I got a newslettery e-mail from (name dropper alert) Henry Rollins the other day to alert me that the great Ian MacKaye will be the guest host of Hank's "Harmony in my Head" radio program from Los Angeles' Indie 103.1 radio station. This is big news to me because I've never heard of a time where the great Ian MacKaye hosted a show or even appeared on a commercial radio station. Sure, there are a few interviews floating around here and there, but generally they're on college radio where the host simply hasn't done the research or whatever. It always ends up being a letdown... Let that be a lesson to you college kids out there - do your homework. There is nothing more revolutionary than knowledge.
Anyway, just Ian spinning records and telling stories sounds like a rollicking good way to spend an evening so I'm going to make sure I log on and tune in. But in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to post a random playlist from the week. Hell, I'll even post an mp3 or two for good measure.
Here we go:
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Down on the Corner
A friend has a theory that at any time of the day there is some radio station playing a Creedence song. I guess that could be true about Black Flag, too. After all, there are a lot of radio stations out there. I bet some of them even play really bad music, too.
Creedence isn’t bad music. How can it be if The Dude loves it? When his car was stolen the first thing he wanted returned wasn’t a leather case supposedly filled with money, it was his Creedence cassette. And with songs like “Down on the Corner” about Willie & The Poor Boys, who can blame him?
I love stories. I’ve been known to travel great distances to either hear a good one or to attempt to write one, and this song is a good story. Actually, it makes me think about the kids that hang out on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colo. You know the ones – they roll up in a Land Rover wearing $75 sandals and $200 peasants’ shirts and then sit outside of the shops kicking hacky sacks, strum “Scarlet Begonias” on 12-string guitars, or beg for change with babies on their laps.
I spent my early childhood in Washington, D.C. and my college years in Philadelphia and New York City. Currently I live in Lancaster (went to its inner city high school) and work in Philadelphia, so it’s fair to say that I’m a bona fide Northeasterner.
Do you really want to know what I say to those kids when they ask me for change?
You really want to know? OK… we start with, “GET A BLEEPING JOB!” And then we work from there.
Quicksand – Dine Alone This group was fronted by Walter Schreifels, who also led the late ‘80s NYC hardcore band the Gorilla Biscuits. As I was heading off for college in 1989 the Gorilla Biscuit’s Start Today was the heavy rotation cassette in my walkman and it might be a good idea to replace that tape with some digitalized computer files. Either way, Quicksand strikes me as a band that was swept up in to a major label contract during that post-Nirvana rush on organic, guitar-based rock music. For Quicksand one of those albums was called Slip, released on Polydor Records, that sounds a tad over-produced.
That’s not bad, it’s just that it doesn’t have that same “heaviness” as the Gorilla Biscuits records. Take that for what it’s worth, though. The fact remains that there were and are a lot of bands that took its sound from the music Schreifels and his bands were putting out.
Bob Dylan – Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
It’s hard not to think that Dylan was writing about Edie Sedgwick or perhaps offering an ode to Jackie O in the one. Nonetheless, it’s really funny and you can tell Bob is yucking it up and having a good time singing it.
The song comes from Blonde on Blonde, which aside from being considered one of Dylan’s best is also thought to be the first double album in popular rock history. Song by song, though, this is probably Dylan’s best album and collection of tunes. However, I’m still partial to Highway 61 Revisited simply because my mom gave me a copy of the LP when I was a boy, explained who Dylan was and told me, “this is different. He’s a poet.”
Rollins Band – Low Self Opinion It’s hard not to admire ol’ U St. Hank. There are very few people who stick to their guns or follow their muse as devotedly as Rollins. Better yet, he has become his own D.I.Y. media conglomerate that continues to produce high-quality and thoughtful work. Even his books are well-edited, which is a surefire way to measure intelligence and devotion to detail.
Besides, if a person can write they can do anything.
