The south's gonna do it again.

Yesterday in The Arizona Republic, Ed Masley published a list article called "Six Pillars of Southern Rock," which purported to pick out the most significant Southern Rock albums without ever stating so explicitly. Here's his list

1. The Allman Brothers Band, The Allman Brothers Band (1969)
2. Lynyrd Skynyrd, (pronounced 'leh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd) (1973)
3. The Allman Brothers, At the Fillmore East (1971)
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Street Survivors (1977)
5. The Drive-By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera (2001)
6. The Black Crowes, Shake Your Money Maker (1990)

In fact Masley's weasel words descriptive qualifier for his list is "six essential albums that are probably more Southern Rock than ZZ Top." Putting aside the obvious comment on the timorous adverb. This is clearly a definition that defines nothing. From the list we can in fer that Masley is looking for some kind of traditionalist notion of Southern Rock as a guitar driven entity, coming out of the wedding of blues and country traditions, which focuses on some notionally Southern version of manhood. Thus we get such a conservative list that misses at least two bands best album and has the throwaway sixth entry, which really doesn't belong despite all Masley's protestations otherwise!



There are many ways to redo and improve this list. I will simply offer two: a better traditionalist list followed by a better list which has a much broader definition of Southern Rock. Also I fail to see why there are six pillars? Sikhism has three, the Dominican order has four, Islam has five. But wisdom (Proverbs 9:1) has seven! and surely what said list is offering is wisdom.

Seven Pillars of [Traditional] Southern Rock
1. The Allman Brothers Band, The Allman Brothers Band (1969)
2. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Second Helping (1974)
3. The Allman Brothers, At the Fillmore East (1971)
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd, One More For From the Road (1976)
5. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Street Survivors (1977)
6. The Drive-By Truckers, The Dirty South (2004)
7. Molly Hatchett, Flirtin' With Disaster (1979)

Honorable Mention:
The Outlaws, Outlaws (1975)
.38 Special Wild-Eyed Southern Boys (1981)
Derek & The Dominoes,Layla and Assorted Other Love Songs (1970)
Little Feat, Dixie Chicken (1973)
The Band, The Band (1969)
Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bayou Country (1969)

This list is temporally bound as Southern Rock's great era came to a close with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, with only the Drive-By Truckers as a unique outlier. The Allmans were the originators but Skynyrd was clearly THE BAND, thus they merit 3 slots. Their second album is better than the first, plus everyone knows the version of "Free Bird" you wanna hear is on the live double LP with Cameron Crowe's famous liner notes. Molly Hatchett stands in for all the other lesser Southern bands, some of them listed in the honorable mention section. This section is provided not as a cheat on the 7, but rather to give readers a wider range of listening/investigating options. It also points to some precursors.

Seven Pillars of [Non-Traditional] Southern Rock
1. The Allman Brothers Band, The Allman Brothers Band (1969)
2. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Second Helping (1974)
3. Big Star, Radio City (1974)
4. Pylon, Gyrate (1980)
5. Archers of Loaf, Icky Mettle (1993)
6. OutKast, Stankonia (2000)
7. The Drive-By Truckers, The Dirty South (2004)

Honorable Mention:
Dusty Springfield, Dusty In Memphis (1969)
The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers (1971)
The B-52s, Wild Planet (1980)
REM, Murmur (1983) or Reconstruction of the Fables (1985)
Superchunk, Tossing Seeds: Singles 89-91 (1992)
The dBs, Stands for deciBels/Repercussion (2001)

The list veers away from strictly guitar driven rock venturing into rap and the new wave. I chose the B-52s second album because the red one is more "Southern" than the yellow one. I also, against the critical grain, like it better. Both Fame in Muscle Shoals and Stax in Memphis needed to be noticed in this list, thus the Dusty and Rolling Stones' honorable mentions.

Dixie Chicken.

The most recent issue of the Oxford American is an extravaganza for lovers of Southern writing. They list not only the Best Southern Novels of All Time but also the Best Southern Nonfiction.

Here's the Novels Top 10

1. Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1938)
2. Robert Penn Warren, All The King's Men (1946)
3. William Faulkner, The Sound and The Fury (1929)
4. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
5. Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird (1950)
6. Walker Percy, The Moviegoer (1961)
7. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930)
8. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
9. Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood (1952)
10. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

As I've commented elsewhere, this list is surprisingly conservative in providing a narrowly focused view of one particular version of The South. Sure;y there has been a great novel or two in the last 30 years or even longer since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964! Later this week the online OA will publish the longer list from 11-50 and that's probably where the more interesting action will be. For now my thoughts. 3 Faulkner's is too much, but he's important enough I don't mind seeing him twice. I'd lose The Sound and the Fury Myself. Penn Warren's mess of about four different novels shoved together is really overrated at 2 here. I'm not convinced Invisible Man really belongs on a list of great Southern novels although I do realize it has the "Tuskegee" section. Personally I'd replace it with another forgotten Harlem Renaissance classic, Jean Toomer's Cane (1923). I'd put something modern in the place of the third Faulkner and perhaps something urban. Maybe a Florida noir by John D. MacDonald—say The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)—or something Appalachian like Ron Rash, Serena (2008) or Sharyn McCrumb, She Walks These Hills (1994). For a quirkier old school selection I'd go with George Washington Cable, The Grandissimes (1880).


Here's the Nonfiction Top 5

1. Agee & Evans, Let US Now Praise Famous Men(1941)
2. Richard Wright, Black Boy(1945)
3. W.J. Cash, The Mind of The South (1941)
4. Eudora Welty, One Writer's Beginnings (1984)
5. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-1974)

Sure this list avoids the former's time-boundedness, but it is still pretty conservative and presents a kind if old fashioned monolithic view of the South. Agee & Evans at number one is a well-earned given as was Absalom, Absalom! I'm glad to see W.J.Cash gte his due rather than being trashed as some kind of racist by ex post facto. holier than thou academics. I'd jettison both 4 and 5 from my top 5. I was at the Harvard lectures which became One Writer's Beginnings. Professor Costello is right that this book represents an idealized and nicer little old lady version of Welty. It was also Harvard University Press's first NY Times bestseller but I'm not sure it rises to the level of greatness. Similarly I think Foote owes his prestige more to his appearance on Ken Burns' miniseries than he does for the impact of his extended history. What do I put in their place? My Mississippi book would be Willie Morris, The Courting of Marcus Dupree (1983), discussed more here. Food being so important to the South, I'd think long and hard about a food book and perhaps go with a book about food rather than one of numerous cookbooks, so John T.Edge, Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South (2000).

A few other serious contenders would include something by C. Vann Woodward from the list The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955), The Burden of Southern History (1968), Origins of The New South (1951), or Mary Chestnut's Civil War (1982) any of which could be seen as a corrective to Cash. For reportage and because it became even more relevant after Katrina, John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (1998). Barry's book really helped me understand the area I had moved to when took my job at Mississippi State. Penn Warren shows up either in I'll Take My Stand: The South and The Agrarian Tradition (1930) or with Cleanth Brooks, Understanding Poetry (1938). Finally one personal quirky favorite would be Gloria Jahoda, The Other Florida (1967). The essay, "Two Hundred Miles from Anywhere Else," remains the best explanation of why my hometown Tallahassee, FL is unlike any other "city in Florida, or in the South" (128).



Little Feat at the Rainbow Theatre London 1977

UPDATE [Saturday, September 5 9:37 AM]

The full Oxford American Lists were released yesterday for Underrated, Novels and Nonfiction. As I expected this is where the real interest in this categorizing/listing project lay. I was pleased to see many of my alternate suggestions there and some just outside the Top 5 or 10. For example if you collate the split votes for C. Vann Woodward across the 4 works I mentioned he gets to 22 and is 6th on that list. I was also leaed that one novel and one nonfiction pick of mine were unique (MacDonald and Edge).

You're the top! (part 2)

Best of 2009 mid year report

Singles
The Jarheads, "In the Ground"
The Leftovers, "Telephone Operator"
Booker T., "Hey Ya"
Japandroids, "Heart Sweets"
Telekinesis, "Coast of Carolina"
The Thermals, "Liquid In, Liquid Out"
Sonic Youth, "Leaky Lifeboat" (For Gregory Corso)

Albums
Japandroids, Post-Nothing
Booker T., Potato Hole
Wussy, S/T
The Thermals, Now We Can See
Telekinesis, Telekinesis!
Neil Young, Fork in the Road
Venice is Sinking, Azar
Poacher S/T(?)

Still working on jazz and blues side of things

Reads

Fiction
Ron Rash, Serena
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger

Non-Fiction
Elijah Wald, How The Beatles Destroyed Rock "n" Roll; An Alternative History of American Popular Music
David Stubbs, Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen
Dean Wareham, Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance

Feel free to alert me to things you think I missed in the comments section. I'm always on the lookout for good new reads and listens!

Back stabbers and g.e.'s top 10 singles

As May draws to its inexorable close, we'll end the photographic 45s essays on a high note.





