May 2003

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My name's Friday...I'm a music cop...

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Somedays, being a raving lunatic has its drawbacks. So many people have been lulled into their primetime TV schedules and 8:30am bowel movements, when you grab them by the collar and let them in on the "dirty little secrets" of the world, the mixture of pity and disgust on their faces can really leave your brain sore.

I grew up in the Land of Truman, where we were often quoted as saying, "Show me!" and "Run Toto, run!" We're a simple folk, we seldom believe the intangible, and when the funnel clouds of reality descend, we head for lower ground...ditches, basements, etc.

The corrollary of that, though, is the old Truman axiom: "How long do you have to let something hit you in the head before you stand up and ask, 'Hey, what's hittin' me in the goddamned head?'"

I once had a buncha hillbilly singers over to the basement, post-show a few months ago, and two of the veterans in the group allowed the homemade beer and store bought tequila to let their minds wander to past shows of "big stars" that had hit First Ave and other places, where they had been the opening act. The conversation turned to harmonizer boards and other tricks of the trade for the talentless.

Thanks to Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, the cat's further out of the bag than before. The best two paragraphs in the whole story go like this:

According to several producers, the practice of tuning and correcting vocals is especially prevalent in mainstream country music. Studio software can help artists hold a note for what seems like forever, and can help them sound as if they can belt out high notes as easily as Patsy Cline could.

''That country music production scene is a pretty rigid environment,'' according to Timothy Powell, a Chicago-based producer/engineer. ''The artists are at the mercy of the producers and the record companies and everybody wants it to be perfect -- they go out of their way to make it perfect.'' Powell, who specializes in recording live performances by everyone from Paul McCartney to Eminem, says he's even starting to see vocal tuning devices show up in concert settings.

YES!!!! I just love this article. Anybody want to take bets on who's using these things among the "country elite?" Wake up and stop listening to these talentless fools. Stop listening to the stations that play them. Stop buying CD's from the labels that produce them. Stop buying the products they endorse. Country is music from the heart, written and produced from the struggle of rural sensibilities in an increasingly urban world. If you own CD's by mainstream country artists, take them to used CD stores and sell them...use the money for the homeless, or a food shelter, or the Future of Music Coalition, or anything. Selling this product as the creation of a musical talent borders on criminal fraud, and you and I should no longer have to be a part of it. NASHVILLE SUCKS!!

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 28, 2003 10:35 PM

 

The seeds of rememberance

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Last night, as I crashed, a faint memory came back...

Growing up in Kansas City in the 70's and 80's, there was nowhere you could go throughout town and escape the umbrella of 61 Country's big antenna. It was where I first heard Willie, Waylon, Buck, Merle, Jerry Reed, etc....

There was also one other constant on the station, and he's still there today: David Lawrence in the morning. Every morning. I don't remember David Lawrence ever being sick.

But back to crashing last night....

Before bed last night, I typed a quick rant about Shania being on Willie's birthday party on USA Network. Back in the early 80's, when the band Alabama was ripping off the Eagles, who ripped off all of the true country rock pioneers of the Los Angeles hillbilly scene, a female singer named K.T. Oslin came along, with a strange voice, and a one note bag of songs about being a woman in a man's world. She didn't so much sing, as whine in tune, and the rumour was that she was absolutely terrible in concert.

Back then, DJ's on mainstream stations could voice their opinions about music...hell, they were allowed to have opinions. One day, David Lawrence asked about K.T. Oslin, "Is this really the best we've got?" I was young then, but it was like a lightning bolt for me.

I would love to rant about Shania right now, but someone has done a much better job of this already for me.

The true culprits in the Twaining of America are her husband and the burr-headed, pencil pushing program directors of Mainstream Country Radio. This evil little collaboration will ALWAYS tell you, off the record, that they hate Shania, she's not country, she really isn't all that talented, but, she sells stuff, so they gotta go with her.

"Is this really the best we've got?"

Given the bad times we've seen recently around the world, we've become a nation looking for painkillers. That is to say, the majority of folks want fluffy entertainment, that doesn't preach, upset, anger, stir, or have any impact at all. And that's why this talentless moron in the pink cowboy hat fits in perfectly.