Here’s another detail Rollins paid attention to – his band is really, really good. Ol’ Hank gets all the attention, of course, since it’s his name, face, words, voice and black shorts, but don’t sleep on his band. To coin a phrase, Rollins with a lineup of Sim Cain, Melvin Gibbs and Chris Haskett rocks.
David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes I have to admit that it took me a while to “get” David Bowie. My mom tried to get me into the Ziggy Stardust stuff when I was a kid, but it just didn’t stick. Perhaps one has to be an adult to do understand Bowie.
This one, however, did stick. I think it was the lyrics that did it:
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom’s a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all-time low
I recently read that this song was Bowie’s ode to the end of the 1970s. OK, that works. But to me it sounds like an ode to childhood heroes and the feeling one gets when they grow up and learn that the people they idolized were regular people, too, or worse. I can definitely relate to that. When I was a kid my favorite baseball player was Larry Bowa. When I grew up and got a job writing about baseball, Larry Bowa was… well, let’s just say he isn’t the nicest man on the planet.
Perhaps the lesson learned is that just because someone plays baseball doesn’t mean they are special. It’s just a game.
Sinead O’Connor – Three Babies This is another artist I didn’t particularly like or “get” during her so-called hey-day. I guess I wrote it off as trifle pop music made by yet another egomaniacal diva. But now that I’m older it seems as if this one was ahead of its time… or maybe I was a late arrival. Perhaps it’s because I have two kids of my own, but a few tracks on this album – “Three Babies,” “Feel So Different,” “Black Boys on Mopeds,” “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance,” are all just bleeping killers. They tear right through bone and leave you in a pile on the floor.
Public Enemy – Pollywanacraka I guess I like Chuck’s voice on this one. Then again, I like his voice on all of them.
The Beatles – Sun King I don’t know anything about recording or producing records, but the mix of this song sounds amazing. But then again, the Beatles with George Martin were recording geniuses. … and that just might be the understatement of the century.
Here’s a fun fact about the Spanish phrasing in the middle of this song. According to John Lennon (who wrote it):
We just started joking, you know, singing 'cuando para mucho'. So we just made up, ah, Paul knew a few Spanish words from school, you know. So we just strung any Spanish words that sounded vaguely like something. And of course we got `chicka ferdi' in. That's a Liverpool expression – just like sort of – it doesn't mean anything to me but 'na-na, na-na-na'.
Dag Nasty – Wig Out at Denko’s The first proper “punk” show I saw was Dag Nasty at the Chameleon in Lancaster, Pa. on July 4, 1987. That was the month when Wig Out at Denko’s was released. For a lot of my friends, this album changed everything for them. Hearing this record for the first time was, I believe, a seminal moment in their lives. For teenage boys in the exurbs in the mid-1980s, this was the record.
Suffice it to say I listened to it a lot. I liked it very much and I’m sure I played it regularly for five years after that July in 1987. I still listen to it on occasion now, though I no longer seek it out and I prefer the preceding album to this one. Still, 20 years later Brian Baker’s guitar work really holds up.
John Frusciante – Omission/A Firm Kick It’s hard to stop playing those Frusciante tracks. Luckily for me, two came up right in a row.
TV on the Radio – Staring at the Sun Let me preface this by saying I don’t know anything about the new bands. I don’t know what they look like, where they’re from, what genre they belong to, or whether they rightly believe that Fugazi is the greatest band in the last 40 years. I don’t think I care to know that information either.
I am not a hipster.
So it goes without saying that I don’t know a thing about TV on the Radio. In fact, the first time I heard this I thought it was one of Frusciante’s B-sides from his earlier albums. Actually, I think I heard it as it played over the credits of some HBO show. Entourage maybe?
Luscious Jackson – Life of Leisure
People make mistakes. That’s what makes them human. One of my mistakes came during 1994 at the Lollapalooza show in Philadelphia at FDR Park. My mistake that day was watching Luscious Jackson at the Second Stage instead of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on the main stage.
