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February 2006
« January 2006 | Main | March 2006 »The British Are Coming, and They Are Funny And Smart And Pissed
Filed under: This Week's Wordage
Dear Peter,
Long time no see or speak. I confess I've kind of had my head up my ass for a while now, so I haven't been able to listen to too much new music. I'm looking forward to sitting down with your new Kris Kristofferson and the new Rosanne Cash. Tonight, maybe. When Jean and the kids go to sleep.
Maybe Henry and I will stay up and we'll watch a guy movie. That's one of our favorite things to do on a Friday night: The girls go to bed and we watch something stupid, or smart, or funny, or beautiful. How's Autry? Don't you love being a dad? Even with all the shit. Give our love to him and Jennifer.
I'm pretty sure Henry thinks I'm lame these days. I've been recording some of my songs, and he's been with me every step of the way. He says, "Dad, not to be mean..." That's how he and his sister Helen preface everything these days. "Not to be mean...," and then they say whatever's on their smart-ass authority-questioning minds.
Anyway, he said my music is too acoustic and boring and that I should make music that's more like Green Day. Apparently he never learned the lesson I got from you: that there are precious few more intoxicating sounds than an acoustic and electric guitar mating in the dark. So I tell him, "Make your own CD, Bud." Not to be mean, but...
So here I am, checking in. Thanking you, finally (again?), after all these years, for your enthusiasm and grace and wonderful tutorials in my "youth." The late-night listening parties, real and (now) imagined, one of which I had last night with my friend Brianna Riplinger, the best young rock writer going. She's one of us. I walked into her art- and rock-poster plastered apartment here in Minneapolis last night and she said, "I'm forever a 14-year-old boy, Jim." I played her some stuff and she played me some stuff, but the high standard was set early when she played me almost the entire debut by the Arctic Monkeys, WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY I AM THAT'S WHAT I'M NOT. The night ended with her preaching to me and her roommate Cynthia, a funny, sexy, kind, sweet pastry chef, about why The Arctic Monkeys are the best band in the world. Which, beyond the band in question's obvious merits, is something you decide as a music lover ("I was saved by rock 'n' roll" uh-huh), because you desire as much; you want to bring that into being. It ain't hype; it's hope.
Brother, it was like a fucking Baptist church in there. I kept egging her on, telling her to preach it, say it out loud, preach the gospel, fuck the joyless cynics, fuck the American Idol-hypnotized morons, fuck the finks and vampires and scumbags, fuck the hipsters, fuck the Heathers, the British are coming, and they are funny and smart and pissed.
("I'm not like you/I don't want your advice or your praise/Or to move in the ways that you do/And I never will/'Cos all you people are vampires/And all your stories are stale/And all you pretend-to-stand-by-ers/I know you will certainly fail")
Most of all, they are really, really alive. When that great rock 'n' roll motherfucker Jesus Christ was walking past a funeral procession, he asked the mourners to follow him and hop on the love and life train. They furrowed their brows and said, "But Lord, we must bury this man." Christ kept walking and said, "Let the dead bury the dead."
Lot of dead people these days, Pete. Some are still breathing.
Please tell me you've heard these little shits. They're the real deal, and it seems like all the White Stripes and Ike Reilly and Strokes and Wannadies and punk rock of the last few years has been leading up to this. Bri and I were stoned, both taking notes throughout her tutorial. Ranting. Raving. Coming.
("Last night what we talked about/It made so much sense/But now the haze has ascended/It don't make no sense anymore.")
Will Hermes interviewed Patti Smith a few months back, and Jay (my brother; speaking of great rock tutors) turned me on to it. This is what she said: "Rock 'n' roll is our cultural voice. I saw it evolve in my lifetime - I'm gonna be 59 in December - and it was revolutionary, in every way. It gave young people an outlet to channel all this new energy. I mean, look at what's happening in Paris right now. Part of me wishes I could just go into the streets and say, y'know, 'What the fuck? Here-here's a Marshall; here's a Strat.' That's the beauty of rock 'n' roll. It's a voice."
