I was watching Anvil: The Story of Anvil on VH1 Classic the other night, and I believe it was Slash who said something like: “You know, there aren’t many bands who have been together for 30 years.” And he’s right (well, if Slash really did say what I attributed to him). Bands or singers who have been recording music for long periods of time are rare birds indeed. Some certainly hang on to their core sound and often fit prevailing musical trends into one or two songs (Think “Emotional Rescue” or “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones), while others will revamp their sound and sail off on a new musical direction– leaving puzzled fans wondering: “What the hell is this?” (Think KISS in Music From “The Elder” or when Rush went headfirst into a synthaholic binge).
What I wanted to do for this mix was to feature bands and singers who, by hook or crook, have been able to maintain a musical career that went beyond their salad days. In putting together this mix, I generally took the first album and the most recent release, paired them together to see what, if any, changes or similarities were there. Sorry if this sounds a little too academic in its description, but really what I’m trying to do is best summed up in the title of this mix: “Then and Now.” (more…)
Two years ago, when I was working on this column’s debut, I wrote about Bruce Springsteen’s “Book of Dreams” and what the song means to Julie and me. During the first month of our courtship I created my first mixtape for her, entitled HEY, HEY, JULIE! On that tape was the Springsteen song, one that’s grown to have profound meaning in our relationship.
We began dating in August of 1992, and soon thereafter, I threw this tape together in a flurry of inspiration, wanting to give Julie something that came from my heart. I don’t recall the actual minutes spent in my parents’ basement picking the songs or laying them down on a Maxell cassette (my brand of choice), but looking back on the list of songs, I’m happy to see they still add up to 90 quailty minutes of music.
Before Nick Hornby wonderfully wrote about what makes a good mixtape in High Fidelity, I assembled exactly the right combination of hip, well known and somewhat obscure songs from my small music collection. Combining big hits like “Learning to Fly,” “What I Am,” and “All This Time” with lesser-known songs by popular artists such as “Until the End of the World,” “Shining Star,” and “Getting to Know You,” while tossing in some hard to find (at the time) songs like “Baby Mine” and “Wild Night” made this tape eclectic, but still enjoyable to listen to and quite accessible. (more…)
In my mind he’s sitting at the kitchen table writing so diligently the table shakes and the white swivel chair he’s sitting on squeaks. Outside it’s night, and the autumn chill is trying to get in. The television is on; we’re watching some inane ’80s sitcom, and my father is someplace else. As he writes in the kitchen, he’s hearing music, scribbling notes on scrap pieces of paper.
My father, Budd, is a great arranger of band music. He can take a song and compose parts for various wind instruments simply by sitting at the piano, pulling notes from the air and writing them in pencil on the back of discarded paper from the school, drawing the music clefts by hand. A staggering number of students have played his arrangements, though he never got paid for this extra work as the high school band director. When he retired, for the second time, earlier this year, he was still writing out arrangements for the musicians in his bands to perform. Why did he do it? I’m not sure, but I think some of it had to do with that bird called creativity chirping in his ear. Watching him work so hard all of the years of my childhood influenced me profoundly, teaching me to keep at something until you get it right, even if it means going back and revising again and again.
When I sat down to write this column, Joe Jackson’s “The Trial” seemed to leap out at me. I had been thinking of my father and our relationship. So much of what we have bonded over has been music. While he is definitely a student of classical music, I am a disciple of rock. Where we often met halfway was the populist movie themes of some of our favorite composers, like John Williams and James Horner. That this track, a classical piece of film music written by a pop artist like Joe Jackson would come to mind when I haven’t listened to it in years, well, to me that’s serendipity. (more…)
Read that headline and weep, folks. In just two more weeks, the summer of ‘09 will be finito. Yeah, I know technically summer has a few more weeks of life but, who are we kidding? Once the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon goes off the air, the season’s deader than Freddie (That’s what I said.)
