Category Archives: Music

Bands, albums and live reviews

On the radio, woah-oh on the radio

Music

I’ll be appearing on the WLUW radio show Outside The Loop RADIO with Andy Hermann and Mike Stephen next Friday at 6 pm. I’ll be discussing Lollapalooza. I imagine we’ll talk about which bands to see, which ones to skip and why you should be wary of Patti Smith being booked at Kidsapalooza. You can listen online here, or check out the archives at OTL Radio.

By the way, if you haven’t been following the story behind Loyola taking over WLUW, I’d recommend this report from Chicagoist and my report on the TOC Blog.

Reading and writing

Music

Thanks to everyone who showed up at Quimby’s to listen to me read, and pretended like you didn’t notice all the porn comics on the shelves around you. The literary crowd was all at Printer’s Ball that night, so the crowd was sparse, save for all of you. So thanks for filling up those seats.

Thanks also to the grey-haired gentleman who, as I came off stage, asked me to take his iPod and create a playlist for him. That was a treat, though I usually prefer to have 3-4 hours to spend quality time with such a task. And props to the two dudes who stopped looking at the porn comics to listen to what I had to say.

And thanks to Kelsey who gave me a Colt 45 before I started. Oh and asking me in the first place.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, I’m posting the piece here. Enjoy.

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The other day, I installed something called Last.FM on my computer.

For those that don’t know, Last.FM is a sort of social networking software that constructs a profile of you, based on what songs you listen to on your computer. This same profile is then published on its website for the entire world to see. As far as Last.FM is concerned, you are what you listen to.

After your install Last.FM, it scans your iTunes and other audio software to come up with a list of your most recently played tracks, favorite artists, etc. My top five most played artists ended up looking like this:

1 Johnny Cash
2 The Who
3 The Police
4 James Brown
5 The Faces

I was surprised to see Johnny Cash at number one but certainly not disappointed. It was now clear to all that I liked his music, and I didn’t need one of those t-shirts of him flipping the bird to prove it.

Most of the rest of that list was pretty respectable, and dead-on. The songs of The Who, The Police and James Brown are practically a part of my DNA, and I have a tendency to get drunk on whiskey and crank up The Faces, so that makes sense as well. Last.FM and I both agreed on who I was, and what I liked.

The problem began the other day when I turned on the iTunes party shuffle, which is guaranteed to play the lousiest music you own. For people who pride themselves on having good taste in music, it’s the equivalent of your parents pulling out a book of naked baby pictures in front of your Prom date. Sure enough, less than five songs in I was hearing “Into The Void” by KISS, a song that’s so awful, it doesn’t show up until Disc 5 in their boxed set. Two songs later, it got worse: my apartment filled with the sounds of Aersosmith’s “Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.”

Normally, this would be a minor annoyance. But with Last.FM humming in the background, my heretofore stellar music taste could now be called into question by the entire Internet. Sadly, there was no “I was listening to this ironically” button.

(As an aside, there’s no such thing as listening to a song “ironically.” If you are alone, and purposely cue up a song and hit play? You like that song. Irony doesn’t enter into it. And the same thing goes for mustaches.)

I quickly discovered I could delete songs from my Last FM profile, and couldn’t right-click fast enough to clear those two musical atrocities. I bailed on the party shuffle and cued up Carole King’s Tapestry so I could have a few minutes to think and not feel betrayed.

There are few things one can do that cultivate more self-intimacy than listening to music alone. No matter what the world tells you about yourself or whatever façade you try to present to the world, you can be secure in the knowledge that no judgment is being passed over you while you cue up songs from Kansas, Men at Work, or Sheryl Crow’s latter albums (her earlier stuff still holds up).

I realized that Last.FM now had me putting all those private moments I’ve kept to myself on display for the world to see. I might be fine with the Internet knowing I love Johnny Cash, but I’d prefer it never found out I own not one, but two Kylie Minogue albums.

After thinking about it some more, I realized that ever since high school, I’ve defined myself by music.

When I started dating my high school girlfriend, she would get countless notes from me filled with nothing but song lyrics. It would literally be a piece of paper upon which I’d written the title of the song, the name of the band and then the lyrics. I wouldn’t even bother to write “Dear Colleen” or “Hey baby, I heard this song and it made me think of you.” We had a rather rocky relationship, and broke up and got back together numerous times. I don’t remember much about the details behind most of those numerous breakups, except for one. Why? Because as we were breaking up, the song “I Know I’m Losing You” by The Temptations was playing in the background. Sure, it was painful. But you don’t get better timing than that, and when I tell the story of our Big Breakup, that’s the detail I use to illustrate it. Even though it probably wasn’t our Big Breakup at all, but more likely Three Breakups Before The Big Breakup.

