Why You Remember Them: You cannot imagine how often, in the research of this column, one comes across the phrase “lumped into the hair metal category,” as though being a cornball Southern-rock outfit with a wacky-eyed lead singer and a schlong obsession is better. Jackyl formed in 1990 as a hair meta … ahem, Southern-rock boogie band, but if you’ve read this far you’re probably going, “The jags with the chainsaw, right?” Right.
Total Sales: Jackyl moved 1.35 million units in 1992, making me sad for 1992.
OK, But I’m Pretty Sure Those Are Dogs on the Cover of This Album: Right, you tell the chainsaw-wielding redneck he’s got his canids misidentified.
GET THE EFF OUT OF HERE, BRENDAN O’BRIEN?: Before resorting to producing hillbilly crap by “Bruce Springsteen” and “Pearl Jam,” O’Brien ran with the big dogs. I am desperately hoping these are people who still keep in touch.
Jesse: “Brendan, it’s Jesse, listen, I have a great idea for a new track that…”
Brendan: “(interrupting) Does it have a chainsaw?”
Jesse: “Yes.”
Brendan: “Christ.” (click)
The outburst heard ’round the nation, at least until Kanye West co-opted the mike: South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson’s interjection during President Obama’s health care pitch to Congress. A million would-be pundits and chat show hosts have ruminated on it, the masses have reviled him as well as lauded him, backing their positions up with donations to electoral funds, and even former President Jimmy Carter has weighed in. Carter’s belief that “You lie!” was racially motivated seems genuine but, at the same time, heavily influenced by Maureen Dowd’s column on the subject, titled “Boy Oh Boy.”
I’m split down the middle on the racism of the comment. Standing alone, it bears zero indication of racial prejudice. It can be interpreted in a thousand ways, and has, but itself is not inflammatory. It’s all in how the listener interprets it that gives it the bulk of the controversy, and so there’s no way of crying racism beyond a shadow of doubt. As two words stitched together, intention is loaded with nothing but doubt. At the same time, though, the fact that the very white Congressman Wilson felt he could just blurt this out while the very black President was giving a speech, a disrespect he might not have shown were it a good-ol’-boy fellow in Obama’s stead, is one that would cause people to see prejudice.
I could go on for several more paragraphs about how George W. Bush was soundly boo’ed at the last few congressional speeches he made, but then I would have to weigh the emotional impact of the sound ‘boo’ versus implying the President is a liar. For some, they’re equally insulting; for others, the two hardly compare. I speculate that your take on it will depend on what side of the aisle you choose to sit on (and perhaps your willingness to reach across said aisle would play into the equation as well.) (more…)
September 16, 1987, is a Wednesday. A front-page story in the New York Times details the growing plagiarism scandal surrounding Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Commitee. Biden’s committee is holding confirmation hearings for Supreme Court appointee Robert Bork. Schools across the country celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution. Pope John Paul II continues a visit to the United States; today, he’s in Los Angeles, where he celebrates mass at Dodger Stadium and stresses the need for religious communities to draw together “in a common concern for man’s earthly welfare, especially world peace.” President Reagan speaks on the steps of the Capitol at “A Celebration of Citizenship,” as school children across the country celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution. The mayors of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Hsin Tien, Taiwan, sign a sister-city proclamation. National Football League players and owners are eyeball-to-eyeball in a labor dispute; in six days, the players will go on strike, resulting in the cancellation of one week’s games and the playing of three others with replacement players. Bob Boone of the California Angels appears in his 1,919th game at catcher, which is a major league record. (more…)
April 15, 1990, is Easter Sunday. The nuclear-armed nations of India and Pakistan remain nose-to-nose over the disputed province of Kashmir. At Cape Canaveral, preparations continue for the April 24 launch of the space shuttle Discovery, which will deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. Eruptions continue at Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska. This series of eruptions will be the second-costliest in American history behind Mt. St. Helens in 1980. Redoubt won’t erupt again until 2009. The New York Times publishes data showing that the median price of a house in the United States was $95,400 in February. A world record for tallest sand sculpture (17 feet, 5 3/4 inches) is set in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia.