B-side The Seeds, "Pushin' Too Hard"









Like all good lists, the one below is a of a particular moment in its "synchronicity." It is not a list of the 10 best singles ever made (well except for entries 1-3 but then that was obvious!) but rather of my 10 favorite singles to listen to. I've added 3 honorable mentions for a nice round baker's dozen. The last singles removed from earlier versions of this list: The Box Tops, "The Letter" & The Grass Roots, "Temptation Eyes." I decided some of the latter's credit was blowback from the Blake Babies's fantastic cover and that wasn't right. As to the former, Alex Chilton doesn't need my approval to maintain his cool! Without further adieu . . .

My Top 10 Singles (anything but Long Players)

1 Freda Payne, "Band of Gold"
2 The Clash, "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais"
3 Otis Redding, "That's How Strong My Love Is"
4 Funkadelic, "One Nation Under a Groove"
5 The O'Jays, "Back Stabbers"
6 My Bloody Valentine, "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
7 New Order, "Blue Monday" the original "floppy" 12" (FAC 10)
8 The Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch EP (New Hormones 1/Mute 9122) esp. "Boredom"
9 Screaming Trees, "Flashes" Change Has Come EP (SP 48)
10 The Three Degrees, "When Will I See You Again?"

Honorable Mention

The Beach Boys, "In My Room"
The Beatles, "She Loves You"
Marvin Gaye, "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)"

I'd love to see your list in my comments sections; there's always good old songs to remember and new ones to discover!

Reelin' in the years.

Haven't done one of the music playlists in a while. Here's one of the last ones I composed in an attempt to give a friend some of the best music of 2007. Note: M.I.A. was much more of a rarity before Slumdog Millionaire outside certain hipster music circles. I mean Kala wasn't getting tons of commercial radio airplay two years ago. As with such lists, no real rules: I sometimes do more than 1 track for an artist; bootlegs and reissues are allowed, even encouraged.

Drive-By Truckers "Dress Blues" (Live)
one of the last things Isbell did before he left the bandNeil Young "Bad Fog of Loneliness" Live at Masset Hall 1971
Radiohead "Wierd Fishes/Arpeggi" In Rainbows
Radiohead "All I Need" In Rainbows
Von Südenfed "The Rhinohead" Tromatic Reflexxions
Mark E. Smith side project with Mouse on MarsPylon "Cool" Gyrate Plus
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss "Through the Morning, Through the Night" Raising Sand
Phantom Blues Band "Yield Not To Temptation" Out of the Shadows
The White Stripes "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)" Icky Thump
Wu-Tang Clan "The Heart Gently Weeps (feat. Erykah Badu, Dhani Harrison & John Frusciante)" 8 Diagrams
LCD Soundsystem "All My Friends" All My Friends
Young Marble Giants "Credit in the Straight World" Colossal Youth
Young Marble Giants "Brand - New - Life" Colossal Youth
Mark Ronson "Stop Me (featuring Daniel Merriweather)" Version
Or, When Morrissey met Diana at the corner phone box; even WMSV played this one a couple of timesPanda Bear "I'm Not" Person Pitch
M.I.A. "$20" Kala
M.I.A. "Paper Planes" Kala
Young Agent Jones "She Just Happens Sometimes" We Know Who You Are.

Boom chicka boom.

Our title is a 1990 Mercury album by Johnny Cash or a description of the sound his band, The Tennessee Three made. Take your pick.

My interview with Marshall Grant from last year's debut Pardon Johnny Cash Festival is finally up at Perfect Sound Forever.

They printed an abbreviated version of My Best of 2007 list.

Here's some categories that got left off:

Best Songs
Ex-Supermodel, "Death or Glory" (Clash cover)
Jasion Isbell, "Dress Blues"
The Persians, "Chuck of 8 Chins"
Radiohead, "Wierd Fishes/Arpeggi"
Von Südenfed, "The Rhinohead"
The White Stripes, "Bone Broke"
The Wu-Tang Clan, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
Neil Young, "Bad Fog of Loneliness"
Young Agent Jones, "She Just Happens Sometimes"


Best Reanimated

Pylon, Gyrate Plus
Sly & The Family Stone, Life + Stand!
Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, & James Cotton, Breakin' It UP, Breakin' It DOWN
Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall 1971
Young Marble Giants, Colossal Youth 3 cd set
Any/All of the Monterey Jazz Festival Records on Concord

I'm working on an appreciation of the London Musician's Collective and an interview with the living relatives of Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Hey ho let's go

Inspired by Spinner's list of the 25 Best Opening Lyrics, I noticed they overlooked an obvious candidate, The Smiths!

Here's a modest sampler:

"OH HELLO/ I am the ghost of Troubled Joe"

"Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking"

"A dreaded sunny day/ So I meet you at the cemetery gates"

"I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour"

"From the ice-age to the dole-age"

"Belligerent ghouls/ run Manchester schools"

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the sacred wunderkind"

"All men have secrets and here is mine"

"The rain falls hard on a humdrum town"

How many of those songs can you name?

Greatest of all time (futbol division).

Following on an earlier NBA debate, I offer up my picks in two categories for the greatest footballers of all time. It's easy to pick goalscorers, but keepers and defenders can be great too. Each list is alphabetical

First is the classic division of players who were at the peak before 1960.

Classics
Jose Leandro Andrade
Didi
Alfredo di Stefano
Stanley Matthews
Ferenc Puskas

The best post–1960 players now and a larger list because I saw them play

Moderns
Franz Beckenbauer
Yev Lashin
Maradona
Pele
Zinedine Zidane

Honorable Mention
George Best
Johnan Cruyff
Kenny Dalglish
Ruud Gullit
Paolo Maldini
Gordon Banks/Pat Jennings/Peter Schmeichel/Dino Zoff (you choose your favorite)

My picks for GOAT footballer finalists come down to three (you have to win a world cup to even compete). The usual suspects, Pele and Maradona, and Der Kaiser, Beckenbauer.

For Americans unclear on the concept. In baseball terms,

Pele=Ruth
Maradona=Mays
Beckenbauer=DiMaggio
To get this last bit, watch the famous adidas+10 at 21 seconds in when CGI Der Kaiser strolls onto the "pitch" majestically and without breaking a sweat.

In the NBA terms of the original debate,

Pele=Kareem
Maradona=Jordan, but
Beckenbauer=Magic, and thus

My contrarian pick for GOAT footballer is Beckenbauer.
Three reasons: won a world cup as captain, coached a world cup winning side, and was leader of what was arguably the greatest modern European club side, Bayern Munich of 1974–6, and thus probably the greatest club side of the modern era.

Let the debates begin . . .

The greatest of all time.

So he's been retired for good this time long enough that we can do some revisionism re: MJ. And no, he's not the greatest NBA player of all time merely the second best with the "initals" MJ. The best . . . when Jordan is a stone cold passing freak machine who can strap it on and play center as a rookie in a deciding game of an NBA championship then he will be GOAT. Ain't happening and, as much it pains my Celtic heart to say this, Michael meet Magic. Oh yeah, Jordan is also only the second best clutch shooter of all time. Better was Bird! Trust me.


The most underrated NBA great of all time. Easy . . . The man with the one truly unstoppable shot, Kareem. Just look at the rings and the stats, kids. Much as I love Bird, if I need one shot to win it all: SkyHook, Babee! Apparently Bird agrees.

The measure of Alcindor/Jabbar's greatness; they banned dunks while he was in college to contain him. Final 3 year record 88-2, 3 straight Final Four MVPs, 3-0 in championship games. Guess what guys? All you did was create the SkyHook, the greatest offensive weapon basketball has ever seen or will ever see! Here's what ESPN classic says about his first game ever at UCLA as a non-eligible frosh:

Alcindor played for the best college team in the country in 1965-66, but unfortunately for him and his teammates, freshmen were ineligible to compete for the varsity then. In their first game, the first game ever at Pauley Pavilion, the UCLA freshmen whipped the varsity, two-time defending champions and preseason No. 1, 75-60. Alcindor scored 31 points, grabbed 21 rebounds and blocked seven shots. The Brubabes went 21-0 and Alcindor averaged 33 points and 21 rebounds.

(http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/abdul-jabbar_kareem.html)

For an encore his first varsity game he breaks UCLA's scoring record with 56 and later that season he went for 61, as UCLA went 30-0 and won the first of seven consecutive for the Wizard of Westwood. Sorry Bill, putting 88 straight aside, 3 championships is better than 2 and 88-2 is better than 86-4 even if you were the greatest for one night against Memphis State:

On that magical night in St. Louis, Walton became a basketball icon. In the championship game of the NCAA tournament against Memphis State, the big redhead from San Diego, CA, canned 21 of 22 shots, scored 44 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and led UCLA to the NCAA title.

(http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/Walton.htm)

Somebody hurry up and give Kareem a coaching job; he's earned it!

This love for ex-Lakers is killing me. Guess I'll have to pull my "I hate LA" T-shirt out of mothballs!

Talkin' baseball (willie, mickey & "the duke").

Another debate topic. This time sports-related and started by yours truly based on SI.com's all time Red Sox lineup photo essay today.


