Bringin Down the Grouse

The year of our Lord 2008 has certainly been a collection of 366 days, hasn't it?

I've not done at all badly for myself, and I hope you can say the same in your own regard.

Either way, may we all always be able to sing along with this classic and mean every word in a good way.




Happy New Year!

A Diamond in the Goth

Album: Peter Murphy, Deep, 1989

Best Track: "Cuts You Up"

Lasting Memory: I salvaged this cassette from the detritus of a former D.C. housemate. I'm pretty sure the guy's name is Paul, but I can't swear to that because I've tried to forget as much about him as possible.

The guy was a walking disaster -- psych discharge from the Air Force, failed Scientologist and Mormon, and debtor to several very insistent college loan issuers -- who I voted against allowing to move into the group house in the first place. I remember as much as I do about the guy because I had to gloss over it so he could get a Russian work visa and stay well the hell away Washington and my house once and for all.

Did I mention that the guy actually moved to Russia before he secured his work visa? He was that kind of guy. He was also the kind of guy who left behind his music collection, all but a handful of his books, and a microwave as "payment" for the nearly $1,000 phone bill he managed to roll up during his month and a half in the house.

I eventually tracked him down through the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and got him to pay his phone bill in return for not at least entering extradition processing. I also kept this copy of Peter Murphy's Deep and a wallchart of the young-Earth creationist's time line of world history from Adam and Eve until about 1980 AD.

The wallchart is more interesting than the tape, but you'll probably recognize the hit single "Cuts You Up" from Deep since it was exactly everything a fin-de-80s alternative track should have been and it still gets played on the better sorts of radio stations.

What you won't know, and what I never realized until I gave Deep a listen yesterday, is that whatever appeal Peter Murphy holds, he holds in large measure because he sounds exactly like Neil Diamond. In fact, the similarities between the former leader of goth godfathers Bauhaus and the leather-lunged troubadour are nothing short of eerie.

Compare the vocals on Murphy's "Marlene Dietrich's Favorite Poem" to Diamond's "Heartlight" and then tell me if you have ever seen both men in the same place at the same time.
You hear what I'm saying, right? I'm not just way off base here, am I?

Beyond the voices, both men are partial to wearing pseudo pompadour hairstyles, engaging in-concert theatrics, and sucking blood.* What other proof do you need?

Up Next: Ned's Atomic Dustbin, God Fodder, 1991

*Editor's note: While Mr. Diamond's taste for "red, red wine" is well-documented, it has never been confirmed that Mr. Murphy actually dines on the sweet nectar of humans.

Turning to Partly Sunny Later in the Day

Album: Bob Mould, Black Sheets of Rain, 1990

Best Track: "It's Too Late"

Lasting Memory: Exactly one day after receiving Bob Mould's Black Sheets of Rain as a 21st birthday present in 1990, I was involved in what should have been a very serious automobile accident on Interstate 64, just south of Williamsburg, Va.

The whole thing was fittingly poetic, but not in the way that the album's title would suggest.

The day was perfectly sunny, and the pavement was bone dry. The album is a mostly light-hearted recap of the leadup to and aftermath of the breakup of a long-term relation. There is only a smattering of doom and gloom on the album, and there was certainly no impending disaster on the horizon for me at that moment.

The stretch of highway I was on is flat, straight, and separated by a completely treeless and guardrail-less expanse of median. It is also maddeningly prone to total traffic stoppages for no reason at all, during which every driver has to decelerate from 75 mph to 0 mph in less than a minute.

While grooving to Black Sheets of Rain, I ran up on one of these parking-lot occurrences and stomped on my brakes. Not owning my own car at the time, I was driving a rented Dodge 4-door something. All fiberglass and relatively low to the ground.

Not knowing the car well enough to know if I would be able to stop in time before running into the car in front of me, I jerked the Dodge onto the shoulder of the center median and coasted to a stop. No harm so far, and it turned out I could have stopped within the lane after all.

So glancing into my rearview mirror to see if I have space to pull back into traffic, I saw an SUV of indeterminate but very large make squarely in my hindsights and growing bigger and bigger at an alarming rate.

Having nothing else to do, I took my foot off the brake and pulled hard to the left, into the median. This evasive action did little to minimize the impact, as the SUV must have been going about 30 mph when it smacked into my rented Dodge and pushed me into the center of the median.

And whaddaya know? I wasn't injured. The Dodge wasn't dented, and the SUV suffered just a cracked cover of one its headlights.

The only losses were a couple of oranges, which got knocked lose from an overstuffed grocery bagful of Thanksgiving leftovers and which rolled out of my driver's side door when I got out to yell at the SUV driver.

I still miss those oranges.

And I still don't know what that friggin' SUV driver was doing driving on the lefthand shoulder when he had more than enough room in the lane since I was no longer occupying it.

What I do know is that Black Sheets of Rain is everything I earlier complained that another album Bob Mould recorded with his band Hüsker Dü, The Living End, isn't. The production on Black Sheets is clear, and the songs are catchy while also being insightful. I might even go so far as to describe "Disappointed" as playful, life-affirming, and '60s pop-like:

Well I'm sorry you're disappointed
But times they change and so did I
Standing still and getting nowhere quicker
Well it seems I didn't have to try
But now I've found a reason to move on
And you won't miss me much now that I'm gone
You don't seem disappointed

The three years I went to college
Didn't make much of a difference to me
Made me feel so safe I didn't have to think
About the things I really wanna be

So don't get caught up in that trap
They'll make you feel like you've been trapped
Into owing them your gratitude
And all the other platitudes
That make you feel important when you go
But now I've found a reason to move on
And you won't miss me much now that I'm gone
You don't seem disappointed

'Cause when you're gone, somebody else will come along and take your place
It doesn't make me feel any less a member of the human race
This ain't no race

Well I'm sorry you're disappointed
But I don't feel that way today
I am free from all the crazy games you played
I am free from all the things you say
And I don't mean to make a mockery of the things
you thought I'd say when I left, but I'm not disappointed

And if I felt the urge to say you're wrong
Well, I just hold the words inside and laugh
And you'd be disappointed
So disappointed
So disappointed

Nothing on Black Sheets of Rain is exactly a day at Chuck E. Cheese's, but it's all nice enough. Even the ominous-sounding title track ends with this affirmation that the sun shines even when we can't see it:

A little rain is all we need
(Someone stopped the sun from shining)
Where will you be in my darkest hour of need?
(I never see the sun stop shining)
Where will you be in my darkest hour of need?
(Someone stopped the sun)
Here it comes again

The heart of the album are the songs that proceed most directly to its dual theme of the recognition of and resignation to loss, "It's Too Late" and "The Last Night." But, just as the album's title baits and switches, "Last Night" describes the beginning of the end, while "Too Late" is the tale of moving on.

All of Black Sheets is pleasingly ironic, which, to finally get to my point, is what made it a fittingly poetic soundtrack for a car crash that destroyed nothing but oranges.

Up Next: Peter Murphy, Deep, 1989

So Happy Christmas ...

Leave it to The Pogues to capture the best and the worst of the Christmas experience all in one song.




It really is a hopeful song. The hope of the damned, but that sort of thing has its times and places. Like theNew York City drunk tank on Chistmas Eve.

Here's hoping you only experience good things this holiday, and all next year, too.

Album: Mötley Crüe, Shout at the Devil, 1983

Best Track: "Looks That Kill"

Lasting Memory: I was a loser when I was 13. Full stop. No gainsaying. I was a loser.

