September 2006

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Song du Jour

The Waterboys, "This Is The Sea." This was the last song I heard on my headphones last night, before I dozed off on the porch with my book on the floor. I got in a car accident Thursday afternoon -- rear-ended on 94 in the rain -- and my wife gave me a muscle relaxant, which did me in. The last thing I remember is the utter transformative powers of this song, which I've written about before, but which last night took on a power bordering on the mystical.

Now I'm sitting here wondering for the first time if songs sometimes act as premonitions, or precursors to real thought and actions. For the past couple days I'd been thinking about how little philosophical effect the crash had on me. I had no ephiphany that made me want to cherish life more fully, and chalked up the non-reaction to being older and harder to impress, epiphany-wise.

Then I heard this song, which I've heard a hundred times, easily. It always gets me; I wish I'd heard it when I was 14. "That was a river," sings Mike Scott, about the past; "this is the sea," he sings, about the present and future -- yours, mine, ours -- and in its waves of awe it is sheerly and simultaneously hopeful, bouyant, and terrifying.

Then last night, as the devil-fiddle was fading out along with my consciousness, I heard Scott sing a line I'd never heard before:

"Behold the sea."

Behold the sea! It took my breath away; did I hear him right? He wasn't just celebrating the sea, he was insisting that I behold it. It unlocked something in me. It had always been a great live-in-the-moment power-of-now message, and a reminder of why I've always been drawn to water -- the infinity of the lakes, the creek, the ocean, the Mississippi River (water from which makes up 83 percent of all Twin Citians) -- but now it was a demand, coming from a wiseman, that hit me with as much force as a 55-mph car.

It also took me back to On A Clear Day, a beautiful British film about a middle-aged guy who drags his buddies along with him on his dream. He swims the English Channel, and the methodical approach he takes to his training will be recognizable to all Zen-types in the Twin Cities Marathon, whom I am with in envious spirit today.

Student: "I've achieved enlightenment, master. Now what?"
Master: "Chop wood and carry water."

Today I chopped wood and carried water. I dug weeds, cut the lawn, tore down the tire swing, cleaned the basement, picked up my daughter's friend (whose 12-person family lives in a house the size of an antfarm and are very likely not wrestling with questions of existentialism), went to the book and record store, and to the hardware store with my neighbor Pete, whom I recently met and started talking to about seeking, big questions, mysticism, history, and the freedom that comes with not having answers to anything.

All the while, I had KFAI-FM's Good and Country on the radio. It's the best thing about Saturday afternoons -- tooling around listening to all these obscure decades-old songs about love, death, murder, drinking, cheating, heartache, beauty, lust, good, evil, heaven, hell, gambling, friendship, lost love, found love, and everything else they haven't named yet, and realizing yet again how universal the human condition is.

And at the moment, I'm wondering if any of these unconnected dots would have been connected in my head had I not gotten whiplash, or heard Scott's order for me to "behold" the beauty of the world, or found this prayer waiting for me over the e-transom as I sat down to write tonight:

Pray for Peace
by Ellen Bass

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah.
Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin, and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile cases we are poured into.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas--

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 30, 2006 11:32 PM | Comments (1)

 

Song du Jour

The Gun Club, "Sex Beat" and "She's Like Heroin To Me."
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Posted by Jim Walsh at September 30, 2006 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

Count Basie and Oscar Peterson with Joe Mauer, "Homerun."

Marlin Levinson/Star Tribune

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 29, 2006 7:12 AM | Comments (3)

 

Song du Jour

The Replacements, "Cool Water." I always thought Chris Mars wrote this ditty while haunted by the Hamm's jingle ("from the land of sky blue cool waters"), and I can't read anything having to do with Hamm's -- such as today's cool cool Don Boxmeyer piece -- and not hear this celebration of simple pleasure, or have it take me back to my first beer (a Hamm's), with my boy Rick Schreiber, sitting on the banks of the Minnehaha Creek after baseball practice.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 28, 2006 9:19 AM | Comments (3)

 

Song du Jour

The Concretes, "On The Radio." God and creepy culture vultures forgive me, but this is gonna be sentimental. It's my little girl's eighth birthday, and some guys never get to see their little girl's eighth birthday, or third or 28th or 50th, because they go to war with themselves or the world, and don't make it home.

So I'm feeling lucky to be alive. Partially because I moved a friend today. It was the classic Minneapolis move: 25th & Dupont to 25th & Blaisdell. No biggie. We listened to The Current the whole time, the five of us, and talked about the songs and, on a ridiculously beautiful afternoon in the kill-the-Republicans-with-kindness-in-2008 Twin Cities, heard this says-it-all tune in the middle of a perfect-day-for-a-move-and-hookie set:

4:12 Charlatans UK - Glory Glory
4:09 Tom Waits - Filipino Box Spring Hog
4:05 The Long Winters - Sky is Open
4:01 Ane Brun - To Let Myself Go

