3. Two vocalists trading off with some killer dude-harmonizing in a proto-Bruce Dickinson sort of way.
4. Drug reference from a time when drugs were cool, and even the kids who didn’t do drugs (like yours truly) pretended they did.
5. A damned catchy guitar riff.
6. A badass fucking pancake on the record jacket.
7. I was living in the Midwest at the time and rocked out to them.
What it’s got going against it:
1. A second key-tar solo.
2. Some lyrical non-sequiturs that make it seem as if my seven year old came up with a verse or two. Case in point: “You’ve been talking in circles / since I’ve been able to cry / there’s never been any reason / for never telling me why”. Apparently there’s never been any reason to make sense, either.
Conclusion: While analyzing every obscure to moderately successful rock band that emerged from the Midwest in the 1980’s is outside the scope of this brief paper, the above two examples may indicate that despite sometimes numerous and serious flaws in instrument choice, lyrical talent and grooming, these bands can still rock based upon individual appeal.
Areas for further study:
1. While over-application of a key-tar may have a detracting effect, the lack of a key-tar is perceived as universally negative among the sample. How can an obscure Midwest late-70’s / early-80’s band employ a key-tar and achieve strictly positive results?
2. A comparison of food imagery vs. health care professional imagery in providing visual stimulation to enhance musical enjoyment.
3. Shooting Star as a candidate for the best obscure late-70’s / early-80’s rock band ever to emerge from the Midwest, and an accurate representative overall score.
Edit: Seems to be a theme running around about musical tastes. Check out Randal and one of Randal's regulars whose site I just decided to check out.
Fourteen years ago yours truly was in graduate school, studying remote sensing, quantum mechanics, orbital mechanics, cosmology, semiconductors, optics, and a whole host of other brain-grinding classes to earn the title "Master of Science in Applied Physics" with a specialty in space systems. Long, had days of class followed by studying well into the evening; it's a good thing I was single then.
On a typical school night I'd study until 10 pm, then clean up and shower. Then I would de-compress my strained brain by seeking out what it desperately needed - Beavis and Butthead.
There was a certain brilliance to their imbecility. While their adventures were pure, unadulterated silliness, their running commentary while watching the music videos of the day was priceless and really quite insightful. Yes, the Stone Temple Pilots were a shitty Pearl Jam copy. Yes, Ace of Base sucked. Yes, Pantera rocked. It was, for a time, the sole redeeming program on MTV. It's cancellation in 1997 marked the day the channel went from 99% shit to 100% shit.
Music was at an interesting point then. Technology was coming on strong, but not so strongly that you didn't still need some modicum of talent to make it really, REALLY huge in the biz. I've often wondered what a Beavis and Butthead video critique would look like today. Would they wear meat dresses while they watched Lady GaGa spew her highly derivative, talentless crap all over the screen? How would they react to a System of A Down video? I no longer have to wonder.
THEY'RE BACK
Well, according to the New York Post they almost are. If Mike Judge can keep his comic and artistic integrity that's so evident in King of the Hill, Office Space, and Idiocracy - and why shouldn't he. I ... gasp! ... would actually be seen watching MTV!
In case you haven't figured it out, the first eight seconds or so of this short video should explain how I feel:
I decided to do the 15 most significant albums meme in two parts because that's how I decided to do it. Since I did 8 covering through high school last time, we start off in the college years now. So 7 more albums to cover the last 22 years...and the more I think about this stuff the harder it is, but who cares, I'm not getting a grade on this. Yadda-yadda-yadda-bullshit-bullshit here we go...
9. The Wall - Pink Floyd. Yeah, like every college kid doesn't relate to this album. The part I related to the most was Track 5, Side 4, "Stop". No, I wasn't tired of being a fascist dictator. I was going through some tough adjustments entering "military life" as an officer candidate and the lyrics "I wanna' go home...take off this uniform and leave the show..." rung fairly true. In retrospect, I was being a wimp, and I'm glad I didn't cave.
10. Pornography - The Cure. By the time I'd graduated college I had every one of their CD's. Still do. Ranging from early Brit post-punk pop to fluttery, big-hair-and-lipstick wailing euro-whatever, this album is by far their best work. Dark, downbeat, guitar-based despair with a heavy dose of pulsating base drums, goth rock at its best. All you sniveling "emo" twits should understand where you came from. Then get a life.
11. Turn it Around! - Various Artists. Another compilation that is not really an album at all. It was a pair of 7" records. I found it at a used / indy record shop near campus while I was gaining interest in the whole "DIY" attitude of the late 80's punk/hardcore scene. The record was produced as a fundraising effort for 924 Gilman St. I'd never heard of the place at the time, but based on the band names and pics on the jacket it looked to be a good risk. Turned out to be a great choice - played it to death.
