The 30-Day Song Challenge - Day 2

Day Two: Your least favorite song.

I'll admit it: I started on this thing without reading what the 30 different categories were. I'm starting to get the sense that they were written by someone in their formative years.

When I was 19, I had occasion to interview the sing for the Judybats, a band I dearly adored. We were scheduled to speak by phone and I departed from my normal interviewing routine of basically having a conversation, and then clarifying the points which needed it either at the end or sometime before publication. Since I wouldn't have a chance to follow up with more questions later, I decided to prepare some in advance, and was immediately confronted with the idea that there are only a handful of standard questions that people ask when a record is coming out.

As I said, I was 19, so my immediate thought was to come up with questions that would oppose the normal interviewing and marketing conventions. I suspect I just wanted one of my heroes to remember me.

Which is how I ended up asking him what his least favorite song on the new album was.

He was understandably nonplussed, and asked me to repeat the question. I did so, and he hemmed and hawed about various things before finally settling in on a track that had been written during the sessions for the previous album, but was making its debut on this one. He made it clear that the age of the song was the only criteria for naming it as his least favorite. He was simply more excited about newer songs.

I bring this up because it's what I thought of when I read today's category. It's a weirdly antagonistic question to ask someone who is giving up a bit of time to share music with people. I felt bad the instant after I asked the question, as I could see that, rather than coming up with something new, I had simply inverted a normal question in the least interesting way.

And there's a lot of that on this list. For most of the times you get to pick a favorite, you come back the next day and ponder its opposite. The challenge is doing so in such a way that it stays interesting to me. It would also be nice if it were interesting for you, but I'd settle for it not feeling like a chore.

Then there's the promotional nature of this thing to consider. I'm meant to add a youtube video of whatever my choice is. I can think of loads of music I do not enjoy, for whatever reason, but I wouldn't want to add a clip of something I dislike to my blog.

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My first thought was something to do with the Black Eyed Peas, even though I think it's mostly about context with them. I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live, and my impression was that they were about as good as a mediocre high school talent show entrant. Which is pretty underwhelming, but if I were watching, say, a high school talent show, I doubt it would register so much as being atrocious. It's merely the heights of success they've managed to reach with their minimal gifts that I find galling. It's not so much about them as is it about the disparity.

So then, I thought I should think in terms of something I find loathsome or unlistenable from an artist I generally admire. That seems more appropriate. I thought of "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" by the Beatles. It's not hard to find people willing to admit this is their worst song, but it was a b-side, and it has a sense of whimsy and was clearly a lot of fun to record, so I'm giving it a pass.

And so, we come to the high-water mark of bad music by great musicians: Metal Machine Music. The basice story is as follows: Lou Reed still owed an album to his record label, but was angry about something, or didn't want to do it. He was contractually obliged, however, and the result was a full album of, well, this:



Note the appropriate imagery. I'm guessing no one who clicks in is likely to last longer than a full minute. I had a rather nice box set of his music in the early 90s, and it contained about a minute from this work, which seems about right.

Still, it was borne of frustration, and it sure sounds like it, so it does sort of work on some level. As a statement of displeasure with a record label—who must have blinked, swallowed hard and looked around a couple of times before shrugging and releasing the album as is—it seems like a particularly elegant way of saying "fuck you." It's the sonic equivalent of that famous photograph of Johnny Cash angrily flipping off a cameraman.



And for me, it's the high-water mark for unlistenable music from someone I admire greatly.

Or it was, until a couple of years ago, when Mr. Reed decided to stage a "Symphony for Dogs." It's gonna be hard for anyone to dethrone that. It cannot be heard by human ears, and that sort of inverts the idea of "unlistenable" in much the same way I tried to invert "what's your favorite from the new record" all those years ago.

The 30 day song challenge - Day 1

Day One: Your Favorite Song

A couple of friends on Facebook have been doing this (the Facebook page is here), and I figured I'd leap in as well, but do it over here where I can take a bit more time to discuss why a particular song made the cut or whatever. This way, I'll have a way to blog daily with a relatively easy meme.

Already, though, I'm in trouble. Day one asks you to post your favorite song. Do adults still have favorite songs? If it asked me to list seventy songs I particularly enjoy, I'd have no problems whatsoever, but a single song that counts as my favorite?

Yes, by the way, I shall likely be overthinking each of the 30 entries.

The other issue is that you're supposed to link a youtube video of the song in question, but a lot of the music I listen to is relatively obscure by youtube standards, and no such video exists. I suppose in those cases, I'll mention at least two songs, and have a video for whichever ones I can find.

For my favorite song, I decided to go for a Beatles track, as they are my favorite band. My favorite record of theirs is Revolver, and the track that most exemplifies what makes that record so exciting for me is "Tomorrow Never Knows." While much of Revolver straddles the line between the jangly pop music that put them on the map in the first place and the expanding consciousness music that would cement their legacy, "Tomorrow Never Knows" has both feet planted firmly in the future.

As a feat of songwriting and recording, it's kind of audacious. It's one chord droning on and on with backward looping guitars crying out like seagulls and some of Ringo's finest drumming creating a sense of dynamics under Lennon's nasal monotone.

I actually used to call a radio station in sixth grade and request this song. Sometimes, they even played it for me.

The youtube version that I am linking is apparently from the Beatles' Saturday morning cartoon, which I've not really seen since I was ten or eleven. I'm more than a bit surprised that they made a clip for this song.



Cartoon shorthand for backward guitar? Giant horns that terrify bats but seem to arouse dinosaurs. Good to know.

A Mahrathon

Hello, Blogreader.

Beginning today at 4:48 CST, I will be doing a charity fundraiser to benefit Heifer International. Basically, it consists of me streaming a 26.2-hour dj set over the internet.

If you would like to tune in, you can click here. It works fine through iTunes. I think it also works through Windows Media.

