yes, I guess I AM just gonna blog about Music-so, DEAL

15 Influential Albums that kept me out of both Jail and the Popular Crowd.

1. Elvis Presley LIVE ONSTAGE 1970. This was all my world at first. I love the oldies he blows through but I love the schmaltz, too-I was happy to hear Lisa Marie say that the early 70's were her faveorite era of her dad. Many now can't see him past the joke-- but I still believe.

2. Tommy The WHO--scared the shit outta me. Due to poor parenting I saw the movie-then devoured the SOUNDTRACK ON 8 TRACK!!!--(sorry!! but it DID hard wire me for TOWNSHEND)

3. John Lennon-Plastic Ono Band and Imagine. When my uncle died he left 400 albums in the house we inherited. These two kept me alive through the mean era that followed: ages 9-14.

4. Hot Rocks-Rolling Stones My parents-- at it again
- more Carnal than Cerebral- they always wanted to RAWK!!

I resisted their attempts to guide me to CCR.

5. Carol King's Tapestry--
she's like Lucky Charms: I don't eat 'em now but I loved 'em then.
PINK HEARTS! GREEN CLOVERS! SO FAR AWAY! I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE!

6. Elton John-Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Caribou, Honky Chateau and all of the others- he was everyhere AND he was in TOMMY wearing huge boots and a stocking cap.

7. ChangesOneBowie-
I won a Bi-centennial speech contest in the 4th grade- I walked myself to a tobacco shop (!?!) nearby and spent the $20.00 prize money on records.
Yes, it's a greatest hits package and yes, it molecularly re-arranged me.

8. Boomtown Rats -Fine Art of Surfacing-saw 'em on that TV show called Fridays, saw 'em on the new Mtv- wanted whatever it was they were pushing. Began to want to roll around with scum like Bob Geldof.

9. Pretenders- YES YES YES! she came from my hometown and she was not fat, dead, or stupid and she rocked the house like a bitch on the rag. She was naughty and sexy and sweet and slutty. I ADORE you, Chrissie Hynde.

10. A Wizard a True Star and Something /Anything by Todd Rundgren-bought em both at a Yard sale in Firestone Park for a quarter each-spent the rest of the summer hearing only those two albums--seriously. I lived in the cabins and and canoes of these tunes like it was a perfect summer camp I never had to leave-
and ALAS I have not, so BOO yah!

11. Elvis Costello- almost every goddam thing for almost damn 30 years.
I like him better than he can ever actually be worthy of.

12 Early Police. I was with them from the first noise they made but I had my first" backseat" experience to Ghost In The Machine so it's special to me ( but it actually was the FRONT seat of your Dad's red Dodge Omni, wasn't it, J.K.S. ???)

13. Blue -Joni Mtichell-
legally you cannot keep your ovaries in this galaxy if you don't bleed this record upon adolescence. I am fully mature with it.

14 Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me-the Cure- learned to expand on the Dodge Omni lessons in a larger loft space to this groove-I can't hear some of it even today without feeling faint and boneless.OK?

15 Beck- Odelay--I'm gonna stop with this one even though I DON'T WANT TO-!!!

(I have neglected Stevie Wonder too hideously and Kate Bush and even Peter goddam Gabriel and Jean Michelle Jarre--Hell, I loved Peter FRAMPTON,Pink Floyd, Van Morrison, Parliment funkadelic,The Clash, Rod Stewart and I've just recently discovered Mathew Sweet, people!!!!!!
DEVO MAKES MY DAY!!!GAAAH-DUH!)

but Beck's Odelay was one of the first albums my own little kids got into with me--we danced it up in the living room and I knew when they sang "I've got a Devil's Haircut in My Mind " at school they were going to be able to get by and survive the endless stream of bullshit with the same shield I used/am using.

thx for reading this diatribe.

Shit!!! In My Tribe by 10,000 Maniacs!!

I Loved that one as a 20 yr old girl! I'd probably mock the hell out of me AND Natalie Merchant today, if I saw us on the street all waif- like and serious, but it was important as hell to me THEN.

