Tuesday Tuneage
Black Flag - “TV Party”
1982

Stooges-like throb with kinda-inspired lead guitar. I’d love it to death as satire except I actually lived this my senior year at college when I rented a house with five other guys. One roommate, after the rest of us went to sleep, would stay up late with more beer and bottom shelf vodka, then pass out on a coach with CNN Headline News playing so loud we could hear it upstairs when we woke up in the morning. The guy I shared a room with and I would joke that we already knew the news of the day because we had heard it over and over for an hour or so before we actually woke up for real. Needless to say, we had been too lazy/hazy to go downstairs and shut the TV off overnight in the first place.

As for the video ... Seeing it after seeing Henry Rollins on Sons of Anarchy: Could it be in these near-thirty years that his acting "chops" have actually diminished??

Tuesday Tuneage
Gary Stewart - “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)”
1975

Another downside to such a dry summer is that there were too few rainy afternoons to say: Fuck it, I’m gonna sit here all afternoon, drink beer, and listen to country music. Then  you dig out your Waylon, Willie, Jerry Lee, Merle, etc.; crack a few cold ones, and sit in dimness of your living room and mind and take it all in. I know others use rainy afternoons to organize scrapbooks, go through family photos, or catch up on correspondence; but some us take such weather as opportunities to Think Big/Think Stupid and go for broke.

Always on the playlist these afternoons is “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)”. Perpetual contender always for Greatest Song Title Ever and perhaps the finest in Stewart’s pantheon of drinking/cheating/honky-tonking classics from the mid-seventies. That list?

“Drinking Thing”
“Honky-Tonkin’”
“Out Of Hand”
“Quits”
“Single Again”
“Whiskey Trip”’
“Your Place Or Mine”

Okay, you’re thinking, what a bummer. Day drinking and a song cycle of divorce/alcoholism/adultery/bars. Here’s the bright spot: Stewart had a road band called “The Honky Tonk Liberation Army.”

Tuesday Tuneage
The Troggs - "Summertime"
1975

Why reinvent yourself when you can keep doing the same great thing over and over? I'm thinking AC/DC, you may be thinking of the Ramones.

I used to hear "Summertime" on Q-98 out of Fargo. It's acoustic guitar, drums, BASS BASS BASS on lead, and typical Troggsian leer. I assumed it was from their glory days of the mid-sixties, but it's from '75 - meaning these orginal metallic murkers unleashed this morsel of sheer brilliant punk shortly before "punk" appeared.

I like the summertime
When the girls wear their dresses so low
You can see the sun on their t-t-t-t-t-t-tan skin

Clever? Not very, but then look at the titles of Troggs' tracks four through eight on The Best of The Troggs (Fontana/Chronicles release, 1994): "I Want You", "I Can't Control Myself", "Gonna Make You", "Anyway That You Want Me", "Give It To Me." These guys weren't exactly the most playful of wordsmiths to start with.

You know when the Stones sang "I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes / I have to turn my head until my darkness goes"? This is the flipside of that sentiment. Makes me think of June, when I was walking the four blocks home from the bus stop on a Friday afternoon. First block I spot a hot strawberry blonde walking up to her duplex. Sun dress plus wedge heels. She was carrying a bottle of Jim Beam so big that it needed a handle. Such sights get a confirmed warm-weather downer like me to start softly singing:

I like the summertime, when the girls wear their dresses so ...

Tuesday Tuneage
The Litter - "Action Woman"
1967

Minneapolis band The Litter's debut album, Distortions, is mostly covers that you could have expected to hear from any number of bands in Anytown, USA circa 1966-67 at dances in clubs as the teen action switched from dancing to digging the band.

Cub Koda: "But you could really judge a band, and how their lead guitar player truly was, by whether or not they played any tunes by The Yardbirds - and if they did so, how well they played 'em."

"I'm A Man", their take of the Yardbirds' cover of the Bo Diddley tune, is decidely more punkish; the rhythm section simply doesn't compare to that of the Yardbirds, yet they try the song at the same fast rate. The lead guitarist doesn't come close to replicating Jeff Beck's use of his guitar as a percussion instrument. But he does try to coax weird noises out of his axe and that's how they end the tune.