Yeah, tough one.
Perhaps because of some sort of personal depression I decided to skip Mr. Cave’s realism and poignant music for the happy-go-lucky nature of the ladies of LJ. Plus, they were (and are) good-looking ladies. Nick Cave seemed a little too brooding for me that day.
The worst part of this story is that Luscious Jackson were actually taunting Nick Cave from their spot on the side stage. Yeah, really. In retrospect I guess that’s all they can do because they can’t write songs better than he can.
On another note, I saw Girls Against Boys that day. They went on the little side stage just before Luscious Jackson hit it. In that regard I guess it all worked out.
The Evens – All You Find You Keep My current music obsession when I decide to give End Hits a break. This one seems to be about the Patriot Act. Really patriotic that Patriot Act.
The Breeders – Divine Hammer On the same day I saw Girls Against Boys, and Luscious Jackson, but skipped Nick Cave, I saw The Breeders. They did this song, but the highlight of their set was a Guided By Voices cover. I’m not a huge Guided By Voices fan, but their song was better than the ones the Breeders had.
The Evens – Blessed Not Lucky More Evens. Too good.
Pearl Jam – Faithfull This is from a live show recorded on July 5, 2003 at Camden’s outdoor music venue. I forget the name of the corporation that bought the rights to place its name on it… anyway, it’s Pearl Jam. Nothing new to add there except for the fact that I actually saw Eddie Vedder on this day. He showed up at the ballpark (Veterans Stadium), took batting practice and hobnobbed with a few players. He also had a big, burly body guard with him so I took that as a sign that he wasn’t interested in being in approached in public – kind of like a porcupine with its quills or a skunk with its stench.
Besides, what do you say to Eddie Vedder that he doesn't already know? I'm sure he didn't need me to tell him that Fugazi is better than his band. That's probably all I had to offer him anyway. What? Do you think he would have wanted to talk about baseball?
To make a long story short, the thing that most struck me about seeing Eddie Vedder from two feet away was how incredibly short he is. He might be 5-foot-8.
On another note, Jakob Dylan is waifishly thin. Like model thin.
Frank Black – Velouria
This is from an album of Pixies songs that features nothing more than Frank, a guitar and maybe some string arrangements. It’s really, really interesting. Hearing those Pixies songs presented in a totally new and different way from the man who wrote them really opens them up… or something like that.
Interestingly, I was at a party on one of the days after this past Christmas where I got really drunk on Yellow Tail shiraz (what, no Heineken?) and introduced myself to strangers as Frank Black. Actually, I told them I was Francis Black, but they could call me Frank. Or Frankie. I don’t drink that often and get drunk maybe twice a decade, so it was fun to entertain myself and a few others with a nom de drunk. Perhaps I should have pulled out my iPod and blasted this record instead?
Superchunk – From the Curve For about two weeks I listened to the Superchunk album (On The Mouth) from which this one is culled. It’s entertaining. Energetic even. It’s not exactly cutting edge or ridiculously memorable, but I can understand how a band like Superchunk became popular in certain indie circles. I guess it used to be called “college music.” Do they still call it that? I hope not, because that’s a really dumb name for a classification or sub-genre.
DMX – What’s My Name I like to listen to this one before I run in a race. I think it would be hilarious to show up a race in some non-descript suburb with this one blasting from my car. I have a Saturn Vue, which would make the scene even funnier. Maybe I should rent an Escalade so I can blast DMX before the local 5k… good idea?
Minor Threat – Minor Threat
Imagine being 14-years old and hearing Minor Threat for the first time. Tell me that wouldn’t change your life. At least that’s what happened to me. I can remember the day of the week, the place, the way the lights were lit, who I was with and the smell of the air the very first time I heard Minor Threat. Needless to say, moments like that deserve to be preserved in such a manner. After all, hearing Minor Threat for the first time is just one of those life-altering stitches in time.