All-Time Red Sox Lineup





6 of 10
Ted Williams
Left Field
The last man to bat .400 gets the nod over what may be the best crop of left fielders any franchise can boast: Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice and Manny Ramirez.
Photo: Hy Peskin/SI









Can you name any other franchise with a similarly lengthy run of quality at a single position (no Pitching staffs) and no DHs (we want the senior circuit to be able to participate!). Basically what's missing for Boston from 1939-present is the 1990s, including such stalwarts as Troy O'Leary, Wil Cordero and Bill Zupcic, anyone? anyone? If you drop Ramirez, you have an uninterrupted half century—1939-89—of Hall-of-Fame-calibre play (a phrase used advisedly but also to protest the totally unfair non-election of Jim Rice year in and year out by petty sportswriters).

Take your best shot.

Our frisco.

The title refers to a late album by the criminally underheard The (ex) Cat Heads, a kind of SF indie supergroup, formed from the detritus of The Cat Heads and featuring one of my favorite drummers Melanie Clarin of the S F Seals, World of Pooh, and the Donner Party. It's appropriate for the next in our set of musical list debates. This time set off by the Apple Music store's Bay Area Essentials list:

THE ITUNES SONG LIST

1. TRUCKIN’ - Grateful Dead
2. SOMEBODY TO LOVE - Jefferson Airplane
3. PIECE OF MY HEART - Big Brother and the Holding Company
4. THANK YOU (FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN) - Sly and the Family Stone
5. FORTUNATE SON - Creedence Clearwater Revival
6. OYE COMO VA - Santana
7. LONGVIEW Green Day
8. WE SHALL OVERCOME - Joan Baez
9. BLACK WATER - Doobie Brothers
10. LIGHTS Journey
11. WHAT IS HIP - Tower of Power
12. CALIFORNIA ÜBER ALLES Dead Kennedys
13. WICKED GAME - Chris Isaak
14. U CAN’T TOUCH THIS - MC Hammer
15. ROCKIN’ IN THE FREE WORLD - Neil Young
16. SUMMERTIME BLUES - Blue Cheer
17. WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE - Kingston Trio
18. WORKING FOR A LIVING - Huey Lewis and the News
19. SYMPHONY OF DESTRUCTION - Megadeth
20. EPIC - Faith No More
21. MR. JONES - Counting Crows
22. PRIDE OF MAN - Quicksilver Messenger Service
23. MIDNIGHT IN A PERFECT WORLD - DJ Shadow
24. LOWDOWN - Boz Scaggs
25. CAN YOU HANDLE THAT? - Graham Central Station

Obviously blander than bland. and I immediately say natch to tracks 8, 9, 14, 17, 21.

I'm not alone. The S F Chronicle's music critics, Joel Selvin and Aidin Vaziri responded in kind:

THE CHRONICLE'S LIST
COMPILED BY AIDIN VAZIRI AND JOEL SELVIN

1. I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER -- Sly and the Family Stone -- The Woodstock anthem from the psychedelic soul rockers
2. DARK STAR -- Grateful Dead -- Space is their place
3. SLOW DEATH -- Flamin' Groovies -- Every English punk band knew this one
4. MASTER OF PUPPETS -- Metallica -- Don't have to be online to be on our list
5. BALLAD OF YOU AND ME AND POONEIL -- Jefferson Airplane -- Like the band itself, awful and fabulous at the same time
6. CALIFORNIA ÜBER ALLES -- Dead Kennedys -- San Francisco punk from the Jerry Brown era
7. YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL) -- Sylvester -- Cross-dressing disco straight out of pre-AIDS Castro
8. BORN ON THE BAYOU -- Creedence Clearwater Revival -- El Cerrito swamp rock heard 'round the world
9. DEAR MAMA -- Tupac Shakur -- Marin City's finest; West Coast hip-hop got soul
10. OMAHA -- Moby Grape -- Being underrated goes to the heart of being from San Francisco
11. AMERICAN IDIOT -- Green Day -- Duh
12. BLACK MAGIC WOMAN -- Santana -- Gypsy Queen -- The sounds of the Mission District from a band that once mattered
13. SATISFACTION -- The Residents -- Smarty-pants rock deconstructionists, willfully weird, intentionally obscure
14. DOWN TO THE NIGHTCLUB -- Tower of Power -- Keystone Berkeley lives and the lead singer's a killer
15. ROADRUNNER -- Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers -- The hipster's handbook from a faux-naif
16. WHITE PUNKS ON DOPE -- The Tubes -- San Francisco in the '70s
17. WE CARE A LOT -- Faith No More -- "about the food that Live Aid bought"
18. NEVER SAY NEVER -- Romeo Void -- Weird, wonderful, unexpectedly sexy
19. MIDNIGHT IN A PERFECT WORLD -- DJ Shadow -- A dream built around samples and scratches
20. FREEDOM -- Sons of Champlin -- The real hippies
21. WICKED GAME -- Chris Isaak -- Sex on the beach
22. JOHN THE FISHERMAN -- Primus -- Primus sucks
23. LIVING IN THE U.S.A. -- Steve Miller Band -- Somebody get me a cheeseburger
24. LOAN ME A DIME -- Boz Scaggs -- THE San Francisco blues
25. BALL AND CHAIN -- Big Brother and the Holding Company -- What made Janis Joplin a star

A better list, except it's still mired in the 60s and 70s a bit too much for my taste (but then I'm younger than Selvin) and not really noticing the vibrant, multi-faceted Bay Area music scene of the last 20 years enough. Stockton is not in the Bay area dudes, so Isaak goes. I mean you didn't list Pavement here and they were the best band of the 90s bar none! Being on Beserkeley records does not make you from the Bay Area. Richman is out; I mean there isn't a Stop&Shop within 2000 miles of Coit Tower. C'mon. Flamin' Groovies, Romeo Void, Primus, and The Residents were nice pick ups, and their choice for Faith No More was a better song, so I'll be generous and dole out a leftover Stanford TA B+.

RULES FOR TNA'S LIST

My list follows but first some ground rules. I'm doing a chronological list of 25 songs without any reference to actually ranking them. I diss the 1960s somewhat, not because they weren't important but because 1) they've been thoroughly covered on the two aforementioned lists not to mention by the likes of Ben Fong-Torres and Greil Marcus and 2) I was six when they ended. I generally go for lesser known songs with a few exceptions, which I explain below. Often I go for obscure bands because the purpose of this list is educational. If you're reading this, you probably already know who Faith No More and even The Tubes are. In a few places, I offer two tracks for an artist; just choose one and make your own personalized version of "my" list. Finally I take a pretty strict geographic stance on the greater Bay Area as defined by a 6 or so county area bounded by the Pacific to the west, Tracy, CA to the East, the Sonoma-Napa highway to the North (37) and the southern reaches of San Jose to the south and the summit of Highway 17 to the SW. In other words Stockton is out/Davis is Out/ and so is Santa Cruz (No Camper Van Beethoven alas). Similarly, I would have started this list jokingly with Blues Image, "Ride Captain Ride" because it taught a young me a lot about the Bay Area, but then they hail from Tampa, FL, so maybe it was that other Bay! Oops.

THE TNA SF MUSIC 25

SOMEBODY TO LOVE-Great Society
The original version of this song with Grace and little brother Darby driving Sylester Stewart mad over mutliple takes in the studio. He walks out, and we're left with the best version of the song extant.

PSYCOTIC REACTION-Count Five
A Great San Jose band on the cutting edge of garage and psychedelia.

TIME HAS COME TODAY-The Chambers Brothers.
I might be off here but my sources tell me after leaving Lee County, MS (Tupelo and environs) and spending the mid 1950s in So Cal, the brothers went multi-racial and followed the hippies to Haight. The first use of the world psychedelic as a verb form I have been able to find: "psychedelicize!"

ITS OVER-Boz Scaggs
IN 7th grade, this was my favorite love sucks song from what remains a pretty cool, hipster cocktail album, Silk Degrees. Scaggs gets extra points for owning and running the eclectically programmed Slim's nightclub. Check out the June calendar, for example.

THE AMERIKAN IN ME or CORPUS CHRISTI (LIVE)-The Avengers
They opened for The Sex Pistols' (in)famous final show at Winterland; Steve Jones produced some of their stuff, and in 1983 CD Presents put out the famous pink album (long out of print alas). Penelope Houston will appear again later with a completely different haircut. For more on her and the Avengers, go here.

EVERYWHERE THAT I'M NOT-Translator
Should have been a much more massive(r) hit than it was; power pop at its best.

LIFE-Flipper
Preferably the live version from the Rat Music for Rat People Vol. 1 compilation as opposed to the original album track.

AT GILMAN STREET or DUMB LITTLE BAND-Mr. T Experience
If you hung at Gilman in the mid 1980s, then you know that this band used to put up their dookies and blow Green Day out of their Converse and off the stage nightly. Now at least Dr. Frank is having young adult author success with King Dork. Good on ya.

PINK PIGGIES-Raggedy Anne
7th graders from Palo Alto who hung out at KZSU and with the CIY House of Faith crowd (Oxbow et al.). Now better known as their lamer grown up face: the Donnas. This track is taken from a Wednesday Night Live Session on KZSU.

