Doubleshot Tuesday: News Of The World/The Guitars That Destroyed The World

[Today: Apocalyptic guitars...]

Kim Jong Il scares me. His nuclear ambitions can’t be a good thing, and his failing health, combined with the destitute state of North Korea, make him a guy who’s got little to lose by pushing the big red button. And North Korea’s just the tip of the armageddon iceberg – all over the world there are hot spots that we’re supposed to be concerned about: Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Honduras, Darfur, Georgia, the list goes on and on.

But none of these countries and their tinpot dictators put the fear into me nearly as much as the Russians did when I was a kid. Many a night during the early-80′s I went to bed expecting to be awoken by a mushroom cloud that was airmailed in from Moscow. Before the Internet, and with cable TV in its infancy, Ronald Reagan was able to use cold war rhetoric to make the Russians seems like blood-thirsty communist automatons from another world. Russians were also routinely cast as the bad guys in American popular culture – from James Bond to Rocky to Hawaii Five-O to the Olympics, and well beyond.

But strangely enough, the most apocalyptic record cover in my parents’ collection didn’t involve the Red Army marching down Hollywood Blvd or a mushroom cloud hanging over America, it featured a painting of a giant robot scooping up people and crushing them like ants. Queen’s News Of The World is funny to me now, but it gave me the willies when I was younger. That single drop of blood about to drip from the robot’s finger, and the terrified looks on the faces of the fleeing mob on the inside gatefold cover? These are some of the things that a 9-year old’s nightmares are made of.

A few weeks back I was browsing through the racks at Laurie’s Planet Of Sound in Chicago, and I came across a used LP that features my kind of apocalypse. The 1972 Columbia compilation The Guitars That Destroyed The World does show an army marching down Main St, USA, but it’s an army of giant guitars that look like they walked right off the Loony Tunes assembly line. The tiny little people on the cover scream and flee, but I wouldn’t be moved by those guitars one bit – I’ve lived through Ronnie Reagan, the Russians, killer robots, and Kim Jong Il. Bring on the giant guitars…

*****

Here’s what the apocalypse really sounds like…

Listen: Stain Of Mind [Slayer]

Listen: Jesus Built My Hotrod [Ministry]

Listen: Thirteen [Johnny Cash]

Listen: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath [Black Sabbath]

Listen: Danger Zone [Kenny Loggins]

Inside The House Of Records

Eugene, OR is known as Tracktown USA, and it’s definitely one of the leading track & field cities in the world. It’s also noted as: 1) the home of the University Of Oregon (Go Ducks!), 2) the birthplace of Nike, and 3) a cradle of hippies and anarchists. But just off the eastern edge of the UofO campus sits one of the best record stores in the whole wide world. The House Of Records is, as its name indicates, an old house that’s been converted into a record store, and it’s the place where I first started buying vinyl as a broke college kid so many years back. Many of the same folks who worked there 20 years ago are still behind the register – albeit with a bit more gray in their hair and crow’s feet around the eyes.

Last July The P and I were visiting Eugene and we made a stop at the House Of Records. We arrived just after they’d opened, so there was nobody in the store. The clerk gave me the OK to shoot some photos of the store, and so I did. Here’s a quick peek inside one of my favorite record stores anywhere:

[click to enlarge]

[House Of Records business card, from the early-90's...]

Weekend Playlist

“Me, I’ve concentrated on music pretty much to the exclusion of other things.” – Lou Reed

Freddie King | Hide Away
[Album cover not pictured]

Jerry Lee Lewis | Live At The Star Club, Hamburg

Shawn Phillips | Second Contribution

John Lee Hooker | Free Beer And Chicken

Instant Funk | Instant Funk

Soundgarden | Louder Than Love

Rodriguez | Cold Fact

INXS | Shabooh Shoobah

Various Artists | Journey Into Paradise: The Larry Levan Story

Calexico | The Black Light

Jackson 5 | Greatest Hits

Miles Davis | ‘Round About Midnight

Horace Silver | Silver’s Blue

Donald Byrd | Mustang!

Alabama 3 | Outlaw

Gram Parsons | Grievous Angel

Basement Jaxx | Remedy

Radiohead | In Rainbows

Mylo | Destroy Rock & Roll

Gomez | Bring It On

Ben Charest | Triplets Of Belleville Soundtrack

Various Artists | More Oar

Neil Young | Sleeps With Angels

Minutemen | Post-Mersh Vol. 3

Barry & The Remains | Barry & The Remains

Various Artists | Brothers On The Slide: The Story Of UK Funk

Gift Of Gab | Fourth Dimensional Rocket Ships Going Up

Culture | Trod On

Led Zeppelin | Coda

Stevie Ray Vaughan | SRV (Box Set)

Black Sugar | Black Sugar

Buried Treasure: Live At The Star Club, Hamburg

[Today: Jerry Lee Lewis kills his piano...]

