Whatcha' Listenin' To?
Trudging on in my quest to hear and absorb what the pop culture/music illuminati routinely say are the best albums ever, I have recently been on a library binge.
This is me throwing up in the sink. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
First, as I hinted at a few posts ago- Tom Waits is rocking my world. (Strange, since he's not really a "rocker" in any common definition of the word.)
Rain Dogs started me off, but I have also gotten into
Blood Money,
Alice,
Mule Variations and
Orphans:Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. I reccomend that you check these things out. I have said to a friend that Waits is the last true musical
artist.Each album is a little different. Some of them have more of a creepy, fin de siecle-type bohemian darkness to them. Amongst all the noise and carnival-barker lunacy, there are also beautifully weepy ballads. Even some spoken word bits over music. For instance, check out "What's He Building?" on
Mule Variations. Alice is the most conventionally beautiful in that all of the songs are accompanied by strings or horns or other such symphonic niceties.
Orphans is a bit overwhelming at three discs, but the "Road to Peace" grabbed me on first listen and you can't beat Waits' gruff voice singing old-timey gospel songs and hymns.
Anyway, all this to say--I highly reccommend Tom Waits. This guy will change how you listen to music.
Not quite the acquired taste is The Who's
Who's Next. This album starts and ends strongly with the most synth-heavy songs: "Baba O'Riley (one of the best opening tracks I know of), and "Won't Get Fooled Again." Other highlights for me: "Bargain," "The Song is Over," "Going Mobile," and "Behind Blue Eyes."
Speaking of the songs, get a load of the spiritual component to the lyrics of "Bargain":
I'd gladly lose me to find you
I'd gladly give up all I had
To find you I'd suffer anything and be glad
I'd pay any price just to get you
I'd work all my life and I will
To win you I'd stand naked, stoned and stabbed
I'd call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever hadWhat's to like about this album? Fantastic, wild-man drumming by Keith Moon, the aforementioned synth sounds which were new at the time, Pete Townshend's rhythmic guitar-playing, which I often overlook and of course the interplay between Townshend's and Daltrey's vocals.
What's not to like? When it ends.
I've Become THAT Guy...
..And so has my dad.
Here we are sitting at Panera Bread next to each other. Not saying a word as we peck away at our fancy new laptops.
Is there any more cogent illustration of communication in our modern world?
But to be fair, my dad does have real work he's doing.
Me, I'm just trying to look busy
Typing about looking busy.
And now, typing about typing about looking busy.
And now...
It's a strange world, doncha' think?
***
I am off work for the next week and man, I need this vacation.
Please, someone out there. Comment here and tell me something interesting or email me or something.
Information for fans of Grandpa Griffith and General Well-wishers
Last night was MY last concert with Grandpa Griffith.
I know that an official email was sent out some time on Friday, saying it was the band's last show. That email was sent with a little bit of haste.
The only thing for sure at this point is that I am done being in the band. I will attempt to answer the questions I'm getting the most:
Why? I have decided to leave for what is typically called burn-out. I'm just not "feeling it" anymore. I have been going through the motions for the sake of the other guys in the band for about a year and a half. There is a time committment and a mental energy committment that comes with being in the band that I am no longer willing to make.
Are you ok?This decision, while it is the result of A LOT of thinking, hand-wringing and general dread, (especially over the last three days), should not be construed as some kind of symptom of a larger unhappiness in my life. Other than the mental torture I've been putting myself through over band issues, LIFE iS GOOD. Just read this blog. I've paid off credit cards. Discovered new music, new interests... Now, I see life getting to be a lot better. For one thing, I'll be able to talk to my best friend Jeff again without harboring resentment about not being able to reveal the truth of how I'm really feeling about the band.
That's a very good thing.
Is the rest of the band ok?Aaron, Joe, Jeff, Willie, and Matt have been AWESOME about this. By not deciding to automatically quit if I was through, they gave me FREEDOM to make a choice. I think they realized that my guilty feelings were sufficient and they didn't need to pile on anymore. I thank you guys for that, if you are reading this. And while this whole issue of my ambivalence toward the band may have come about in anger, (a story you'll have to get somewhere else), we are all friends still. In fact, in finally being able to be honest and truthful amongst the guys over the last couple days, I feel closer to them than ever. I thank them for their understanding. It is rare that you meet guys that cool about things. And that is why there is a little bit of sadness in all of this as well.
But at the same time, I have to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving the rest of the guys in the lurch. But mostly, I'm sorry that I can't be the guy that you would have needed me to be. Matt-I'm sorry I broke my promise to you.
What's going to happen to GG?At this point, the rest of the guys seem willing to try to keep going with the band. This makes me very happy. In fact, it's the only way I was able to tell them the truth. While their next immediate gig, the State Fair show, will be cancelled, I think they will soon start making plans for the fututre. I for one, can't wait to come see GG shows as a spectator.
***
In general, the last 6 or 7 or 10 or however many years it's been have been a great ride. I've been more successful with the band than I ever thought possible. (Once again, the beauty of being a pessimist.) :-P
I have had a lot of fun playing in the band and being married to 5 or 6 other guys. And the people who have come to shows, bought CDs and shirts and danced and cared about what we do, I've always suspected they were a little bit mentally unbalanced. But only in the best way.