3 - 4 PM
3:57 Mason Jennings - Be Here Now
3:51 Ray LaMontagne - Be Here Now
3:46 Grand National - Drink To Moving On
3:41 Apollo Nove - War
3:36 Alexi Murdoch - Dream About Flying
3:31 Ben Harper - Better Way
3:27 The Alarmists - Some Things Never Stop
3:21 De La Soul - Me, Myself And I
3:16 The Lashes - Daddy's Little Girl
3:13 Mission of Burma - Spider's Web
3:10 The Wedding Present - I'm From Further North Than You (Acoustic Version)
3:07 Amy Millan - All The Miles
3:02 Ugly Duckling - Slow The Flow

2 - 3 PM
2:58 Spank Rock - Rick Rubin
2:54 Drive-By Truckers - Feb14
2:50 Chris Koza - View From a Pier
2:44 Built to Spill - The Wait
2:42 Teenage Fanclub - What You Do to Me
2:39 The Rosebuds - Back to Boston
2:35 Nickel Creek - Why Should the Fire Die?
2:32 Weezer - My Name is Jonas
2:28 Paul Westerberg - Meet Me In The Meadow
2:23 Sonya Kitchell - Can't Get You Out Of My Mind
2:16 GST - Money
2:12 Lilys - With Candy
2:10 Mike Doughty - Rising Sign
2:07 M. Ward - Right in the Head
2:03 The Concretes - On The Radio
2:01 Super Furry Animals - God! Show Me Magic

1 - 2 PM
1:55 Michael Franti And Spearhead - Everybody Ona Move
1:51 Calexico - Yours and Mine
1:46 Bruce Springsteen - Froggy Went A Courtin'

The whole day made me fall in love again with this city and its music, and it reminded me yet again that I've met most of my favorite people through music. All of whom have a common survivor mentality, which they get from hearing others make art out of pain and joy, and music helps them find different ways to love and take care of each other, etc.

The non-musichead-in-my-head sometimes says, "Where will you be when the music stops?" Meaning, "When America's Armageddon comes, you're going to be so fucked up on the unreality of music you won't be able to deal." Fleeting, that. Obviously. The music addicts I know come from all walks of life, and they're strong and weak. The main thing they share is guts, and incredible inner lives that will serve them well in the face of election season and beyond.

That's why I'm more interested in "Where will we all be when the music starts?" You know, when Dan Wilson uncorks "You and Me Against History," and Ike Reilly lets fly "It's Hard To Love An American." Coming soon to a change-agent-on-the-radio near you.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 27, 2006 4:47 PM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

Beight, "It's Coming Down" (unreleased). This was the winner at last night's Rift 36-hour Songwriting Contest at the Bryant-Lake Bowl, in which 13 songwriters had 36 hours to write a song about the same topic: snow. Brad Senne (a.k.a. Beight)'s tune was a whimsical flurry of doomsday-worthy metaphors, including the importance of staying back 500 feet from the big yellow trucks, and a chorus that made the first snowfall of the year feel like ashes from Pompeii.

Other highlights:

Dana Thompson's murder ballad, which sounded not unlike Iris DeMent doing a Handsome Family song, what with her pushing her ex off a cliff just to watch him fall slow... y'know, like the... snow. It brought nervous titters from audience and singer alike, who simultaneously seemed to realize that hell hath no fury like a Minnesota woman scorned.

Terry Eason's sweet ode to his "snowgirl," whom he met at a rock show during a Minnesota winter.

Dan Israel's weary winter tale, Desdamona and Carnage's riff on the power of polar icecap-melting powers of self-reliance, Ben Glaros confessing and concluding that "I don't need this fucking snow" to bring him down, and Jenny Dalton's weird piano-pushed tale of her brother, trapped in a Norwegian snowstorm without a compass, but who ends up "surfing in San Diego."

All in all, this is one of my favorite local things going. It introduces you to new music (I'm listening to Beight's dark and sweet new CD at the moment); it's fun to hear what folks come up with, and it's inspiring to see how artists react to the idea of creativity-on-the-spot (I speak from experience; I was one of the songwriter/guinea pigs last night). Next installment is November 4. See ya there.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 26, 2006 8:57 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

Your Loving Tiger, "Pick Up" (from the new CD What Gives). Ye olde scenario of the dumped waiting for a morsel via Ma Bell has been traversed by songsmiths from Blondie ("Hanging On The Telephone") to Sugar Ray, Ernest Tubb, The Drifters ("Pick Up The Phone"), Prince ("How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?"), and the Replacements ("Answering Machine"). This one, by local honky freaks Your Loving Tiger (no Earlimart/Sparklehorse/Grandaddy fan should be without YLT's "The Long Arm Of The Lamb"), sounds like it was recorded under a post-Katrina porch.

In the Ninth Ward.

With a banjo.

On a cellie.

Played back on a Victrola.