It was this kind of musical myth-making that I started to cultivate in college.

The first time I had sex, was with a girl named Angela while we were listening to Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell album. Anyone who has ever heard this album knows that it doesn’t exactly create the ideal backdrop for losing one’s virginity. It’s akin to saying that Def Leppard’s Hysteria was playing when you had your First Communion. To be honest, I didn’t have much choice in the musical selection that evening. We started getting down to business in her dorm room, and I hadn’t known in advance that this was going to happen so I hadn’t thought to bring any “mood music.” She had a few tapes, most of which were lousy. The only one that seemed palatable to me was Bat Out Of Hell. Perhaps I thought the ten minute title track that led the album would be loud enough to keep the people in the hallway from overhearing the sounds of our ecstasy. If so, I admire the moxie I had that led me to think the experience was going to last much more than ten seconds, nevermind ten minutes.

A few years later, I attempted to rewrite this portion of my sexual history by claiming that it was not Meat Loaf, but Marvin Gaye who was the soundtrack to my first fumbling attempts at lovemaking. Of course, the first time I said this I was pretty drunk, so what actually came out of my mouth was “The first time I had sex was with Marvin Gaye.”

So there it is: rather than stick to the truth of a situation, I chose to describe my entrance into manhood as being accompanied by a soul legend, rather than an obsese, sweaty screamer prone to Wagnerian musical excess.

People who define themselves by the music they listen to, worry about what Last FM says about them, while people who don’t, have nothing to fear.

The thing is, I listen to my share of “bad” music. The very first live show I ever went to was The Monkees Reunion tour in 1987, with “Weird Al” Yankovic opening for them. I have, on occasion, psyched myself up by listening to songs by The Alan Parsons Project. And, swear to God, I will knock you to the ground for saying anything bad about “Sussudio” by Phil Collins. So I
don’t exactly have an impeachable record of coolness when it comes to music.

Let me be clear: people define themselves by the music they listen to, aren’t really interested in making sure their taste in music is seen as particularly cutting edge. It has more to do with tracking your personality or the personality of others by how they relate to music. Deleting those Aerosmith and KISS songs from my Last.FM profile was just like telling people I lost my virginity to Marvin Gaye. So to speak. I didn’t do it because those songs are terrible. They are, but that’s not why it bothered me. I just didn’t want to claim them as my own. They weren’t part of who I considered myself to be.

I know there are people out there who don’t use musical taste as a means of discovering things about other people. Whereas me? I am sure I can tell everything about you by asking you which Beatles album is your favorite. I know whether or not we’re going to get along by your preference for either the German or American version of “99 Luftballoons.” Or whether you even have a preference at all. I’m also a firm believer in the notion that you can tell how much fun someone might be at a party by whether or not he or she can sing the chorus of “Jungle Love” by The Time.

I know there are other people out there like me. In fact, it’s given me an idea for a speed-dating service called MixDate. You will sit down at a table across from someone, and they will hand you a CD of their favorite songs, and you will hand them one of yours. And then you’ll get up, and move to the next table. After you listen to all the CDs, you tell MixDate which ones you liked the best, and they’ll tell you who liked yours. If there’s a match, you trade phone numbers. I guarantee this would be the most successful dating service of all time.

Oblivious Living Part 1.13: "C30, C60, C90, Go" by Bow Wow Wow

Music

MP3 – “C30, C60, C90, Go” by Bow Wow Wow
Lyrics – “C30, C60, C90, Go” by Bow Wow Wow

First, a message for the kids: there is nothing here about Bow Wow. Sorry, blame Google.

Now then: Raise your hand if you ever bought those K-Mart blank cassette tapes that were a buck each. Ah, what a relic this song is.

Or is it…

It’s impossible to be a consumer of music these days, and not think this song has a renewed relevance. Back in the 80s, the record industry was freaking out because people were recording music off of records and the radio, and onto magnetic cassette tapes. Yes, kids, off the radio, and didn’t I saw there was no Bow Wow here? Consider it the very first version of time-shifting programming. Nevermind that music on the radio was – and largely still is – often of lesser sound quality than most records. And nevermind that more often than not, you had to put up with inane DJ chatter that made Eric and Kathy sound like Rhodes scholars. Or at least scholars from the Rhode Island School of Design.