In March of 1958, during a tour of England, it was revealed that Jerry Lee Lewis had married his 13-year old first cousin (once removed), Myra Gale Brown. Until that point, Lewis’ star had been in rapid ascent behind hit singles such as ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ and ‘Breathless’. But once the news of his young bride hit the papers, he was an instant has-been, reduced to playing juke joints for whatever paltry fee he could negotiate. By 1964 he had hit absolute bottom, hadn’t enjoyed a hit in six full years, and with the rise of Beatlemania and the British Invasion bands, looked more than ever like a creature of the past.

The Star Club in Hamburg, Germany is the cabaret where The Beatles perfected their live act before conquering America and the world. It’s hard to say whether that connection played into the fire that Jerry Lee Lewis played with on this particular evening, but from the word go he assaults his piano with a beautiful fury that is breathtaking to behold. His backing band, The Nashville Teens, were clearly in over their heads, and spend the entirety of this show holding on for dear life and trying to keep up with The Killer (“Play that thing right boy!” Jerry Lee yells at one Teen during a cover of Ray Charles’ ‘What’d I Say’). From the first notes of ‘Mean Woman Blues’, this is a nasty, snarling, unhinged performance that presages the nihilism of punk rock. “Jerry, Jerry…” he chants along with the crowd at one point, before cutting them off with an acidic “Alright already!”. Johnny Rotten, your grandpa is on line one…

During a 1979 interview, Nick Tosches asked Lewis about a legend that he’d once pushed a piano into the ocean. “You’re damn right I did. That was in Charleston, South Carolina, a while back. I pushed it outa the auditorium. I pushed it down the street. I pushed it down the pier. Pushed it right into the ocean.” Fair enough, but The Killer never pushed a piano harder or faster than he did on Live At The Star Club, Hamburg.

Listen: Mean Woman Blues

Listen: Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On

Rodriguez @ Slim’s

Sixto Rodriguez played in San Francisco on Friday night, for just the second time since the 1970 release of his cult classic album Cold Fact. Rodriguez didn’t headline a show in the United States until August 2008 because Cold Fact unfairly tanked on release. Against all odds, that album would later find a platinum second life in South Africa and Australia that allowed him to resurrect his career in the 90′s. His music is stripped-down psychedelic folk, a few degrees angrier than Dylan, but with that same kind of dense wordplay and acute social observation. Rodriguez is a Detroit native, so much of his music concerns the plight of the down-and-out and includes plenty of rough edges and heavy language, which may have contributed to the stop/start nature of his career.

But regardless of the winding road that he took to get there, Rodriguez hit the stage a few minutes after 11pm, along with an eight-piece band that included sax, trombone, and flute. Comeback concerts of this sort are always nail-biting affairs, especially when the artist involved has been in moth balls for so long, and I’ve grown to love the accompanying album as much as Cold Fact. Shuggie Otis broke my heart under similar circumstances a few years back with a horrible, horrible, horrible (I could just keep typing it forever) show that emptied The Fillmore in record time and left me pitching his discs in the recycling bin. So when Rodriguez hit the stage, my fingers were crossed… tightly.

He was led to the front of the stage by a young handler, and it was obvious that his sight isn’t all it could be. When the guitarist in his band started showing him the fingering for the first song, I thought we were all doomed to a long evening in hell. And then he started playing, and everything was ok. His voice is more frail than what’s on record from 40 years ago, but that’s to be expected. Other than that, he sounded shockingly good. His band really brought it, especially on a fantastic version of ‘Sugar Man’ that included a squalling horn freakout that would have made Pharaoh Sanders smile.

‘Establishment Blues’ was another highlight – it’s always impressive to hear a 66-year old man throw himself into lyrics like “This system’s gonna fall soon, to an angry young tune/And that’s a concrete cold fact.” His set list also included a bunch of other fine songs that nobody’s ever heard of – songs that had this less-than-capacity crowd singing along, cheering wildly, and yelling out props for the flautist. Late in his set, in response to one of the many shouted WE LOVE YOU‘s from the crowd, Rodriguez gazed out from behind his cooler-than-cool sunglasses and had a moment of recognition. “I know my audience,” he said with a big grin. “Drive safe man.”

*****

[Partial set list...]

