1. David Curcurito,  Eddie Van Halen: The Esquire Interview (esquire.com, posted 4/17/12). The source material for the Esquire feature provides a few more interesting tidbits on the notoriously press-shy gee-tar god. I call bullshit, though, on Van Halen’s assertion about Roth: “We never really hated each other …We’ve never on a personal level not gotten along.” Anyone with fifteen minutes and either an Internet connection or a copy of Roth’s memoir will see the quote for the bit of Pasadena-style historical revision that it is. It does the ol’ ticker good, however, to see proof of Van Halen’s recovery, both from recurring tongue and throat cancer and from the alcoholism I was convinced would take him eventually. The twin influences of his second wife and his bass-playing offspring have apparently kept him on the straight ‘n’ narrow for the last few years, and the prospect of making more music like the smile-inducin’, Godzilla-stompin’ racket on A Different Kind of Truth could make sobriety stick this time. We can only hope.

2. Renee & Jeremy, A Little Love (One Melody Records, 2012). I hate Coldplay, but I will admit (grudgingly, but I do so much else with a grudge of late, it really doesn’t matter) that I put “Yellow” on a couple mix discs back in, like, 2000 or 2001. Whodathunk it’d be such a great song for kids? Then again, damned near anything Renee Stahl and Jeremy Toback set their voices and instruments to becomes great kindie music. Here, they feast on a plateful of cool folk and rock tunes, both obvious (“Shiny Happy People”) and not so much so. Their run through Supertramp’s “Give a Little Bit” is well served by the effortless harmonies that flow out of the pair. John Lennon’s “Love” gets a playful romp that is wholly original in its conception and execution, and Jackie DeShannon’s” Put a Little Love in Your Heart” becomes a languid anthem for the kindergarten set. The only misstep is their take on Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away,” which simply flies too far afield of the original to work (they also chicken out on the “What I got you gotta get it put it in you” line. Boo! I understand, but “Boo!” anyway).

That aside, the record works; Renee & Jeremy aren’t just great kindie artists; they’re a great indie folk duo who I image would make excellent work in whatever genre they choose. A Little Love whets the appetite for another album of originals; right now, though, to hear “Yellow” in a non-Coldplay context is sufficient.

3. Marvel’s The Avengers (Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures, 2012). As a friend noted on Facebook last week, “People sure have a hard-on for superhero movies.” My inner seven-year-old concurs (though I don’t think he would quite use those terms) and joins my outer fortysomething in enjoying the hell out of this orgy of Marvelousness. The non-IMAX 3-D was worthless (if you saw the IMAX, sound off below) but the CGI actually seemed soulful, Downey’s wisecracking Tony Stark was spot-on brilliant (who else is ever going to play that role in the eventual reboot?), and they finally got the Hulk right. The masterstroke, though, is Tom Hiddleston as Loki, the perfect blend of arrogance and evil. And the mid-credits reveal of Thanos as a potential next villain sets things up perfectly for the next brace of sequels—Iron Man 3 (May 2013), Thor 2 (November 2013), Captain America 2 (April 2014), and, if ye gods be with us, another Avengers flick by the time my inner seven-year-old turns ten.

4. “I Am Steve Albini, Ask Me Anything” Reddit Chat (posted 5/8/12). Albini might not be a universally beloved guy, but he has produced one of my favorite albums of this year (Attack on Memory, by Cloud Nothings), one of my favorite albums of the last five years (Manic Street Preachers’ Journal for Plague Lovers), as well as most of my favorite rock album of the last 20 years (Nirvana’s In Utero). Here, he takes on all comers, answering questions both informed and inane, and shares some memories that are quite interesting, and some opinions that are—well, Albinian. Read it.

5. Martha Waggoner, “N.C. OKs Same-Sex Marriage Amendment,”  (time.com, posted 5/9/12); “Transcript: Robin Roberts ABC News Interview with President Obama” (abcnews.go.com, posted 5/9/12); Blerd, “Blerditorial: What Did Gay People Ever Do To You?”  (popblerd.com, posted 5/10/12); Margaret Talbot, “Wedding Bells,”  (newyorker.com, posted 5/14/12). I admit to being ignorant of North Carolina’s Prop 1 until I stumbled upon the Web site of my former parochial school’s parent church. Two weeks before the legislation to write discrimination into the state’s constitution was thrown open to voters, the church’s pastor spent an entire set of Sunday services setting out the supposed Biblical argument for not only denying same-sex couples the legal ability to marry, but even having their non-marriage domestic unions nullified in the eyes of the state. Let me reiterate this—the pastor of a decent-sized church in North Carolina (a tax-exempt entity, mind you) spent the bulk of his pulpit time one Sunday advocating for a law that discriminates against certain citizens. Discrimination. The pastor of a church. And I’ll bet whatever’s in my wallet against whatever’s in your wallet that he was not alone.  ’Twas appalling, but not at all surprising.

I tried for years to reconcile the religion I was taught as a child, with what I, in my heart, knew and somewhat feared I actually believed, or, more to the point, didn’t believe. I was 18 when I turned my back on the church, while still holding out the hope I would regain faith. I was 35 when I finally gave up. The seeds of my loss of faith were sewn during what I typically joke was my period of “incarceration” in the school run by the same judgmental and insufferably self-righteous people who agitated for the approval of Prop 1. The fact that these supposed people of a supposed God worked toward the incorporation of discrimination into state law belies any teaching of their God’s love for his flock, if they even bother to incorporate that into their sermons anymore. I seem to recall a lot more brimstone and torture and retribution in their sermons back in the day.

My issues with religious matters aside, I would have some skin in this fight, due to my relationships with people who would be affected by such legal shenanigans, were they to creep into the constitutions of Pennsylvania (where I live) and elsewhere. My best friend—a man I have known for 25 years, and whom I consider a brother—lives a short drive from where I’m writing this, but had to go to Vermont last year to get married. His husband cannot be seen as more than a “friend” or “significant other” or (their least favorite term) a “partner” (though not in the legal sense) in PA. They two are as perfect for one another as my wife of 17 years and I are for one another, and they deserve to have their marriage recognized wherever they go.

