Annoyance Index No. 4

People saying it’s their “birthday week”
Northbound 4B bus always running late
Someone listing all their favorite podcasts as a pretense for conversation
MFA-Writing Grants-Writing Magazines-Industrial Complex
Me not coming up with a catchy name for above like Ike did with Military-Industrial Complex

Tuesday Tuneage
America - “Sandman”
1972

Call me a sap (and many likely have) but throughout my existence as a mostly hard-rock-or-GTFO guy, I’ve always dug America’s singles. A big part of my mid-seventies soundtrack what with “A Horse With No Name” being played on the radio among rockers Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Joe Walsh while my friends and I played Risk over and over and “Sister Golden Hair” coming onto an AM station on a ride home from church in that same era and feeling wistful while hearing it (if a fourth grader can feel wistful.) Something called “the Tropic of Sir Galahad” from “Tin Man” is deep when you’re that age and in later years “you can always change your name” from “Ventura Highway” always had me convinced the  narrator was talking to a draft dodger friend.

A few years back my hankering for that America sound got to the point where I went out of my way (simple rack surfing at local record stores wouldn’t suffice, suddenly needed this album pronto) to get History: America’s Greatest Hits on eBay. Yessir: All the seventies hits and other gems, plus “Muskrat Love” leads off side two so it’s easy to skip and get to a true leadoff hitter in “Tin Man.” Finding out that Phil Hartman (spelled Hartmann in the liner notes) designed its album cover is the second coolest “whoa HE designed album covers” discovery I’ve had in recent years since looking over my Steve Martin Let’s Get Small album and discovering Dean Torrance of Jan and Dean designed that cover. These types of finds are arguably more mind-blowing than the concept of a Tropic of Sir Galahad.

While in the depths of my America rabbit hole on the Internet. I came across some blurb where David Crosby showed disdain for America allegedly ripping off Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s sound. But I find America more sonically and lyrically interesting than the likes of CSNY’s “Our House” and “Teach Your Children.”* Meanwhile “A Horse with No Name” did as good at Neil Young as Neil himself. So yeah, I can get my first-half-of-the-seventies fill of rock jollies with Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, BTO, et. al. but “Sandman” is the America deep cut played on the AOR FM station in that alternate universe I’ll gladly set up shop in some Saturday afternoon with Ardbeg and Snyder’s of Hanover.

*“Adult bubblegum” was the spot-on phrase used by Billy Altman to describe CSN(and sometimes Y) in The Rolling Stone Record Guide. The Guide’s entry on America by John Swenson snidely notes that all of their album titles begin with the letter “H” and calls this “a Sesame Street-level conceit”. Having been a huge fan of Sesame Street seasons one and two as they aired, I should take offense.

Tuesday Tuneage
Deep Purple - "Highway Star"
1972

 

The Imaginary Further Adventures of Guys Who Had Written Their Names on Albums I Bought in Used Bins

Jim Clark, Deep Purple, Machine Head — Later as an adult when his nephew played The Replacements’ “Takin’ a Ride”, Jim realized they nicked its opening from Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” (And damn: both were opening tracks.) Then he went to a local store, bought Machine Head on compact disc for $15.99, and realized that the jokers at the record label had released it in quadraphonic sound and everything sounded bizarre. Around this same time, his nephew asked if he still had his vinyl albums and could he look through them for anything by Budgie, Bloodrock, or Funkadelic. I’m getting too old for this, Jim said to nobody in particular.

Steve Forman, The James Gang 16 Greatest Hits — On the album cover after “The James Gang” he wrote “with Steve Forman” because he was moved by the plea of the Gang’s “White Man, Black Man”, a pop culture racial unity moment on par with Jerry Seinfeld’s “look to the cookie” speech in 1994. He was also delighted to see that they had a “Funk #48”, which makes sense: Because if there were a “Funk #49”, it must be assumed that there were funks one through forty-eight beforehand.

Eber (only surname was inscribed), Blue Oyster Cult, On Your Feet or on Your Knees — His roommate ate all his Cheetos and also made a serious dent in his Frosted Flakes stash so hell no is that joker going to abscond with his Foghat, Montrose, or BOC albums. Eber sat down with a black Bic pen — the same model he used to take the ink reservoir out of to configure a spitball shooter in eighth grade study hall — and plainly wrote his name on all of his LPs. Even the Flip Wilson album that ended up in his collection after his big brother left for college. Your move, roomie.

Sam Birkholm, Alice Cooper, Love It to Death — Once his mom found out they had a song titled “Dead Babies,” all of Sam’s Alice Cooper albums went in the Sell Immediately pile when the family emigrated from their 42-parishioners Laestadian Lutheran church to a breakaway 17-parishioners one. This new sect adopted a further hardline (no card playing, no playing music on the radio) and held its services on Sunday mornings in a vacant storefront in a half-empty strip mall on the south edge of town. Sam would later go on to form a metal band called Lutheran Schism before sidelining music and getting a manager’s job at the local Jiffy Lube.