Magic Moment: Michael Jackson Moonwalks

During the 1983 broadcast of Motown 25: Today, Tomorrow, and Forever, Michael Jackson performed ‘Billie Jean’, moonwalked his way into America’s living rooms, and set a million schoolyards into motion:

POSTSCRIPT: This post had been collecting cobwebs in my draft folder for more than 6 months. I hadn’t published it because, frankly, that clip just doesn’t seem as exciting as I remember it – if you blink you can almost miss the big moment. The real magic of the Moonwalk was what happened after this, when kids all over the world starting dancing around with their friends, trying to imitate MJ. Other than Billy “White Shoes” Johnson, I can’t think of another public figure from my youth that made me and my friends dance in front of each other without a care…

Masterpiece: Off The Wall

[Today: Saying goodbye to the King of Pop...]

Michael Jackson died yesterday at age 50, and the news left me strangely unmoved. No shock, grief, or schadenfreude, just a nagging hum of nostalgia for the days when Jackson’s notoriety was primarily to do with music, rather than plastic surgery or out-of-court settlements. He became the Citizen Kane of our times, trapped within the walls of his own exorbitant fame, a star among stars, but personally impoverished by the experience. His 1979 album Off The Wall sold nearly 8,000,000 copies – a huge number of records, but a mere blip compared with what was coming. Thriller of course, went platinum 28 times over and, along with the accompanying MTV videos, catapulted Jackson into the outer stratosphere of stardom. He would never return to earth.

But Off The Wall is Jackson’s real masterpiece, in part because its imperfections haven’t all been air-brushed away. Released at the tail end of the extended dance party that was the 70′s, this is very much a disco album. ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’ and ‘Rock With You’ would fit comfortably within the boundaries of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. ‘Working Day And Night’ ‘Burn This Disco Out’ ‘Get On The Floor’ and the title track were almost as good, and can still reliably fill any dancefloor. Unlike the more mature story lines of some of his later music (including paternity suits, physical confrontation and psychological soul-searching), these songs were all about dancing and having a good time. This music was created before Jackson got completely strung up in the web of fame, and here he sings with a youthful exhilaration that was missing from his later work.

Thriller shifted an unprecedented number of units, but Off The Wall remains the more rewarding listen. Because of the tabloid trainwreck that Jackson’s life turned into after Thriller, much of that album now sounds like unintentional comedy (‘P.Y.T.’, which can’t be heard with a straight face) or tragedy (‘Human Nature’, which chronicles his wish to walk down the street like a normal person), and the music is weighed down by the circus of his life. But Off The Wall is a whole different story. Just look at that cover. That’s the Michael Jackson worth remembering – a young guy with a sparkle in his eye, full of the magic he was making, and ready to rock the world.

RIP MJ…

Listen: Off The Wall

Listen: Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Listen: Working Day And Night

On The Fence: The Marshall Mathers LP

Eminem has thrived on the confusion and controversy that he was once so good at sowing. Time magazine was so spun around by this album that it had to break its grade into two parts (an unprecedented move for that publication) – one grade for music and another for content. That’s total wishful thinking – as if those two could possibly be separated from one another. You can admire Em’s rapping, but at the end of the day his mic skills have to be weighed against what he’s rhyming about. That’s what I intend to do here…

THUMBS UP: Eminem is no more or less of a cartoon character than any other MC on the scene, and he deserves the same artistic license that’s routinely extended to artists such as Stephen King, Wu Tang Clan, and Sam Peckinpah. If rap lives in Gotham City, Eminem is the resident Joker – at the height of his popularity he reminded me of the kind of misbehaving tyke who throws a handful of poo all over a dinner party and then rejoices in the ensuing freak out. If you can get past the blood and guts and pointless celebrity beefs, you’ll find some fluid verbal flow and pretty good songwriting here. ‘Stan’ is a portrait of a deranged fan gone wrong, and a surprisingly self-aware acknowledgment of where his words might lead, ‘The Real Slim Shady’ has the kind of snotty bounce that he’s perfected, and some of his skits are actually funny – in ‘Steve Berman’ he gets blasted by a record executive who asks him “You know why Dre’s record was so successful? He’s rappin’ about big-screen TVs, blunts, 40′s and bitches. You’re rappin’ about homosexuals and Vicodin.”