I am emotionally invested when something heinous and overreaching like Prop 1 comes up and is held up as God’s will by religious conservatives and made into law. I am also emotionally invested in the comment by President Obama—in whom so many have invested so much emotion—in favor of same-sex marriage. He sure as hell waited long enough. I tire of hearing about his “bravery” or his “gamble” in an election year; as Margaret Talbot so correctly notes, “One day, not long from now, it will be hard to remember what worried people so much about gay and lesbian couples committing themselves to marriage. And, when that day comes, President Obama’s remarks last week … will seem mild and obvious.” True, for the President of the United States to have your back—to instruct his administration’s Justice Department to refrain from defending the abysmal “Defense of Marriage Act,” for example—is a positive thing. But it seems a lot less like courage when compared to the courage required to be a committed gay couple in North Carolina right now.

I think of my friend, who goes by the nom de Web Blerd, when I consider Prop 1 and what a slithering pile of religious conservatives can do to people they don’t even know, or perhaps even some they do. Or—who knows?—perhaps those religious conservatives themselves have something they wish to hide. “There are a lot of self-loathing homos out there,” Blerd (a gay man) says, “and one need only look at the past 5-10 years in American politics and folks like Ted Haggard to infer that the people who fight the hardest against something are usually doing so to deflect attention away from them doing that exact thing.” Or perhaps they are among the high-profile right-wing mouthpieces—[cough] Limbaugh [cough] Gingrich—who harp on the “sanctity” of marriage, or the “institution” of marriage, while having gone through two or three divorces themselves.

I get angry about the issue, both about the obvious lack of fairness involved, as well as toward the smallest of the small-minded who manage to push that lack of fairness into legal forums (I also get angry at what I presume to be the non-voting majority that can’t seem to make it to the polls when these issues are put to a vote). Perhaps I shouldn’t be. Perhaps it is the eventuality of universally legal same-sex marriage in my lifetime—the ultimate middle finger to the proponents of Prop 1—that I should think about instead. I do think about that from time to time. And I smile.

6. Josh Eells, “The Secret Life of Tom Gabel,” (Rolling Stone, 5/24/12 issue). The artist currently known as Laura Jane Grace:

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In 1994, I could boot up my family’s PC, wait around ten minutes for it to warm up and then delve into, of all things, a real estate development simulator that engrossed me for hours as I transformed a humble office building into a mixed-use spire that would put Hancock Center to shame. In 2012, I can boot up my much, much faster PC and play a game that simulates what it’s like to ramp off a cliff on a motorcycle, freefall onto the nose of a fighter jet, ride it into the clouds, hijack it, send it careening into the statue of a dictator and then land unscathed. Video games sure have changed, but in a very strange way the two games I’m referencing resonate with me by connecting with the same set of emotions.

The first game is SimTower, the deceptively simple “computer toy” from 1994 by Maxis, makers of pretty much everything with the term “sim” in the title. The second is Just Cause 2 by Avalanche Studios, released 16 years later. On the surface (and quite far below it), these two games have nothing in common. One puts players in the role of some kind of benevolent Donald Trump figure and the other smashes every action movie cliche into a single experience for a generation raised on cable TV and Mountain Dew. And yet, they both tap into moments of simple pleasure stemming from a bit of elusive realism.

As much time as I’ve spent blowing up whole military installations solo in Just Cause 2, I might have spent a comparably sizable chunk of time tearing down its in-game freeway at high speeds, never once shooting a gun or running down an enemy soldier. In those times, doing anything outlandish or violent would have broken the mood. It was beautiful to hop into a sports car and reach top speed just as the sun slid behind the mountains. In the best moments, it was like I could feel the wind from the back windows, naturally cracked. I could connect with that simulation because, while I’ve never piloted an attack helicopter on a suicide mission against a missile-crazy despot, I have been on a freeway late at night going an inadvisable speed just for the thrill of it.

Likewise, I have never actually been in a massive skyscraper that has offices, a hotel, condos, a movie theater, a luxury restaurant and a freakin’ chapel at the top, but I’ve been in all of those places separately. SimTower is an inherently peaceful game and though it isn’t realistic in its scale or configuration, it taps into true memories with its simulations. It asks players to imagine every office they’ve ever been in by playing a very realistic sound clip of office noise every time an office block is clicked. It asks players to remember the strangeness and excitement of staying in a hotel. Most of all, it asks players to see the wonder of modernity writ large by throwing it all into one place and positing that, money and zoning being no object, doing so in real life might just be plausible.

There aren’t as many “peace” games out there today as there were back in the ’90s. These days, players more often than not have to invent their own peace games within inherently violent games like I did with Just Cause 2. There are a lot of reasons most gaming today is loud and explosion-centric, but mostly I think it’s just that the culture of gaming has merged with the mainstream so weird, little toys like SimTower don’t have room to thrive anymore. There’s some hope in browser, mobile and social games that have players tending a farm or something equally sleepy, but the quiet, even contemplative nature of old games is absent in today’s frantic designs.

Really, this particular nostalgia trip isn’t just about how video games have changed in the past 20 years. It goes deeper than that. Today, technology is loud, social and ubiquitous. In the ’90s, tech was on the margins most of the time. Computers were cold and quiet, their pacing necessarily deliberate for their slow processing speeds. Video games are signs and symbols of information technology as a whole. Games in the 1990s were weird, detached and surreal. Even the ones with guns and bombs were oddly quiet. My nostalgia isn’t for those games themselves. Rather, it’s for the unique experience of technology first learning to attach itself to our lives, our memories of hotels and night time freeway driving, but still being strange to us. It was nothing less than our society’s first contact with alien beings.

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Squeeze gets the audience to their feet during "Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)" at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. (Photo by Jeff Seesselberg)

What does a somewhat-recently reunited band with a pretty good live album on their hands do after several live tours and a prime spot on the bill at the Coachella Music Festival? It’s not a question you’d typically find yourself asking, so you have to give it up to U.K. pop/rock legends Squeeze for not answering the question traditionally at last night’s show at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ.

