Some More BS from Jaybee

My 2011: The First Annual Jaybee-bies Awards

2012-01-29T14:37:00.005-05:00

Well, the notoriously late Voice's 2011 Pazz and Jop Poll Results have finally come out, which means it's time for me to finish up my 2011 year in music.

And I'm well on my way, having already gotten four albums this year. Sooooo….

Welcome to the First Annual Jaybee-bies (Okay, that name needs work The Geezies? ) Awards.

Where I summarize, yet again, what I - as opposed to the rest of the world - listened to in 2011. Welcome to my world.

Overall, this wasn't a year of obsession, but rather one of riches, balance and satisfaction. There were no albums whose songs haunted me throughout the days and weeks, but rather album after album of very high quality and varied music. Being unofficially bipolar, it's probably better for me that way.

Anyway, let the awards begin!

Self Restraint Award:

I usually give this award to myself if I can keep my music purchases to less than 20 a year. (It's origins lie in a similar award from my teen years, if I could keep something else to less than 20 times a month. I never won.) But that takes more……..FOCUS……than I can possibly muster, and I ended up with 25.

I blame Amazon.com with their monthly 100 mp3 albums for $5 (and this January there are 1,000!) and Other Music, whose used bin exerts a gravitational pull on me. Maybe I should to move to another state. Anyway, the winner this year is Not Me. Too bad the old award isn't still around though…

MP3 Firsts Award:

This marks the first year I've gotten an mp3 instead of a CD. Actually four. Now I know what those young folks - forty year olds, I mean - are talking about! I obviously can't win this again, so I'll probably shoot for more MP3s than CDs this year.

Anyway, I'd like amazon.com…

But now, awards for actual musicians:

Best Album of the Year:

1. W H O K I L L by tUnE-yArDs - This record is unique in that it's the only one I got all year that came out in 2011. (Nutboy's got some things to say about this, but later for that.) I may not have logged as many listens for this as I did for, say Grandaddy or Nick Drake, I'm still playing it eight months later, so I know it's got legs. A perfect balance of accessibility and experimentation, tunes and weirdness. Even the lyrics are good. Here's "My Country".

It's sheer coincidence that my pick should coincide with Pazz and Jop. My picks are usually more lame.

2. The Sophtware Slump by Grandaddy - Sadness and tunes. An unbeatable combination for someone like me. Try Underneath the Weeping Willow.

3. Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter - Guitars, weirdness, etc. A favorite for the whole family. Desire Lines may be the song of the year.

Honorable Mentions:

To many, really, hence those riches I was talking about. Michigan, Seven Swans, The Boy With the Arab Strap, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Modern Times, Bryter Layter,

Artist of the Year:

Sufjan Stevens, for deluging me with his back catalog - Michigan, Seven Swans, and Songs for Christmas. He didn't put anything out this year, which is probably why he didn't attend the awards ceremony that took place in my basement last Tuesday. It's a shame he didn't pick up the statuette, which looks a lot like my son's soccer trophy from grammar school.

Best Educational Experience:

This goes to the record that rewards my wandering ears with enough joy to encourage even more exploration.

And the winner is… Francophonic by Franco - This compilation has so much music, and even though I had something by him already, so little that I ever knew about. The opening of an entire world (well, continent, anyway).

Special mention to all the others - Charles Mingus, Sunny Ada, Eric Dolphy and Terry Riley - who didn't make me sorry.

Resolutions:

I have to give myself a plan of action for the new year, which I may follow or ignore as the music dictates:

Try to win next year's Self Restraint award.

Get more MP3s, if for nothing else, just to save some space.

Buy more current year music, because I've got Nutboy breathing down my neck.

Closing Ceremonies:

Music did what I needed it to do for me. Around this time a year ago, I was miserable. Slowly but surely music - along with the other good things in life I'm learning to appreciate more - brought me out of it.

Which is why I listen.

Good night and have a musical year.

My 2011: Fall and the Holidays

2012-01-21T16:43:00.001-05:00

For me, Thanksgiving is a critical time of the year formusic. I like to remember the holidays for a given year with a very specific musical background. And when the music is just okay, so are the holidays. Sorry family and friends, it just seems to be so.

Over the years, I've had some brilliant ones - 2007, for instance, with Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood and the Go Betweens Oceans Apart- and some bad ones - well, let's not go there. So I try to learn from a bad year and play it safe. And with a couple of gift cards left I decided to cast a wide net when I put my order into barnesandnoble.com.

I knew that, at some point, I'd get that one Nick Drake album I'd missed, especially since he's such a sure bet. So I finally got Bryter Layter, his second record. But I have to admit that, at first, I was not happy. Nick's usually my morning depression go-to guy, but here he's a bit peppier than usual. Too many horns, lush strings and back-up singers made it hard to warm up to, but that's all more than balanced out by what I go to Nick for: beautiful, sad and ultimately uplifting songs. And here Nick has some of his very best. Otherwise, why would I play it almost every morning since I got it? A-

The documentary “Who Is Harry Nilsson?” rekindled my interest in him, and I decided to go for NilssonSchmillson, which is always showing up on All Time Best lists. And as is the case when you actually buy such records, the first impression is less than ecstatic. This stems from already knowing chunk of the music already, sometime too well. (Jesus, did I really need to hear "Without You" again, and in Spanish, too?) But it’s also got several of my favorite Nilsson songs – "Gotta Get Up", "The Moonbeam Song" and "Jump into the Fire". The bonus disc has got several more tracks that are well worth it, except for the annoying commercials at the end. (I’m seeing a lot more if this lately. Why?) B+, but I think it's going to go up.

Eric Dolphy lurks in the background of one of my favorite John Coltrane records, and I love his Berlin Concerts. Out To Lunch is his last major record before his premature death in 1964, and it’s got all the Dolphy-isms I enjoy so much – mainly the solos that seem to jump out perpendicularly from the themes and melodies. An ex-friend (God, they’re really adding up, aren't they?) knew him. “Eric was a such sweet guy” I have no reason to doubt this, but then again, said ex friend still owes me money. Probably owed Eric, too. (Unsolicited advice – never room with a musician.) Anyway, the record is really good, and I expect I’ll be hearing new things from it for a long, long time. File Under Education

The leadoff and title track of Against Me!’s New Wave is one of the most bracing punk rock songs I’ve heard in years. It’s a shame that the rest of the record just can’t quite keep up. Nice and loud, earnest, political (I love how they make the lyric “write that song, in response to military aggression!” actually sound great) I like these guys so much that I want to like the record more. I’ll check back in a few months to say if I’ve fallen in love or not. B+

But I couldn't wait for this order to arrive so I ended up back at Other music (where else?), where I find Grandaddy’s The Software Slump (used, of course) and, of all things, Christmas music!

And by whom, you might ask? F*cking Sufjan Stevens of course. (Three albums and a total of seven CDs, which must make him Artist of Jaybee’s Year, if such an award existed.)

Sufjan was putting out Christmas EPs for his friends for five years in a row, and he finally put all of them together into one box - Songs for Christmas - where I could pick up a used copy. And it turns out to dominate the holiday music this year. Definitely one of the best holiday albums around. A-

Grandaddy makes a kind of space music, but the space in question is California. Jason Lytle's vocals bear a slight resemblance to Flaming Lips front-man Wayne Coyne. And even some interest in technology and robots. Jason seems a little more pro-robot than Wayne, but maybe is even more sad. It's strange that Software would lead off with an eight minute dirge. But it works, and I find myself still listening to its deft balance of snap crackle and pop. After several weeks, I'm still playing it. Another maybe album of the year? A

Amazon keeps tempting me with their $5 mp3, and I succumbed again, first with Brad Paisley's American Saturday Night, which comprises part two of my investigation into whether modern country music does anything for me at all. The trouble with music downloads is that you can forget that you have them. Thus my play count so far is only 1.

And then with A Tribe Called Quest's Anthology. I snuck in a listen early Christmas morning. For hip hop, this is surprisingly listenable and tuneful. Again, only a single play. I hate when that happens.

Part of the reason for the low play count of those mp3s is that I got Grant McLennan's Horsebreaker Star for Christmas. Nutboy (link) was pushing this record hard. I held off because of the different versions floating around. Nutboy’s got the single CD domestic version, so naturally the old Jaybee one-upmanship comes out and I have to get the original two-CD 24 song import. These last-CDs-of-the-year are really hard to judge. Right now, it's sitting at a B+, but may move up.

All in all, an excellent season.

Next: 2011 in Sum

My 2011: Summer of Jaybee

2012-01-15T16:02:00.000-05:00

If you've been reading my year end summary posts, you know by now that summer begins with Father's Day and ends with my birthday. In other words, it's All. About. Me.

I use these occasions to get some exploring done. I mean, why take chances with my own money when I can get my wife and kids to spend theirs? As usual, I put them up to getting me some esoteric (for an Irish Catholic boy in his fifties, anyway) music, by thoughtfully adding it to my Amazon (and in case they miss it, Barnes and Noble) wish list. Then I clear my throat a lot.

That's how I get things like Terry Riley's In C. Classical music? Who knows? Strange? Of course. And thank you, Brian Eno - "rock musician" - for getting me here. It's not so much that Eno's music is like Riley's. It's more that Eno can be a portal to the unknown. Which begs the question, when was the last time I got something by Eno anyway? I'd better add something to the old wish list. (Hmmm. Music For Airports? Apollo?) For the life of me I don't know what to say about this record, other than that it is forty five minutes of various themes in, guess what? The key of C! It's a little more static than Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, but it's also like a calm pool of water that, when you bother to look, you'll see things further and further down. Thanks kids!

And then there's king Sunny Ade of Nigeria - a superstar on the order of Frank Sinatra in Africa but not famous here in the US. The Best of the Classic Years is a compilation of his output from 1967-74 and it's really remarkable. Simultaneously spacey and groove-y. The last time I'd run into the King was in the early eighties with Juju Music, which while good was a bit too slick for its own good. This one has a hint of rawness that lets that spacieness go down easy. Great for late hot summer nights.

Charles Mingus's Ah Um is one of the best jazz records I own, but I'd held off on getting his highly regarded Black Saint and Lady Sinner because I kept reading words like "difficult" and "inaccessible". So I took the plunge and gathered my strength for a daunting listen. Now I'm not really sure what all the warnings were about. The best way I can describe it is that it sounds like soundtrack music to a late fifties crime drama. (No, not my late fifties. The late fifties. Don't rush me.) I'd file it under "Education" but I'm already enjoying it. B+

And Franco, whose Francophonic, Vol 1 is also just a mere scratching of the surface of recordings by this African master. This collection covers 1953 to 1980, and ranges from folk-like short songs to Grateful Dead-like guitar jams. There's a moment about halfway through "Minuit elecki Lezi" that bursts out into such an ecstasy of guitar sound that I can't help but think that the Dead heard it way back when.

But summer's not just for schooling, so around this time I finally succumb to Amazon’s $5 download enticements. I get my first download album – W H OK I L L by tUnE-yArDs. Led by the remarkable Merryl Garbus, this is easily the most perfect balance of tunefulness, funkiness and weirdness I’ve gotten all year. Maybe album of the year. And it actually came out this year, too! A

When I picked up Michigan, the check out guy at Other Music, perhaps recognizing another Catholic, suggested Sufjan's Seven Swans to me. So I put it on my wish list and it miraculously appeared for my birthday. It's a quiet, lovely meditation on faith. (Now why the fuck would I write a sentence like that? Well, I guess because it is.) It's less sprawling than either MI or IL. The songs are of a more uniform length and the instrumentation is very spare, which suits the material perfectly. SS has just got the knack for coming up with great melodies, again and again. Not quite Illinoise, but just about as good as Michigan. A-

Somewhere around here I also download Miranda Lambert’s Crazy ExGirlfriend. And like I said, these downloads are easy to forget about, so I'm only listening to it now. This is Contemporary Country music, so the singing is great and the lyrics are a lot of fun. I love when a woman says she needs a beer. I appreciate the muscular rockish music, even though I like it a little more jagged myself. But it's growing on me. Not sure yet.

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians Greatest Hits was just so magical that it motivated me to get the less than brilliant Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight, which I promptly lost. It might have been great, who knows? So this year, I try Fegmania! and again, it's good, but not great. Oddly, it's the bonus cuts that keep bringing me back Some great moments, though. Robyn may just be a Greatest Hits kind of guy… B+

Pavement specializes in confounding old folks like me with their noise for the sake of noise (Slanted and Enchanted) and weird tunes that take a minute to even resolve themselves (Brighten the Corners). Both are ultimately very worthwhile, but I just don't like being made a fool of. The musical equivalent of a bunch of kids playing slapball in front of your house, and you are forced to confront the fact that now you're the cranky old man. Anyway, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain takes all that is great about Pavement and puts it all in one place. The tunes are more straight ahead, the noise only comes after a great surge of in-tune guitar, the crappy singing isn't quite as crappy. Even my wife hums along to this one. A-

Speaking of which, Modern Times is the first Dylan record my wife actually sings along to. Yet, it pisses me off. Someone please explain to me how Dylan's any better than Led Zeppelin in regard to his "carelessness" in songwriting credits. To me, he's a creep and a lowlife. Oh, and a genius. A-

So summer ended up being a perfect balance of styles and accessibility and by the end of it, I was feeling much better. Like I said, all about me.

My 2011: Springtime for Jaybee

2012-01-07T14:41:00.002-05:00

I don't consider the season of Spring to be much of a mood enhancer. Whatever people tell you, it's an overrated season. One day it’s freezing and the next, it’s warm, humid and rainy. Every once in a while, there’s a lovely day, but you’re probably working late that night anyway, so you miss it. Then you go out the next day, under-dressed, and catch pneumonia because somehow it’s below freezing again.