For no other proof, you need to know that I really, really liked Shout at the Devil when I was 13.

I may still be a loser, but I no longer enjoy Shout at the Devil. The album is exactly lame as it predecessor Too Fast for Love is not lame (see below).

Vince Neil may be a pretty, pretty man, but that can't make up for the fact that he is less appealing than any of the chicks in the video for "Looks That Kill." And all of the songs on Shout fail to rock precisely because they try to rock. "Red Hot" comes closest to being closest to being unbad, but it is also the most beige of all American hard rock songs.

If anyone wanted to rock out, they could definitely do better than "Bastard," but they could absolutely do as well.

I hate to harsh on a band that I just praised highly, but I have to think that Mötley Crüe both rushed out its sophomore album and aimed for the lowest common denominator with Shout. Certainly, the band did much better with its follow-up albums, such as Girls, Girls, Girls. Or at least that's what I think every time I'm at the Hustler Club in Baltimore.


Up Next: Bob Mould, Black Sheets of Rain, 1990

Judge This Tape by Its Cover, or Else

Album: Mötley Crüe, Too Fast for Love, 1982

(Parental Advisory: This album cover may be laughably homoerotic.)

Best Track: "Merry-Go-Round"

Lasting Memory: This is one of only maybe three cassettes I ever replaced with a cassette after I finally broke down in 1991 and purchased a CD player. The analog Too Fast for Love tape that got dropped and stomped on during one of my infinity-plus-one moves in the late 1980s and early 1990s had too much sentimental value to me to be supplanted with a digital disk.

I couldn't today tell you what that sentimental value was, but I know I held the tape dear and that only a cassette would fill the void created by its destruction.

Playing the replacement tape through a couple of times this morning, I am convinced I made the right choices in both re-adding Too Fast for Love to my music collection and in going analog. The Crüe's major-label debut benefits from the murky sound and a slight echo that are the hallmarks of magnetic tape and which are inevitably scoured away on digital recordings.

"Starry Eyes," for instance, would just suck if it was, you know, good. But since it sounds so amateurish, the song endears and rocks much more than it has any right to.

The whole of Too Fast for Love is like that. The album is a guilty pleasure of a hard rock album that no one should need to feel guilty about enjoying.

Certainly compared to almost all of their Sunset Strip hair band brethren -- your L.A. Gunses, your Hanoi Rockses, your Poisons -- Mötley Crüe proved itself to be the most talented. And while it can be fair to counter that even Beckley, W. Va., has its best little ballerina,* being the best of/from will always merit its own deserved respect.

Then there's this: The songs "Merry-Go-Round" and "Live Wire" kicked ass when I was 12, and they kick ass when I'm 39.

So 27 years on, I throw my horns and am happy to let Mötley Crüe go "On With the Show."


Up Next: Mötley Crüe, Shout at the Devil, 1983

* Good night, Craig McC, wherever you are.

Let Me Send You Glad Tidings

Album: Van Morrison, Moondance, n.d. (cassette reissue)

Worst Tack: "Come Running"

Lasting Memory: While I was sitting in a Blacksburg hippie coffee shop/ice cream parlor named Gillie's with a couple of friends on some cold, drizzly February night in 1990, a guy I kind of knew named James (I'm pretty sure, wouldn't swear) appeared out of nowhere and started singing along with a three-piece jazz combo that was playing "Moondance" near the front door of the establishment. You could have heard a pin drop, as everyone in the place -- struck by how perfectly the song, James' voice, the weather, and the general mood of being young and worldly wise/sheltered all came together -- fell silent and lost themselves in the vibe.

Everyone needs to experience more moments like that.

Fortunately, all anyone needs to do to set the scene for such reverie is to play Van Morrison's Moondance. Ranked 65th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, Moondance is the album you need when you just want to feel great about being alive while not completely forgetting that the world isn't always the greatest place to be living. (RS pollsters actually ranked Morrison's Astral Weeks higher on the GOAT list at No. 19, but since I don't own that album and can't unequivocally affirm that I have ever heard any songs off of Astral Weeks, I'll stick with my assertion that Moondance is Morrison's masterwork and add that Astral Weeks can go suck it.)

Every song on Moondance would be a career-maker for most other singer-songwriter -- even "Come Running," which I tagged as the album's worst track only because I couldn't see the point of listing every other song as the album's best. "Come Running" is a good song. In fact, it was the American single when Warner Bros. released Moondance in 1970. But set alongside with such timeless classics as "Caravan," "Everyone," "Into the Mystic," and "Glad Tidings," "Come Running" comes up a little short. Maybe it should give up smoking and drinking and really get itself in shape for the next listening.

For all of the greatness of its individual songs, though the best ting about Moondance is that it is a completely coherent album. In writing, recording, and sequencing the songs, Morrison and his band and production team took great care in constructing a collection of songs that have similar lyrical themes, similar musical sounds, and similar effects on listeners. As I blog through my music collection, I'm finding that most of the albums I praise highly are the ones that are albums qua albums. I'll try to remember to write more about this when I get to my Tragically Hip CDs sometime in, oh, 2011 at the current pace, because the Hip more than any other band I could name tends to pick unique moods and riffs to build entire album's worths of songs around.

For now, I'll just sign off and look forward to transitioning from the sublime to the ridiculous when I get around to making my next post on:

Up Next: Mötley Crüe, Too Fast for Love, 1982

Anarchists Who Attend Meetings Miss the Point

Album: Mojo Nixon, Otis, 1990

Best Track: "Don Henley Must Die"

Lasting Memory: Whenever I catch an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, I think about this album because the inside of the cassette cover features a list of famous Otises -- Otis the Drunk, Otis the Elevator, Otis Sistrunk, etc.

Played by prolific and deceased voice actor Hal Smith, Otis Campbell is right up there with Frank Pembleton at the top my of list of all-time favorite television characters. As written, the character of Otis was the most responsible alcoholic who ever lived. He had and kept a good job. He was reasonably happily married. He had his own keys to Mayberry's police station and holding cells so he could lock himself up when he needed to sleep off a bender. Otis was fictionally a man who knew how to balance his vice with virtue.

I suspect that Mojo likes Otis Campbell for the exact same reasons I do. Because while Mojo espouses anarchy -- consequence-free irresponsibility, actually -- in songs like "I Ain't Gonna Piss in No Jar" on Bo-Day-Shus!!! and "Took Out the Trash and Never Came Back," he clearly understands that in real life that with great libertarianism comes great responsibility. Here's what Mojo had to say about his political and social philosophies during a 1999 interview with The Onion A.V. Club:

Onion: Can you outline your political platform?

Mojo Nixon: Basically, I'm just saying one basic thing: Take responsibility for your own actions. You make decisions, and you live by 'em. If you were dealt a bad hand, you've still gotta play cards. Or you can fold and get another hand. But you can't sue somebody and get a new hand! People always want to blame somebody or something. It's always somebody else's fault. But it's your own damn fault. The government, the church, the state, the lawyers, the doctors. ... It's not their fault, it's not your parents' fault, it's your fault. People always want to blame someone else -- right-wing talk-show hosts, or rap musicians, rock 'n' roll, or whatever. All this whining and crying and pissing and moaning and suing everyone has gotta stop. You make decisions and you live by 'em. And then you die. Then other people get to make decisions and live by them. It's pretty fuckin' simple! Now, it's who can hire the most lawyers and wear the other person down so they give up and you win. Whoever has the most money can hire the most lawyers and eventually win. Same thing with the election process. The idea is that there's supposed to be a marketplace of ideas and you vote for who you think is best. But that's not true at all. It's whoever can raise the most money, can hire the smartest people, and make the best button-pushing ad to get elected. We have diluted justice and democracy by putting money into it so deep. I've been working on this thing, The Mojo Manifesto. I'm gonna solve all these problems. I'm just having a little trouble figuring it out.