It'll be mainly indie music from this decade, but I'm likely to take plenty of detours backward in time as well. Probably won't stray too far in the other direction, as I'm not a huge fan of the music that'll be coming out in the future.

The money I raise will be donated to Heifer International's Eastern Uganda Umbrella Project. I think Heifer is a pretty neat group. They're international in aim, and I particularly like how they structure the gifting so that the recipients later pass on livestock, plants and training equivalent to the original gift to another needy group in the future.

To make a donation and help out, you can click the following:

Thanks for reading and/or tuning in. I promise that my next post will not ask any of you for money.

Technology = weird

As part of my preparation for Lollapalooza, I looked into various ways I might be able to use my phone to communicate with the outside world. It turns out that I have two different ways to update my blog from my weird little mobile device, and three different ways to update via Twitter/Facebook statuses. That seems like at least two too many ways to stay "in touch" during a three-day music festival. Woodstock, this ain't.

It got me thinking about the various ways the digital age has completely changed how things are done. Practically nothing remains the same as it was twenty years ago, when they were still pressing vinyl for any album that came out and photography was a weirdly poetic alchemy of chemicals and paper and darkness and time.

But fear not, gentle Blogreader. This is not a post of weepy nostalgia for a simpler time. Frankly, most everything is way more convenient nowadays. If nothing else, it turns out that digital was the main thing that kept me from taking a lot of pictures earlier in life. I simply did not have the time or money to invest in it back in the pre-digital days. Film was expensive, let alone darkroom fees, paper, chemicals.

Blah, blah, blah. The long and the short of it is that I might fling some words or pictures up here from my phone during the weekend.

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So Lollapalooza starts in a few scant hours. We have not been blessed by the weather gods. Tomorrow should be gorgeous, right up until it rains. Saturday and Sunday are both scheduled to peak above 90°F. I'm hoping that our proximity to the lake will provide at least a small amount of relief. Even so, I expect to sweat out a lot more than the one liter of water that the rules allow me to carry into the festival with me.

Lolla rules also prohibit me from bringing in my good camera, so I spent a little time today dinking around with the consumer model I used to use a lot. I discovered that I no longer know how it works with any certainty, so I'm not sure if I'll get any decent shots or not. But I sure will try.

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Speaking of things I never expected to have the word "electronic" attached to them, I have begun a transition to electronic cigarettes. They provide the part of a normal cigarette to which I am addicted, without any of the stuff that is striving to kill me. So that's nice.

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Tomorrow's lineup includes Gaslight Anthem, Heartless Bastards, Fleet Foxes, a tough call between Andrew Bird and Of Montreal (that I suspect Mr. Bird will lose by virtue of not being the kind of performer one benefits from seeing in a festival), and a headliner matchup between Kings of Leon and Depeche Mode. The current plan is to see a bit of each of the latter two. Am hopeful this will be enough to sustain my friendship with Los Angelista. There are also dozens of other bands, but the list above are the ones I'm most interested in seeing. Fleet Foxes, especially, who had one of the best records of last year.

Sorry, Decemberists.

More soon...

In which a return to blogging is attempted

When last we saw our erstwhile blogger, he was spewing forth yet another apology for not blogging more often. Even though he seemed to mean it, it was nonetheless a bit tedious. The only thing more tedious is the several half-hearted attempts he had made to keep the blog alive during his ridiculously lengthy absences. Such attempts typically began with some sort of announcement that he was back on the blog.

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I am back on the blog, Blogreader*!

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Next weekend is Lollapalooza, once a national touring festival and now something which happens only in Chicago, once every summer. Typically during a heat wave. I have never attended one of these before, but I think I had tickets for whichever one Siouxsie and the Banshees co-headlined (1992, maybe).

The lineup looks really good. There is almost never a time in the three days that there is not at least a band I would be willing to see, and there are several slots where I shall have to make a choice between two or more excellent shows. So I've got that coming up. Currently, it is supposed to storm all three days, so I'm expecting a wet, muddy, exhausting slog through the contemporary indie scene. This hasn't seemed to dampen my excitement.

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I also have about a 74% chance of another longish trip to London, similar to the one I took in 2006, near the conception of this blog. This was really when I started blogging seriously, and I expect I'll once again be sending my travels home in 300-word blobs for my friends who cannot come.

*at this point, I'm assuming that the term "Blogreader" applies mainly to my mom and whatever friends I personally harrangue to come and read this. But if any old Blogfriends remain, please stop and say hello.

20 + 20 + 1 + 1/365

It was twenty years ago today that, twenty years ago that day, it was a year ago yesterday that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released.

Sure, that's a long walk for a premise, but I'm still a little mad at myself for not doing "It was 20 years ago today, 20 years ago today" a year ago yesterday.

If Paul McCartney is to be believed, it was 20 years before that that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. So, a bunch of people learned to play on June 1, 1947.

I'm not sure I believe that, however. I mean, whoever heard of someone learning to play an instrument in a single day? And if Pepper did indeed possess such extraordinary musical teaching ability, why was he never promoted above Sergeant?

Besides which, Paul McCartney is a dubious source for information. After all, we are talking about a man who has denied his own death for more than 40 years. Everyone knows that Paul McCartney died in an auto accident in 1966, and that the Beatles drafted a ringer named William Campbell to take his place to keep the cash machine a-rolling. The Fab Three and Mr. Campbell then sprinkled clues about this fact on all of their subsequent releases, ostensibly because they suffered from a condition much like fictional villain the Riddler.

Conspiracies are fun. Especially when we get to assume that those conspiring are thumbing their noses at us.

Personally, I always thought that the thing at the end of "Strawberry Fields" said "I'll marry in Gaul," which I took to be a prophetic vision of John Lennon's wedding in France more than a year later.

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I just heard that Bo Diddley died today. I'm not a giant blues fan or anything, but I enjoyed more than a few of his songs. If nothing else, I was always amused that his song "Bo Diddley" was often covered by other acts (including Buddy Holly, who was no slouch as a songwriter himself).