RHYMIN' ON THE FUNK-Digital Underground
far more than just the novelty nose dance single, this rap collective showed deep R&B and jazz roots on their fine debut CD Sex Packets, another Tommy Boy joint.

U2-Negativland
SST, BONO, and the Supreme Court can bite me. These tracks now available again on the larger compilation These Guys Are From England.

HAPPY AMERICANS or AN OLD COLONIAL'S HARD LUCK STORY-X-Tal
fantastic, underappreciated band on Alias. KZSU was proud to host a live show by them at Stanford's Little Theater during my tenure there. Plus former frontman J. Neo (Marvin) has an incredibly great photo blog of SF music scene from late 1970s forward.

DEFINITELY NOTHING-Henry's Dress
Oakland's finest noisemeisters; melodic and controlled feedback. Mellowed and became The Aislers Set.

THE HATE THAT HATE MADE-Paris
Political rap straight outta Oakland. Save that Tupac stuff for someone who cares.

WHOEVER YOU ARE-Invisibl Skratch Piklz
Give it up for the greatest DJs evah and proud role models for PILIPINO B Boyz everywhere. Q-bert is God! Dont' Believe Me; check out Doug Pray's SCRATCH!

THE WORLD (AND ALL ITS PROBLEMS)-John Wesley Harding
hailing from Essex by way of Cambridge University, this Costello soundalike stands in for all the artists who resettled in the Bay Area in the late 1980s and early 1990s (think Robert Cray and keep going).

WEST END BLUES-Jon Faddis
One of the few really interesting parts of Ken Burns' "JAZZ: a really not so (im)partial history" was Wynton Marsalis describing how impossible the opening solo of this most famous early record by Armstrong is. Oakland trumpeter and Dizzy Gillespie protégé Faddis has the chops and the cojones to open shows with it as he did at a famous show at Kimball's in the city on his birthday. Between sets his proud mama and cousins served sheet cake to the entire crowd, a totally memorable evening with Blue Velvet.

SCISSORS or SYMPATHY WREATH-Barbara Manning
Criminally overlooked neo-folk artist with major league baseball obsessions; she wrote a song about Dock Ellis' acid-aided no hitter for her band The S.F. Seals! And yes that was the PCL team that Dom and Joe played for before the East Coast and the bigs called.

BED OF LIES or QUALITIES OF MERCY-Penelope Houston
She's back, a bit more zaftig and with a lot more hair, doing the neo-folk uprising thing for the late lamented label, Subterranean Records, amongst others. She writes nice biting folk that still has a reminder of her harder edge.

BIG DRILL or STAR OF THE COUNTY DOWN-Bedlam Rovers
Another criminally overlooked Bay Area neo-folk group. The former is their eco-conscious paean to "Cortez the Killer" methinks. Their cover of the traditional Irish tune on Devouring Our Roots is astonishing. If Van Morrison had been born a woman in the Bay Area, he woulda been frontin' the Bedlam Rovers.

STATIONS OF THE TIDE-Henry Kaiser
One of two great Oakland-based avant garde guitarists. A Bay Area treasure.

COMPOSITION 23d (+108a)-The Splatter Trio
part of the whole Berkeley improvisers/BeanBenders scene. Heavy takes on Braxtonia.

HERE IT IS-Swell
The last new local band I heard as I left town in 1996 for Mississippi. Nice Melody, nice Lyrics, and an amazing drum breakdown.

BUT WE LOVE YOU CHARLEY BROWN-Dan Plonsey w/Rova Saxophone Quartet et al.
live masterpeiece from Bay Area composer/multi-instrumentalist.

BAD MUSIC-Blectum from Blechdom
Mills College in Oakland is not the demure female liberal arts college you might have been expecting, but instead amongst other things a hotbed of musical eccentricity and the avant garde. Fred Frith teaches there after all. Two Mills students created this sound collage performance art group. I saw them open for the Boredoms at Slim's, and it was a fascinating Haus de Snaus. This choice in honor of Doree Allen, fellow Stanford English PhD and proud Mills grad, class of 1978.

TRAFFIC CONTINUES: TRAFFIC III/TRAFFIC I-Fred Frith
A great late career record from one of the finest guitar players ever.

GOOD GRIEF?-SubArachnoid Space
POMO psychedelia and guitar manipulation heroics from Mason Jones and co. Saw them in the basement at Café du Nord, and they twiddled a lot of knobs while making some glorious noise. Continues the avant garde Charlie Brown theme and homage to Vince Guaraldi and "Linus and Lucy".

And yes if you actually counted, there were 26 entries. Nolo contendere.

HONORABLE MENTIONS for things that didn't really fit

Neil Young: he's hip again making vital, vital music for the last 20 years or so after he lost his mind in the Reaganite 1980s (Greil Marcus quoting John Irving on why Bob Dylan and Neil Young are heroes: "they're not afraid to make fools of themselves, and you have to be able to do that" [http://www.powells.com/authors/marcusg.html]), he does the Bridge charity plus he saved Lionel trains from potential bankruptcy (how cool is that!).

Todd Rundgren: The Hermit of Mink Hollow, Utopia, and all TR's forays into cyberspace, technology, and electronic gear make him a recent Bay Area staple.

Clubs gone but not forgotten: the I-Beam, The Kennel Club, The Oasis, and Rock'N'Bowl (not that Amoeba in Haight isn't cool itself).

Bay Area indie/non-comm radio: KZSU, KFJC, KALX, KPFA, KCSM and so many many more. Keep up the great work!

The DRUM and any live mix by Kevvy Kev, the earth's longest running Hip Hop show!

SF Survival Research Labs and "the most dangerous shows on earth".

Bay Area Funk I and II, incredible collections of obscure 1970s music.

The SF International Asian-American Film Festival and director Chi-hui Yang's commitment to supporting Asian-American music through the magnificent Directions in Sound series.

Porest: the phrase sui genersis was created for guys like this. Check out Jason Gross's take on his latest here.

Thanks to the largehearted boy for the link to the post that set this off.

Oops, I did it again; Or, For what it's worth.

The boys are at it again. This time Neil Young, top 25 songs.

My List

1) After the Gold Rush
2) The Needle and The Damage Done
3) Over and Over
4) Heart of Gold
5) Ohio
6) Harvest
7) Cortez the Killer (Zuma version)
8) Don't Cry No Tears
9) Arc (extended feedback loops)
10) Hey, Hey, My, My (Into the Black) (Live Rust version)
11) Cinnamon Girl
12) I Believe in You
13) Words
14) Don't Let It Bring You Down
15) Barstool Blues
16) Southern Man
17) Mr. Soul
18) Too Far Gone
19) Winterlong
20) I'm the Ocean
21) Bandit
22) A Man Needs a Maid
23) Long May You Run
24) Helpless
25) Cowgirl in the Sand

Here's some of the the mail with two others lists that started this thread.

C P
wrote:

Ok, for those of us whose who have been in a coma since 1980, selection #13 is from Broken Arrow, and selection #21 is from Mirrorball.

1. Powderfinger
2. I Believe in You
3. Old Man
4. Harvest
5. Pocohauntas
6. Ohio
7. Comes a Time
8. Needle and the Damage Done
9. Heart of Gold
10. For the Turnstiles
11. Captain Kennedy
12. Barstool Blues
13. Big Time
14. Ambulance Blues
15. See the Sky about to Rain
16. Cinnamon Girl
17. I am a Child
18. Tell Me Why
19. Revolution Blues
20. Bite the Bullett
21. I'm the Ocean
22. Down by the River
23. Motion Picture
24. Hey Babe
25. Sugar Mountain (Live Rust)


I B

wrote:

Here's my list. Of course, I swore Neil off after he came out for Reagan in 1980, so my knowledge of his work for the past 25 years is sporadic at best. This list also includes Buffalo Springfield and CSNY tunes.

1. Thrasher
2. Cinnamon Girl
3. Powderfinger
4. Goin Back
5. Expecting To Fly
6. After The Goldrush
7. On The Beach
8. Out On The Weekend
9. Like A Hurricane
10. Broken Arrow
11. I've Loved Her So Long
12. Cowgirl In The Sand
13. I Believe In You
14. The Needle and the Damage Done
15. Journey Through The Past
16. Hold Back The Tears
17. Homegrown
18. Revolution Blues
19. Peace Of Mind
20. Pocahontas
21. Don't Cry No Tears
22. Lost In Space
23. People On The Street
24. Ohio
25. When You Can Dance I Can Really Love

Which list do you think was written by a guy with grey hair and formerly a ponytail?

Thoughts, comments, share your Top Neil choices with us as well . . .

For no one.

Recently I received the following email from a good friend under the subject header "10 Best Beatles Songs Ever":

This list is off the top of my head...it includes both group and solo.

1. I Am The Walrus
2. God--Lennon
3. Come Together
4. Here Comes The Sun
5. Working Class Hero--Lennon
6. Tug of War--McCartney
7. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
8. I'm Only Sleeping
9. A Day In The Life
10. Long, Long, Long

My response was first to note the lack of one of my faves as well as that of the late John Peel: "And Your Bird Can Sing" and also wonder about what happened to songs from Rubber Soul. Suitably inspired I started this impossible task (only 10 Beatles songs—c'mon!)