O: Do you vote?

MN: No, I don't vote. I think the last time I voted, I voted for Carter. I don't think it makes a difference. I think the Republicans and the Democrats are just selling us the same bag of shit with different colors on it. They're both battling in the same middle 10 percent of the total spectrum of political ideas. People were so excited -- and I, too, was excited -- when Clinton was elected, but all Bubba can really do is put a smiley face on things. The giant bureaucratic machine, the Defense Department, the Department of Transportation, the IRS. ... All these things just ride along. They don't even know Bubba's there. And look at Bubba--he can't stop these things. Look how worn-out and beat-up he is. Because of the way the whole system is based, you get the most money, which comes from the most evil people, whether it's cigarette money or HMOs or whoever, and they're going to keep things the way they are. They're going to bamboozle us into making us think we're getting reform when what they're really doing is protecting their asses. In the big picture, the Republicans and the Democrats don't have a clue. They don't have any intention of solving any of our problems. Their only plan is to get re-elected; their only plan is save-ass: "If you give me money and vote for me, I'll try to save any stupid thing you want." It's sound and fury signifying nothing, and I'm calling for a new constitutional convention. If that doesn't work, I'm calling for armed insurrection! I mean, we're totally drifting around in a sea of stupidity and indecision. We agreed 200 years ago to have a constitution and to fight the king. We need to agree on something now besides football and pizza.

O: Are you thinking of joining a militia?

MN: No, I'm not going to blow up people; I'm going to blow up the infrastructure. I'm gonna shoot satellites out of the sky. And I also think that the ideas of doctors and nurses and HMOs are lousy and inefficient. It's all just a big money-grab, hiding behind the veil of, "We want to help you." They don't care about helping people. If you want to make money, there are plenty of ways. Become a lawyer. Become a widget salesman or something. Medicine should be about finding cures and healing people, not about making more money. If people are sick, we should try to make them well, not try to get as much money out of them as possible and keep 'em just alive to milk 'em 'til the end. It's wrong.

O: What's your solution?

MN: We need to reform the whole thing. We need instant voter registration when you turn 18. They're still using paper to register people to vote! You should be able to walk in anywhere with your social-security number, and they can check the computer and see if you've voted already. We need to get rid of the Electoral College; we need to open things up a little bit. That's why I'm calling for a new constitutional convention to unveil Mojo's new 10-point plan. I'm also calling for a billion dollars in research for the male G-spot. If you're gonna waste money, let's waste it for a good reason.

I agree with everything he said here except for abolishing the Electoral College. All people have the inalienable right to be occasionally reckless so long as they are more often responsible. Mojo for president, indeed.

Double indeed.

Up Next: Van Morrison, Moondance, n.d. (cassette reissue)

Comedy = Others' Pain + Your Distance

I have a long post on libertarianism vs. the social contract to put up tomorrow. You'll be surprised by my choice for the winner.



While I get my thoughts sorted, enjoy this bit of irreverent comedy from The Office creator Ricky Gervais, which may just be the most wrong -- and most spot-on -- four minutes of social commentary ever filmed.






And don't miss out on Gervais calling out Nazis for sloppiness and Anne Frank for laziness ("no sequel").

Ain't Gonna Pay for Tapes Any More

Album: Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper, Root Hog or Die, 1991

Out of Order Posting Excuse: I no longer have this cassette in my music collection because someone at WUVT, the Virginia Tech student-run radio station, stole it after I brought it in to play a track during my short-lived show but forgot to take it with me when I left.

Damn alterna-kids.

So since I can't do a proper post on Root Hog or Die, and I'm too strapped for time today to do a legitimate post on the earlier album I do still have, I'll just share these two Mojo-esque videos of songs from Root Hog or Die.

The first is no "Stuffin' Martha's Martha's Muffin," but it's fun to think about Mojo and Debbie spending any time together at all, let alone spending time in flagrante delecto.






This second offering ain't a great song, but Mojo's wall-eyed commitment to being a public kook is admirable if nothing else.




Up Next: Mojo Nixon, Otis, 1990

Ode to an Easy Job

Mojo Nixon, "Shane's Dentist," Otis

(H/T Blues Brews and BBQ)

Montage lifted from J-Walk.

Let record show, unbelievably, that Shane McGowan will be 51 years old this coming Christmas Day.

We Gotta Have More Soul!

Album: Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper, Bo-Day-Shus!!!, 1987

Best Track: "Wide Open"

Lasting Memory: Listen to "We Gotta Have More Soul" or "Wash No Dishes No More" and understand how rarefiedly ridiculous it may seem for me to write the following words: I experienced a true epiphany on July 23, 1991, while listening to the Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper album Bo-Day-Sush!!!.

Sitting in my car, at around two in the afternoon, parked in front of a company-owned townhouse in Germantown, Md., where I was camping out while serving a co-op stint with a government management consulting company at the U.S. Department of Energy satellite headquarters, listening to "Wide Open," I understood, all in a flash, what was so great about rock n' roll and America.

"Wide Open," like a majority of the songs on Bo-Day-Sush!!!, preaches the desirability of -- and sometime the absolute requirement for -- freedom in dancin', drinkin', and hair stylin'. But the real root of Mojo and Skid's message is conveyed in the bridge to "Wide Open," during which Mojo drops into sotto voce to tell listeners

I'm out in Pittsylvania County
On Highway 7-1-8
Middle of a cornfield
Know I'm not too late
There's about thirteen
Thirteen '67 Chevy Malibus
In a circle
In the cornfield with their headlights on
And I can feel it

I can feel it!

And everybody's dancin' in the headlights
Dancin' in the headlights
And off
In the distance
You can hear 'em sing . . .

"I'm feling wide open"

That. Is. It. That is the power of music and the blessing of having been born in the United States. If you need further explanation, I can't help you.

But if you do need some further proof of American Exceptionalism, give "B.B.Q. U.S.A." a click and a spin.


Up Next: Mojo Nixon, Otis, 1990

I Want to Believe

More soon ...

Do Wolverhampton Houses Have Garages?

Album: Mighty Lemon Drops, Out of Hand, 1987

Best Track: "My Biggest Thrill (Live)"

Lasting Memory: I taped this album from my sisters friend Nancy during the summer of 1989, when I was working as a lot attendant (read: carwasher) at Nancy's father's rental-car lot.

That was a tough summer, during which I also became super serious about working out. I dropped between 50 and 60 pounds in a little over two months, between the working outside for 9 hours a day, 6 days a week and then spending 2 hours in the weight room for 4 or 5 evenings each week.

What ever became of that Ed kid who could pull of that kind of schedule?

Rhetorical question: He realized he liked having beers more than not having beers, and he also aged 20 years.

It happens. Even to the likes of you. Don't judge me.

It also happens that good bands and their songs get lost to time, which is what became of the Mighty Lemon Drops. But much like Randall with a certain term, I'm bring them back.

Out of Hand isn't as good as the Mighty Lemon Drops' World Without End, which I praised in my previous post, but Out of Hand is pretty good. Rawer, more garage band-y than its immediate follow-up, Out of Hand opens with a strong title track and keeps right on rocking with slightly psychedelia overtones through the closing song, "The Other Side of You (Live)."