Canadians get ahold of Beatles, exact revenge.

I won free tickets to All Together Now, a documentary about the mash up of Cirque Du Soleil and Beatles music that had a one evening only preview at Highland 10 theater last night.
Now, I'm old enough to still be in recovery over the casting of George Burns as “Mr. Kite” and the scarring sight of the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton in those pastel silk Military costumes wincing their way through Golden Slumbers in the late 1970’s movie version of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Plus, I confess that I have no desire to see music I don’t remember not knowing and liking augmented with bubbles, mimes, spandex, and parachute play.
The movie insists that the genesis for the project was a meeting between George Harrison and Guy Laliberte, founder and head Muppet-humper over at Cirque Du Soleil. Apparently George felt the time was right to combine these two cultural forces for a visual/aural extravaganza. Ringo is also seen in the movie singing the praises of “the Cirque,” which he says he first saw a “long time ago in a tent in California”. One can only assume this may have been before he stopped imbibing.
I also considered that George had been involved with several Monty Python productions and films so maybe he was just having a laugh. Then sadly, George died and the whole thing got lifted up as a tribute and general force of nature.

I started a joke, indeed.

The documentary starts THREE HUNDRED DAYS before the actual opening night. The rehearsals take place in Montreal and part of the fun is watching the creative team squirm as the “big boys” come around to touch the taffeta and generally look stern over the importance of a clear meaning being conveyed by scores of twenty-year-olds flopping earnestly around to a song John Lennon wrote about a poster he bought when he was tripping 40 years ago. (read: this thing has gotta make bank, kids!)

There are Mighty Wind-worthy moments like the one where Yoko winds up and tears into the director about the “vulgarity” of a mob of multicultural half-naked actor-bats rolling around in their underwear to interpret the tune Come Together. I wondered incredulously as the poor guy tries to defend himself with no cup if he had ever seen the Let It Be movie where our little Miss Avant-Garde artist tries to take over the recording of a rock n roll album and leaves even Paulie looking haggard and miserable.

I did find myself thrilled, however, when the classy, quiet, but stealthily persistent Olivia Harrison, George’s widow, defended her husband’s legacy. It’s not hard to picture her clocking that delusional intruder over the head with a lamp when he broke into the house she shared with George, already sick with cancer, in 2000.

The moments between famed Beatles producer/arranger Sir George Martin and his son Giles, who assumed the bulk of musical direction for this show, were informative and touching. Whenever Mr.Martin chooses to let any memories or tales about his time recording the Beatles flow in that honeyed, upper class Brit timbre, I am putty. He shared a few previously unknown gems like the fact that John told him shortly before his death that he would like the opportunity to re- record every song they’d ever done together—especially (!) Strawberry Fields Forever. Hmmmm.

The centerpiece of the film for me was a scene at Air Studios in London where a new string accompaniment for an alternate take of While My Guitar Gently Weeps is being conducted and recorded by Mr. Martin and his son. Witnessing George’s beautiful old hands caress this music in what he clearly states in his last working session—coming full circle and retiring on the strains of the same music he helped bring to the world. That scene almost makes up for the Mop Tops-go-Mummenschanz vibe that will probably keep me away from the Vegas Strip but which makes this a good rental for anyone interested in candid moments featuring Neil Aspinall, Beatles wives and kids, hotties in unitards and some guy named Paul McCartney who at one point in the documentary states simply that the and John never took longer than three hours to write a song and that he believes they had a “knack” for it.

The DVD of All Together Now is out today and apparently available only at Best Buy. I hope John and George are up there sharing a bowl and having a hoot.

Trash Tunes by Treasured Talents

I've been taking Polls since Jr. High.
I think it started as a way to communicate and in NE Ohio it seemed less depressing than talking about the weather.
People mock my polls but they don't mean a thing- just something to stir things up and keep the boredom at bay-I don't care what you think, say or believe and you can change your answers tomorrow. The query I'm making this week seems to have stirred a bigger response than usual in the people I'm bugging with it, so here goes:

I love an album called Healing by Todd Rundgren. It came out in 1981 and I was already a fan but this disc was different. It was very personal, intense and original. For me it really holds up and can transport me instantly back to a few mental mile markers where I still recognize the scenery.

