Punctuation: fun.

fun.: All The Pretty Girls
[purchase the studio version]
[check out this version on Daytrotter]

A few years ago, probably when my daughter was in high school, she discovered that I had songs in my iTunes library from a band called The Format. To this day, I have no memory of how I got them—probably from some free online sampler, or because I had read a review about the band. I can’t say that I paid the songs all that much attention—they sounded good, so I put them on my iPod. It turned out that my daughter had, independently, discovered the band, and really liked them, so we were able to bond over that.

The Format, however, broke up, and the lead singer, Nate Ruess, who has a voice and theatricality that has reminded more than one person of Freddie Mercury, joined up with a few other musicians, notably Andrew Dost, of Anathallo, and Jack Antonoff, of Steel Train, to form a new band. They wanted to call it Fun, but according to the band, a Scandinavian death metal band already had the name, and suggested that they modify it. So, they decided to use a lower case “f” and add a period, so that they would, someday, be eligible for this SMM theme.

Fun.’s first album, Aim and Ignite was quite good, mixing pop, prog, rock and other influences into a sound that was different from most of the other stuff around. It got pretty good reviews, and had some success, including getting a song on an Expedia commercial. My daughter introduced her older brother (and her father) to fun. My son, away at college, picked up the fun. standard, and embarked on a personal crusade to promote them. Through this effort, mostly on tumblr and Twitter, he not only became part of a family of fun. fans, but began to interact with the members of the band, first through Twitter, and later meeting them at shows.

In early 2012, fun. released Some Nights and shortly after that took over the world. For people like my son, it was a vindication of their devotion to the band, and when the band was still mostly playing shows in smaller venues that were booked before their meteoric rise, they still made time to see my son. In fact, on his birthday in 2012, another member of my son’s fun. “family” was backstage at a show in Canada and videotaped members of fun. calling my son and wishing him a “Happy Birthday”. Not only that, when the album hit #1 on iTunes, the band tweeted their thanks to their fans, and mentioned my son by name. Which is pretty cool.

Personally, I liked Some Nights, but preferred the less produced sound of Aim and Ignite. Today’s song, “All the Pretty Girls,” appeared on that album, but the version above is from a Daytrotter session from 2009, recorded live in the Daytrotter studios in Iowa, and is even more stripped down. (And, if you don’t know what Daytrotter is, you should. Click on the link above and discover an incredible archive of similar live performances by a huge variety of artists, available to listen for free, and to download for a pretty low membership price).

As someone who has been a music fan all of my life, I was amazed at how social media has allowed fans to interact and relate to musicians in ways that I never could have imagined. More recently, it seems that my son’s fun. fanaticism has tempered somewhat. He now has a job that keeps him busy, and he and his girlfriend have a social life. And it appears that the increased demands on the members of fun. that come with their exploding popularity have limited their interaction with fans like my son.

But it always has been that way—you fall hard for a band, you obsess about the band, then you move on, often tucking away your feelings without totally losing them. Popular music is essentially predicated on this, and continues to provide serial opportunities to fall in love. I think that most people—at least people who care about music—maintain a catalogue of music that was, at one point, a favorite, even if they haven’t listened to it for a while. And when that music emerges—on the radio, in a random iPod playlist, at a wedding or on the soundtrack of a TV show—you remember how strongly you felt about it back in the day.

I’m willing to bet that when my son is my age now, and he hears a fun. song, however music is being delivered in 30 years, he will remember back to the end of his college years, and how he felt about the band and their music. Unlike me, when I think about the music l listened to in college, he will also remember his personal interactions with them, on social media, on the phone, and even in person. And that is also pretty cool.

PUNCTUATION: ?

96 TEARS: ? and the Mysterians
Purchase link



I was never sure where the idea that punctuation occupied an alternate alphabet came from, but it certainly seems to have been the case, ooo, well, at least as long ago as swearing. Or, rather, swearing being seen as too impolite to sully ones eyes with. Fine for ears, but even now many newspapers shy from printing all those words with "f"s and "c"s. I'm not even sure if SMM would thank me for spelling them out, especially as I mention this merely to wrest your attentions. This post is not in the least sweary or confrontational.

I remember the first time I heard this song. I was a young man in London, exploring both the city and my imagination, visiting all those places I had heard of and that sounded sufficiently outre and cutting edge to make me seem anything but the middle class mummy's boy I probably was. The ICA was one such place, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, just behind Trafalgar Square, through Admiralty Arch. I reckoned there would be a whole lot of crazy art there, and hippies and stuff. Hey, maybe even some nudes. It was, sadly, quite a disappointment, being full of odd and rather dull exhibits to my innocent eyes. But, it did have a juke box. (I have to say that as I type I wonder how sound my memory is, wondering how likely, even if it did, is it that I would have played it, but I am sure this happened. Can anyone confirm?) And I liked the name of the song. And the name of the band. That may have almost been enough, as I was, you may already have appreciated, a somewhat precious and  precocious child, but the sound that came out the front of the wurlitzer was something so much more. Rinky dink single finger organ, snarled vocals and repetition. This was 1975 and it was already nearly a decade old. I had to have this and I eventually tracked a copy of it down, years later, in a 2nd hand record stall, when such things were on every corner.