Sung by a washed-up body on the shore who shore enough sounds like he's been through a shitstorm, but still wants to hear his shitstorm girl's voice.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 25, 2006 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

Drive-By Truckers, "Goddamn Lonely Love" (from The Deep South) and Suzy Bogguss, "Drive South" (from Greatest Hits)

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 24, 2006 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

 

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Posted by Jim Walsh at September 23, 2006 11:42 AM

 

Song du Jour

This Train Won't Slow Down, "Mess Of Love" (unreleased). Think Polyphonic Spree busking with The Mamas and the Papas on an indelible hook/sentiment ("We are fools for making a mess of love") in four-part harmony. Viva the late-night joys of trolling Myspace.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 23, 2006 1:05 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

John Prine, "Hello In There" (from John Prine)

Feeble is the
Only word
To describe her now
Bitter, too
You and I
Would be, too
I suppose
If our mornings and afternoons
Were one long
Intravenous drip
If our evenings
Were spent
Worrying about
The Move
And being grilled by
A visiting therapist
Who finds
"Smoke annoying"
And so she
Sits in her
Apartment bathroom
Blowing smoke
Out the window
"Like I'm in high school"
Luckily,
Her reading material
For the night awaits
On the coffee table
Next to the mints
And the Betty Boop doll
The Ikea catalog:
"Celebrate Your Everyday Life"

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 22, 2006 8:59 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

David Brusie, "Understood" (demo). This town is lousy with good young songwriters at the moment, and after only one introductory listen, this guy is one of the best. It was difficult to hear him last night over the wine-and-dessert crowd at the Wilde Roast, but talent floats. And it occured to me as I sat in front of a cozy autumn fire -- alone on the couch and alone in my listening -- that good songs also make good background music.

With the hub-hub of wi-fiers and first dates and chatter (and, from what I could see, not a single friend/fan of the singer's), it was not unlike the Ani DiFranco song, "Asking Too Much," where she snaps to attention to the hum of her potential lover and says, "What did you just say?," as if she can't believe another soul just reiterated a part of her she didn't even know was alive.

That is: A song can be anything you want it to be, and never more so than when you're half-hearing it.

This coming from the Good Listening Scold. This coming from a guy who has spent his entire life believing that singers and songs should be paid their due reverence, and here I was last night, accepting of the loudmouths and music-impaired and digging the missed lyrics, faint melodies, and a Mountain-Sufjan-Goats voice that harmonized so naturally with the clanks and whirrs of the bustling kitchen and espresso machines.

Brusie never flinched. A Boston transplant, he's the real deal: Brimming with heart and heartache and the kind of musical chops and quiet confidence that gets unearthed alone in the woodshed, and honed in joints that serve up indifference with the Chai Tea. The fact that Brusie's songs are still unreleased will change, and soon, because his days when the rest of us only half-listen are numbered.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 21, 2006 7:36 AM | Comments (2)

 

Adieu to the Tin Star Sisters!

Loving the sissies.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 20, 2006 5:15 PM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

Razorlight, "Who Needs Love?" Great pub-rock from a fab foursome that recalls the Faces and Rumour more than Stones or Beatles. They may best be known for the current single "America," but this clarion call to wake up and not smell the roses of romance is the pop-rock equivalent of Dylan's similarly weary kiss-off "Sick Of Love." Put it in an email along with the one where Neko Case sings, "Thanks a lot, I got a broken heart," and send it to someone who cared.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 19, 2006 11:57 PM | Comments (1)

 

Song du Jour

John Mayer, "Waiting On The World To Change" (watch the video). One of the biggest lies of this war and these times is that there exists no so-called "protest" music. The charge usually comes from boomers who remember their various calls-to-arms that changed the world, but even a cursory listen to the radio or toe-dip into the underground proves topical songs are everywhere.

This is one of the finest. A mournful little Marleyism for anyone who has ever wanted to throw a brick through the TV as the local newshounds serve up another lacrosse-mom-aimed story about Why You Should Be Afraid Of Everything, cringe at another circle-jerk for "our" Katie Couric, or felt their pulse race a little at the Network-y diatribe that opened Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip last night.

And it's important to note that the chorus is "Waiting ON the world to change," not "FOR"--the distinction being between the passive and active; not "if" but "when": the world will change, and for the better, and maybe a soft-rock tune can play a small part in it.

Look, I'm surprised as anyone to be writing about a John Mayer song here. But since I heard it (before the opening credits to Invincible the other night), I've had it lolling around in my head. And until the next "Fight The Power" or "Put A Little Love In It (According To John)" or "Be Here Now" comes along and enters the charts and hearts of a nation, this sad rumination/reaction to the overwhelming task at hand will do.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 19, 2006 8:03 AM | Comments (1)

 

Song du Jour

High On Stress, "Cash Machine" (from the 2006 CD Moonlight Girls). After taking in the late show of Half Nelson last night at the Lagoon, I fed my movie-long yen for White Castle. Pulled up to the drive-through at midnight, ordered four sliders (.49 each!), and ambled out onto the quiet Lake Street. My brother always jokes that I'm the only one in the world who likes White Castles sober, and when I bit into that first one, it was as good as this honky-cat ode to the joys of having a little cash in hand (Dylan Hicks' "Hundred Dollar Bill," anyone?): simple, warm, delicious, and still with me this morning.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 18, 2006 8:41 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

The Only Ones, "Another Girl, Another Planet."