But if you’re really lucky, you find an opportunity to go to my favorite record store Other Music and sidle up to their used CD bin. By definition, it’s a crapshoot. But that's where I find Sufjan Steven's Greetings from Michigan (2003) and Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest (2010).

Michigan is just as sprawling, if somewhat less frenetic than Illinois - one of my top CDs of the 2000s. It's also more mournful, which suited my mood perfectly. Muted, yet melodic, it was exactly what I needed for feeling shitty overall, and a drive to the cemetery. A-

It was surprising to find Halcyon Digest in the bin, since it did so well in many 2010 year-end polls, But somebody's loss is my gain. Friend Robin had burned a song of theirs for me a couple of years ago, and while it had a great spacey guitar sound, I didn't detect much of a song underneath it. HD is much better. It's still got the striking atmospherics, but this time there are tunes and words to back it all up. There are a couple of hazy spots, but overall it's very strong, and "Desire Lines" (link) is just amazing. Having by now been softened up by Sufjan (a possible gay porn movie title?), Deerhunter were just the thing to lift me out of my funk. A-

But it took the Insect Trust to make me laugh. I stumbled upon (in Other Music, of course) Hoboken Saturday Night (1970) and to say that the Insect Trust is an eclectic group of musicians is to vastly understate the case. There's music journalist/saxophonist Robert Palmer. (Not that idiot from England, but rather the writer of "Deep Blues" and of a NY Times column on pop music, including a famous dis of poor old Billy Joel.) Then there's guest jazz drummer Elvin Jones. But before you go thinking it's a jazz record, listen to the one that opens with a banjo playing a standard Middle Eastern riff. There's a slight whiff if 60s to it, but unlike most hippie music it's got a great rhythm section. Like a favorite uncle, it occasionally shows it's age, but is very entertaining, especially if at least one of you is drinking. B+

Belle and Sebastian's The Boy with the Arab Strap (1998) is an ever so slightly less than great B&S album. There's nothing quite so titanic as the best stuff on Sinister. And nothing quite as joyful as the best of Tiger Milk. But once you get past that, you realize you're listening to a wonderful record. Sweet gentle tunes with the old B&S sting in the lyrics. Lovely. A-

So now I’m getting a little cocky and it's back to Other Music for the third time (There seems to be an invisible bugee cord attached to me and the store.) where I find the Pixie's Bossanova and Portishead's Dummy.

Here's my take on the former. B+

Now I admit that I was expecting something different from Portishead. Although they had a weird little hit with "Sour Times", I thought that Dummy would be more of an accent on Beth Gibbon's vocals, and girded myself for "too pretty". I needn't have worried. Dummy is a "trip hop" record, and thus, was not meant for Springtime. (If I got it back in January I would have either loved it, or slit my wrists.) So I put it away for a while and found that it worked pretty well in the fall. But at night, for heaven's sake! B+

So by now music was doing a good job of uncurling me from my assumed fetal position. With summer coming, I was even considering standing up.

Next: Summer of Jaybee

My 2011 - Winter of My Discontent

2012-01-02T09:17:00.004-05:00

By January 2nd of any given year, I'm already plotting on how to use my Christmas gift cards to buy the records I'm afraid to get with my own money. These are the more risky records – “reaches”, whether due to genre or by their reputation for being “experimental”. In a word, educational. Something I can hide in during my Seasonal Affective Disorder.

So I got a record that has appeared on so many All Time Great Lists, I was ashamed of not having gotten it already - Ray Charles Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volumes 1 and 2. I was very hesitant about this one, because my taste in country music is very finicky (the line between deep - Hank Williams - and idiotic - Hank Williams Jr. - isn't easy for a non-country fan to discern). Plus, having been ruined by the Beatles (me, that is, loving the electric guitar above all) soul music came to me slowly. I didn't even like Motown until the 70s. I now get funk but am still working on hip hop. Pathetic, really.

But enough about me. How was the record? Well, at first, it sucked, actually. The backing chorus repeating every important line annoyed the sh*t out of me, reminding me of nothinmuch as the muzak station playing in my dentist's office when I was a kid. So I had to leave it alone for awhile.

Now I'm back and it all sounds perfectly natural. The soul approach saps the potential, well, sappiness of the country tunes, and those tunes add a little more melody than typical soul music. I listened again last night and it just keeps getting better. The best of both worlds, I say. B+, and rising.

But then blammo! SAD? Fekking miserable is more like it. But this time, there were actual reasons for it. Floods? Starvation, you ask? Nope. Just work related stuff, which is all that it takes to set me off.

And unfortunately, music isn’t always the cure. If you try to force music onto a bad time, you just end up with a miserable time set to music you’ll never want to hear again, no matter how good it is, simply because it reminds you of that awful time. It’s better to just ride it out.

Next: Springtime for Jaybee

What I Talk About When I Talk About 2011

2012-01-01T11:35:00.000-05:00

Everyone else has long since published their Best of the Year lists, some as early as November. Why do I wait until the new year? Because, as any one of my uncles might say, the old year ain't fekking over yet, is it?

But not everyone is related to my uncle, so I see these lists begin to sprout up, and all I can think is that there's still plenty of time for new music - especially in the holiday season - that might define the year.

And it’s not until December 31 at about 11:45pm that I can relax, feeling reasonably sure that no one's going to surprise me with the greatest CD of the year. But now it's 2012. 2011 is now officially fekking over. So while I await my uncle's list, I'll offer mine.

If you've seen any of my prior Best of Year lists, you already know that "My 2011" has little – and this year, very little - to do with what was actually released that year. It's all about what I got around to buying/getting/hearing. So if you’re looking for a genuine "Best of 2011", move on.

But wait a minute, what was all that crap about maintaining the integrity of the year, you ask? (Hey, that's a good phrase! I wished I used it.) Well I say, what's the difference? I either heard it this year or I didn't.

But I probably will, if I may pick a New Year's resolution that isn't too inconvenient, let you know more about what's going on in the year as said year proceeds, than I have in the past. Are you happy? Plus it lets me enjoy my New Year's Day hangover without having to tell you everything from scratch.

One moment, while I powder my nose…

Okay. Back now, feeling…refreshed.

I’d like to think of myself as someone who keeps up to date with music (and books and movies and occasionally, real life), but what really ends up happening is that in any given year, I hear about new records, but don’t actually hear them (and then just the ones I buy) until the following year. Oh, I could go out and buy them right away, but which ones? There are thousands of new CDs released every year. So we’re all literally drowning in new music. (No, we're not, stupid. Not literally! Just testing you.)

And with all the hype floating around out there, it’s hard to distinguish temporary enthusiasms (and outright bs (as opposed to my own, kinder, gentler bs)) from thoughtful opinions on music that might have some lasting value. Will what I buy today be something I’ll want to hear a year from now? Better to just wait that year to let it all sort itself out. Oh, I won't be bored. I'm still wading through the previous year's stuff. But if you've got the cash to splurge now, knock yourself out. (Of course you could put some of that aside for poor, you selfish bastard, but I digress. The Irish Catholic equation of Pleasure and Selfishness isn't even another post. It's a whole other blog.)

But all this waiting does put me back about a year, so it’s kind of like showing up for a New Year’s party in February, and then killing everyone's little remaining buzz by talking about how a quieter, smaller party would have been more appropriate.

So here I am at your door, without even bringing a bottle.

In 2011, I returned to artists who've previously made CDs that I loved. I’m always a little hesitant to do this, since it’s hard to imagine how another record could be anything but a disappointment. And while the new ones I got were not quite obsession-inducing, most were excellent. Not great, but very, very good. So it turned out to be kind of an A minus year. I’ll take it. I've had worse.

And on that note, with apologies to Robert Christgau, I'm going to make another New Year"s Resolution to steal his grading system. Why not? Everybody else has.

Next: 2011 - Winter Discontent

Secret History: 1975

2011-10-30T20:07:00.001-04:00

What was the world at large listening to during 1975? Dylan, of course. Springsteen, or course. Me, too. I had a mixtape made up mostly of just the two of them. I played it during one of my senior class trips, which tried the patience of a classmate, who wanted to put on “Disco Tex and His Sex-o-lettes”. He’d have his revenge in a year or two.

But what was the year like? It’s hard to objectively say since so much seemed to happen to me. There was heartbreak, high school graduation, getting a driver’s license. I guess the normal stuff associated with turning 18.

Some memories: It’s January, and I’m trying to study for the regents, but the radio plays “Blood on the Tracks” all the way through. It’s the first time I’m hearing it. Then June, at the beach during another class trip, I hear “Born to Run” for the first time. Then hearing Springsteen live from the Bottom Line. Buying “The Basement Tapes”. Yeah, they pretty much owned the year.

But there were other records, too, and many that would become my all time favorites:

Well, there’s Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night”, but I already go on about that record far too much.

Then there’s “Siren”, by Roxy Music, where Bryan Ferry seemed to get the last laugh on Brian Eno, by making this not very weird pop record. It’s a great expression of his romanticism, and doesn't skimp on guitar either. “Love is the Drug“ is the "hit" but there are plenty of others that are just as good.

But, of course, Brian Eno is doing just fine, and “Another Green World” is another all time favorite. It's just too difficult to explain.

"Katy Lied" is probably my favorite Steely Dan album. It's got “Doctor Wu”, “Any World I'm Welcome To” and several other very emotional songs from a band that would normally be snickering.

“The Basement Tapes” by Bob Dylan and the Band, is probably the most consistent double album ever made. I can still listen to it all the way through without stopping. A lot of people just don't get it, but it's the perfect distillation of Dylan and Band at one time. So what if the sound is lousy? Just pretend you're listening to it on your old Victrola.

And here are a few records that I missed at the time, but I’ve been trying to make it up to ever since:

Newly minted respected author and photographer Patti Smith could actually get her first album “Horses” played on the radio back then, even though her band were proto-punks, and she wasn’t the greatest singer. In a normal year, she would have been called on all the hype she got, but remember this was the year of the Boss on the cover of Time and Newsweek. She risked looking ridiculous waxing poetic about “boney maroni”. But if you ask me, she holds up better than Genesis.

I couldn’t say if “Natty Dread” is Bob Marley’s best album or not, but it seems to be as good a place to start as any. The production is warm and intimate. It’s rousing and soothing at the same time. “Lively Up Yourself” is just wonderful.

Nils Lofgren had a few lives before becoming an E streeter, one as the leader of the band Grin, who I'll have to sample before I die. Then there was a short stint with Crazy Horse, and doing sessions with people like Neil Young. But he was also a solo artist. He's put out several records, but I've been told that his first is the keeper, and I believe it.

Nils runs through some high strung pop and rock. He's a really sharp guitarist with his own distinctive style. His songwriting is very tight, too. Highlights include “Back It Up”, Carole King's “Going Back”, and “Keith (yes that Keith) Don't Go”. To Toronto, that is, where our favorite rock and roller was in a bit of a spot with the police. My brother hates this record.

The Ramones first album might seem like a gaunlet being thrown down, but it's more of a beer can being squirted in your face. The suds get in your ears so the great production values ($6,000 worth!) are somewhat muffled. No sensitive singer, no guitar solos, can you blame me for hating them on principal? Plus, there was so much other great music going on that I didn’t realize that it was all dying. So I didn't get around to even trying them out until 1979.

Dolly Parton managed to put together another “Best of”, and it’d only been five years since the last one. This one’s just as good, too. Beautiful voice, great songwriting.

If you knew nothing of New Orleans – and I didn’t at the time – you could look at the cover of the “Wild Tchoupitoulas” and feel like you were getting Native American music. As it turns out, you’re merely seeing the band decked out in ceremonial garb for Mardi Gras. And the music inside is as simple and fun as any you’re likely to hear. This is a great place to start to learn about New Orleans music. Not for snobs, though.

Which narrative do you believe about Keith Jarrett? The one that says he's hardly a jazz musician at all? Or that he completely clears his mind of any musical thoughts before a concert, and does pure improvisation? “The Koln Concert” is a great way to make up your mind. Sixty five minute of just Keith playing his piano. The sound is amazing.

Whatever else it was, 1975 was also the beginning of the end for what would later be known as classic rock. Anything else that was good was being forced further out onto the fringes, only to come back and haunt good old rock and roll for years to come.

And like I said, although it isn’t thought of as a great year for music, I still considered it one of the best. But I’m open to the possibility that for once life made music better rather than the other way around.

VH1's Top 100 Songs of the 2000s, or, I Give Up

2011-10-16T16:46:00.001-04:00

Okay,so VH1 had their Top 100 Songs of the 2000s on this week, and man did it make me feel old. I clearly have to update my profile to change the phrase “pop music” to “new” or “other” or something, because whatever it is that I like, it sure isn’t popular, at least not on the scale of these songs.

They fall into various groups that maybe get more pathetic as they go on, with the occasional snarky comment in italics, to make me forget the pathetic-ness:

Songs that I Know and Love (2):
14. Gnarls Barkley, “Crazy”
33. Johnny Cash, “Hurt “
As Austin Powers would say, "And that's about it." Just two. There’s nothing more to say, except for you telling me what good taste I have.