Movie icon Greta Garbo dies at age 89, and U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii dies at age 73; future Harry Potter actress Emma Watson is born. The top movies at the box office this weekend are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Pretty Woman, The Hunt for Red October, and Ernest Goes to Jail. The Miss Universe pageant is held in Los Angeles; the winner is Miss Norway, Mona Grudt; Miss USA Carole Gist is first runnerup. Payne Stewart wins the MCI Heritage Golf Classic, but Greg Norman continues to lead the world golf rankings; Nick Faldo, who won the Masters last Sunday, is ranked second. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum tops the paperback best-seller lists.
The sketch comedy series In Living Color premieres on Fox. Also on Fox tonight, The Outsiders, a series based on the S. E. Hinton novel, the 21 Jump Street spinoff Booker starring Richard Grieco, and The Simpsons. NBC airs an episode of The Magical World of Disney. In the first-ever Sunday night baseball game broadcast on ESPN, the Montreal Expos beat the New York Mets 3 to 1. On MTV, 120 Minutes features videos by Depeche Mode, the Cure, and Stone Roses. On the radio, The Dr. Demento Show features music and comedy bits about television, but the top song on the weekly Funny Five is, once again, “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes. (more…)
Different countries are…well, different. They have different laws and languages, funny stamps, and candy that you can’t get at home. We usually think that part of being a distinct country is having a distinct money, too. Currency is becoming less important to national sovereignty, although it is still fraught with diplomatic and political issues, not to mention economics.
Having your own money implies a certain governmental sophistication. After all, a currency needs mechanisms to support it. There has to be a central bank that takes care of interest rates, buying and selling reserves on the open market to maintain trade balances. There has to be a government that takes charge of taxation, spending, and borrowing to keep the economy growing and make the currency of value. It’s a lot of work, although there is a nifty little perk called seigniorage, or government revenue that comes from printing money.
The European Union did a masterful job of converting most of the continent to a single currency, the euro, in 1999. It’s a successor to a similar currency that was used only for trade, the ECU, which was established in 1979. But the euro has only been in existence for a decade, and it hasn’t been tested by a financial crisis before. It’s unclear how the currency will hold up, because the EU makes only some of the decisions about economic policies for member countries.
The U.S. government doesn’t seem to care if other countries use the dollar. In some cases, it’s thrilled: the Chinese government pegs the yuan at about 7 per U.S. dollar. If China were to let its currency float freely, the cheap Chinese goods that U.S. consumers love would become a lot more expensive in dollar terms, hurting our economy. Panama doesn’t even bother with a peg. It uses the same greenbacks used everywhere in the 50 states.
Which brings us to the problem of Iceland. With 300,000 people and a GDP of $12 billion, it’s the smallest economy in the world with its own currency. The bank collapse last year was caused in part by the currency becoming too valuable relative to the dollar and the euro. Currencies can be bought or sold like any commodity; just as with stocks or real estate, if the price gets too high, people sell and invest elsewhere, popping the bubble. Now Iceland is left with a currency that’s lost about 20% of its value while the nation’s leaders are trying to assure the world – and Icelandic citizens – that is it safe to invest. (more…)
Musical genres can be helpful for fans: They allow music to be categorized; grouped with other artists that sound similar. If you like Metallica, you will probably like Slayer. If you like Chet Atkins, you should check out Tommy Emmanuel. (If you like James Ingram and Michael McDonald, please, check out Jeff Giles.)
Genres also allow people to make broad generalizations about what sort of music they like (e.g. “I love metal” or “I like everything except country”). Whether such statements are good or bad is subjective, but as a musician myself, I think they are limiting. I tend to hear music structurally, and find things to like and dislike in every genre. I don’t want to do away with genres, but I do appreciate artists who run up against the walls from time to time, and expose people to music that they have never heard before.