My song "The Moon Topples" has never been covered.

For Mr. Diddley, a moment of silence followed by a "buh. buh. buh. BUH-buh."

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Astute readers will no doubt notice that it has been a few months since I posted. Apologies. I never intended to stop blogging entirely. I still don't. I just had nothing to say, I suppose. With respect for your intelligence, however, I will avoid any sweeping proclamations regarding the blog being "open" again or anything like that.

What if he was Heathcliff?

Headed up to the 32nd Ward tonight to see Michael Penn play at Schuba's. Schuba's is the type of place that makes for good concerts, and they tend to book the sort of acts who will benefit from the intimacy of the room.

Michael is the brother of Sean and the late Chris Penn, and you may recall him having a hit in 1990 with "No Myth," which you might think is called "Romeo in Black Jeans" or possibly "Someone to Dance With." He makes fun of this confusion in concert. He also hates to banter between songs.

It isn't that he cannot entertain a crowd with idle chat, it just seems to be something in which he has no interest. He's always looking for ways to replace this activity with something else. At a show I attended in 2000 (a tour with his wife, Aimee Mann) they used a comedian to handle all the chat that might need to take place while musicians were tuning. He was a great fit for the show, and the whole night was hugely entertaining.

This time, he had a microphone set up near the sound board for the audience to have a try. He told us that anything was fair game except for comments about him or Q & A. Most of us were reluctant to get up and try to entertain the crowd, but a couple of folks got up there and told a joke. I can't say this added much to the show, as Mr. Penn was far and away the best entertainer in the room. He usually got a laugh just responding to the person with the microphone. But of course, no one had come to see Slightly-Tipsy Middle-Aged Woman do her comedy routine.

He still sounds amazing, and there was a kazoo solo. What more needs to be said?

Schuba's was one of the places we were very hungry to play during the map of july years, but both times they asked us to come down were times when we were already booked to play another room. It was painful to have to decline. I'd still love to play Schuba's, but I have to admit that my chances are pretty slim unless I put together another band. Might happen one of these days. Who knows?

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Don't forget to vote for your favorites in the GBA(s)FC #2. Take another look at the rules (at the bottom of the contest page) if you have any questions about how to do this.

Potpourri

Busy times, Blogreader.

While I've spent a lot of time lately working on my novel, and a lot of time fretting over what seems to be a shortage of entries to the current GBA(s)FC, I've also been living a life (of sorts).

Well, good news on all fronts. The first two entries to the contest are posted and I'm hopeful that more will show up soon. Click the graphic in the sidebar to check them out. Still plenty of time to get your own stories together, by the way.

A friend of mine joked yesterday (when no entries at all had yet come in) that he could write the word "growth" five hundred times and walk away with all of the prizes. I informed him that no entry can win more than one prize. I also informed him that he is mean.

"Maybe your topic just sucks," another friend counseled via chat. Special "thanks" go out to that friend as well.

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I went to see a softball game last night, a team of Workers battling against some athletic foes in a very chilly late evening match. They did not fare well, in spite of the celebratory nature of the image at right. Something called a "slaughter rule" was enforced, and the game ended early. Perhaps they were simply happy to be able to go someplace warm, or that none of the players had sustained an injury.

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Tonight was a trip with a cadre of good folks to see the incomparable Grant Lee Phillips. I have reached the conclusion that no one has more fun at a Grant Lee Phillips show than Mr. Phillips himself. His humor and obvious pleasure at playing music are incredibly infectious, and I think we came close. He's a tremendous singer and a great songwriter and if you've never heard him, there is almost certainly something in his catalog that will bring joy to your ears. Try Jubilee or Virginia Creeper or Mobilize.

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The biggest bit of personal news is that I've made a bit of a breakthrough on my novel. A lot of pieces suddenly made sense this week, and I've got a better idea of the larger story and how things are going to connect. I've solved a lot of the problems that have kept me from being able to write much, and this weekend I plan to spend some time outlining in preparation for a serious burst of writing next week. If I can carry this story into a full draft without crushing it in my big clumsy hands, I think I'll have a pretty good book. I haven't felt like that for a while.

And I'll close by reminding you all yet again that there is still plenty of time to cobble together an entry for the GBA(s)FC. Deadline remains May 7.

Toothpaste, time management, and trying something new

Junior was talking with Loudmouth at the counter as I approached to purchase my cigarettes. Loudmouth was telling Junior that hip-hop was dead, and that he should rely on Bon Jovi and Warrant to serve as the music for a gathering Junior seemed to be planning. Loudmouth beamed at me as he said this, delighted at his joke.

"I'm more of a Kiss fan," Junior said.

"What'd they ever do?" Loudmouth asked, before fake-headbanging and singing the chorus to "School's Out."

"That's Alice Cooper," I said, jabbing my finger upwards in what has become how I order cigarettes from Loudmouth, who is never not talking. I then held up six fingers and he pulled down six packs of cigarettes. If I wait for a chance to speak, I can be stuck there for hours.

"Alice Cooper," Junior said, somewhat wistfully. He entended his fist to me. I know from previous encounters that I am to extend my fist to come into contact with his. Awkward as this gesture may be, it is infinitely preferrable to the "high-five."

Junior listed some Kiss songs as Loudmouth rang me up. I offered "Beth," but was told that didn't count because it was a ballad.

"Man, I loved Kiss," Junior said. "I used to put toothpaste in my mouth and..." A customer cut him off with a question, leaving Loudmouth and I to speculate as to what exactly he used to do with toothpaste in his mouth.

"...and rinse," said Loudmouth, grinning.

"I certainly hope that's what he was going to say. I wonder if he still puts toothpaste in his mouth," I said.

Junior dispatched the questioning customer and resumed his tale, pantomiming brushing his teeth this time.