We have no time for heavy sentiment. Leave that to back-to-school shopping, pool closings and those Summer credit card bills coming back to bite you on the Coppertoned ass. We have two weeks left of fun, fun, fun. Break out the beach towels and crank up the pop music.
You’ll notice an inordinate amount of songs from the International Pop Overthrow collections, and for good reason. In the short time I’ve discovered this ongoing series of releases, I’ve become irrevocably hooked. You might as well, and can find these releases at the site that released them, Not Lame Recordings.
May is the unofficial start of the summer concert season, so to unofficially celebrate the shows of 2009, Popdose.com and internet radio station The Penguin have teamed up for Penguimania 2009. Tune in each Wednesday at 9:00 EST for Radioshow With Dw. Dunphy to hear the live performance megamix in full. Then each week we’ll present a downloadable MP3 of a set from the “concert.”
The second set kicks off with Dream Theater covering the classic Elton John two-fer of “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding.” As originally found on the ubiquitous Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, Dream Theater stays faithful to the original.
Marillion has, over the years, amassed a cult following that has spawned a whole series of official live recordings, lavish deluxe releases of their new albums and fan convention concerts known as the Marillion Weekends. Here is their live version of the standout track from the This Strange Engine album, “Estonia.”
The grand finale of Joe Jackson’s ambitious Night and Day album is the slow-burning lullaby, “A Slow Song.” This live performance of the song manages to top the original with a fantastic, building climax.
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We’ll see you here next week for set three and, don’t forget: you can enjoy the entire mix over at The Penguin, Wednesday nights starting at 9:00 PM EST: find it at www.thepenguinrocks.com.
You may have noticed the lack of intros to my posts lately. While this series is all about the music, I do like to do one now and again, but am going through a nice little writer’s block right now. However, there is one thing that always breaks me out of it and that’s more inappropriate ghetto music!
Yeah, I haven’t had one of those moments in a while, in fact it’s been months since Debbie Gibson blared out my car, but it happened again this past week. For those who are new to the series, let me explain. I normally drive to and from work in a route that bypasses my neighborhood ghetto. But on days where I’m picking up dinner on the way home, the row of restaurants takes me right through the slums. And lately, I’ve been taking the long way to my son’s daycare in the morning and that puts me the other way through the dingy streets, but the ghetto in daylight usually just isn’t exciting. When the lights go down it’s crack whores and homeless people (though, unlike last time I haven’t seen the homeless guy with the broken leg in a while).
The other day I was driving through the ghetto just as the sun was starting to go down. I got stuck behind a school bus that at one point must have let 20 kids off at one time. So here I am in my three-week-old Scion xB with the windows down and the iPod on shuffle. Playing as the kids got off the bus was Manowar’s “Loki God of Fire.” Strangely enough that wasn’t the inappropriate song choice. I must have been at the very end of the song because as these kids were crossing the street in front of my car, my iPod shuffles to “Soldier of Love” by Donny Osmond. At least three kids stared into my car and laughed as if to say, “You are the whitest person I have ever seen, retard.” You know, I don’t care what people think about my musical choices, but there’s something really embarrassing about a group of 13-year-olds laughing at a grown man. Of course that could have been my conscience talking as well, as those kids could have been laughing at a joke or someone could have farted. Maybe it wasn’t the Donny Osmond after all. And I mean, fuck, I’m sure they had no clue that was Donny fucking Osmond unless they are the coolest kids ever. Who am I kidding? I was a grown man being laughed at by kids for inappropriate ghetto music. Maybe I need to plan better and just always have Lil Wayne handy for these moments.
Anyway, on to a whole mess of songs that probably wouldn’t be too inappropriate. This week we begin the letter J as we take a look at the lower three-fifths of the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the 1980s.
In truth, I didn’t think I would be saying this, at least not this soon after launching it. I’m a sucker for sad songs, and God knows there are plenty of them. What I didn’t anticipate, though, is how exhausting it would be to go to that dark place, even if it was only every other week. I guess I’m just too happy now to revisit the more unpleasant times in my life.