No matter: record execs were convinced they were going to lose scads of money. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. But what it did lead to was a new format: the compact disc. Eventually, the CD led to the downfall of the cassette format, but home taping (or mixtape making, if you will) continued apace until the arrival of recordable CDs and then came MP3s and…well, you know the rest of that story.

But the salient point here is this: people will not be bound by formats and technology when it comes to the consumption of music. Especially now. And this doesn’t just extend to music. The iPhone was barely a week old before someone cracked the encryption on it that forces the user to activate it with AT&T. Building a business model around a format just doesn’t work anymore.

As for the song, Bow Wow Wow had one trick, but Lord, it was a good one.

BWW was another of Malcolm McLaren’s pre-fab rock acts. Three-quarters of the band were once Ants of the Adam variety, and its lead singer was Annabella Lwin, a brash 14 year old who managed to fashion her own personality, despite MacLaren’s Swengali routine.

BWW had a knack for reflecting culture back at itself. The songs were a mish-mash of pop touchstones, with an immediacy delivered through Lwin’s me-me-me vocal style and an insistent island rhythms straight out of a Sandals resort. Not the first band I’d pick to represent the 80s, but an apt one.

Oblivious Living: Part 1.12 – "2-4-6-8 Motorway" by Tom Robinson Band

Music

If you’re coming late to the party, this is a 37-part series on the first two volumes of the Living In Oblivion collection, which are available pretty much nowhere.

MP3 – “2-4-6-8 Motorway” by Tom Robinson Band
Lyrics – “2-4-6-8 Motorway” by Tom Robinson Band

Name an contemporary openly gay rock singer. Melissa Etheridge, right? But then who? It took me a minute to come up with Tegan and Sara, who have been open about their sexuality from the start. But I’m still racking my brain to come up with a guy other than Rufus Wainright. Outside of anyone in dance music, there’s…who? Rob Halford? I don’t think it’s quite proper to refer to Halford as a contemporary rocker, no offense to him or his leather chaps (same with Elton John though the chaps don’t really figure in there).

In any case, it rarely happens, which is why it’s really saying something that Tom Robinson had any career at all in America in the 1970s.

In point of fact, Robinson was hardly a rock star here. His albums languished in the bottom fourth of the Billboard Top 200 here, while his singles never charted. In the UK, he fared much better, with “2-4-6-8” ending up in the top 5, while the album from whence it came, Power In the Darkness, topped out at #4. This was largely due to The Tom Robinson Band being featured on the cover of NME a whopping eight times.

I imagine it was Robinson’s political outspokenness that earned him a lack of success here. Robinson not only sang “Glad To Be Gay” but he also spoke out against Britain’s conservative government, and helped form Rock Against Racism. Other song titles from Darkness include “Don’t Take No For An Answer,” “Better Decide Which Side You’re On” and “Up Against The Wall.” This was in 1978. “Shadow Dancin'” it ain’t.

So his lack of status made his outspokenness all the more daring, although it probably gave his A&R man fits.

Since then, Robinson got married – to a woman – and later began hosting a BBC Radio 6 show, which he continues to this day. He remains outspoken about GLBT issues, and hosts a site called Having It Both Ways. He holds a yearly party in Belgium (!!) for his European fans, offers several of his solo albums for free on his website, and archived many articles about him from NME and other sources, which I’ve spent the better part of the evening perusing. I’ve certainly entertained thoughts of hanging of with famous rock stars, and have done so occasionally. But this is the first time I ever thought it’d be nice if one hung out at my local pub so we could casually shoot the crap from time to time.

As for the song itself, I’m still not quite sure what it’s about. But I think Ted Leo probably heard it as a kid, bought Darkness and found it got him thinking.

Synchronicity, too: The Police at Wrigley

Music,

Initially, I thought I wasn’t going to end up seeing The Police when they came to Chicago. Tickets were too far out of my price range, and attempts to parlay my Time Out employment into a press pass, failed (though I did manage to get us a photo pass). But last night my sister called and said she had an extra ticket in the set her work had been given by a vendor (think about that what you will).

