Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Tuesday Tuneage
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - "Hollywood Nights"
1978


Topics - real and imagined - addressed in a short email thread with a friend today:

- Dancing at Williams Uptown Bar, back when it had an upstairs.

- Schmidt Beer, back when it was good.

- Violating open container laws, back when that was cute.

- Krista Tesreau, back when she was Mindy Lewis on Guiding Light.

- Bob Seger, back when he regularly had hits.

My friend fired me off a little "Fire Lake", and I responded with some "Hollywood Nights." Mainstream late-seventies rock at its finest and impetus for me to dive into my old Seger vinyl this weekend. I'll open the window and yell to get your attention when the needle hits "Get Out Of Denver" - probably the song I should have written about, but where would Krista Tesreau fit in?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Tuesday Tuneage
Schooly D - "Signifying Rapper"
1988


"Signifying Rapper" is two or three times (at least) more interesting than Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir", whose riff and rhythm are the basis for this tune's music. The words are from folklore; also see Moore, Rudy Ray.

This tune was subsequently used in the film Bad Lieutenant and then dropped from future versions of the film as Zep has deep pockets and hence great attorneys and sued because Schooly D sampled "Kashmir." Somewhere I hope Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, and Albert King are chuckling over this, as "samples" of their music are all over Led Zeppelin's first two albums and the blues artists weren't originally credited. But hey: When you're a British rock star you can get away with pretty much anything, especially stealing American music and selling yourself and your music as original. That was the old Brit MO, but they don't really have such or any strategy these days. Not that I care to pay too much attention: The Brits have largely been big-time bores in rock 'n' roll for at least thirty years now.

As for Schooly D's song, there is a phrase/warning used in Corporate America that didn't exist back when I was stuck there. I don't have to pay attention it now as I'm self-employed and work out of my home office but am hip to it anyway ... Schooly D is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Tuesday Tuneage
James Gang - "White Man/Black Man"
1971


A plea for racial unity complete with gospel-tinged background singers and Joe Walsh turns in some pretty sweet guitar work for the last 1:50 or so. Earnest as heck, but I'll stick with Jerry Seinfeld's "Look To The Cookie" speech, which is shorter and just as insightful.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Tuesday Tuneage
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - "Jammin' Me"
1987


This tune was written by Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, and Bob Dylan. Not protest music, more along the lines of complaint music; though you can't at all complain with the catchy riffiness (guitars and words) of the whole thing. The ever-reliable Wikipedia claims the song is about "a man overwhelmed by the volume of disconnected news generated in the disinformation age." If said dude was overwhelmed in 1987, imagine how he would feel today with Twitter, blogs, RSS feeds, and 24/7 cable news.

Speaking of TV news, I can stream Al Jazeera English on my Roku box, but they seem to only want to focus on uprisings in the Arab world. Nothing about Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan, nor do they have a conversative and liberal pundit arguing over every issue they bring up. Their female anchors and reporters are all smoking hot though, so there may be hope for AJE yet ...

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Tuesday Tuneage
The Grass Roots - "Live For Today"
1967

I'm never quite sure how to look at this tune. Is it a supremely catchy peace-love-and-understanding artifact that only the sixties could provide, in the vein of "Get Together" by the Youngbloods and "People Got To Be Free" by the Rascals? Or is it simply a half-step above something that effectively parodies it - Spinal Tap's "(Listen To) The Flower People"?

Either way is a fun listen. I try not to think about it too much, don't want to be one of those squares "in a hurry to complicate their mind."