Yeah, I’ve been loving African music for a long time, and every time I hear something acoustic or rhythmically interesting I get excited and I want to know more about it. So along with that, knowing the banjo originally came from there, combined to be an irresistible thing to do, but it took until 2005 to do it. That was a year the Flecktones took a year off – the first year we took off in 15 or 17 years of being a band. We had always been full-time. So I was looking for something really fun and different to do that year, that I normally wouldn’t have time to do. It’s impossible to take six weeks in the middle of a Flecktones year, so all of a sudden I had the time, and this was the project I most wanted to do. I guess part of me was thinking it would be quite a big effort. If I’m going to be traipsing around Africa, I’d rather do it in my 40s than my 60s. (more…)
“Everyone is guilty,” Akron/Family sang at their second gig at Union Pool, but if their performance was any indication, that fact isn’t getting to them.
The bi-city band, based in New York as well as Williamsport, Pennsylvania, was full of whimsical energy Sunday night as they surged through an 11-song set without so much as a pause. Song bled into song, the transitions carried by any combination of the nine people on stage. Of those nine, three drive the madness that is Akron/Family – Seth Olinksy (guitar), Miles Seaton (bass) and Dana Janssen (drums). They have their primary roles, but much like a freak-folk version of Broken Social Scene, they’re all multi-instrumentalists, and vocal duties shift, with Olinksy usually taking the lead.
The set list focused on material from the band’s upcoming album, Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, due in May. But while music nerds often get stereotyped as creating highly conceptual and not always accessible music, Akron/Family found a place for it all. Shifting from lilting folk tunes like “The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen” and unexpected dance tune, “Ed Is A Portal,” Akron/Family interjected short, stylized jams in transitions, proving themselves adept at funk, prog, hardcore, whatever rock offshoot you can name. Olinksy would get an almost painful look on his face, as if he couldn’t stand it any longer, as though he had to play that next note or he might die.
But as unafraid to fly their freak flag as they are, Akron/Family do so without alienating – quite the opposite, in fact, as they envelop the audience as often as possible, encouraging participation in a variety of ways. Olinsky ran into the audience to hand someone a drum. Seaton would rile up the crowd with exclamations like, “Move your ass!” Hand claps and sing-alongs were encouraged at every opportune moment. (more…)
Who is overpaid? Who knows? My guess is that the guy on the line churning out Cobalts thinks he’s underpaid, and Wagoner thought that he was, too. Wagoner’s neighbors are probably jealous of his being one of the richest guys in Detroit, and the average UAW worker’s neighbor’s is probably bitter about a GM employee’s Cadillac health insurance.
How much money “should” anyone make? There are two thoughts on that. The first is simply supply and demand. The more people who can do a job relative to the number of openings for it, the lower the pay. Employers will pay as much money as they need to get people to fill the seats and not one penny more. Under this theory, it doesn’t matter what the worker actually does; the market decides on the value.
The second theory is that people should be paid relative to the value that they add to the finished product. This is easier, or at least more palatable, to measure in some fields than in others. Most teachers oppose any type of merit pay, even though we all know that some teachers are better than others. Meanwhile, many sales people work on straight commission. They get paid only if they produce. They can tie their pay to their output. Businesses have tried to do this with all employees if possible, giving them company stock and setting bonuses based on performance. That way, a company can see if a raise is justified without going through the hassle of advertising for the job and seeing who applies. Unfortunately, merit pay has led to the complicated situation where employees can beat their numbers even while the company crumbles around them. See: AIG. (more…)
You know that sinking feeling you get when you hear your boss say: “Hey, can I see you in my office?” Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, then you’re one of the fortunate few who hasn’t been laid off, downsized, made redundant, or just lost a job.
I was laid off last June as part of the first wave of this recession, and at the time, I thought: “Well, I’ll find something in the next two or three months.” Three months turned into four, four into seven, and even though I was doing all the things one is supposed to do when looking for work, I had exactly one interview for an editorial job, and then … nothing but polite letters of rejection.
Of course, as I was trying to change my microeconomic situation, the global macroeconomic terrain shifted and what little air was left inside the bubble leaked out in an SBD way, causing many jobs to wither up and die in its cloud of noxious fumes. Every day, it seemed, employment news got worse and worse, and every day I tried to keep my chin up and not let the bad news affect my motivation level. I gotta say, it was tough at times, and if it wasn’t for family and friends, it would have been pretty bleak.