So who were ? and the Mysterians, and who was ? himself? It seems they were all 2nd gen mexicans  from Michigan, naming themselves after a 1957 japanese sci-fi film. Originally with no vocalist, when Rudy Martinez joined them, he took on the snappy monicker of ?. "96 Tears" appeared in 1996, which was a smash in the US, selling over a million copies, launching an acclaimed career. Or not, as, like me, I guess you would be fairly hard pressed to think of the name of anything else they ever did. Hell, I can't even remember the b side, yet, through the power of wiki, it looks as if a version of the band, sans ?, lurches on to this day. But who cares, like the altogether not dissimilar "Wooly Bull" by Sam the Sham and the Phaorohs, if you had but one song that you could be remembered by, wouldn't you want it to be like them. I know I would.

I was always amazed how few cover versions were ever made, thinking it a shoo-in to be covered when the term punk rock was resurrected  from 60's garage bands to, well, 70's garage bands, albeit an ocean apart. Eventually, of course, towards the end of their classic era, the Stranglers did this version, which, however much I like the Stranglers, is distinctly 2nd division. They don't look as cool either.

Punctuation: Everything You Wanted to Know About !!!

[Purchase]

10cc's 1978 album, Bloody Tourists, remains an all time favorite of mine even though I know, as a rock snob, I shouldn't care for anything after the implosion that sent two original members, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, packing years earlier.

If I could go back in time, would I snatch the Bloody Tourists cassette out of my teen-age hands? Not a chance! There's plenty of great music here. The UK #1 single "Dreadlock Holiday" is the best known song, but there's a stretch of Side Two that's also brilliant: "Life Line", "Tokyo" and "Old Mister Time"

Eric Stewart's  "Everything You Wanted To Know About !!! (Exclamation Marks)" isn't one of the best tunes on the album, but it mines the same sex-obsessed silliness to which 10cc often resorted ( in "The Dean And I" from the debut, "Head Room" from How Dare You! and "Shock on the Tube" from the same Bloody Tourists). 

In this case the young, virgin singer fails to perform in his first outing with a prostitute:

She had to laugh
I nearly died
Some Superstud!
There's more to this than meets the eye





By the way, 10cc was never afraid of punctuation marks. The B-side to their second 10cc single, "Johnny Don't Do It" is "4% of Something".

Punctuation: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

 

CSNY: Almost Cut My Hair
[purchase]

What do The Hollies, The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield have in common aside from the fact that they were all successful bands in the mid to late sixties? The answer, of course, is: they were spawning grounds for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (sometimes referred to as CSNY – but that moniker doesn’t highlight the punctuation necessitated by this week’s theme)

1970’s Déjà Vu, the first album with all 4, followed on the eponymous CSN album from 1969. With the exception of “Woodstock” (written by Joni Mitchell), all songs on the album were written by band members. My favorite of their albums, Déjà Vu’s vocal work showcases the height of their harmony. Sadly, throughout the band’s existence, interpersonal dis-harmony was an issue. History has it that even by the release of Déjà Vu, the band had already broken up for all intents and purposes. Dominant individuals all, right from the start, Neil Young had a contract that allowed him to pursue work with his Crazy Horse band and Graham Nash was more or less on loan to Atlantic courtesy of some David Geffen finesse.  In fact, the band’s name itself is indicative of the members’ assertiveness: no one leader, no collaborative name.

The band was equated with protest during the Vietnam war era. The song “Ohio” specifically focused on the killings at Ohio State following anti-war protests. And “Almost Cut My Hair”, waves the “freak flag” proudly. Do compare the 70’s photo at the top with the visual in the clip below: more or less Crosby's current appearance .

Singing:

I'm not givin' in an inch to fear
 

 

If you're thinkin' "KKafa ... Deja Vu", you may be right:

Previous link to this album : http://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2013/06/numbers-4-20.html

Stage Names: David Bowie

[purchase]

I am pleasantly surprised that, on this, the last day of our Stage Names theme, no one has tackled David Bowie. Bowie, in my mind, qualifies twice. Born David Jones in 1947, Bowie took his stage name to avoid being confused with Davey Jones of the Monkees. And, in the course of his career, Bowie has taken on the identities of Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, and others. The first of these stage identities was Major Tom. Major Tom is an astronaut who begins by relishing the fame that space travel brings him. I grew up in the 1960s, and I can assure you that the Apollo astronauts did indeed receive rockstar-like adulation in their day that is hard to imagine today. But Tom also finds his experience isolating, and the alternate reality of his unearthly environment soon consumes him. He sings, “Here am I sitting in my tin can…” and it goes from there. David Bowie was a struggling unknown when he recorded the song, but his career mirrors it in eerie ways. Bowie would soon be rocketed into this same kind of fame, and he would eventually be consumed by it, and retreat into the oblivion of a serious cocaine habit.