Songs I Know and “Like” (19):
By which I mean I wouldn’t switch them off if they came on the radio, and maybe even sing along to.
2. OutKast, “Hey Ya!” – Not their best, but good.
6. Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx, “Gold Digger”
8. Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”
13. Green Day, “American Idiot”
15. U2 , “Beautiful Day”
17. Coldplay, “Clocks”
18. Christina Aguilera, “Beautiful” mainly because it’s pro gay.
22. Alicia Keys, “Fallin’”
23. P!nk, “Get the Party Started”
26. The White Stripes, “Seven Nation Army”
28. Madonna, “Music”
31. Amy Winehouse, “Rehab”
42. Train, “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)”
44. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Californication”
49. Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”
53. Blink-182, “All the Small Things “
55. The Killers, “Mr. Brightside”
81. Bruce Springsteen, “The Rising”
88. Fountains of Wayne, “Stacy’s Mom”
89. M.I.A., “Paper Planes”

Songs I Know and Don’t Love (13):
I don’t hate them, but I just don’t care very much about them
5. Kelly Clarkson, “Since U Been Gone”. Way too polished to convey genuine emotion.
7. Justin Timberlake featuring Timbaland, “SexyBack” I don’t know, do young heterosexual men like this song? I gues they can sing it to girls they meet in bars.
12. Black Eyed Peas, “I Gotta Feeling”
16. Beyoncé, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”
30. Gwen Stefani, “Hollaback Girl”
37. Britney Spears, “Oops!…I Did It Again”
41. R. Kelly, “Trapped in the Closet”
47. Christina, Lil’ Kim, Mya, Pink, “Lady Marmalade”
52. Shakira feautring Wyclef, “Hips Don’t Lie”
78. Plain White T’s, “Hey There Delilah”
86. Aerosmith, “Jaded”
98. 3 Doors Down, “Kryptonite”
100. Sisqò, “Thong Song” Wait, maybe I do hate this one...

Songs I’ve Heard Of But Maybe Never Heard (5):
These songs have names or phrases that have sunk into the culture so thoroughly that one needn’t actually hear the song.
19. Destiny’s Child, “Bootylicious”
20. Britney Spears, “Toxic”
21. Jay-Z , “99 Problems”
24. Missy Elliott, “Get Ur Freak On”
43. Katy Perry, “I Kissed a Girl”

Songs That, Once You Play Them, I Say, Oh Yeah, That One (7):
And they’re not bad. Just a reflection of how out of touch I am.
1. Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z, “Crazy in Love”. This young lady is so likable (and so beautiful) that I’ll just have to get to know her better.
3. Lady Gaga, “Poker Face” LG’s a lotta fun.
4. Eminem, “Lose Yourself” He makes jokes and then wants to get all serious. Make up your mind, man.
10. 50 Cent, “In Da Club” Supposedly a thug, but I suspect a phony.
29. Foo Fighters, “The Best of You”
69. Evanescence, “Bring Me to Life”
84. Linkin Park, “In the End”

Songs That, Once You Play Them, I Say, Nope, Never Heard It:
The rest, actually. About 54 songs. Kinda sad, really. I mean, if I’m supposed to do a blog on popular music, I suppose I should have heard them. And if you did play them, maybe I’d say, oh yeah, that one, but probaly not in a good way.
9. Mariah Carey, “We Belong Together” I just don’t get this lady.
11. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z, “Umbrella” I have to admit that this sounded pretty good when I finally did hear it..

And it’s about here, at fifty two more to go, that I just stop caring. (My) life’s too short.

Now that I’ve expressed my opinion, young America need no longer hold its breath.

Bowling, for Music

2011-09-25T16:21:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if I’m nuts, thinking about music so much. I mean, it’s not like I even play an instrument very well. Perhaps it’s that very lack of ability in music that causes me to overcompensate by listening and reading and writing so much about it.

The term hobby sounds harmless enough. Obsession is actually kinda sexy. But the bleak reality is an ever growing stack of CDs, forever tipping over and taking up more room than my actual children.

So it’s a cause for worry. Jaybee, I’ll tell myself, maybe it’s time to grow up and merely like music.

But then along comes a guy who outdoes me by a mile, leaving me feeling both very relieved and a touch jealous. His name’s David Bowling, and he writes for BC (blogcritics)

Here’s his bio, with my admittedly envious commentary:

I have been collecting vinyl records for over forty years….
Yeah, so what? I’ve been doing it for…..forty SIX years! In your face DB!

…and my collection is approaching 50.000 records…
Holy shit, I’ve got barely 1,400. Okay, I surrender! The guy’s officially my hero.

My wife Susan and children, Stacey and Amy, have learned to humor my passion.
And suffer from starvation no doubt. And I thought my wife and kids were good sports.

I am now settled in beautiful Whispering Pines, North Carolina...
No doubt because the Band told him to.

…where I work hard…
Allright, stop showing off.

…listen to music…
No shit. You’d better, or else eat those records.

… and write reviews for Blogcritics.
What, and get paid for it too? Well, it’s official now: FML.

And what’s his method? He takes an artist and - get this - REVIEWS EVERY ONE SINGLE ONE OF THEIR ALBUMS!

Why, you might ask? The same reason why a dog licks his balls, I guess. Because he can! He apparently has every record ever recorded. His house isn’t in Whispering Pines, NC. His house IS Whispering Pines, NC.

With all due respect Mr. Bowling, we all have a limited time on this Earth, so it’s okay to give in to what Al Capone link would call our “enthusiasms” and ignore the rest. We are not meant to be encyclopedias, after all.

Besides, there are very few artists who deserve such attention. And someone who would dutifully review the 17th album by Yes link (or the Allman Brothers link , for that matter) had to have something wrong with him. He carries completism – a concept I’ve now officially come down against - to it’s (il)logical extreme.

Someone who listens to music so comprehensively simply cannot be very passionate about it, I tell myself.

But I’m wrong, and I know it. Encyclopedias are exactly what the professionals are supposed to be, god help them. Meanwhile, I get to f*ck off and only write about what I feel like. Base envy has led me to mock David’s dogged commitment, and for that I apologize. (By the way, per David, Yes’s 17th album is slightly better than their 16th, but quite up to par with their 15th. Or was it their 14th? What a life, I thought…)

My method is more like:
• I don’t even have the first album, but I remember hearing it at my friend’s house in 1973. I therefore conclude that the artist has “potential”, but is somewhat “unfocused”.
• I really should listen to the second, but it’s in the basement. I can save a LOT of time by just calling it a “lost masterpiece”.
• I only have the third and fourth albums on 8-track, so I really don’t remember them. Let’s call this a “transitional period”.
• And the rest I don’t have, and I’m frankly am not interested. Hence, my conclusion is that the artist has met with commercial success and I need not add anything to the prevailing wisdom, or that this is a late “unappreciated” (especially by me) period.

Thus with a minimum of time and effort– between dinner and the dishes, let’s say - I can provide you, dear reader, with “fresh insight” or “a unique perspective” on “the high points” of an artist’s career.

But David’s a better human being than me, and I just can’t stand people like that. It’s a love/hate relationship. I love me and hate him. Not true, I hate me most of the time, too.

For the moment, though, I love him, because he’s doing Carole King, which, as David reminds us (not in a nasty way. David’s better than that.) does not begin with “Tapestry”, but, rather, with “Writer”, which is always flying under my radar.

And yes, I could avoid this whole problematic relationship, by just going to allmusic.com link and reading about her whole career and discography, but that’s a place of collective knowledge and opinion. And while it does have its virtues, it does sometimes result in each record in an artist’s discography viewed as being the best, because each review is written by someone different. Sometimes it’s better to just have one consistent viewpoint taking on each record, one after the other (after the other).

So long live David. He makes me feel like shit. He makes me feel great. And, him being the nice guy that he is, I’m sure this is all very, very important to him.

Plus he uses the baby’s picture in his profile. (Oh, David, I so want to hate you. Why do you make it so hard?)

Come on David, do Elton John next. I dare you!

Secret History: 1974

2011-09-18T16:36:00.003-04:00

My doubts about the mainstream are only growing by now. Good music is officially “hard to find”, at least for me, a seventeen year old. By which I mean I can no longer simply turn the radio on and expect to hear something I really like.

Forget AM radio. Never being fond of brass or strings, I only liked Motown from a distance. So I missed out on the pleasures of much ‘70s soul.

And FM? I could get by but not without constantly changing the station. So there’s very little below that I actually heard there and enjoyed at the time. So with very few exceptions, it would only be later that I’d find the records below.

The following, is more or less in descending order of quality:

The one true masterpiece is Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight” which reminds me of the first Paul Simon album - simple arrangements and great songs. But Richard's also got his guitar and wife Linda singing along, making this one of the very best of the decade.

Randy Newman seemed to be on a mission to piss off the world - something he wouldn't quite accomplish until a few years later with "Short People". He started with his very weird first solo record, moved onto “Twelve Songs”, where phrases like “yellow man” and “darkies” popped up all over the place. “Sail Away” was a bit of a relief, but on “Good Old Boys”, he goes all out with the strings and tells stories of the American South, now using the N word.

What Randy's got going for him, though, is brilliant songwriting. "Marie" is one of the greatest love songs ever (but only when sung by Randy himself). “Louisiana 1928” would be merely moving if it didn't also remind you of Louisiana 2005. This one's my favorite by him.

If you like to read about music, you’ve already heard about Big Star’s “Radio City”. So all I’m going to say is that what you’ve heard is true. On first listen you might not think much of it because the Beatles were better. Just remember that the Beatles were better than everybody.

“Feats Don't Fail Me Now” was the Little Feat album that made me a fan. Little Feat remind me of beer – the first one you have is always the best.

I'm still waiting for someone to turn “Between Today and Yesterday” into a Broadway musical. Alan Price proves that he's got it with this take on his childhood in the coal towns of England. There are moments on this record that elicit such an emotional response in me (something that I’ll explain at a later time) that I am certain most people will think I'm nuts. I’d like a second opinion.

Neil Young was well into his blue period by now, and people (including me) were beginning to wonder about him, but only after first actually purchasing his records. At first, I was disappointed by “On the Beach”. Side one could be better. I heard a better “See the Sky About to Rain” on a live bootleg with just Neil on the piano. And “Vampire Blues” just isn't funny enough. Ah, but side two! This isn't mood music. It's trance music. And it probably sent most people scurrying back to side one. But it was where I wanted to live. “Motion Pictures” is one of his great depressing songs, but it's the finale "Ambulance Blues" that’s a masterpiece. You're all just pissin in the wind….

I've come to distrust those albums with too serious a theme. But Al Stewart is very likable, so his take on history - “Past Present and Future” - is enjoyable anyway. And like me, you don’t have to believe the Nostradamus stuff to love the last song. This one’s just before Al hits the big time.

You’d think a white British guy trying to sing New Orleans-style and basically stealing Little Feat’s sound, would piss me off a little more. But Robert Palmer’s “Sneakin Sally Through the Alley” ends up sounding better than it sounds, maybe because he used Little Feat as his band. This one bought him a lot of good will from me. And it would only be when he started wearing a suit that I began to find him unbearable.

Most Billy Joel fans love “Turnstiles” or “The Stranger” the best. But don’t overlook “Streetlife Serenader”. It’s a little calmer than his major label debut, and less supercilious (it’s really a word, I swear. Someone called me it once.) There’s some filler on it, but the ones that aren’t, like “Roberta” are quietly wonderful.

And although the following records technically came out in 1973, I’m putting them into 1974, because the artists had already released something else in ’73. That, and ‘cause I felt like it:
It took until “Europe 72” for me to like the Grateful Dead. I then went back to rehear what I had been missing. So the subsequent “Bear’s Choice” almost slipped through the cracks. Plus, I preferred their harmonies to Pigpen’s blues. But side one is gentle and side two is almost hypnotic. Thank you, Pigpen!

One of the highlights of my musical life was that Saturday morning in my room doing homework when I first heard “Incident on 52nd St”. Another was that Sunday afternoon, again in my room, hearing “Rosalita” followed by “NYC Serenade”. I would have sworn that Bruce Springsteen was black or Puerto Rican. I found his mix of rock and roll, latin horns, semi-soul music, and female background choruses intoxicating. Then, when I actually bought “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” and found that these three songs took up side two, running seven, seven and ten minutes respectively. One of the great, and most audacious, sides in all of rock and roll. Side one’s a bit tame in comparison, but quite good under any other circumstances.

In sum, like the year before, I’m spending more and more time in my room listening to music, instead of hanging with friends doing so. That’s because my friends and I didn’t share the same tastes. That splintering of taste I referred to in prior posts is continuing unabated.

In retrospect, 1974 was not a bad year. The problem is that you should not have to wait for “in retrospect” to know.

To iPod or Not iPod

2011-09-05T10:06:00.002-04:00

Sometimes people stop me in the street and ask "Hey Jaybee, you're really cool, so I wanna do the things you do. What’s your take on the iPod?"

My answer to them is: why would I use an iPod when I can already hear the voices in my head? This is usually sufficient for them, and they walk away in deep thought. But I have to admit that it got me thinking.

Last year, I started taking the train to work again, and I noticed that certain things about the subway got on my nerves(!) My train is elevated for most of the trip, so you can get cell phone reception. So some passengers yak incessantly during the commute. I’m an avid reader (i.e., a person who prefers books to people and real life), so I found myself looking up every minute or so, glaring at these perfectly nice people who I wished were dead. I soon learned to not sit next to two women catching up on old times (i.e. things that had happened since their conversation yesterday).

So I decided to use my cell phone to listen to music. And it was great! What had once been a noisy slog to and from work had now turned into another opportunity to hear whatever music I wanted. Living with three other people can constrain your more extreme inclinations in this area. Now I my ears could roam free.

The high point occurred one cool autumn evening on the commute home. I was tired but happy when this ambient instrumental came on. But for some reason I couldn’t place it. This was weird since all of the music came from my own record collection. Was it Eno? Aphex Twin? It took a full minute to place it. “Treefingers” by Radiohead, from “Kid A”. In that moment I had transcended that inherent limitation of enforced familiarity.

But familiarity was good, too. There were other times when I positively stomped my foot in happiness at what I was hearing. “Crooked” by Wussy. That must have looked strange to the two ladies trying to catch up.

