The Thought Counts

Album: Sex Pistols, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, 1979 (UK Import)

Best Track: "My Way"

Lasting Memory: Two video clips always run through my mind when I think about or hear any Sex Pistols' song. The first clip is the one of Sid Vicious singing "My Way" on French television. (I actually conjure the Sid and Nancy movie scene, but here is what purports to be the original performance.)

The second mind film I always see is Johnny Rotten ending the Sex Pistols' final show in 1978 by asking a San Francisco audience, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Because, yeah, I end up feeling a little disappointed by the experience of listening to the Sex Pistols.

The band always worked much better as an idea than an act. Sex Pistols founder, producer, and manager -- but never performer -- Malcolm McLaren never made any bones about that, even naming the group's postbreakup collection of studio outtakes, hits, overseas remixes and ephemera, as well as its accompanying documentary, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Just in case anyone missed the joke at their expense, the first track on the Swindle soundtrack is a spoken-word piece in which McLaren explains that he selected the members of the Sex Pistols based on the eventual members' looks (Sid), attitude (Johnny), criminal background (Steve Jones), and proximity (Glen Matlock and Paul Cook) rather than musical vision or ability.

Taking McLaren at his word, it's easy to convince yourself that the Sex Pistols were either a latter-day Monkees or a forewarning of the Spice Girls. In fact, the Pistols did produce a credible garage band version of "Stepping Stone" and a disco remix of "God Save the Queen," both of which appear on Swindle.

But then the party line on Swindle is that the story McLaren tells is highly fictionalized and self-flattering. I'm not so sure. The Sex Pistols never would have succeeded on their musicianship alone. It's more than telling when the lads try and fail to perform covers of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode" and the Modern Lovers' "Road Runner," only to have Johnny Rotten ask his bandmates, "Don't we know any other fucking people's songs" before requesting, "Stop it! It's fucking awful."

Where the Sex Pistols did excel was in pushing attitude and image. "Anarchy in the U.K." was absolutely a thumb in the eye of British culture, and the song certainly hit the airwaves as a much-needed corrective to the music of the Atlanta Rhythm Section. But the sentiment of "Anarchy" is more bratty than rebellious, and for all of their wussiness, the boys in ARS were far superior musicians.

All of this is not to say that I dislike the Sex Pistols. My point is that I have to appreciate them as a concept instead of as an actual band. The Sex Pistols did inspire dozens of other groups that did channel ennui and disenfranchisement into powerful rock songs, though, and that deserves respect. Also, Sid Vicious' "My Way" is punk through and through in the way it embodies the message of the lyrics while subverting the paradigm from which the song emerged. And then a song like "Friggin' in the Riggin'" is just plain fun.

On balance, then, I'll take the Sex Pistols' legacy even as I feel, well, swindled by the band.

Up Next: The Smithereens, Beauty and Sadness, 1988 (cassette reissue)

Serenade You Like a Gentle Rain

Album: Scorpions, Love at First Sting, 1984

Best Track: "Rock You Like a Hurricane"

Lasting Memory: I have promised innumerable people innumerable times that I would rock them like a hurricane simply by showing up or doing my job. I have always failed to deliver on the grandiose pledge.

So did the Scorpions on Love at First Sting.

"Bad Boys Running Wild"? More like Rum-Tum Tugger slinking through alleyways.

"The Same Thrill"? More like the same four chords I've heard in every other song you've played so far, only faster.

"Crossfire"? Maybe if I duck and cover my head, I won't be able to hear this song any longer.

But you know what? You would have to pry this album from my cold, dead boom box. I revel in the lameness and inanity. If that's a crime, lock me up and throw away the key.

Whatever auditory sins the Scorpions commit when they strive for the heavy side of metal, they more than atone for by including the powery-est of ballads like "Still Loving You" (see above) and "I'm Leaving You" on Love at First Sting. Those songs just tug at the heartstrings, or maybe someplace else.

Up Next: Sex Pistols, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, 1979 (UK import)

Know This Now

Even when I don't post for a spell, know that





I'm still loving you.

What's the Hurry?

Album: Rush, Moving Pictures, 1981 (dub)

Best Track: "The Camera Eye"

Lasting Memory: Rush's Moving Pictures was the third album I ever bought with own money. It's probably among the first five acquisitions of every man who matches my demographic of 40, paunching and white. Sometimes it's good to be part of the gang.

It is always great to hear "The Camera Eye," Rush's 10-minute rock ode to rock opuses. Jam bands like Phish and Rusted Root could learn a lot from studying "The Camera Eye" (or Rush's other masterwork "YYZ," for that matter). The song never hurries, but it also never meanders. "The Camera Eye" is, for my money, the tightest 10 minutes in rock 'n' roll.

Of course, Rush did not have a hit with "The Camera Eye." Where Canada's answer to Yes made its splash was with the one-two punch of Moving Picture's "Limelight" and "Tom Sawyer." Both tales of alienation -- the former through fame and the latter through, apparently, sociopathy -- practically compelled the suburban adolescents of the early '80s to run to their local record shops and fork over $7.99 for Moving Pictures. Why these songs still hold such appeal for me and millions of other classic rock radio fans is probably speculation left unspeculated.