Have you heard these fucking kids, from Sheffield? Home of Joe Cocker and Def Leppard. They've got a song called "I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor," about having a crush on the girl behind the counter ("nothing but a customer...," yikes), and I told Bri about this girl who works in the sandwich shop outside of Jimmy John's in Calhoun Square here in Minneapolis. I saw her when the kids and I were Christmas shopping for Jean; she thought the kids were beautiful. She had great Sasha Cohen eyes. I saw her a week later, and we waved at each other as I walked past. It was sweet.
'Course, The Artic Monkeys would have done more than wave. If I could boil it down to one thing that they're saying, it would be, "The planet's on fire, let's dance." And it occurs to me as I crank it up that this is why we keep listening. For a moment like this. Beatles, Pistols, Clash, Oasis, revolution.
("Well oh they might wear classic Reeboks
Or knackered Converse
Or tracky bottoms tucked in socks
But all of that's what the point is not
The point's that there isn't no romance around there
"And there's the truth that they can't see
They'd probably like to throw a punch at me
And if you could only see them, then you would agree
Agree that there isn't no romance around there
"It's a funny thing you know
We'll tell them if you like
We'll tell them all tonight
They'll never listen
Cause their minds are made up
And course it's all okay to carry on that way
"Over there there's broken bones
There's only music, so that there's new ringtones
And it doesn't take no Sherlock Holmes
To see it's a little different around here
"Don't get me wrong though there's boys in bands
And kids who like to scrap with pool cues in their hands
And just cause he's had a couple of cans
He thinks it's alright to act like a dickhead
"Well over there there's friends of mine
What can I say, I've known them for a long long time
And they might overstep the line
But you just cannot get angry in the same way"
They're huge in England, of course. Disenfranchised, disillusioned, jolly old brilliant England. And they sound like a rocket ship. They make you laugh, and feel, and rock. Which is what I need these days, because my best boyfriend got laid off from his fucking advertising job and he's hurting, my sister Molly's having a baby probably this week, my brother Bird just bought a house and he's a great dad, so he's worried, I'm wanking around with my little acoustic guitar, in d-e-t up to my eyeballs and going nuts and my kids are looking at me like, "What are you going to do to change this world you've left for us? Are you going to help us clean it up, or are you going to be part of the problem?"
Fuck if I know. First of all, I'm going to make them listen to the Arctic Monkeys, whose debut record came out in America four days ago, who Brianna will be seeing in Chicago the night before fooking St. Paddy's day. And I will tell them that it's worth being awake for moments like this.
See ya in Austin, at the Neil Young or Billy Bragg-Joe Henry shows. Or, heaven help us, at the Arctic Monkeys St. Paddy's Day gig at La Zona Rosa, where we saw Lucinda a few years ago. If we can get in.
Love ya man,
Jim
Posted by Jim Walsh at February 24, 2006 11:46 AM | Comments (26)
HOMIES ALONE: THE FIRST (OF HOPEFULLY MANY MORE TO COME) LOCAL MUSIC-ONLY MIXES
Filed under: Weekly 20
2. "History," The New Vintage. Led by esoteric rock-blues-punk vets Grant Johnson and Mike Nicolai, these cats come off as timeless as their moniker suggests ��" especially on this duet, which riff-rocks as hard and as melodically as any of the historians they influence��"drop. Dig the new breed, baby.
3. "Cheaper By The Ton," Missing Numbers. I love it when songs unfurl themselves and play hard to get, rather than throwing themselves at you. This one, from their new one No Anecdote and sung by that great cry-at-your-fear vocalist Jimmy Peterson, is a creeper that sneaks up on you slowly but also immediately, the way those Valet records do. Or John Doe's latest. Great stuff; push repeat.
4. "Altitudes," Wisely. Former Minneapolitan Willy Wisely has always had a knack for a pop hook, but this beautiful one soars so high -- on the wings of a buttery vocal and the ever-seductive civil union between a gentle acoustic guitar and a squalling electric guitar - it should come with a hit of Dramamine. From his new one Parador, which drops March 14.