12. Southern Harmony and Musical Companion - The Black Crowes. The first music to really move me after I had left the dreamworld of college and got out on my own. After dealing with so much of the early 90's "alternative" stuff that was saturating the LA and Long Beach airwaves this was the first new thing I'd heard in years that just felt "real". As awesome today as it was 17 years ago.
I'd have to say the most significant albums have been the ones that point backwards. And like a couple of previous ones, they are all compilations. I like them because they condense the work of artists I enjoyed or caught snippets of growing up, but most of the time did not stop to take the time (or was just too young) to really appreciate them for what they were doing.
13. The Story of The Clash Vol. 1 - The Clash. Do people really know how much is "owed" to Joe Strummer and Mick Jones? Probably not.
14. Decade of Steely Dan - Steely Dan. With Donald Fagen, another graduate of the Heavy Metal Soundtrack. All of their greatest work (except "Hey Nineteen") was done before I really even had a fucking clue of what good music was about.
15. Anthology: Through the Years - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Tom Petty. He may be ugly as sin, but his music is a fine wine...it only gets better with age. One of, if not THE, quintessential American rockers. Yeah Bruce Springsteen, maybe even more than you. Blasphemy? Depends on your point of view.
So there you have it...the last half. 15 is really a small number - I could easily double the number with honorable mentions, but I've spent enough time on this already, and my muse is departing...
Damn you, Randal and Briwei. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
I'm not sure why I'm starting my meme posts with movie references lately, but if you don't like it then screw you, nobody's making you pay to read my drivel.
Once again, I have a double dose of memes to get through courtesy of the above mentioned bloggers in arms. Both deal with music, both required work and thought (though in different ways) and both are pretty darned cool. In fact, I had wanted to get them posted well before now, but as luck would have it I had an overflow of work into my personal time, and that took priority. So without further ado, I'll get on with it... MEME THE FIRST: THE 15 MOST SIGNIFICANT ALBUMS OF MY LIFE, PART I - BIRTH THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL.
The rule is simple: list the 15 most significant albums in your life. The concept bears repeating; there is a big difference between significant and favorite.
What I would REALLY like to do is draw something of a diagram showing where they "popped up" in my life and what the links may be between them, but I just don't have the chops to do that right now. So I'll just list them, as close to chronological order as I can. Hold tight cuz this is going all over the place...
1. Disco Duck Dance Party - Irwin the Disco Duck and the Wibble Wabble Singers and Orchestra. Yeah. The first album that I ever owned, when I was about six years old. Significant in that it represents a significant disadvantage from the get-go. Sort of like being born a crack baby. But this story has a good ending...
2. Skip ahead to sixth grade, around 1978/9. Mr. Templin's music class was sometimes fun, sometimes a pain in the ass. Mr. Templin was 20-something, a hothead and a perfectionist. Sing badly, he got mad. Don't pay attention because you're a pre-pubescent thinking about going to your friends house after school and raiding his dad's Penthouse collection, he got mad. On the other hand, he cared about music. The coolest thing he did was spend about three weeks worth of classes going through Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition - Misao Tomita and compare it to the original composition as a demonstration of what "modern" electronic music was capable of. It was the one cool thing he did all year. The rest of the time he was an ass. I haven't heard the album in the thirty years since, but I do still love Mussorgsky.
3. Heavy Metal Soundtrack - Various Artists. The movie came out the summer between middle- and high school. My friends were going to go see it; one of them had a cool mom who would buy their tickets, take them in and then leave. Being a good kid I asked if I could see the film with them and dealt with the "no". I should have said "Hey, can I go see a movie with Mark and Stephen?" But as they say: "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." Well, if I couldn't see the movie I'd get the record. There is little on it that could be called metal - Black Sabbath's "The Mob Rules" is just about it. It was really my first intro to serious rock, I played the Hell out of it, and some of the artists on it would figure in future significant albums.
4. Scant months later, early in my Freshman year, I went and saw my first honest to Gawd rock concert: One on One - Cheap Trick. Cheap Trick had a track on the aforementioned Heavy Metal Soundtrack. There are MUCH BETTER Cheap Trick albums with much better songs out there and you don't need me to tell you what they are. But the show was awesome - I loved watching Rick Nielsen play his 5-necked guitar - and turned me on to the album and other music of theirs. And I can still hear them everytime I turn on the Colbert Report.
5. Rio - Duran Duran. Go ahead - snicker. Laugh. Ask me if I'm gay. Plenty of people did in high school. This guy who sat next to me in Algebra - Skippy as he was known - openly ridiculed me. Their videos had hot chicks. They were not overly talented, musically. Simon LeBon was not, nor will he ever be, an accomplished singer. But freshman and sophomore year I was heavy into them, and stayed interested in the band even after I had moved on to other genres.
