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