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.

A Fine Line

Album: Lou Reed, Mistrial, 1985

Best Track: "The Original Wrapper"

Lasting Memory: On the rare ocassion that I play Mistrial, I'm always reminded of how cool Lou Reed used to be. On this last paly through, I was struck by how fine a line there is between awesome and awful.

Sure, everyone knows there is a thin line between love and hate, just as there is a fine line between clever and stupid. But note how one of the following rules, while the other drools.








All of Mistrial drools. Especially "The Original Wrapper," which, unfortunately, is the best song on Mistrial. "No Money Down" and "I Remember You" aren't the worst sonic crimes ever committed, but they aren't especially good, either.

In the title track of this album, Lou Reed pleads for a mistrial to clear his name. If I were the judge in such a case, I'd uphold the original judgment against Reed and order him to play nothing but his hits from the 1960s and early 1970s. You know, when he he the very model of a modern major heroin addict.


"Original Wrapper" and "Wild Side" aren't so different in sound and tructure, but one rocks while one blows. Can there be any explanation other than the reduction in Reed's drug usage?


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

I'd Procrstinate, But What's the Rush?

The less I have to do, the more likely I am to put off doing it.


Declutter Your House

I cannot be alone in this, but I probably surpass practically every other person when it comes to lacking the motivation to do something unless it needs to be done now. Or even better, yesterday.

While this procrastinatory proclivity ill suits someone of whose greatest professional responsibility is to meet deadlines, I have in all but two notable occasions been able to bestir myself in time enough to complete assignments in enough time. Which is why I am much too comfortable typing out this blog post on Tuesday morning instead of working on a handful of one-hour projects that are each due by close of business this coming Friday.

Understand, I am no daredevil. Nor am I under any delusion that I "work better under pressure." The simple truth is that I tend not to work at all unless I'm forced by circumstances to do so. This is why I have tried to keep myself consistently overcommitted for the past year and a half. This is also why my television goes months at a time without being dusted. Most to the point, this is why Thursday and Friday will be quite busy for me.

Self-actualization is purportedly the highest psychological achievement for humans. I wonder what Maslow would say about someone who has come to accept slothfulness, bears no hard feelings toward slackness, and has figured out how to meet deadlines consistently with seconds to spare.

All Their Songs Are Sad

Album: R.E.M., Automatic for the People, 1992

Best Track: "Nightswimming"

Lasting Memory: The first time I watched the video for "Everybody Hurts," the second or third single off of Automatic for the People, I was convinced that it was the saddest thing I had ever seen. That first impression, as so often happens, was mistaken. I now know this to be the saddest thing I've seen. Followed closely by this.

The "Everybody Hurts" video is right up there on the list of sad artworks, though. That first viewing, in a hotel room about 20 miles west of Knoxville, Tenn., on the night of the first and longest day's drive of a 28-day sojourn through the south and central parts of America with my sister Clair, was like taking a punch to the solar plexus. Every song on Automatic is pretty emotionally raw, which goes a long toward placing the album in the ranks of great art. To quote the immortal G.K. Chesterton out of context but in support of the axiom that sad equals good,

His harp was carved and cunning,
His sword prompt and sharp,
And he was gay when he held the sword,
Sad when he held the harp.

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
(The Ballad of the White Horse, 1911)

I mean, who doesn't love themselves some "Greensleeves" or "Danny Boy" or "Come on Eileen"? Irish eyes aren't smiling, dammit. They're misting.

So were R.E.M.'s, obviously, when they threw together an album that included two heartfelt tributes to Andy Kaufman, a retrospective piece on Montgomery Clift, several cry-it-out-and-move-on message songs, and the most wistful song about lost youth committed to tape by any rock band since Traffic gifted the world with "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" in 1971.

Automatic opens with the morose "Drive," which, as all rock songs should, employs the road as a metaphor for life. The album closes with "Find the River," which substitute a waterway for a highway and gently implies that listeners can get clean by returning to where they once went swimming at night.

While driving, you're bound to hurt when your personal hero -- be he a sidewinder or a man on the moon -- pulls off on the great exit to the sky far to soon. And when someone you admire gets a raw deal, that can make you catch your breath. But don't dwell. Sweetness follows.

Up Next: Lou Reed, Mistrial, 1986