If you’ve been to a Squeeze concert since Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook reunited in 2007, you know the scene: a packed audience of pre-Generation X record collectors (with the odd, eager young fan) and slightly graying couples who pogo to “Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)” just as fervently as they did in 1980. Starry-eyed guys clutch their vinyl copies of East Side Story and girls drink beer while nestling into their partners’ shoulders lovingly. It’s a peculiar but ultimately happy scene befitting one of the more chronically underrated bands of the MTV generation.

Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze: criminally underrated guitarist, man of intriguing facial hair. (Photo by Jeff Seesselberg)

And while that kind of a scene has, in the past, lent itself to a pleasant show running through the band’s greatest semi-hits (“Tempted,” “Black Coffee in Bed,” “Cool for Cats”), the continuously energetic band, set to start recording their first new album in nearly 15 years next month, seems just as interested in pulling surprises from their 22-song bag of tricks. The typical greatest hits were relegated to the tail end of the show, and were preceded by a diverse, often surprising offering of early album cuts and B-sides. Tunes like “In Quintessence” and “Heaven” from East Side Story, “Tough Love” from 1987′s Babylon and On and late-’80s B-side “Who’s That” – a tune Tilbrook introduced as one he’d like to hear Aretha Franklin sing – were as well-rehearsed as “Up the Junction,” “Hourglass” and “Another Nail in My Heart.”

Just as importantly, it’s a delight to see a band that’s earned their keep with old song after old song still enjoying themselves. The grin never left Tilbrook’s newly-bearded face as he engaged in guitar solos, postured with Difford and bassist John Bentley and took to the keyboards for encore number “Up the Junction.” Bespectacled lyricist Difford lent his distinctive lead vocals to “Cool for Cats” and “Heaven,” from East Side Story. The band’s newer members, keyboardist Stephen Large and drummer Simon Hanson, were in top form, with Hanson slamming snares and dramatically tossing stick after stick mid-set.

Opening act The English Beat – consisting of original member Dave Wakeling and a cast of unnamed sidemen – provided a solid if short seven song set, including hits “Mirror in the Bathroom” and “Save It for Later” plus covers of The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There” and “Tenderness,” the catchy single from Wakeling’s post-Beat band General Public. Local band River City Extension also provided a spirited set to kick the night off, with Tilbrook sitting in on guitar during the set’s closer.

Squeeze are playing Carnegie Hall in Munhall, PA tonight, April 26; a sold out show in Rams Head in Baltimore on Friday, April 27 and the Roseland Ballroom in New York City on Saturday, April 28.

Set Lists: Squeeze with The English Beat, Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ – 4/25/2012

The English Beat

I’ll Take You There (Staple Singers cover)
I Confess
The Tears of a Clown (The Miracles cover)
Tenderness (General Public cover)
Ranking Full Stop
Mirror in the Bathroom
Save It for Later

Squeeze

Take Me I’m Yours
If I Didn’t Love You
Tough Love
In Quintessence
Revue
Model
Who’s That
Is That Love
Points of View
Melody Motel
Heaven
Bang Bang
Cool for Cats
Up the Junction
Another Nail in My Heart
Goodbye Girl
Annie Get Your Gun
Hourglass
Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)
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Slap and Tickle
Tempted
Black Coffee in Bed

The Squeeze brain trust, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, with keyboardist Stephen Large. (Photo by Jeff Seesselberg)

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This is the same question that’s dogged Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze for five years. The British duo formed one of the most evocative songwriting partnerships in the post-Lennon-McCartney era, with songs like “Up the Junction,” “Goodbye Girl,” “Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)” and “Tempted” serving as a light and friendly-sounding but no less powerful dive into the seas of post-punk and New Wave that were making all the tastemakers dance in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Paradoxically, they never enjoyed much chart success in America – their biggest hit was the slickly-produced “Hourglass,” ushered into the Top 20 by a catchy video in 1987 – but, thanks to a spate of licensing opportunities and nostalgia compilation appearances, they’re on the lips of at least 58 percent of anyone who loved the ’80s.

In 2007, after a nine-year split, Squeeze reformed with Difford, Tilbrook and a lineup of old hands (bassist John Bentley, who played on the band’s classic albums, Argybargy (1980), East Side Story (1981) and Sweets from a Stranger (1982)) and new ones (keyboardist Stephen Large and drummer Simon Hanson, from Tilbrook’s backing band) filling out the remainder of the group. The band have toured like clockwork in the years since, releasing a live album in 2007 and Spot the Difference, one of those unfortunate collections of re-recordings a band cuts to compete with their hits, in 2010. (Some copies were packaged with yet another live album, as well.) Now, on the eve of another American tour that will see them performing at Coachella this coming weekend, the band has released their third post-reunion live album, the simply titled Live at The Fillmore, recorded at the iconic San Francisco venue in 2010. Are Squeeze, like so many others, due to collapse under the heavy weight of their own nostalgia?

Happily, this time, the answer is no. Live at The Fillmore is packaged with a few gimmicks and a few surprises, together which make this the best celebration of what makes Squeeze great since they reunited. Part of the success is the presentation: this set is pressed on two vinyl platters, boosting the collectible factor for fans, and noted engineer Bob Clearmountain has mixed the set. So it doesn’t look or sound like the work of a reunited band with only enough resources to put out a semi-decent product.

It also helps that, in their five years on the road, Squeeze has only gotten better. Their standards are performed with a whip-crack urgency, and they know when to deviate from what fans might expect from a typical set. Whether it’s a virtuosic solo from Tilbrook, who, someday, will cease to be seen as an underrated guitarist, or surprise deep cuts sprinkled into the set list (lost classic “If It’s Love” from 1989′s Frank, “Hope Fell Down” from the “lost Squeeze album” Difford & Tilbrook released under their own name in 1985, “Mumbo Jumbo” and “Someone Else’s Bell” from the back end of East Side Story), there’s plenty to rediscover among the songs you’ve committed to memory hundreds of times over.

Squeeze’s transition from underrated legacy act to underrated legacy act with new material may yet take time. Recent promotional materials still indicate Difford and Tilbrook are working on new songs, but they have yet to be heard. (Those same materials also mention a documentary on their career in the works from the BBC, though, which is easy to geek out about.) But if Squeeze is going to spin their wheels with a live set as fun as this one, it’s hard to complain.