6. Skippy may have openly ridiculed me, but he was a good guy. And as we were the two smah-test kids in Algebra II, our love of math bridged our musical differences. Now Skippy was something of a sick guy. He listened to bands like Venom and Slayer, and liked to talk about how uncomfortable his girlfriend got when he played them as mood music for getting laid. He also told me he'd set me right when it came to music. Well, early my Junior year, during "Flex Study" in the cafeteria, he let me listen to a song on his walkman. That song was Ride the Lightning - Metallica. To quote Randal,
The descending progression in the title track? .... Genius.
Hooked. Immediately. And yeah, I still have to crank that fucker, too. With "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "Creeping Death", and "The Call of Ktulu" it formed the gateway into an adolescence that was defined by metal appreciation. I had "Kill 'Em All" within a month, the "Am I Evil?" EP shortly thereafter, and the wait for "Master of Puppets" was agony. The floodgates had opened - Slayer, Venom, Wasp, Exodus, Possessed, Accept, Dio...awesome stuff. When Cliff Burton died and their tour was put on hold I threw away my Ozzie tickets...fuck that bloated old sod singing about shots in the dark, I was only going to see his opening act! Vindication would be mine in a headbanging orgy however, when they would come back as headliners on the "Puppets" tour, when my buds and I would successfully move from our ticketed seats to THE FRONT ROW in a pile of people six feet deep pressed up against the rail at the orchestra pit that separated us and the stage.
7. Spreading the Disease - Anthrax. The first speedmetal album I bought (after Metallica). Great, great, GREAT album. "Stand or Fall", "The Enemy", "Gung Ho", "Madhouse" - they just don't write 'em like that anymore, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-UH. Thank you, Greg Kihn. MTV pissed me off by banning the "Madhouse" video because they felt it denigrated the mentally ill. How could it? They were all buying the fucking album and going to the show! But MTV had standards to uphold - ones that eventually led to reality shows about a bisexual whore making brainless fucks eat bull penises for a chance to sleep with her. The "moment" for me on this album was at the very end, right after "Gung Ho", when Scott Ian and company break into this beautiful piece:
But much, much harder. They were the first metal show I saw, in a hole in the wall in Providence called "The Living Room".
8. Powerslave - Iron Maiden.Not my favorite Maiden album by far, but it was my first. Being a kid who loved military history I dug the "Aces High" video, bought the album for the song, and that was it. Dickinson's vocal range, the harmonizing of the guitars, and epics like "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" and other songs throughout their discography lay ahead. I bought all their albums - even the two with Paul Di'Anno on vocals. If you've never heard it, "Killers" is a ballsy song. Oh...and that "Heavy Metal" soundtrack? Nicko McBrain, Maiden's drummer, originally played for a French rock band named Trust, who had a track on it.
Okay! That takes me from my early years of being a snivelling wussy through full fledged head-banger in high school. Tomorrow I'll deal with college and adult life. I said these were a bit of work, and in the interest of keeping this from being a complete snoozer, I'll save the remaining paragraphs for tomorrow.
It's nice to credit the photo source, but I lost the URL. So, whoever you are, thanks for the excellent picture! (This sentence is also lifted...but true! I tried going back through and finding it, but you can imagine how that turned out...IF, by some odd chance, you find this incredibly obscure and unworthy site, know that you took a great picture!)
4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it together.
5 - Post your photo to your FB page with this text in the "caption" or "comment" and tag friends you’d like to join in.
These guys are definitely late 70's / early 80's post-punk/new wave. Somewhere in the vicinity of The Tubes with some forays into Buggles-like synth-pop. It was their only album and it produced one hit, "Sex Placebo", that spent four weeks on the charts and topped out at number 22. The rest of the album was pretty forgettable, as was the rest of the band's career. In fact, a Rolling Stone review in 1981 declared "With the exception of their one catchy if mediocre single, Neither Useful Nor Enjoyable is a fair description of The End of Medicine's debut album."
Last month I was a contributor to the Green Monkey Music Project Volume XIV - Numb3r5 over at Splotchy's place. This past Thursday he posted the mix, and one of the requirements is that I explain my choices. Which is funny, because I had little rhyme or reason in the songs I chose, except that they deal with numbers and I love them. But I suppose I owe a better explanation than that, so here goes. I like Splotchy's idea of posting album cover art with the songs so I'm stealing it...
"Zero" by Smashing Pumpkins. My favorite song from their second album, "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness". I love everything about the song - the riff, the anger and despair in the lyrics, Corgan's vocal style. It was a very high high point on an otherwise forgettable album. ("Siamese Dream" was so much better!)
"Three Sisters" by Jim Carroll. Carroll's probably best known for the song "People Who Died" but this song is just as good. Three sisters, their lifestyles, and the words they say when they "go down on you"...