I particularly like the song "My Biggest Thrill (Live)" because it, in 1987, promised exactly what the Mighty Lemon Drops delivered in 1998 on pretty much all of World Without End -- power pop of the purest kind, which can only be produced in garages by late-teen and early-twenties musicians who are too naive to understand that they can't really change the world by causing a few asses to shake.

Which raises the question, "Do houses in the city of Wolverhampton, England, where the Mighty Lemon Drops formed, have garages?" Apparently not, judging by the picture of the Wolverhampton townhouse development to the right. So good show by the lads for never saying, "Count Me Out" when confronted with this muse-denying limitation.

Up Next: Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper, Bo-Day-Shush!!!, 1987

Yep, Every Year

Today's Long-Distance Dedication goes out to





Peggy, Susan, Chris, Dave, and a man who made so much of all we've accomplished possible.

Popping Off

Album: The Mighty Lemon Drops, World Without End, 1988

Best Track: "Inside Out"

Lasting Memory: When I started the project that constitutes the basic purpose for this blog -- listening to all of the cassettes and CDs I've collected since my early teens -- I was hoping I would make some great rediscoveries of bands I had all but forgotten about. To date, such rediscoveries have been rare but welcome, especially in the cases of Firehose and House of Freaks.

I am happy to now add The Mighty Lemon Drops to the list of bands whose music I unwisely relegated to the deepest depths of my tape rack, to be played again probably never by chance or choice. But World Without End has come up in the blog queue, and I am here to report that it is as charming a collection of power pop as was ever recorded and released.

The album opens with the one Mighty Lemon Drop's song that I can recall ever receiving any airplay in the United States, "Inside Out." It's a great song, to put a none-too-fine but completely accurate point on things. I don't know that my picking the song apart to explain why the song is great would be helpful in any way. I do know that whatever the separate and combined elements of that greatness are, they extend to all but probably one of the songs on World Without End.

I was particularly impressed anew with "Hear Me Call," "Fall Down (Like the Rain)," and "One by One." Enjoy at your leisure.

Up Next: The Mighty Lemon Drops, Out of Hand, 1987 (out of order, but what can you do?)

Influential Influences Influence

Album: Meat Puppets, Meat Puppets, 1982 (reissue)

Best Track: "Blue-Green God"

Lasting Memory: I bought this debut EP from Meat Puppets in February 1992 after I had read the eleventy billionth interview in which Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain cited the Meat Puppets as an influence.

In truth, the Meat Puppets were a template for Nirvana. Every riff and lyrical conceit of Nirvana was lifted wholesale from the Meat Puppets, right down to the angular A chord that served as the base of each chorus.

I won't swear to the A chord, but I would go to the Supreme Court to defend the proposition that Nirvana stole their shtick from the Meat Puppets. I'd also have to concede the fact that Nirvana did the Meat Puppets much better than did the original puppeteers.

Comparing the Meat Puppets' "Blue-Green God" to Nirvana's "Negative Creep" is as informative as it it is unfair. It's like wondering why Hank Aaron topped Babe Ruth in total homers. Aaron would never have been swinging for the fences if he he hadn't followed Ruth, but Aaron threw his lumber with much more style and grace.

I don't dislike the Meat Puppets, and I definitely like Nirvana, but seeing the strings that connect both bands definitely reduces the "wow" factor whenever I hear either group's songs.

It's also the case that the student should surpass the master. Only if Led Zeppelin reworks "When the Levee Breaks" from Kansas Joe McCoy will rock 'n' roll magic happen.

Since Nirvana found the pop hook in the sonic sludge that the Meat Puppets created, more power to Nirvana. Fair play, after all, has to allow imitation and, sometimes, outright theft.

Maybe you can find it in your heart (or ears) to be blown away by "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds" and excuse/laud Nirvana for "Heart Shaped Box." (Work with me, here. The songs sound totally similar, even though the lyrics are different.)

Up Next: The Mighty Lemon Drops, World Without End, 1988

Le Loi Est Moi

Have you ever caught yourself wondering what would be one of the things I would do if I were king?

Well, wonder no more!

Now you, just like the fortunate residents of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, can learn how I would reform the federal tax system.

This priceless information is available to you -- FOR FREE! -- if you click on the link to the WHRV local-events talk show Hearsay With Kathy Lewis.

I was one of the listeners whose idea on big fixes for the U.S. economy was chosen for consideration by a prominent local economist. I come in at about the 23-minute mark. I haven't listened to myself except to make sure that I wasn't edited out. Counterarguments or kudos are welcome from anyone who gives the program a digital spin.

In a nutshell, my idea is to set a living-wage floor on what earnings are taxable (e.g., the first $40,000/year are untaxed) and then to only collect very small percentages of money earned above that floor in a graduated manner (e.g., 2 percent on $40,000 to $49,999, 4 percent on $50,000 to $59,999).

The top marginal rate would be 10 percent, and separate FICA witholdings would be eliminated. To replace revenues lost by not taxing the first dollar earned, there would be a 1 percent federal sales tax on all nonfood items. There would be no deductions or rebates/returns on federal taxes paid.

I'm flexible on the dollar amounts, marginal rates and a very small number of allowable deductions.

What's your big idea?

Theirs, Yours, Ours

Album: Lowen & Navarro, Walking on a Wire, 1990

Best Track: "Walking on a Wire"

Lasting Memory: I almost saw these guys in concert in 1993, when they came through Blacksburg, Va., and played a very small club. Instead, I went to the mall movie theater and watched Rudy.

Life is a series of bad choices.

Walking on a Wire, on the other hand, is a veritable cornucopia of excellent choices for any rock-leaning pop music artist. In fact, the Lowen and Navarro-penned "We Belong,' which anchors the B side of the this album was a huge hit for Pat Benatar. The L&N version is quite different from Benatar's, but it is easy to hear what drew Benatar and her then-husband/producer/lead guitarist Neil Giraldo to the song. The raw emotion, quiet-loud dynamics, and slow build without true crescendo are perfect for Benatar.

Most of the songs on Walking are perfect for someone, and plenty of those good fits have been found. As L&N write on their official Web site, they are "songwriters of notable cachet ... [whose] works have been recorded by artists as diverse as Pat Benatar ..., The Bangles, The Four Tops, Dave Edmunds, The Temptations and a host of others."

I spared myself and you the tedium of tracking down the other artists' interpretations of L&N's songs, but I bet Edmunds would kill, just kill, "Walking on a Wire" and "She Said No." Luka Bloom was born to sing "Oh Mary."

"What I Make Myself Believe" would sound much worse when sung by an American Idol contestant, but it is aching for some David Archuletta to give it a go.

If these guys would put more of their music online, I'd share it with you. And they would be raking in quite a few more royalties. As things stand though, the bulk of Walking is hard to track down. "C'est la Vie."

Up Next: Meat Puppets, Meat Puppets, 1982 (reissue)


P.S. Two very special people were born on this date -- people who have meant a lot to me throughout my life. Survey says .... this should be a 10 a birthday for Bo Derek and Richard Dawson!

Serious, Moonlight

Album: Los Lobos, By the Light of the Moon, 1987

Best Tracks: "One Time One Night" and "The Hardest Time"

Lasting Memory: My freshman year was the first time that Virginia Tech offered every dorm resident access to cable television. My roommate Barry's parents were kind enough to buy him a television a few weeks after the fall semester began, and we immediately signed up to have all 20 channels pumped into our 12 x 14 foot castle.