"I used to put toothpaste in my mouth and then go out into the other room and go 'ahhhhh.'" With the last word, he pantomimed playing a guitar, rolling his head and working his tongue around outside his mouth. The "ahhhhh" does not do the sound justice. I can find no combination of letters that would do the job.

"I couldn't, you know, use real blood," he explained.

"Take care, um, music fans," I called out as I made my exit.

*****

Craig came by to jump-start my car this evening. My recent vandals had left the dome light on, and I had failed to notice, depleting my battery. When I tried to start it yesterday, it made no attempt to roar to life, and I nervously popped the hood to see if someone had come by and stolen my battery.

We stood outside the vehicle as it idled, giving the battery a chance to charge. I glanced in through the window and noticed that it's really dirty in there right now. It looked cleaner before the stereo gang pulled extra trash from under the seats in what I imagine was the search for the stereo's faceplate.

"I really have to clean out my car," I said.

"Yeah," he said dryly. "But how will you find the time."

So already my lack of Dayworking has opened me up to all new areas of ridicule. Fantastic.

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I did something new today, Blogreader. I took something I had written and submitted it. In this case, it was an entry for the "Endless Hour" flash fiction contest over at Clarity of Night. Based on the picture at left, contestants are to compose an entry of no more than 250 words. Since I sponsor such a contest myself (May 1st, if your calendar remains unmarked) I thought it might be a good idea to give it a whirl.

I wrote my entry in something like 20 minutes, but then spent quite a long time whittling it down to the proper length, and trying to make the story cohesive and complete within the insane word limit. I wrote it yesterday, and was quite pleased with the result, but on rereading it today, I was far less enamored with it. I did one final combing of the text and then submitted it anyway. I'm not figuring on winning a prize, and the other people I let take a peek all seemed to like it. I thought if I held off, I might talk myself out of the whole thing.

The point is, though, that I have never before submitted fiction anywhere. So the Clarity of Night contest is pretty much my virgin attempt to enchant strangers with things I have made up. Without luring them to my blog and having them read it here, that is.

I encourage any of you who think it might be interesting or fun to have a try yourselves.

It's weird, but now that it's out there, I feel even less sure of it than I did before submitting it. I wrote the story that the picture conjured in my mind, but I cannot help but feel that I should have written something funny instead. I am far more self-conscious about my writing when it contains no attempts at humor.

I'll probably post my entry here within a day or two. For now, though, you can pop on over to Clarity of Night if you have an interest in reading it. I'm entry number three (unlike the GBA(s)FC, there's no condition of anonymity, so I'm allowed to tell you that, or to post the story here if I so choose).

Let me know if you have a crack at it yourself. I'm very curious what other people will come up with. The two entries already posted are both quite different from mine and from each other, so I'm hopeful that there will be a lot of different viewpoints represented.

One thirty or so

One thirty in the morning and I just got home from work. It's as though the whole Dayworking thing has tried to take a page from my normal habits. Where they went wrong was in making me start the workday in the day, rather than the early evening.

I'm exhausted, of course, but kind of keyed up. Keyed up and more than a little vacuous. I was painfully aware of being incredibly voluble for the last few hours I was there, but unable to stop myself from chittering on and on about whatever inane thought floated into my head. I was a squirrel with language.

I kind of hate it when I get like that. Some reasoning, thinking part of me remains, and watches the rest of me with something like horror or disgust.

Pretty sure I talked for something like 20 minutes about the Beatles' failed audition for Decca records, just a few months before they did a similar audition for George Martin and things got moving. I even played the failed audition out loud in the room, talking about this track or that, or why Paul McCartney tried so hard to sound like Elvis, or how astounding it still is to me that George Martin heard pretty much the same performance and decided that he would hire them, but that they had to lose the drummer.

Oh, my god: I almost just did the whole thing again. Pity me, Blogreader. I am looping myself.

Now I am truly workled in the sense Anna MR (available in the links section) suggested: led by work to one's own doom.

We decided to stay as late as was necessary to avoid coming in on Saturday. We decided this about eleven hours ago. I think it was my idea. I figured that no matter how late I got home, I'd still pretty much have two days off before I had to enter the lair of the Worker to once more battle the project that is consuming so much of me right now.

Those two days sounded pretty good to the Workers toiling away on the same project. Those two days still sound pretty good. And so I slip away and hope for slumber, which I sorely need.

I hope you are having a lovely weekend, Blogreader. I hope it is filled with all sorts of lovely. I shall post something or other before too long.

Seven songs

Tagged by Liz:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what they are. They must be songs you are presently enjoying. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Liz is wily. She knew I could not resist a meme which allows me to blather on about music. It should probably be noted that I've learned that I don't write very well about music. I can never say exactly why I like something, or what grabs me. I get all excited and cannot think properly. So I'll just do my best.

These are in no particular order. Here goes...

1. Miracle Drug (A.C. Newman) -
(no lyrical excerpt)
A.C. Newman is the redheaded Canadian guy behind the goodness of the New Pornographers. I've been popping this track on almost daily at work, when I need to concentrate. It is, right now, always the very first song I pick when I need to be productive. Something good in the drums and the little bursts from the guitar that I just love love love.

2. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea (Elvis Costello) -
"...she give a little flirt, give herself a little cuddle / but there's no place here for the miniskirt waddle..."
Map of July used to attempt this song, but we never came within a mile of the effortless perfection of the original. When EC released this as a summer single in the 70s, a reviewer called it "tantamount to bragging." Hard to believe his American label dropped it from the album for being "too English." This song bursts out of the speakers and never fails to energize me. Not even close to my favorite Elvis song, but it's been in the playlist a lot lately.

3. Rehab (Amy Winehouse) -
"...I ain't got seventy days..."
I have no idea if this song will still be as pleasurable in even a few months, but at the moment I've been playing this in the mornings before work. The most authentic "girl-group" arrangement recorded in years, and Winehouse has an amazing, soulful voice. Very hard to believe that she's only in her early 20s. Plus it's difficult not to like a song with handclaps and a horn section (and even some very subtle strings) about not going to rehab.