"Four Sticks" by Led Zeppelin. A band with four members, releases an album "Four" with a song on it that uses the word "Four". It was a sign that I had to include it. Zep IV was the first album of theirs I bought in high school, and I got it for Stairway to Heaven. This song quickly became my favorite.
"Six Pack" by Black Flag. Originally released on the "Damaged" LP in 1981. Seminal American hard core punk courtesy of Hank Rollins. What do we know about partying...or anything else? I love beer. Song about beer good.
"Louis Quatorze" by Bow Wow Wow. From the "I Want Candy" album it's a punked-up and naughty song about two teens (remember...Annabelle Lwin was only 14 years old when Malcolm McLaren discovered her) involved in steamy role-playing that includes firearms. Oh I love it when he says so seriously, with his gun in my back "Honey, close your eyes and think of England!"
"22 Acacia Avenue" by Iron Maiden. From what is probably their best album, "Number of the Beast". After nothing but new wave, prog rock and classic rock, I figured I needed some metal. A song about a prostitute named Charlotte (aka "Charlotte the Harlot" from their debut album) who lives on Acacia Avenue. It's not a happy song. I remember driving by an Acacia Street in my home town when I was in high school. I never turned down to see if "22" or Charlotte were there.
A mini-mix of the selections...you can see the entire mix at the above links to I, Splotchy and I recommend you do - eight different bloggers, six songs each, diverse musical tastes; plenty of awesome music to look over and download.
I was too lazy to upload Four Sticks by Zep to imeem, so I just found the Page and Plant version. Still pretty awesome. After putting this together I realized that 66.666666666667% of the songs dealt with either alcohol or deviant sex. I wonder if that means anything? I really don't think of myself as a dirty old man...
The kids have long since fallen asleep, and the gifts are finally wrapped and we can go to bed. But before we do I'd like to share one more Christmas song, based on accounts of Christmas on the battle fields of World War I. I usually don't care for modern songs (or Christmas poems!) that support/thank/pay tribute to servicemen or put them on pedestals. Many of them just seem too contrived - drop some buzzwords like defending freedom, flags, etc., with a catchy tune and voila...people feel good an you make money. They seem more born of the desire to idealize and generalize than empathize with someone "standing the watch".
It was interesting reading of these occurrences when I was young, though the meaning really didn't sink in until later in life. It's a hopeful song. If Christmas, whatever it is/means, is enough to get mortal enemies to put aside their quarrel for even a day, then there is hope.
To those of you standing the watch, walking a post, far away from your friends and family, Merry Christmas. Stay safe, and come home soon.
------ UPDATE: WOW!!! Check the history note for today! I had NO IDEA that's what it was going to be when I started writing!
Last week I posted five of the best, now here are five of the rest. I find that pop stars and rock stars screw up many, many more Christmas songs than they get right. Whether they take an old standard and spin it so horribly that if flies apart or they try to capture the spirit of Christmas in an original work and just plain miss it. Either way, I hate them; but I LOVE to hate them.
So here they are...my five worst* Christmas songs:
Deck the Halls - Mannheim Steamroller. No band in the history of mankind has ever sucked the life and soul out of Christmas music as completely and effortlessly as Mannheim Steamroller wit the cheesy synthesizer, the bouncy electronic drums, and the overdone sustain. The only thing wrong with this piece is everything. I really don't know why people buy this crap.
You Make It Feel Like Christmas - Neil Diamond. I guess it's just the overall "Neil Diamond-ness" that kills this song for me. The whole "So wake up the kids...put on some tea...light up the tree...". Light it up LIKE THIS? Cuz' that's what you make me feel like, Neil. In fact, I'm going to watch that one again while listening...
Same Old Lang Syne - Dan Fogelberg. Oh. My. God. Shoot. Me. Now. I've gotta' give Dan props for working the frozen food section into a song, and I guess it's not REALLY a Christmas song, but he does say that the snow was falling Christmas eve. It's just...so...sappy. And he downs a six pack in a car with his ex and doesn't get any play? Wussy, girly-man.
Early Christmas Morning - Cyndi Lauper. James brought up another lousy Christmas song of hers. I've hated this one for years. Said it before I'll say it again. She has one of the ten most annoying voices in the world.
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Coldplay. No explanation needed - it's freakin' Coldplay.
And if the widget will only let you play 30 sec of each song (it's been known to happen) you can link here for the entire awful package.
*excluding that Gawdawful "Christmas Shoes" song! That is truly the "Al Qaeda" of Christmas songs and I refuse to link to or provide any other means to play that musical turd on my site.
There are still plenty of cheesy songs on my iPod, but this week I've decided to start trying to get into the Christmas spirit with music. So I'll push a few of my favorites right here...not a lot of traditional songs (well, only one really) on my favorites, though I like many of the traditional ones...
Father Christmas - The Kinks. Good riff, tough lyrics, good message - "...but remember the kids who have nothing when you're drinking down your wine."