But even so, there was something about all this that made me uncomfortable. I felt separated from the world around me. I don’t work in the best neighborhood, and not knowing what’s going on in the immediate area is not a good practice. Not to mention not being able to hear the Mack trucks that speed through the intersections I cross.

One morning, when I was still driving to work I spotted a ten year old about to cross the street at least a block away from me. There was no light at that corner, but he was going anyway, looking straight ahead. I noticed that he was wearing ear buds, obviously listening to an iPod. I began tapping the horn to get his attention, slowing down all the while, but the kid kept crossing. I kept tapping and slowing down until I came to a complete stop at the corner, where he walked right in front of my car without once glancing over at me or the car.

I always regretted not getting out of the car and yelling at him about what he’d just done. I guess I was afraid I’d end up scaring him, and I scare kids too much already. Plus I was late for work.

This stayed with me. As much as I like the idea of improving my environment by adding what I like best – music – to it. I feel like I’m missing something. While music adds to the environment, iPods take something away, too.

And I’ve had enough close calls with cars and such, that the last thing I ought to be doing is limiting helpful sensory input.
So I’m pro Ipod, but anti earbud.

Moreover, while I detest most of what I hear from passing car radios there is something valuable about hearing other people’s music. It provides us with an opportunity to share something, even if most of the time we just end up in a volume war.

So let’s play our music for each other. If we can avoid being obnoxious about it, we might learn something, instead of just being content in our own little worlds.

Good Old Rock and Roll(ers)

2011-08-28T18:40:00.002-04:00

Mellow-Life Crisis:

The Jaybees attended a graduation barbeque back in June, where Friend/Music Lover Peter asked what I’ve been listening to lately. Having no short term memory, I couldn’t think of any of the dozen or so CDs I’ve gotten this year so far, except Sufjan Stevens and Belle and Sebastian. This must have smacked of “mellowing” to Peter, who’s finding himself listening to harder and harder rock and roll. Our sons all love the Dropkick Murphys, but he’s gone a step further, taking to singing Blood for Blood’s “Outlaw Anthems” in his car at the top of his lungs.

Me? I’m even more all over the place than usual. But somewhere in there amongst the jazz, world music and Bob Dylan, there must have been at least some hard rock. Deerhunter has the guitars, but they’re a bit dreamy. And Pavement are just too ironic to let it all hang out. Damn it, my music has been too damned “mature” lately.

Well, there was “Bossanova” by the Pixies…

… which came out in 1990 – one year after “Doolittle”, which some consider the best album of the 1980s. I’d gotten it late in 1989 but found that, while there were a few great moments, there were just too many weird ones. Overrated, I decided. And since it was one of the last vinyl records I ever got, it sat un-played in my basement for years.

So although I wasn’t dying to get another Pixies record, “Bossanova” hit my radar when I heard that it smoothed over some of their rougher edges. Well, I thought, that’s all the Pixies really needed. And now with them doing reunion tours and being canonized in documentaries, all I needed was a steep discount price, which I got at Other Music, my new favorite record store. Okay, it was a used copy, but I’m okay with that. I’ve grown (even cheaper)!

And we were all getting into the full sound and punch-in-the-chest guitar of “Bossanova” when Mrs. Jaybee, who loves “Monkey Gone to Heaven”, asked where “Doolittle” was. In the basement, next to the washing machine, hint, hint, I said. For someone who loved his vinyl so much, she countered, I didn’t get much laundry done. She downloaded it.

And it was no contest. Like “Tonight’s The Night” coming on at a “Homegrown” listening party link, “Doolittle” kicked “Bossanova”’s ass. Doolittle was awesome!

So what’s going on here? Why is “Doolittle” so much better?

Well, on “Bossanova”, the band is loud and the sound full, though somewhat homogenized, making too many songs sound the same. On “Doolittle”, the sound is modeled to each song. And it’s not a constant barrage. Instead, instruments go in and out as needed, making everything that much more dynamic. The quiet spots make the crescendos that much more powerful.

The only time Black Francis sounds insane (just a bit upset, really) on “Bossanova” is on “Rock Music”. Elsewhere he’s just a bit strange. But on “Doolittle”, he’s eight different kinds of crazy at least. And he’s not alone. With Kim Deal singing la la la la on “Gouge Away”, it’s like the family from “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or “Pink Flamingos” formed a band.

Which brings me to my other big problem with “Bossanova”: where’s Kim? Oh, you occasionally hear her doing background vocals, but instead of being part of the family, here she’s just a member of the band.

As is drummer David Lovering, who, on “Doolittle” is banging that snare drum every time you think it’s time to sit back and relax. He even sings a creepy little number, adding to the family vibe.

It’s hard to fault Joey Santiago’s guitar. He’s doing everything he can to make the music strong. It’s just that the music’s a bit of a bore. So there’s very little of the almost comic book zaniness of “Doolittle”.

And yet I’d be wrong to call “Bossanova” bad. You’d think it was excellent if you never heard “Doolittle”.

It comes down to “Bossanova” beging a bit glossy. I don’t blame Black Francis for wanting to hit the big time. The howls and screeches of “Doolittle” were only going to take him so far.

I’m Younger Than That Now:

But none of this explains why “Doolittle” got to be better than “Bossanova”. The music didn’t change, but apparently we did. Why do we now prefer the screeches to the gloss?

Flashback to Thanksgiving 1988: The Jaybees are getting ready to go to the in-laws for dinner. We’re trying to prepare hors d'oeuvres and get Daughter Theresa ready. She’s a few months old and a bit colicky. It’s all very slow going, especially with me flipping vinyl every twenty minutes.

This particular day I’m playing Sonic Youth’s “Daydream Nation”. Not exactly holiday music, but great music is great music, right? It should be suitable for any occasion and be recognized by all for its greatness. Alas, it didn’t turn out that way. By the middle of side three, Mrs. Jaybee is asking me to please turn that sh*t off (as was Daughter Theresa, in her own way) – something she’d never done before. Okay, lesson learned.

It’s understandable that, with an infant, you need as little noise as possible. So, as a consequence, we were playing less loud music. Was this how it happened, I wondered? Were we now on the slippery slope to respectability? Would we one day wake up to find we no longer liked rock and roll?

After all, it’s been twenty years and one child since we first got “Doolittle”, and Mrs Jaybee liked it even less than me at the time. But somehow we didn’t follow the usual pattern – that dreaded mellowing out as you get older.

Sure, when the kids were smaller, they tended to watch a lot of TV so me and the Misses just weren’t listening to much of anything for a while. But as they grew, and we got more control over our time/energy/entertainment options, we found that, explorations of other genres aside, we’re as ready for the loud stuff as ever. Maybe even more so.

Maybe not quite as much as Friend Peter, but that’s okay.

I keep getting records, and as they pile up, I try to choose more carefully as I go. I don’t want just any record. I want a something that has the power to alter me, even as there are a thousand things conspiring to keep me the same. My own age and fears included.

“Bossanova” – as good as it is - is just any record. “Doolittle” will alter you. And I’m looking for something vital, as I know I become a little less so every day.

And I think that’s what Friend Peter wants, too.

Secret History: 1973

2011-08-21T12:28:00.004-04:00

Like the Big Bang, the explosion of music in the sixties hurled huge chunks of brilliance through space. As time went on, they were no longer the size of stars, but rather that of planets and asteroids. The great music was there, just not in your face. It was more spread out and harder to find. But it was there. I swear.

But we were arguing about it more. We didn’t all like the same things anymore. Or rather, we were starting to dislike stuff, instead of just being indifferent to it.

And speaking of arguments, it's a bit embarrassing for me to write anything about the New York Dolls for a couple of reasons. One is that I hated them on principle at the time. I was a big Allman Brothers fan. The Allmans weren't exactly fashion plates, which suited me fine, as I was of the belief that my music heroes, unlike the super heroes in the comics (link) I loved, should not have uniforms or costumes. Music was all. Everything else was a distraction, especially a bunch of guys dressed as women. David Bowie was a macho man in comparison, and I didn’t like him, either.

But now the other reason to be embarrassed about expressing an opinion about them is that I might overcompensate and go to the other extreme, in the urge to make up for past wrongs. I don’t want to do that. I’d look like an idiot. And you know, that never happens.

But screw that. I'm here to repent. The first New York Dolls album is simply one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever. It's loud, brash, noisy and yes, trashy. In other words, it’s everything rock ‘n roll should be. It took a couple of years for me to really take it in. At first listen, it's just a lot of clatter. But when you find yourself loving the fourth song on side two, you know you've got a record that goes deep.

John Prine may have been overcompensating, too. On his third album, “Sweet Revenge”, he moves away from the stripped-down-to-practically-nothing sound of “Diamonds in the Rough”, gracefully avoiding “pretty”, and ends up with what might be his best record. Funny, rocking and sometimes beautiful.

I always found that reggae sounded best when it was hot as hell outside and you were sitting by some water, getting high. Since my house doesn’t face a body of water, and my kids have no interest in seeing me high (I think it would ruin it for them), I don’t get much opportunity to experience this optimal setting. That’s where the soundtrack to The Harder They Come comes in. It’s a perfect introduction to reggae, and if you’re lucky like me, you’ll get the anniversary edition which contains a bonus disc of other hits from Jamaica (“I Can See Clearly Now”, “The Israelite”) at the time.

There were no big AM hits on “Countdown to Ecstasy”, Steely Dan’s second album, (unless you count “My Old School” or “Show Biz Kids”). But, in a lot of ways, it’s the quintessential SD album. Fans love “Razor Boy”, “The Boston Rag”, and “Boddissatva”. The guitars are working overtime here. And not too jazzy. Yet.

Elliot Murphy made one of the all-time “Records That Annoyed Jaybee's Brother” with “Aquashow”, and I still can’t figure out why. We've got the guitars and organs to give you that “Blonde on Blonde” feel. The subject is a bit more Velvet Underground, though. Okay, Elliot doesn't have the greatest voice, kind of a high pitched whine actually, but everything else coalesces into a great rock and roll record.

And then there’s Bruce. The Boss. Whose “Greetings from Asbury Park” kinda gets lost amongst his other records. I can still recite every word to “Blinded by the Light”. (His is still the best version. The Hold Steady were probably conceived while this song was playing), “For You” and “It’s Hard to be a Saint in the City”, especially the wordy bridges. I know you love “Spirit in the Night” and “Growing Up”. But I love “The Angel” and “Does This Bus Stop on 82^nd Street?” Maybe my second favorite Springsteen album.

Back when weird movies were just beginning to entice me to into the city, “Oh, Lucky Man!” had the added attraction of the having the band playing not only on the soundtrack but right in the middle of the action. Alan Price used to be in the Animals, playing that great organ on “House of the Rising Sun”. (You can also catch him hanging with Bob Dylan in “Don't Look Back”. How cool is that?) Here he gives a slightly skimpy eight songs to this strange film, but they're all winners.

There are a number of attractions on “Valley Hi” by Ian Matthews. One is his covers of early Jackson Browne, Richard Thompson and Mike Nesmith songs. The other is his pretty voice. He also does the version of “Seven Bridges Road” that the Eagles stole for their totally useless live album. But anyway, this is pretty as heck.

If you can handle Valley Hi, you’re ready for “Blondel” by the Amazing Blondel. But be warned, the inside cover shows a guy sitting in his bare feet. It’s that kind of record, and a prime example of mid-seventies English folk music with a pop gloss. Depending on your point of view, this is either a beautiful masterpiece, as I thought at the time, or something that should come with a warning label for diabetics. I’m betting you’ll like it.

The Byrds briefly reunited for an eponymous and much maligned album. It does suffer in comparison to their earlier albums. For some weird reason they do two Neil Young songs - one a great version of “See the Sky About to Rain”. Chris Hillman and Gene Clark add the melody. Roger must have needed the cash. Not bad. Really.

Matthew Fisher is the guy who wrote the organ melody on “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, and it took him over forty years to get the royalties for it. And he spends most of “Journey's End” - his first solo record – feeling sorry for himself about it. He's got the whiny voice to match, too. But he writes nice melodies so it all goes down nicely. It was truly made for sensitive sixteen year old boys like me, who hung our in out rooms listening to music like this, instead of going out and having a good time.

And maybe that was the problem. When I look at 1973, I see a lot of music suited for isolation, and not much for community. What did we agree on? Maybe “Innervisions”, but not much else.

And that lame metaphor I started with? All I can say is that it’s easy to see the stars at night. But you need a telescope for the other stuff.

Nook for the Schnook

2011-08-14T12:28:00.001-04:00

As I get older I’m taking special pleasure in dealing with young people in the service industry. I get to act/be ignorant about technical things, and ask dumb, obnoxious questions, trying the patience of the most saintly young salesperson, and thus confirming their budding belief that people - and older ones in particular - are idiots.
I’ve done this a number of times, so Mrs. Jaybee is used to it. So I now resort to taking the kids along. I consider the possibility of an embarrassing public display, which kids just love, icing on the cake.

Well, try as I might, I couldn’t shake the composure of the young lady trying to sell me a Nook. Actually, that’s not true. She was standing behind the counter at Barnes and Noble, minding her own business, when the Jaybee family approached.

I more or less accosted her, and although the device was displayed behind a glass case, I would say things like “How dare you thrust this new fangled (I love saying newfangled now.) contraption (another favorite) in my face?”

I proceeded to use sentences beginning with the tried and true:
• When I was your age…
• In my time…
• What, real books aren’t good enough for you?
• You’re just trying to lure me in, and then you’ve got me hooked…
• It’s just a device for brainwashing* people…
Having just read “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown, I may have hinted at a plot by the Masons.

And generally acted like the very existence of a Barnes and Noble in that location was somehow an imposition on me.

Now some of you may wonder why I would do such a thing. But, c’mon! Get with the program, baby boomers! You and I are now on the wrong end of our life span, while these young people are at their peak physically, mentally, emotionally. They can take it! And don’t you consider it your duty to suck as much life out of them as possible?