Lester Bangs: "There was this one song called 'Hey Joe' that literally everbody and his fuckin' brother not only recorded but claimed to have written even though it was obviously the psychedelic mutation of some hoary old folk song which was about murderin' somebody for love just like nine-tenths of the rest of them hoary folk ballads."

Their "Hey Joe" isn't as good as those by The Leaves or The Standells, it's more along the line of passive attempts like the Byrds' version. Maybe about as good as Patti Smith's take, they all kinda sound the same once you've heard The Jimi Hendrix Experience's reimagining anyway.

The Litter's one original on Distortions - written by producer Warren Kendrick, who was hoping for a hit - is the sonic blast "Action Woman." It has all the requisites of a Yardbirds wannabe from the mid-sixties: the distortion, the aggresiveness, the insolent lead singer, the Beck-influenced solo, the misogyny aimed against a girl who won't put out. According to the album's liner notes (1999 reissue on the ARF! ARF! label), the tune got a little airplay on KDWB courtesy of deejay Tac Hammer, but didn't even become a local hit and the band quickly dropped it from its shows' playlists.

In a classic understatement, Kendrick later confessed: "In retrospect, it was a little too strong for my target market of 13-year-old girls." True, but he and The Litter gave a gift for the ages to garage rock aficionados.

Tuesday Tuneage
The Suburbs - "Cows"
1980

Late 1984 in Grand Forks, I was at a party across the hall when the dorm's resident punk rockers - all three of them ... and "punk" is a relative term, but they were the punkiest guys in the dorm by far - showed up. My only memory of this conversation was that one of them, in his gelled hair and eyeliner, insisting that The Suburbs were the greatest band ever. Better than The Who! I scoffed, we debated, I laughed at him, he laughed at me. They moved on to another party.

I actually ended up getting along with these guys. Maybe they sensed that I may have been a little more tolerant than others. Me, I was starting to explore music outside of classic rock. I'd ask them questions and their enthusiasm was undeniable. Some credit to my listening to Black Flag and then quickly moving on to Husker Du from there has to lie with them.

The next year, the first night the dorm's cafeteria was open, I was sitting by myself at one of the tables during dinner. One of the punkers took the seat opposite me, reintroduced himself, shook his head, and said: "Man, those freshmen over there think my bowling shirt is funny." We chuckled over that and moaned about the new kids on campus. He confessed he had sat with me because I had a Who shirt on. This started a beautiful conversation about music, new and old. It was a great way to start the new school year.

All this came back to me last week when I purchased the anthology Ladies And Gentleman, The Suburbs Have Left The Building. It's not The Who, but who cares? It's solid Minneapolis rock combined with bold dance beats. Thirty years late for me is better than never.

Tuesday Tuneage
Grandpboy - "Knock It Right Out"
2002

A song for the spring and summer. Terrific Stones/Faces riff that I believe Paul Westerberg (Grandpaboy is his alter ego) described as "like candy" in the Come Feel Me Tremble documentary.

Lyrics like: "Got an idea / Gotta make a lotta money" may not be up there with those in "Unsatisfied", "Here Comes A Regular", and "Nobody"; but which song will you sing to yourself when the rent is due soon and you've only worked three hours this week?

Considering the stink-ola status of the Minnesota Twins, it's nice to listen to Twins fan Westerberg sing with confidence about knocking the ball out of the park. The Twins? 17 home runs in 29 games, and that's just the tip of that rather lame iceberg. (Twins are the iceberg, fans' hopes are the Titanic.) Our hope now is that Westerberg emerges from his basement with a whole album of baseball-centric songs to cheer us up during another beatdown. We need a soundtrack to surfing Twitter for the best Twins cheap shot to yell at our TVs.

Tuesday Tuneage
Brownsville Station - "Smokin' In The Boys Room"
1973

Brownsville Station seemed like a bunch of harmless goofballs, but now looking back their "I got bored" slacker rebellion seems like the perfect antidote to a couple of bizarre only-in-the-seventies school memories that continue to stick with me:

1) At the start of third grade, our teacher said she would like to meet with us, two at a time, after school for thirty minutes to talk and get to know us better. I was only eight years old, but I knew darn sure that I didn't want to do this. So I did what I have always done - as child and adult - when faced with a situation where I didn't want to do something: I avoided it. I simply didn't sign up for the chat time with the teacher, hoping that a no-sign meant no obligation.