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A typical summer night in the 90s

I love weird pop culture. I’m not talking about “so bad it’s funny/good” weird, but genuinely bizarre stuff that belongs in its own, special, thoroughly un-ironic corner of human artistic expression. It’s valuable both as a consumer and critic of pop culture to have a background in the weird stuff because it puts more mainstream content in perspective. For example, the mind-bending perceptual experimentation of Inception doesn’t look so bizarre or off-putting when you’ve spent a night watching a movie from mainland China in the 1980′s about a child who has vaguely Buddhist mystical powers and a sidekick who is basically a stranger he met on a train who may or may not have microwaved and ate shit early in the film’s proceedings.

How I experienced such oddities is as important as the specifics of the oddities themselves. See, I had the good fortune to grow up in the glorious cultural window of the 1990s. Let me elaborate:

By the 1990s, cable was firmly established but the concept of a 24-hour, consistent programming schedule hadn’t yet been implemented. The Internet was around but it didn’t really carry much video and the little video it had was brief and low-quality. The result was a cable television landscape that essentially transformed into the weirdest place in reality after midnight, catering to the insomniacs, stoners and weirdos who would eventually migrate to the infinite supply of entertainment of high-speed Internet the next decade. In the 90s it seemed like every TV network gave late night programming responsibilities to a creepy, bug-eyed guy who worked in a closet at the corporate HQ. Basic cable would trot out its collection of old, forgettable pulp films, premium stations filled the waves with softcore porn, obscure horror and foreign detritus, even the music stations trotted out a mix of emergent electronic music and deep cuts from alternative rock bands.

I’ve always been a night person. As I write this, it’s nearly 3:30 AM Pacific and I’m bright-eyed. I was like this as a kid, too. So, come school break, I turned nocturnal and immersed myself in the wanton weirdness of late night TV. It was a grab bag that I couldn’t control or predict. Titles meant nothing and the late hour meant I was completely unsupervised. Thus, bizarre movies from mainland China, various iterations of Emmanuel and purposely off-putting music videos from the likes of Rammstein, Aphex Twin and Dirty Vegas. I never would have found this stuff on my own, not even in the stacks of a scuzzy video store. TV had to give it to me in the wee hours.

By the 00s the weirdness of late night TV basically disappeared. Cable had accrued enough original programming to fill 24 hours with middling crime procedurals, MTV and VH1 jumped on the reality TV bandwagon and premium stations adopted an all-reruns, all-the-time policy that persists into the modern day. TV isn’t where to go for weird anymore.

Thankfully, the Internet is a vast and stormy sea of weird. Clicking around Wikis, aggregators and forums is the equivalent of channel surfing, only with a higher degree of personal agency. Programs like Net Nanny curtail the degree of weirdness a kid can find, or at least until the kid learns how to circumvent the censorship. I admit I’m nostalgic for the days of TV’s unbidden bizarreness, but I know each generation has its own thing. Indie theaters, cavernous book stores, random pamphlets, underground newspapers– They’re all sources of weird throughout the history of pop culture. One way or another, a kid needs to have that strange fruit to fuel creativity and open-mindedness.

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I may step on some critics’ toes for this statement, but I believe film will always be at least a little more respectable than television. It’s not because film attracts an inherently higher caliber of actor or is inherently better at creating strong characters, only that film has a stronger obligation to the creation of a proper story. Barring the tendency to churn out sequel after sequel of a profitable blockbuster, films are made with the understanding that they have to come to a satisfying conclusion in order to tell a good story. Characters have to change, as do circumstances and overall tone. Something has to happen between beginning and end. Television, on the other hand, is less subservient to the inevitable end. The temptation is always there to set up another season, to keep the viewers coming back to see the things they’ve loved since the beginning of the show. This is the impetus of the reset button, that tendency to end every televised plot arc with a return to the status quo. TV shows, especially long-running, episodic ones, change at a glacial pace, if at all. The thing that has made The Office‘s Florida arc interesting is the possibility that it might just change things in a meaningful way. That’s why “Last Day in Florida” is a disappointing episode even if it’s not terribly flawed on its own.

The A-plot is fairly simple: Robert California has always hated the Sabre store idea but felt compelled to see it through because Jo, the original CEO, endorsed it, giving it good will with the company brass. Now that the store has been tested, he can deem it a failure and move on. The problem, of course, is that he has to pass the blame to an expendable employee. In this case, Dwight is on the chopping block. The episode doesn’t directly explain how Nellie isn’t in the crosshairs as well, but it has been established in the past that she has friends in high places and her job title (president of special projects) could potentially connect her to other parts of the company where she’s more useful. Dwight doesn’t know he’s taking the fall and won’t listen to Jim when Robert confides in the latter about his plans. Cue an extended bit of physical comedy as Jim literally wrestles with Dwight to keep him from entering the Meeting of Doom.

The logic at play here is fairly flawed, as it hinges on Nellie naming Todd Packer the VP when Dwight doesn’t show at the meeting. I’d like to think Jim would be smart enough to know this, or at least that the writers would take the time to explain Jim’s irrationality by underlining his weird, co-dependent relationship with Dwight. Ah, but that’s a small concern in light of the larger disappointment that is the inevitable return to business as usual. Packer takes the fall, Dwight is disappointed but still employed and everyone but Erin goes back to Scranton. Heck, even Ryan is back in town despite his dramatic, soul-searching exit last week.

The Office showrunner Paul Lieberstein recently gave an interview that shed some light on the show’s troubled 8th season. As much as I, as a fan and a critic, wanted the Florida arc to be about shaking up the staleness of the series, it seems that it was always more about spinning its wheels in an exotic locale. Lieberstein had little more than faint praise for Season 8 and focused on promises for Season 9. Though there’s still one more episode left in the Florida arc, it’s going to be about Andy’s quest to get Erin back from the nice old lady who’s currently employing her. It might be fun, even if it’s entirely rote, but it’s almost guaranteed to not be a big change. The most we’d lose is Ellie Kemper, which wouldn’t be a change for the better. More likely than not, Erin comes back with Andy and nothing really changes.