4. If You Have Ghosts (John Wesley Harding) -
"...the moon to the left of me is a part of my thoughts and a part of me is me..."
Another nearly-perfect pop single, this time from 1991, and released on a tribute album to Roky Erikson. I had to dig to find a copy of this last summer. When I popped in the cd and hit "play," I was treated to a rare moment: a long-lost favorite still sounding as good to me as the first time I ever heard it. So I've been making up for lost time.

5. Get Him Back (Fiona Apple) -
"...I think he let me down when he didn't disappoint me..."
I suppose I should point out that I'm talking about the leaked bootleg version of this song, and not the official release, which I don't really like very much. Less convincing than Amy Winehouse, but some nice flourishes and girl-group arrangements on the bootleg version, which was the one I fell in love with a while back. Played this tonight while working late, and Suzi—who sits next to me—kept asking who it was. She seemed to like it, too, which made it even nicer to listen to.

6. The Big Guns (Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins) -
"...let's pretend that everybody here wants peace..."
Jenny Lewis took a break from her duties with Rilo Kiley to make a record out of the type of songs she apparently used to just throw away. I hope that the acclaim she has gotten will convince her to keep them from now on. It was kind of hard to pick a track off of this record, which I have been listening to for more than a year straight, as I tend to play the whole thing all the way through. Anyway, the record and the song have elements of country and soul, some great songwriting (deeply personal and weirdly accessible at the same time) and a feel Rilo Kiley never even hinted at. Plus I have a crush on one of the Watson Twins...

7. My Mathematical Mind (Spoon) -
"...planning for the apocalypse is not considered / considered cool / I don't suggest it myself..."
These guys sure as hell don't sound like they come from Texas. Craig said recently that he thought they were really good "recordists," and when I said they wrote great songs as well, he replied "Well, I'll take your word for it." I have no idea what he meant by that. Another album in nearly constant rotation for more than a year. It has survived every reworking of my main playlists for both working and general use. Sometimes, though, I wish the singer would blow his nose.

[Hidden Bonus Track] That Teenage Feeling (Neko Case) -
"...and nothing comforts me the same / as my brave friend who says / 'I don't care if forever never comes 'cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling...'"
Neko Case lives somewhere in my neighborhood, but that has nothing at all to do with why I love her music so terribly much. I've heard her voice described as being like Patsy Cline's so often I've lost count (recent favorite: "Patsy Cline with a graduate degree"). Her early records were pretty straightforward country of the sort that Nashville hasn't made for at least 40 years. Now she's branching out, and her songwriting is growing more sophisticated. Her voice dissolves me. The best I can do is to say that if you've never listened to Neko Case, you should stop reading now and go mend your ways. You might not like her at all, or you might end up falling in love.


I tag no one, of course. I've never tagged anyone, and I probably never will unless I write a meme myself. But if you do this one, let me know so I can check it out.

Slow dance on MySpace

In a panic with nothing to talk about tonight (again), I decided to change all four songs on my MySpace page. Dig it. Check them out.

It felt weirdly painful to delete a couple of them, even though I don't listen to my own page, or even my own songs much. And if I did, I still have them on my hard drive.

The first track is not showing up in my profile at the time of this post. Hope it'll be up by morning, as it also won't let me delete and start over for some reason. It just says "processing" in angry, judging red letters, like it thinks I've done something wrong.

Anyhoo, the new songs are:

Girl 7, Song 3: This song was untitled, and then it had several titles which never felt quite right before it was named somewhat tongue-in-cheek after the notion that since all our songs were supposedly about breakups and women, I should consider employing a numbering scheme to keep things simple. So this rather serious song got a jokey title, which seems to suit it fairly well for reasons passing understanding.

This was the first song I wrote with Craig, in the late summer of 2000. I remember being nervous and a little awkward presenting ideas to him, and I fled the house and hid on his front porch smoking cigarettes and watching the rain while I wrote the lyric in my notebook.

It was also one of the first times I wrote a song during an event rather than waiting to get some perspective. I knew she was breaking up with me, our Girl 7, that very night, and I raced to her apartment with a cassette tape in my hand in the futile hope that the song we had written would change everything. Hence all of the questions. She said she thought it was beautiful, and then she said farewell. It seems pretty obvious in hindsight that I knew this was going to be the outcome, since it is clearly an ending song. Maybe I should have written something more like "Let's Stay Together."

Time to Leave: The first song I wrote by myself, sitting on my bed with my acoustic bass in the late spring of 2001. I showed it first to Craig and then the band with a sort of "this sucks but here it is" attitude that they fortunately ignored. This song was saved from purgatory twice: first by Craig's guitar, which seemed to transform my awkward noodling into an actual song; second by Kerry, who kept expressing how much he liked it until he had somehow talked the song into inclusion on our 2001 demo, from which this recording (and "Girl 7, Song 3")was taken.

When we got the song into the studio, we tried a few weird things with it. I recall recording an entire take via telephone. The backing harmonies over the last verse never fail to astound me. I simply cannot believe that's me (and Craig, and one or two more of me).

This is why: Another song sketched out on the acoustic bass, although this time in my living room. I wanted something cacophonous underneath the melody, and Craig did not disappoint with this version, a demo recorded to serve as a guide when we were making what would have been our second album.

The lyric tells of an afternoon spent with the same woman as "Girl 7, Song 3" (who got entirely too many songs) looking out the open doorway of her studio apartment at the skyline of Chicago. Sometimes not having anything to say is a beautiful thing. This was one of those times.