In any case, it was a great show. I’m going to resist going on about it for my usual 1000 words (especially since Greg Kot is pretty dead-on here). But a few thoughts:

* I need to pull out the Live disc from a couple years ago*, but the set (full list after the jump) was pretty similar to what they played on the Synchronicity tour. The difference here was that the horn section and backup singers they brought with them then were left behind. Best I could tell, they weren’t playing to backing tracks, and still kept a full, muscle-y sound. **

* Sting isn’t hitting the high notes anymore, and this has led to new arrangements. Some are good (“Every Little Thing…” and “Roxanne” really cook in a way they don’t on record), but a lot of them rob the originals of all their fire (I would rather have not heard “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” than listened to the run-through here). Some of the song were a bit limp, but almost everything from “Can’t Stand Losing You” until the end of the show was spot-fucking-on. For some reason, I have no memory of hearing “Every Breath You Take” even though my notes say they played it, which leads me to believe it wasn’t very memorable or was lost between the amazing bookends of “So Lonely” and “Next To You.”

* People who say The Police don’t seem to enjoy playing together onstage haven’t looked at old footage recently. They were never particularly chummy as a live act, and the perfectionism that shows up in the studio manifests itself as a stern concentration in a live setting.

* Stern concentration does not mean boredom though. Holy fuck, Andy Summers was on fire. Stu was hot, too, but Summers left both he and Sting in the dust.

* Kudos to The Police for not stretching out the audience applause during encores unlike some bands I could name (Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1991 prior to coming back out and playing “Freebird,” I’m looking at you).

* Seeing a concert at Wrigley is a lot like going to a Cubs game. Same people, same level of interest in what’s going on in the outfield.

* Sting’s son’s band Fiction Plane opened. They led the crowd through a Harry Caray-style version of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and that tells you almost everything you need to know about their set except this: if you thought Sting’s voice was annoying, his son Joe will give you a new appreciation for his father’s skill, and you’ll also note that cheesy stage banter is genetic.

Here’s the set list from the July 6th Police show in Chicago:

Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity 2
Walking on the Moon
Voices Inside My Head/When The World Is Running Down
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Truth Hits Everybody
The Bed’s Too Big Without You
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking In Your Footsteps
Can’t Stand Losing You/Regatta De Blanc (best song of the night)
Roxanne
ENCORE:
King of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
ENCORE 2:
Next To You

* A couple? This disc actually came out 12 years ago. God, I’m old.

** Tankboy notes here that they did use backing tracks. Frankly, the sound wasn’t that great from where I was sitting so I could be wrong about this.

More blatant self-promotion

Music

I’d apologize for always talking about all the media crap I’m doing, but frankly, I need some excuse for not blogging more so…

A couple weeks ago, I was a guest on a BreakThru Radio podcast hosted by a woman named Rachel Hurley who blogs at Rachelandthecity.com. If you want to know what’s up on the Memphis music scene, you should check her out. She hosts a show called The Bloggeratti, where bloggers come on the show and talk about artists they think people should know about. Though my song selection is impeccable, my performance is less so. I did the interview at the end of a long day at work, and I think it shows. To listen to the show, click here. You should also check out Rachel’s other segments by going to breakthruradio.com clicking on Multimedia Archive, then select DJ Rachelandthecity from the list and click search.

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Oblivious Living Part 1.11 – "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)

Music

If you’re coming late to the party, this is a 37-part series on the first two volumes of the Living In Oblivion collection, which are available pretty much nowhere.

MP3 – “(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)” – The Stranglers
Lyrics – “(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)” – The Stranglers

You know what punk rock needs more of? Saxophone.

Used to be, you could have a decent shot at hearing some saxophone in a punk song. I’m not talking about punk bands that are actually ska bands, I’m talking about actual punk bands.

The Stranglers, X-Ray Spex, Buzzcocks, New York Dolls? Modern Lovers and The Jam maybe? Even the odd Clash number. Saxophone. Nothing says angst like a woodwind instrument. (It is, too. Look it up.)

Honestly, I’m not sure what else to say about “(Get A) Grip (On Yourself),” except that it wins the award for most hilarious use of parentheses. The song’s another example of a late 70s inclusion that, while great, has no business here. Then again, the Stranglers were really men out of time so perhaps that makes sense. They came up through the pub-rock movement, and found themselves trying to adapt to the punk and New Wave scenes. They made a pretty good go of it until about 1984 when their career came down to a low simmer that’s pretty much stayed there. Like 999, they still tour throughout Europe.

I find it really interesting that no one ever rags on old punk bands that stay together long after the new material’s dried up. Classic rock bands get it all the time, but old punk bands never do. It’s seen as another sortie in the fight against…what, exactly? Welcome to the new nostalgia.