5. "Stand Up (Let's Get Murdered)," P.O.S. Add it to the Bob Marley ("Get Up, Stand Up") and Public Enemy ("Fight The Power") canon, though an ex-skate punk rapping to his information-overloaded generation somehow carries more weight: it takes more to cut through, and hell if it doesn't.
6. "Unnoticed," Colonial Vipers Attack. Minneapolis turns out so much quality fuzz-pop (I'm thinking all things Susstones and Landing Gear and the whole Otto's Chemical Lounge thing), and these guys are no slouches, either. This is a terrific love-lost-and-found song, on par with the Church or some of the more anthemic early '90s Brits, with a crunchy guitar that pops out of the speakers and into the psyche.
8. "Coquette On Horse," Malachi Constant. Difficult to choose just one from their trippy new one Pride (I'm also partial to "the Traditions" and "Telekinesis") but you can't go wrong with this raver, which rises and falls apart with frothing punk-gypsy élan, Television guitar-art, and whispered vocals that feel like the shudder before the shout.
9. "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned," Prince. The night before the Super Bowl on Saturday Night Live, the king of Detroit Rock City out White-Striped the White Stripes with this blues-drenched rocker, turning in a motherfucker of a guitar solo.
10. "Angel," Storyhill. This is a couple years old, but I just heard it the other night when a friend played it for me. The singer -- John Hermanson, the Twin Cities' answer to (name your undiscovered unheralded genius songwriter here) -- comes on like the narrator of Wings Of Desire or Clarence in It's A Wonderful Life, laundry-listing the travails of your life, but in the end tells you that everything's all right since he's here now. The thing is, his magic works. His magic heals. Nothing short of momentarily miraculous.
11. "Listen Joe," Golden Smog. Creepy to tease, but I've been listening to an advance of the Smog's new one, Another Fine Day all week, and this Louris/Tweedy tune is one of my faves. Along with a half-dozen others.
12. "Barb and Brad," House Of Mercy Band. The HOMB's monthly Sunday-night hootenanny at the Turf always feels like a cozy throwback to barn dances and live radio shows. This old-timey fiddle-fueled skipper (lyrical revelation: "ain't the moon shining bright tonight?/we push, we shove, we compromise, we love") from their new one Blesses Curses (or Songs From The Blood Washed Band) is that sweet vibe in a nutshell, and could make a believer out of an atheist.
13. "Seven Hours," Big Ditch Road. One of the best definitions of the blues I've heard is that the blues singer sings first and foremost to himself, with no consideration of audience or product or even the future of the song. He's simply putting it down, because it's all he can do to make sense of the world, to pull himself out of his own darkness. This confessional comes with the alt-country stamp, but take it to the bank; it's pure blues. With no drama or self-pity, singer Darin Wald lays it out there casually, chronicling how his depression landed him in an institution, and how "I was really close" to ending it all. Anyone who's been there will recognize the everydayness ��" definitely not desperation ��" of such a moment, and anyone who's pulled themselves out will hear the giddy-up of the brushes on the snare and be happy that shared beauty can come from such pain.
14. "Do What You Love," Beau Kinstler. In which the singer kicks off his new CD Ocean with a "follow your bliss" mantra that can't be said often enough. Or does he? At first it comes off as a simplistic upper, but then the harmonica solo kicks in and the kid starts questioning his own love-making and life skills, which gives it a wisdom that goes beyond "Don't Worry, Be Happy" territory.
15. "Touch It," Jelloslave. The rave and ambient music rages may have cooled to some degree, but if this hypnotic nine-and-a-half��"minute track off Jelloslave's debut CD is any indication, the back rooms and strobe-light cathedrals are still throbbing. At the core of this sound sculpture is cellists Michelle Kinney and Jaqueline Ferrier-Ultan, whose baroque squalling is layered under Tom Hambleton's tribal beats, found sounds, sonic dialogues, and a sensory rush that catapults the listener into the church of nature. Where's my incense?
16. "Real Light," The Jayhawks and 17. "Renaissance Man," Dylan Hicks. How cool is this music town? Some beautiful bootlegger out there puts together an 18-song compilation of his/her favorite Twin Cities live moments, and drops it in the mail for wretches like me. Thank you, stranger.