I really DON'T want to feel good about myself. People are out of work, religious fundamentalists hate my standard of living, it only took 2 generations for the French to become ungrateful again, there are no less than 15 flavors of Coke on the shelf, the Chiefs haven't been to a Super Bowl since I was in diapers.......goddammit, Mr. Chairman, THE KIDS AREN'T ALL RIGHT!!!!

Et tu Willie?

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 27, 2003 10:52 AM

 

Fucking Kill Me Now

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I give up.

Shania Twain was allowed to sing not one, but two songs on Willie Nelson's birthday party show on USA Network tonight.

I'm smart enough to know that this is nothing more than Mutt Lange desperately trying to buy back some country authenticity and validity for his talentless wife...but I still fucking give up.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 27, 2003 12:58 AM

 

Who Cares About Anything Anymore?

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I thought I might talk about the Country Music Awards, but I didn't watch them. I couldn't bring myself to do it. These people are ALL stereotype country (that's right, not "stereotypical"). It's not authentic, it's unoriginal, and it's the only type you hear on the stereo. All the wrong people won, which was a guaranteed certainty, because none of the right people ever get nominated, because none of them are a part of the ludicrous country music establishment. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record on that, but hey, you gotta dance with the girl that brung ya.

I didn't watch American Idol either, but I see the big fella won. After the contest was over, I hear Vegas was immediately taking odds on which one will appear in the tabloids first with hookers or heroine or small, masked children. They were getting the most action on the field. In a fog this morning, I heard the talking head on KARE11's "good morning sunshine" show say that 35 million people voted in this "contest," which she thought was more than the last "Presidential Election." That gave me pause, so being the stickler for accuracy that I am, I had to look that all up. First, every report I've seen so far said that 24 million voted on "Idol;" second, roughly 105.6 million people voted in the last "Presidential Election."

I was looking for something witty to say about 25%, and George Bush losing the popular vote, and the decline of our "get famous quick" culture, but there's just no joke in there. Needless to say, you're fooling yourself if you think a big ol' hunk of love from Alabama and a pasty little rat-haired white kid can drum up 24 million voters of any stripe, and the political types didn't take notice. Yes America, two men whose only talents were their singing voices, faced off for the "big prize," and were only separated by 130,000 votes; one of them instantly becoming a big star and commanding a great deal of big label attention. Good thing there aren't any parallels between this nonsense and the way we pick our governmental leaders. I mean really, it's why we're the masters of the Free World.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 22, 2003 7:31 AM

 

No, Kill Me Now

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If things weren't bad enough, the Star Tribune ran a story that I thought was an article from The Onion.

Software puts a new spin on potential hit songs

In a nutshell, these lowlifes created a software package based on a database of over 3.5 million hit pop songs that basically checks them for a number of mathematical factors and then tries to predict if the next song added will be a hit as well.

You have to click around on the shitheads' web site to really get the full picture, but two of the most telling facts are: (1) BMG, EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner Brothers are all using the label version of it, and (2) they admit in their FAQ that their precious little engine doesn't grade a song for lyrical content.

No shit? Nobody listens to songs for the lyrics dumbass.

If this were just some university student's statistical psychology project, which it most likely started as, then I would find it interesting and quaint. But, despite all of their claims to the contrary, please please please don't fall into the trap of believing this isn't aimed solely at the homogenization of music.

As for my little corner of the world, if the big labels are using it on pop songs, you can bet your ass they're using it on country songs too, which are their biggest business, and which these days are just pops songs with country instruments added later based on which market the single's getting shipped to. Why does everything in this world have to be tangible? Bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly, Walter Payton was too small to play in the NFL, and "The Red-Headed Stranger" just didn't sound commercial enough. Go to this company's website and send them a nasty email, it's a great way to start your day.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 18, 2003 10:03 AM

 

Kill Me Now

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The bottom screen ticker on CNN Headline News was reporting that Paul McCartney was considering being a judge on American Idol.