What I will cop to is that I'd dearly love to jump in MP's fabled "Red Barchetta," crank up the "Spirit of Radio," and "Fly by Night" out of the "Subdivisions" and get "Closer to the Heart." Even though not all those songs are on Moving Pictures. But you know what I'm saying.

Up Next: Scorpions, Love at First Sting, 1984

Stones Soup

Album: The Rolling Stones, Gigantes del Pop, 1982

Best Track: "Get Off of My Cloud"

Lasting Memory: This exceedingly eclectic collection of Rolling Stones songs produced for the Spanish market includes the band's cover of "Not Fade Away." I have always loved that song. So have dozens of other people judging by the no-doubt partial list of covers appearing on Wikipedia. In fact, the "Not Fade Away" has been covered so many times so faithfully that I almost always forget that Buddy Holly and the Crickets performed the song first and best.

But I'll resist trying to get back into my go-nowhere rant about the Rolling Stones being a covers band (see below) to gape at the jukebox-style discography of the band's volume of the Gigantes del Pop series:

Side A
Carol
(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66
Fortune Teller
I Wanna Be Your Man
Poison Ivy
Not Fade Away
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Get Off My Cloud

Side B
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Connection
All Sold Out
Citadel
Parachute Woman
Live With Me
Honky Tonk Women

Now that's what I call olio!

But you know what? It works.

The Stones installment of Gigantes del Pop comes nowhere close to qualifying as a greatest hits compilation, or even a hits collection. It sure does present a comprehensive overview of the best years of the band's career, though. Hell, throw "Sympathy for the Devil," "Dead Flowers," and "Miss You" on the album, and call it day for what you need to know about the Stones' influence and legacy.

Good job anonymous Spanish song licensing negotiator.

Up Next: Rush, Moving Pictures, 1981 (dub)

Following in Footsteps

Album: The Rolling Stones, Stone Age, 1971 (cassette reissue)

Best Track: "Paint It Black"

Lasting Memory: This past weekend while hanging out with some friends who are way more into music then I am, I went off on a rant about how the Rolling Stones stole their shtick wholesale from underrecognized American bluesmen and R&B acts. Suspecting I was being unfair I gave myself a few days to back off from that observation. And I will, a little bit.

Certainly several songs on the singles and studio outtakes compilation Stone Age are true originals. "Paint It Black" and "As Tears Go By" stand out and stand up as worthy contributions to the rock canon from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But then there are the too-faithful covers of songs like "My Girl" and "The Spider and the Fly" that make me wonder if the Stones did anything more creative than Pat Boone did when he had the hit with "Tutti Frutti" rather than Little Richard.

Having thought on this longer than probably necessary, I'll give the Stones credit for being artists rather than appropriators. For one thing, the Stones always called attention to the sources of their material, and it may well be the case that far fewer people would ever have heard "It's All Over Now," for instance, had the Stones not recorded the Bobby and Shirley Womack song.

Second, and something I only learned this morning, the Stones had no intention of making their career on the work of others. The band didn't want their versions of "My Girl" and the like released on album. So good on them for that.

Shame I had to waste that rant, though. I'll just have to wait and see what else I can get myself work up about.

Up Next: The Rolling Stones, Gigantes del Pop, 1982

Les Is Most

Happy belated birthday to Les Paul, who for all intents and purposes invented the electric guitar. Mr. Paul turned 94 yesterday, and he is shown seated here (in a video I tried to load directly all damn day) playing a duet with Chet Atkins.

Check out a minibiography of Les Paul here.

Since my original idea for this post was an epic fail, I'll salvage something by posting the following story about an idea that spiral into unimagined success.

I wrote this history of the spirograph for a pittance for a Web site called eHow. The Web site dictates the slightly awkward format Enjoy.

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Spirograph History

First sold in England in the spring of 1965, more than 100 million Spirograph kits have been sold worldwide. The overlapping spiral designs created by clipping pens into interlocked gears and moving the pens appeared widely in late 1960s art and fashion and have entertained children and adults for more than four decades.

The Inventor
Denys Fisher invented the Spirograph during the summer of 1963. Born in Leeds, England, on May 11, 1918, Fisher studied at Leeds University but left before receiving a degree to develop machinery for his family’s lubrication firm, Kingfisher Ltd.

Building on work with fine springs he began at Kingfisher, Fisher formed his own company in 1960 and quickly landed a NATO contract to design components for canon shell detonators.

Fisher offered the first Spirographs for sale through a Leeds department store in March 1965, in a box reading “Pattern drawing by revolving stencils.” Spirographs began selling quickly after being featured on the UK children’s program Blue Peter.

Although Fisher’s toy company, appropriately named Denys Fisher Toys, got out of the Spirograph business within four years, Fisher continued consulting on the development of his creation until late in his life. Fisher died Sept. 17, 2002, in Furness.

The Idea
Fisher developed an interest in mathematics and geometric patterns known as hypocycloids, in particular, when a childhood illness confined him to bed with the text An Elementary Course on the Infinitesimal Calculus by Horace Lamb.