19. "Where The Sinners Are," Brett Larson. This story-song -- amongst many good ones, from Larson's sophomore CD Blood Of The Faithful -- gives yet more credence to the idea that questions are always more interesting than answers.
20. "Beautiful Song," Dutch Oven. Yes, she was/is. From the just-released, eponymous, limited-edition, long-overdue long-player.
Posted by Jim Walsh at February 20, 2006 1:45 PM | Comments (1)
Ride Daddy Ride, Twenty Songs for Lovers, and a Letter from Pat Donnelly in Sin City
Filed under: Weekly 20
This is easy. Never mind the chocolate and lobster and "flirting expert" tips. For all your V-Day needs, go directly to the Electric Fetus and buy this:
I was there the other day, and they still had a couple dozen in the rack, begging to be plucked. Lucky pluckers: Every song's a nasty highlight, from vaudevillians, jump-blues pioneers, and blues bastards, all singing about the pleasures of pleasure. I recognized exactly one cut going in -- "It Ain't The Meat, It's The Motion," by the Swallows, which, as a young motion-loving man I was introduced to by Southside Johnny -- but every one of these 18 tracks is a horny revelation.
My fave at the moment is Bo Carter's "Let Me Roll Your Lemon," an antecedent of Prince's entire early catalog. Or Floyd Dixon's "Baby Let's Go Down To The Woods," the live recording of which sounds like foreplay to an outdoor orgy. Or The Hokum Boys' "I Had To Give Up Gym" (due to, um, exhaustion). Or the set-closer, Jimmy Preston's "Hucklebuck Baby," which extols the joys of a brick house woman and encourages, "ride Jimmy ride." Will do.
What's more, the pulp-y artwork and free-your-ass liner notes from Neil Kales alone could make Katherine Kersten unclench her goody-two-shoes and fuck like my girl Diablo Cody. An excerpt:
"Poets and philosophers have often been a miserablist bunch, queuing up to deride what they saw as the shallow nature of pleasure. On the subject of sex, both Hippocrates and Plato regarded carnal activity as a "squandering of seed" incurring an unnecessary loss of energy. Adolescent wet dreams were regarded as the precursors of insanity, among the other lesser inconveniences of fornication. "Those who are bald... during intercourse the phlegm in their heads is agitated and burns the roots of their hair so that the hair falls out.""St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas seemed obsessed with bodily purity and sexual disgust, while the poet Dryden translated Lucretius thus: "Just in the raging foam of full desire, when both press on, both murmur, both expire, they gripe, they squeeze, their humid tongues they dart, as each would force their way to other's heart. In vain: 'they only cruise about the coast, for bodies cannot pierce, nor be in bodies lost.'
"Shame about that. Freud discoursed cheerily 'On The Universal Tendency To Debasement In The Sphere Of Love,' while Rousseau believed, equally unappetizingly, 'I really know of nothing more revolting than a terrifying face on fire with the most brutal lust.' Schopenhauer, meanwhile, perhaps foresaw the troubles ahead of Mussolini, Bill Clinton, and doubtless many others: 'Lust is the ultimate goal of almost all human endeavour, exerts an adverse influence on the most important affairs, interrupts the most serious business at any hour and does not hesitate to disrupt the negotiations of statesmen.'
"Our final killjoy testimony comes from Kant: 'Sexual love makes of the loved person an object of appetite. As soon as the other person is possessed and the appetite sated, they are thrown away as one throws away a lemon that is sucked dry.' (A writer of less renown, the singer Bo Carter represented on this album, would surely take issue with this comparison with his relish expressed as 'Let me roll your lemon, oh baby until your good juices come.'
"We are left, realistically, with Thomas Hobbes in the Carteresque corner, rather than the Kant one: 'The appetite which men call lust is a sensual pleasure, but not only that: there is also in it a delight of the mind, for it consisteth of two appetites together, to please and to be pleased.'
"Well said, Thomas, and it is a confident assertion that Fats Noel would have been on your side, too. A little-known jump blues artist sadly without a complete album solely devoted to him, Noel's endearingly rowdy performance on this rocking 1952 opening track makes a mockery of his obscurity."