Perhaps it’s my last lingering shreds of hope and good will, but I’m still willing to give The Office a chance to do something interesting. That said, I’m fairly certain (and apparently so is Paul Lieberstein) that Season 8 isn’t where it’s going to happen. Florida could have been great, and at times it was, but it didn’t actually give The Office the shot in the arm it desperately needs.

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In this third episode of “Popdose Presents: Songs of Freedom”, Matthew Bolin and Lyana Fernandez focus on MTV: the role of politics in its history and programming, and about the politically motivated artists who have been a part of its history, both inclusive and as critics.

Special focus is given to the “peak” years of the channel’s involvement in the political process (approximately 1988-1994): How the hiring of former Rolling Stone journalist Kurt Loder in the later 1980′s changed their image; how the 1992 election made them (for a moment) a possible political influence on the national landscape; and, how shifting demographics, ownership by Viacom, and a dependence on reality-based programming eventually removed most traces of both politics, and then music itself from the network. Included in this portion is talk of how the shift away from music led to first the addition of other related television channels, and then the creep of non-video, non-music, and eventually reality-dependent programming across all their channels.

In addition, they discuss how the homogenous programming style they currently have parallels a similar sameness in much of the videos that have been played on the channel (especially in its early years); the difference between the original U.S. MTV and its sister channels across the globe, especially in the area of politics; and, whether the network is currently undergoing another change-or crisis of conscience-that may (slowly) affect how they portray themselves and their relationship with both politics and music moving forward.

NOTE FROM MATTHEW: At one point in the episode, I recall off the top of my head that Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms album had sold between twelve and fifteen million copies. Turns out that it sold nine million….just in the United States. Worldwide, it has sold to date around thirty million copies worldwide, and as of this week is still the sixth biggest selling album in the history of the British charts (though Adele’s 21 is likely to push it to seventh sometime in the next few months).

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Popdose Presents: Songs of Freedom — EPISODE THREE (1:12:55, 66.8 MB)

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Playlist– Here’s a selection of songs by artists discussed in this episode, and other tunes related to the episode’s subject matter:

Calibretto 13 – Why Can’t I Be On MTV? from Adventures in Tokyo (2002)

The Clash – (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais from The Clash (U.S. Version) (1977)

Dead Kennedys – MTV Get Off the Air from Frankenchrist (1985)

Deep Purple – MTV from Rapture of the Deep (Special Edition) (1986)

Dire Straits – Money for Nothing from Brothers in Arms (1985)

John Mellencamp – Pop Singer from Big Daddy (1989)

Nirvana – Serve the Servants from In Utero (1993)

R.E.M. – Losing My Religion from Out of Time (1991)

The Replacements – Seen Your Video from Let it Be (1984)

U2 – With or Without You from The Joshua Tree (1987)

Neil Young – This Note’s For You from This Note’s For You (1988)

Frank Zappa – Be in My Video from Them or Us (1984)

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Matthew Bolin can be contacted on Twitter @Hadrians_Dad. Lyana Fernandez can be contacted @lolitapop9. Comments as well as topic/song suggestions are welcomed.

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What often gets lost in the conversation about Southern rock was how fucking good the bands were, how accomplished their players were as musicians. Say what you will about their accents and fashion and rebel flag iconography—the best of the bunch could flat out play. Outlaws stalwart Hughie Thomasson (who later played in the reconstructed Skynyrd) was a terrific songwriter and a monster picker. Charlie Daniels was (and still is) an untouchable fiddle player. The Allman Brothers’ original guitar attack of Duane Allman and Dickie Betts set the standard that many to this day try (and fail) to duplicate. And I will this moment buy a pair of shitkickers for the sole purpose of standing in them and declaring that Steve Gaines’ death in the Skynyrd plane crash was as significant to Southern rock as Randy Rhoads’ death was to hard rock and metal—both deaths silenced young virtuosos with fully formed instrumental voices and miles of potential (don’t believe me? Listen to Street Survivors again. Then kiss my shitkickers).

One band that fit nominally in the framework of Southern rock (cuz they were from Georgia and could, on occasion, you know, rock) was Atlanta Rhythm Section. They were kinda the Toto of the redneck set—studio musicians brought together as a house band for a Doraville, GA recording facility, backing folks like Roy Orbison and other lesser names during the day, recording their own stuff during off hours. Eventually some of that stuff got pressed on vinyl and attracted attention outside the Atlanta region. Chuck and Dwight had a few of their records, including A Rock ‘n’ Roll Alternative (1976), which spawned the hit “So Into You,” and 1980′s Quinella, which scored a Top 30 single in “Alien.”

These records (and, I’m assuming, several—if not all—others in the ARS discography) were notable for their schizophrenic sensibilities. As studio musicians, the band played things in a clean, exact manner—great for the ballads on the records (which sounded like much of the softer AM radio fodder of the time), but when the crew attempted to rev things up, Skynyrd style, it all came off as, well, too clean and exact. Sometimes, it all worked—Side One of Quinella is terrific uptempo twang, while Side Two brought the proverbial room down a bit. A Rock ‘n’ Roll Alternative alternates between heavily polished rock and even more heavily polished down-tempo material.

The ARS record I gravitate toward is Champagne Jam, which followed A Rock ‘n’ Roll Alternative by a year and which amplifies the strengths and challenges of the band’s approach. I imagine it sounded pretty good blasting out of Chuck’s speakers, though the FM radio sheen can be a little distracting—when you’re playing Southern rock, it’s good to get a little raw sometimes.

Side One’s first track typifies the should-be-raw-but-ain’t issue. “Large Time” boasts of the party-startin’ prowess of the band, how they’re “Proud to be livin’ in the USA / Playin’ for the ARS.” Yes, they name-check themselves in their own song, but they also name-check Lynyrd Skynyrd and “Free Bird,” so it’s sort of okay. But for a track about rockin’ the house and flyin’ the flag, the sound is awfully tame, like Steely Dan playing “Sweet Home Alabama.” Guitar guru Barry Bailey gets in some solid lickage, but there’s little in the way of bite, and bite is absolutely necessary.