THUMBS DOWN: Eminem amuses me. I like a few of his songs a lot, but most of his stuff I don’t care for at all. His homophobia is impossible to defend, regardless of any hugs from Elton John or extensive parsing of the slang use of the word “faggot”. He has undeniable mic skills, but until he figures out some plot lines that might appeal to kids over the age of 15, he’s bound to be stuck in the cultural novelty bin. The Marshall Mathers LP has aged poorly for a number of reasons, not least of which is his incessant celebrity beefing (Christina Aquilera? Fred Durst? Insane Clown Posse? Who cares?) that anchors this album to the past. The other big strike against this album is that much of its premise is founded on the house of cards that was Eminem’s fame (or infamy, depending on how you’re scoring). Once the front page headlines are taken out of the equation, Em’s bragging and boasting sounds hollow and empty, an echo from another time, when he still mattered, and his bratty schtick could cause the world to wring its hands.

[What's your take on Mr. Marshall Mathers and his self-titled LP?]

Bad Apple: Metal Machine Music

[Today: I listen to the bad albums, so you don't have to...]

Metal Machine Music hurts, for real. This is one of the few albums in the history of rock that comes with a prominently displayed psychological/medical warning. It seems that prolonged exposure to this “music” can permanently damage your hearing and/or your psyche. But what else could be expected from an album recorded with no musicians, just guitars and amps set to feed back off one another? This isn’t just an LP, it’s a weapon in the war on terror. It’s the kind of album that can make one feel genuine remorse for having fully functioning ears.

Metal Machine Music is a twisted kind of artistic stake in the ground for Lou Reed – imagine him as the stern father figure, you are the misbehaving youngun’, and MMM is the belt. Lou doesn’t want to go there – it hurts him more than it hurts you, believe it – but goddammit he will if he has to, so you better shape it up buster. But it’s also much more than that – it’s the canvas for a thousand jokes, it makes Sally Can’t Dance sound brilliant, and it’s rare as a five-lear clover because nobody bought it the first time around. RCA was toking opium with unicorns if they printed more than 1,000 copies of this load.

Reed flirted with the S&M culture during his Velvet Underground days, so you have to give him credit for taking that spike heel to its logical, painful conclusion. On the inside gatefold art, he looks like Frankenstein’s coked up nephew, and his unintentionally hilarious liner notes conclude with “Anyway, hypertense people, etc. possibility of epilepsy (petite mal), psychic motor disorders, etc., etc., etc. My week beats your year.” Thanks a bunch Lou, can I get a side of fries with my bleeding eardrums?

Listen: Metal Machine Music

Doubleshot Tuesday: Style Wars/Dogtown & Z-Boys

[Today: Bombing subway cars and empty swimming pools...]

Along with rapping, scratching and breaking, graffiti is considered one of the four elements of hip-hop. But while the other three elements broke into the mainstream marketplace long ago, graffiti is still widely considered to be nothing more than vandalism of public property. The 1983 documentary Style Wars follows some of the famed graffiti artists of the early-80′s as they hop fences and go underground to outwit the authorities, while battling each other for prime writing space – all in the name of bombing subway cars from end to end. “The idea of style and competing for the best style is the key to all forms of rocking,” the narrator informs us, and writers such as Seen, Dondi, Case, and Skeme all rock the Rustoleum in high style. Watching their murals flow from car to car as the subway trains slowly slither through the blighted landscape of 70′s New York is utterly mesmerizing. Even better is seeing the featured graffiti writers present clear-eyed, articulate monologues on their artistic motivations, while New York City officials – such as then-mayor Ed Koch – come off as bumblers. Style Wars is a fresh look at an emerging hip-hop culture, and just might open your eyes to the artwork all around us.

In the mid-70′s – around the same time Taki 183 tags started appearing in the Big Apple – another cultural revolution was taking place across the country in Venice, CA. A group of surfers in the rundown Dogtown section of L.A. started skateboarding in their spare time, bringing many of their moves out of the water and onto land. “These children took the ruins of the 20th century and made art out of them,” claims Zephyr skate team co-founder Skip Engblom. The Z-Boys were a primary influence on the style, attitude, and arial moves of modern skateboarding, and their rank included skate legends such as Tony Alva, Jay Adams and Stacey Peralta. The footage of the Z-Boys flowing and grooving over the playgrounds and up and down the swimming pools of Los Angeles is endlessly re-watchable. There’s an infectious joy in seeing these kids do something not for the promise of paychecks or fame, but just for the mastery of motion and the pleasure that comes with doing something better than its ever been done before.

Listen: The Message [Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - from Style Wars]

Listen: Gut Feeling [Devo - from Dogtown & Z-Boys]

Listen: Feel The Heartbeat [Treacherous Three & Kool Moe Dee - from Style Wars]

Listen: Hots On For Nowhere [Led Zeppelin - from Dogtown & Z-Boys]