Bed: Written on my baritone guitar, and intended for what I imagined would be a solo album. This was the only track recorded for that project, however, and I never even recorded the main lyric for some reason. This track would probably be pretty dreary if not for Craig's piano, especially at the end. I'm pretty sure I played everything else, so blame me for when the backward drum doesn't hit right. Turns out backward drums are harder than I thought. Still, I like how this song feels: dreamy and almost wistful. I think now that it would seem bizarre with the lyric in place, which was yet another depressing set from what seems like it must have been a pretty tough time for me.

The lyric was:

I'm not getting up to catch the sun
My everything
Has fallen into disrepair
And I would like to find the tools to get things done

Not just from this pounding in my head
I'll take aspirin
I'll take acetaminophen
And I'd be better if I just went back to bed

Violentine's Day

These are the lyrics to Elvis Costello's "Wave a White Flag," which was written, recorded, and apparently discarded in the days before he had a record contract. While I hope no one thinks I find domestic violence (or any other kind, really) an amusing topic, there's something about the give and take here that is almost sweet.

Plus she seems to have the upper hand. What with the pistol and all. The recording of this that I have is an acoustic one, and the melody and feel are reminiscent of 20s and 30s pop music, which may be why this song amuses me.

Take off your shoes, hang up your wings
Stack up the chairs, roll up the rug
Savor the things that sobriety brings
Drain in the last from a jug

But when I hit the bottle, there's no tellin' what I'll do
'Cause something deep inside me wants to turn you black and blue
I can't resist you, I can't wait
To twist your loving arms 'til you capitulate

Beat me in the kitchen, and I'll beat you in the hall
There's nothing I love better than a free for all
To take your pretty neck and see which way it bends
But when it is all over we will still be friends

Wave a white flag, put away the pistol
Too many people just can't get kissed
But if there's nothin' I can do to make amends, baby
Hope you don't murder me

Oh, was it all right, or was it okay
I'll make it all up to you someday
Oh, but you didn't have to laugh that way
Oh, no, you didn't have to laugh that way

Wave a white flag, put away the pistol
Too many people just can't get kissed
But if there's nothin' I can do to make amends, baby
Hope you don't murder me
Gee, baby, hope you don't murder me

Happy Valentine's Day, Blogreader. Hope you don't murder me!

The red light is on...

In honor of the Police reuniting*, I have posted a version of "Roxanne" to my MySpace page. This was recorded by Green Craig and myself in his old boxcar apartment on a day when we clearly didn't have a whole lot to do. When we recorded stuff there, we often had to wait until nobody was doing laundry in the building, and we always had to disconnect his toilet. It just made too much noise.

We were playing around with something else and Craig said we could turn it into "Roxanne" by changing one note. We changed the note, and had a little bit of fun until we realized that neither of us knew all of the lyrics.

We sat much nearer to each other than was customary for these types of apartment demos, so that we could both see the sheet of lyrics we had downloaded. My crappiness with a bass is more evident than normal on this one, and Craig mercifully faded out before my larger blunders could begin. He added some vinyl scratches when he mixed it down.

We always had a rule about not doing covers that were hit songs, but this one was just so much fun to play that we brought it to the band, and we turned it into a very dynamic full-band rendition based largely on the mellow feel of this recording. During the breaks at the end of verses, the drums used to go nuts.

It was chaotic and wonderful, and I wish I had a decent recording of the whole band cracking this song open, lapping up the basic idea and turning it into something new.

Anyway, I really enjoy this tiny, impromptu recording of a classic song, and I hope you will too.

*This really doesn't have nearly as much to do with the reunion as it does with me stumbling across this recording last night and remembering how much I loved making it.

A possible soundtrack for the GBA(s)FC

I put together a mix CD using the prompt for the GBA(s)FC. I could have made six or seven of these, easily. There's an awful lot of music that touches this theme. If you're curious, here's the track list.

01. Terrible Vision - Rhett Miller

02. Hindsight - Death Cab for Cutie

03. Eyesight to the Blind - the Larks

04. I'm Looking Through You - the Beatles

05. Love at First Sight - XTC

06. The Bird That You Can't See - Apples in Stereo

07. Just Want to See - Cowboy Junkies

08. I Can't Wait Until I See My Baby's Face - Dusty Springfield

09. I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash

10. See My Friends - the Kinks

11. Visionary - Redd Kross

12. Seen the Light - Supergrass

13. Beginning to See the Light - Velvet Underground

14. I Can See For Miles - the Who

15. Last Night I Had A Vision - Eddie Holland

16. I See Red - X

17. Visions - Stevie Wonder

18. Lookin' Out My Back Door - Creedence Clearwater Revival

19. Look Sharp! - Joe Jackson

20. Vision of Division - the Strokes

21. The Further You Look, The Less You See - the Temptations

22. Why Look at the Moon - the Waterboys

23. Sound and Vision - David Bowie

Additionally, I put a timer in the sidebar to tick down to the submission deadline. I have no idea if it is displaying properly in other time zones, but it seemed like a neat thing to pop up there.

At present, there are 41 entries. Which is blowing my mind. You guys are really kicking ass, as they say.

Tread lightly, lest ye be fictionalized?

My friend Ian came out to the city yesterday. We don't see each other as much as we'd like these days, since the dissolution of the band.

Ian is very supportive of my decision to make a legitimate stab at writing. As though to prove this, he brought me a tardy Xmas present (shown at right), a wonderful t-shirt that made me laugh aloud when I opened it.

Although I suppose it doesn't really matter how careful one is. I'll still likely put elements of most everybody I know into my novels. I have to, as I am not particularly clever.

I informed him that I don't know if I could ever wear this shirt in public. He wasn't offended. He knows I'm almost never in public.

We talked about my writing and his school for a bit at the beginning. I think we find it a bit more difficult to talk in general these days. So we tend to spend a bit more time than we might otherwise talking about the large things in our forebrains.

Later on, though, we started talking about music, and everything felt fine at that point. He's a super-cool music geek like me, and we can usually fill some time talking about albums we think the other might like. It's a nice way to spackle in the holes where we used to have our own music to chatter endlessly about.