And so on. On your mark, get set, go to the Fetus. In the meantime, here's this week's mix, for lovers only:
1. "Haunted," Sinead O'Connor and Shane McGowan. Probably the best duet about longing ever recorded. 'Course, that distinction might belong to "Fairy Tale Of New York," which my new friend Dan sang the shit out of in my new friend Christa's pad Saturday night, as I swung dance Dan's wife. We wuz all hopped-up on tequila and love and the moment -- Unlike Jon "never enough about me" Langford, whose History Of Punk Rock Walker performance I bailed on to party with a bunch of strangers. Thank God for spontaneity, showing-not-telling, music, strangers, and Minneapolis Weird. Here's a picture of Chad and Dan, inspired by Cuervo Gold:
2. "Kiss, Kiss, Kiss," Yoko Ono. Her plea for peace at the Olympics was rad, and "Imagine" is a wonderful prayer, but for some reason I prefer the sound of her having multiple orgasms. Can someone please tell me what "Mota!" means in Japanese?
3. "Skin," The Wannadies. Very basic, very delicious, very chewable. A ditty for the cannibal in all of us: "I love your skin/and what's within." Chomp.
4. "Smile," Beau Kinstler. The amber-voiced young man sang this Jayhawks' song at the funeral of Tom and Bill Sullivan's mother last week, and turned an already-magnificent hug into a chin-up love song that embraced the entire church.
5. "I'll Be Your Mirror," The Velvet Underground. Nico as the ultimate muse. Speaking of which, this is the coolest tattoo I've seen in ages, as spotted on the bicep of the coffee shop dish behind the counter at the very groovy Wilde Roast Café over northeast. And the coolest neighborhoodie I've seen in ages is the one with a quote from this cat, as spotted on the chest of the bookaholic dude behind the counter at the very groovy Ron's Market over south. Viva Minneapolis.
6. "Tear You Apart," She Wants Revenge. More anticipation, more flesh-eating, more, more, more.
7. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor," Artic Monkeys. I ask thee! Who among us hasn't stood across from another human biped in an ordinary day-time moment and wondered what the other guy would like in bed or in the throes of a transcendent dance experience or... oh fuck it, here's Bri.
8. "Bring It On," Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The sound of one man standing in the place where he doesn't live, but is willing to let whatever happens happen. He rhymes "bring it on!" with "c'mon, c'mon," double-dog daring the love gods to do their worst and bring him the best he's ever had. In other words, the complete antithesis to "you can't always get what you want" and "be careful what you wish for" restraint.
9. "Tell Her This," Del Amitri. The song-equivalent of a boy passing notes to his girl's best friend: "Tell her what was wrong/I sometimes think too much but say nothing at all/Tell her I am ready now to fall."
10. "Broom People," The Mountain Goats. In which the beleaguered shut-in's woes disappear into her arms.
11. "Stay With You," John Legend. As pretty a declaration of love, as, say, "Let's Stay Together."
12. "In The Yard, Behind The Church," Eels. Great make-out spot, dude.
13. "Last Of The V-8's," Slaid Cleaves. I've got a lot of punk and hippie in me, but a big part of me is kissed by the '50s greaser who lights out with his fellow rebel girl, the way they did in...
14. "1955," Jim Roll. You can have your Blackberry this and your IM that, but it says here there is no more romantic connection than two lovers with nothing better to do than sit on the porch and watch the sun go down. Hit-you-over-the-head time: IF YOU DOWNLOAD ONE SONG OFF OF THIS LIST MAKE SURE IT IS THIS ONE. AND IT WOULDN'T HURT TO LEAVE A COMMENT NOW AND THEN. JESUS CHRIST ALREADY.
15. "Love Songs On The Radio," Mojave 3. The slide guitar feels like the curve of a woman. And: I love the idea of thousands of lovers cuddled around the hearth of Mark Wheat Tuesday night for more love songs on the radio.
16. "Sunflower," Tracey Spuehler. So sweet a celebration of one woman's love, you can almost smell the blossoms.