No such luck. Sure enough, a few weeks into the school year, Teach called me and a fellow student out on not signing up to talk with her. (Some annoying little teacher's pet wannabe raised his hand and said *he'd* gladly meet with her for a second time. Dork.) Trapped in a corner and no way out, I signed up to meet with the teacher along with the other holdout.

The meeting wasn't that bad, just strange. I don't remember much, just that: A) How weird it was was to have a teacher wanting me to talk to her as a person and not a student, B) By staying after school (and on a Friday!), I had been deprived of a walk home with my neighborhood buddies and football in the back yard. So the teacher might have been glad that she got to know me a little better, all I got was my first taste of unpaid overtime.

2) One year, apparently the administration at my junior high felt that we all needed to relate to each other better. So instead of going to a class and learning something, once a week for an hour we broke up into classroom-size groups and would go to a classroom and have a discussion led by the teacher. Our school nickname was the Raiders, so these discussions were called "Raider Rap Sessions." We got a handbook and this title was on the cover and DAMMIT I wish now I had kept a copy. I don't remember much about these rap sessions, they involved talks about ethics (is cheating on a test ever okay, etc.) and one of them actually turned into a discussion on the code of defending your goalie. (Grand Forks is a hockey town.) I can't complain, I was never required to actively participate in these rap sessions, never opened my mouth once. If they would have had the sessions replace something as useless as gym class, I probably would have considered them a noble idea. And I'm halfways convinced that someday somebody will say I imagined the Raider Rap Sessions, that I stole the idea from an episode of Freaks and Geeks.

Mr. Rosso: Let’s just rap. As people, okay? No pressure. From now I’m not "Mr. Rosso, guidance counselor."
Lindsey: You’re not?
Mr. Rosso: I’m just Jeff. Your friend who cares.

"Hey Whitey, I Thought You Were A Lefty?"

One day last week, I dropped my cell phone and it exploded into three parts on the floor at a client's studio. Said client asked if the phone would work again, and after I pieced it back together and fired up the power and saw that it worked, I said: "Bounces back wash after wash."

This resulted in a short conversation about old commercials ... "Ancient Chinese secret" ... "You call it corn, we called it maize." Soon I was on YouTube, looking up some of my favorite commercials from the old days. I was delighted to find Right Guard's "Hi Guy" and Schmidt's "Big Jim's coming!"

At this point, I was going to go into rant mode on the state of modern TV commercials. Only Allstate's "Mayhem" campaign and Sonic's "Two Guys" goofballs at the drive-in are must-see TV for this guy. Too often I instead see the ever-present Flo for Progressive and Mike Rowe for almost everything else. Oh, and whatever idiotic "idea" Bud Light is running with these days. (And as you are probably aware, there is a new annoying pitchman on the scene: "Scott" the Scotsman who is saturating the airwaves trying to convince you that you need more for lawn care than a Lawn-Boy and a sprinkler. I'm so glad I don't own a house.) But hey ... I'm sure there was a lot of crappy commercials back in the old days, I've just forgotten them.

So here's one man's list of three vintage commercials he wished would hit YouTube:

1) Bob Uecker "Front Row" commercial for Miller Lite, circa 1984. How great was this commercial? Me and my buddy in the summer of '84 memorized it and repeated it over and over again. I can still recite most of it from memory:

Uecker (finding his seat at a baseball game): Hey sports fans, I love ya! The great thing about an ex-big-leaguer? Freebies to the game! Just call up the front office and BINGO. Another great thing? Lite beer from Miller. It has a third less calories than their regular beer, plus it tastes great.

Heckler: Down in front!

Uecker: Ha! I love 'em!

Usher: C'mon buddy, you're in the wrong seat.

Uecker: Must be in the front rowwwww!

(Cut to Uecker in noseblood seats in the outfield upper deck.)

Uecker: He missed the tag! He missed the tag!

How great was this commercial? Not only is "Uecker seats" now a euphemism for crappy seats at a game, the ad convinced me to drink Miller Lite for a few months before I moved onto Schmidt.