Yes, that's right: music geeks are super-cool.

Most of the rest of my weekend was spent working. Well, that and apparently ignoring the comments that were piling up on my last post. Some of them asked me specific questions, and I know when I ask someone a question on their blog and it takes them two days to reply I am usually no longer quite so curious. So I apologize. It was just work, I promise.

I wasn't off with another blog or anything.

Went out to the car yesterday and discovered that someone had punched in my passenger-side door lock. Why a rusty station-wagon which (if a human) would be in junior high should attract so much attention, I don't know. Nothing was missing. My best guess is that someone was practicing their break-in skills on the car that never goes anywhere.

Finally turned the cable on again this evening to catch yet another installment in the disappointing current season of The Simpsons. Then I put on some music to get back to work. So far, I'm a little impressed by how tempting the new cable tv thing isn't. But if I'm hardly ever gonna watch it, is it worth the money? Time will tell, I suppose.

2006: Not a great year to be an aging black musician

Or Syd Barrett. But in fairness, it wasn't often a good year to be Syd Barrett.

Included in the collage at right is June Pointer of the Pointer Sisters, James Brown, Floyd Dixon, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Lou Rawls, Billy Preston (with George Harrison), Milan Williams (from the Commodores), Wilson Pickett and Syd Barrett (founding member of Pink Floyd/crazy person).

I'm pretty sure that, of the folks on this list, only Rawls hosted the Muppet Show, but there are other measures of success.

Here's hoping that 2007 is a bit kinder to musicians in general. The pic gets bigger if you click it.

map of july (part 3)

I approached an actor friend who said he was a drummer, to see if he'd be interested in filling out our line-up.

"What're you guys?" he asked in his Boston accent. "Straightforward like the Foo Fighters?"

Jeff came to his first rehearsal with a full drum kit, and a notion of rock bands that came out of "Hammer of the Gods." None of us drank much at the time, but Jeff downed a whole bottle of wine that he found in my fridge to "warm up," while the rest of us exchanged nervous glances.

Jeff was at his best with some of our jazzier songs. He liked to have room to play with things. He tended to get lost in a standard pop song. We noticed quickly that the cool thing he played on the chorus of one song, he might not recall even the next time the chorus came up during that same run through the song.

Jeff tended to bring his girlfriend Kate to rehearsals, and she had some things in common with Nathan. She didn't think twice before offerings suggestions that we change this or that, that I sing this song an octave higher.

She was our photographer for the first set of band pictures. We had vetoed Jeff's suggestion that we all "dress up and hang around in the cemetery" which bordered my apartment, on the grounds that such behavior had nothing to do with the music we made, and ended up taking a series of pictures on old bridges and some fun ones in a scale-model town the local police had built for the teaching of traffic safety. By the end of the day we were exhausted as much by Kate as anything. Even Jeff, who clearly loved her, didn't seem to like her very much.

It was nice to have a drummer, though. It made things feel more real somehow. And Jeff was certainly fun to have around most of the time. And with this core group in place, we set out to play our first legitimate show, an Earth Day 1997 celebration downstate.

We had gotten the gig through an ex of mine (who would later adorn the cover of our first record), who had some connections as a student down there. We were to play for 45 minutes.

I doubt we played well, but it felt great to be on a stage singing the songs we had made, taking our first steps towards something. Marc and I, at least, were already pouring a lot of time into discussions of what we'd do when we got big. We divided potential royalties, weighed the pros and cons of signing to a label. Ian was a little more reluctant in these conversations. He worked in the music industry and had an idea of how difficult it can be to make a living at music.

We actually had a "band rule" that said we wouldn't do a stadium tour until we had crossed the country at least once playing clubs. The rules were designed as a statement about who we were, as well. We didn't want to be famous so much as we wanted to be good at what we did, and respected for it. It's fair to say that the most any of us hoped for was to make a living doing this.

But the show was fairly well-received. The students seemed to like us. We got our first press as well, the above pic running in the local paper the next day, spelling both my name and the name of the band correctly, which we decided was a good sign.

A friend of mine, with whom I was very close in high school, came up as we were tearing down and asked when I was gonna write a song about him. A few months later I angrily obliged, coming up with "The Ballad of Wolfgang Grimm." The song was written to be a throwaway we could play once at some show he attended, but it remained in the set lists for years.

Within a couple of months, Jeff's inconsistent drumming and his sporadic rehearsal attendance, coupled with some differing views as to what the band should be, led to his dismissal. We had already found a new drummer, Greg, during a time when Jeff was not around, and circumstances ended up so that Greg was present when we let Jeff go.

We were at a screening of the film Jeff and I had completed the previous Spring, held at the Art Institute. I had tried to reach Jeff by phone before the screening, but couldn't, so I had to do the job at what would otherwise have been a purely celebrational experience for us both. The other band members seemed to literally dematerialize as I approached him.

He laughed it off, but I could see that it bothered him. I felt terrible, firing an old friend like that, especially given where we were. It's definitely a low point for me. I thought about the story of John Lennon firing Pete Shotton, his best friend, from the Quarrymen by breaking a washboard over his head. I reconciled myself with the knowledge that, while we were never going to be the Beatles, at least I hadn't fired Jeff violently. Shotton at least got a supermarket out of the deal, though.

But the first time Greg played with us, his very first rehearsal, he brought something I hadn't yet experienced in music. He played solidly, and some little part of me relaxed more than I had been able to previously. The song was going to be there, and I could concentrate on singing. The songs sounded better with Greg, and he helped me to sing better as well. I could trust him.

Even with the Jeff situation as yet unresolved, we offered him the job before he even left my house for the first time.

And with his acceptance the "classic" map of july line-up was formed.

map of july (part 2)

Once we had some original material to play with, it grew increasingly evident that we needed a drummer. By this time we had room for one, as I had cleared most of the rest of my stuff out of the small back room of my tiny apartment. I slept on the couch in the living room. The band had nearly half of my apartment, although this was still a cramped room measuring maybe eight feet square.