Luckily, that is not the end of the story. Bowie was able to overcome his drug habit. He continued his musical pursuits with some wild experiments that, for a time, resulted in a string of unpopular albums. That may have been bad news for his fans, but it probably gave Bowie some distance from his fame that aided his recovery. By 1980, Bowie was able to revisit the character of Major Tom in the song Ashes to Ashes, and view matters in a way that was both rueful and a mature reconsideration of his career and life to that point. Since then, Bowie has continued to be a restless musical chameleon. Collaborators have included a list of people who little else in common: Nile Rodgers of the disco band Chic, Brian Eno, Bing Crosby, Freddie Mercury, and Iggy Pop, just to name a few. Albums have become less frequent of late, and there may never be another full-length tour. But David Bowie has endured far longer than Davey Jones of the Monkees, and whatever Bowie does next is sure to be worth paying attention to.

[purchase]

Stage Names: Blind Boy Grunt

Blind Boy Grunt: John Brown
[purchase]

Robert Zimmerman, better known these days as Bob Dylan, signed to Columbia Records in October, 1961. His first album sold about 5,000 copies the first year. But soon, he would become a pretty big star.

At the time, the folk music revival centered around Greenwich Village was taking off, and in 1962, Broadside, a mimeographed (!) magazine started publication. It became a hugely influential forum for folk music, including music and lyrics, as well as articles and reviews. It fostered the kind of musical debate about authenticity and the definitions and purpose of folk music that, while easily parodied, also did an enormous amount to define the sound of the era.

Broadside also sponsored recording sessions, and in late 1962-1963, Dylan recorded five songs, three of which, "John Brown," "Only a Hobo," and "Talking Devil," were released by Broadside using the stage name, “Blind Boy Grunt” (the other two were released years later). Whether Dylan did so because of his contract with Columbia or just as a goof is not clear and there is no evidence that anyone from the record company ever took any offense. And it is further obvious that Broadside did nothing to hide the fact that it was Dylan who appeared on the record. Here is a link to the issue of the magazine from March, 1963. You can see on page 3 that the lyrics to “John Brown” are credited to Dylan (as are the lyrics for “Only a Hobo” that follow). And on the last page is an ad for the album that the songs appear on, Broadside Ballads Vol. 1—with Dylan’s name prominently listed as a contributor.

Dylan’s choice of the name “Blind Boy Grunt” was likely a nod toward the blues music that he loved, and maybe was a poke at young white men who had become enamored of the blues. Interestingly, Dylan used other stage names during this era that seem to be the kind of names you would create if you were pretending to be a blues man. On a Ramblin’ Jack Elliott album, his harmonica part was credited to “Tedham Porterhouse” and his piano and vocal contributions to a Steve Goodman project were credited to “Robert Milkwood Thomas.” (OK, he also was “Bob Landy” as a piano player on the 1964 Elektra Records anthology album, The Blues Project.)

“John Brown” is a strong anti-war song, but not one that was written about the Vietnam War that would later consume the folk and rock world, and lead to some of the greatest protest songs ever. The Tonkin Gulf resolution had not yet passed, and U.S. involvement in Vietnam was at a pretty low level. Instead, the song is a more general broadside, if you will, against war. To further emphasize the meaning of the song, after publishing the lyrics, the Broadside editors included a page from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, one of the great anti-war novels of all time, describing the death of a character during World War II.

Stage Names : Engelbert Humperdinck

   In the mid 60's his friends convinced Arnold George "Gerry" Dorsey to change his name to Engelbert Humperdinck, after the German opera composer from the previous century, because it sounded more interesting. 

    That's the true story... but I prefer Eddie Izzard's version.

Stage Names: Leon Redbone

[purchase]

A look at the thesaurus provides the scholar with variations on our theme such as appellation, sobriquet, moniker, cognomen, eponym and more, each with its own nuance to the fact that it is a name, after all (think: a rose is a rose. )

There are any number of reasons why an artist might go by a name other than that which s/he was born with: the birth certificate name may sound pretty strange or worse, the manager may have said a stage name would be better, or perhaps the artist thought the stage name would convey a deeper/different innuendo.  Some artists put a considerably greater effort into obscuring their original designation, leaving fans to discuss among themselves the whyfor and wherefore.

Born Dickran Gobalian, Leon Redbone has been entertaining audiences since the 1970s. Various sources provide differing accounts of the origins of his name. Assuming that it is in fact Gobalian, I would be inclined to side with the version that puts his family roots in the Middle East (some say Cyprus). But that is actually of little matter except in an exercise like “Stage Names”. Obviously, what matters most to us here at StarMaker is his musical output.