Either this is a joke, or it's the final act in the cruel play of the collective dumbing down of our entire society. Much like Cro-Magnon man, those of us who like a little meat in our sandwiches are being surrounded by a buncha barely erect insects and clubbed to death in gangs with the thigh bones of goats. If you are in some way a part of Mainstream radio, big label music, and the production of music on television, you are killing yourself and us. The infiniteness of the incongruity of someone who wrote, recorded, mixed, cajoled, and tweaked his own music in a 3 man team that changed Rock n Roll forever, judging a bunch of people whose ONLY TALENTS are their voices is astounding.

Just look at the puppet Kelly Clarkson. She doesn't shit unless 15 agents, stylists, and marketing reps tell her the research says it's okay to do so. American Idol is not a guilty pleasure, it's a canary in a coal mine. These kids will sing their hearts out to win; and then, just like Kelly, they'll be given a haircut, told to lose weight, bought an entirely new warddrobe, and have their voices piped through a harmonizer so they sound just like N'Sync or Brittney Spears. And, their "world tour," which will be delayed by "right timing" arguments coming from the research in the marketing department of the label, will be brought to you by a soda, a car, and one of the discount stores. Keeping in tradition with saying one stupid thing in every blog: the movie Josie & the Pussycats really wasn't all that far off, was it?

I'm going to go listen to The Gourds, who are brought to you by The Gourds, and try to forget this madness. Yoko may have broke them up, but you always knew Paul was going to break everyone's heart.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 13, 2003 10:12 AM

 

What the songs are about...

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A couple of random thoughts on what music is about from a weekend of clubbing:

Before singing a slow song down at Lee's on Friday night, Jesse Dayton let everyone know, "Hey y'all this is one of those fuckin' East Texas, Trailer park, White trash tearjerkers, so if any of you fuckin' people are on Prozac, ya might wanna go to the bathroom or somethin."

Josh from Anchorhead let me know that he dug the whole "alt country" idea to an extent, but that he didn't want to end up writin' songs about Dogs and Tractors. I immediately told him that I wanted him to write a song about Dogs and Tractors. He replied he was going to the bathroom and that he would write it when he got back. This was on the napkin he handed me:

The Dogs and the Tractors

Are just a coupla factors

That made me walk out the door.

Too many Lucky 7's

Made me believe in Heaven

& I can't stand the late nights, the whiskey, & the whores

So pack it up

Yer leavin'

So pack it up

You're gone

Baby it's time for me to pack it up

& move along (lyrics reprinted with permission of the Estate of Joshua Hill Lemon)

Ahh, the creative process. It's got "hit" written all over it. Here's to July when Anchorhead returns to the stage.

I don't know how much liberty I have to tell the next story, so I'll be vague and stupid. Mark Stockert of Taconite Haven has about a thousand stories, it seems. And he told me a fantastic story about a fairly well known local band that was being courted by some big money label people, who undoubtedly had their own ideas about what to do with this band's sound. The big money fat cat kind of wanted an answer near the end of the dinner they were having, to which the lead singer replied, "Do you know what my father does? He traps the elusive black beaver." I have to rank that as one of my all-time "stick it in your ass" moments in history.

Finally, sitting around the bar at the old homestead at about 2am Saturday night, there was some lively discussion as to what Pink Floyd's best album was, inspired by listening to "Rebuild the Wall" a hillbilly version of the Floyd album, by Luther Wright & the Wrongs from Canada. Darin Wald of Big Ditch Road made a great point about "Dark Side of the Moon." It gets a lot of shit flung at by the edgy set because it's a perfect album, to which I whole-heartedly agree. There was no consensus on the best album, however. My vote goes to Dark Side, but Final Cut, The Wall, and Animals were all mentioned. Eric the banjee picker said "Wish You Were Here" to which I gave him the raspberries.

Go Wild!

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 12, 2003 10:09 AM

 

Mother should I build a wall?

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One of the things my mother will always be to me is the person who cried coming home from the grocery store during my adolescence, and then cried on the phone when I was in college because I wasn't eating enough. Back when I was about 11, she would spend hundreds of dollars on a full shopping cart, only to have it all disappear within a matter of days. My brother Chris and I were known to tear open the grocery sacks and grab cans of cling peaches, fumble them open with the can opener, and then dive in with two forks, just to eat SOMETHING.