Casting my line at work, I got a nibble from a co-worker named Nathan, who agreed to come out and hear the band, maybe play along some, before making up his mind. Nathan was primarily a guitarist, but expressed interest in playing something percussive.

He showed up with his guitar, and we all started to play some of the covers and original songs we had been working on. Nathan was an angry sort of music nerd, the kind of guy who would declare that all punk music was actually country, and attack you personally if you disagreed. It shouldn't have been much of a surprise, then, when he started saying things like: "You guys should never play that song again" (on our version of "Cry, Baby, Cry" by the Beatles) or "Ian should not even be allowed to hold a slide guitar. You guys should take that thing away from him" (on an original song, later recorded for our first album with Ian's slide work intact).

Perhaps more jarring than his comments was his rehearsal method. He'd plug in a long cable and wander around as the song progressed, often leaving the room entirely. I'd catch a glimpse of him standing with his back to me in my living room. Often, when he wandered about like this his playing did, too. I don't have any real recollection of him playing drums or percussion.

He wasn't a bad guitarist. At one rehearsal, I can recall asking Ian if he could play something "Nathanish" over a part of a song. The normally fuzzy and friendly Ian responded with: "Oh, you want me to leave the room and play something only marginally related to what you guys are doing?"

Not surprisingly, the time soon came to fire Nathan. Ian, Marc and I stayed after rehearsal to talk about it. We debated some, but the die was already cast, and eventually it was decided that I should call him at home and tell him the news.

When he answered the phone, it was clear that I had woken him.

"Nathan, we've been talking," I began. I was thinking about how inauspicious it was to have to fire someone before ever having a stable line-up. I was also thinking about how I was the only band member who was going to have to see Nathan the following morning at work. "It's just not going to work out."

"OK," Nathan replied impatiently. "Anything else?"

That bastard was cold.

The good thing that came out of the Nathan period was our name. We had elected to try out a couple of our songs at an open mike at Fitzgerald's, a folk/rock bar in Berwyn. Ian knew some people there who would listen with appraising ears and give us some feedback.

We decided we needed a name before taking the stage, and from a long list of awful names, we selected map of july, based on my inability to recall the word "calendar" during a conversation, and the fact that Ian, Marc and myself were all born in July. We thought it sounded cool and a little mysterious. A resolution was made to never reveal the origin of the name, as it made us look silly.

We, of course, were sure that they were going to offer us a gig right then and there. They told us instead that we weren't very tight, and to come back when we were. They were almost certainly correct. We had a long way to go as a band.

Xmas CD

Given the loathing I feel for most Xmas music, a couple of years ago I decided to see if I could put together an hour or so of seasonally appropriate music to which I could actually listen without feeling my skin falling off and my spine fusing together. Each year, I have tweaked the list a little. Here's this year's collection:

01. Winter Wonderland - Phantom Planet
I'm not a big fan of these guys, but they do a great job delivering this tune.

02. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan
Again, not people I normally find myself listening to. But their take on this song is just plain fun.

03. Silent Night - Johnny Cash
No explanation required.

04. I Hate Christmas - Oscar the Grouch
(Who needs that big red noise?)

05. Frosty the Snowman - Fiona Apple

06. White Christmas - The Drifters

07. Christmastime - Michael Penn and Aimee Mann
(Probably on here more out of love for Mr. Penn. Still quite listenable, though.)

08. Thanks for Christmas - XTC
(This is one of the few on here I tend to hear at malls, but it remains a great holiday song.)

09. Five Christmas Wishes - Steve Martin
(From an old Saturday Night Live monologue.)

10. ¿Donde Esta Santa Claus? - Guster
(Great version of a great song.)

11. Up On The House Top - The Jackson Five

12. Go Power at Christmas Time - James Brown
(The "Hardest Working Man in Show-biz" delivers another of his weird stream-of-consciousness songs. He's mostly talking to his band. Seems only marginally related to Xmas, but then so am I.)

13. Santa's Beard - They Might Be Giants

14. Deck the Halls - Jackie Wilson

15. Make Someone Happy - Seal

16. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Martina Sorbara
(Very dark, lovely version which appears to be sarcastic. Still beautiful.)

17. The Christmas Song - The Raveonettes
(The melancholy emo section continues.)

18. The Little Drummer Boy - Ringo Starr
(Weird that on an album that includes two Sesame Street songs, one from South Park and other miscellany, this is the one that feels most like a novelty song.)

19. Little Saint Nick - the Beach Boys

20. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town - The Temptations

21. That's What Christmas Means to Me - Stevie Wonder
(The overrepresentation of Motown continues. Assuming it is possible to overrepresent Motown.)

22. Father Christmas - the Kinks

23. Pretty Paper - Roy Orbison

24. Hallelujah - Rufus Wainwright
(This Leonard Cohen song is all over television these days, usually the Jeff Buckley version that leaves me a bit cold. I prefer this one, or the one by John Cale.)

25. (All I Want for Christmas Is) My Two Front Teeth - The Count
(Oh, sure. The vampire wants his teeth only so he can wish you Merry Christmas.)

26. Jew on Christmas - Kyle from South Park
(Beat out "Merry Fuckin' Christmas" by a slim margin.)

27. You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch - Boris Karloff

28. Merry Christmas, Baby (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight) - The Ramones

29. Happy Xmas (War is Over) - John Lennon
(I couldn't have left this one off.)

Honorable mention: The Heat Miser, Christmas Song - Ray Charles, The First Noel - Emmylou Harris, Christmas Song - Weezer, that one by the Waitresses whose name escapes me, Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes, and probably enough other material to make a second disc next year.

Fits on a cd, too!

Feel free to leave a shout-out to your favorite omitted song in the comments.