Whether it’s on account of his physical appearance, his demeanor or his musical style, I have to second the remark that he does in fact come across as “ so authentic you can hear the surface noise [of an old 78rpm]." The man further endears himself to me because no small number of the songs in his repertoire are songs that Ry Cooder has also performed. To wit:

 Leon Redbone: Big Bad Bill

STAGE NAMES : JOHN WESLEY HARDING

John Wesley Harding: Sussex Ghost Story

[purchase]

Eh? That's not Dylan and indeed it's not. In fact the image isn't even of John Wesley Harding, but of John Wesley Hardin, no g, 1853 - 95, outlaw gunslinger and, possibly, nemesis of "Wild" Bill Hickok, referenced within the title track of  the also otherwise stage-named Robert Zimmerman's 8th studio album. This isn't about either of them, but about a latterday minstrel from Hastings, Sussex, UK, who took on this monicker for the launch of his musical career in 1988. Quite the renaissance man, one suspects he could have made a go of nearly anything, as Wesley Stace, his real name,  has written 3 novels and has a First in English Lit from Cambridge University, as well as being responsible for upward of 17 discs. In fact, had he not been offered a record deal, whilst supporting (real name) John Hiatt, he may well have got his PhD as well.

I think it fair to say I took no great shine to his initial work, it seeming a bit sub-prime Declan McManus, perhaps hindered by the use of various "Attractions" in his studio band. Perhaps this gave him his greater edge in the states, where he is better known and has been resident since 1991. My real interest was sparked by his 1999 work, "Trad Arr. Jones", a collection of folk songs initially covered by a a fellow Brit, Nic (real name) Jones, who had been tragically injured in a near career stalling road traffic accident in 1982. (I say near,as he has, remarkably, started cautious gigging again during literally only this last year or so.) Here is a song from that record, perhaps better known in another version, as "Matty Groves", by the mercurial "Fairport Convention." This showed a voice that had now some more oblique and less affected character of it's own and a willingness to ignore fashions and conventions redolent within his earlier work. Since then there has been a number of releases, often increasingly diverse in styles and statement, demonstrating a confident eclecticism, absent in his sophomore efforts. It somehow seems entirely apt that he now finds himself on "Yep Roc" records, who seem always to specialise in individuals reluctant to embrace any great degree of  type-casting, such as label-mates Dave Alvin, Nick Lowe and Robyn Hitchcock, all real names, amongst many others.

The song  I feature above, "Sussex Ghost Story" comes from 2004's "Adams Apple", my favourite track on my favourite LP. I would have preferred the studio version, but could not find it on youtube, but this at least has the fabulously evocative string arrangement of (Richard) Gavin Bryars. Not particularly representative even of the rest of the record, I can play it time and time again, reflecting on the bleakness and the beauty in the lyric and the melody. And in case my selections are all, as ever, a touch melancholic, here's a (slightly) more upbeat song, give or take the lyric.

Ironically, to time with the year of this posting, for his most recent record he has reverted to his own name for 2013's "Self-Titled".

Finally, for those feeling unduly deprived of the expectation offered by my title, here's the "other" JWH, the song, or, more exactly, the album, but, indulge me, not that one either. Here is  folk phenomenon, real name, Thea Gilmore, with a song  from her cover to cover of Dylans's 8th. Enjoy

Stage Names: Courtney Love

Hole: Doll Parts
[purchase]

Sometimes, it is harder to come up with an idea when there are so many choices out there than when the theme is narrow. When you consider the universe of performers who have used stage names, it is a bit overwhelming. Kind of like the cereal aisle at the supermarket.

Instead, I decided to work backwards. I haven’t written about that many women in the just under two years that I’ve been part of the SMM family (roughly 16 of my approximately 100 pieces have included songs with prominent female vocals—sorry, Kath), so, this is an opportunity to rectify that imbalance. Also, I’ve posted a bunch of prog rock, so I wanted to go in a different direction, and although I’ve posted a bunch of new wave and punk, I haven’t really written about anything like this song.

So I decided to write about a woman who was born in 1964 in San Francisco as Courtney Michelle Harrison (although some sources state that her birth name was “Love Michelle Harrison”). As a result of various adoptions, over the years she was also known as "Courtney Michelle Rodriguez" and "Courtney Michelle Menely". And a few years ago, it was widely reported that she wanted to be known as “Courtney Michelle,” but she shot that story down.

Love’s upbringing was unconventional. Her mother was a psychotherapist and her father was a publisher and was briefly the manager of the Grateful Dead. Her parents divorced in 1969, and her father’s custodial rights were withdrawn based on allegations that he had given young Courtney LSD. Even in San Francisco in 1969, that was not a good thing. Her mother moved the family to a commune in Oregon, where Courtney struggled in school and was diagnosed with autism.

After a brief move to New Zealand, she was returned to Oregon to live with her former stepfather and friends. In what may well be one of the great “what ifs” of all time, Courtney auditioned for the Mickey Mouse Club when she was 12, but her choice of audition piece, the poem “Daddy,” by Sylvia Plath, somehow didn’t get her the gig. A couple of years later, she was sent to juvie for shoplifting, then bounced in and out of foster homes before becoming emancipated at 16. She spent the next few years doing various jobs, including DJ, stripper and actress, while also taking college classes in Portland, San Francisco and at Trinity College in Ireland.