One of the very first shows I watched in the dorm was a half-hour special that a group of (I think) University of Oklahoma students had cobbled together to hip their peers around the country to the joys of Americana music and what would soon become known as alt-country. I can't remember the name of the show, but I distinctly remember that the host was a rather large, bearded gentlemen who wore denim overalls but no shirt. I also remember that one of the videos was the Bodeans' "Fade Away." Another video was Los Lobos' "One Time One Night."

I love those songs, but especially the Los Lobos one because it so perfectly portrays how sadness and tragedy lurk right around every corner while never becoming resigned or fatalistic. The last full verse of the song, which also serves as the bridge, kills me just about every time I hear it:

The sunlight plays upon my windowpane
I wake up to a world that's still the same
My father said to be strong
And that a good man could never do wrong
In a dream I had last night in America

Plus, dig that accordion coda.

The entirety of By the Light of the Moon teeters on the edge of melancholy without ever taking that plunge. Even the rockingest tracks, "Shakin' Shakin' Shakes" and "Set Me Free (Rosa Lee)," are all about two things: being scared of and scarred by romance and pursuing romance anyway. (Plus, for family members, who else thinks Cesar Rosas, the lead singer here, looks like Dad when he was younger?)

There are a couple of outright sad songs on the album, as titles like "Is This All There Is?" and "River of Fools" would suggest, but then "Tears of God" actually delivers the message that even

When your only escape
Is a cheap neck of wine
And the peace you need in your heart
Is so very hard to find

....

You find out true
What mother said to you
The tears of God will show you the way
The way to turn

For my money, and for whatever that's worth, By the Light of the Moon is Los Lobos' strongest album. Undoubtedly, its year of release, 1987, was the most successful for the band, as it was then when they had their ultra megahit cover of "La Bamba." So even if all the actual music critics concur that Kiko is Los Lobos' masterpiece, I can at least rest easy at night knowing that the band got their due a couple of decades ago. No reason to be down in the dumps about that.

Up Next: Lowen & Novarro, Walking on a Wire, 1990

What Are Words For?

"Post-Racial."

This neologism has been bandied about like something that gets widely bandied ever since Barack Obama became a serious contender for the U.S. presidency. Since Obama's election victory last Tuesday, the question, "Is America now a post-racial society?" has been tackled on just about every political discussion show I listen to on the radio and watch on TV.

The unanimous answer ha been a resounding "No," and a frequent tidbit offered to support this conclusion is that voters in two states, Nebraska and Colorado, passed referendums making it illegal to use race or other physical characteristics as primary factors when making decisions regarding hiring, school admissions, or the awarding of government benefits.

Jettisoning the prima facie biased policy of affirmative action strikes me as a post-racial move. Judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin was Dr. King's vision, right? And even if that is ignored, the fact that words mean stuff has to come into play.

But to hear the commentators tell it, the affirmative action bans are proof that people only care about race.

I do understand that some people voted against affirmative action because they are a little bit to a lot racist. At the same time, though, the result of abandoning affirmative action will exactly achieve the desired outcome of looking past race (and other things) and only rewarding individuals on their positive merits when it comes to hiring or university selection, or current hardships when it comes to doling out benefits.

When I hear the pundits discuss how America is not becoming a post-racial society, I can only conclude what Inigo Montoya did in The Princess Bride:

Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The Spanish Word for Polka Is "Polca"

Album: Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive?, 1984

Best Track: "Will the Wolf Survive"

Lasting Memory: How Will the Wolf Survive? was one of the first tapes I owned, so I listened to it a lot while mowing the lawn, riding the bus to sporting events, doing homework, and all the other stuff that marks an American suburban teen's drama-free everyday life.

I figure I've listened to this album at least 500 times through the years, and it has never failed to entertain and, sometimes, comfort. I've also thoroughly enjoyed all the times songs from Wolf such as the cover of "I Got Loaded" and the original "Don't Worry Baby" have been included on movie soundtracks.

The entertaining and comforting aspects of the music on Wolf can be traced to the same source--the accordion.

Almost as maligned as the bagpipes (another instrument I love the sound of, by the way), a well-played accordion just has a way of getting inside one's ear and producing exactly the effect the musician intends. Try not to at least want to dance when listening to "Corrida #1." Try not to get just a little wistful while listening to "The Breakdown."

By making such extensive use of the accordion, and by including "Serenata Nortena" on Wolf, Los Lobos placed themselves firmly in the Mexican musical genre of Norteno.

Norteno is the oompah music you hear blasting out of, well, everywhere in heavily Latino neighborhoods. Heavily influenced by the German and Eastern folk songs of the mid- and late-1800s white settlers of Texas, Norteno is essentially polka music with Spanish lyrics instead of Czech or Austrian lyrics. And like polka, Norteno can grate as easily as it enthuses. But as performed by Los Lobos on Wolf, Norteno rules.

Much of the reason Los Lobos' take on their own traditional sound works is because the band mixes in just enough rockabilly and Chicago blues to take the sharpest edges of the "pah" off the "oom." The band also dives headfirst into country folk when telling the tale of the indomitability of the immigrante in "Will the Wolf Survive":

Through the chill of winter
Running across the frozen lake
Hunters are out on his trail
All odds are against him
With a family to provide for
The one thing he must keep alive

Will the wolf survive?

Drifting by the roadside
Climbs each storm and aging face
Wants to make some morning's fate
Losing to the range war
He's got two strong legs to guide him
Two strong arms keep him alive

Will the wolf survive?

Standing in the pouring rain
All alone in a world that's changed
Running scared, now forced to hide
In a land where he once stood with pride
But he'll find his way by the morning light

Sounds across the nation
Coming from your hearts and minds
Battered drums and old guitars
Singing songs of passion
It's the truth that they all look for
The one thing they must keep alive

Will the wolf survive?
Will the wolf survive?

Ostensibly about first-generation Mexicans in Southern California, specifically those in East Los Angeles, this is a song that captures the challenge of all newcomers everywhere. Plus, it sounds good.

Up Next: Los Lobos, By the Light of the Moon, 1987

Gone Votin'

Over the past week, I have received four phone calls from Barack Obama, three calls from Michelle Obama, and one call from an actual person working with the Obama campaign.

I can only conclude that the man obviously finds me irresistible and is stalking me, both personally and through proxies.

Instead of filing a restraining order, though, I will shortly go to the polls and cast my vote. I figure that will convince him to leave me alone.

In the Long Tradition of Traditionalism

Album: The Long Ryders, 10-5-60, 1983

Best Track: "10-5-60"

Lasting Memory: My strongest memory of the Long Ryders is that the band did one in a series of Miller beer ads in the mid-1980s. The theme of the ads, as I also mentioned way back when I posted unenthusiastically about the Del Feugos, was that Miller was American beer suitable for Americans who enjoyed American music.

Boy howdy, are the five songs on the 10-5-60 EP American music. Each is an equal blend of honky tonk, psychedelic folk (think: late-period Byrds), and garage rock. The title track shows how this can work in a revved-up format, while the charming love song "Born to Believe in You" shows how blending these styles can work in a slower format.

I don't have much else to say about this band or album, but as roots rockers went, the Long Ryders were just about the rootsiest.

The vocals of lead Ryder Sid Griffin may be a bit of an acquired taste, but it appeals to me and fits the material very well. For me, there are few things that sound better than a cracking voice over a moaning steel guitar line. Feel free to disagree, which will just mean more of that stuff for me.