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 16, 2006 9:51 PM | Comments (2)

 

Song du Jour

Eels, "Saturday Morning"

Saturday Morning
And who's gonna play with me?
Six in the morning, baby
I got a long, long day ahead of me

The parents are sleeping soundly
The neighbors are dead as wood
I'm getting up and coming over
We gotta rock the neighborhood

Nothing's ever gonna happen 'round here
If we don't make it happen
Sleep away the day if you want to
But I got something that I gotta do

It's Saturday Morning
And this ain't the place for me
I'm giving you warning, baby
We got a whole big, fat world to see

Nothing's ever gonna happen 'round here
If we don't make it happen
Sleep away the day if you want to
But I got something that I gotta do

It's Saturday Morning
And who's gonna play with me?
Six in the morning, baby
I got a long, long day ahead of me

Saturday Morning
Saturday Morning

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 16, 2006 9:13 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

The Mountain Goats, "Half Dead" (from the new CD Get Lonely). "This keeps getting called 'a break-up record,'" John Darnielle told the sold-out pin-drop crowd at the Triple Rock last night. "But the thing is, no matter if you've got a wife or a girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or whatever, you can still be lonely."

Then he eased into this, just one of a dozen songs that struck a previously unstruck nerve with everyone in the joint, and which somewhere along the line morphed from personal confession to eulogy for a world that too often feels half-dead, given how little regard we the people have for the soul and human life, from Minneapolis to Montreal to Kabul.

How did the president put it? "The war is taking a toll on Americans' psyche," or some such thing, for which he was ridiculed, and called soft, but to me it was the one true thing he's said. On the way home from the bar last night I saw a guy sitting in the middle of Cedar Avenue, surrounded by five cop cars. "I am not a bad person," he howled; "I am not a bad person."

People are unraveling out there. Some, of course, are keeping it together better than others. Darnielle, for one. (Not for nothing is the cover art for Get Lonely that of an old-timey boxer in fighting stance). At the end of the night I bought a T-shirt and ran into him and gave him a hug -- the least I could do to shepherd him on his way as an ambassador for inner truths, and living proof of how a tender spirit can forge ahead in a brutish world. The very least.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 15, 2006 8:43 AM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

Jeremy Messersmith, "Novocain" (from the new CD The Alcatraz Kid). A few years ago, Patrick Park whispered to me

Hush, hush before you say
Something you can't take away
You step out for a cigarette
You wait and you watch and you try to forget
How the world doesn't need you around

"Honest Screw" was one of those cry-in-your-existential-whine songs that sticks in your head and rears itself at the weirdest times (I swear I took my morning pee to the sound of the chorus ringing through my ears for a month). To this day it remains a balm for whatever ails you; a tonic for anyone who just untucked from the fetal position, and one more reason to keep living the sometimes purposeless-driven life.

This tune, by the frighteningly talented Messersmith, is its bookend. With a gorgeous Lennon/McCartney/Dando trill, his Alcatraz Kid is, along with Joseph Arthur's Nuclear Daydream, the best break-up record of the year. But all sorts of records get called "break-up records." The best go beyond blowing-on-the-bruise and actually summon the lost love itself -- not with hope, but with its more solvent cousin, faith.

To that end, the exquisite "Novocain," among many others on this beautiful debut, does what Edward Norton does in The Illusionist: turns grief into paranormal magic.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 13, 2006 4:08 PM | Comments (0)

 

Song du Jour

M. Ward, "Chinese Translation" (from the new CD Post-War). Great story-song that finds the broken-hearted singer going to a wiseman in search of enlightenment and freedom from suffering. The epiphany comes in what the wiseman says ("I was once a young fool like you, afraid to do the things I knew I had to do, so I played an escapade just like you"), as well as in the train-kept-a-rollin' snare and Johnny Burnette guitar.

All of which says: Go do what you gotta do, make your mistakes, break your heart, but don't worry so much. Better to have loved and gotten hurt than not (been) loved at all.

Always a good message, not to mention gift.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 12, 2006 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

 

Jim Walsh Sucks

Don't forget to vote today.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 12, 2006 9:44 AM | Comments (0)

 

Ramones Tribute Show at Lee's This Saturday!

Hey, ho. Let's go. During the Vikings game last night, my dad and I were talking about our failing memories for minutia and names. I'm glad there's people like this to keep the anti-nostalgia love alive, and I'm glad I wrote stuff like this:

April 16, 2001
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Section: Local
Edition:
City Page: 4B
Column:
JOEY RAMONE 1951-2001
Memo: OBITUARY: For Joey Ramone's obituary, see Page 5B

REMEMBERING THE ONE WHO BROUGHT FUN BACK TO ROCK
Jim Walsh, Pop Music Critic

The Ramones played their first Twin Cities concert in 1976 at the old Kelly's Pub in downtown St. Paul. The Suicide Commandos, the local band that formed around the same time as the New York rockers, opened.

The afternoon of the show, a couple of underage kids from Minneapolis, one of whom wore a Ramones T-shirt, drove across the river and parked in front of the bar. The kids had never been to a bar of any kind before, but they were gonna give it a shot.

"We love the Ramones," the kid with the T-shirt told the bouncer at the door. "We just want to see the band. We won't drink or anything. Will you let us in? Please?" It was 5 p.m. The Ramones wouldn't be on stage until almost midnight. The bouncer gave the lads the once-over, propped the door open, and barked "Get out of here."

