Tuesday Tuneage
Ozark Mountain Daredevils - "Jackie Blue"
1975

When I shave in the late morning, I generally put on KOOL 108 on the portable radio in the bathroom. More times than not, I hear one of these songs: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel and "I Want A New Drug" by Huey Lewis and the News.

"Piano Man" is pleasant, but I got sick of it years ago. On my last listen, Joel drove me nuts ... he must have been pretty proud to own a rhyming dictionary back in '73, but who the hell drinks a "tonic and gin"? Do the Piano Man's buddies also like to order a "soda and scotch"? It reminds me of an establishment who try to gain respectability by billing itself as a "grill and bar."

"I Want A New Drug" is also pleasant, but I feel weird shaving with a razor and shaving cream as in the song's video, Huey uses an electric razor. (While on a boat!) (?)

The other day I must have been shaving at a different time than usual, because on KOOL 108 I heard the end of "Amy" by Pure Prairie League and then "Jackie Blue" by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Having not heard it in years, "Jackie Blue" was a knockout of a blast from the past. I love the soprano/falsetto/whatever-Italian-word-they-are vocals, the eerie guitar, and lyrics like: "you like your life in a free-form style." (Me too, but I can never get the free-form thing going! Where do I sign up to learn this?)

As an elementary school kid, I lived in a golden age of Top 40 radio in the mid-seventies. This tune is further proof of that. Which makes it such a great soundtrack for shaving. And good thing on that recent morning I finished shaving as the Ozarks wrapped up, as the next song up was by the dreaded Supertramp. Still haven't figured out with them if it is a guy or a chick singing.

Tuesday Tuneage
Go-Go's - "Vacation"
1982

The decline and fall of a staycation, April 13-24, 2011:

1. I'm going to get so much done. Read a book, watch a Netflix movie every night, get caught up on my magazines, write every day.

2. Hey, I don't have to work tomorrow or the day after or the day after. Time to pour myself a drink and celebrate.

3. Damn this cheap scotch doesn't taste too bad when you're halfway into the second one. Cut with club soda of course. You know else I'm going to do on staycation? Go check out the Foshay observation deck, go to the Science Museum, go the Minnesota Historical Society, and definitely check out an art museum. I think it's time to switch to beer ...

4. I listened to Secret Treaties last night? What's that can of Premium doing next to the stereo? Did I feed the cat? Damn, I'm hungry. I was going to go to Lowbrow or Burger Jones tonight but I gotta spend my dining dough on a greasy breakfast and lots of coffee at Curran's pronto.

5. Okay, I'm going to watch that highly-acclaimed miniseries on my streaming Netflix. Oh wait - this episode of How I Met Your Mother on WGN is a classic. Cool, they're showing four episodes in a row tonight.

6. It's nice out, I should bike down to Roadrunner and check out what's come in on vinyl. Hmmm, it does look like it's clouding up. Might be best to pour a microbrew and listen to The Best of Uriah Heep.

7. I've watched the Twins and/or the NHL playoffs on TV seven days in a row. Tonight let's make it eight.

8. I had forgotten how much fun making a beer can pyramid is.

9. In your face, iPod Touch! That's four consecutive victories in Hearts!

10. Boy, that Sid Hartman sure is a character.

11. Crap. I don't want to go back to work tomorrow.

Tuesday Tuneage
Guided By Voices - "Teenage FBI"
1999

I'm not at all qualified to write about Guided By Voices, not being a card-carrying member of the cult and having never even checked them out live. Plus after all these years of hearing the hype, what finally got me to go to my iMac the day after Christmas and buy a GBV album? Hearing their atypical polished "Glad Girls" on a rerun of How I Met My Mother, it played as montage music while Ted did something romantic and/or world-embracing. Then I chumped out by settling on the one-disc anthology Human Amusements At Hourly Rates rather than getting a real album, rationalizing it because Allmusic.com wrote that it's the equivalent of GBV leader Robert Pollard making me a mixtape of his best work.

But I write because I write. So, thirty-two songs on the disc and which one do I present to you?

"Teenage FBI" because I love the title, it's got hooks galore, and the lyrics start out as an ahhh-romance cliche than throw in some Fed-level 21 Jump Streeters at the end of the chorus, all in a buck-thirty-nine.

And speaking of that Allmusic.com review, it sums up the appeal of Guided By Voices on Human Amusements - an album whose vast majority of songs now seem to be on some sort of shuffle in my brain during many waking moments - perfectly: "77 minutes of great hooks, hummable melodies, man-sized guitars, and general rock geek bliss." No argument here.

Four Random Memories Of Frozen Fours

I wrote this up in honor of tonight's Michigan vs. Minnesota-Duluth title game. Go Bulldogs! And don't worry, none of these involve the University of North Dakota:

1984: Due to my folks moving from Grand Forks to Chicago in March of my freshman year, I moved into Walsh Hall at UND mid-second semester. I had only been there a couple of weeks when on a Saturday night I wandered down to the basement commons area to get a pop from the vending machine. I saw that the Minnesota-Duluth vs. Bowling Green final was on ESPN on the big TV in the little viewing lounge. There was just a few minutes left in the third, so I grabbed a seat and joined the three other guys - complete strangers - there to cheer on UMD's inevitable win. But Bowling Green scored late to tie it up. And then for four overtimes and well into the night we cheered on our WCHA brethren Bulldogs, who eventually lost in the fourth OT.

1988: Maine and Minnesota were favored all season to match up in the title game, I think Sports Illustrated even bothered to cover college hockey midseason for a page or two and declared the matchup all but inevitable. But the Black Bears and Gophers were upset by relative unknowns Lake Superior State and St. Lawrence in the semifinals. An obviously frustrated Maine and Minnesota matched up in the third-place game that ended up being a brawl-filled mess. I didn't see it, but I think the officials may have even called this game early with how nasty it got. The NCAA got wise a year or two later and eliminated the third place game altogether.

1990: I didn't have cable and nobody wanted to watch the game with me, so I walked to the Park Tavern alone and watched Wisconsin dismantle something called Colgate. I foolishly gave up booze for Lent back then and recall drinking near beer in bottles. Ugh.

1991: I was at the Boston University vs. Northern Michigan title game at the St. Paul Civic Center. The game went to three overtimes and after two, some Badger fan out in the concourse yelled to the delight of his buddies: "... And after two overtimes, Wisconsin is still national champion!!"

Tuesday Tuneage
The Rulers - "Wrong 'Em Boyo"
1967

Tonight on Album Club, we tracked The Clash's London Calling, which features their version of "Wrong 'Em Boyo." If it weren't for my many readings of the notes at the end of Greil Marcus's Mystery Train, I wouldn't have known that "Wrong 'Em Boyo" was a cover of a tune by the Jamaican rocksteady band The Rulers. The Clash even went so far as to use The Rulers' "start with 'Stagger Lee', stop, and then start a different song with a different beat but tells kinda the same story" move. Yeah, that move.

If the Clash's version of this song is burned in your brain, it takes a couple, three listens to get the vibe of the Rulers' version. But it's worth a few listens and is a lot more fun than most folk music. Weirdly, "Stagger Lee" celebrates the shooting of a guy named Billy (ouch) and I still can't get enough of its multitude of versions, whether it's Lloyd Price's chart-topping version from 1959 or by some rocksteady guys from Jamaica. Go Stagger Lee!

My Latest Fortune Cookie Said: "Writing Is A Craft Not An Art."

The writing mind game can be a tricky one for some of us. There are writers who can hammer out solid writing "using a trash can to set my laptop on" as my friend Jim once claimed, while some of us - yes, my hand is raised - are fussbudgets who need the right desk at the right height, the right chair, the right music, coffee at the right temperature, not too full of stomach, but not too hungry either, etc.

After all these years of writing, I still can't do much for creating at my apartment. Too many distractions: Day job (my accounting office is at home also), TV, email. Plus I haven't done a good job of creating a comfortable writing space. I have a desk, but it faces a wall and while that wall has a framed Van Halen Fair Warning LP cover, a Sergio Argonnes' "MAD Pictorial Map of the United States," a beautiful painting of Lester Bangs (by Alice DuBois), and a small bulletin board with writing notes tacked to it; I still feel boxed in. It's a space to rewrite and edit in, and to do original writing in short bursts; but it's not a place to catch the muse for a long period of time.

Hence the need for a coffee shop. There isn't much else for public spaces that offer caffeine plus a table and chair to use for writing. And my fave neighorhood coffee shop closed last week. Its chairs and tables were reminiscent of something used in the library of a high school or public college. The rest of the place provided bohemian comfort to go with the just-right lighting. The brick wall, the bikes and accessories hanging on the walls. Copies of bike and music magazines on the shelf of the coffee counter. An always-trusty paperback of Bangs's Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung on the shelf. A PBR sticker on the wall of the bathroom. For six months or so this was my place to write. Now I have to find a new coffee home.

The prior coffee shop, the one I regularly went to for fifteen years or so until last fall, lost its appeal. There was this old guy who was there every afternoon that I went there. And while I have seen his photo in the paper being linked to one of the many local Ponzi schemes, his real crime is the amount of cologne that he wore. That oldster stunk up the room. I couldn't concentrate any more, and every little thing about that coffee shop started to bother me.

It's a similar situation to another coffee shop in my neighborhood in which I can't get good writing done. There it's not an old shyster who gets to me, it's some aged hippie. He has a weird habit of grinning at people -and his grin is evil - or trying to lock their eyes in for some contact. Otherwise he stares at his laptop and is quick to close it when you pass his table. Plus, I've seen him rummaging through my apartment building's dumpster; which means he's on the same level of civility as the neighborhood squirrels and racoons, but not up to the level of the neighborhood crows - those guys rule. I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me, maybe it's because I have a crew cut and look like a square. I got the same vibe one night years ago at the late Viking Bar with the West Bank hippies, though then the haircut was short back and sides. Hey comrades: I'm small in stature and totally nonthreatening. Plus, the sixties are over man! The other problem with Evil Hippie Guy's coffee shop is the general atmosphere. It's noisy, it's busy. It's kid-friendly (hence noisy and busy.) It's hippie-friendly, there's lots of notices on the board about new age stuff, and lots of stuff about being eco-friendly. I just want to write, I don't want to save the world.

So now the search for a new coffee place starts. It's rumored there's a new place opening up down the street soon, maybe that will be it. I just want to write someplace cool, a place that IS NOT too loud, hippie-ish, obsessed with going green, or being kid-friendly. I want someplace dark, where they have rock 'n' roll on, where the folks talk about booze instead of composting, where people smoke out on the sidewalk, where when it comes for my time to leave I want to walk or bike home and print off the notes I had been typing and attack them with a red pen. You know ... a writer's coffee shop.

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 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 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 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 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."

Tuesday Tuneage
The Music Machine - "Talk Talk"
1966

First of all, I have a bone to pick with those weenies over at Wikipedia. At their search engine, unless you type in the "The" in The Music Machine, it brings up some Christian children's music albums called Music Machine, which I read about on Wikipedia and had to supress laughter. (Where the hell in the Bible is "Agapeland"??) But I like to think that whoever came up the religious Music Machine albums was some sort of agnostic double agent secretly in love with The Music Machine, a group of LA-based punk rockers who had long moptops, dressed all in black, and each member wore one black glove (kudos to the organ player for his deft handling of this potentially difficult workplace issue.)

As for "Talk Talk," it hit #15 in 1966. Take a look at these guys on YouTube lip-syncing the song: All the menace of the Stones and Yardbirds unleashed in under two minutes. Except instead of the usual I'm-scared-of-women bluster normally associated with sixties punk, this song is about having the deepest of blues:

My social life's a dud
My name is really mud
I'm up to here in lies
Guess I'm down to size

The song ends with the shortest of choruses: "Talk talk. Talk talk. Talk talk." What's it mean? Does it matter?

Tuesday Tuneage
Rank Strangers - "Life During Wartime"
1998

In which a scrappy trio of Minneapolis rockers take an overrated Talking Heads song, lift out David Byrne's lyrics, and add much better music. This is a powerful song, with a paranoid give-you-the-creeps vibe, and after repeated listens I don't know if the narrator is actually living during a war, after a war (my Rank Strangers single names the tune as "Life After Wartime" on the disc, though the sleeve retains the original title), or if the whole Us vs. Them thing is in his mind. Pretty amazing.

Tuesday Tuneage
Donnie Iris - "Ah Leah!"
1980

When it comes to choosing my favorite hands-down hard rock songs of all time, I know they include: "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by The Rolling Stones, "Workin' for MCA" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Complete Control" by The Clash, and "Ah Leah!" by Donnie Iris. (I never complete the list because this isn't the late nineties.) All you have to do is listen to "Ah Leah!" once to recognize its greatness: Incessant bass, crunching riffs, soaring background vocals, the whole "caw-caw" thing with the keyboards - Chuck Eddy correctly compared it to Uriah Heep - before the guitar solo, the femme fatale who is the subject of the song. But here's what else I love about the tune:

- It originally came out on the Midwest National label, an affiliate of Sweet City records. Indie rock, right?

- Even though I'll have another song blasting on my iPod, when I see (Ah) Leah McClean on TV doing the news while I'm working out at the YMCA, this song immediately takes over my mind. And I hate local news. Come to think of it, I don't even know what (Ah) Leah McClean's voice sounds like. I just know seeing her on the TV at the Y makes my day better.

- The song's video, which you may have chosen to watch while listening to this tune, either features Donnie Iris or Earl Camembert as its male lead!

UPDATES AFTER POSTING THIS: 1) I love how Donnie Iris adusts his bow tie postcoitally before talking to Leah. 2) That YouTube video is from Canada's MuchMore channel. They spell Donnie's name "Donny" ... obviously they don't like him stealing Earl Camembert's look.

Patting Myself On The Shoulder After Fifteen Years

I woke up this morning realizing that fifteen years ago today was my last day at a salaried job in Corporate America. I thought of that beautiful quote from Office Space:

"Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements."

Later I walked over to the coffee shop and treated myself to a sandwich and chips. I was going to write, but instead I keep skimming through my first zine and find myself back in those heady days of 1996, when I quit my job and was temping:

-----

I didn’t get to explaining the nuances of how do to the things I was famous for ... like how to make it through the day when you’ve got a huge hangover, paying absolutely no attention in meetings but still have an answer when the boss calls on you, using the warehouse for your napping enjoyment, etc.

-----

Things I miss about work: that wonderful coffee; being one of the nine percent in the office who doesn’t feel above making that wonderful coffee; talking about boring sports like professional football; hearing people say how cool it would be if we had rules like those countries where they cut your hand off if you steal; hearing phrases like “team”, “quality” and “empowered”. Whenever I end up working again, my motto could be “employed, empowered, embittered against corporate fucking gurus who come up with idiotic buzz words.”

-----

The HR Mgr. shows up and she’s the most gorgeous gal I’ve seen in weeks. We got into the conference room to meet with one of their accountants and of course she sat next to me and she had on a miniskirt and as I was saying “debit, credit, balance sheet” I was trying not to stare at her crossed legs. I got through the accountant’s questions okay and then the dolly started asking me the typical “what are your strengths and weaknesses” questions and I hate to say it, but I said the usual bullshit about how I’m an “effective communicator” and can “manage multiple priorities” while at the same time all I could think about is her lipstick on the coffee cup...

-----

This place has a “business casual” dress code, which basically means that you don’t have to wear a tie but still have to iron your clothes. (Then again business casual kinda bites because the babes don’t wear miniskirts and pumps.)

-----

This company is staffed almost exclusively by ladies my mom’s age who leave me alone so I don’t have to make much small talk. The owner’s son has the office next to me and he takes lots of naps.

-----

And it’s not like things aren’t challenging. Trying to not get busted for looking at the legs of the manager of the contracts department when she walks by is tough work. It used to be easy because she never looked in my direction anyway as she’s suburban ice personified with her medium-length black hair, serious demeanor and business attire complete with the matching skirt and jacket and pumps. But last week we ended up riding in the same elevator at the start of the day and she was talking to the new cutie intern (yes!) about the horrendous traffic and while she’s talking during our four floor journey, I’m sneaking peeks and constructing an elaborate fantasy where I’m cleaning the pool - like that new Levi’s commercial - or delivering groceries at her Edina home and she’s pouring me some iced tea and talking about how her husband doesn’t keep her satisfied and why doesn’t a handsome young man like me have a girlfriend and then SUDDENLY “did you notice that?” she asks me, we’re back in the elevator and it’s her first words to me ever and she’s talking about the traffic. “Yeah, it’s like New York City.” I say and she nods and goes back to talking to the intern. I ride the bus, what the fuck do I know about traffic?

-----

The phrase I truly love these days is “real job.” As in “when are you going to get a real job?” This, of course, is an euphemism for “career.” Or “when are you going to join the rest of us in Corporate America so we can put one of those convenient labels on you?” Real job - hmmm... okay, but along with a real job comes real meetings, real bosses who change their minds after you get your stuff done so you have to redo it, real whiners, real people with their real boring conversations, real bad coffee that only a few people don’t feel above making, the real copy machine that only a few bother to feed with paper, the real voice mail, real - actually phony - team spirit (corporations love teams unless workers form the biggest team possible - a union - then a team is a bad idea), real parking spaces, real (nonpaid) overtime, real assholes on the phone, real doublespeak from management worthy of 1984, real bad jokes, real office politics, real corporate bureaucracy and red tape, real cost-of-living increases, real company gatherings where we’re all supposed to pretend we’re a family or something, etc. Anyway, if I get one of those real jobs then the next step is to buy those materialist goods that go hand-in-hand with such career choices. The nice car. The nice house. The nice furniture. You get the point. I actually had a friend tell me recently I should look into getting a cellular phone because they and their airtimes are coming down in price. Uh-huh. Let’s see, I barely answer the phone at home, so why would I want to carry one of those things around with me? Anyway, I’m in this whole work thing solely for the money, not for an identity or some feeling of a job well done.