And when you finally buy the thing (and you always intended to anyway) act like you’ve somehow been wronged and that they owe you a favor. Try to get the sales person’s cell number and address with a promise/threat of a call or visit if the slightest “problem” occurs.

So, if you’ve harbored a secret ambition to make young people old prematurely, here are some tips for making the biggest Pain In The Ass (I call it the PITA list.) of yourself:

1. When they hand you the device, hold it upside down.

2. When they correct you, hold it back to front.

3. No matter how visible the On button is, always loudly ask “How do you turn this darned thing on?”

4. Repeat step 3 for the Off button.

5. Always say that it’s too small.

6. Then say it’s too big.

7. Ask if it comes with HBO, even if it’s a toaster.

Somewhere, there’s a naïve hipster standing behind a sales counter, ready to do his best at work, and someday join the Peace Corps. It’s your job to get him to start drinking heavily and work at the post office.

So let's get out there and do this!

Oh, by the way, the Nook is pretty cool.

But don’t tell them I said so.

Comics Relief, Part 5: The Thrilling Anti-Climax

2011-07-31T11:30:00.000-04:00

In the shocking climax of our legendary last episode, Jaybee revealed that perhaps, after four long drawn out posts about his comic obsession, he may not be crazy after all. We've been eavesdropping outside his "doctor's" office just for fun, and hoping to find out something even more embarrassing.

Alas, it's been an exercise of diminishing returns, as Jaybee seems only slightly more pathetic that he did three posts ago.

We are now contemplating reasons why we shouldn't kick the shit out of him for wasting our time. But there are still some Tostito's left, so we'll finish them first.

Oh, yeah. Stay tuned for…oh, who gives a rat's ass, anyway?

Jaybee: So I’ve come full circle.

Doctor: Christ I hate it when patients say that. All it means is that they’ve just figured out that they’re going in circles. I could have told them that!

Jaybee: What I’m trying to say, doctor, is that with “Marvel Civil War”, I read a whole bunch of comics, felt like I got about half the story, and ran out of time and energy before pursuing it any further. And I’m certain I’ve missed some absolutely legendary issues. Kind of like 45 years ago.

I’d like to say that I’m done - that I’m past all these foolish things. But I’d be lying. Because if they provide joy in any form – be it an old TV show or a comic book - they’re not foolish at all.

Comics were great in the sixties, and then slowly began to suck again. That’s okay. It’s just entropy. But then comics took a giant step forward in the eighties with “The Dark Knight”, “Watchmen” and many, many others that someone smarter than me could name. The stories are darker and considerably more violent. All in all, they’re as good as they ever were. If anything, it’s too big an ocean for me to swim in. I’ve already got too many books still to read. So I’ve got to be particular about my time.

One of the great strides comics have made since I was a kid, is the far greater number of female super heroes. Isn’t it wonderful that young girls had heroes in a formerly male dominated genre blah, blah, blah? (The tight fitting costumes and incredible bodies don’t hurt, either.)

So doctor, to quote the Elephant Man (No, not a super hero in the traditional sense) I say to you, I am not an animal!!! I am a man? Okay, forget that. I’ll settle for not an animal.

And besides, what are those millions of adults in movie theaters doing watching “Captain America”, “The Green Lantern” and “Thor” doing if not reading comic books, except without the actual reading? It’s one thing for a grown man, if there is such a thing, to say the words “Doc Oc” and “Silver Surfer”, but grown women? Come on. How nuts can I be?

I supposed I can take one alleged step up on the popular culture evolutionary scale and rent “Land of the Giants” DVDs, if for nothing else, to see if Deanna Lund could possibly have been as good looking as I remember.

And to see if they make it back to Earth.

Doctor: Well our time is just about up… As you said, I’m SURE you’re completely cured. But if you think of any other…enthusiasms, like Tonka Toys or Martchbox Cars, and would like to schedule a follow up appointment…

John: Well, we just saw the Monkees in concert…

Doctor: Don’t worry. Everybody likes the Monkees. I was there, too.

Jaybee leaves the doctor’s office, passing several patients, asleep by the door, and heads for the boat off of Shutter Island.

Next time: Jaybee revisits an old nemesis – trying to understand music – and, as usual, fails.

Comics Relief, Part Four: Civil War!

2011-07-23T15:34:00.001-04:00

Well, we’re still sitting outside Jaybee’s “doctor’s” office and, well I don’t care anymore. I’m just too tired to get up. Oh, no! Voices!

Jaybee: So I fell off the wagon again, doctor, and I blame the lists. You know, top ten albums, top ten movies, etc. Show me a top ten list of farts, and I’ll start sniffing around.

That's how my wife gets me to go to the grocery store. She says that she found an article on top ten grocery items. Before you know it, I've done the week’s food shopping, and find myself raving at her “You've interfered with my plans for the last time!”

The list I’m referring to now, though, is the book “1000 Comics You Must Read” by Tony Isabella . Is he one of your patients? He should be.

Going through it, I found a disturbing number of comics I'd already read, and worse, a whole bunch more I wanted to read. It was like “1000 Beers You Must Drink” for alcoholics.

And of course, being a true Marvel addict a simple story taking place within the confines of a single issue is not good enough. I go for the sagas, the epics, the same, age old device to get suckers to buy more comics. And of all the comics listed in “1000 …” the one that caught my interest was Marvel’s “Civil War”, a story involving every superhero Marvel has, which takes up several issues of each franchise, thus spanning, depending on who's doing the spanning, anywhere from 80 to 150 issues.

This seemed long, complicated and frustrating, so naturally I was intrigued.

Now even I'm smart enough at least to try the library before spending money unnecessarily. My wife believes I would check out hell first if heaven had a cover charge.

And you don’t have to even check the stacks anymore, either. You can go on line and place a hold on any book you want, so why not comics? I’ve more or less used up the branch that’s closest to my house, and now go to another one, where I would have the comics sent. It has the added advantage that I’m not as well known there. So the whole sorry enterprise would go unnoticed.

So, sure enough, within a few days, I start getting notices that X Men this or Iron Man that had arrived.

When I get there it turns out that comics are not placed in the usual area for pick up. Like condoms, they're behind the counter and you have to ask for them.

So I get on line, feeling nice and anonymous, when I look up to see the old Italian lady from my local branch sitting behind the counter. She knows me pretty well, and even thinks I’m respectable. This will ruin all that, I’m sure. Unless I can count on that total freeze out I’ve come to occasionally expect from the old (and young, come to think of it) ladies in my neighborhood.

But no such luck. She looks up and smiles at me.

"Oh, Hi, what are you doing here?" I say, acting pleasantly surprised and happy to see her.

"Our regular branch is now closed on Saturday, so they moved me here."

"Oh, that's great…” I try some distracting chit chat, but I can hear muttering and pages being violently turned, which means that the book nerds behind me are getting restless.

“Okay, bye! Oh! I almost forgot! I've got something waiting for me on the shelf behind you." I couldn't bring myself to say the word "comic".

She turned around to look.

"Oh. A GRAPHIC NOVEL" she said..

What? Not “COMIC”? Graphic Novel actually sounds pretty classy. But who's kidding whom? I was afraid she wouldn’t find it, and resort to one of those drug store overhead microphones:

"Manager, please. I've got a fifty three year old man who wants a COMIC BOOK. That's right, a COMIC BOOK!" And a room full of homeless people laugh in unison.

Luckily she found them, and no such announcement was required. I scooted out of there quick, covering the “graphic novels” with a large print edition of “Everything’s Illuminated”.

The library doesn’t carry individual issues, but rather bound collections of more of less self contained stories, running about eight issues long. Well, I had a foot high stack of them on my dresser. And with the help of a couple of internet sites manned by some people with too much time on their hands (links?) – I began reading the saga, taking care to not read Spider Man 531 before Fantastic four 565, etc…

All in all, I read about seventy five of the comics that make up the “core” of the story, and I know of at least another fifty that were at least peripherally related. But since not everything was available at the library, and my obsession didn’t extend to actually paying for anything, I settled.

Doctor: So how was it?

Jaybee: It was…pretty good. Not great. Pretty good.

Doctor: I’m not surprised. The reality is usually worse than the anticipation. I suppose you think because of this, you’ve somehow grown up and are cured.

Jaybee: No, as you said (see the legendary previous posts!) one is never curred.

Doctor: True, true.

Jaybee: And besides, I’ve decided that I’m sick in the first place!

Doctor: Oh, rest assured, you’re quite mad. But go on!

Hang on for the thrilling (eh) conclusion!!!

Comics Relief, Part Three: On and Off the Wagon

2011-07-17T19:48:00.001-04:00

Well, we’re still crouched by the door, listening in. Jaybee does go on, doesn’t he? So someone’s gone for folding chairs and snacks. Honestly, most people could admit to murder, or worse, impotence, sooner than Jaybee can explain his fixation with comic books.
Well it sounds like he’s stopped crying like a little girl, so let's tune back in. Nachos, anyone?

Jaybee: So true, doctor, so true. One is never quite cured. I was doing fine for a long while. I passed for an adult for years, only rarely being detected.

But in my thirties, I noticed that Marvel had begun reissuing its classic comics in hardcover, and in color like the original issues. They ran at least twenty bucks a shot with just a handful of issues in them, so the cheapskate in me was always able to resist.

But then Marvel began releasing cheaper soft-cover volumes. Sure, they were in black and white, but they were packed with at least twenty issues in each. They were entitled “The Essential (fill in the name of your favorite super hero)”, but by “essential” they seemed to mean all of the very oldest issues. Kind of like those “Greatest Hits” albums of very mediocre artists. But what sucks for music is perfect for comics, because these volumes solved the old Continuity problem. They were almost irresistible.

And then, finally, I found them – “The Essential Spider Man”, Volumes 1 and 2. In other words, a huge, previously missing chunk of my childhood, bound into two handy volumes. And well, doctor, it was getting near my birthday, and my wife was asking what I’d like… and wouldn’t these two volumes make a neat gift for a normal forty year old man? Well, of course not. But they were perfect for me.

And like the first drag of a cigarette after not smoking for a while, and unlike the “Man from UNCLE”, “Time Tunnel” or “Lost in Space” DVDs, they were freaking awesome! They were everything I hoped they would be. And what a delight it was reading them from issue number one all the way to forty, right up to where my brother started it all forty five years ago.
So, for a time, I achieved Continuity. But since I can’t leave well enough alone, I decided that I wanted Closure, too, and thus stepped out onto a slippery slope.

After all, when you’ve just finished reading those first forty issues, isn’t the next logical thing to continue and reread the issues my brother and I read as kids? We’re talking issues 41 all the way up to #100, with the stupid shock ending and lousy art that eventually put me off Spidey. This would mean getting the “Essential Spider Man” Volumes 3, 4 and 5. But that would be the end of it, because I can stop whenever I want, right?

But with the subsequent new golden age of comics and the advent of the Marvel movies, I got curious again.

The Spiderman franchise was by then hovering somewhere in the mid 600s. Wasn’t it time for me to find out what I was missing? So I decided to fill in the gap that comprised those forty or so years. So, what was that? About 500 issues or so? No problem. In for a penny, in for a pound, I said. I was convinced that each issue would be a unique and satisfying experience.

But doctor, I’m proud to say that I got up to about #200 when I gave up.

By the way, they’re up to at least volume 9 - Marvel still finding every single issue “essential”, apparently. The quality had sagged, and there were too many other interesting things to do, like rent the entire DVD set of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”...

Doctor’s Voice: Oh, are you still talking? What year are you up to, anyway?

Jaybee: In Marvel time? 1979. Real life? 2007 or so.

Doctor: So that would make you how old?

Jaybee: I was born later in the year, so I was still technically 49.

Doctor: So you were a fifty year old man still reading comic books!

Jaybee: You make it sound so sordid. In fact I had a very good reason to continue reading them. It was a matter of War and Peace.

Doctor: Tolstoy?

Jaybee: No, Stan Lee. I meant “Marvel Civil War”...

Doctor: Jesus F-ing Christ!

Jaybee: What was that doctor?

Doctor: Oh, nothing.

To be, you guessed it, continued…

Comics Relief: Part Two - The Early Childhood Trauma Defense

2011-07-09T15:43:00.000-04:00

When we last left off, we were all having a good laugh at Jaybee’s expense, trying to eavesdrop on his visit to the “doctor” who we can’t quite hear, but we somehow know has an Austrian accent.

Doctor, I was only trying to give you some insight into my motivation for reading comic books. There were some traumas I experienced…

Some muffled words and laughter.

Well, I guess I do sound funny using those big words. Yes, I’ll leave them for adults like you and I’ll just keep to the comics. Thank you.

As I was saying, I was trying to explain why I still read comics. But it’s a little like explaining why I still can’t dance. What’s that? Yes, I’m sure there’s no connection.

Anyway, back when I was a kid in the sixties, aside from the vast netherworld of gory horror, Classics Illustrated and Archie, there stood the two comic titans, DC and Marvel. You were either into one or the other, not both. There were actual factions (along with the Yankee/Met and Keds/PF Flyer factions. The neighborhood was pretty united on Coke against Pepsi , though.)

My brother and I started out with DC. That’s where Superman was, so where else would we go? One of the great things about DC was that they didn’t go in for that “To be continued…” crap. You bought a comic and you got a story. It was rare indeed for Superman to not kick Lex Luthor’s ass within twenty pages. We thought Marvel was just a rip off, with their multi-part stories, which were clearly just a gimmick to get you to buy more comics. The kids who bought them were suckers. But for some reason, they made fun of us.

What’s that, doctor? You’re not surprised?