Which is what the kids did. But they didn't stop listening to the Ramones. They drank quarts of Mountain Dew and played endless games of foosball while listening to the Ramones' classic debut album and their follow-up, "Rocket To Russia." A couple of years later, the kid with the Ramones T-shirt wore it under his gown when he graduated from high school.

A couple of years after that, the kid found himself hauling gear into Sam's (later First Avenue) for one of the many Ramones gigs the kid would see over the years. The kid's big brother's band, the Neglecters, was opening the show along with the Replacements. When the 'Mats finished their set, singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg primed the crowd for the Ramones by saying: "The best band in the world is up next. If you don't think so, f--- ya."

Now the kid is writing a column about the death of Joey Ramone, 15 minutes after he heard the news, 45 minutes from deadline. He is thinking about what Paul said. He is thinking about how damn much fun the Ramones were, how insanely fresh they sounded in the mid-'70s.

He is thinking about what it felt like, pogoing to exhaustion, being lifted off his feet at those shows, about the crush of flesh, the shout-along choruses, and the fact that SPIN magazine got something right when, in its latest punk special edition, named "Ramones" the No. 1 punk record of all time.

He is hoping that Zippy the Pinhead somehow acknowledges Joey's passing, because the Ramones brought pinhead culture to the masses, and humor back to rock 'n' roll. He is thinking about all the people who will be crushed when they hear the news - the musicians, record store clerks, and people like his friend Mary B. Good, the biggest Ramones fan he knows - who once upon time were all united under a flag that bore the Ramones' unofficial battle cry: "Gabba Gabba Hey!"

He is thinking about the beginning of the Ramones' shoulda-been-classic "Rock 'n' Roll Radio," which crackles with static, and a radio dial searching for something that crackles, something real, and Joey's nasally opening line, "Do you remember rock 'n' roll radio?"

The kid is thinking about how much fun it would be to hear that blasting out of the radio today, but he knows that that is not about to happen anytime soon.

More than anything, the kid is thinking about how Joey Ramone always made him feel like a kid, and how he probably always will.

Gabba-gabba-hey.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 12, 2006 8:34 AM | Comments (1)

 

Song du Jour

The Hold Steady, "Boys and Girls in America" (from the forthcoming Boys and Girls in America). One of the things I cherish most about Craig Finn is that he doesn't forget his past. He remembers the kid he was, and the kids he hung with. He sees himself in his fans, and constantly lets them know they aren't alone; that the "I" in "there but for the grace of God go I" is him, you, and me.

His empathy for the adolescent (actual and/or arrested) is palpable and powerful in all his songs, but there is also something close to bittersweetness here, as he and Holly and their hoodrat friends slouch towards adulthood. Me, I heard this elegiac piano-propped passion play on the radio -- still the best place to really hear a teenage wasteland anthem -- on a rainy weekend that found me:

1) Bearing witness to the sight of my neighbors' 16-year-old daughter laying on a gurney after her head hit the windshield in a wicked two-car accident on 50th and S. Lyndale, not far from where Finn and I grew up. (Saw her the other night at home; she's still picking shards of glass from her scalp, but she and everyone else are OK).

2) Media-mourning for Courtney Brown, murdered for his throwback Morgan State basketball jersey on 38th and N. Lyndale, not far from where I hung with my high school buddies, and the five other kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time that night, all of whom will spend their lives digging out from one stupid moment.

3) Listening to my 11-year-old son talk fearlessly and funnily about being the smallest kid on the football team, and his first-ever week of football practice at his new school.

This one's for them.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 10, 2006 11:49 PM | Comments (3)

 

Song du Jour

Fergie, "London Bridge." Maybe it's my filthy mind. Maybe it's the last gasp of summer. Maybe it's fall fashions. Maybe it's too much "My Dingaling" on the AM growing up. All I know is that every time this dimwitted chorus comes around

How come every time you come around,
My London, London bridge, wanna go down like,
London, London, London, wanna go down like...

I start to convince myself that Fergie is the most romantic poet since Mary Oliver, and that her "London Bridge" is actually her pants zipper (OK, labia), which wants to but won't go down or over because her little boy lover is too inexperienced.

Whom I will magnanimously coach here: Brother, go slow. Kiss her on the stomach. Drag your whiskers over her rib cage. Then sit back and watch the Thames flow. Happy 9/11, everybody!

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 10, 2006 10:33 AM | Comments (3)

 

Song du Jour

Honeydogs, "Too Close To The Sun" (from the forthcoming Amygdala). Everyone knows what happens when you fly too close to the sun. You get your angel-ass burned. But hey, a guy's gotta fly. I mean, how could you not want to get so close to all that Light and Beauty? The kind that Pearl S. Buck knew of; she came so close to the sun, she discovered that

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

"Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off... They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating."

That's not why I love this song, though. I love it because it's got a Murmur to it, and because the guy singing it, Adam Levy, gives a shit about his friends and family, cares so much about so much that he sometimes fucks up and feels too much in the land of don't fuck up and feel too much.

I love it because you can hear a very specific weep in his throat. It's almost as if Levy feels like he's the only one who hasn't developed the hardware required to delete the image of a kid in his hometown U.S.A. getting murdered for a fucking football jersey. Am I the only one who feels ashamed?