However, in the arc of all this blissed-out meditative beauty, a song crops up like a poop on a plate-I swear to god it's the Disco Duck of Rundgren's ouvre ( yeah yeah-I KNOW, I KNOW you don't like "Bang the Drum all day" fellow Todd fans, but this is different) . The song I'm talking about is a synthesized whoopy cushion called Golden Goose.
I won't go on for long about how this tune messes with my mantra as I surrender to the peace that proceeds it but I will confess that I quickly solved the issue back in '81 by dubbing the whole thing onto cassette sans the offending ditty. Then I popped the tape into my 6 lb Walkman and rode my bike for miles in heaven.

Thinking about my once secret shame over not "getting" a composition that not only escaped me but irritated me like a fantastic lover who chews with their mouth open, made me consider other artists I adore that have an incredible catalogue marred by one awful entry. I wondered who else had experienced this unsettling feeling.


'Cause who the fuck doesn't HATE that stupid Silver Hammer song on the Beatle's Abbey Road??? I mean the thing is like a crusty boil on a super model-- or at least I THOUGHT it was that obvious, but I've already encountered people who love that song.
This intrigues and amuses me.

The name of this poll is Bang Bang Maxwell's Golden Goose who just called to Say, Say, Say.

Already my friend David has chimed in that Shake Down Street is "disco Dead" and as a dead-icated fan, he can't listen to it AT ALL.
I worry for a moment that everyone's beef may involve their beloved bands one disco experiment and this poll will get boring and obvious, then David's wife Rhonda blurts out that as a HUGE Stones fan she will never accept Angie and I am newly inspired.

I LOVE Angie and assert that it's another Jagger/Richards tune: Hang Fire which may be responsible for both cancer and famine in the world but now I see that the thrill here is gonna be in the arguing.

Delicious!

No one ever argues FOR "Ebony and Ivory", though a few have had the brass cojones to point out that God among Men he may be, Sir P can sure hurl a doozy on occasion ( we're back to Maxwell and Say Say Say now, kids-sorry )

Today at breakfast it's pointed out that Bowie is one who can't really be pinned down for a stinker. Everyone at the table chews on that and no one can alter this assertion. "you can think of songs of his you don't LOVE maybe, but none that you HATE" Severin offers.

It's only on the drive home that I am visited by the mid 80's image of Bowie and Jagger wiggling their asses and destroying the song Dancin' in the Streets.
Makes me wish I hadn't had all that Migas
-It also doesn't escape me that Jagger may be the actual offending crap catalyst here.

Some missteps can be dealt with in a mature manner. Stevie Wonder will get a pass for I Just Called to Say I Love You because so much of his other stuff is what makes us feel alive and also because maybe he couldn't see the looks of horror in the studio.
Consider it un-done.

Manic Monday gets Prince a half an hour in Time Out with one ruler rap on the knuckles for Raspberry Beret.

We will leave the Beach Boys' Kokomo bleeding on the roadside next to the once-pretty corpse of John Stamos.

A special section is reserved for the one "hit" of a more obscure artist like Chris Isaak's Wicked Game or Steve Forbert's Romeo's Tune which give their true, obsessive fans, who want you to know this tune or that tune do not do their hero justice, jukebox sized ulcers.


Some may take a moment here to reflect on Little Jeannie and Part Time Love by Elton John while others may weep silently over Pressure , Uptown Girl and--sorry Mr. Joel, We Didn't Start The Fire but if we had it would've been directly under your piano.

Pop Idol Immolation seems a bit severe I know, but somewhere in your gunky soul is a song you desire to defame. I'd like to know if anyone has a bone to pick with say--Johnny Cash?
Just curious.
I'll be here stewing on the horrid fake laugh Joni Mitchell drops at the end of Big Yellow Taxi, interrupting my ecological reverie and nearly making me want to defend Christine Todd Whitman
in my rage.