The laid-back strategy works perfectly on the midtempo shuffle of “I’m Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight.” Welcome back my friends to the worn-out malaise of America in the Carter administration:

The world is one big tragedy
I wonder what I can do
About all the pain and injustice
About all of the sorrow
We’re living in a danger zone
The world could end tomorrow
But I’m not gonna let it bother me tonight

Ronnie Hammond’s voice is the perfect lead instrument here, dour without being whiny, soulful without resorting to cliché. It’s a pop song, and it works well as a pop song; the radio-ready production is fitting here, as it is on the big, big piano ballad “Normal Love.” There’s vulnerability in Hammond’s delivery as he opines for good, old-fashioned missionary-position-and-a-nap-afterwards-kinda lovin’—leave the freakin’ and the kinky stuff to the groupies; he needs to snuggle. “Make it sweet, make it simple,” he sings. “Ooh, that’s what I need / Just a smile, just a kiss / Normalness—what a twist.” The 10cc-ish background harmonies feed the overall lulling atmosphere—it’s really well done.

Of course, on Side Two, you get plenty of non-”normal”-type loviny-doviny on “The Ballad of Lois Malone”—a tribute to a woman of loose morals who sounds like a whole lotta fun—and the album-closing “Evileen,” a sweet thang who’s both “a wicked woman” and “a necessary evil, because she’s got what I need.” Tell us more, you say, she sounds lovely. Hammond is happy to oblige:

Sometimes her love’s a nightmare
Sometimes it’s obscene
She makes me fuss
She makes me cuss
But I love that very, very
Kinky and contrary Evileen

Now this is the kinda lovin’ one expects a dude in a road-travelin’ Seventies Southern rock band to be getting on a fairly regular basis. One can imagine the details he’s leaving out (“She makes me wear the diaper,” “She makes me lick her boot heels,” “She makes me put on lipstick,” etc.), but that’s okay; we get the picture.

And speaking of pictures, there’s “Imaginary Lover,” ARS’ masterstroke (so to speak)—a four-minute slow-burning ode to self-satisfaction that’s still played on Adult Contemporary radio to this day. This is what happens when you’re in a road-travelin’ Seventies Southern rock band and you don’t get “Normal Love,” nor abnormal love (nor Abby Normal love)—you and Rosie do the Vaseline tango in the back of the tour bus:

Imaginary lovers
Never turn you down
When all the others turn you away
They’re around
It’s my private pleasure
Midnight fantasy
Someone to share my
Wildest dreams with me
Imaginary lover
You’re mine anytime

It’s a great song—perfect soft-rock radio fodder for lazy late-Seventies lotharios everywhere. It didn’t have to be tough; toughness is not required when daydreaming about starlets and test-firing the baby cannon.

Toughness is, however, required when one is singing about staying out late and jammin’ all night long, as ARS does, unconvincingly, on Champagne Jam‘s title track. Again, the slick production is too smooth, the playing too vanilla, to maintain the illusion of hard-livin’, hard-playin’ road dogs the band tries to conjure.

And, I gotta ask: why champagne? This is Southern rock, fercryinoutloud. I imagine the guys in Molly Hatchet coming by, Jack Daniels in hand, only to be turned away at the door—it was, after all, a champagne jam, not a sour mash whiskey jam. (Molly Hatchet would’ve then found someone who looked like bassist Paul Goddard and beaten the ever-loving shit out of him). Regardless, they’re talking about alcohol while sounding like milk—an approach that works on the slower songs, but not the uptempo material. Therein lies the conundrum of Atlanta Rhythm Section—a Southern rock band with bad intentions that was nevertheless easy on the ears, as well as the liver.

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Had the Sherman brothers retired after their song score for Walt Disney’s classic Mary Poppins (1964) won a pair of Oscars, they’d deserve a place in 20th century music history. They did not, of course – in a career that lasted half a century, the Shermans wrote prolifically for Disney films, including The Parent Trap (1961), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970) and The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977); several major children’s film soundtracks including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Tom Sawyer (1973), and a host of unforgettable tunes still heard throughout the attractions at Disney parks worldwide, from the uplifting “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” in the Carousel of Progress to the impossible-to-forget “It’s a Small World.” That’s not even counting their compositions for traditional pop artists including Annette Funicello, The Beach Boys, Johnny Burnette, Ringo Starr and Michael Jackson.

Robert Sherman (standing right) and Richard Sherman (seated center) collaborate with Annette Funicello and some surf rock band.

What made those Sherman songs so indelible? The brothers would tell interviewers the secret, passed down from their father Al, one of Tin Pan Alley’s most beloved songwriters: a good song was simple, singable and sincere. Even tongue twisters like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins or Ludwig von Drake’s “Spectrum Song” exemplified those traits, with bouncy melodies and good cheer to spare.

Beyond Disney scholars and hardcore fans, though, the Sherman name did not elicit murmurs of approval. Even today, with dozens of Audio-Animatronic figures singing “It’s a Small World” in almost every modern language even as you read this sentence, the Sherman Brothers were somewhat mysterious. Robert was proof positive of this; look at a picture of the duo from any era and you’ll notice an unusual disparity – Bob’s piercing, sunken eyes and slightly furrowed countenance are a stunning counterpoint to Dick’s kinetic, make ‘em laugh showbiz grin.

The motives behind this weren’t touched upon until recently, in The Walt Disney Company’s stunning 2009 documentary The Boys, named for the familial nickname Walt bestowed upon them. Herein we learn an almost uncomfortable amount about the brothers, particularly Robert. Before making his way into songwriting, the elder Sherman served a tour of duty in Europe during World War II, which ended with a German bullet piercing through his knee and giving him a pronounced limp for the rest of his life. While Sherman’s service is the obvious precursor to the Anglophilia that colored their work – Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang don’t sound too different from music hall fare of the Edwardian period – it’s likely also the place from which that hint of melancholy that colored their many ballads came. Poppins‘ heartrending “Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag)” can move the surliest of characters to tears, and even their most heartfelt, can-do tunes – take “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” or “One Little Spark” from EPCOT’s Journey Into Imagination – seem aware of the impending antiquity of their dreams of innovation. But they play on anyway, just like Uncle Sam or Uncle Walt would want it to be.