Starting in the 1980’s Courtney began performing, first with bands that she formed, then briefly in Faith No More, before leaving that band to form other bands and playing bass with Babes in Toyland. She taught herself to play guitar and moved to L.A., where she placed an ad looking to start a band—her stated influences were “Big Black, Sonic Youth and Fleetwood Mac.” That band became Hole.

“Doll Parts” was released on Hole’s second album, Live Through This, and was written about Love’s insecurity about her then new relationship with Kurt Cobain. The song’s rawness and simplicity masks its complex musings on beauty, love, fear and pain, much as Love’s unpredictable (to be charitable) behavior has often overshadowed her obvious intelligence and talent. The song starts with just Love’s gritty vocals and a guitar, and builds slowly to a climax, before ending with a pained vocal, cracking with emotion. It is a song that truly lets you into Love’s heart, and makes obvious her pain, her insecurity and her fear.

It is a damn good song, and was a big success for the band. While Love and Hole put out some more excellent music, to my mind, this album, and this song, was the best work she ever did.

Shutdown: Allentown

Billy Joel: Allentown [purchase]

My second post for Star Maker Machine, back in 2008, was about the difference between a protest song and a political song. The song then was Deportees, by Woody Guthrie. Like Deportees, Billy Joel’s Allentown is a political song. It attempts to persuade by humanizing a situation and thereby eliciting our sympathies. In this case, the issue was the plight of the steel industry in the United States in the early 1980s. This was the first appearance of what is now the trend called outsourcing. Joel in his lyrics cites the fact that the coal to fire the steel mills of Pennsylvania was becoming harder to find and mine, but it is also true that steel companies were starting to find that they could produce steel more cheaply overseas.

Joel takes for his narrator a generation of workers without work in Allentown Pennsylvania. Because this is a Billy Joel song, his sentimental streak shows up in his idealized depiction of how the generation before the current one lived. Joel contrasts this with the shattered hopes and dreams of the unemployed steel workers at that time. They not only haven’t achieved their own dreams, they also haven’t lived up to the hopes their parents had for them. Joel doesn’t assign blame for this, but he leaves us with the feeling that, whoever’s fault this is, it is not the hard working people of Allentown.

The video also attempts to be socially relevant, but the results are mixed. It begins well enough, although the impact is somewhat blunted by the stylized way the humanity of these unemployed steel workers is depicted. But the year was 1982, and when the song reaches the bridge, all of a sudden we start seeing these dancers doing eighties music video moves. At one point, they appear to be worshiping an American flag made out of Christmas lights. Huh? The dance sequences, in short, are best ignored. Billy Joel was, in 1982, a commercial songwriter and musician, but this song shows that something bigger than himself had moved him. The video shows that his label approved, but didn’t completely understand this.

Shut Down: Last Call

I have to admit that I cannot remember ever being at a bar for last call. Which is not a joke—you know, like “if you remember the sixties, you weren’t there” (variously attributed to Robin Williams, Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Dennis Hopper, Judy Collins, George Harrison, Pete Townshend and Timothy Leary, among others, including a comedian, Charlie Fleischer, who may have been the first to say it). It’s just that my heaviest imbibing days came when I was in college, and we almost never went to bars. Not to mention that I’m generally too, say, thrifty, to pay bar prices for a long night of drinking.

But I understand that “last call” is a big deal, because it requires you to fight inertia and the effects of alcohol, leave the cozy confines and head out into the world. Either you have to go home, or you are with someone, or you are alone, maybe disappointingly so. But you are probably drunk, and you need to decide whether to find somewhere else to keep drinking, or you have to accept the fact that the drinking part of the evening is over.

Not surprisingly, last call is a topic that is not uncommon in the music world, and we will touch on three very different songs, but not Kanye West’s “Last Call,” or Semisonic’s “Closing Time.” And because I don’t have a clever organizing principle, let’s just go in chronological order.  

Dead Kennedys: We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now
[purchase]

I’ve written before about the Dead Kennedys, and how their very name was a slap in the face to political correctness. In their classic “California Über Alles,” they poked fun at the supposed hippie/fascist tendencies of then (and current) California governor Jerry Brown who, in the song, somehow becomes dictator of the United States. But not long after this was released, the country actually elected conservative president Ronald Reagan, whose vision for America scared the DKs even more than Brown’s supposed “suede denim secret police.”

Thus, the band released this revised version, called “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now,” which starts with a lounge jazz arrangement and the lyrics:

Last call for alcohol.
Last call for your freedom of speech.
Drink up. Happy hour is now enforced by law.

While most of the most dire predictions in the song didn’t come true, some did, and I think you can draw a direct line from the Reagan presidency to the current Tea Party fanaticism that led to the government shutdown.