My list (as dreamed up 4/20/06 and valid for today only):

1. I am the Walrus
2. And Your Bird Can Sing
3. In My Life
4. Working Class Hero-Lennon
5. Live and Let Die-McCartney and Wings
6. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
7. Please Please Me [eds. note in sleep deprived-state I picked the wrong early single, mea culpa]
8. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
9. Beware of Darkness-Harrison
10. Across the Universe

10b-d honorable mention to "Happiness is a Warm Gun," "She's Leaving Home," and "Something"

O.K. fire away and tell me how "wrong" my very personal list is, or better yet passionately defend the tracks I forgot.

Toys in the attic.

According to another absurd VH1 countdown show, the #1 Toy of All Time is . . . wait for it . . . The Hula Hoop.
I love Toys! rounds out it's Top 10 thusly:

#2 Barbie
#3 LEGOS
#4 G.I. Joe
#5 Mr. Potato Head
#6 Monopoly
#7 Star Wars figures
#8 Yo-yo
#9 Slinky
#10 Wiffle ball and bat.

Well o.k. I think the obvious 2 missing general interest toys here are the Frisbee® and Silly Putty. Aren't Barbie and G.I. Joe really just gendered versions of the same toy (i.e. medium sized plastic doll used to enstill cultural stereotypes about sex and gender). So dump them together as a pair; I mean Ken's out of the picture still, isn't he? That solves one problem. I'm not sure a board game should be in the top 10. That solves the second.

If you want to stick with a game, there are a number of more suitable replacements for Monopoly like Battleship, Life, Risk, or Clue, or, if you're really thinking younger, Candy Land.

My own Top 10 at least today would be in no real order

Corgi ® Cars (especially any of the following: The Green Hornet's Black Beauty 268; Batmobile 267; James Bond D.B.5 270; Yellow Submarine—no box so no handy number)
Märklin HO train set (especially my Heineken car from the brewery in Amsterdam
The Original TINKERTOY
Lincoln Logs ®
Frisbee ®
Nerf Ball
Wiffle ® Ball and Bat
Silly Putty ®
Playskool Car-Go Bike
Parker Bros. Masterpiece

Satisfaction.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Anyway, I'll work on fully updating the sidebar stuff later. I was moved to post by Noel Murray's AV Club item on the Ten Memorable Saturday Night Live Musical Moments . Mainly he gets it right. And though I've never been a Vedderhead, his call on Pearl Jam's performance of "Alive" is spot on; it was THAT good. The one he missed and missed horribly was DEVO from 1978. They opened with their fractured take on The Stones' "Satisfaction" and closed the show down with a 10+ minute "medley" (really a film followed by a filmed in-studio performance) highlighted by "Jocko Homo" and the band disrobing (well ripping their spaceman garbage suits off to reveal DEVO boxers!). It's that spirit that U2's show-closing performance harkened back to.

To retain a classic 10, what would I remove from Murray's list? Personal taste would call for removing The Replacements, but since I was living in England in January 1986 and didn't see it that would be unfair. Instead I'd probably lose that early Simon and Garfunkel appearance because over the years they have become so ubiquitous on the show and in random sketches that they're almost an extra house "band."

For Simon Reynold's interesting take on late 1970s cultural differences between the UK and the US with specific emphasis on televised music, go here.

Good to be back.

My favorite things.

Other the years I have had various and sundry "collections." I don't have enough of an anal-retentive personality to have ever gone wholehog in these ventures. It's why I'm perfectly happy to own paperback editions of my books, and why I stay away from collecting rare expensive objects that one doesn't use in their normal fashion (say a Shakespeare Folio or a rare original Sun records 7" 45). In some ways my collections are populist, ephemeral, and quixotic, not unlike this collection in that way. What follows are some highlights of my collections of drinking vessels, matchbooks, badges/buttons, and beermats. Music related items might run in a later column.

Here are photos of some of my favorite things

Drinking Vessels




The technical name for this object is a Toby Jug. Although in this case, Royal Doulton really made this likeness of Long John Silver as milk or cream server. I have a full sized Doulton St. George and the Dragon Toby Mug as well. Logically, you might think Toby Jugs were named after that famous Shakespearean sot, Sir Toby Belch. But you'd be wrong, sort of. Not unlike Delft Jugs, Toby Pots date to their 1762 creation by Staffordshire potter Ralph Wood. he based his original design on a popular 1761 song "Dear Tom, This Brown Jug" about one Toby Philpot, a character who obviously is inspired by Belch.




This "shot glass" is actually a 0.1 liter glass used at annual and semi-annual events in the Freiburg region known as Weintage or Weinstube, where vineyards come and set up stands and you buy a glass and then for a small fee can sample their various wines. This one depicts the historic Kornhalle of Endingen am Kaiserstuhl.



The Kaiserstuhl, or Emperor's Chair, in Baden-Württemberg is the remains of an extinct volcano that is dotted by small villages and mainly covered with vineyards.



The region is the sunniest in Germany and even a number of Mediterranenan varietals prosper here. It is most famous for its deep amber reds and specializes in Burguny varietals: notably Pinot Noir (Blauer Spättburgunder) and Pinot Gris (Grauburgunder)


Matchbooks




Yup. That's a Bohemian Club matchbook. Nope, I've never been in the club building or to the redwood grove. My connection also was an SF local not a world changing powerbroker. Easily the rarest matchbook I "own."




Another pretty famous club: the St. James in London, which backs onto Green Park and not St. James' as you might expect. I ate lunch with my father here not too long ago, as he had visiting privileges from the University Club at FSU.




Even good restuarants come and go fast in SF. I loved Geordy's, tucked in a dead end alley just off Grant Avenue, near Union Square, and behind the Compton Place Hotel; they did make a fine martini. Ivy's was long a pre-symphony or post-opera staple, famed for their venison dishes. But the neighborhood hit tough times post-'89 Loma Prieta earthquake, as it lay in the shadow of the condemned Oak and Fell St. on- and off-ramps to the downtown 101 spur. Now it's a trendy French bistro Absinthe, with bad food and crappy service. C'est la vie.




Three favorite seaside or near restaurants. Nepenthe is atop a crest in the highway in Big Sur; long a favorite of the beatnik writers and artists who frequent the area.



This is the view from the edge of Nepenthe's big redwood deck looking south over the Pacific. The Moss Beach Distillery is a fabulous and fabled old haunted restuarant (and former prohibition-ear speakeasy/brothel). Get there early enough to sit downstairs on the headlands, have a drink, and watch the sunset over the ocean. if it's cold, they provide Hudson Bay blankets gratis. Just off Highway 1 (28 miles from Palo Alto/Stanford, 25 miles south of San Francisco, 6 miles north of Half Moon Bay, where they filmed the American Pie 3 wedding scenes). The Lark Creek Inn was made famous by Chef/Owner Bradley Ogden and features fabulous holiday and weekend brunches.



The historic inn is nestled in a redwood grove at the foot of Mount Tamalpais in southern Marin County.




Sri Siam might not be the best Thai restaurant in London, but their Soho location is one of my favorite places for lunch near Theatreland.




Dave's Dark Horse Tavern is the first bar I ever visited when I moved to Starkville in August '96. That night I met Señor Nashville StandupBasso and saw his band the David C. Trio, which was, of course, a quartet at the time. Dave's has great burgers and pizza and has become my regular, nice because it's also the closest bar to my house. Until last December, Dave had a second larger club downtown, the International Bistro, where I've seen such live acts as the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, celebrated New Year's, Halloweens, and weddings and even watched one year's Egg Bowl 2nd half there out of the rain. The building was one of Starkville's original movie theaters (Jaws ran there back in the day). Before becoming the Bistro, it also served temporarily as the local Catholic Church, while they were rebuilding their place of worship after a fire.


Buttons/Badges




Former Florida Governor Reubin Askew ran for President in 1984, but dropped out after a weak showing in Iowa and a 9th place finish in New Hampshire. There's no truth to the rumor that he was depicted in Joe Klein's Primary Colors as Governor Fred Picker. Even moreso than Jimmy Carter, he was the first and best New South governor. A 1981 Kennedy School of Government study named him one of the Top 10 American Governors of the 20th Century. He and LeRoy Collins were my two earliest political heroes.




"We try harder" in Welsh. The local Avis dealer used to give out these badges as a promo. I've also got Norwegian, Japanese, and Spanish.




"Creative Playthings" are actually purveyors of fine wood playsets. I visited their newly opened store in San Francisco in 1973, when I also got Willie Mays' autopgraph at Candlestick park. Who knew this badge would come to have such different connotations?





The Frito Bandito: The famous Warner Brothers cartoonist Tex Avery developed this corporate icon who lasted into the mid-1970s. Cultural sensitivities then placed him in the dustbin of history along with all those Speedy Gonzales cartoons. Maybe this theme song had something to do with it. The Green Hornet first brought fame to Bruce Lee as the karate kicking chauffeur and sidekick for Van Williams' Britt Reid/The Green Hornet. Speaking of Green Hornet collectibles I have a near mint Black Beauty Corgi #268 with its original yellow box (if I can just find the flying plastic red thing in my office); I've had it since I was a kid. I also have 267 (The Batmobile in its original packaging) and 270 (The James Bond Aston Martin DB5 in original packaging) plus a fully working Yellow Submarine without box. Kevin Smith is supposedly currently drafting a screenplay for a Green Hornet movie, but whether or not he'll direct remains a mystery.