17. "In My Secret Life," Leonard Cohen. It ain't over 'til the froggy man sings, and sometimes not even then.
18. "She's Not Right For You," Macy Gray. Gotta love a woman who's got the ovaries to say it out loud and stake her claim.
19. "Come and Find Me," Josh Ritter. That one about the Northern Lights is thanksgiving for the perfect love; this is the yearning that came before.
20. "(I'd Go The) Whole Wide World," Wreckless Eric. From Erica Jong: "Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it... It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
This week's guest Walsh Filer is Pat Donnelly, the great musichead, KFAI deejay, and freelance sports/feature writer who lit out for Las Vegas last year with his family. Give us the long-distance love, Patrick:
Ever since I traded the friendly, blue-tinted faces of Minnesota for the bright lights and blistering heat of Las Vegas, I've had momentary bouts with homesickness. After all, Minnesota was the only home I'd ever known. It's where I'd done my best work, made my best friends, dug in my roots.
But life's all about change and rolling with the punches, so here I am. And when I get nostalgic for my home state, here's what I listen to. I'll avoid the clichés and more obvious choices (sorry Prince, Dylan, 'Mats, et al), and some of these picks are more personal. But remember, this isn't a Minneapolis Greatest Hits list.
1. "Write My Ticket," Tift Merritt. Anybody who's ever been a transplant and dreamed of returning home would relate to this song. There is no way she could see/How much this cold rain gets to me/How much I've traded/For a picture in my mind.
2. "Thrice All-American," Neko Case. I've never heard a more honest, endearing, warts-and-all tribute to one's home. In this case, Neko sings of her adopted hometown, I found passion for life in Tacoma. Can you pay a place a better compliment?
3. "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Gordon Lightfoot. I think this was the first 45 I ever bought, and I remember being entranced by the haunting lyrics, creepy-mournful guitar and the story I vaguely recalled hearing as a tot. To this day, it continues to inspire awe in the dark majesty of Lake Superior.
4. "Hockey Song," Tragically Hip. You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey/Well I never heard someone say that before. They actually do have a minor-league hockey team out here and it's got a decent following. But nine out of 10 Las Vegans couldn't tell Bobby Orr from Benjamin Orr.
5. "Hornets! Hornets!," The Hold Steady. The whole damn album -- both of them, actually -- could have made this list, but this one stands out for its Edina-inspired title, as well as the number of times I saw skaters and hoodrats hanging out at Nicollet and 66th.
6. "Sky Blue Waters," The Glenrustles. From the opening lines -- Up in the land of Ely/Nobody noticed the sounds/Of the silence that surrounds you/And the leaves all rusted 'round you -- the song drives you on a tom-tom trek through the Land of Lakes.
7. "East Side Boys," Martin Zellar. The dead-end kids of Austin might as well have been hanging out on the sidewalks outside of New Ulm Junior High, mysterious, almost mythical characters you didn't dare cross on your luckiest day. Wonder what they're doing now.
8. "Prom Night at Hater High," The Long Winters. Of course, any time I start looking ahead to my next class reunion, this song slaps me back to a version of reality that is different from what John Hughes movies portray. Now my only ties to that old scene/Are the same mean people in pre-owned jeans/I used to love them all/But they burned me up, Goodbye.
9. "Southern Minnesota," Mason Jennings. Never saw a meteor in the prairie sky, but I do have lasting memories of star-gazing in the inky dark of the countryside, and seeing the Big Dipper over our garage roof from our back door.
10. "Hoover Dam," Sugar. Now that I've actually stood on the edge of the Hoover Dam, I don't know what to think. It's big.
11. "Screen Door," Uncle Tupelo. Sometimes the simple pleasures in life are the best, like sitting around on the porch with your banjo, fiddle and a jug of moonshine. Or, as it was in New Ulm, sitting in the Johnson Park grandstands after a baseball game with a cold Schell's , telling the same stories you've told a thousand times before and laughing just as hard as the first time you heard them.