But enough about politics.

Hüsker Dü: First of the Last Calls
[purchase]

The loudest concert that I ever went to was Hüsker Dü at Irving Plaza in 1986. By far. And Dwight Yoakam opened, which was probably the oddest combination at any concert that I have ever been to. I’ve always appreciated Hüsker Dü’s ability to write poignant songs, with great melodies, while still keeping their hardcore roots. My wife, on the other hand, has trouble hearing past the feedback and screaming, and doesn’t get it.

“First of the Last Calls” is from an early EP, Metal Circus, and it definitely falls more on the hardcore end of the spectrum. But you can still hear songwriter Bob Mould’s gift for writing great riffs, in this song about a man’s losing fight with the bottle. Mould, who has struggled with various substance abuse issues, has had an impressive career with Hüsker Dü, Sugar and as a solo artist. Not to mention writing the theme song to The Daily Show (although the current version is a cover by They Might Be Giants).

Jay Bennett: Second Last Call
[download for free]

Changing things up a bit, we come to a song by another excellent songwriter with substance issues, but who succumbed to them—Jay Bennett, who passed away from an overdose of prescription painkillers back in 2009. Probably best known for his work with Wilco, and for being fired from Wilco in a scene captured in the incredible film, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, Bennett was in a regionally popular band, Titanic Love Affair, before joining Wilco, and had an intermittently brilliant solo career after leaving.

His talent, as a songwriter, producer/arranger and multi-instrumentalist. cannot be denied, and from all reports, he is not the only person to butt heads with Jeff Tweedy. Bennett plays all of the instruments on this song, a kind of peppy story about failed love at a bar, from his posthumously released album, Kicking at the Perfumed Air.

Good night--time to leave--drive safely, and don't forget to tip your waitress.....

Shutdown: You Can't Always Get What You Want

Rolling Stones: You Can't Always Get What You Want
[purchase]

One lesson that we might pick up from the stand-off/shut-down comes from a '69 Rolling Stones tune off the Let It Bleed album: You Can't Always Get What You Need.

While there isnt a direct reference in the song to our current theme of <Shutdown>, the indirect link is pretty clear: none of the parties involved in the events that brought about the US government shutdown came away with what they really wanted. My understanding of politics is that it is a business of trade-offs: give a little, get a little. It appears that I am supported in my knowledge by this, from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

Politicks is the science of good sense, applied to public affairs, and, as those are forever changing, what is wisdom to-day would be folly and perhaps, ruin to-morrow. Politicks is not a science so properly as a business. It cannot have fixed principles, from which a wise man would never swerve, unless the inconstancy of men's view of interest and the capriciousness of the tempers could be fixed. [Fisher Ames (1758-1808)]

Like the recent US political impass, the 60s were also a time of turmoil: not least the Vietnam war protests. Further still, there's a fair dose of politics referenced in the Stones' lyrics:

I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"
...[and] ...
She was practiced at the art of deception
Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands

"demonstration ... abuse ..." Sounds like <Occupy> to me.
"art of deception" ... sound like <NSA> to me.
"blood-stained hands" ... Blackwater and more ...

There are some out there clamouring for a controlled kind of shutdown: close down some of the out-of-control powers of government. Maybe I am just overly influenced by the George Orwell frame of mind.

Shutdown: Closing Time

Tom Waits: Closing Time

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Our current theme is rich with possibilities, but they require some creative thought to tease out. Shutdown. All kinds of things can be shut down. It may be permanent, or very temporary. One example happens every night, and it has been a great inspiration to songwriters. I‘m talking about closing time. You went out to a bar for an evening. You had certain hopes and intentions. Now the bar is closing, and you are still there. How did those expectations turn out? Songwriters have answered that question in a wide variety of ways. To hear some of those answers, try searching for the words “closing time“ in the Amazon mp3 store. Three completely different songs bear that title, and many other song titles contain the phrase.

One Closing Time song holds my attention here. On an album of mostly vocal tracks, Tom Waits made the instrumental song Closing Time the title track of his 1973 release. The song, appropriately, closes the album. When Sting made the instrumental The Dream of Blue Turtles the title track of his first solo album, he was taking a tune that was the result of an impromptu jam session in the studio, and using it as a declaration of personal and musical freedom. Tom Waits is after something completely different here. The song Closing Time is a mood piece that sums up the emotions of the entire album. The song could just as easily have opened the album and served as a sort of overture. The album Closing Time is one of Waits’ most lushly romantic works. Waits is known for his portrayal of down-on-their-luck men who have turned to alcohol to dull the pain, with varying degrees of success. What is remarkable is how Waits makes us sympathize with these men by showing us that, even at their lowest, these men still dream of better things. The album Closing Time focuses less on how low these characters have fallen, and instead is about those dreams. Here are some of Waits most unabashed and beautiful love songs. Still, at the end of the night, the lights come up, and these characters leave alone. So the song is still lush and sweet, but it also has a melancholy strain. Nobody balances these emotions better than Tom Waits, and here he doesn’t even need words to do it.