Beermats




Timothy Taylor Landlord is a famous Yorkshire Real Ale that often wins beer competitions, twice being named Supreme Beer in Great Britain at London's annual Great British Beer Festival.




The Dirty Duck is a landmark gastropub housed in a 15th century riverside building in Shakespeare's hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon. Situated between the RSC's three theaters and the local actor's digs, The Duck, also confusingly signed as The Black Swan, is a frequent haunt of actors. Often after a performance, actors will show up in the bar for a drink and some gossip. Keep your ears and eyes open. The Avon River chain ferry is just across from the pub.




Hausbrauerei Feierling was celebratings its centennial anniversary when I lived in Frieburg-im-Briesgau during the summer of 1977.

San francisco (be sure to wear flowers in your hair).

Returning from my year abroad as a Rotary Post-Graduate Fellow, I flew off to the San Francisco Bay Area and a 10 year run at Stanford as graduate student in Englishand instructor/lecturer in the TCP. For much of that time I was actively involved with the local campus radio station, KZSU, 90.1. fm Stanford. For much of that time I also was an RA and lived in Rains Houses.



Later I lived at 95 Tallwood Court in Atherton (where Joe Montana, Willie Mays, and Barry Bonds among others live).





Finally I lived at 51 Adam Way (also another pool house/studio in Atherton, but nearer the El Camino).



In 1996, I was offered a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of English at Mississippi State University and moved to Starkville, MS, where I still live.




Public Enemy, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

I always said this was the best Hip Hop album ever! Much better than Fear of a Black Planet, which was more highly rated back in the day, maybe because of its Spike Lee connections. Still recently some revisionism seems to be going on. To me ITANOMTHUB WAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE the sound of urban New York, and mean that literally. This one of the greatest Noise records ever made, with samples so sophisticated and complexly layered nobody ahs ever touched them. major props to Harry Shocklee & the Bomb Squad for their production "in full effect". I can listen to "Night of the Living Baseheads" and "bring the Noise" on almost continual loops. As much as I loved Run D.M.C., this is the BOMB!


The Mekons, Original Sin/The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll

This Leeds-based punk collective has now successfully melded three of my favorite musical styles: pure English punk, American roots/alt.country, and straight ahead indie guitar rock. I heard these both in early 1989. The former is really a reissue of the Mekon's epochal 1985 Sin records release Fear and Whiskey plus extra contemporaneous B-sides and ep tracks. One of the greatest records ever made and a testament to how good alt.country can be, although they wouldn't call it that. I wrote about both these records in an essay that can be found here along with the essay that lays out my thoughts about MBV's Loveless (see below). Rock 'N' Roll was the Mekons' big major label debut on A&M, then a label known for more MOR fare like Billy Joel. It should have been their Nevermidn moment but alas it wasn't. Still The Mekons are one of those few bands that when they choose to play out immediately vie for the label best rock band on the planet (with The Ex, Fugazi, and the final version of GBV). You won't go wrong buying either of these discs as the reissues they now are.

Here's a taste of what I have to say about the Mekons:

From the album’s opening quartet, “I was out late the other night / Fear and whiskey kept me going / I swore somebody held me tight / But now there's just no way of knowing,” in a song ironically titled “Chivalry,” we have entered a world of fear and whiskey, of darkness and doubt, a place where it is hard to be human. A central thematic of much of the Mekon’s oeuvre is darkness/ doubt,/desperation, and they do seem to have a quarrel with a pop culture history that does not garner them a larger audience in the US; however, I think Greil Marcus overstates the case for bitter sentimentality (1993, 300–1). I’d position their desire in the same way Walter Benjamin was “to brush history against the grain” (257), as a response to the apparent barbarity of civilization where a man dies “While the witless upper classes attended the boat race” (“Hey! Susan,” Original Sin).

Another reason the sentimentality argument does not wash is the very rootedness of this disc in all kinds of collectivity: the original T J Clarke/Guy Debord Situationist International-inspired Leeds Art School collective as punk rock; the contemporary connection with the great Dutch kollektiv and punk band, The Ex; the multi-various collective instrumentation, which resembles nothing so much as a cross between a shambolic Celtic folk band and a traditional jug band. On one famous occasion, a one-off gig at the late, lamented Kennel Club in San Francisco during the F.U.N. 90/Curse of the Mekons era (January 7, 1991), the band gained and shed members almost every song and seemed like they were going to play all night long. I stopped counting the number of “encores.” There is, of course, a less artistic, more political angle to collectivity as well. It is the way of the miners and other unionized British labor; it is the way of hardscrabble miners in Appalachia, too. It’s also the only real way for noncommercial combine farming to survive. And it is at the intersection of those two related but distinct cultures (farming and mining) that the truest marriage of punk and alt.country exists.

My Bloody Valentine, Loveless

I've written at length about this album elsewhere as well as a shortish piece on its first track. Here's some of what I had to say about it:

My Bloody Valentine’s (MBV) aural adventure Loveless cannot be fully comprehended without a nod towards other noisy arts/construction movements of the 1970s and ‘80s (like NY’s no-wave scene and SF’s Survival Research Labs built objects, industrial arts wargames spectacles). Furthermore, it is an extension of the band’s own earlier reworking/feedbacking of classic Spector production effects and Wilsonesque lyrics in such tracks as Isn’t Anything’s ‘Feed Me with Your Kiss,’ where a hint of a melody wafts behind a veritable wall of guitar effects. But Loveless also suggests links to older musical traditions appear as well. Simon Reynolds and Joy Press ‘trace a thread that runs through Indonesian gamelan, Aboriginal didgeridoo music, Indian raga, Tibetan devotional music … John Cage … My Bloody Valentine, right up to ambient techno artists like the Aphex Twin’ (p. 181). This tradition ‘shares a belief that minimal-is-maximal’ (182). Shields himself specifically notes the liberating influence of ‘techno and rap’ which allow for new versions of sound structures and production mixes (Story).

Loveless also presents its own postmodern takes on the work of art in the age of digital reproduction and on the indeterminacy of meaning, mining a musical vein of Benjamin adumbrated with reception theory. MBV works in dual threads of noise and minimalism. Singer/Guitarist Kevin Shields states, ‘A lot of what we are is about sound. We use volume as an instrument a lot live’ (Interview), and he further elaborates a desire to decenter the vocalist in the mix and focus on the instruments producing the trademark ‘muffled sound … like fluff on a needle’ as opposed to the typically ‘bright’ radio friendly sound of most pop, a music which ‘you have to look into as opposed to it comes out to you’ (Story). Iconically, the album is represented not unlike the previously mentioned video montage by a barely discernible and definitely disembodied shot of a guitar’s fretboard seemingly about to dissolve from the wild vibrations of the strings.



Ironically, what does come out to you from Loveless is the sheer power and volume of the music. Rachel Felder confirms this fact:

Ever since its Isn’t Anything LP was released, the band’s live shows have been as much about hyperbolically loud volume as about the music itself. That volume heightens their music’s intensity as well as adding to the painful disorientation of it …. The audience’s experience at a Valentine’s show recalls what Roland Barthes wrote in his essay “Musica Practica,” where he discusses the intensity of musical connection you get from playing an instrument yourself. (p. 29)

The noise is arrived at by some technical wizardry, as Simon Reynolds and Joy Press explain: ‘On Loveless, they go beyond the ethereality of “glide guitar” into full-blown alchemy (sampling their own feedback and playing it on a keyboard, so that there’s even less sense that what you hear was generated by physical acts and fleshly creatures)’ (pp. 220–1). The soundcheck for the February 2, 1992, San Francisco Loveless tour debut at Slim’s was a testament to the independence of electronics, as the sequencer kept going off at the wrong time and with the wrong item. Frontman/producer Kevin Shields noted that the sequencer is ‘less reliable than a human being; it’s a stupid thing that doesn’t have any sense. Quite often it decides not to work.’ The band continued with the sequencer because they ‘didn’t want to use tape; when we play live, we want to be able to change things.’

Guided by Voices, Alien Lanes

I've never been one to be a band groupie, but I have seen GBV live more often than any other band except for Mission of Burma, Marcus Roberts, and some local Starkville stalwarts. I was first introduced to the band through their mainstream breakout album, 1995's Alien Lanes. Here was a sound I could wrap my ears around and a seemingly endless stream of breaathtaking pop gems, plus lots of little "recorder grot" entre song action to borrow a Stephen Malkmus phrase. I don't think they ever bettered the lo-fi aesthetic and its sequencing as evidenced here, but I do think they made better records, notbaly the next one, Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. Still, here's where my "obsession" started.


