It's new to me-uh

Damn, this new Fall record sounds kind of like Men's Recovery Project in places. Some rough earlier Providence stuff like Thee Hydrogen Terrors. I think I might have to buy it. If I can survive March unscathed, I'll treat myself.

High note

Man, it's been a rough week for the arts. I just heard Freddie Hubbard passed away. I've been a Hubbard fan since college and own many of the records he played on. He definitely was one of the best hard/post-bop trumpeters. Serious jazzbos may not like his crossover jazz/funk work on CTI (great album covers) in the '70s, but they should never forget that he played on "Ascension" and "Free Jazz."

Tonight I'll put on my copy of Blue Note's Hubbard collection in Freddie's honor. And for those of you afterlife believers, you most definitely can be assured he will join a mind-boggling jam session in Jazz Heaven: Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Lee Morgan and Clark Terry in the trumpet section, among others.

Quiet village

You know, I never did buy the copy of "Quiet Village" like I wanted to back during the lounge/exotica revival of the '90s. I remember having a copy in my hand at a Hamtramck record store the day after we played a show in Ann Arbor in 1998, but I put it back in the bin, probably because it was a 180-gram reissue that cost $25. Ah well …

We watched "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" last night (and enjoyed it). Maybe that has me thinking about Hawaii and its dreamlike music. Also, the Cracker Factory is a bit mum today; the shifting seasons have muted my normally chattering co-workers. I felt pretty dog dang tired myself Monday night after a full slate of 50 degrees and grayness. But I think this is actually my kind of weather — I'll call it "minutes before sleep." The overcast maritime climate of Continental Europe beckons. I just have to learn French (or brush up on my German).

Some friends read the latest draft of my new play on Sunday. It turned out well, and I'm ready to kick off the next revision with their comments in mind. The pay-to-play service I've used the past two years didn't come through, even though I, yes, still paid for it. But I liked our home reading better. It was very insightful and refreshingly without the usual whining from the kitchen sink crew.

… Listen to that quiet. Just the faint hum of lights and the cycling of the building furnace. Perhaps elevators in the distance. Someone lets out a sigh down the hall … Time for a banana.

Serenity now

I don't know what it is about the theme from "Taxi," but I find it very calming. With all the stuff I've read recently about in-utero communication and memory-forming, it makes me think my Mom watched the show while she was toting me around in 1976 — that or we all watched it together before my faculties fully kicked in.

That said, I find that on a stressful day, such as today, playing the "Taxi" theme in my head relaxes me quite a bit. I'd even advocate for pumping it in over the office's emergency PA system, but not everyone may enjoy the same effects I do.

It all makes me wonder what Bob James is up to right now. Probably hanging out in the Florida Keys. Cue that theme.

Time to wield the blade v2.0

We had Al, Suzi and Chris over for faux meatloaf last night. Great dinner. And naturally, after a couple brews and some wine — and three old rockers in the room — the conversation turned to metal. I put on some Motorhead, and Chris revealed that a former classmate now drums for King Diamond. A distinguished metal accomplishment.

I sometimes wonder if what Neil Meredith said — essentially, "once a metalhead, always a metalhead" — is true, in that my formative years of constant listenings to "Ride the Lightning" affected my tastes even to this day, be it for freaked-out free jazz or menacing absurdist drama.

I'd like to think it can't be summed up so easily. I've got a sensitive side, after all: I enjoy still life paintings, professional golf and the Modern Jazz Quartet. I even bought a "Best of America" record in 1999. I suppose if metal represents anger, dissatisfaction, frustration, then, yes, certainly that streak is there. But isn't it in everyone in some way? It's just some of us choose to express it by, say, listening to "Overkill" at top volume. Great record, by the way.

The male brain is also affected during pregnancy

Listen, folks, Woundup frequently writes about sports radio and other such lowbrow pursuits. Un-ironically. Fine. I make no apologies there. But please don't bring your weak-ass middlebrow shit in here. What is this Panic at the Disco bullshit? And what is this bullshit Christian Slater NBC show where he's talking to himself through a laptop, presumably from the future? Listen, I'm a 31-year-old man; I'm about to become a father; I sit around on Saturday nights now and watch TV and hope to not be angered by something. SNL is angering enough. Why am I even watching this? I saw this episode a month ago, and it was terrible. Panic at the Disco. I stand by my belief that Iggy's belch that opens (the song) "Raw Power" is more rock 'n roll than the entire careers of almost all other bands rolled into one. If I had my copy, I would listen to the belch from (the song) "Raw Power" over and over again for a half an hour every morning before going to work. And I would never, ever, ever go anywhere near Panic at the Disco. FUCK YOUR STRING SECTION. And please ... No more prime time TV shows with quaint, contrived, novel or gimmicky non-realistic premises. The kind of "surrealism light" that's infected TV and drama makes me want to listen to the opening belch from (the song) "Raw Power" over and over again until it all goes away. And I'm talking about the original album mix done by David Bowie. The one where he turned the James Williamson solos ALL THE WAY UP. Fuck the Iggy remix. Anyone who writes one of those shows should be forced to listen to this album every morning before they go to work until they stop being writers. 2008: ONE LESS WRITER. Good night.

Mark has a revelation

Okay, I'm officially old. I want to buy a CD I heard on NPR.