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 9, 2006 1:39 PM | Comments (0)

 

Sept. 11, 2001

Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
St. Paul Pioneer Press Archives

In the wake of attack, 'business as unusual'

by Jim Walsh
Pop Music Critic

Shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, I stood outside a classroom at my daughter's pre-school, talking to a mom who had come to school early to pick up her daughter. "I just want to touch my girl," she said.

Another was crying. The red in her eyes matched the red in her "I Voted" sticker she wore over her heart. She was worried about her husband, who was in transit from his job. Others talked about Pearl Harbor, revenge, racism and what to tell their kids.

I put on some music. Specifically, I put on U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind," the record that has offered me more guidance in the last year than anything else I've heard or read. I went straight to track eight, "Peace On Earth," and started driving.

"Heaven on earth, we need it now," sang Bono. "I'm sick of all of this hanging around/Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain/Sick of hearing, again and again, that there’s gonna be peace on Earth."

As the acoustic guitars padded away and the organs chimed, a surreal sight flooded my windshield on this, the morning of International Peace Day: An electronic marquee on a freeway overpass screaming, "Mall Of America Closed." The faces of the few other drivers around me looked waxen. For miles I looked for smiles, a sign of one soul who had not been ruined by the morning's events.

"Jesus could you take the time to throw a drowning man a line/Peace on earth," sang Bono; "Tell the ones who hear no sound/Whose sons are living in the ground/Peace on Earth."

I got off the freeway and parked by the side of the road to listen and watch. A woman worked on her garden. A man delivered flowers to a house. A jogger dodged a FedEx truck, a woman strolled her baby, a couple punk rockers sat outside a coffee shop, the sun was out. Business as unusual.

"No one cries like a mother cries for peace on Earth," sang Bono as a bright yellow school bus tooled by. "She never got to say goodbye, to see the color in his eyes, now he's in the dirt/That's peace on Earth."

I started driving again and found myself heading towards the church I grew up in, the one I spent so many years half-praying in, the one I hadn't been to in years. When I got there, it was as quiet as the city streets were eerie. I sat down in a pew near the back, and then did what an older woman, the only other person there, was doing: Got on my knees.

Back in the car, Bono sang, "Jesus this song you wrote/The words are sticking in my throat/Peace on Earth/Hear it every Christmas time, but hope and history won’t rhyme/So what's it worth, this peace on Earth?"

When I got home, I turned on CNN, turned down the sound, and turned up the music. The TV screen was crippled with chaos and Bono, whom some of my friends hate because they think he's an egomaniacal do-gooder, was singing about it. I was glad to have him.

"They're reading names out over the radio/All the folks the rest of us won't get to know/Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda/Their lives are bigger than any big idea."

Great song. Again, it's called "Peace On Earth." I played it at least 30 times today, and it wasn't nearly enough, because to my way of thinking, it should be coming out of on every radio station in every corner of the globe, 24 hours a day for the rest of whatever we call our lives.

Pop music critic Jim Walsh can be reached at jwalsh@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5553.

Hello Jim,

I just read your "In the wake of attack, 'business as unusual'" article,
and I got the urge to thank you for realizing the greatnes of Bono, and his
songs.

Jasmina Kos
from Kutina, Croatia

I just wanted to let you know that I received an email that you had written
about the attock in New York. I got it the day after it happened ( I think)
my days are running together lately. I have to say thank you. After I read
it, I turned off the news and put on that wonderful U2 song and I suddenly
felt better. I don't know why I didn't do it sooner, U2's music has helped
me through so many hard times in the past 20 years that I've been a fan. I
just wanted to you know that you helped me. I know you don't know me, but
that email was wonderful. It's hard to come to grips with what has happened,
but at least as long as the U2 music plays I hold out hope for the future.

Thank you,
Susan Zarit

P.S.
Please feel free to email me anytime.

dear sir,
I have just read your story on the disaster in new york and you captured my feelings exactly. When I was first told about the attacks at work, i started singing 'peace on earth' to myself for the rest of the day, unfortunately I did not have bono's voice to comfort me in the wave of shock that passed over the whole world.

I too, feel that the world should be listening to this song, especially the groups that are declaring war. i may live in a thousands of miles away but all my family are scared by the thought of war, especially my sister who is currently studying WW2 in school.

Anyway, I just felt had too write to you after reading your article as it was so identical to how i have been feeling this past week. I was just glad I found someone else who has found comfort in the words and music of u2.

Yours,

Karina Mcadam (18)
Scotland
karina_mcadam@hotmail.com

Hello,
my name is Joanne Kendrick, and I have just this second read your piece
about the New York terrorist attacks, and how you played U2's 'Peace on
Earth' nearly 30 times. As I was reading it I was listening to the song -
by pure coincidence. I would just like to say that you were exactly right
about the song - i even put it on repeat to listen to it once more.

I'm from the UK, and everyone I know has been affected by what happened in
America. Lets just hope something like this never happens again.