The Drive-By Truckers, Decoration Day

No longer my pick for their best album, that honor goes to 2004's The Dirty South, but this weas the album that really clicked for me in a way the high concept Southern Rock Opera didn't. It's probably better to say this is the first DBT album I was willing to just let run in the CD player, whereas with SRO several tunes would get shaved off either disc. Patterson Hood and his mates are both raised in the souther tradition and painfully aware of its shortcomings and blindspots. This album also sees the development of a third vocalist and songwriter, Jason Isbold—who pens the title track amongst others, joining Hood and Mike Cooley in sharing those honors.

My favorite song on the album is probably "Your Daddy Hates Me." here's a bit of a forthcoming Perfect Moments in Pop essay:

Patterson Hood notes that this song is "about divorce and the emotional fallout that follows." It's also about the odd Freudian psychic arrangements that tie fathers to daughters and intermarried families to each other while often tearing them apart. And it's about the bifurcated nature of Southern manhood: Father's sons but Mama's boys: "And I always loved your Daddy, I loved your Mama even more." But mostly, at least to me, it's about the variety of beautiful rackets the electrical guitar can be manipulated into making.

To get this Perfect Moment in Pop, you gotta let the song flow for a while as the three guitarists trade leisurely and self-restrained licks. And then it happens for the first time at about the 3:53 mark. Egged on by former Sugar bassist and current studio guru David Barbe, they let loose one of what Jason Isbell calls Barbe's encyclopedic "cool old sounds." Specifically Mike Cooley smears a high-pitched riff which ducks in and out of the mix over and under the other two guitars and ratchets up the song's underlying tension. Barbe himself enters the fray around the 5:58 mark with what Patterson Hood calls a "moaning sound," a more eloquent phrase than the liner notes' bland "additional guitar." What "Your Daddy Hates Me" is is the definitive southern take on three guitars (not so) gently weeping.

"TURN IT UP!"

My original review of the entire album can be found here. Additional highlight tracks include "Hell No, I Ain't Happy," "Marry Me," "(Something's Got To) Give Pretty Soon" and "Outfit" with the classic lyric: "Don't worry about losing your accent / a Southern man tells better jokes."


That's all for now folks re: The Records That Changed My Life. Maybe we'll do it again in a decade.

A new england.

In September of 1981, I drove with my parents from Tallahassee, FL to Cambridge, MA and arrived at Matthews South in Harvard Yard for my


[My shared bedroom , in this triple, was on the second floor just to the right of the pointy entryway and our living room behind the two jutting out windows]

freshman year. I moved to North House and the Radcliffe quad for sophomore through


[I lived in a single on the back T wing of Moors as a sophomore].


senior year. While at Harvard, my main musical activity involved writing the odd album review for The Harvard Independent. As a senior, I was lucky enough to be awarded a Rotary Post-Graduate Fellowship for MA study at the University of York. There I began my radio career at Britain's oldest legally independent radio station, URY.



Mission of Burma, "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate"

This essay in a slightly longer form will appear eventually on Stylus's Perfect Moments in Pop column.

While exploring Boston and environs my freshman year, I noticed some maniac had tagged anything tied down and even some MBTA rolling stock with "Mission of Burma." I assumed this was some kind of protest against General Ne Win and the BSPP. Then on WFNX, I heard Mission of Burma's "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" and everything changed. For the next two years, when time and money allowed I caught the all ages shows of Burm,a including the glorious "final" afternoon gig at the Bradford Hotel. My favorite song by this band was the one I always referred to as the other "That's" song. And on many a day I deemed it the better "That's" song.

Here's what Roger Miller says about "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" on the Burma website:

Pure Punk Power Pop. For Vs., the tape ran out before the end was over. We decided we liked that. In the mix, we opted for overdriving the living hell out of the vocals and guitar track in the board. Some thought this was a bit extreme at the time.

That snap, crackle, pop ending is indeed one of the song's highlights. The new iTunes-only Snapshot ep, easily one of the two or three best items of the year, is, as Douglas Wolk wrote in The Seattle Weekly, the sound of "the sky being torn open. . . . that amazing noise." Its version of "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" has Miller again invoking the title twice, interrupted only by a knowledgeable in-studio fan excitedly gasping "Yeh" and a guitar flourish, and then it's off to the races for 2:13 of Clint Conley's hollered lyrics and walking bass lines, Peter Prescott's brutally metronomicdrumming, Martin Swope's tape loops, and Roger Millers smeary guitar brilliance. It is "the sound that American indie bands have been tinkering with ever since" as Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield once noted.


Miles Davis, A Tribute To Jack Johnson

I have been into jazz for quite a while, but it really helped to have a jazz-rock crossover record to get me listening more seriously. I owe this record to Robert Christgau, as I bought it after reading his review of it in the old white with blue and green highlights 1970s Consumer Record Guide I leafed through regularly on my visits to the Harvard Coop's record department back in 1981-5, when it was the best record store in New England not called Newbury Comics. It also puts me in mind of a phenomenon gone with the CD and the art of programming cuts away. I used to measure the greatness of records in terms of the basic unit, a complete side. Could I listen to one side of a vinyl platter without getting up and wanting to skip a song? If so, they became candidates for the higher honor, a "typing" and post-10/84 "word processing" record. I'd stack favorites including side 1 of Jack Johnson, side 2 of Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey, and (rarest of all) either side of Purple Rain or any of the four sides of London Calling whenever I had a paper to type from my longhand written pages. The first year I had my IBM PC 512K monster I still composed off-line. To this day, I still prefer this album to the more famous double, Bitches Brew, primarily because it rocks harder and steadier.


The Clash, The Clash (US)

Sure the UK original has a more interesting and rawer sound, but I heard this version first, and it includes my second favorite single of all time "White Man in the Hammersmith Palais." I lived in Freiburg, West Germany during the summer of 1977, which was a lot closer to London and the center of he punk universe than Tallahassee but still a world away from gobbing, pogoing, and safety pins as fashion statement. I retained an interest in studying and listening to punk rock until spring semester of my senior year, when I took a course on Post-World War II Britain and wrote a paper about the politics of punk rock, looking at The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Jam. I spent spring break that year in London, including several days at the National Sound Archives on Exhibition Road sandwiched between Imperial College London and the Science Museum. A feature element of the paper was this analysis of "White Man at the Hammersmith Palais":

In their best single, "White Man at the Hammersmith Palais," the Clash turn a critical eye on modern British society from a youth's perspective. The inequality is noted, as "White youth, black youth, better find another solution / Better phone up Robin Hood and ask him for some wealth distribution." Similalrly their own movement per se gets its: "Punk rockers in the U.K., they won't notice anyway / They're too busy fighting for a good place under the lighting." Finally the tawdry sham of consumerism becomes a symbol of English society: "All over people changing votes along with their overcoats." It is important to add that this phrase coincides witht he musical climax of the piece.

And you thought I never paid attention to lyrics!

That paper concluded by noting the importance of "Style" to all three bands under consideration. It drew the following generalizing conclusion:

They were young, without history, seeking to replace a stale orthodoxy of lumbering guitars and rockers as artistes. Yet among themselves there was great diversity of musical style and even political beliefs. The sole common denominator was an attempt to question the validity of the establishment. In their quest, these bands became the icons of the age, indelibly stamped in the consciousness of Britain's youth, whether or not they accepted their musical challenge.

The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow

In Cambridge, MA, my introduction to music videos was by way of the independet VHF station V 66 "Solid in Sommervile," which competed with MTV's commercial dominance by running all the obscure indie videos they could find to fill screen time, including basically every early Black and White arty, NHS glass sportin', fake hearing aid wearing video by this British band called The Smiths. Needless to say they caught my attention. On most days, this not Queen is my favorite Smiths' "album"; yes I realize it's a compilation more than a true album, but so what. I still get chills everytime I hear the opening tremolo effect of "How Soon is Now?"


Sam Cooke, Live at the Harlem Square Club

As the first post in this series ("In my room.") made clear, I have a passion for classic soul music of the late 60s and early 1970s, something which for much of my life I've kept to myself. The first time I let my interest out publicly was perhaps the first really good record review I ever wrote: about the 25-year delayed release of this disc for the 1985 summer version of the Harvard Independent. I had done a nice hatchet job on Bob Dylan's Infidels as my first music review for them in late 1983.

This record is a revelation because we hear Cooke performing on the chitlin' circuit in Miami before an all-black audience and none of the Nat "King" Cole "white" crooning is present in his voice, which instead emanates a feral sexuality (you can hear women swooning in the front row throughout the concert). Along with James Brown's two Live at the Apollo records and Solomon Burke's Soul Alive, Live at the Harlem Square Club is a testament to just how strong soul music can be.