The Boys also shines a light on a stunning truth that neither of the brothers were ever close, collaborating intimately on songs but keeping their own family time largely separate. When Disney died in 1966, sending the company into turmoil and driving the Shermans closer to the sidelines, the gulf deepened. Bob ultimately retreated to his second home of London, where he pursued his muse with acrylic painting and fiction writing. But the collaboration never ceased; the Shermans oversaw theatrical adaptations of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins on both sides of the Atlantic and were working on an animated film of their own in recent years.

While it’s indeed not fair that The Sherman Brothers had to earn another round of critical praise at the cost of one of them passing away, those songs – now and always simple, singable and sincere – are still the stuff that dreams – and dreams coming true – are made of.

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Cassie Jaye is a young filmmaker whose work has included the award-winning documentaries Daddy I Do and Faces Overlooked.  She started in the film industry at the age of 16 and has worked as an actress in film and TV and had appeared in The O.C., Alias, Entourage, and much more.  In 2008, Jaye wanted to explore the topic of marriage in the United State when voters in California passed Proposition 8 that amended the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. Being single, straight, and raised as an evangelical Christian, Jaye became fascinated with the issue and set her sights on making a film that would enlighten many folks in the straight community whose views of gays are often framed by cultural stereotypes, religious dogma, and fear of difference.

I had a chance to interview Cassie about the film, the family she chose to focus upon, the upcoming premiere at the Castro Theatre, and how Popdose readers in the Bay Area can win ticket to see The Right to Love:  An American Family on February 6^th.

Ted:  Thanks for taking time to talk about your film The Right to Love: An American Family.

Cassie:  Absolutely.  Thanks for your interest in the film.

Ted: The subjects of your film are Jay and Bryan Leffew –a gay couple with two kids living in the Bay Area. So what drew you to their story?

Cassie: Well, at the time, I was making my first documentary Daddy I Do.  We started thinking about our second film, because we enjoy filmmaking so much. When I say “we” I’m talking about my family. Because we are a family production company – which consists of me, my mom, my sister, my step dad and my uncle. During post-production work for Daddy I Do, we came up with the idea to make our next documentary about marriage, which was a natural extension of our first film [that centered on] sex education and the debate between abstinence only programs and comprehensive sex education which says you can wait until marriage if you want, but if you don’t, here’s how to protect yourself.  And when we starting working on the next film on marriage, Proposition 8 happened, and it was impossible not to look at the issue of same-sex marriage – and that really fascinated us.

I think for The Right To Love, no one involved on the production end of the film was gay or lesbian.  So, we’re all straight and my whole family never had any first hand experience knowing anyone who was a gay.  So we came to the movie as a kind of blank canvass – because we didn’t know a lot about the issues. And we wanted to take on this topic from this perspective of being straight all of our lives — and having a background of being evangelical Christian.  We all grew up very strict, Bible-believing Christians and were taught that homosexuality was wrong. And with The Right to Love … well, we are all for the right of same-sex marriage, but we (my family)  all come from that point of view of knowing the opposing views of same-sex marriage.  We used a lot of footage in the film that really affected us, and made us believe that equality for all is what’s right.

Ted:  How did you connect with Jay and Bryan?

Cassie:  It was originally my sister, Christina Clack, who was researching marriage and same-sex marriage, and she found the Leffew’s You Tube channel called Gay Family Values. And at this point, they only had  two or three videos on their You Tube channel as a kind of indirect protest in response to Proposition 8 passing.  They wanted to show the humanity of their family, and how they are like any other family… very loving, normal, and nothing to fear. And the You Tube channel really took off. There was a lot of support from the LGBT community for showing a loving, committed family. There were a lot of opposing comments (about their videos) that said their life was wrong and they were an abomination. We contacted them right away, and asked if we could interview them for our film. Jay and Bryan were a little hesitant at first because Jaye Bird productions didn’t have anything on the map like a resume of films that they could search for.

Ted:  They must have thought “Oh great.  It’s a student film maker who wants to talk to us.”

Cassie:  Exactly.  They didn’t think much of us at first.  So we went to meet with them in Santa Rosa, and when we left the meeting, we gave them a copy of our film, Daddy I Do, and that was when their attitude to us changed because they saw our filmmaking style – which is very much fly on the wall. We don’t tell the audience what to think. We just show the story and the people and let the audience make their own opinions.  We’re not like a Michael Moore type of filmmaker…

Ted:  Right… advocacy documentaries.

When the movie trailer premiered, there was some hubbub over a scene where the entire family was shown praying at the kitchen table.  Can you elaborate on what got people’s dander up about this?

Cassie: Yeah, that was such an odd thing to arise. I think it happened last October or November.  We included the shot of the family sitting at the table for breakfast — where they hold hands and pray – on the trailer.  As the one who edited the trailer, I never thought that scene would have been as controversial as it became. What happened was that we actually filmed that shot at the table on the very last day, and they (the Leffews) didn’t know that we were rolling sound on that.  They just thought we were getting B roll – which is the imagery of the family getting ready to go to school.  And looking through that footage, I thought the prayer was…from my background growing up in a evangelical household, you always thought that the LGBT community was anti-religion…anti-Christ, you know, something like that. But there was so much love and humility in their prayer and…I just love that scene so much that I thought putting it in the trailer would be a nice way to open the trailer as a kind of non-threatening thing. Ironically enough, that was the most threatening thing to some people who watched it.

Ted:  The controversy kind of came from an unusual source.  These were some LGBT folks who were not thrilled by the depiction of this family as having religious views, and incorporating it in their family ritual before eating a meal.  Like I said, it seemed like an odd source of criticism to me.  You know, when gays and lesbians are put in the spotlight in front of a mainstream audience, there’s a kind of expected criticism from the more culturally conservative parts of the country.  But this came from individuals who would most likely self-identify as progressives – which surprised me.

Cassie:  I agree.  I think some people in the LGBT community were kind of damning them (the Leffews) for still being part of the church that attacks their community. So, why would you want to be part of a religion that doesn’t support the LGBT community?  That’s a pretty bold statement to make from a 30 second clip in the trailer.  They don’t know where the Leffew’s prayer comes from, or what kind of spirituality they subscribe to. So, like I said, it was a pretty bold statement from part of LGBT community to say that they don’t support the Leffews because they are religious.