All the best,
Jo
Dear Mr. Walsh,

I'm writing from Calgary, Canada. We too have been deeply shaken by the
attacks in New York and Washington. Like you, I turned to music. I spent the
whole day with tears in my eyes and when it came to the time when I was
finally going to bed I laid down with my headphones on and listened to
'Peace On Earth' in the dark and finally cried. It was intensely theraputic
and I agree that this song should be coming out of every radio station in
America because there is a lot of sorrow, pain, fear and rage in the hearts
and minds of people...something is needed to comfort all our souls.

Grace,

Cameron Ansorger

Tremendous spirit Jim. I'am a Pastor and U2 fan, and yet this is probably
the most beautiful way of expressing what has just happened. That song
should be playing on every radio station around the world. Bono first and
foremost knows that Jesus is our only hope in times like these. Nothing
else makes any sense. I hope many lives are touched through this article. I
also hope Bono reads it and sees how prophetic that song is for now. Again
thanks and Blessings and Peace on you and everyone who needs God's comfort
and prayers at this time. Love, Dan

Jim,
I don't know who you are but, I just wanted to tell you that the piece you
wrote on @U2.com was really good to hear. I myself drove around yesterday,
however listening to Sunday Bloody Sunday and just weaping. I find myself
drawn to their lyrics at this point in time even more than before. I just
had to let you know that it was nice to hear of someone else absorbing
their music as we try to make some kind of sense of all this terror.
a fellow fan,
Patsy

Just wanted to thank you for the thoughts about "Peace on Earth", as if the song was written for this week.

All the best,

Bill

Hallo!
I just wanted to say I really liked and appreciated your article on tuesdays
tragedy and how U2's peace on earth helped you through it. I am in toronto
canada, so I was not as deep in the thick of it as you were but by the end
of the day I started singing If God Will Send his Angels (or at least what I
could remember of it)from POP and with out even thinking put on Dirty Day
from Zooropa. I was surprised when I listened to the lyrics, that that song
was what I instictevly chose to put on.
"Looking for explinations/I don't even understand/if you need someone to
blame/throw a rock in the air/you're bound to hit someone guilty"
Anyway its nice to know that someone else soothes their malaides with
music...
Thanks and god bless...

Meryle

"Bless those who play like children.
May they infect all those who doubt."

How eloquently you picked the right phrases and how
fitting they are to this particular incident. I see now that we, in America,
have been so insulated that we thought it couldn't happen here. I cannot
fathom the hate that these people have for us. I am stunned still. I know
growing up in Ireland has been quite a different life than we are used to. I
see now, unfortunately, how violence and ignorance, and overzealousness can
be deadly. It is so sad. I keep saying that. But I know nothing else to
say. I feel so heavy. I am so glad we have bands like U2 to ease the pain a
little. I am going to listen to my c.d.s now. I am far away from New York
and I still don't feel that safe. In fact I live about a mile from Barksdale
AFB where Bush was brought yesterday on his way back to DC. I hope that we
can have peace on earth too. Sincerely, Tammy Harris Thanks for your
article.

The most intelligent comment, one of the very few intelligent comments,
I've heard, spoken by a survivor from the 80th floor, on either CNN or
the BBC, or whatever other channels we get here in Singapore, which to
my way of thinking they ought to be broadcasting world-wide 24 hours a
day while they've got everyone's attention and people are so stunned
they just might be willing to listen to sense for a change: "We have to
figure out how to get along better than this. This is an unacceptable
reality." Peace on earth.

I am a lifetime NYer

Your article touched me. The song has never been more poignant or
appropriate. I'll be sure to blare it on my stereo tomorrow, i'm sure like
you have done - many times
Thanks

andrew

Dear Jim,
I am so sorry to hear what has happened to your country, our
thoughts and prayers from Australia and around the world are with you all
through this difficult time.

It's hard to know quite what to say, I read your article on a U2-mailing
list today and my heart feels so heavy for you all. Please know that we are
praying for "peace on earth" in your country and the rest of the world.

Please take care and may God bless and protect America and all those seeking
shelter from terrorism.

Our deepest condolences

Christine Ward

Mr. Walsh,
My name is Casey Forrester. I live in Atlanta and an internet friend
forwarded your article "In the Wake of Attack, Business as Unusual" to me
today. I also listened to a couple of U2 songs all day yesterday, namely
Peace on Earth and If God Will Send His Angels. You've expressed my thoughts
exactly. I just wanted to thank you for your article.

Casey

I was linked to your column from a U2 fan site (U2log.com), and was really,
really touched by your piece on the recent terrorist bombings. You echoed my
sentiments quite precisely, and I must say for the first in a great while I
was visibly moved by something I had read. Thanks, and "peace on earth,"

Matt Colman
Los Angeles, CA
Jim,

I came across the wonderful writing you submitted via atu2.com. I am from the Philadelphia, PA area, and a local radio station WMMR (93.3) played a remix version of Peace on Earth earlier today. The song is intertwined with sound bytes of the tragedy that we all experienced yesterday and will continue to experience for a great many days ahead.

I am a big U2 fan and share, with you, the relevance of that beatiful song along with so many they have written over the years. Thank you for your thoughts!