The Wedding Present, George Best
The Jesus and Mary Chain, Psychocandy
The Pogues, Rum, Sodomy & The Lash
The Redskins, Neither Washington Nor Moscow

The 1985-1986 academic year was in many ways a musical annus mirabilis. I first heard The Queen is Dead, the Housemartins, Hüsker Dü on a major label, the Shop Assistants, the Woodentops, and Scritti Politti to name but a few bands and records. However, the four records listed above were the cream of this crop as I began my radio career. I really first heard the Wedding Present on their second Reception 7" "Once More," but waited for the debut album to arrive as my first purchase. David Gedge's angst-ridden lyrics of unrequited or lost love coupled with the blitzoid guitars spoke immeditaely to my own personal aesthetic as did the Jesus and Mary Chain's marriage of Brian Wilsonesque-melodies masked by a Phil Spector-like "wall of feedback." To this day, I maintain Psychocandy is one of the two or thee greatest debut albums of all time. What can I say about the Pogues and the bent genius of Shane MacGowan's songwriting and singing. Plus this is their first record produced by Elvis Costello and features one of their few songs with a female vocalist, Cait O'Riordan, on "A Pair of Brown Eyes" and "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day." MacGowan's take on Eric Bogle's anti-war classic "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" is heartrending. Plus there's the Vuarnet's on The Raft of the Medusa. The Redskins "walked like the Clash and sang like the Supremes," but because they were skinheads they also got unfairly tarred with the National Front racist label. It got so bad, you couldn't even find their debut album in their hometown of York at their record label's very own Goodramgate store (Red Rhino records). They did a show on campus where I worked "security"; I doubt there was a racist skinhead within ten miles of the show, but that's how reputations run away from reality sometimes.


Next up: a decade in Northern California and a strange trip into the Deep South.

In my room.

The Records that Changed My Life

Apologies to Spin and Kicker of Elves over at Catoptric.com, but imitation IS the sincerest form of flattery.

The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band

The more musical memoirs I read the more I realize I was a wierd early adopter. Yes, much of my taste didn't set in until teenagedom (Note with one exception below I didn't have an older sibling/friend who introduced me to cool stuff), but there were certain records I got and got young: namely The Beatles and the Philly sound of Gamble and Huff (see below). At age 4, I asked my Mom to take me to see Yellow Submarine and on the way home I discoursed on its philosophy. The first Beatles record I owned was this most famous one which I wore out. I have now owned three vinyl and one CD copy of this album which I have come to agree with Jim DeRogatis now as being overrated. Still much of this disc spoke to me as a child and in strange ways. I particularly loved "She's Leaving Home," though I would have never considered myself an unhappy child nor one who contemplated running away. Perhaps its inherent melancholia predicted my undergraduate interest in Robert Burton and the Early Modern era and my eventual employment as a Shakespeare scholar. "Picture yourself on a boat in a river . . ." "And now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall" and on and on . . .


Freda Payne, "Band of Gold"
The O'Jays, "Backstabbers"
The Three Degrees, 'When Will I See You Again?"
Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, "If You Don't Know Me By Now"

Ah yes, the 7" single; the first musical format of my dreams. For much of the 1970s, these were primarly what I bought. The first I ever owned wasn't a bad one, The Jackson 5's "ABC" received in one of those exchange gifts things in grade school. However, I will also admit to still having the following in my "little" vinyl collection: Starland Vocal Band, "Afternoon Delight"; Orleans, "Still the One"; Cate Bros., "Union Man"; Player, "Baby Come Back"; England Dan and John Ford Coley, "Nights are Forever Without You"; Abba, "Mama Mia" and "Dancing Queen"; Madonna, "Into the Groove"; Hall and Oates, "Sara Smile"; Silver Convention, "Fly Robing Fly"; Andrea True Conenction, "More, More, More"; Maxine Nightingale, "Right Back Where We Started From"; Walter Murphy & the Big Apple Band, "A Fifth of Beethoven": and Wild Cherry, "Play That Funky Music White Boy"! You just need to remember how dominant, even as a radio phenomenon, disco was.

I have written about my love of the Payne single elsehwere, but I want to generalize it to the early 1970s Philly Sound of Gamble & Huff. "Backstabbers" is the third single which always figures in my list of top songs/records along with Freda Payne and the Clash (see forthcoming entry "A new england."). The above list features my three favorite Gamble and Huff records, but there are so many more to choose from. Remember the best singing Teddy Pendergrass ever did was as soloist in Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes! These records were famed for their use of strings, the backing band MFSB and its horns, and the proto-disco drumbeats. It was also some of the first black music to have an obvious political slant leading to records like What's Goin' on and "Ball of Confusion."


The Beach Boys, Endless Summer

I'm an only child and never had that older sibling or friend who hipped me to new music, as I have alread mentioned. Closest I got was a babysitter who was really into Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic. I can stand Can't Buy a Thrill, especially "Midnight Cruiser" and "Do It Again," but generally Becker and Fagen leave me ice cold. A few years later I rode to swim team practice with Hugh, who was really into the Beach Boys and played them on his 8-Track constantly. I really dug those tight harmonies and the irresistible melodic hooks of Brian Wilson. Forget Smile; this double album compilation is where it's at with respect to that California sound. In seventh grade, I got to see The Beach Boys at Florida Field with opening band, The Outlaws. That's a story for another day.


Coming soon two additional entries

9/81-8/85: The Cambridge, MA college years and 1985-6 dateline: York, UK, and

Bay Area and Starkvegas life changers.

I heard it through the grapevine.

I won't say anything about LCD Soundsystem's debut since my review is forthcoming on dustedmagazine.com other than that I side with those who don't think James Murphy is all that and some . . .


Bonnie Prince Billie and Matt Sweeney, Superwolf (Drag City)

Generally I'm a big fan of Will Oldham's various works as Palace Music, Palace Brothers, himself, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy. But this two person collaboration doesn’t have the alchemical magic of say Robert Pollard and Doug Gillard's Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, an apt comparison because for me Matt Sweeney is not a member of Chavez or Zwan first but rather the cigarette puffing bassist on Guided By Voices' epochal Live at the Whiskey a Go Go VHS tape. The problem with this CD is too much Oldham and not enough Sweeney, even if he supposedly wrote the music. Also it's far too soft throughout, and there's not nearly enough variation of tempos, styles, or volumes. A couple tracks work O.K.: notably "Bed is for Sleeping" and "My Home is the Sea."


The Wedding Present, Take Fountain (Manifesto)

Cinerama is Dead, long live Cinerama. But for those of us in the know, David Gedge always will be about The Wedding Present ca. 1985-1993. So I can happily report that Take Fountain, while not reaching the heights of 1992's career zenith Seamonsters is a real Wedding Present record like nothing since the Hit Parade year. Gedge does here what he does best write churning, yearning plaintive melodies about unrequited and lost love(s). The fact that he has broken up with long time love and collaborator Sally Murrell and moved to Seattle (a place even rainier than West Yorkshire) only makes the record that much more poignant. For the plaintive melodies start with "Interstate 5" extended into Ennio Morricone territory with bongos and a a loopy spaghetti western guitar sounds to close and "It's For You." While in Cinerama, Gedge worked on his ballads and he deliver s a killer here: "Mars Sparkles Down on Me," a kind of anti-love song. We need to remember that we're talking about Mars (God of War) not Venus (God of Love) here in this song about supposedly being cool with the breakup with Murrell. It's good we both have new lovers he declaims, but then green-eyed jealousy enters the picture. How can he be sleeping in "our" bed? And, of course, what's noticeably missing from this ballad is the harmonizing Miss Murell offered on many a Cinerama disc. Listen closely and it'll bring you to tears. The only thing keeping this record from instant classic status are the penultimate two tracks, "Larry's" and "Queen Anne", which are the kind of bland material that marred the Cinerama era. They'd fit right in on that Superwolf record.


Various Artists, The Complete Motown Singles, Volume 1: 1959-1961 (Hip-O)

The battle for 2005's best reissue CD is over before it even began. A perfect box set with beautiful packaging including a replica version fo Motown's first hit 45 7", Barrett Strong's "Money." These six CDs include A- and B-sides for every single during Motown's formative first three years. Sets for each subsequent year are forthcoming! Hip-o Select Records should also be acknowledged for their scouring of the Motown vault, especially with regard to issuing the heretofore unreleased David Ruffin solo album.


Love, The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop)

I've never really liked anything famed slowcore band Low did, primarily because they were all slow and very little (hard)core. For this Sub Pop debut they turn up the guitars, the reverb, and the feedback. The record is an absolute keeper. Almost everything works here in a way that Sweeney and Oldham should pay attention to, especially given the similarly titled tracks about the Sea. This seventh album from the Duluth, MN-based trio is sped up and rocks out. Key tracks include "Silver Rider" and "Walk into the Sea" both of which reference the titular Great Destroyer as well as the acoustic ditty "Death of A Salesman." But the masterpiece is "Broadway (So Many People)." E.F. Hutton sez: Buy and Buy Again!


Mr. Airplane Man, C'mon DJ (Sympathy for the Record Industry)

Only One CD can be the absolute find of the bunch and this is it! A female two-piece (guitar and drums) from Boston signed by Jeffery Evans to Sympathy 4 the R.I. just like the White Stripes. Think of this as garage blues psychedelia; it's no surprise that they cover Howlin' Wolf, The Wailers, and the Outsiders. This record was made in Memphis at the famous Easley Studios. Margaret Garrett on guitar and vocals and Tara McManus on drums kick ass! If you like Mazzy Star, check out "How Long." Also check out the title track, the Outsider's cover "Sun's Going Down" and "Make You Mine." Buy this CD early and buy it often!


If you want to see more of this type of music criticism on TNA, please comment below or email me directly at bulb1964@hotmail.com.