's, it's hard to figure out just what they're driving at sometimes. I'm not a big fan of videos, but this is one of my all-time favorites. It's about twenty seconds of the same scene played forward, then backward, then forward again with a lot of panning and zooming on selected parts.
This could possibly be one of the greatest cover versions of all time. The alternative country band The Gourds cover Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice." (Rated PG-13)
I let a guy at work listen to my mp3 player tonight. "Eclectic" was the review I got a couple of hours later. I think that's Latin for 'I don't know what the hell to make of that.' I wonder if he heard this one...
The Chieftains, the Irish folk band, traveled to Nashville and recorded Down the Old Plank Road. The point was to show how Irish music transformed into bluegrass and country music in the hills of Appalachia. "Country Blues" was originally recorded by Doc Watson. Here, the Chieftains play, and Buddy and Julie Miller sing.
Update: I just realized that the whole song won't play unless you're logged onto Imeem.com. If you're not a member and don't want to sign up, here's a BugMeNot logon:
Apocalyptica has been around for quite a while, but I've only recently learned about them. They're a group from Finland, classically trained cellists who play covers of Metallica and other heavy metal songs as well as some original material. It's not something I could listen to a lot, but it makes a nice change of pace. Here's their version of a Metallica classic...
Just as a point of reference, here's Metallica's original version...
There was a time when I thought "The Unforgettable Fire," the title track from their third album, was one of the greatest songs ever written. Now, 24 or 25 years later, I still think it's pretty damned good...
It seems like every year around this time my sinuses go haywire, making me susceptible to every little bug that comes along. I've been under the weather for the last week and a half or so, making for light posting here at the old Blogspot. I'm feeling better now.
To get back into a blogging frame of mind, here's a musical interlude from Godsmack...
Back in the day, I saw Jethro Tull in Atlanta a couple of times. This is one of my all-time favorites. I'm not sure what it's all about, but it's pretty badass...
The next album really was over the top -- a parody of the progressive rock album from groups like Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, one long, continuous, seamless 44-minute song that stretched over both sides of an LP. In addition to their standard guitar, drums, piano, Hammond organ and flute (yes, flute), they added the harpsichord, xylophone, lute, trumpet and string section. The concept was that the lyrics were a poem written by a fictitious eight-year-old English schoolboy named Gerald Bostock.
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