Took a cab home through the rain after work. To my good fortune, the cabbie had 'BEZ on, and I heard the interview with the Homemade Jamz Blues Band. They're three siblings: The singer/guitarist is the oldest at 16, the bass player is 13, and their sister, the drummer, is NINE YEARS OLD. And they made their own guitars out of CAR MUFFLERS.

Sound like a gimmick? I thought so, too, till they started playing ... C'mon, folks, you know my impeccable music taste. This was like the classic Alligator catalog: Hound Dog Taylor, Son Seals. It was the real deal. I know you've heard all that Kenny Wayne Shepherd crap that makes you think the real Blues is gone. No way. Just listen to "Penny Waiting on Change." He's 16 YEARS OLD.

From the Sunday Nite Dead Files

Y'know, I like angry, abstract post-punk as much as the next disaffected leftist, but sometimes you have to cut it with a little ... "Grateful Dead from the Mars Hotel"? I bought this record at a moving sale in Wicker Park two years ago for a couple of bucks, and you know what ... I will always think the Dead are a terrible, terrible band, but sometimes they produce a pretty good song. "Unbroken Chain" is a pretty good song. It even has some (gulp) Ubu-esque synth dissonance.

I showed this record to my brother Matt not long after I bought it, and his brief display of Dead knowledge (he is a many-multiple bootleg owner) was so precise and frighteningly crystalline, I nearly fainted. I must demand, the next time he's here, that he flash a bit of that again. If I could goad him into a debate with someone else over which Dead album was the best -- or, even better, which Dead line-up was the best ...

You know, "Scarlet Begonias" isn't that bad either ... I think this is how it starts ... Where's that 1.6 Band record?

My code name's Happy Harry

It's Friday. It's warm out. Sunny. Though you wouldn't know it right now in the Office Canyon. I told myself I wouldn't post this, but seeing as how I'd instead have to do some real work, I've since backpedaled ...

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1271951667

Highlights include the Battle of Dunkirk and how Talking Heads and Neil Young suck. (And they do suck. I know we all mellowed out there 6-7 years ago over Young's pampered/damaged/rehabbing rocker schtick, and many of us said T.H. is just a few hairs off from ESG and therefore admissible. C'mon, people.) Also, I think IF truly freaks MES out when they start discussing astrology.

In other news: We welcome the return of the light gray suit. I'll be picking one up tomorrow. Nothing even comes close to a light gray suit.

Super Bad

As a big fan of James Brown, I'll throw in my two bits of good-will remembrance. I bought "Live at the Olympia, Paris 1971" when I was 19 and have loved his music ever since. The fact that mainstream news outlets can't really describe his work is a bit depressing. If you know, you know... and it's not about "Rocky IV" (or "Doctor Detroit"). I'm also disappointed by the lack of primo, high-period '60s footage on the big, brainless cable rotators. And what about when he went on TV to help calm rioters? James Brown is in the top-5 American musicians of all time. That's a "Top (Blank)" list I don't mind making... and Bob Dylan isn't on it.

Dresden Dolls are Back in Style

Which musical group can claim the "World's Most Annoying Fans?" I remember once, in 1994, a Cincinnati record store clerk call Guided By Voices' fans the most annoying. Now that that venerable Dayton act has disbanded, whose supporters have moved in to fill the void? I'm gathering, from my research on The Fall, that their fans were probably at one point the "World's Most Annoying."

Qualifications for "World's Most Annoying Fans" should include...
_ Preference for certain "eras" of the group, and should have a strong opinion as to which was the group's creative pinnacle.
_ Interest in hard-to-find releases and import records. Should own American and European releases of all major albums by the group.
_ Knowledge of group's lyrics and low threshold of self-control while inebriated for singing loudly along to live performances or spins on the jukebox.
_ Should have at least five anecdotes about the primary member of the group for quick use at shows or record stores. Anecdotes about the group's producers are a plus.
_ Secret desire to write the definitive book about the group is strongly perferred.

FANS!

Our Time is Passing, Old Friend

You can go a little batty around midnight looking for old music footage on YouTube. Is it time to gripe? Well, as a person who came of age in an era of technological transition (the '90s), I feel that, though mass, shared archives like YouTube do benefit music fans, it makes it a little too easy. I remember I bought the first two Suicide albums on one CD at a Blockbuster Music (remember those?) in 1996. Now you can just punch it in and find it in seconds. Where's the fun in that? I suppose those of earlier generations would chide me for my own luck, having benefitted from the re-issue explosion of said '90s. I didn't have to grub through as many record store bins, for sure.

We all know where this is headed... cranial downloads. But what if you ordered Amon Duul 2 and got Brazil '66 instead?

No Joke

They don't make 'em like this anymore.

People Funny Boy

Yes, I did have the day off -- as did my wife, Erika. We had a lovely lunch at Earwax; thumbed through some books at Myopic and the Brown Elephant; and tried to locate me a warm-up jacket. You know warm-up jackets, Mr./Ms. 28-to-33. They grew abundantly on the thrift store trees 10 years ago, before the resale goblins stole them away. Now it's like trying to find Ornette Coleman's "Live in Stockholm '61" in a... yes.

I borrowed a Lee Perry boxed set from pal Jonathan a year ago. Listened to it once and promptly shelved it away. Well, a year later, I've picked it up again and can't stop listening. Funny how that works. It probably means the collector will be calling soon, which is good, because Stockty owes me a six-pack for winning our fantasy baseball league.

I told my mother I'd have a new gig within two weeks. If I say it will happen, it (might) will happen. Good night.