And so, rather than draw out the misery for months on end, I’m making a final mix tape of every song I ever thought about writing up for this column. White Label Wednesday will continue to run every other week, and in the place of Mope Like Me will be another song column, but one that is decidedly more upbeat. Ta.
A funny thing happened in the middle of the 1990s: Record labels looked into their vaults and found that most of their best selling titles had been in circulation for awhile on CD and, as one would expect, weren’t as exciting to the buying public anymore. Remember that in the initial run of the compact disc labels were suddenly flush with cash, old assets were getting new sales life and all was right with the world. Once they had reached the tipping point where most consumers had CDs of Rumours, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, etc., they had a crucial decision to make. Shall we now go out into the great, wide world of new music acts and fill our rosters with exciting, up and coming talent?
Nah, too much work. Let’s reissue those old CDs again, only this time, we’ll stuff the back nine with B-sides, unreleased tracks and live cuts. It sounds crass, but don’t knock it. It works. The labels did get a kick-up of interest through this process of “double-dipping,” and sometimes it was for the best. Labels like Rykodisc and Rhino took a lot of care in representing classic albums, often bringing them back with better, remastered sound to make the package more palatable to those who had tinny, digitally fraught originals. Other labels took notice and, as you’d expect, the business of the deluxe reissue started booming. CDs wound up with extra tracks best left on the cutting room floor, songs pared with awful guide vocals, blooper reels, inclusions of little to no interest to the average music fan. The Elvis Costello fan has felt the impact the hardest, as Mr. MacManus’ output has rotated from the original Sony Music auspices to the Ryko reissues, then to the Rhino reissues, then to his current home at Universal Music. You could own four separate versions of My Aim Is True, each with its own plusses and minuses, none rising above the rest to definitive status.
Look, I’m a fan and a collector. I’ve been skunked more than once by the “special edition” label. I know what it’s like to buy something only to have it supplanted only a year later by the bigger, better, badder version. To prove my point, I have dedicated this week’s post to some of my favorite special edition extras. These are things the labels would rather we left alone. After all, some of these tracks are the only reason why you ought to repurchase these things, and I’m going all renegade by just plopping them here for your perusal. I’m a rebel and I’ll never, ever be any good. Ready to receive your bonuses? Oh la Saleema! (more…)
For me, the waning days of summer always bring to mind the city homecoming fair that took place at the end of every August in my hometown of North Olmsted, Ohio. The fair, a celebration of the city’s past and present, was held at the North Olmsted Park, located right around from my childhood house, and was a weekend-long affair that always began on the last Friday night in August and ran through late Sunday afternoon.
I can recall the mystery, allure and romanticism of that city fair from the eyes of a child.At night, when the traffic noises had quieted, you could hear the excitement of the fair through the open windows of my bedroom.The cranking of the carnival rides, kids screaming, cotton candy machines swirling, grills sizzling, and rock and roll bands playing from the gazebo.Man, I wanted to be there; I wanted to be grown up enough to wander through the crowd and absorb those noises and smells and to feel like a part of the community.
By sixth grade, I was deemed old enough to venture up to the park during homecoming, as long as I was with a group of friends.If we were a pack we couldn’t get into trouble, right?Actually, I hung out with a good bunch of kids, and the heightened feelings and butterflies we felt around girls were more exciting than any mischief we might get into.Even as an awkward kid who didn’t attract many girls, it was still a great feeling to have.