Jingle Bells - Bing Crosby. I love the fat big band sound, esp. the explosion of horns after the second verse. I couldn't find the live version I wanted to put here.
Hey Santa Clause - Kevin Bloody Wilson. A raunchy Aussie singer's dirty take on Christmas. NSWF/NSFK - if you are offended easily, do not listen. And if you do and are offended, don't complain. I warned you. Funny as s***. My Australian feminist wife says so.
Carol of the Bells - Trans-Siberian Orchestra. 'Nuff said. They sound like they could beat up Mannheim Steamroller. Which would be a good thing.
The Little Drummer Boy - Johnny Cash. I really like the message that it doesn't take wealth, power or status to do good. Ultimately, the greatest thing you can give is to give of yourself.
Wow...it's early. I need to be in bed. But oh well. I also needed (wanted) to get this done!
Even though it's advent, I still don't want to get into the cheesy Christmas spirit just yet. Instead, I wanted to do something VERY METAL.
As well as from the UK, just like Viv here. First, I have to state - I FUCKEN' LOVE THIS BAND. I have seen them twice (long, long ago) and they blew me away. They always had a great way of taking literature (Samuel Taylor Colleridge, Frank Herbert, Alfred Lord Tennyson), history (Battle of Balaclava, Battle of Britain) and Egyptian Mythology (Horus / Osiris) and turning out beautiful, overpowering, epic head-banging tunes.
And then there was the time they took on Greek mythology. They came out with a freakin' awesome song, but took a great amount of liberty with the story - as they are entitled to do. So really, I guess I don't have any complaints about this song. It's not really that cheesy. I just wanted to put some Iron Maiden on my mix.
Nothin' ... I got nothin'. I mean, I don't even have a stream of consciousness right now. That's bad news, as I still have today and one more day to go. And my daughter's Wednesday night puking has turned into my oldest son's Saturday night puking and my and my wife's not feeling so hot. Ugh.
Oh the humanity. Or lack thereof. I know, I know, I'm probably the last guy in the blogocrap to mention it. Lack of a reasonable plan or security on the store aside, how people could just leave their decency and humanity in the car like that never ceases to amaze me. It shouldn't, but it does. Fuck people. This is the only Black Friday I care about.
I'm finally reading my Lovecraft again. I just finished At The Mountains Of Madness after not having read it in some two decades. Still reading the paperback edition I bought back in college, too. Love the mixing of sci-fi and horror, the describing of the Old Ones in human terms (or us in their terms?) and the author's realization and attempt to deal with the upheaval of all he thought to be true and mankind's being taken down a peg as the "most advanced" to ever walk the planet.
Speaking of dealing with things...how is the Kentucky State Office of Homeland Security dealing with the terrorist threat? By acknowledging, first and foremost, that
Dunno' about that. Think a certain Great Old One who dwells in the mountain realm of Kadath overlooking the desolate Plateau of Leng might have an opinion. It makes about as much sense. He might even loan you some shoggoths - from what I've read they'll keep the terrorists decapitated and covered in black putrescence fairly cheaply.
Urgh! Just threw up in my mouth a little bit! Mmmmm, Turkey-Day leftovers! It probably won't be long before I'm spewing noisome secretions full bore. Need to wrap this up.
And it's a teenage sadness everyone has got to taste... An in between age madness that you know you can't erase...
I think those two lines (and one tag line to follow) really create the anxious, hormonally charged and dirty feel to this upbeat, power-pop anthem - an homage to high school lust and "the kill" - because to hear this song is to understand there is no "thrill of the chase". In fact, those lines and several others made critics dub the song (which is amazingly tame by today's standards) "misogynistic". I have to admit - when this song came out in 1979, I was a touch too young (well, actually, a touch to innocent) to really get it. "They don't what? But I do what?" Until one of my dirtier-minded friends told me. Yeah, I get it! She DOES it. Heh heh, cool. Hey Butthead, I think I got a boner.
I promised I'd break with the "70's Hard/Glam Rock" theme this week, and I have delivered. This band gave us a lot...most notably, a number one single that I'm still sick of (and is for some reason also on my iPod), and oh yeah...skinny ties. Holy shit, skinny ties. Did you wear one in the 80's? It was because of these dudes...
What the!?!? They tucked their ties into their underwear creating a sort of uber-treasure trail? Maybe you don't recognize them like this...you may recognize them on stage, though:
Okay, I gave it away with the picture. The band is The Knack. The song - Good Girls Don't. A song so cheesy it defies description. Still, I am somewhat blinded by my inexplicable love for this song, so I had to confirm it's cheesiness with my wife. She looked at me funny. "Is a bear catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods?" Yeah, it is cheesy. But it's also awesome.
Lyrics...and ooh look! The video even! (WARNING! You may shake your head and reflexively blurt "What the f*** were we thinking back then?")