Shutdown: Don’t Shut ‘em Down

Flogging Molly: Don’t Shut ‘em Down
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So, of course, the government shutdown is over, and we here at Star Maker Machine take credit for the ending, only a few days after we created this theme. It is sort of like why some baseball announcers won’t mention that a pitcher has a no-hitter, as if the announcer affects the game. Which is something that my father insists on, despite being quite well educated and intelligent. But if that is true, then why can’t a little music blog cause the reopening of the entire United States government?

I’ve previously written about my attendance at two Warped Tours, and why that demonstrates my credentials as a great father, but it also exposed me to some incredible music. Maybe my favorite discovery at Warped Tour was Flogging Molly, who combine Celtic music with punk in a way that I find incredibly fun. It is surprising that there is a whole slew of bands like this, like the Pogues and Dropkick Murphys, but of all of them, Flogging Molly is my fave. I will never forget the mosh pit that afternoon on Randall’s Island—I only watched because, hey, I’m a grownup—but it was a like a maniacal Irish dance in the dirt and mud. We bought some of their CDs at the merch tent that day, and I’ve been a fan ever since.

“Don’t Shut ‘em Down,” from the band’s latest release of new material, 2011’s Speed of Darkness, was written about the economic situation, primarily in Detroit where the band is based and in leader Dave King’s native Ireland. It is a plea not to shut down the factories that gave so many people work, the ability to support their families, and allowed cities to thrive. The title is taken from graffiti that King saw painted on a boarded up building in Detroit.

This song is, actually, one of the least Celtic sounding Flogging Molly songs that I can think of—it is more of a straight ahead rocker, with a poignant, important message.

SHUTDOWN : WORKING FOR THE CLAMPDOWN

Working for the Clampdown
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OK, so it's not the version you were expecting, but indulge me this opportunity to hit several targets at the same time. Or at least to aim at them. (You were expecting this, weren't you. Same song, same message, different ambience, both good.)

Some discussion.... Clampdown may not mean quite the same thing as shutdown, but I'm not going to bother Webster for fear of invalidating my argument, as the outcome is the same whether it is Congress (now) or the revolution (Strummer) that turns off the lights. The Clash were the archetypal politico-punks, Strummer inevitably drawn to left wing overthrow of the state, the camouflage of resentment held by so many of those in denial of their own privileged upbringing. Privately educated, the son of a diplomat, an example of that peculiarly british phenomenon, Joe Strummer constantly re-invented and re-defined himself, so as to deny his spoon, stainless steel if not silver, in support for the undertrodden and oppressed, most of that oppression, in his eye, stemming from the righter leaning ideologies of the wealthy upper classes. Arguably naive and simplistic, nonetheless one felt he believed it, despite the perpetual joy of the press, always reminding all of his roots. Even the more radical rock press delighted in this perceived whiff of hypocrisy, as if he could and should have chosen his parentage more wisely. O to be in England, now that class is here. Where it always has been, and, probably, pitifully, it probably always will be. (Relax, guys, my diatribe is done, back to the music.)

I liked the Clash. They always seemed to have a bit more to them than the Sex Pistols, who resolutely seemed a little cartoon-like. Like the Beatles and the Stones, you had to be in one camp or the other, and the Clash seemed a bit better read, perhaps underlining my own class issues. London Calling was, I think, their 3rd LP and was a massive breakthrough at many levels, straying from 4:4 wamalama and introducing many styles and statements, drawn, as Strummer would always return to, especially later in his career, from the musical diversities of many cultures. A double album, squeezed into one sleeve and the price of one, this too was part of the message. (Sandanista, their next, took this still further, being 3 for the price of 1, but, for me, was spread a little too thin.) From the iconography of the cover, to the brilliance of much of the music, London Calling was their pinnacle. Following on from Sandanista the band eventually fell into disrepute and dissarray, Strummer becoming a Pogue for a while, standing in for another "nice boy gone bad", Shane MacGowan, before a last gasp of creativity with his own band, the Mescaleros, and a premature death in his early 50s. Which, inevitably and yet again, gave the obituarists an opportunity to reprise his family tree.

I also like the Indigo Girls, torchbearers also, but for a more sexual politic. This version brings a different slant to the more overt posturing of the original, and comes from one of the better tribute LPs out there, Burning London, which includes versions of Clash songs by No Doubt, the Afghan Whigs and Moby, amongst others.

Shutdown: Shut Down

Beach Boys: Shut Down
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The exuberance of the '60s Beach Boys was infectious: so infectious that they sold millions. They were a kind of transition from the Kingston Trio folk genre to the Beatles pop/rock genre. They were California-carefree: surf, sun, and fun, fun, fun 'til ...