Ted: Do you explore Jay and Bryan’s religious views in the film?

Cassie:  We do, but not in a big way. We do mention that one of the dads (Bryan) did grow up very religious and is still Christian. And with Jay – the other husband — we don’t really explore it in the film, but he is more open to spirituality, but he doesn’t consider himself a member of any one religion, nor does he pray to any one god.  With the prayer at the table, it’s really just more of a tradition of uniting the family together – which is kind of sweet.  There aren’t many families that have breakfast together or say grace before their meals.  I think that’s one thing about the Leffew family …they are a kind of bridge between [parts of] the straight community – who are very traditional, and wanting to protect the tradition of marriage.  The Leffews are very traditional. They are very much about family and being together for dinner and doing everything together.  And that’s hard to find in a lot of families today.

Ted:  What would you say you’ve learned in process of making this film?

Cassie:  Before I started The Right to Love, I supported marriage equality in the voting booth, but I wasn’t vocal about it to my family or strangers.  And now after making the film, I realize the importance of speaking out –and especially for the straight community to stand with the LGBT community to say “we support you.”  They (the LGBT community) are not going to get equal rights ‘til the majority stands with the minority.  I think that’s been the biggest change through this process…you know, the importance of speaking up and standing up for marriage equality.

Ted: The question of the constitutionality of Prop 8 is now in the federal courts.  As the constitutional question of marriage equality goes through the justice system and will ultimately reach a conclusion, do you think you’ll need make a “part 2” to your film?

Cassie:  I would love to make a part 2.  I’d really like to show the kids because I think a lot people raise questions about how kids will be raised with two dads or moms.  That would be a great part 2 to the film…show how Daniel and Selena (the Leffew’s kids) grow up. And hopefully at that point, there will be equal rights for everyone and they are one of the families that helped make that happen.

Ted: I had a chance to look at a number of videos that Jay and Bryan posted on their You Tube channel, and they are pretty compelling.  The Leffews decided that they were going to show the world how normal and loving a gay couple with kids could be.  But I gotta tell you, the Alice in Wonderland birthday party they threw for their daughter was way more than any birthday party I’ve either thrown for my daughter or have been to.  If anything, these guys are making poor, schlub parents like me look bad!

Cassie: (Laughs)  Jay and Bryan go above and beyond expectations on how to raise kids.  Their kids are their world…and I don’t know how much you know about Daniel and Selena, but Daniel was deemed unadoptable by the adoption agency.  The reason why is that he as a medical condition called Goldenhar syndrome – which causes half of the body to develop at a slower rate than the other half.  I believe he was in foster homes for the first six years of his life.  And no straight family wanted to take on the responsibility for his medical care.  When Selena was born – who is his (Daniel’s) biological sibling – she was placed with him in foster care.  They tried to keep them together for two years. But once the two-year mark was reached, and the kids weren’t adopted, they split up the children to better their chances of getting adopted. So Selena had parents on the waiting list wanting to adopt her when she was separated from Daniel. And the adoption agency actually called Jay and Bryan (who had filed adoption forms with the agency) and told them that they had two siblings who were about to be broken up, and would they be willing to adopt them both so they could stay together.  And that’s how their family came together…

Ted: That’s a great story!

Cassie: Yeah, it’s really heart-warming. And that’s the one thing that really touched me was the need for great adoptive parents.  And another thing is that when I was growing up evangelical one of the big arguments against gay adopting children was that kids need a mother and a father.  And I learned through the making of The Right to Love that a great number of single parents can adopt kids, and I’ve never heard the argument that single parents shouldn’t be able to adopt.  And to have two dads – and one is a stay at home dad – who are loving and adore their family… why shouldn’t they have the same rights as straight couples?

Ted: Absolutely.  I was reading Jay and Bryan’s blog, and there’s a great graphic of what makes a family, and there were stick images of a man and woman holding a hand of a child, and two women holding the hand of a child, two men doing the same, and individual adults of various genders holding the hand of a child.  And then there’s just a child alone with the caption “Batman” over him.

Cassie:  (Laughs)

Ted: And in that graphic it just sums up that what makes a family is support from someone who loves you.  And if a child doesn’t have that support, they may end up like The Dark Knight.

So let’s talk about the premiere that’s going to be at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco…You have a whole day’s worth of events planned, so tell us the details.

Cassie:  Well, we’re going to premiere the film on Monday February 6^th and we have three screenings. We have a box lunch mixer starting at 11:30am – with the screening at noon.

And then we have a 4pm screening aimed at high school students — who can get in free with their student ID. Then we have our big red carpet premier at 7:30pm – with the red carpet opening at 6:30pm.  After the film, we’ll do a short Q&A, and then we go to the after party with live music with some of the musicians whose music is featured in the film.  Oh, and we’ll have hors d’oeuvres and swag bags as well.  And one of honored guests is Zach Wahls (who was raised by two women and whose family opposed House Joint Resolution 6 in Iowa House of Representatives that would end civil unions in Iowa). Zach became an Internet phenomenon when the video of him speaking in front of the Iowa House of Representatives went viral.  The video is about Zach speaking about his lesbian moms and how the sexual orientation of his parents has had zero effect on the content of his character – which was the final quote in his really compelling speech.  So he’ll be flying out from Iowa for the premiere.

Ted: And we’re giving Popdose readers in the Bay Area a chance to go to the premier on Monday February 6^th at 7:30pm. All they have to do is email me at Ted @ Popdose dot com.  I’ll pick two winners in a random drawing, and notify them by email they have won the prize pack.  What will the winners get?

Cassie:  The winners will receive two tickets to the 7:30pm red carpet screening at the Castro Theatre, and they will also receive a copy of the soundtrack to The Right to Love: An American Family.  The winners just have to go to will call at the theatre to get their tickets and CD anytime after 6:30pm… and then they can enjoy the film, meet the film makers, and have a good time.

Ted: Cassie, all the best on the film and thanks for taking time to talk to me about your film on Popdose.

Cassie:  Thanks so much, Ted.

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