Jay

Jim,

I just wanted to let you know that I have read your article and have found
it to be very powerful. Like yourself, "..."All That You Can't Leave
Behind," the record that has offered me more guidance in the last year than
anything else I've heard or read." I work in Baltimore, MD and there was
panic in the city yesterday as all over the United States. I still cannot
believe that 3 major buidlings have been leveled and the pentagon partially
destroyed. To see a plane fly into one of the towers is almost unreal.
Almost a scene from a movie, but it's real. This is too real.

U2 is a spiritual guide and leader for all listeners. They "elevate" all
us. Whether people like them or not, their lyrics are very powerful. I
don't know if this is going to make much sense, but I wanted to contribute
something in response to your article.

Thank you,
Kevin

I agree. Never in my short lifetime have I been faced with something like this. I've always been inspired by the passion in U2's music...and now for the first time I can truly relate. I want to do something. I want to help. Bono has always been a role model for me. I feel it now. I'm trying to organize my own recording session for local bands here in Omaha, Ne. It isn't much...but I bet we could raise some money for the people of New York. Maybe we could inspire as well.........

Thank you so much for putting into words what I have not been able to say. I too scanned ahead to Peace on Earth in my car this morning as I took my son to school and the words have never had more meaning. I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, especially when I saw all of the American flags my neighbors have put up. Peace on Earth and Sunday Bloody Sunday have always been identified in my mind with the Irish "troubles" but they have both taken on a new meaning. "I can't belive the news today, I can't close my eyes and make it go away." That one line sums up what every American is feeling today better than any I can think of at the moment. I will NEVER forget where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001. That day also happened to be my 35th birthday. Nothing to celebrate. Thank you again.

Charlene Estrada
Placentia, CAHallo.
My name is Antonella. I'm not American, I'm Italian, but as a citizen of the
world I have the heart broken. Since yesterday I'm watching tv, and I can't
believe what I see...
I'm a U2 fan, I read your article. Well, I know very well that song, and
what you wrote led me to tears.
I just wanted to tell you this, I needed to. For you it could have no
importance, but I felt the need to tell you that you are right: everybody
should listen to that song.
God bless you
Peace on earth
Antonella

Thank you for writing that you were listening to
this song. There will be no song long enough to
sing the names of all who died yesterday and for
days to come. I can only hope that Bono's words
come true some day, that we will have peace. In
the meantime, "Jesus can you take the time to
throw a drowning man a line?"
Thank you also for the "I believe in rock and
roll". You write what is in my heart.

Regards,
DocAnne, frequent poster to the U2 newsgroups and
eternal hoper.

=====
www.angelfire.com/journal/wilsonscat

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 8, 2006 5:36 PM | Comments (1)

 

Song du Jour

Joseph Arthur, "You Are Free" (from Nuclear Daydream, in stores 9/19). That rare tune which, in its utter simplicty, pens your life back to you. When he sings, "I'm no longer who I was, no longer who I thought I was," he's every water-treader who has ever crikey-ed to the realization that s/he's changed for the better. When he sings, "I'm not afraid of losing myself, there ain't no self to lose," he is every seeker who has ever discovered the peace of emptiness. But when he sings, "suffering is gone... you and me... you are free," he is wholly himself: the voice of one lover cutting the astral umbilical cord that has connected him to another; one who has outgrown him, or them, or the drama of him/them, the tug-of-which is at the core of this exquisitely autumnal collection of songs.

Perhaps most poignantly, as he did with his masterpiece "In The Sun" ("may God's love be with you"), Arthur also comforts the listener, to the blessed beat of tambourine, piano, and drums, and a prayer of, "Jesus loves you more than you know." Whitman wrote, "There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done... every man shall be his own priest." That time is now, and Joseph Arthur is love.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 8, 2006 12:35 PM | Comments (1)

 

Song du Jour

Mike Nicolai, "The Depths Of Love" (from the album God Fatigue In The Post Atom Age). I broke up with a girl years ago. Not long after the deed was done, I ran into her and asked if she was going to a concert by a songwriter I thought we'd shared. Turns out it was only me. To this day, I can remember the sick smile that came over her face when I asked if she was going to the show. "No," she said. See ya later.

Until recently, I saw her lack of interest as a betrayal; that during our time together she'd merely pretended to like the music in order to be with me, which probably speaks more to my teen/twenty self-centeredness than her poserdom, but as I think of it this morning, listening to Mike Nicolai sing about how "some people will do very awful things in the depth of their love," I realize that she knew she couldn't go hear all those songs and pretend it was just another concert, another night out. Every other lyric or note would be a reminder of how we were, how we could have been, and why would any ex-lover want to willingly pick that scab?

That's how it is in the depths of love, of which Mike Nicolai, who sings at the 331 Club tonight (Friday) and Aardvark Records and the Hex tomorrow (Saturday), knows something. "Down in the depths of love you can go a bit crazy/ There is the smell of blood down in the depths of love," he sings, in a way and on a lo-fi recording that some might demean as "demo-quality." But recording artists make all sorts of choices, and in this age of Pro Tools, overkill-production, and the likes of Bob Dylan bemoaning the sound quality of the CD, Nicolai's unfettered big-picture rumination on the darkside of love goes straight to the aching aorta in all of us.

Posted by Jim Walsh at September 8, 2006 9:53 AM | Comments (1)

 

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