12. "Percolator," Cajmere. Ever been to a Gopher women's basketball game (best value for your sporting ticket money in town, by far)? This is the song they play right before the anthem, and as the Gophers line up, you can't help but be caught up in the goofy "dancing" of some of the players, just eager to get the butt-kicking under way.
13. "Tilt-A-Whirl," Slobberbone. Remember that time when you took your gal to the amusement park, and she got mangled by a ride because a drunk carnie fell asleep at the wheel? Yeah, me neither, and yet, this still sums up damn near every Brown County Fair of my youth.
14. "Raspberry Beret," The Derailers. You just haven't lived until you've seen four Texans in full western dress playing the twangiest, sweatiest, funkiest version of Mr. Purple's hit at First Ave. I've heard it said that the first time ain't the greatest/Well I'm here to tell you I would not change a stroke. Indeed.
15. "72 (This Highway's Mean)," Drive-By Truckers. Southern Rock Opera is DBT's attempt to show another side of the south -- "the duality of the Southern thing" as they put it -- and for the most part it comes through in spades. But this song transcends the South and takes any small-town kid down a dusty road he knows like the back of his hand. I don't know why they even bothered putting this highway on the map/Anybody who's ever been on it knows exactly where they're at.
16. "My Wasted Friends," Ike Reilly. With a tip of my Twins cap to our gracious host, I'm one of many music lovers turned onto the brash Chicago bard by Mr. Walsh. From the Turf Club to the Entry to the Main Room, Ike's star seems to keep rising. And he's just the kick in the crotch this city needs. Maybe we could sneak him onto the bill with Wayne Newton.
17. "Bleeding Fingers," Lucinda Williams. I thought about including "Minneapolis" from the same album, but this song is purportedly written about Paul Westerberg, and that's all you need to know.
18. "Miss Teen Wordpower," New Pornographers. Not only did they put on the two finest shows I ever saw at First Ave, but this song conjures memories of every bespectacled English major chick I met at the U. God how I miss those days.
19. "Niteclub," Old 97's. Dallas to NYC is roughly the same distance as Vegas to MSP, and the heartache and homesickness in this song is universal.
20. "Sculpture Garden," Semisonic. They kick off their Live at First Ave CD with this song, which takes your brain on a stroll through the heart of Minneapolis, the nexus of Uptown and Downtown, the arts community, the lakes, Parade Stadium, the old Guthrie, the Walker ��" pretty much everything that's great about Minneapolis, in a tidy, three-minute journey.
Posted by Jim Walsh at February 13, 2006 3:17 PM | Comments (0)
BROTHER BILL TUOMALA TO THE RESCUE!!
Filed under: Weekly 20
I know I promised an all-local Walsh Files for this week, but I gpt busy doing the Mama Cass thing ("Make your own kind of music, even when nobody else is around") and I will not bore you with the details. I promise to return next week with all the P.O.S. and Baby Grant Johnson and all the rest.
In the meantime, thank goddess for my boy Bill Tuomala,
writer, musichead, hockey nut, and creator of the most excellent 'zine Exiled On Main Street. Go get it brother Bill:
1. "Snowblind," Black Sabbath. There was a great, wet snowfall last Tuesday night and I was trapped driving around south Minneapolis without my Sabbath Vol. 4 album. Oh well, the song isn't about snow anyway.
2. "Surfer Joe and Moe the Sleaze," Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Surfer Joe is a folk hero who first showed up in 1963 on the same slice of vinyl as the Surfaris classic "Wipeout." By the end of the tune it was assumed he was being shipped off to 'Nam. Poor Joe. Ever since, he pops up now and then in songs, for instance in 1990 he showed up in Paul Westerberg's dreams on the 'Mats last album. Here, in 1981 on the great lost Neil album Reactor, he hangs out with a hustler named Moe. They chase women and booze. Alright Joe!
3. "They Called It Rock," Nick Lowe. A hit-and-run description of a one-hit wonder. Played with the kind of desperation that makes you wonder if Lowe feared that one-hitdom would also be his fate.