Up Next: Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive?, 1984

My Bast Is Thoroughly Bombed

Album: Live, Throwing Copper, 1994

Best Track: "Stage"

Lasting Memory: Throwing Cooper is one of the exceptions to my general rule of not owning albums whose songs get played on the radio all the time. I don't know what brings me to ignore that rule in the abstract, but in the case of this album, I specifically remember wanting to be able to listen to the Live song "All Over You" any time I wanted.

I was impressed by the song's intensity and emotion. I was right there with lead singer Ed Kowalczyk every time he got that catch in his throat while transitioning into the chorus, "I ... I ... I alone looooove YOU!"

The song got me going every time, and I figured it wouldn't stop doing that as time passed.

I was right about the lasting effect of "All over You," but wrong about needing to needing to own Throwing Cooper so I wouldn't lose the opportunity to hear the song.

Turns out, radio has never taken "All Over You" or "I Alone" or "Lightning Crashes" out of middling rotation since their release 14 years ago. I don't blame radio programmers for using the songs as a few of their many, many crutches. Each is immediately arresting, have good beats, and on-the-surface interesting lyrics. How could anyone whose job it is to prick up people's ears ask for any more? And could a listener do better than any of these singles?

Those songs are the aural equivalent of a bacon cheeseburger followed by mint chocolate chip ice cream. Even if you're a vegetarian or allergic lactose intolerant, you can't help but want that meal and enjoy it completely when you get it.

Would you want it every day, though?

From it's first note to its last, Throwing Copper is all burger and ice cream. The volume and emotion are constantly set to 11. This makes listening all the way through the album exhausting; I know my bast will require a few days to fully recover from being so bombed by the album.

Constantly ratcheting up the pathos and import of the songs also leads Live into many melodramatic minefields. The lyrics of "All Over You" and "I Alone" can't miss being interpret ted as creepy stalker stories, and "Lightning Crashes" is about a stillbirth.

Things get really beyond the bearable on the last official track on Throwing Cooper, "White, Discussion":

I talk of freedom
You talk of the flag
I talk of revolution
You’d much rather brag
And as the decibels of this
disenchanting discourse
Continue to dampen the day

The coin flips again and again, and again, and again
As our sanity walks away
All this discussion though politically correct
Is dead beyond destruction
Though it leaves me quite erect

And as the final sunset rolls behind the earth
And the clock is finally dead
I'll look at you, you'll look at me
And we'll cry a lot
But this will be what we said
This will be what we said

Look where all this talking got us, baby

Heavy stuff. Self-consciously heavy and decidedly nonrocking stuff. The kind of heavy that verges into the land of portentousness.

I tabbed "Stage" as the best song on Throwing Copper precisely because the lyrics are unintelligible.

When a hidden track titled "Horse" pops up after "White, Discussion" it is a welcome reprieve because it is country-ish, humorous, and muted. A sample lyric runs "She rode a horse inside my head/ Now they're running wild." I would have welcomed more cranking things back to 6 or 7 like this.

Up Next: The Long Ryders, 10-5-60, 1983

The Least Great Show on Earth

Greetings From Fabulous Budget Inn-Fall Church

The Sands, it ain't.

Hell, it's not even the Bates.

I'm in Northern Virginia for 24 hours to attend the wake and funeral of the mother of a very good friend. And, man, did I pick the perfect setting to hole up during this bummer of a trip.

The hotel is perched on the top of hill, and it is set way back from the main road.

Between the building and the street is a stonecutting shop, a parking lot half full of half-stripped cars bearing handwritten signs like "For Parts" and "You Tow," and a fungus-choked cement pit surrounded by a thoroughly rusted but ornate fence that I can only assume used to be a pool.

I appear to be the only guest.

If one's life really is a movie, this scene would need no dialogue. Which is as it should be. All I have to offer my friend is my presence. It's all anyone has when a loved one passes. Words fail, but life prevails. Let's hope that's enough.

R.I.P. ES. You raised one hell of a son.

Not Keeping Up With The Smithses

Album: The Lightning Seeds, Cloudcuckooland, 1990

Best Track: "Pure"

Lasting Memory: The very first time I saw the video for "Pure," I was floored. I remember trying to remember whether I'd ever heard a better song. Not being able to come up with anything at the time, I made sure that The Lightning Seeds' album Cloudcuckooland was on my Christmas list.

I received that very cassette, and as too often happens with love at first hearing, I quickly soured on the song and the entire band.

My disenchantment began as soon as I realized that The Lightning Seeds had a very thin catalog of quality songs. The first track on the first side of Cloudcuckooland, "All I Want," is every bit as good as "Pure." Everything else on the album ranges from forgettable to annoying.

So love was out, but companionship would surely still be possible, right?

No.

Because what I came to realize within a few years was that The Lightning Seeds were doing nothing new or interesting. To encapsulate: The Lightning Seeds sounded like The Smiths when The Smiths were trying to sound like The Beatles. Why settle for an imitation of an imitation?

I wasn't able to bring myself to do so. I had come to know too much. But I still get a little wistful for what I believed could have been when I saw that first video. Like Billy Bragg noted, "Scholarship Is the Enemy of Romance."

Up Next: Live, Throwing Copper, 1994

Writing the Book of My Last Pages

Album: Let's Active, Big Plans for Everybody, 1986

Best Track: "Fell"

Lasting Memory: I'll probably most remember this album for rediscovering the song "Writing the Book of Last Pages" this very morning. It captures what I'm feeling right now: "LAST PAGE! Woo! I mean ... woo!"

Last week, right through the weekend, was quite a blur for me, as I pretty much adopted the Edisonian practice of napping, working, repeat around the clock for days in a row. I made my deadlines, and I haven't yet heard from any clients that I made too much of a hash of anything. Keep your fingers crossed.

I can definitely understand how Thomas Edison managed to be so creative. A man can get some strange ideas on whether a comma should go there at 1 a.m.

I can also confidently nominate Big Plans for Everybody as 1980s alternative music's sine qua non. Or its mirror.

I can't decide whether Let's Active started every trend of the time -- from looped, bell-like guitar riffs to quiet-loud dynamics -- or just syncreatized those ear-catching attributes into a song as great as "Fell" (which I can't find a dedicated link for).

It probably doesn't matter whether Let's Active were forebears, peers, or followers. What does matter is that the band produced an excellent template/revue of what was the greatest payoff for paying attention to music during Reagan's second term. Listen for yourself by clicking through the song samples here.

Up Next: The Lightning Seeds, Cloudcuckooland, 1990

P.S. A big shoutout to my brother, James, who had back surgery last week. The procedure went well, and he's recovering apace.

P.P.S. A big Bronx cheer, possibly, for my brother James who insisted yesterday that I needed to join Facebook. His argument was that having a profile on the site is a great way to keep up with friends and family without having to put the effort in writing a blog post, composing an e-mail, or picking up a phone. I might find these points persuasive except for one fact: Facebook.

The very idea of a social networking site offends my mild misanthropy. And that doesn't even bring into the discussion what being on Facebook would do to my chances of ever forming and leading a band of rabidly apathetic hermits.

Still, I'll put the proposal to a vote of the readership. Should I join Facebook? Elaborations on yes and no votes will be appreciated. As always, the final decision will rest with the Florida Election Commissions and President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe.

Post This

Once again, I haven't been posting because I'm staring down the barrel of multiple deadlines.

This makes me wonder how other people--especially writers and editors--manage to keep up with almost daily blog posting schedules. Do those folks have a 25th hour I don't? Seeing as how I get out of bed at 4 am most mornings and have to compile two e-mail newsletters by 10 am, I know for dang sure that no extra time is to be found in the earliest hours of the day.