The Web site WolframMathworld defines a hypocycloid as “the curve produced by a fixed point on the circumference of a small circle … rolling around the inside of a larger circle.” Less technically, the Pittsburgh Steelers helmet logo includes three hypocycloids.

Fisher began his work on perfecting a way to draw hypocycloids by trying to improve upon machines developed during the 1800s. According to Fisher’s memoriam in the October 26, 2002, TimesOnline, Fisher “was listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and as the choral movement ended he had a vision: the new device would be made out of a series of perforated plastic cog-wheels and racks.”

Early Success
The Spirograph became the largest-selling toy in the United Kingdom in the same year it was introduced. The drawing kit, which Fisher had originally conceived of as a draftsman’s tool, also took honors as the leading UK educational toy for 1965, 1966 and 1967.

The Kenner company introduced the Spirograph to the United States market in 1996, and the kit became the top U.S. toy in 1967. Kenner took full control of the Spirograph brand in 1970.

Cultural Impact
TimesOnline characterized the “trippy, floral” Spirograph patterns as “ideally suited to the era of psychedelia and flower power.” During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Spirographic images appeared on items ranging from evening gowns and op art prints to lampshades and Christmas cards.


Hasbro
Hasbro acquired Kenner in 1991, taking control of the Spirograph brand. The latest version of the toy, Spirograph Deluxe, features seven gears, a gear template, a drawing template, a pen and paper.

A True Musical Artifact

Album: Martin Roach, If We were Up Your Ass You'd Know Who We Were, 1990

Best Tracks: Every damn one of the six.

Lasting Memory: I was weighing relating how this group took its name from a longtime Virginia Tech student radio program manager who was a self-proclaimed "party cow." Then I was thinking about telling about how in awe of these guys I was that I found it hard to serve them during my brief, ill-fated stint as waitron at Buddy's in Blacksburg.

After writing about either of those things, I was going to share with all the awesomeness of all the songs on If We Were Up Your Ass You'd Know Who We Were. But I found out this morning that the band Martin Roach, in addition to not being up either my ass or yours, is nowhere to be found on the Web.

What a loss. All I've got is an extremely homemade cassette -- the tape is Memorex, and the insert is photocopied and handcut 80-weight coverstock -- the memories that liner note names like George Wade, Mookie, and Howard Petruziello of Rock 105 evoke. If I had the technology, I'd digitize and upload all of the following myself:

1. Cheeseworld
2. Dad
3. Send Me
4. Eliot's Dog
5. Buckle Down
6. Stick Up

I do not have the technology. Should I ever acquire the technology, I'll revisit this post and get Martin Roach the Web archive they deserve.

Anybody else out there have a band from back in the day who they loved and now can't share with anyone else?

Up Next: The Rolling Stones, Stone Age, 1971 (cassette reissue)

An Old Gray Lady

One of my goals for today is to read the local paper I have delivered to my house every morning cover to cover. It is now a little after 7 am, and I am extremely pleased to report that I am least 80 percent of the way toward achieving that goal. As I noted when first starting this blog, my goals tend to be very modest.

Reading the Virginian-Pilot, though, is an important part of what I consider to be my daily routine. First, it seems like if I don't, no one else will. The leading media story for the past six months has been that printed newspapers are quickly going the way of the mullet -- rarely seen nowadays and never appreciated in a proper fashion.

You shouldn't feel obligated to thank me. I'm no hero. I'm just a guy who truly enjoys the whole act of newspaper reading. I love the feel of newsprint, and don't get me started on the subject of folding and smoothing and refolding. Plus, I find that I absorb and analyze information most easily when it is presented in an ink-on-paper format. A lot of that has to do with the tactile nature of newspaper reading. A well-accepted learning theory posits that people process information when more than one nondistracting sense is engaged. That is, holding a book or newspaper is conducive to learning, while listening to the radio while driving or watching television while talking on the phone are not.

I took a several days off this past week because for the first time in several months, I could. For me, "time off" means time off from everything. I still walked the dog, ate, and watched a whole lot television and Youtube videos. I also caught up on all my Onion A.V. Club reading while listening to NPR. If you can find a more accurate description of what being white, suburban, middle class and middle aged with pretensions toward maintaining hipster status and achieving intellectualism, you use it!

What I did not do while taking time off was blog (obviously), attend to incoming mail, vacuum, or read the Virginian-Pilot. Three of those "nots" make me lazy. The last made me noticeably ignorant. I can't tell you what the City Council did last week, though I'm sure it would have made me angry. I can't describe what dementedly ingenious new ways the Washington Nationals employed to lose games, though I'm sure the latest installments of this seasonlong Baseball Bloopers audition reel would have left me amusedly amazed. I can't even remark knowledgeably about how Family Circus maintained its Ripken-like decadeslong record of sucking, though I'm sure the streak remains intact.

I know the world is none the worse for me not knowing these things, but I also feel dumber for not knowing them. I got back to work a little unwillingly yesterday, and I'm re-adding the Virginian-Pilot to my to do list today. My next post should be markedly better informed.