The fans have enriched my life and made me feel important in some of the weirdest ways. Thank you for that.
Thanks for listening.
Your pal,
Mike
Haute Couture (?)
I was reading
Time up at work today and just was transfixed by this picture. Yes,
of course the dude in the matador outfit is a fashion designer. Duh!
Three American Clasics
Hello again, faithful readers. I am still very slowly working through the supposed Top Albums of All Time, along with some other artists and composers I have shamefully missed over the years. And once agin, there seems to be a rational universe, (or an anal writer), at work behind the scenes as the timing for these artistic experiences is suspiciously appropriate.
First of all-Dylan. In the last two or three weeks I have heard two really good albums by Bob Dylan for the first time:
Bringing It All Back Home and
Highway 61 Revisited. Both of these albums came about during one of Dylan's most famous periods-i.e. when he pissed off his folk music-loving base. It's similar to when Eddie Van Halen had the gall to take up playing the synthesizer.
When Mr. Dylan started using drums and electric guitars and a full band sound, it was seen, (or heard), as a major betrayal by some folks who liked their music stripped-bare and earnest. People loved Dylan, the political prophet. And I'll grant you, the "weary traveller" accompanying himself on rustic acoustic guitar is pretty powerful. I guess people wanted him to be the reincarnation of Woody Guthrie, one of his musical heroes.
These two albums show Dylan backing away from expectations. While
Bringing It All Back Home still has some of the simple folkie songs that made him famous, interspersed with some electric blues-rock, by the end of
Highway 61 Revisited, all bets are off: this guy wanted to front a rock n' roll band.
And that's one of the things I love about these two albums. I hear them in comparison to their forebears:
Freewheelin' and
The Times They Are A- Changin'. I like the idea of an artist sailing personally uncharted waters. Much is made of Dylan's influence on the music of the Beatles and on John Lennon in particular around this time. I wonder if it's safe to posit the converse idea- that The Beatles' music was also an influence on Dylan? Food for thought.
Anyway, the electric sneer, the humor and word-play-for-word-play's sake captured on these albums are all parts of the sound of an individualist creating what he wants to--not what the sensitive politicos wanted him to. He refused to be anyone's tool, (made apparent in
No Direction Home, the fantastic Scorsese documentary that covers Dylan's life up to and including this point.) Anyway, I respect Dylan's determination and courage to do his own thing. As a musician, that's very inspiring.
As for the sounds--(first of all, just for grins, compare the first three or four seconds of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" to Ryan Adams' "To Be Young." I think they are interchangeable in their production: acoustic rhythm guitar, the high bends on tele or strat with slap-back delay.) Maybe there
is something "magical" about these two discs, as I hoped to find in listening to
Rolling Stone's list of "classics."
Something about these songs makes me want to listen again and again-to figure out what they're all about. Not to mention Mike Bloomfield's lead guitar-very much underrated. Forty-two years of music created since this album has pretty much solidified these blues licks as "standard." Any average barband guitarist probably knows half of the patterns from which he plays, but that couldn't have been the case way back when.
And the imagery of his lyrics is so bizarre, constantly walking the edge between surrealism and a kind of profound truth. All of which is delivered with one of the most notoriously unskilled singing voices in music history. Yet I still love the sound of it all.
The other "American Classic" I experienced for the first time a couple days ago-the movie
Rocky. I'd seen the comparative circus that is
Rocky IV many times. But this original movie? There's quite a bit of depth to these characters and their relationships. There really is no conceivable rational reason that Rocky and Adrian should be together, romantically. So it must be love. An interesting kind of timid, reticent love between two people who couldn't be more different.
And I was also interested in the contrast between how Apollo Creed and Rocky go about life. Creed is portrayed as a shrewd businessman as much as a boxer- always in meetings, working deals.
Rocky-well, he's just a loser.
And I wondered about his character during the training. Is he an uberman or is he an Everyman? It's hard to tell. I think that's why I liked the movie-this idea that greatness and failure dance on a very thin ledge. Is Rocky the uberman because he extraordinarily trains himself to overcome? Or is it his struggle to overcome his obstacles, (no love, not much money, not a lot of intellect, or even boxing talent), that is indicative of every person's struggles?
I want to believe option B, because of the possibility of hope that it allows.
A New Fascination
This week I heard my first whole album by Tom Waits. It's called
Rain Dogs and it is some of the most interesting music I've heard in a long time.
How do you describe Waits' music? It's like if a muppet learned to play the guitar and harmonium, became a beat poet, and ran away with the circus, but only hung out with visiting mad scientists. I really like this music for its variety and individualist artistic vision. I don't get the impression that Mr. Waits cares much about commercial potential.
I shall hear more from Waits in the near future.
Because of the words "Hell," "Dead" and "Gun"...
(In case you can't see the little graphic like I can't here at work, my blog was rated PG-13 by some little blog-doo-dad.)