And holy bad haircuts, Batman - they're still touring! That evil Billboard #1 Hit about one of their young groupies (that was 30 YEARS AGO) carried them a long, long way! Okay, I'll admit that I do like several of their songs, and they do have some good ones. However - we live on a historic landmark that gets LOTS of outdoor wedding receptions in the summer, and I hear that "evil hit" at EVERY FRACKING ONE! ---------------------- UPDATE: I forgot to mention, notice the disparity between the "safe for radio" lyrics in the video and the actual lyrics scrolling...
...was my oldest son, L. He was born 20 November. I was born 21 November. So that makes it my birthday today.
40 years old. I love the whole "Oh my GOD, 40! How does it feel to be 40?"
It feels awesome. Really and truly. I'm happy to be 40. The alternative, never making it this far, is not so happy. I don't worry about getting old. I worry about ceasing to get old...
Anyway, so a decent day today, pretty low key, cleaning the house for a party tomorrow. We got L his first musical instrument for his birthday - an acoustic guitar. Then my wife got me my first musical instrument for my birthday - another acoustic guitar.
I call it my first instrument, though technically it isn't. I gave some kid $50 when I was in high school to take his beat up electric guitar off his hands and then bought a really cheap amp. I was into "speedmetal" or death metal or whatever back then, and I think I fancied myself becoming the next Kirk Hammett if I didn't get into college. Anyway, Kirk Hammett I wasn't, I bought a guitar book, tried it for a week, broke a string, then it sat around until I sold it to a friend who was serious about playing. He took up playing, and a couple of years later we got together with a couple of other friends and formed a punk band, with me screaming. Lots of fun. Dunno' what that's got to do with my birthday...oh yeah, I got a guitar again. I think taking it on now that I'm older and wiser, and with a partner, I'll show more promise. Really, I just want to be able to play some chords and pick out some dirty old sailor songs. Maybe a Clash tune now and then.
A birthday isn't a birthday without cake. And if you want a good cake, you have to start with a good cake mix. Here's my Birthday Cake Mix:
This was a hard mix to make, for a few reasons. First, picking songs was a challenge. They have many more good songs - I particularly like their cover of the Sabbath song "War Pigs" - a very good take, but I also didn't want to pick songs that were their big hits, covers or had a lot of air time on commercial radio. Then I wanted to limit the number of songs - to approximately the baking time of a cake. Well, I guess I did. Some dense bundt cakes can bake for 45 minutes or so. Then I had to deal with incorrect song titles on the songs I found posted by various imeem users - well, not deal with as much as put up with. It annoys me. Get it right. Look at the album, look at the song number, read it and spell it correctly. Cases in point:
Song 1 is "Commissioning a Symphony in C" - found as commissioning the symfony in C. And the album is "Comfort Eagle" not "Album".
Oh, and song 13 is called "Nugget", not "Shut the F*** Up" but obviously the person who posted it can only remember songs by the dirty words in them. Whatever.
Some great songs in there, too; some of the more personally significant:
Comfort Eagle - The line "We're building a religion..." just like Cthulhu is...
Carbon Monoxide - their music is very "car heavy" but this is different, talking about, of course, the pollution they create. "I wish I was in that Mercedes Benz, sealed away from my sins..."
Guitar - great song about breaking up and moving on, the syncopation of the vocals is what makes the song for me. Probably my all-time favorite Cake song.
Alpha-Beta Parking Lot - when I hear this song, I am back living in San Diego, it's 10 years ago, and I have a specific Alpha-Beta (grocery store) parking lot in mind, and it's sunset. Not watching anyone leave me, though...I was (and still am!) happily married...I just loved the imagery created.
Italian Leather Sofa - "She's got a black dress, and healthy breasts that bounce...on his Italian leather sofa." Hmm heh heh heh...boobies.
Nugget - not for the profanity in the chorus, but the imagery of "sharpened knives through Chicken McNuggets". Spent 18 months of my life I'll never get back cooking those goddam things. I'd have much rather shoved them up the ass of my managers...either right out of the freezer or the fryer, depending on my mood.
So I did get some music in this week - "Songs so cheesy I had to put them on my iPod" will be back next week.
Okay, 34 more minutes of my birthday, and 34 more minutes to get this post in. G'nite.
Okay, so last week I did some cheesy 70's rock. Well, I did some this week, too. Picking cheesy 70's rock songs is like shooting fish in a barrel. I'll branch out.
This week, a song that I forgot was there.