Duhe (only surname inscribed), Bad Company — On this debut long player, the band’s pared-down logo, designed by album cover masters Hipgnosis, is simply stamped in bold white letters across a black field. Duhe couldn’t stand to mar this visual masterpiece, so on the sly he wrote his name on the inside jacket of the LP. In cursive as well, to offset the bold sans-serif font used by Bad Co. on the cover. He currently has a job where he uses the word “creative” as a noun and hosts weekly Mad Men parties, though the show has been off the air for years.

Donn B., John Entwistle, Whistle Rhymes — In 1976 a cash crunch necessitated the selling of all solo works by members of The Who. Donn felt none of them had been that outstanding and the one where a shirtless Roger Daltrey was portrayed as a centaur always gave him the creeps. This one had to go as well because Entwistle did not spell his name using “whistle”, while Pete Townshend had a silent “h” in his surname. A maddening bunch.

Tom Lenzen, Focus, Moving Waves — This album contains “Hocus Pocus, ” which is not only the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song with yodeling AND a top-five one featuring a flute (Lenzen briefly had a flute-rock section in his vinyl collection: Focus, Jethro Tull, Marshall Tucker Band), so damn straight he was going to ink his brand on the cover.

Ray Nickels, Yes, The Yes Album — Ray, bitter that this album had a song called “Starship Troopers” but it had nothing to do with Robert Heinlein or libertarianism, sold it with all his other Yes albums. Yes was always too happy and hippie-dippie for his taste anyway. He took the cash, walked to a nearby used bookstore, and bought a second copy of Heinlein’s (yes) Starship Troopers to keep at his cabin in the woods.

Annoyance Index No. 3

Cars stopping in middle of crosswalks
Mindfulness
Using “Nordic” and “Scandinavian” interchangeably
Lack of Thin Lizzy LPs in my collection
Skip preview > Skip listen to podcast about this episode > Skip recap > Skip intro

Tuesday Tuneage
Little Richard - "Rubber Duckie"
1994

Your friends at the table each order a beer. The server looks your way, you order a single malt scotch. To the table you say, “Toddler time has ended.”

Tuesday Tuneage
AC/DC - "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)"
1981

As noted here before, the Young brothers’ attempts to mimic Pete Townshend’s *Who’s Next* synthesizer using guitars were downright admirable. That sound was first heard on this track and the use of cannons towards the end of the song was downright Spinal Tap-esque*. Wikipedia says AC/DC was inspired to employ artillery when hearing cannons being used at the wedding of Charles and Diana. Turns out those inbred German royals were good for something after all.

*AC/DC’s use of phallic metaphors is a whole other Tap-worthy thing. As Chuck Eddy has noted, the *For Those About To Rock** album alone has “Let’s Get It Up”, “Inject the Venom”, and “Night of the Long Knives.” You could make your own playlist of such songs by throwing in “Big Gun”, “Sink the Pink”, “Hard As a Rock”, “Fire Your Guns”, “Let Me Put My Love Into You,” and many, many more.

Annoyance Index No. 2

The Academy Awards
Stating that the Miracle on Ice game was a semifinal
Unshoveled sidewalks (hello Minneapolis 311)
Person next to you on the treadmill who obviously smoked a half pack before coming to gym
Person next to you on the stationary bike who reeks of patchouli (or is that perfume okay boomer)

Tuesday Tuneage
Alice Cooper - "School's Out"
1972

On a recent Saturday morning I was supposed to take an accounting course to further my knowledge and appreciation of the profession learn something new to help make some extra money so I can maybe bump up my retirement savings and hopefully get out of the game before chronic pain takes over my life. So I had a doughnut and coffee ready in my UND mug and was set to start. I logged in and found out a specific software was needed to take this course and I would have to take it elsewhere. What to do with an unexpected hour off?

Reminds me of junior year in college when I was taking a course called The Economics of Labor and the professor was a real stiff. Grumpy and anti-union. Great, a professor hostile to labor teaching a course centered around labor … it was fun to wear my P-9 Proud button to class one day. And now I’m hesitant to get out my transcript to see if I: 1) gutted out an A or B in this course, or 2) took a C in some sort of mail-it-in misguided protest. Anyway, one day he simply didn’t show up. We all sat in the classroom for about ten minutes and then reached some sort of consensus: F*ck this, let’s leave. Huh, an unexpected hour off during college? What to do? Unfortunately I didn’t have a non-school book with me to pass the time with (the best thing about going to the laundromat back then, shun the video games and sit on one of those crummy uncomfortable plastic seats and read a book that wasn’t required for as long as the machines were running) so I headed to the library, found a quiet cubicle, and took a nap. Professor Grumpus was back the next day. (And that Saturday morning I took my coffee and doughnut to the recliner and watched Succession.)

The list essay is a great way to get into the personal essay. Of course, sometimes the essay just doesn’t materialize. So you take what the muse will give you and just stick with the list. 

Annoyance Index No. 1

Emotional intelligence
Quickbooks Online
Kevin Hart
“Is this the Vikings Super Bowl blueprint?”
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame