"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.

Tuesday Tuneage
Albert Washington and the Kings - "Hold Me Baby"
1969

This one never lets up; incessant horns, keyboards, rhythm section, while Cincinatti soul singer Washington lays it all on the line. Oh, and Lonnie Mack on guitar and now I can hear why so many add him to the Hendrix/Beck/Cropper axis of string-and-mind-bending guitarists who got their start in the sixties. I mean .. geez Louise, after taking in Mack's brilliance on this tune it makes me want to take a Yngwie Malmsteen cheap shot.

Speaking of shots, the B-side of "Hold Me Baby" is titled "I'm Gonna Pour Me A Drink." Yessir.

Tuesday Tuneage

The Swinging Machine - "Do You Have To Ask"

1966

American garage band rock 'n' roll of the mid-sixties was, in the words of Dave Marsh: "Somewhat bluesy, somewhat psychedelic, always amateurish, and for the most part, utterly unself-conscious in (its) naivete." Garage rock has lived on all these decades later as an American tradition, both as music and as a social bond. Lester Bangs: "Call up a bunch of your buddies, get some six-packs or some weed, plus a guitar or two, a bass or drum kit, and you've got instant fantasies about instant stardom."

An "instant stardom" gambit that was played by quite a few of the original generation of garage rockers was when they attempted to ape an artist far, far above them on the Rock Ladder. A fun parlor game to play with some mid-sixties garage rockers is to match them up with what sixties music icon they were trying to emulate. To wit:

The Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction": The Yardbirds

The Knickerbockers' "Lies": The Beatles

The Chocolate Watchband's "Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love In)": The Rolling Stones

Mouse's "A Public Execution": Bob Dylan

The other night on Bill Kelly's show on SiriusXM 21, I heard The Swinging Machine doing "Do You Have To Ask" and I realized that sixties garage rock had someone trying to be The Animals. Sure, the keyboard could be a little more prominent in the mix, but the singer bears an uncanny resemblance to Eric Burdon, there's that verge-of-chaos background singing going on, and like with The Animals: No matter the subject matter there is always a hint (or more) of menace. Two minutes of rock 'n' roll genius.

Tuesday Tuneage

The Rolling Stones - "Paint It, Black"

1966

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tuesday Tuneage

Rancid - "Roots Radicals"

1995

In a discussion with a younger friend last week, I told him how the people who are about five-to-ten years older than me didn't care for the likes of Green Day, The Offspring, or Rancid when they emerged in the mid-ninteties because they weren't "real punk." Those Generation Jonesers are pretty funny: Not only was punk around for over a decade before they discovered it (and I'll take the Standells over the Ramones, but that's another meander), they think their falling for punk in the mid-seventies was some sort of equivalent of the civil rights movement ("...I had blue spiked hair and some guys who liked Skynryd and Zeppelin made fun of me every day...") Oh, boo hoo.

The result of this conversation was that it convinced me to load up Rancid's ...And Out Come The Wolves on my iPod for a listen. One of my favorite albums from the mid-nineties, but one that I hadn't listened to in a few years. I fired it up on Saturday night while sitting down to write in my notebook. A few tracks into it, I had to turn it off. Because it was now dated? Because the forty-six-year old me doesn't dig it like the thirty-year old me? No, I had to turn it off because I wasn't getting any writing done due to constantly tampering the urge to grab a beer and dance around the living room.

Later that night I tracked the whole album and revelled in its fist-pumping, anthemic, wanna-singalong power and glory. All they need to do for its upcoming twentieth anniversary edition is instead of adding bonus tracks ... do the opposite ... shave off the last few tracks (they smell of filler), get it down to a slick thirteen tracks, and clock it in at a punchy thirty-four minutes.

Now onto the next subject: Does Green Day have a greatest hits?

Tuesday Tuneage

Bruce Springsteen - "Atlantic City"

1982

This one has my favorite Springsteen opening lines ever or at least this month:

Well they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night

Now they blew up his house too

The song opens like something from The Sopranos, though the narration quickly moves to the narrator, who exists on a much lower level than the forces at play with The Chicken Man, the DA, the Gambling Commission, and the oncoming rumble. He's a man in fix, he's got debts no honest man can pay, and he's going to do an unnamed favor for an unnamed associate and hopefully hit paydirt and skip town with his girl.

"Atlantic City" was the first single from Nebraska. It was released thirty years ago, but see if these words apply to present times:

Down here there's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line

Thirty years. Wonder if the narrator of "Atlantic City" is still around and wonder if he's still waiting for that money to trickle down.

Tuesday Tuneage
Motorhead - “Bomber”
1979

I was once told that Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister has done so much speed in his life that the doctors told him not to quit taking it, that his metabolism was so accustomed to amphetamine that his body would shut down if he quit. This may be urban legend but I don’t want to google it. Like the tale that Ozzy Osbourne once dropped acid once a day, every day, for a year ... it just seems right.

Back when my allergy drugs were still imported from a former Eastern Block country (or so I liked to believe), they had wicked side effects. The side effect until the mid-nineties was downs. Drowsy, sleepy, heavy heavy eyelids that forced me into a no-win choice: Suffer the constant congestion and burning eyes from the ragweed allergy, or take a pill, get relief and (hopefully) take a long nap. (This is what led me to start drinking coffee, to stay awake at work.) (So that’s whay I can sleep after drinking lots of coffee, my mind looks at coffee as an offset, not a 100% stimulant.)

Then Claritin-D came along about fifteen years ago or so and it was, I declared, legal speed. I could drink a few beers with it and not get that much buzzed. I didn’t get hungry when on it, and had to make myself eat. I stayed up late, later than usual. Much pacing was involved. I wasn’t yet into craft beer, which is unfortunate. These days I have found beers that could have slowed me down to normal when on Claritin-D; hoppy, boozy beers made by small brewers. These things have alcohol contents up in the plus-six-percent range. One recent fave is Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale, which I can get at my local liquor store in a 22-oz bomber. Late in December 2011, I set a goal to listen to Motorhead’s “Bomber” while drinking a bomber sometime before the year ended.

The tune seemed appropriate. As Hop Stoopid was a beer that could have slowed down my Claritin-D speed buzz, Motorhead was a band that would have went rather well with said Claritin-D-enhanced mood. As Chuck Eddy once wrote: Their music veers closer to early Black Flag or the Angry Samoans than to any heavy metal band, mainly because they play their 'Paranoid' and 'Stranglehold' riffs so goddamn fast they belie the "heavy" tag completely.

Though I am off the speed, I still have a use for Motorhead ... it's called Valentine's Day. And as it's late January, I gotta make a mental note to stock up on bombers for my Motorhead-on-headphones for that night. Bring you to your knees, it's a bomber ...

Tuesday Tuneage
Mott the Hoople - "Death May Be Your Santa Claus"
1971

This tune is the biting lead-off track to Mott the Hoople's second album Brain Capers. On that LP it was followed by covers of songs by Dion and The Youngbloods. This was similar to how their debut album started off with a bizarre cover of the Kinks "You Really Got Me" (it was an instrumental) and they followed it up with covers of songs by The Sir Douglas Quintet and Sonny & Cher. I am not listing complaints here. Mott the Hoople is up there with the likes of the Replacements in my pantheon of rock 'n' roll also-rans.

Turns out "Death May Be Your Santa Claus" is not a Christmas song, but I kinda wish it was. And Ian Hunter doesn't even sing the title words at all. Crap. But I just like that as Brits, Mott didn't title it "Death May Be Your Father Christmas." That just lacks hooks.

As for the illustration with this blog post ... that's how you get from Mott to Hoople in North Dakota. If you decide to take said trek, wait for the warm weather months, it's not a Christmastime trip.