Throughout rock history, so many songs have followed the format "Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy loses girl (sometimes to a car crash, sometimes he kills her, sometimes she leaves him) boy laments." Today's song follows the format:
1. Boy is bored on Saturday night 2. Boy drinks and takes drugs 3. Boy wants to go to midnight show 4. Boy drives under the influence 5. Boy goes too fast and can't avoid crashing 6. Boy dies, but can't figure out why
We all have them ... songs that are just so damned cheesy we enjoy the heck out of them. Some of them are meant to be humorous and cheesy, but I much prefer the ones that aren't. Those songs conceived with the intent of assaulting the charts - and maybe they did - but they are just so bad you have no idea how they became hits. And you love them.
Sometimes there are bands like that - where a significant portion of their body of work meets the standard. Such is the case with Sweet, a UK "glam rock" band that has endured many years since forming in the early 70's.
Their best known songs in the U.S. - "Fox on the Run" and "Ballroom Blitz" - are cheesy indeed and definitely have a place on my iPod, but their best is the wonderful 1974 tune, "Little Willy".
Why? Because I just a love "Star-shine shimmy shuffle smile". My wife thinks it's because I'm really trying to believe that "size doesn't matter".
I give you, (The) Sweet, with "Little Willy".
And in case you really need to know what they're singing...
Okay, so some time ago I posted about a band called The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets and linked to their song "Yig Snake Daddy". I've since bought their album "Cthulhu Strikes Back", the cover of which is a cool take-off on "Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back" and is full of great, sci-fi/horror/Lovecraft-based surf punk. One of my favorite pieces is an 11-minute audio feast called "Cthulhu Dreams". It's worth a listen, and headphones make it better. Particularly cool listening on a lonely, late night train from London to Portsmouth.
Anyway, this morning as I'm making breakfast for the kids, I have this song playing. My oldest, who has a vague idea of what Cthulhu looks like (enough to draw sketches and make lego figures) asks if he's some sort of "sea monster". Instead of saying yes, I tried to explain that Cthulhu and his merry band of beings are instead a sort of metaphor to demonstrate mankind's utter insignificance in the cosmos at large.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so) he got it, and the conversation carried on to using "scary stories" to teach morals, like "That monkey paw story you told me, or Frankenstein". It was pretty cool.
He told me he sort of likes scary stories, and maybe he'd want to read some of my H. P. Lovecraft books that he's seen down in the basement. I told him since he chose to read The Hobbit for his last independent reading assignment in school, I think he could take a crack at Lovecraft. He seemed excited.
Always happy to convert a new minion. In this case, it took a sort of catechism (or, Cthulhuchism) to make it happen. I always knew Sunday School had a place in the lives of children.
I'm finishing up my workout this afternoon with 20 minutes on a stationary bike. The last random song from my workout mix is That's Good by Devo. Mark Mothersbaugh has always been the iconic face of this group for me.
I don't know what I like more about that video...the french fry nailing the donut or the sillouhetted image of the band at the end.
In the last year, my daughters have come to love the TV Show Yo Gabba Gabba!. Mark routinely appears on the show doing a "how to" drawing segment. He looks like he did in 82. Just older and fatter with more facial hair. Come to think of it, so do I.
In 2006, I spent six months in Bahrain working on the FIFTH Fleet Staff. Towards the end of my tenure, a Reserve Lieutenant Commander reported to the staff. Mark Mothersbaugh is his cousin.
In 2001-2002, while my family and I were living in Bahrain, my oldest was really into the Rug Rats. Hell, we all were. Who did the music? You guessed it...Mark did it.
My son loved the movie Rugrats in Paris. In the opening scene the kids are "acting out" a scene from the movie The Godfather, but calling it "The Bobfather". Some thought this was a reference to J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, founder of The Church of the Sub-Genius. I had several friends in college who really went overboard with that stuff. It was entertaining at first, but then it got annoying.
Oh...and Mark Mothersbaugh is a Sub-Genius which, while it may associate him with my friends' annoying obsessions around 1988-89, it means he celebrates "The Feast of St Cthulhu" which, according to the Sub-Genius Calendar, is November 10th. So I guess that's okay. Maybe we'll have a feast here at the restaurant on November 10th.
Speaking of 1989, I still have We're All Devo! on VHS that I bought in '89. My roommates and I used to watch it a lot. I bet it's just as cool now as it was then. I should fire it up and see.
I've spent about my entire adult life (not to mention adolescent life!) dealing with this guy in one way or another.
Or maybe they do. It seems that most bands that try to work Cthulhu and the "mythos" into their music also use "D-e" words. There are, of course, exceptions. Which is good because death metal sucks.
A Vancouver “punky surf” band whose lyrics don’t just make passing mention to Lovecraft—their entire existence seems to revolve around him. Their name is taken from a sentence near the beginning of Lovecraft’s “The Tomb”: “I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets...”
I describe this song, "Yig Snake Daddy", as rockin!
Today has always been an important day in our home, especially for my wife, Sarah. 25 April is ANZAC Day, the day the Australia-New Zealand Army Corps landed in Anzac Cove on Gallipoli in a long and ill-fated campaign to knock Turkey out of the First World War.