'Til the real world intruded. Much of the decade leading up the Beach Boys' prime-time were years of plenty - especially for America. Work, cars and houses for everyone. The late sixties (and the end of the Beach Boys' major successes) was the end of an era: a shut down of the values that America had previously espoused. Vietnam war protests, "free sex", hippies ... all flew in the face of what was established. Richard Nixon got caught trying to shut down his opponents by illegal means. The public aimed to shut down the Vietnam war. And much of the public tuned out one way or another: smoking pot or ... whatever... in itself a form of shut down or closing time.

Look into the Beach Boys late works (Heroes and Villains era stuff) and you'll see this change reflected in their music: The Beach Boys of the '70 definitely do not display the same "drive" you'll see in this clip. It's been shut down and the gears have been down-shifted to mellow.

At the same time, as we consider the relation to today's US gov't shut down, you might look deeper into the (most likely unintended) meaning you could ascribe to the lyrics of this song:



Shut it off, shut it off buddy now I shut you down
Sounds to me like one of the US political parties or another: "buddy"? I thought that meant "friend"?

Sisters: You And Your Sister

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Chris Bell: You And Your Sister

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When I first posted the original version of You And Your Sister here way back in 2010, I described it as a song that "offers raw redemption, with Chris Bell's broken delivery and slightly off-tune bass holding it together until the highly orchestral, swirling atmospheric bridge kicks in and all is lost to summery teen angst - just as the heavy-hearted homosexual, heroin addict, and struggling Christian himself was lost to a late night car crash in '78, the same year the song was first released as a non-album single."

What I didn't mention was that one of the most powerful choices Bell made in releasing this b-side was the use of a totally minor character - that of the sister who claims that the narrator is "no good", but is otherwise absent in the lyrics - in the song's title. Doing so forces us to enter the song as a companionate outsider, removed that much farther from the otherwise intimate performance and first-person narrative; the resulting experience of listening invites us to share both the desperate distance the narrator feels for his subject, and the inherent cultural disapproval that the titular sibling represents - itself a common theme in Bell's work, as evidenced most obviously by the parental role in Big Star's Thirteen.

Bonus track: the production on this recent cover from cinematic art-pop duo O + S, which appears on the award-winning indie-slash-dreampop 2010 lullaby covers album Sing Me To Sleep, uses plinking acoustic tones, chamberfolk strings, and lush, echoey, doubled vocals to add new atmospheric layers to the song, trebling the distance and desperation even as it calms the slumbering soul.

O+S: You And Your Sister

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Sisters: Babylon Sisters

Steely Dan: Babylon Sisters

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Babylon Sisters comes from the album Gaucho, which would be the last album from the original run of Steely Dan. After Gaucho, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen would split up. Fagen initially pursued a solo career, while Becker moved to Hawaii and kicked his drug habit, before eventually reemerging as a producer and solo artist himself. When Steely Dan finally went back in the studio as a group, they were without longtime producer Gary Katz.

Gaucho was the album from that original run that Becker and Fagen found the most difficult to make. In fact, there exists as a bootleg an entire album worth of material that would have been a very different album than the one we know. That one is called, alternately, The Lost Gaucho or The Second Arrangement. It has an alternate version of Third World Man with entirely different lyrics, an instrumental version of Gaucho, and a bunch of songs that were scrapped. To my ear, the “official” album, Gaucho, was well worth the effort it took to make. Compared to the previous album, Aja, the sound is somewhat simplified. The band is a large as before, and the background singers are still here, but the songs on Gaucho are shorter, and have less complex structures and harmonies. Aja is a great album too, but there are times when this Steely Dan lite, if you will, is just what I am in the mood for. The songs here have lyrics that are as opaque as always, but the musical directness gives these songs the unique feel of well crafted short stories, where Aja is more like a collection of finely wrought novellas. Babylon Sisters is a fine example of what I mean. Compared to the epic sweep of Home at Last, or even the storytelling of Don’t Take Me Alive, from the Royal Scam album, Babylon Sisters is a moment in time and a mood piece, and a very fine one.

Sisters: Don't Let Me Down

Pernilla Andersson: "Don't Let Me Down"

Pernilla Andersson: "Don't Let Me Down" (Twisted Sister cover)
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In choosing a song to post about for the Sisters theme, I kept getting distracted by this cover of Twisted Sister's "Don't Let Me Down." Pernilla Andersson's subdued vocals coast over shimmering, fingered acoustic guitar and relentless shaker into a chorus accentuated by droning cello drags, stabbing mandolin yelps, and wandering piano notes that fall like stones into a bottomless pond. The orchestrated result is a dark mirror held to the 80s makeup metallers, perhaps with a tease and a taunt: anything you can do, I can do better.

Andersson ditches the overt loudness, speed, and tone in lieu of subtler approaches. Elements of the song's original characteristics all remain present, yet refined. A true application of the art of the cover, this interpretation targets the mood and message of its subject and strips out the pomp. I love this song on its own, but knowing where it comes from adds a lot to it for me. I found little to no value in the original but now have a reason to appreciate it as the base for Andersson's superior emulation.

Twisted Sister: "Don't Let Me Down"