2) Jeff Altman for Valvoline, circa 1988. Altman is a hyperactive standup comedian. I knew him from his frequent appearances on David Letterman's show. One of his bits at the time was to describe his father, and in the crotchety manner he treated Altman as a child. This commercial featured Altman in both the role of father and child shopping for motor oil. The child speaking to Valvoline's quality and the father saying: "Quality, schmality. I just want whatever's cheapest." The ending is the child saying something like "there's a rebate", and the father responds with: "Would you just get the Valvoline like I told you? Or I'll sink you like a three-foot putt."

How great was this commercial? Me and my buddy (same guy from summer of '84!), briefly left our table at a bar to get closer to a TV when the commercial aired during the Saturday afternoon MLB game of the week.

3) Amoco "The Road Worrier" commercial, circa 1984. This was a takeoff on The Road Warrior movie. It features The Road Worrier, a grizzly Mel Gibson-like tough guy with a few day's growth who drives an Amoco tanker truck. He pulls up to a house, walks to the front door. A man answers the door, announces to his daughter that her date is here. Dad engages the driver in conversation:

Dad: "How's it going Road?"

(Editor's note: I love that the Dad feels he has a great vibe with his potential son-in-law and calls him "Road"!)

Road Worrier: "I'm worried."

Then Road expands on his anxiety, something about how subpar gasolines clog fuel lines, damage carburetors, etc. and that Amoco has the highest-quality gasoline. He and the girl prepare to drive away.

Dad: "So where you headed?"

Road: "North Dakota. There's an Amoco station there."

I first saw this while in school at the University of North Dakota. Imagine my great delight when while visiting my parents, who at the time lived in Illinois, and I saw this commercial and it still mentioned North Dakota. I had been worried that Amoco changed the name of the state for whatever market they were airing the commercial in. It wasn't Road Worrier-like worry, but I was concerned nonetheless.

Tuesday Tuneage
Bachman-Turner Overdrive - "Hey You"
1975

This week I was going to write about Pavement's "Summer Babe (Winter Version)" ... riffing guitars, lazy vocalist singing nonsense, yet it's all catchy and irresistible somehow. But I had that song on the radio as a child and it was "Hey You" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Plus it's catchier than the Pavement tune, has a better rhythm section, and while Stephen Malkmus is intentionally a lazy singer, Randy Bachman as a singer is just lazy. I'll take that over an unforced error.

Tuesday Tuneage
Def Leppard - "Hello America"
1980

From Def Leppard's debut album, when I'm guessing they were still categorized as a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band. I bring that up so that I can say that the abbreviation for that metal subgenre is "NWOBHM," and trust me: It's a lot more fun to type that than it is to say it. Supposedly there is a way to pronounce the abbreviation, but I've never heard it used. Than again, I've probably only ever discussed NWOBHM with like three other people.

I say I'm guessing that Lep was still being called a NWOBHM band in 1980, but I'm sure this song - it hit #45 on the UK charts - resulted in cries of "sell out" from all the denim clad NWOBHM-loving longhairs. What with its AOR-ready riffs, hooks, and chorus ("AOR", look that one up kiddies, speaking of abbreviations. Just don't be a little wisenheimer and call my tastes "MOR"), this is the type of tune from their first album that set the stage for the mainstream glories of High 'n' Dry, Pyromania, and Hysteria. Hello America ... Hello Mutt Lange.

And Mercury's advance must not have come in yet, because Joe Elliot sings about taking a Greyhound when he's in California.

Tuesday Tuneage
The Contours - "First I Look At The Purse"
1965

Is this one sexist? Or feminist? Is the narrator a hustler or just lazy? Decades ahead of its time - it celebrates women who have money insted of looks, curves, and sex appeal - it's another brilliant Motown (okay, Gordy Records) production by Smokey Robinson. He wrote the song with fellow Miracle Bobby Rogers. Robinson is who Bob Dylan called "America's greatest living poet." With couplets like this, I can't argue:

Why waste time looking at the waistline
First I look at the purse

Tuesday Tuneage
Faster Pussycat - "You're So Vain"
1990

Carly Simon's biggest hit covered by a group of LA hair metallers. Forgotten by everybody except fans of the group (count me in, "Babylon" off their debut album is one of the earliest Beastie Boys imitations of out the gate along with Antrax's "I'm The Man"), I remember hearing it a lot on Z-Rock back in the day. God bless that station. Again. This song was orginally released on a compilation album put out to honor Elektra Records on its fortieth anniversary. Lenny Kaye put the double album together, this tune is quite the nugget.