It was funny back then, too, because I would always accompany her up to the altar for communion, and we would stick around a few seconds after the host and say a little prayer; these prayers inevitably went something along the lines of "...and help me to stop hitting my sister, and help me to clean my room, and help me to be a better boy..." Funny how prayers change over time.

Besides praying for Victory in game one of the conference finals, I pray that you'll listen to my special Mother's Day Other Side of Country this Sunday from 1 to 3pm on AM1220 WEZU. It will include a special Mother's Day playlist, complete with touching, bouncy, and inappropriate tunes for the mater familias of your world.

I also pray that you'll call the pigwhistle and tell tear-jerking lies about your mom, so that she can feel special on the one day besides her birthday that she doesn't have to clean up after everyone else.

"Hello?"

"Who dis?"

"Jo"

"Jo who?"

"Jo mamma!"

--JKS

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 9, 2003 2:58 PM

 

Weekends were made for club crawling...

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The last time I saw Jesse Dayton in Minneapolis, he was with his old band, The Road Kings, who used to be on Surf Dog Records, at The 7th St. Entry. The thing is, it was a Monday night in November, right before or right after Thanksgiving, at about 11pm. Needless to say, the crowd was "sparse," even though they were a great band. Jesse seemed none too pleased. He brought two (2) shots of tequila on stage with him before the first song, downed both, then spat on the floor in front of him, about 12 feet out. The band then proceeded to destroy the eardrums of all ten of us in the club with some real hard driving, vibrating, hillbilly noise.

His solo schtick is a little more gentlemanly Texas; but rest assured, he has the chops to set the whole place on fire at Lee's this Friday night. It will be the perfect marriage of honky with honkytonk. Local favorites Anchorhead will be opening for Dayton, and this will be their last show for a while so Tony and Josh can write some more songs, Nick can speed around town in a stupor with his headlights off at 3am, and Todd can get married. Todd is dead, long live Todd!! Here's hoping they really pull out the stops and burn it down for Conrad.

If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you can go catch the relentless and hypnotic surf guitar of the man who, for all practical purposes, defines the term "surf guitair," Dick Dale at The Cabooze. Menage A Twang opens.

Saturday night, the busiest twang band in Minnesota, Big Ditch Road will be hitting the stage at the Terminal Bar, spillin' booze and lightin' cigarettes. They get good sound at the Terminal, and it's quickly re-establishing itself is Honkytonk #2 or #3 in this town. Rusty String Quartet and National Highhorse open. A fine night of twang indeed.

I might have to stumble over to Bunker's first that night, though, to look into The Flat Earth Defenders, another "under my radar" band. Luckily, they contacted me and told me they exist, so it's just one more country band in this town that never gets played on mainstream country radio. Oh well, fight the good fight.

For those of you stumbling outta yer boooooats after da wally oooooopener, you can check out Darrin Rosha at Cadillac Jack's in Chaska that night as well.

Finally, the Supersuckers will be destroying The 400 Bar on Sunday night and running up a fantastic bar bill. Don't wear clean clothes to this gig.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 8, 2003 1:59 PM

 

Yeah, I'm a rube, but so what?

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"First, college hockey is what it is -- a regional sport with a passionate, but limited, following. There are simply too few teams and too small an audience to make it a national sport." --Dan Barreiro, April 10, 2003.

Last night, as I was sitting in front of the big screen in my union suit, watching the Wild dismantle the Canucks, I was reminded of the above statement by Mr. Sports in the local paper. It coincided with him calling college wrestling a "cult" sport on his radio program a few weeks earlier.

This blog isn't here to necessarily dispute his statements; rather, it's here to offer a little different perspective.

First, let me help you with your next "National" column Buraremo:

"The Wolves/Vikings/Gopher Men's Basketball/Gopher Football team disappointed its fans again today."