Something happened during the transition between ninth and 10th grade, though, and the fair was no longer exciting; rather, it had become a quaint symbol of complacency.In my arrogant teenage mind, I looked at the hundreds of folks who had grown up in North Olmsted (and still lived there), and thought, “I’m not going to be like them.I’m going to get out of here.”Instead of looking forward to the fair’s wondrous foods and prizes, I looked forward to pointless nights of cruising the Metropark valley in the back of some guy’s Escort while the radio blared acts like the Who, Lou Reed and Joe Jackson. (more…)
Mainstream Rock: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “The Waiting” (1981) *
Dunphy: It is, on its face, your standard Petty and Heartbreakers tune. Could’ve been “Refugee.” Could’ve been “You Got Lucky.” But you know what? From 1980 to 1985 that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Was this off Southern Accents or Hard Promises? Does it matter? I miss those good ol’ Petty days.
Zack: Is Tom Petty from Denver? Because I’m convinced he must go to the same dentist as John Elway. Does anyone else share my suspicion that Petty’s video director used the leftover set from the Cube Squared video in Tapeheads? Like everything else of Petty’s, this is good stuff, though aside from the chorus, the lyrics are pretty much incomprehensible.
Jason: I wish I could think of something other than the episode of The Simpsons where Homer has to wait five days to purchase a gun (”Five days? But I’m mad now!“) and “The Waiting” plays in a montage over the five-day period. Petty is a big Simpsons fan.
Ken: I’ve always liked this one. Petty’s one of those writers who knows how to put the things a lot of us feel into words.
Matthew: I remember a really lovely (and abbreviated) acoustic version of this song played by Petty on an episode of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. It was the episode where Garry has planned the whole show around his neighbor giving birth, and when she can’t do it on cue Shandling ends up looking for ways to stall. Luckily, his neighbor Tom Petty decides to stop by and drop off Garry’s hedge clippers, which he’d borrowed, and he gets recruited to entertain the audience. Tom ended up appearing a number of times on the show playing a version of himself (this was the first time), but he never sang on the show again.
Darren: Back when a simple video, done with class, could hold your attention. No need to spend 500K and have MTV turn their nose up at it. Of course, this was made before there was an MTV, and the only place you saw it was when Showtime or Cinemax had ten minutes to kill until the next showing of Motel Hell or whatever. I remember not digging “The Waiting” much when it came out. It’s still not one of my absolute favorites.
David: This song seems so quaint now. Love the slide guitar, but … I don’t know. I don’t hate it, not at all. I just … don’t care.
Jeff: One of my favorite Petty tracks. I’m surprised by the number of lukewarm reactions to it — I just assumed this was a universally accepted stone-cold classic of the Petty canon. Every time I listen, disappointed, to a new Petty record, this is what I wish I was hearing instead.
Two years ago, when I was working on this column’s debut, I wrote about Bruce Springsteen’s 
In my mind he’s sitting at the kitchen table writing so diligently the table shakes and the white swivel chair he’s sitting on squeaks. Outside it’s night, and the autumn chill is trying to get in. The television is on; we’re watching some inane ’80s sitcom, and my father is someplace else. As he writes in the kitchen, he’s hearing music, scribbling notes on scrap pieces of paper.
(2001)
(1997)
(1980)
(1979)
Vol. 1 (1998)
(1987)
(2007)
(1982)
(2002)
(2009)
(1979)
(2005)
(2008)
(1993)
A funny thing happened in the middle of the 1990s: Record labels looked into their vaults and found that most of their best selling titles had been in circulation for awhile on CD and, as one would expect, weren’t as exciting to the buying public anymore. Remember that in the initial run of the compact disc labels were suddenly flush with cash, old assets were getting new sales life and all was right with the world. Once they had reached the tipping point where most consumers had CDs of Rumours, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, etc., they had a crucial decision to make. Shall we now go out into the great, wide world of new music acts and fill our rosters with exciting, up and coming talent?
For me, the waning days of summer always bring to mind the city homecoming fair that took place at the end of every August in my hometown of North Olmsted, Ohio. The fair, a celebration of the city’s past and present, was held at the North Olmsted Park, located right around from my childhood house, and was a weekend-long affair that always began on the last Friday night in August and ran through late Sunday afternoon.
