Some people are just flat-out smart-asses.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to be at times, mind you, but a good smart-ass pulls it off with a modicum of grace and might give you a chuckle for it. In the music world, there are relatively few of the latter. Instead of a wink and a nod, they just about knock you unconscious and then ask if “you saw that.” You can tell one from the other by their choices in the realm of cover songs.

A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?

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The weird thing about being into music as much as I am (much to the chagrin of every girlfriend I’ve ever had) is that I still end up missing out on a few — okay, a few hundred — really cool artists along the way. It’s just not possible to be up on all the cool music out there. It isn’t. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Of course, if you were anything like me when you were younger, you were quickly jaded to the greatness of certain artists who were, for lack of a better term, fucking huge. And it’s not just my generation — my parents were kinda “meh” about the Beatles because, near as I can tell, those guys were everywhere, and just about everybody and their freakin’ brother liked them. If I’d been alive, or at least old enough to give a crap when the Beatles were still together, I probably would’ve written them off too.

Thus there are quite a number of bands that were still together when I was old enough to give a crap and their crazy level of success and/or popularity made them like Kryptonite to me. My thinking was: if all the nimrods at school like them, how good can they be?

Case in point: Huey Lewis & the News. How does a cat go from palling around with Nick Lowe and Declan McManus to, ahem, wanting a new drug?

Then there’s Def Leppard. Forget that I was the first kid in my school to own 1981’s High ‘n’ Dry — the fact that everybody else soon owned a copy of 1983’s Pyromania quickly reduced Def Leppard to Loverboy status in my book.

And Prince? Don’t get me started. (more…)

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Welcome to it, Popsters! Each week I hope to delight you and yours with some musical goodness mixed the old fashioned way: with thought given to the song order in a mix. You see, kids, I’m an old school jock (slang for DJ) who has done quite a bit of time behind the mic in radio. Moreover, I’ve also done some hard time behind the turntables in that cauldron of hell known as the wedding reception. Just outside the cauldron is the middle school dance, which is right next to the corporate holiday party. But despite my cynicism toward social gatherings that involve endless requests for “Hey Ya,” I did learn quite a few things about mixing music. What to do, and what not to do. Forgive my wizened ways, but something has really gotten lost in the age of shuffle mode. Songs that don’t mix well often get played in a sequence that, in radio terms, is often called a train wreck. Oh, and don’t think that I’m some kind of booster for radio (even though that’s where I derive my income). Alas, the radio industry is one where the creative mind of a DJ has been pretty much lobotomized by The Suits and their consultant cronies. (more…)

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