If there’s an uplifting note to this story it’s that I did find gainful employment. However, right as I was ready to start my new job (at the company that had laid me off seven months previous), my wife, and then my brother, lost their jobs. I heard from acquaintances, friends, and friends of friends about the snowballing effect this recession is having on the employment situation of many who thought their jobs were secure. I’m sure you’ve heard similar stories, and maybe you’re one of them. It’s all so depressing and, in some ways, numbing. Pretty boo-hoo stuff, really. But if you find yourself wallowing in self-pity, or just need an infusion of sympathy for those less fortunate than you, here’s a little mix I whipped up for times like these.
Love may mean never having to say you’re sorry, but don’t be sorry about having to take a shit job for less pay just to keep your head above water – even if the Clash highlight a few soul-killing jobs in this tune. Just remember: it’s not forever. Things will turn around and when you’re in a position to, you can tell your boss to take this job and shove it. (more…)
He may have called for “a kinder, gentler nation,” but the first year of George H.W. Bush’s presidency, 1989, turned out to be Ground Zero for the Culture Wars. It was the year of Robert Mapplethorpe’s A Perfect Moment exhibit, the year of Andres Serrano and Piss Christ, the year of the Helms Amendment restricting the use of funds by the National Endowment for the Arts – and it was the year of 2 Live Crew’s As Nasty as They Wanna Be.
Luther Campbell was nothing if not a provocateur. (Considering the quality of his music, whether he was much of anything besides a provocateur is open for discussion.) Calling himself Luke Skyywalker, in open (and ill-advised) defiance of George Lucas’ possessive trademarking of all things Star Wars, Campbell took it upon himself to push the envelope of public decency in his quest for notoriety. As it turned out, he would get all he could handle, and the travails surrounding As Nasty as They Wanna Be would launch a new round of soul-searching throughout the record industry as it struggled to deal with the marketing of increasingly confrontational rap artists.
A record store in Florida already had encountered legal troubles over the Miami-based 2 Live Crew’s debut, … Is What We Are, in 1987 after the parents of a 14-year-old girl complained about the album’s lyrics. The next year, an Alabama record-store owner was charged with pandering obscenity, and later acquitted, after he sold a copy of the group’s second album, Move Somethin’, to an undercover cop. These controversies, as well as the inclusion of the bouncy hit single “Me So Horny,” served to spur sales of As Nasty as They Wanna Be, which quickly moved 2 million units.
“Me So Horny,” based on a sample of a Vietnamese girl taken from Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket, earned considerable radio play for its “clean” version (Campbell, in a move that later would be copied by numerous rappers, had released an alternate version of the album that even got a separate title, As Clean as They Wanna Be). Even the “nasty” version of the song, which was doubly charming because it was degrading to women and racist, was one of the tamest tracks on the album, which even critics who weren’t interested in censorship considered debased (not to mention amateurish, but that’s another story). (more…)
![61wShbNdWZL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/61wShbNdWZL._SCLZZZZZZZ_1.jpg "61wShbNdWZL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]")
JACKYL
Different countries are…well, different. They have different laws and languages, funny stamps, 
Musical genres can be helpful for fans: They allow music to be categorized; grouped with other artists that sound similar. If you like Metallica, you will probably like Slayer. If you like Chet Atkins, you should check out Tommy Emmanuel. (If you like James Ingram and Michael McDonald, please, check out 
Do you deserve a raise? Of course you do. Everyone thinks that he or she is underpaid. That’s just the nature of the working world. 
Luther Campbell was nothing if not a provocateur. (Considering the quality of his music, whether he was much of anything besides a provocateur is open for discussion.) Calling himself Luke Skyywalker, in open (and ill-advised) defiance of George Lucas’ possessive trademarking of all things Star Wars, Campbell took it upon himself to push the envelope of public decency in his quest for notoriety. As it turned out, he would get all he could handle, and the travails surrounding As Nasty as They Wanna Be would launch a new round of soul-searching throughout the record industry as it struggled to deal with the marketing of increasingly confrontational rap artists.