The fact is, people in Colorado, British Columbia, Boston, Maine, North Dakota, Detroit, Ottawa, New Jersey, Anaheim, and a host of other places are scratching their heads, trying to figure out what to make of Minnesota's hockey teams on many levels. And, despite coming up just short this season, no team in any sport, has dominated its sport like the Gopher wrestlers have the past three seasons (outside of maybe the Lakers, who painfully proved that to this area recently). People in Oklahoma, Oregon, Iowa, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, are currently trying to figure out how to dismantle the Gopher Grapplers.

But even THAT is not my point.

Within their sports, there isn't much concern about the Vikings, Wolves, Gopher Basketball and Gopher Football teams. No one points at them and says: Champions. Realistically, they've become regional programs with regional followings.

Which brings us to the people who choose to cover them extensively, monotonously, to the point of exhaustion, mostly to exclusion of the other more successful teams around here. When you choose to write or talk about the hockey and wrestling squads, you always feel compelled to put your perspective on the appeal of these sports somewhere out front so we who are fans know just how podunk and parochial we are. Well, turn that perspective on yourself for once: you're a regional sports writer with a cult following. Have a nice day.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 6, 2003 9:40 AM

 

V is for Victory

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"The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thought that never wanders, the purpose that never wavers - these are the masters of victory." -- Edmund Burke

On July 15th, 1983, some intrepid soul caught a 10 pound, 15 ounce dogfish on Mary Lake in Douglas County. It was 32 inches long and 15 inches around. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is the record, and it will turn 20 years old this summer. Twenty years is long enough. Each year when I buy my license a few weeks before the ooooooopener, I hop from one foot to the other like a kid in a candy store, waiting for the kind person at the driver's license reading machine to give me my ticket to fish and, the best thing of all, the season's rules and regs manual, complete with the record fish in the back.

Four or five records were broken last year, but one still stands, and it stands solely because I haven't broken it yet. I am the only man in Minnesota whose lifelong goal is to own AND KEEP the state dogfish record. It has eluded me so far; but, make no mistake, I will own that record one day, and I will get into an arms race with whoever is stupid enough to challenge me on it.

My reasons for wanting this record are private, convulluted, and sad. But, suffice it to say, the dogfish gets a bad rap in these parts because of the flaky tasty goodness of one Wally the Walleye. However, the dogfish is more mysterious, ancient, and resilient than his distant scaly cousin of the deep. And, he has the almost singular distinction of being the fish that can gulp air into primitive lungs in stagnant waters. That's why he beat Mr. Darwin all these years.

The U.S. record is something like 21 pounds, 9 ounces caught somewhere in Tennessee. I have my sites set on that one as well, but, I need to win the state battle first.

Fishing is a family activity, fun for all, and a great learning experience. But, if you get in my way of holding this record, it will become a Metro section tragedy for you and everyone you love.

Addendum: I forgot to mention that I'm going to catch that 11 pound sumbitch on 10 pound test line, just to give the bastard a sporting chance. Veni Vidi Vici.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 5, 2003 12:28 AM

 

New Music Alert

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"I shot your dog," song 13 on Fred Eaglesmith & the Flathead Noodlers' disk, "Balin," might be the greatest song ever recorded. As far as I know, you can only buy this disk from his website. That 3 minutes and 4 seconds make the whole 10 or 15 bucks worth it.

Reminds me of visiting my grandpa, Little Marty, in Wichita Falls when I was a kid. He raised blue tick coon hounds and brushed their coats with motor oil and fed them raw meat so they were mean, just like him. Someone challenged him to a pile of money over a simple coin flip once, and he said, "get that sumbitch in the air."