But I leave the last word to my favorite morning deejay, Johnny Fever: "Let's go look at some Carly Simon album covers."

Tuesday Tuneage
The Shazam - "Megaphone"
1997

Shamelessy catch power pop by a band I've always meant to listen to more of. This is the #1 song in my collection to play on those mornings where I hit the bedtime tea (not a euphemism) hard the night before, am dreamed out or have hit the dreaded dream-within-a-dream scenario (Inception was fiction?), and can't quite get to one hundred percent of waking up. Five Hour Energy? Nah, 2.25 minute pop song!

And some days I change the chorus to:

I've got a telephone
but I'm ignoring the whole world

Tuesday Tuneage
Bob Seger - "Get Out Of Denver"
1974

March 1990. I'm pacing my living room, listening to some grainy AM signal I miraculously picked up on my boombox. North Dakota is playing Wisconsin in hockey, and a win means UND finishes second in the WCHA. This is important as it means if they go on to advance to the WCHA Final Four, they are a home team. Also, it puts hated archrival Minnesota into third. UND coach Gino Gasparini is pulling out all the stops to get a win, his team goes into overtime but he pulls the goalie for an extra attacker because at the time it looks like two points are needed in the race for second instead of one.

... And then at some point I lose the grainy AM signal. This is pre-Internet, so while you think I would wait for the next morning's paper to find out the score, no. I either called the Grand Forks Herald sports desk or the UND student union hotline to get a score.

Ten years or so later, for some reason I can't get audio of a UND at Mankato State hockey game on the Internet. But I find out that the game is on some AM station out of Mankato. I take a beer out to my car (open container, shhhhh) parked on the street and listen to part of that game on a grainy AM signal.

... And then at some point I lost the grainy AM signal. Thankfully, I would be able to get a final score on the Net later that night.

I'm typing this on Sunday, March 11th. Tonight, Wisconsin at the University of Denver in the rubber game of the opening round of the WCHA playoffs. Why should I care? Well, the winner dictates who UND will playing on Thursday in the opening round of the WCHA Final Five, and at what time. I may have to reorganize my work schedule if UND plays Thursday afternoon. Other things: beer and pizza purchases, workout schedule, laundry, etc. will be affected by whether UND plays in the afternoon or evening.

So what have I done tonight?

1) Saw if free audio of the game was available online without any annoying registration steps.

2) Looked up what radio stations in Wisconsin and Denver carry UW and DU hockey and looked to see if these stations were on my IHeartRadio app on my iPod Touch. Couldn't find the game this way.

3) Checked for score updates on the fan forum at USCHO.com. (The score updates are there, but there's a lot of chatter.)

4) Checked score updates on the College Hockey News and USCHO apps on my iPod Touch.

5) Constantly checked Twitter for score updates.

All because I have the need to know who is getting out of Denver tonight and is headed for St. Paul later in the week. Because I have the need to know whether UND plays Wisconsin Thursday afternoon or Saint Cloud State Thursday night. The technology has changed, but I'm still the young man with a can of beer in my hand, chasing down some grainy AM signal.

Tuesday Tuneage
Van Halen - "She's The Woman"
2012

All I have is one lasting memory, of saying something a little too loud at last call during last weekend's imaginary bar bull session, just hours after buying and tracking A Different Kind Of Truth:

"...I don't care, as far as I'm concerned this is PRODUCED BY TED TEMPLEMAN..."

A tip of the hat to my pal Chuck Tomlinson for prompting me to buy the new Roth-reunion Van Halen album. (Chuck did this via Twitter, so take that Franzen!) I just assumed it would be a long sleepwalk through an arena slumber. Instead, it's a noble effort to bring back the Best Band In The Land of thirty-some years ago. It's all here: killer riffs, danceable beats, sweet harmony vocals, Diamond Dave. I shoulda known something was up when Kool & The Gang was booked as the opening act on the latest VH tour. Talk about signs, right?

Rob Sheffield says it best, that the album is closest sonically to Women And Children First. Any complaints on that? Didn't think so.

One more thing: For finding a fountain of youth for a generation of us, Van Halen will be Time magazine's Persons Of The Year. Book it.