The landing and the next five days would cost the ANZACs nearly 5,000 killed, missing or wounded, and the entirety of the campaign would claim nearly 9,000 ANZAC casualties. Just a tiny fraction of the nearly 340,000 combined casualties that the next eight months would bring, but the impact of those 9,000 is still seen today.
Two war correspondents, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and Charles Bean, by documenting and this and other endeavors of the Australian troops, are largely credited with giving birth to the Anzac Spirit
The Anzac spirit or Anzac legend is a concept which suggests that Australian and New Zealand soldiers possess shared national characteristics, specifically the qualities those soldiers are believed to have shown in World War I. These qualities cluster around several ideas, including endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, and mateship. According to this concept, the soldiers are perceived to have been innocent and fit, stoical and laconic, irreverent in the face of authority, naturally egalitarian and disdainful of British class differences.
The Anzac spirit also tends to capture the idea of an Australian "national character", with the landing at Anzac Cove often described as being the moment of birth of Australia's nationhood.
Correspondingly, ANZAC Day is a big day there. It typically starts with a Dawn Service at a local war memorial or other prominent place.
The Dawn Service observed on ANZAC Day has its origins in an operational routine which is still observed by the Australian Army today. During battle, the half-light of dawn was one of the most favoured times for an attack. Soldiers in defensive positions were, therefore, woken up in the dark, before dawn, so by the time first light crept across the battlefield they were awake, alert, and manning their weapons. This was, and still is, known as "stand-to". It was also repeated at sunset.
After the First World War, returned soldiers sought the comradeship they felt in those quiet, peaceful moments before dawn. With symbolic links to the dawn landing at Gallipoli, a dawn stand-to or ceremony became a common form of ANZAC Day remembrance during the 1920s; the first official dawn service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927. Dawn services were originally very simple and followed the operational ritual. In many cases they were restricted to veterans only and the daytime ceremony was for families and other well-wishers. Before dawn the gathered veterans would be ordered to "stand to" and two minutes' silence would follow. At the end of this time a lone bugler would play the Last Post and then concluded the service with Reveille. In more recent times the families and young people have been encouraged to take part in dawn services, and services in Australian capital cities have seen some of the largest turnouts ever. Reflecting this change, the ceremonies have become more elaborate, incorporating hymns, readings, pipers, and rifle volleys. Others, though, have retained the simple format of the dawn stand-to, familiar to so many soldiers.
I attended a dawn service eight years ago, when Sarah and I were in Cairns for her sister's wedding. Everyone was there - ages 5 to 85 - reflecting on the tragic event that gave birth to their "national character". It was a truly moving experience, and one that I can see no parallel to here in the United States.
The day is just as significant in Turkey. Dawn services are also held at Anzac Cove itself; this year's was attended by ten thousand Australians, New Zealanders and Turks. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first President of the post-Ottoman Turkish Republic, was in command of the Turkish forces at Anzac Cove, as a Colonel.
In 1934 Atatürk wrote a tribute to the ANZACs killed at Gallipoli:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well.
This inscription appears on the Kemal Atatürk Memorial, ANZAC Parade, Canberra.
In the past, we would usually recognize ANZAC Day by having a dinner of traditional Australian fare - rack of lamb, with potato, pumpkin, and vegetables, and a pavlova for dessert. We'll also listen to Australian music - from folk (like The Aussie Bush Band) to rock (like Cold Chisel, whose lead singer, Jimmy Barnes sings "Good Times" with INXS on the Lost Boys soundtrack).
This year, it kind of got away from us, with everything going on. And that bugs me, for two reasons. First, it's a large part of Sarah's identity; she is a proud Australian, and as happy as we are together, the separation she endures from her home still weighs heavy upon her after 11 years. We also want our children to take as much pride in their Australian heritage as their Lebanese and American heritage. Lastly, it means a lot to me because, as I said, we don't appear to have anything here that parallels ANZAC Day here in America where we, as a nation, take the time to really reflect on our national identity and at what price it was bought. The direct, practiced link between history and today is not ingrained. I felt some of that on Patriot's Day eve, when I attended the Old North Church lantern lighting ceremony, but name the three (yep, that's it...three!) states that recognize Patriot's Day (I mean the anniversary of Paul Revere's ride...not 9-11!).
Wow...it's not even ANZAC Day anymore...does that mean I need to delete without posting?
On a final note, I mentioned we listen to Australian music on ANZAC Day. A big part of it is this song - "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" - written in 1972 by Eric Bogle,
describing the futility, gruesome reality and the destruction of war, while criticising those who seek to glorify it. This is exemplified in the song by the account of a young Australian soldier on his maiming during the Battle of Gallipoli during the First World War.
It can be tough to get through with dry eyes, but it is a beautiful piece.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