Moreover, The Stranglers were also accused of being misogynists, and Lotharios. This is even more proof that this band didn’t really cut its teeth in the 80s. You did not get to be known as a band of shag monkeys in the 80s if your video featured a drummer that looks like the bass player from Almost Famous. You had to look like Mötley Crüe to get away with that shit. That is to say, you had to look a lot like the women you were chasing.

Selling out is great for bands…who don't really want to be in bands

Music,

Miles Raymer attempts to defend “selling out” in this week’s Chicago Reader. I admire the contraiainist effort, but he never quite justifies why more commercial usage of music “might be just what the music industry needs.” Artists have been offering begrudging nods to commercial licensing for a few years now, ever since Moby showed it was both financially rewarding, and didn’t lead to becoming a complete asshole in the process. But this newish aspect of music labels’ business plans hasn’t exactly infused them with scads of cash, as Raymer notes.

So it’s not exactly reaping a whirlwind for labels, but it’s obviously helping new bands find an audience, right? Well, no. The reason why is simple: licensing music for commercial purposes doesn’t create new fans for a band, it only associates the band with a moment in time, or with a particular movement, which makes it all the easier for any new fans they’ve acquired to move on when the moment is over.

There’s a much longer post to be written on just this point, but music – particularly the big tent that the term “indie rock music” has come to represent – is much more commodified now than it ever was before. Where it used to be that a certain segment of the population sought out the hot new restaurant or the hipper-than-thou nightclub as a way to show they were on the cutting edge of what was “in,” this same segment now accomplishes that by seeking out information about which bands are being touted as the next big thing.

It’s easier to do that now because the information about which bands are new and breaking is everywhere, and not spread by word-of-mouth or via record stores that most folks wouldn’t step foot in. It would be fine if this kind of re-purposing of music were merely confined to commerce, but the problem is that these people are showing up at live shows as well, with little respect for the culture created around it. (If Wilco wants to “get the music out there,” good for them. But if they do it by selling off their tunes to car companies, they shouldn’t be surprised if more guys like this start coming to their shows.)

When you directly associate your music with commerce – that is, when the music is used to sell something other than an album, CD or MP3 – it’s likely that the audience you reach will associate it that way, as well. Therefore, your music becomes nothing more than a plate of grilled salmon, a gin and tonic, or a pair of trendy new jeans. It’s something to be consumed at that time, without much thought given to it after it’s outlived its utility.

So licensing ultimately fails to expand or develop an audience. I know that many people thought that Moby allowing the majority of his Play album to be used for commercial purposes was a bold way of reaching a wider audience, but a few years on and that new audience of his has all but disappeared, leaving him struggling to sign with a label until recently. The Shins – an example Raymer uses to illustrate the positive effects of “selling out” – will probably never escape its Garden State association, and will probably rise and fall depending on how long the “Braff rock” trend lasts.

The band The Caesars went from being a never-were to a has-been in the blink of an eye, despite the ubiquity of its single “Jerk It Out,” first heard in iPod commercials. The Servant had a song called “Cells” in the trailer for Sin City, but it didn’t help its next album “How To Destroy A Relationship” get a U.S. release. Bodyrockers’ song “I Like The Way” was used in a Diet Coke ad, the show Las Vegas, and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2005. In fact, you probably know the song without even realizing it. Listen to it at their website, and you’ll probably find yourself saying “Oh that song!” like I did. Yet the name “Bodyrockers” meant nothing to me, and probably means nothing to a lot of other people since their self-titled album is also only available on import, and the News section of their site has been sorely lacking any if it since December of 2005.

And bands with a built-in audience should perhaps be wary of going the commercial route, too. Wilco certainly took it on the chin from their long-time fans. Sonic Youth can justify selling CDs through Starbucks and re-release its classic albums all it wants, but its audience isn’t fooled. (Perhaps as Jessica Hopper goes, so goes the Daydream Nation?)

I’m not denying that a band allowing its music to be used in a commercial is a good way to get a short-term infusion of cash. Raymer’s best argument in the piece is that if bands that make a living through music “can’t stay safely in the black by playing gigs or selling records, some of them are bound to choose licensing deals and sponsorships over day jobs or credit-card debt.” I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing if letting Volkswagen use my songs meant I could devote my life to making music. But I don’t think it would. More likely, it means your band will be no more memorable to the average listener than the can of Coke they just tossed in the trash. And rather than allow you to leave that day job and devote your life to creating music, it’s more likely to leave you still trying to sell your latest CD to uninterested audiences, only this time you’ll be selling it to them with an orange crème frappuccino.