4. "Tombstone Blues," Bob Dylan. Required listening for noted bullshit artist Pete Townshend, whose music I love. In the latest MOJO, he declared that circa '65: "Dylan's rock 'n' roll was silly rock 'n' roll, he couldn't play rock 'n' roll, he's never been able to play rock 'n' roll." Care to give another listen Pete?
5. "Armenia City in the Sky," Petra Haden. Included on the all-Who-covers CD that came along with the MOJO mag mentioned above. From her all-vocals remake of The Who Sell Out album from last year. She even does the psychedelic guitar noises vocally. Hypnotic in the best way possible.
6. "The Great Airplane Strike," Paul Revere and the Raiders. Fuzz-drenched Dylan imitation complete with Bob-like vocals. Great fun ��" and the opening riff was ripped off by the Dead Kennedys, who weren't nearly as funny or as cool or as punk as the Raiders.
7. "Charlie Freak," Steely Dan. Hats off to eBay, where you can buy quality used vinyl LPs like Pretzel Logic for ninety-nine cents all with the click of a mouse button. Hmmm, tell me more about this iTunes music store …
8. "Hair of the Dog," Nazareth. The Winter Olympics hockey tourney starts next week and I am told that the USA men's hockey team are 10-1 odds to win the gold. Canada is favored at 6-5, the Czechs are at 3-1, the Swedes are at 4-1, and the Russians are at 11-2. Hell, we have the same odds as the Slovaks -- who for some reason are more favored than the Finns (12-1.) Huh? (Note: these odds are for entertainment purposes only.) Here's hoping the USA youth movement featuring the likes of my man Jason Blake -- formerly of the University of North Dakota and Moorhead High -- acts like the pesky SOBs they are capable of being and pull off some upsets.
10. "Lies," The Knickerbockers. James Frey, while being scolded by Oprah, should have just grinned, chuckled, and said: "I'm laughing all the way to the bank, lady."
11. "Pour Me Another," Atmosphere. The other night in Uptown a panhandler asked me for money, saying he wanted to buy a pitcher of beer and wasn't going to lie "like the others and say that I need money for the bus." As we beer drinkers don't have a union (yet), I slapped him a George and wished him luck. I love Minneapolis.
12. "Just Another High," Roxy Music. Is it a conspiracy? That they never tell you that Roxy albums three, four, and five are soul albums and not art- or glam-rock?
13. Theme song from "Cheers." Love those reruns on channel 45. My day job is as an accountant, I love beer. All the (fortunately female, sigh) servers at my favorite watering hole know my name. If I were Catholic, Norm Peterson would be my patron saint. Hell, I'm pretty sure he is anyway.
14. "I Wonder If I Care As Much," The Everly Brothers. A dreamy, trippy, 1968 remake of one of their earliest songs from ten years prior. Gorgeous. They wrote it also -- obviously using a time machine because everybody knows rockers didn't wrote their own songs until the Beatles came along.
15. "Monkey Man," The Rolling Stones. Dedicated to Pat Robertson and believers in "intelligent" design everywhere. When the Book of Genesis puts a man on the moon, let me know.
16. "Breakout," Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. Speaking of the Stones, whose hare-brained scheme was it to put some Brits on the Super Bowl halftime show when the game is being held in Detroit, one of this country's greatest music cities? I put my TV on mute and played Detroit music on my stereo loud and proud during halftime.
17. "Multitude of Casualties," The Hold Steady. An all-time fave lyric: "At least in dying you don't have to deal with new wave for a second time."
18. "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," Waylon Jennings. Latest Netflix obsession: The Wire. Great scene in season two: Detective Jimmy McNulty stays up late working on mischief meant to screw other police while this song plays on the radio. That dude has become part of my vernacular -- i.e. "pull a McNulty."
19. "I Do," The J. Geils Band. First a hit for the Marvelows in 1965 (thanks allmusic.com), later covered by soul revivalists Geils in one of those hand-clapping, doo-wopping performances that produces a grin every time.
20. "Sleeping My Day Away," D:A:D. Some days there is nothing sweeter than waking up at the crack of 4:30 p.m. to catch "Pardon the Interruption" on ESPN.
Posted by Jim Walsh at February 6, 2006 9:22 AM | Comments (0)
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