Or maybe the problem is me. I could just be typing articles and copyediting manuscripts slowly.

Whatever the explanation, I'm unlikely to have time for doing a substantive post until some time next week. Thanks for visiting to see nothing much. And thanks, as always, for your patience.

Activatism

Album: Let's Active, Cypress, 1984

Best Track: "Blue Line"

Lasting Memory: Let's Active once bumped me from a gig.

I can't recall the exact date, but sometime in 1991, Let's Active played a show at Buddy's in Blacksburg, Va., on a Sunday night. Sunday nights were comedy nights at Buddy's, and the very evening that Let's Active blew through town, I was scheduled to be the featured comedian.

The gig wouldn't have paid me anything but a free meal and maybe some comped beers, but I remember that I would have opened the regularly scheduled comedy show, introduced all the other comedians, and closed the show. I didn't get the chance to do that that one night, and I didn't even get to see/hear Let's Active play because Buddy's filled up to the point that I left through the kitchen rather than deal with the sweaty, writhing mass of humanity.

Damn you, Let's Active, for stealing my limelight and for being more popular than I was. Damn you straight to hell.

But, hey, thank for the music, and all.

Let's Active was and is fronted by indie super producer Mitch Easter, whose Drive-In Studio in Winston-Salem, N.C., launched the mainstream careers of a surprising number of the best East Coast acts of the 1980s, including R.E.M.

As a musician, producer, arranger, and sound engineer, Easter champions the jangle, which as near a I can tell is a sound marked by open tuned guitars, 4/4 beats, and country-ish vocals. In other words, jangle pop is audio nirvana.

I take points away from Let's Active because most of the vocals are provided by the two female members of the band, Faye Hunter and Sara Romweber (who has to be some relation to the main guy from Flat Duo Jets). I just generally don't like female singing.

Still and all, "Blue Line" is as good an example of the transition from the arena/art rock of the 1970s to the informed-by-the-gospel-and-bluegrass-origins-of-rock-'n'-roll that was the alternative music revolution of the late 1980s and early 1990s as you're ever going to hear. "Flags for Everything" is also pretty genre-defining.

Samples of all the songs on Cypress are available here as tracks 1-12. You could do much worse than clicking through those samples.

Up Next: Let's Active, Big Plans for Everybody, 1986

My New Favorite Thing

Weird Al is the Nolan Ryan of song parodists. Nearing 50, the man just keeps setting 'em up and knocking 'em down.







This is apparently a rip on a number-one song by a rapper who goes by the nom de chanson T.I. I have no idea who T.I is. I've only ever heard Weird Al's version of this song. I guarantee you the parody is better than the original.

Knowing a Place Too Well

Album: Lemonheads, Come on Feel the Lemonheads, 1993

Best Track: "Style"

Lasting Memory: Following on the heels of the massively popular It's a Shame About Ray, this album must have been a disappointment to the Lemonheads and the band's label, Atlantic. Come on Feel the Lemonheads produced only a couple of minor hits, none of which has survived in the playlists of the modern rock stations that, born in the heyday of early '90s grunge, are increasingly becoming classic rock stations whose playlist reach only as far back as 20 years.

One of which was "Into Your Arms." The song is a rather saccharine ditty, whose chorus runs, in part

I know a place
Where I can go
When I'm alone
Into your arms whoa
Into your arms I can go

This is both forgetable and something you will never be able to stop from running around inside your brain. But what I most remember about the song is that someone produced a parody version. The chorus of the parody, which I can't figure out how to Google successfully, ran

I know a place
Where I can go
To buy cheese
Hickory Farms whoa
Hickory Farms I can go

I prefer the parody version because, hey, I like cheese.

I am lukewarm about the entirety of Come on. It lacks the overall catchiness of the band's previous albums while it amps up what should have been offputting about the songs all along, namely the dismal view of the prospects for romance and the full embrace of drug addiction. "Great Big No" and "Big Gay Heart" overplay the first theme, and "Style" overplays the latter. (BTW: The rotten video and sound quality on the 'Style" link are totally appropriate for a song about getting high despite not wanting to get high. This is probably just how lead Lemonhead and heroin enthusiast Evan Dando saw and heard that particular performance.)

It's unsurprising that the band would continue going to the well that fed their success. After all, they knew a place, and it was a scene of autobiography. The problem with going to a well so often is that the good stuff gets deeper and darker before eventually running out all together.

Deep into the Lemonhead world wasn't a place too many listeners, including myself, wanted to be. And, later, who wanted to support a band that couldn't pump out anything new? Few, that's who.

Come on, Wikipedia tells me, went gold. The Lemonhead's next album for Atlantic barely charted, and all subsequent releases have been on independent labels. It's been a shame about Evan since 1993.

Up Next: Let's Active, Cypress, 1984

Step 1: Panic

I haven't thrown up a music post this week because I haven't listened to any music.

Instead of enjoying -- or not -- albums by the Lemonheads, Let's Active, and the Lightning Seeds, I've been spending my workdays listening to NPR, BBC World News, and, in very small doses, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. The world's financial markets are in full meltdown mode, and I am morbidly fascinated.

I am not heavily invested in stocks, and I couldn't cash out my IRA without losing nearly all the principal anyway, but I've been obsessed with all the reports about what has been happening on the world's stock exchanges, among banks and insurers, and with investment houses because it's like watching every train on earth crash at the same time.

As you all know, nothing any government or private individual has done so far has helped avert what seems like certain disaster. I couldn't even begin to do justice to recapping the bad news, but if you find yourself as interested as I am, my advice is to hook into the BBC newsfeed. For some reason, Armageddon sounds less scary when it's being described in Etonian accents.

And just like I can't explain what has occurred, I have no idea how to fix the core problem. What I can offer, however, is an excellent idea for a first step toward finding a resolution.

Panic.

I don't mean "panic and sell all your stocks" or "panickedly pass legislation." I mean have yourself a full-on, screaming with arms your flung to the heavens and running around in circles panic. Yell, cry, and curse whichever God you embrace. Do some random destruction.

Then catch your breath, clean up a little bit, and start focusing on solutions.

As near as I can tell, the reason that most serious long-term problems don't get resolved is because people panic last.

Panic should always be the first option when immediate action is not required. While panicking is obviously unhelpful when you have a real or proverbial gun pointed at your head, when the schedule allows, engaging in a good fear-fueled tantrum can clear the mind wonderfully. A clear mind is an important thing to have when it's time to begin making the hard decisions. It does no one any good to see the solution after the absolute worst has happened.

I hope the presidents, prime ministers, and finance ministers meeting in Washington, D.C. this weekend have at least most of one morning cleared for a primal scream session.

Like Flies to a Hot Tin Roof

Against my better judgment, I stayed up well past what has become my accustomed bedtime last night to watch the town hall debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

While I received little reward for my heavy-lidded attentiveness to the machinations of the American presidential politics, I did hear one thing that nearly caused me to change my decision to vote for Obama come November 4.

At the 60-minute mark of the debate, following up to a follow-up response to an initial question about how America and its armed forces can serve as peacemakers around the world, Obama said this:

Now, Sen. McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and, you know, I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible.

Huh?

What?

Say again?

"Green behind the ears," really?

It bothers me when people mangle colloquial expressions. It absolutely kills me when people who would never normally utter such an expression do so in a transparent attempt to appear folksy and wind up mangling the colloquialism.

The very idea makes me swimming mad. I see blue. I juast want to tear my hair into next week.

And last night, Obama's verbal gaffe almost got me to throw the baby's bathwater into the ring.