Anyway, this was during the Marvel “golden age”, with Fantastic Four, Thor and, of course, Spiderman. So how long could we resist? I think it was my brother who eventually broke down and got Spiderman #40. From that point on, we were completely hooked.

But now we would have to face the Continuity Issue. In the Marvel Universe (there were several, actually) it was impossible to know the whole story, unless you bought every single issue, starting with #1. It was where last month’s issue – the one I didn’t get, of course - is already being referred to as “legendary” this month. I’d be haunted by this, which was, of course, what Marvel was counting on. And I responded by loyally buying the next twenty issues of Fantastic Four, etc. I’d become one of the suckers, except without the making fun of other people part.

So the comics would pile up. My brother and I had a system, but it was somewhat ethereal to the uninitiated, with some comics laying on the back of the couch, others on the kitchen table, still others in the bathroom. Mom and dad would complain, not so much about the mess, but about how we were being distracted from our studies.

With a vague feeling of unease, my brother and I eventually threw all of the comics into a box, and kept them in our room. Again, not so much for the mess, but for protection. We must have thought that the box/room combination would act as a force field a la Sue Storm, protecting our precious collection from harm. But we were wrong. We didn’t realize that we were up against a greater foe than any we had ever encountered in the Marvel universe.

Mom. (Yeah, her again.)

Our super heroes could usually count on a speech ahead of time from the super villain which would give them a heads up that they were in danger. And mom would probably say that she had given us such a speech on several occasions, but we didn’t remember.

Anyway, one day, we came home from school and the comics were all gone. When we asked her where they were, she announced with relish that she had thrown the out (“Every single one!”). It would go down in family lore as the Great Purge.

So you see, doctor, the root of the problem, as I prefer to see it, is when my mom threw away the box. Although my brother and I felt we had it under control, mom and dad could see the steady progression from Superman to Spiderman, Daredevil, etc. Clearly, heroin was next. So she tossed them. I’d like to think that they are now worth the GDP of a small country. And I take pains to remind her of this whenever I can.

A muffled remark.
What do you mean, is that all? Of course not.

There was also that time during our trip to Ireland in 1971. My brother and I were rebuilding the collection, indeed peaking, at the time, and brought several of our favorites for the trip. Comics were in short supply in Ireland. So short, in fact, that while stopped at a light, the driver in the car behind us noticed all of ours stacked up blocking the rear window (it was the new system). The guy walked up to us and asked for some for his own kids. We were still in our pre-rebellious stage, and for some reason, gave them all to him! The best of the best. We’re still smarting over that one.

Then there was the extended family squabble regarding the comparative merits of Spiderman vs. Daredevil, who, according to my cousin, could leap “one eighth of a block!” Said cousin is now a major contributor to Wikipedia.

So that’s it, doctor – traumatic and unresolved issues from childhood. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Doctor: That’s your trauma? From the way you express yourself, I was sure the trauma had been from a blunt instrument.

You’ve clearly not met my mother.

So I guess I’m cured, right?

Doctor’s Voice: Mr. Jaybee, one is never actually cured. One is merely in recovery. But go on. I’m anxious to hear about the blunt trauma.

What?

Doctor: Never mind. Go on.

To be continued…

Comics Relief, Part One: A Case of ADD-DVD

2011-07-04T16:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry to interrupt what is usually an unending flow of brilliant musical insight, but Jaybee’s feeling a bit under the weather lately. Today he’s at his “doctor’s” office.
So what’s in it for you, you ask? Well, perhaps we can pass the time by eavesdropping on him as he describes his symptoms, thus adding to what would merely be private humiliation.
So let’s put our ears up against the door and listen. It’s hard to make out the doctor, but Jaybee can be heard loud and clear from the couch – I mean, the examining table:

Well, doctor, it’s like this. I still read comics.

Yes, I’m 53 years. No, not dog years.

How do I explain?

Well, I thought it was all behind me - a faint childhood memory at best. But it all came back to haunt me…

No, you’re right. I lied. I did it all myself.

I wanted to do it, and I did it. And I (mostly) liked doing it. And I’d do it again, except not around other adults. Sounds a lot like mortal sin, but a closer analogy may be masturbation.

Let me explain:

When I’m not following my “new at any cost” aesthetic, I get nostalgic for things I experienced as a kid. Movies, TV Shows, and yes, comics. I also do this out of curiosity. I want to see if these things are really as great as they seemed at the time. So far, with one glaring exception, it’s not been working out. My experience renting DVDs of old favorite TV shows, like “The Man from UNCLE” and “Time Tunnel” has been pretty dismal. In each case I barely got through disc one. It seems that the memories are way better than the reality.

Another reason I do this is to fill in the gaps in the stories – the stuff I missed. Growing up in the sixties and seventies - before the internet, or even the VCR - the experience of pop culture could be very hit or miss. Be it a movie in a theater or a favorite show on TV, something was either available right now or it was gone, and you only had yourself – or siblings who wanted to watch something else - to blame for missing it. This made following anything with a degree of continuity very challenging. And continuity would be my Achilles Heel. At least it would be if I manage to read “The Odyssey” all the way through.

I had a habit of missing the beginnings and the endings of everything. I was kind of weak on the pivotal middle episodes, too. I caught all the other ones. But without fail, I’d either miss the legendary origin, the pivotal middle or the climactic ending. I never saw anything in its entirety.

I recall a third grade classmate swearing that I missed the greatest ever episode of “Lost in Space”. There he was, sitting three rows back, trying to act out the plot for me, in the middle of math class. And for years - decades, really - I’d imagine what that episode must have been like. Surely, it would have made more of a cultural impact on my life than anything up to that point. So even after the "Time Tunnel" and "UNCLE" debacles, when the “Lost In Space” DVDs became available, I rented them.

Deep down, I already knew that they were going to suck, but I’d finally get to see how they got lost in the first episode, my classmate’s legendary episode, and even how/if they ever got back to Earth, where I assumed they’d run into Charlton Heston having a relaxing day at the beach by the Statue of Liberty.

Alas, it didn’t suck exactly. Rather, it was totally unmagical in any way, shape or form. Just a typical TV show – so much so that now I hope they never get back.

Doctor’s Voice: But I thought your problem was confined to comic books. You’re clearly far more disturbed than you had let on!

To be continued...

The Geezer’s Guide to Dan Brown

2011-06-26T13:57:00.002-04:00

I don't know why, but I always seem to read Dan Brown in the large print editions. It just works out that way. And when you factor in all the funny looking pictures he gives you, it’s almost like reading a children's book. An unfair characterization, especially coming from me, since I never figure out the clues hidden in the symbols. (Figuring out how a marching band can morph from the “OHIO STATE” formation into “OH SHIT!” is more my speed.)

Take Angels and Demons (please), which was as big as two bricks but not nearly as heavy. Even though I’m a notoriously slow reader (I barely get through a line before a new Burger King commercial catches my eye.) I read it in a weekend. Yet, I still feel somewhat shortchanged.

Still, one thing you have to give Dan Brown is that he’s fun. Good clean silly fun, disguised as serious fun. He even seems a little edgy when he goes up against Religions With No Sense of Humor that I’m a member of but that shall go unnamed (begins with a C).

And for me, possessor of at least a dozen pairs of cheap reading glasses (you can get good cheap ones at my old nemesis, Costco) the large type adds immensely to the fun. It’s not that the large type allows me to read without them. I’m a little too far gone for that. But when I put the glasses on and read the large type, it’s not just the fonts that appear huge. The silliness factor itself seems to multiply. The exclamation points become humungous. And, believe me, there are a lot of them.

Now before you go thinking I'm some kind of snob, let me explain that I'm an equal opportunity disdainer - I don't care if it's Shakespeare, if I hate it, I hate it. And if all I’m looking for is a good time, who am I to blame Dan when he provides it? Sometimes even unintentionally, like this line from The Lost Symbol:

"He stood beneath the frigid water for a full minute to close his pores and trap the heat and energy within his core."

Okay, I know the character's supposed to be a nut, and Dan's just writing it from his point of view, but, Jesus, where the hell is his core? He spends a lot of time walking around naked, so you have many opportunities to ponder the possibilities. By they way, do you have a core? Do I? If I do, please don't tell me.

But by all means read one of these books. If you have to, go for two. But for heaven’s sake, don’t read three. I did, and I really want that weekend back. But I kid. A&D wasn’t bad. It’s just when you read three or more Dan Brown’s you risk a case of terminal silliness. I’m not going anywhere near Deception Point.

My advice is to go with The DaVinci Code for the cool concept and smooth execution. You can skip Angels and Demons, which is practically the same book, plot-wise. The Lost Symbol isn’t bad, and it’s got the wildest bad guy (who’s really no more over the top than Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal, core and all). Plus, the mixture of American and Masonic history is a blast. (I was feeling inferior to those smart-ass Europeans after reading DaVinci. Seems like our guys were just as crafty as those bastards. In your face, Rennaissance! USA! USA! USA!)

Sorry about that. The silliness is contagious…

Jaybee Has Risen from the Grave, or Nutboy Saves the Day

2011-06-12T19:44:00.000-04:00

So there I was at my son’s Pre-Prom Parent’s We-Hope-They-Don’t-Have-Sex get together, when Nutboy snuck up on me. I had spotted him earlier, and was on my guard. But I let my guard down (i.e., stuffed my face) and before I knew it, there he was standing right next to me.

I had met Nutboy previously but didn’t realize it at the time, because he was disguised as his alter ego – Responsible Adult. But then I found out that he liked music that an actual Responsible Adult would never listen to, like Modest Mouse and My Morning Jacket.

But on this night he would reveal his true identity – Nutboy, middle aged music fanatic– in other words, a guy just like me, only better looking. Now I don’t want you thinking that this is just my fanciful way of describing myself. You know those movies where the narrator describes a character who turns out to be him? I must state clearly that this is not me. This is another human being, very similar to me. And that thought just brings chills.

So we begin chatting and it turns out he also likes bands like the Go Betweens and the Flaming Lips. He even likes obscure Bob Dylan songs (you know the ones that cause your spouse to roll their eyes?)!

Then we started going on about how very few of our friends share our enthusiasm. I said that someone really ought to try to bring these people up to speed. You know, do a blog or something. Then I remembered that I was already doing that, but I hadn’t been doing anything with it for a while… Why? It’s a long story, and really, who cares?

But essentially, Nutboy reminded me of why I began blogging (aside from the narcissism) in the first place. And in one of life’s great ironies, Nutboy OF COURSE finds the link to the blog in my email signature, and starts reading my blog without me even telling him about it. Him being the one person who is in the least need of it. So that shows me that maybe another reason to do it is to make people like me (and Nutboy) feel like they’re not….well, nuts.

We met again at the Post-Prom Oh-My-God-We-Think-They-Had-Sex Dinner, where I met his fiance, who had the same patient, enduring expression that I sometimes see on my wife’s face (usually when I talk about what Built to Spill CD I should get…) But that may have been my fault because I think I was asking Nutboy what Built to Spill CD I should get.

We found the women drinking at the bar several hours later. We hadn’t decided on the best BTS album yet, but they told me what I could do with it once I got it.

In any event, jaybee is back, or will be back, or will try to be back, or something very committed sounding like that. I have to be, what with Nutboy now breathing down my neck, and maybe thinking of starting his own blog.

So rest easy. I’m back. Or not - I don’t know.

See you soon.

Maybe.

Secret History: 1972

2011-02-27T16:56:00.000-05:00

I’ve heard it said that the music you’re listening to when you’re fifteen is the music you’ll be listening to for life. I didn’t think this was true in my case, but then why do I have more records released in 1972 than in any other year?

We're truly in the album era now. While it's hard for everyone to agree on what the real masterpieces are, there are countless very worthwhile albums. And they're all over the place.

Brilliance:

Here are my picks for the masterpieces:

Paul Simon's first solo album is a great record. No, I mean it. It’s one of the greatest records of the seventies. It's not just one of those Grammy winning records that nobody really listens to. It’s warm and wise, like sitting by the fire in the middle of winter.

I know I just finished telling you about how great "Blue" was, but now I'm telling you that I like "For the Roses" even more. It was my first Joni Mitchell album, and it took a few listens to follow the melodies, what with Joni swooping up and down all the time. This is an ambitious, arty record, and I'm sure there are people out there who hate it. I think it's brilliant. Songwriting doesn't get any better than "Woman of Heart and Mind" and "Blonde in the Bleachers".

Do I really need to tell you about Steely Dan? God, I hope not, but let me at least steer you away from the later lounge jazz records, to their earlier jazzy-but-still-rock period. Their first few albums are so good that the very first one - "Can’t Buy a Thrill" - kind of gets lost in the shuffle. It's so good, in fact, that it's worth hearing "Do It Again" and "Reelin' in the Years" - two of the more overplayed songs ever - all over again

Brilliance Recalled:

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume Two is one of the greatest, well, greatest-hits records ever made. It's got the second wave of great Dylan songs along with a few unreleased songs. "Down in the Flood" is my favorite.

Another one of the greatest greatest-hits records is the "Kink Kronikles" (link) Like the Dylan record, this one scoops us some obscure album tracks along with the better known songs from that particular era.

The triple album “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is not for the casual record buyer. It is perfect for someone determined to learn more about bluegrass and early country music. “Dark As a Dungeon” is my favorite, but maybe you prefer “Tennessee Stud”. Or the title song. The singing and playing are stellar.

Near Perfect:

Young Bonnie Raitt sings as well as Linda Rondstadt and plays a mean slide guitar. Her music is more bluesy, and her taste in covers is better, too. "Give it Up" is probably the best record from the early part of her career. At first, I didn’t love this record, thinking I’d be getting pretty, when what I got was tough bluesy and soulful. Good then, and even better today, it’s aged quite gracefully, thank you very much.