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 2, 2003 3:00 PM

 

Positive self re-affirmation of worthiness

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If you're stumbling from widowmaker to widowmaker at the blackjack tables of Treasure Island tonight, you might hear this reverbating out of the auditorium there: Lately I've been runnin'
Into our old friends
And somewhere in the small talk
Someone always asks where you've been
So I tell them what you told me
And they can't believe we're through
They ask me what I'm doin' now
And in case you're wonderin' too
I breathe in I breathe out
Put one foot in front of the other
Take one day at a time
'Til you find
I'm that someone you can't live without
Until then
I breathe in and breathe out
Ugh!...He might as well grab a guitar and record the lines:
I'm good enough
I'm smart enough
And doggoneit, people like me, even though you broke my little heart. This is THE kind of drivel that simply has no place in country music. I'm not so balls-out, macho that I can't stand a little vulnerability in my music; but this stuff is just the syrup on the pansy ass pancakes of Mainstream Nashville breakfast that the 615 area code has been serving us with a giant shit fork. I'm a real hothead when it comes to this issue, and some of the cooler intellects around me often convince me to sit down and give this garbage second and third chances. I usually listen for about 2 hours, and then the nausea sets in and I have to either change the channel, throw the CD across the room, or simply "take the antidote," which consists of two giant helpings of: I shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die Just READ those two lines and compare them to all of the lines in the first set of lyrics. WWJD really stands for: What Would Johnny (Cash) Do? "Live at Folsom Prison" era Johnny Cash would have punched every one of these black hat wearing, haute couture, i-understand-how-she-feels, boy band reject pissants, square in the nose. Robert Earl Keen is down at the Woman's Club Theatre tonight, and Trailer Trash is at Lee's. If you want to breate in and breathe out, be my guest, but I'm gonna go shoot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 2, 2003 8:33 AM

 

Making the Gig...Stunt clowns want to pee in my cowboy hat

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I love going to shows these days.

Tonight, Big Ditch Road opened for the The Derailers at the Turf Club. Working the door was Sam Sawyer, one of the hardest working guys in the Twin Cities club scene, a First Avenue Captain who makes my radio life much easier. I sauntered over to the bar, and was immediately besieged by the boys of The Dagnabits, Tom and Mike. I like to pretend to be a dirty, drunk hillbilly, but these boys are the real thing. And they were there to cheer on the Road and the Derailers, and "make the gig."

Like anybody, I'm wary of a "scene." But, my gut instincts, built up from my 11 years in God's Country tell me that this is not a scene. This is a Gig. Minnesotans love Country. They love it twangy, dark, funny, accomplished, and real. And the little gnomes started swinging their sledgehammers on the bells of hillbilly freedom when my old friend, Darrin Rosha, stumbled up and shook my hand. Darrin owns the Owatonnas, Buffalos, and Hoffmans of Minnesota Twang nightlife, and it was refreshing to see him at a "Big City Gig." I got him to shake hands with Paul Demko of this fantastic pucblication (who incidentally wrote one of the greatest Twang articles of the year recently, Pulitzer Prize all the way), and hopefully this will create another "On the Road with the Country Element" article. Can't have enough of those. If Darrin takes him to just ONE vet appointment early in the evening, it will have been worth the handshake introduction.

I kept waving at Ray Bernard of The Copperheads. Ray's a listener. He probably got more out of tonight's show than any of us, and I hope it's true, because Ray is one hell of a wordsmith.

Many of these folks were introduced to Professor Al Kunz of Rockzillaworld, someone who can hopefully do these hardworking individuals some kind of justice in meaningful press.

Oh yeah...the Derailers smoked everything. The art of the Honky Telecaster is a fine American craft, and anyone who thinks it's just stupid hillbilly noise is a dumbass.

The point of this moronic, ham-handed blog is that fantastic country twang music happens in your town every night, and you just might be missing it.

Addendum to "Making the Gig:" Right at the end of the Derailers' set, a guy in a tshirt that said, "Stunt Clown" on it walked up to me and shook my hand. He told me he bet another guy $100 he could take off my cowboy hat and pee in it. I told him if he could get a crowd together and enough money, I'd let him. Apparently he sells these Tshirts "on the side," and it has something to do with rodeo clowning, which is its own rich slice of Americana. Anyone who's been to my web site also knows I have an affinity for all things clown. If anyone knows this guy, email me and tell me how to get a hold of him. "We're like those guys on MTV...what is it? Asshole or hole ass (spilling a little beer)," he said, "only crazier."

Posted by Jack Sparks at May 1, 2003 1:36 AM

 

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