---------

On a separate note, I had an actual real, live political candidate come to my door Monday evening. I don't know if he knocked, though, because I surprised the guy when I was getting back from walking the dog.

The candidate was obviously surprised to see me loom around the corner with Molly, but he recovered well by going into a spiel about he loved dogs and how his daughter's dog had been stolen last years.

'So you're running on a very strong anti-dognapping platform?" I asked.

"It's not on my flier, but maybe it should be," he said.

That guy just might get my vote for city council.

At a Loss for Not Losing

Album: Lemonheads, It's a Shame About Ray, 1992

Best Track: "Bit Part"

Lasting Memory: For me, listening to this album evokes feelings of complete contentedness, competence, and conviviality. This has everything to do with where I was and what I was doing when this album came out in 1992 and when I just about played my cassette copy blank throughout 1993.

For 20 of the 24 months during that two-year period, everything was right in my world. I was in my early 20s and enjoying all the extracurriculars being legal in a college town can offer. I had a steady job. I was wrapping a magnum cum laud bachelor's degree. I got to spend an entire month just driving around the United States. I even got halfway decent at shooting pool.

In short, my life back then was the exact opposite of the ones being lived by the characters in nearly all of the songs on It's a Shame About Ray, who are shiftless drug addicts, emotional cripples, and just not all that bright.

Ray features exactly two happy songs, "Rockin' Stroll," which really is about a kid being pushed in a pram, and "Kitchen," which I'm pretty sure is about having met-cute while shooting up heorin. (H/T Mixtape 4 Melfi).

"My Drug Buddy" might have counted as a happy song as well if the platonic love wasn't being directed more toward the drugs than to the person with whom lead Lemonhead Evan Dando is getting high.

"Allison's Starting to Happen" also might qualify as happy, but there's such a subtext of Allison becoming unattainable at the exact moment that she becomes interesting that I can't help but throw the song onto the sad pile.

All the rest of the tracks on Ray are stone bummers lyrically. The songs rock for the most part, but as "Bit Part" and "Rudderless" show, even things that are enjoyable in the moment are bound to have regrettable consequences. I can't tell you how many times I've thought of adopting the coda to "Rudderless" as one of my lifetime soundtrack songs. I mean, how cool and appropriate would it be to have this playing in the background of every one of my that-was-really-dumb moments:

Slipped my mind that I could use my brain
Ill stay up all night and crash on the plane

Ship without a rudder is like a ship without a rudder is
Like a ship without a rudder is like a ...

Handmaiden to addiction and stupidity, loss is also a prevailing theme on Ray. The title track is about the death of fellow junkie Dando sort of knew. The two cover songs that close the album are "Frank Mills" and "Mrs. Robinson."

Odd, then, that this album should stir such fond memories. I guess it's all about context trumping content.

Up Next: Lemonheads, Come on Feel the Lemonheads, 1993

Debatable

Anyone know the story of Chuck Wepner?

He is a long-retired heavyweight boxer who served as the inspiration for Rocky by unexpectedly lasting 15 rounds against Muhammad Ali after being inserted as a last-minute fill-in for a title fight in 1975.

I thought about Wepner quite a bit while watching Sarah Palin not embarrass herself during last night's vice presidential debate. She came in as a largely unknown and presumably overmatched contender. Despite expectation, Palin stood in and dodged just enough to make it to the final bell. She absolutely did not win. She will get a lot of credit for just not being decimated.

And fair play to Palin, even though she stated quite early in the debate that she would not be playing fair.

Asked more than once by moderator Gwen Ifill to speak directly to the question of what she would do if elected vice president, Palin said, "I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. And I want to let you know what I did as a mayor and as a governor. And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear ... ."

I understand that obfuscation and dissembling are principal tools for any politician, but can those strategies work if a politician just outright says, "I'm going to obfuscate! I'm going to dissemble"?

No. Because the audience will then spend the rest of the time listening closely for when the politician is not answering questions as asked. Playing that game of gotcha is what kept me up well past my bedtime.

The other time that Palin completely blew it was when she called for and defended deregulation of financial markets but also blamed the worldwide economic crisis on "corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that. Again, John McCain and I, that commitment that we have made, and we're going to follow through on that, getting rid of that corruption."

I really wish Ifill had asked Palin how she and McCain planned to punish corruption in the absence of any rules to prevent corruption.

The upshot is that I remain confirmed in my belief that Palin is unqualified for the vice presidency.

As for Biden's performance, he neither thrilled nor worried. My sister wondered on her blog what qualifies a person to be vice president. Being able to open your mouth most of the time without getting people all in a twitter seems like a baseline.

Spaceholders R Them

I won't be able to do another real post until Saturday because I have too many deadlines this week.

Here's a video that sums up my current attitude.



Boss can format his own bibliographies, far as I'm concerned.

Here's a second video.




I'm not at all miserable, but I have always enjoyed the opening lines of that Smiths' song.

How's your job treating you?

The Dark Side of the Sun

Album: Lemonheads, Lovey, 1990

Best Track: "Stove"

Lasting Memory: George was convinced in 1992 that "Ballarat," the first song on side A of Lovey was both the most musically impressive and funniest song he had ever heard. George was mistaken on both points, but it certainly was bold of the Lemonheads to open the major-label debut with an audio vignette of cheerleaders being massacred with a chainsaw (which does not appear in this clip of the song).

But who was I to argue with George? He was the music scene in Blacksburg back then, fronting the band Not Shakespeare, providing sound for pretty much all the local bars that had live music, and operating a recording studio out of his basement. Plus, he was doing a favor for my friend Brad and me by recording our hymn "Jesus Ain't No Cocksucker." (He isn't, which is a point Brad and I made most clear.)

Lovey contains no hymns. In fact, it's hard to figure out exactly what any of the songs are about because lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Evan Dando has sloppy enunciation, plotting, and fret technique. The music is inspired by both 'mid-1970s punk and late-1960s bubble-gum rock. Which is to write that the Lemonheads sound like Richard Hell and the Voidoids on "Left for Dead" and like the Lemon Pipers on "Half the Time."

Using a not-at-all-rigorous scoring system, I've determined that the Lemonheads come down on the side of the sunny poppers, primarily because they scored 1,783,254 points in this category for their cover of "Brass Buttons." Admittedly, that is not a happy song, and I've linked to the Gram Parsons original rather than the Lemonheads version. As sad as the song is, it has the undeniably airy and free "California" sound.

The Lemonheads replicated this juxtaposition of dark lyrics with lilting melodies on all of their best songs, as I'll discuss in my next post. But to set the stage for that, here are the bluntly symbolic but still sad lyrics to "Stove" (the link is to, appropriately, a cover):

The gas man came, took out our electric stove.
I helped him carry her.
He told me he had been a prize fighter once.
Shuffled her through and out the door.
We walked back in talked 'bout his boy at U.V.M.
And we began to put the new stove in.

But I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
Call it love.
She's been replaced.
I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
She's right out front and looks a mess.
Unwanted guest.
We lied to her.
I miss my stove.
Feel sad I guess.

I know I shouldn't think about it anymore.
What's the point? you say.
But I'm reminded each time I walk out my door.
My stove is gone to stay.
He walked back in talked 'bout his boy at U.V.M.
And we began to put the new stove in.

But I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
Call it love.
She's been replaced.
I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
She's right out front and looks a mess.
Unwanted guest.
We lied to her.
I miss my stove.
Feel sad I guess.

Up Next: Lemonheads, It's a Shame About Ray, 1992