I guess Pete Townsend was getting bored being in one of the greatest rock and roll bands ever, so he put out a sort of solo record “Who Came First”, which picks up right where side one of “Who’s Next” leaves off. “There once was a note pure and easy…” He’s got several friends, like Ronnie Laine, helping out, including on vocals. This is one of the sweeter records to come out in the seventies.

Not to be outdone, John Prine goes in the opposite direction with his second album, “Diamonds in the Rough”. Previously he used a small country combo. Now it’s just him and a couple of guitars. It’s not exactly pretty, but I find it riveting. "The Great Compromise" is one of the best Vietnam songs ever, but for me “Rocky Mountain Time” is the highlight.

It took for the movie soundtrack of "Super Fly" for me to become aware of Curtis Mayfield. (I thought the Chambers Brothers wrote "People Get Ready".) The title tune has some of the most insightful and saddest lyrics I've ever heard. One of the best soundtracks ever.

David Bowie ch-ch-ch-changes so much that it’s easy to forget that one of his best albums was "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars". “Five Years” still sounds great.

Nick Drake’s last record before his death – “Pink Moon” - may be quieter than his others, but it’s no less powerful. Short, lovely, and in retrospect, so very sad.

Well Worth It:

Do you remember the song that goes like this?:

It's sooooo Hard,
It's sooooo hard,
It's so hard,
Livin' without you

No? Well I guess that's what I'm here for. I finally found the song - written by Randy Newman, by the way - on "Manfred Mann’s Earth Band". You remember them, don't you? Let me help. In the sixties, they had the hit "Do Wa Diddy Diddy". In the later seventies, they went completely over the top with a cover of Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light". This is about half way in between, and seems to balance it all very nicely.

Stevie Wonder goes out on his own again with "Talking Book", and the results keep getting better. “I Believe When We Fall in Love” is my fave.

Eric Anderson was one of those poor folkies left in Dylan’s wake. He’d put out some good songs but never quite got any real notice, until “Blue River”. He achieves just the right balance of folk and rock. It’s got that old favorite “Is it Really Love at All?”.

I'm more a fan of the crazy/mystical Van Morrison more than the seemingly oxymoronic "soulful Irishman". "St Dominick’s Preview" kinda combines the two. And for that reason, it's a bit schizophrenic, what with a few pop/soul numbers surrounded by the long, strange "Listen to the Lion" and "Almost Independence Day". Guess which ones I like best? How about you?

After all these years, I didn’t think Bob Weir’s “Ace” would hold up. But Weir was savvy enough to open with something that’s got bass and drums going for it. The Dead couldn’t always be counted on for fast. He makes the most of his limited vocal range. “Playing in the Band” shows that they could still make compelling music in the studio, and “Cassidy” not so much a song as it is a miracle.

Side one of Jerry Garcia’s first solo album gets all the notice, but has anyone else noticed the absolutely transcendent “To Lay Me Down” tucked away amongst the weird stuff on side two? Not a perfect record, but a really good balance of good old songwriting and experimentalism.

Todd Rundgren’s “Something Anything” is one of the first one man does it all albums. Mostly, anyway, but it’s quite an achievement. A double album of pop songs and “fun in the studio”. It has a number of hits, like “Hello, It’s Me”, “I Saw the Light” and “Couldn’t I Just Tell You”. But it’s also got hidden gems like “The Night the Carousel Burned Down” and “The Viking”. My only Todd record, but I think I got the best one. Now if he only got it down to a single record, we’d have a certified classic.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the Steve Miller Band started out with “Fly Like an Eagle” or “The Joker”. In fact, he goes back as far as 1967 along with band mate Boz Scaggs. Steve could always be counted on to put at least one radio ready song on each of his albums. Luckily, he pulled a bunch of them together for “Anthology”, which covers 1968 to 1972. My only qualm about it is that it completely skips their first record. But I like it more than anything he made since.

Steve Goodman could always write tuneful and funny songs, but not always at the same time. I didn’t care for his first record, and his third record is good enough, but his second, “Somebody Elses Troubles” is just right. Clever funny tuneful emotional. And it’s got “The Dutchman”.

On “Manassas”, Stephen Stills redeems himself, albeit with lots of help from Chris Hillman and Al Perkins. They'd go on to totally tank with their second album, but here they put it all together.

Side One of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Don Quixote” is just great. Side two slides a bit, and it’s where you spot his big weakness. His music is just too nice. The anti-war “Patriot’s Dream” is a good example. Whereas Dylan’s “Masters of War” comes out and says he hopes they die, Gord goes into a long explanation as to why war sucks. But overall, very pretty, and side one’s got some real feeling to it.

Just Out of Reach:

Then there are those records that are lodged somewhere in memory but no longer within ear’s reach.

First, there’s Yes’s "Fragile", one of many casualties of the broken 8 track player syndrome. I recall this being pretty good, albeit in it’s shuffled, truncated 8 track kind of way. They would go completely over the top later that year with “Close to the Edge”, but because they could write tunes it’s a hard record to not like.

Unlike Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, which is EASY to hate, even though I like it. But man, they had no taste at all.

When I moved out of my parents house, I took a lot of records with me, some of which my brother could have argued belonged to him. (Perhaps because they, well, belonged to him.) One I couldn’t slip past him was the Flying Burrito Brothers “Last of the Red Hot Burritos”. I’m still trying to track down a reasonably priced copy of to see if it’s really as great as I remember. Al Perkins pedal steel replaces Sneaky Pete’s country licks with rock and roll. Different, maybe not better, but to my mind, just as good.

But this is all too long ago. Take out your copies and tell me what you think.

It Was a Very Good Year (Sort of):

I don’t see a lot of crowd pleasers here. That’s just because it’s the seventies, not the sixties, when such things happened to be brilliant, too.

It was more like the year when you began to play records in your room alone. And who could blame you? If you went outside, you were liable to notice that Nixon was getting re-elected. So these records provided me with some solace from that, not to mention the emotional turmoil that haunts a fifteen year old.

So tell me now, what got you through that year?

Yours, Mine and Everyone Else's 2010

2011-01-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

What's that, Jaybee? Still with the 2010? That’s so…last year!

Well, I’m sorry, but that’s how long it takes to get a grip on a year of music, as cramped and limited a grip as it is.

And I’m still catching up on the various year end Best of 2010 Music Polls.

Yes. I admit it. I’m a list nerd. And since I love music, you can imagine how much I love Top Whatever Albums of Whenever lists.

As silly as they may seem, these polls have the advantage of giving you some perspective on a record after the initial enthusiasm (and hype) surrounding it dies down.

And it’s that time of year for everybody’s “Top Albums of 2010” lists. Some people can’t even wait that long. For them it’s been that time since mid-November. I don't know where they get off doing this - it’s like saying screw December. Talk like that will get you on Santa’s naughty list.

So I say wait, not only until January 1 of the following year, but until everything from the year before has sunk in, which in my case could take decades. I do get around to a vague and non-committal statement by mid-January, though.

My Old Pazz and Jop:

At least some people understand this need to wait. Like the Village Voice with their Pazz and Jop Poll, which only came out, what? Last week? And that’s pretty good for them.

I always looked forward to Pazz and Jop. In the seventies, because it was great for seeing how familiar music measured up. It wasn’t that hard to keep up. Radio stations weren’t awful yet, and I liked to buy records.

Over time, though, it got harder and harder to keep up. I still liked music, but radio was getting steadily worse. By the early 80’s, I deemed commercial radio to be Officially Useless. I had no recourse but to wait months to hear about what a whole swath of music critics and fans were experiencing.

Eventually Pazz and Jop would be the first place I’d hear about something. I remember seeing a Pazz and Jop from the mid 90s and thinking who the hell is Liz Phair? She’d won that year, for “Exile in Guyville”, which is now one of my all time favorite albums.

This scenario would repeat itself over and over again. Occasionally I’d be disappointed, especially when a poll winner was in a music genre I didn’t yet - or never would - get. But the great discoveries would more than make up for this.

List of Lists, and Lists of Lists of Lists:
But Pazz and Jop isn’t as essential as it used to be.

For one thing, it’s a whole lot easier to find out about new music now than it was in the dark days of the 80s and the great but hard to follow 90s. Did someone just mention a band to you? Google them and you can find out about and maybe even hear their latest songs. Type in allmusic.com and you get a biography and discography. And if you want to know how an album is, and you don’t know if the critic you’re reading shares your taste, you can use a site like metacritic.com to see what dozens of critics and fans think of it. Totally reliable? Of course not. But on a week to week basis I know what’s coming out, and then, by the time the year end lists come out, the results are not a total surprise.

And for another, well, there are all of these other lists now.

So, without further ado, the following is a fairly arbitrary list of 2010 Album lists compiled by various individuals/magazines/cabals, which I’ve stumbled across over the last few weeks. It could be more comprehensive, but then that would have involved actual work.

NME: stands for New Musical Express, from England. Now the Brits, aside from giving us great bands like the Beatles and Stones, can be a bit odd, and they sometimes have some very lame music here. (It must be the language difference.) So take this list with a grain of salt.

One way of hedging your bets is to use NME’s Aggregated List, which pulls together critical reactions from all over, whatever that means.

And Stereogum is, well, Stereogum. And a million more other ones, too.

Never heard of any of this? Stop worrying about that. Of course you haven’t heard of them. You’ve been raising a family and working for a living. But keep going. It’s too late to stop now.

And one of the items on my list of lists, is, well, a list of lists. Jesus Freaking Christ, I thought I was bad. But, hey, knock yourself out.

And of course, the old no longer perfect, but still wonderful Pazz and Jop, which I will be going over with a fine tooth comb over the year.

You've already pored over the above lists? Well then, move onto someone's opinion of what the Underrated Albums are. Honestly, where do these young folks find the time?

And when you’re done, you can move onto the Top Albums of All Time (including the Jurassic period) which not only aggregates the lists of many, many people, but also allows you to add your own. I don’t know about you, but I've just found my major time suck for 2011!

Time to Get a Grip:

When you’ve finished looking over this stuff, you may think:

Fine, Jaybee, but
a). I never heard of any of this, so
b). I don’t care about it, or
c). It can’t possibly be as good as what I listened to when I was younger, so
d). it must suck.

To which I say:
a). Please see the note above about you having that life. Congratulations on that, but it doesn’t mean you’ve got your finger on the pulse of popular culture.
b). You should care, you old geezer you. Music added joy to your life once and it can again, not just as a means for feeling nostalgia, but as a source of inspiration. Stop acting so old. There’s plenty of time for that when you’re dead.
c). My experience is that the music I’m listening to now is at least as good as what I was listening to in the seventies. Are you going to just stand there and let me have more fun than you?
d). And if you end up not agreeing with me on c), I think you’ll still find that this newer music not only doesn’t suck, it’ll give your old Springsteen records a run for their money.

Now that I’ve utterly convinced you of the error of your ways, you’re probably thinking Jaybee, you’re right again! Where have I been? There’s a sh*tload of music out there I should be checking out. What have I been doing with my life?

To which I say, don’t feel bad. Just jump in. The water’s fine.

But where to start? Well, do you see titles appearing repeatedly? Like Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend Told you, didn't I? Who did you notice showing up a lot? Maybe you should check them out.

You’ll notice that the pop critics like…pop music. The Americana polls favor…Americana. Keep that in mind as you see something show up repeatedly in the Death Metal polls or Lame Country Music Roundups. So you may want to stick to genres you’re comfortable with. Not a problem. For me, though, what’s really striking is when a genre record is so good it breaks down this “taste wall” and makes an impression in a place where it normally wouldn’t. But know what you’re getting yourself into, and proceed with caution.

My list of Possibilities to Check Out, you ask? Ariel Pink, The National, Deerhunter, Sleigh Bells, Robyn, Beach House, and (gulp) Kanye West. Yes, that Kanye West.

A Final Confession:

After all my exhortations, I have to admit that this doesn’t always work for me.

These ears of mine have their limits, and as the age difference between me and the critics/fans gets greater, these lists just can’t be as reliable as I’d like them to be. They used to make me feel part of a larger community by showing me what I had in common with people I never met. Now sometimes they highlight our differences.

No matter. They got me this far.

And besides, after all this reading and comparing and thinking, my favorite albums end up being the ones that suggest themselves to me no matter how many (or few) times they’re mentioned on a list. They sit there hiding in this sea of information until they decide to make themselves known to me, at which point they plant themselves inside my brain until I just have to go out and get them.

But the lists provide the raw data that feeds this very subconscious subjective process. Without them I’d be limited to only what I happen to hear on my own, and I’d hate to be left to the mercies of radio.

And they’re there to show us that there’s a whole lot more out there for us to enjoy.

On to 2011!

My 2010

2011-01-22T18:08:00.000-05:00

You know the expression “his eyes are bigger than his stomach”? It’s when you order too much food and can’t possibly finish it.

Well my ears are bigger than my… well, ears, I guess, because I tend to get more music than I can keep up with. So, right after a birthday or Christmas (where I’ve carefully instructed my wife and kids on what to get me) I get that bloated feeling, except that it’s around my head.

Every January, I make a half hearted, not-spoken-aloud resolution to cut down on the record buying. Maybe just get one CD a month, I suggest to myself. But then there’s that gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket, or that great offer from yourmusic.com (my current record club), or a great selection in the cut out bin of my favorite record store. And before you know it, I’m already up to ten and it’s only June.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Winter:

During the winter months, I try to pull my head out from up the ass of pop music, and explore my pile of “under-listened-to” - usually jazz or classical - records. This re-acquaints me with music I already have, and if this time around I connect with it, it’s almost like getting new music. It has the added advantage of keeping me from going out and getting more. And I was doing pretty well, holding out for a couple of months.

But then March came, and I was itching for something new. I couldn’t wait for the good weather to show up, so I ordered online:

As a lover of chiming electric guitars, I was disappointed to find what sparse use Spoon makes of them on "Kill the Moonlight" (2002). Their music is primarily rhythmic - driven almost as much by piano as by the drums. But it rocks like hell. And when the guitars do chime, they chime like hell. Recommended.

If you mix the Beach Boys with Yes (What?), and then have them move to Brooklyn, you get Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavilion" (2009). There's a lot here, so much so that it's almost too much to absorb. The synthesizers swirl and the voices reach for the heavens (in a sort of down to earth way), so the first few listens are pretty overwhelming. It's short of a masterpiece, but not by much much. Quite ambitious, and fun, too. And it sounded great when the warm weather arrived.

You want pretty and bouncy? Try Phoenix's "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" (2009) and you’ve got it. There are some real nice moments here, but it's a little samey-samey, too, and so, slightly disappointing.

Spring:

So in May, I crawled out of my cave, and happened to visit the record store (like how I happened to breathe). This was shortly after Alex Chilton died, so I thought, what better way to pay tribute than to pick up "Soul Deep: The Best of the Box Tops"? Okay, it was only $6.99 worth of tribute, but worth every penny. It’s the epitome of unpretentious blue-eyed soul, recorded while the rest of the world was going psychedelic. I’d love to know the story behind Alex’s leap from here to the Beatles styled pop of Big Star.

"Pilgrim's Progress" was one of those elusive songs I'd always loved but rarely heard on the radio. And since I don’t like buying a record for a single song, I waited and waited, until Procol Harum's "A Salty Dog" was finally re-mastered on CD. And I wasn't sorry. You probably know the title song, and the others range from good to great. This record gives classic rock a good name.

It's hard to turn down records that cost $4.99, especially when they're the old Grateful Dead albums I've always wanted. And "Anthem of the Sun" is the most meaningful one yet. What a revelation! I half expected a 60s relic that didn't stand the test of time, but boy was I wrong. The songwriting is already pretty good but it’s the ambition of it that’s even better. Powered by the best pharmaceuticals to be found in Haight Ashbury at the time, the boys play their hearts out, finding inspiration where others might just be self indulgent. Jerry Garcia wails away and the band doesn’t let the occasional mistake slow them down. The jam is so infectious that when my son heard it, he took out his guitar to play along.

Summer:

Have I mentioned that I love Father's Day? The wife and kids know the drill - I usually ask for CDs I'm reluctant to get on my own - and they always come through. And they have to let me listen to them all day, too, ‘cause it’s practically the law. By the end of the day, they're all exhausted. I'm fine, though, and that’s what counts, right?

The music’s not bad, either.

Like "The Rolling Stones - The Singles Collection". It's got all of the Stones singles - three CDs worth - from their rhythm and bluesy beginning through their poppy mid-sixties up until their hard rocking early seventies. I was always a bit hazy on the early Stones, and this set helped a lot. I'm a better person for it. Okay, that's not saying much…

Conor Oberst, working under the band name Bright Eyes, has been writing and recording since he was, what? Thirteen? He's put out dozens of records and I have been trying to figure out where to jump in. Well, I found it. "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" (2005) contains ten lovely heartfelt country tinged tunes that even Mrs. Jaybee can stand. (Well, not anymore. I played it practically every day for a month.) The mandolin on “We Are Nowhere” immediately makes this a morning record. Conor's a loquacious young man, but I find that the quantity of words doesn't hurt the quality. He hails from the midwest, but sings about recently moving to the big city. I like when he mentions my neighborhood.

I had occasion to spend time with some wonderful young people I hadn't seen in a while, whose love for early 1980s punk rock - made before they were born! - inspired me to seek out some music I missed when I first had the chance. Friend Sean, all of 22, told me how much he loved Black Flag's "Damaged", from 1981!. This was Henry Rollins' first band and if anything he's more intense here than he is now. I will be living with this music for a while before I fully absorb it. But I love some of the songs, and the sentiments, already - "Rise Above", "TV Party". It really brings back what it was like in the mid-eighties, not that I really want to remember. And their disdain for most of it matches mine.

Is Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" classical music? Is it popular music? Or is it just modern music? Who knows? This hour of rhythm with miniscule shifts of tone and tune still manages to hold my attention all the way through. It’s never quite mechanical, never quite muzaky. And, when you get down to it, not even very strange. Just quite lovely all the way through.

Summer ends more or less with my birthday ( didn’t you know?), and it’s kind of like Father’s Day all over again, except that I don’t have to share it with other fathers. This time I got “Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptian’s Greatest Hits". Talk about your misnomers! But don’t let that discourage you. Allegedly a collection from Robyn’s middle – and not so great – period, it turns out to be tuneful and entertaining from beginning to end. The whole house really enjoyed this one. If it wasn’t a best-of, I’d call it my album of the year.

I took more of Friend Sean’s advice and dove into Minor Threat’s “Complete Discography”, which covers 1980-83. They are just as angry and but more idealistic than Black Flag. And as such, it will take this old man a little while longer to get to the bottom of it, if there is one. But I’m in awe of people who were looked on as thugs, merely because they had no use for the pop music or its outer trappings, of the time. (Those awful early eighties again!) God bless ‘em.

MIA spends most of her time lately pissing people off. She does occasionally make some music, and “Kala” is her second album. It’s kitchen sink hip hop/dance music and a bit too busy for me to take it at once. I’ll get it when it’s considered an oldie.

And even though I don’t love the Beastie Boys, it was time to check out “Paul’s Boutique” which is considered their masterpiece. It sounds pretty much like “Licensed to Ill” by these old ears. But I’ll give the Boys some time…

The Holidays:

Belle and Sebastian can be bad luck for me. I have memories of listening to and loving “If You’re Feeling Sinister” in the late nineties. The trouble was that I was feeling miserable at the time, and the mood got associated with the music. It doesn’t help that their music is as sad as it is beautiful. So a vague unease, as well as a fear of disappointment, kept me from getting anything else by them. I waited ten years before trying “Tigermilk”, which turned out to be wonderful. I was even in a good mood at the time.

So I thought it would be time to try their compilation of non-album singles and EPs – “PUSH BARman TO OPEN old wounds”. Knowing full well how such collections can be very hit or miss, I was struck by the overall quality throughout the double CD set. There are some songs that are clearly experiments/departures/private jokes, but I find most of this collection to be quite devastating. (Yes, I was feeling down again.) So devastating in fact that I am very hesitant to listen to it – it was the only music I listened to for about a month. Stuart Murdoch is a master of melody, and pretty handy with odd/disturbing lyrics. Twenty five songs in all, there are at least twelve that I can’t live without. Why aren’t these guys more famous? Not quite an album by strict definition, so another not quite album of the year.

And finally, Christmas brought me “Intermission”, which is a best-of collection of Grant McLennan’s and Robert Forster’s solo recordings while they weren’t busy being the Go Betweens. few years. Robert and Grant each get a CD here. Robert can be spare and a bit awkward, and Grant, a little too smooth. And on a Go Betweens album, Grant’s pretty tunes were always put right up against next Roberts more tactile and verbal songs. It was the combination that was so effective. So, at first I was unimpressed. But now after a few listens, I’m liking it quite a bit more.

The Year of the Non Album:

There are a couple of themes this year. Jaybee reaching too far, and having to wait until he understands MIA, Minor Threat, etc.

But more importantly, it’s the year of the Best Of.

Perhaps it was the act of an old man hedging his bets and no longer digging deep, but in 2010 I got a hell of a lot of collections, whether they were best-ofs or compilations. Actual Albums, which I’ll define as a release of all new material by a single artist, are many fewer and farther between this year. As such, when I try to figure out what my favorite albums of the year are, a lot get eliminated on this technicality.

If I simply ask myself which records were the best, I’d have to say Robyn Hitchcock and Belle and Sebastian, but is it fair to compare them to “Anthem of the Sun” which was not quite as good?

Oh, who gives a rat’s ass anyway? Robyn Hitchcock and Belle and Sebastian. Easily.

I’ve Got Your Deus Ex Machina Right Here:

So here’s the funny part. Everything mentioned above is a record bought by or for me. What I haven’t mentioned is that my son Michael has been directly responsible for what may be the three best CDs – proper albums all - of the year:

Both Vampire Weekend albums and Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs”. All three of these records are as good as anything else I’ve mentioned. And two of them actually came out this year! So he’s keeping me current, too.

Hmmm. Maybe it’s time for me to retire.

Well, that should keep you in suspense while I decide whether to turn over the family business to Michael. How does “Jaybee and Son” sound?

Which George Can Handel It? - All Things Must Pass vs. The Messiah*

2010-12-29T21:12:00.001-05:00

Then :

In 1970, I bought myself “All Things Must Pass” for Christmas. Yeah, that’s right, I did it. George Harrison’s triple(!) album magnum opus, all for me.

I had gotten my first part time job that year, so my mom said that, now that I had my own money, I could get myself a present. I took her at her word. This only sounds ridiculous to someone who doesn’t know her.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, she went to A&S and got it for me, too. I guess this was meant to be a heartwarming Christmas surprise for me. More like Festivus - the recriminations were a bonus.

It’s gone down in family lore as one of those disputed stories – my mom telling everyone how generous it was of me to get myself a present like that. It’s been futile trying to remind her that I did exactly as she said, since I didn’t expect anything from her.

So, from the beginning, it was to be a tainted present – one that I would never fully enjoy without a pang of guilt. I even came down with a stomach virus that Christmas Day, and will always remember how the smell of the album cover and colored record sleeves would turn my stomach.

Now:

We have everyone over for dinner on Christmas Eve. And although, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do on Christmas morning, especially in the basement where all the kids would hang out, it’s also kind of peaceful. It’s the first day in a long time when we can just relax.

When we sold my mom’s house earlier that year, I ended up with her old record albums. It’s kind of ironic given my checkered history with them. (Link) But I needed to find a place to put them and I decided to slide my own records over to make room for hers. This meant moving other records from shelf to shelf to make more room as I went. But instead of just doing this, I decide to listen to some of these records as I went. This made a process that should have taken minutes drag out for weeks.

By Christmas Day, I was up to the letter H, and found Handel’s Messiah (right there where it belongs: between Arlo Guthrie and Emmylou Harris). On vinyl, it’s a triple album. What the hell, I figured. I was tired, and needed something soothing. Now that Christmas Eve duties have died down, I needed to get away from the new DVDs playing on the TV upstairs. So I gave it a whirl.

And it was perfect.

So I continue with the H’s, and what do I find, but another triple album - George Harrison’s, All Things Must Pass. It’s kind of beaten up – after all, it’s been 40 years since I got it. The paper still has that faint odor that made me nauseous back then. I put it on.

Then, Again:

In 1970, I told myself it was a great album, and continued to think so for a few years, until my tastes began to undergo a change, and I began to look upon my heroes with a colder eye.

Over time, I’d tell myself that Phil Spector did the usual - and in this case, lousy – everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production on this record. It took a stronger personality than George’s (like John Lennon on Plastic Ono Band - a record I don’t usually put on at Christmas time.) to keep Spector in check and ensure that the record sounded the way he wanted it to. But listening to ATMP again, I know that with the occasional exception, I was wrong.

I don’t know anyone else who’s impressed by the lead off cut, “I’d Have You Anytime”, but it’s one of my favorites. Just hearing it all the way through is a kind of victory. Our Victrola had several pennies taped to the tone arm, because it had a habit of skipping on the first (or last) song of any album I really wanted to hear. (It just knew.) If it persisted in skipping, I’d help out by pressing down on the tone arm. As often as I’d get past the skip successfully, I’d apply too much pressure and gouge a new groove into the record, making a unique and much foreshortened version of the song. You’d have to catch it on the radio or your friend’s house if you ever hoped to hear it the right way again.

Never being a huge fan of fifties music, I didn’t realize that “My Sweet Lord” was an obvious rip-off of the Chiffon’s “He’s So Fine”. And it took me a while to admit it, even though the evidence couldn’t be clearer. But hey, it’s a good record. I just wish he’d have admitted doing it, instead of getting his feelings all hurt about it.

So, what do I think if this record so far? This is how I feel about it:

My mother thinks I’m selfish
I’m sick to my stomach
The cover smells
The first song skips
On the second song, George tarnishes my “Beatles Can Do No Wrong” memories.

Are you with me so far?

I used to love “Isn’t It a Pity”. It was long and slow and sad, and it seemed to be about the Beatles breaking up, and it sounded like “Hey Jude” at the end. In other words, it was Serious. And I was a sucker for Serious. Serious was important! So naturally, over the years I forgot about it. Listening to it now, I can think of all the reasons I shouldn’t like it but it still blows me away.

I really enjoy sides two and three, and only wince when Phil botches the title track, adding that awful pedal steel guitar. I could do without the second version of “Isn’t it a Pity”, and the Apple Jam could have fit on a single side if they really tried. In other words, we’ve got a triple that would have made a great double, but I guess George couldn’t confine his philosophical musings to a mere three sides. Man, for someone who was not Lennon or McCartney, George sure took himself seriously.

So to sum up, my feelings are...mixed.

Now, Again:

If I wanted to act all grown up, I could pretend that I preferred Handel’s Messiah to ATMP. But I don’t.

So, what’s my verdict then? Good. Not great, but very, very good. And what more can I ask of someone who has given me so much pleasure, even if he wasn’t Lennon or McCartney? Thank you, George.

And now he’s gone, and I want to cry whenever I see him (or John) in “Hard Day’s Night”.

So I’m not sure exactly where I’d put it in my pantheon, but I do know that ATMP is Major Zeppelin Fan/Pal Joey’s favorite album. Or so he said 35 years ago. I’m certain he hasn’t changed his mind.

* Not the actual Messiah.