Spin Doctors - Pocket Full Of Kryptonite

I hate Labor Day.

I'll just let everyone know that right up front - I can't STAND this holiday. Yeah, yeah - I'm all for the "working man's day of rest" (the reason this day was founded in the first place), Jerry Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon (that used to be a big deal when I was a kid - tell me, when was the last time you remember watching it?), big parades and county fairs and all of that. And Lord knows, any day away from my job is most welcome.

The thing I hate about Labor Day is the seeming finality of it all, hammered into our heads for days in advance by local and national newscasters, endlessly prattling on about the upcoming "End of Summer". As such, Labor Day Weekend usually ends up as a frenzied whirlwind of disjointed activity, as people who are already dissatisfied with the amount and use of their leisure time since Memorial Day (aka "The Beginning of Summer") make one last dash to gainfully use the very last minutes of weekend pleasure available to them, to squeeze the last pitiful few drops of fun out of the bone-dry lemon of their summer months, apparently before the thermometer suddenly plunges 40 degrees during the first week of September.

The exploitation surrounding this weekend is incredible. Seaside hotels jack up the rates to astronomical levels. Gas companies suddenly report "shortages" and "refinery issues", in an excuse to nudge the unleaded prices up a couple more cents. Restaurants advertise "Labor Day Specials", charging big money for the same meal you could have had for 40% less the weekend before. Dance clubs increase the cover charge, but still play the same old music as before. Local cops leave the ticket books sitting in their cars where they can reach them and chuckle gleefully to themselves, knowing that their speeding ticket quota problems will all be solved during this three-day period (I understand that a couple of years ago in Virginia, they increased the penalty for speeding just before the holiday weekend to a MINIMUM of $1,000 - so long, budget deficit, eh, guys?).

It's all a bunch of crap. Last time I checked, summer ends on the vernal equinox, sometime around September 23rd. Yes, yes - I know that school starts this week, and you allegedly don't have as much free time to do stuff with the kids after they head back to school. But if you're working, how much free time did you have with them at all this summer? A week? Possibly two? I would wager that over the summer, just as during the other seasons, most of your leisure activities took place on Saturday and Sunday. So what's the rush with doing a bunch of stuff this particular weekend? Unless you live in northern Manitoba or Narvik, Norway, there are still going to be a few more gorgeous weekends available this year. Just relax, pace yourself, and enjoy.

The upcoming "end of this summer" puts me in mind of the end of another summer, twenty years back. Ah, the good ol' Summer of '92, at that point the best summer I ever had. In the spring of that year, I had left my ship, the USS Hayler, after three years aboard, and transferred from Norfolk, VA to Arlington, VA, where I was a finance officer in a department of the Navy Recruiting Command. I liked my new job and the Washington DC area, but I left a lot of friends down in Hampton Roads, mainly guys who I had served aboard the ship with. One guy, an officer and fellow shipmate, was still aboard the Hayler; he lived in Virginia Beach in a house he shared with two other officer friends of his who were stationed aboard other local ships.

Now this dude (nicknamed "Doogie", as in Doogie Howser M.D., since he looked much younger than he was) was a friggin' wild man, a hard-partying boy who was still running off of the pent-up energy of his fairly recent college days (he went to a very reputable Midwestern university, where his antics were legendary, and legendarily filthy - his nickname in college was "Dirtman"). His housemates were just as nutty as he was. So they were all a great bunch to hang out with. Although by the spring of 1992, many of the old Hayler gang had been transferred to other parts of the country, we all were loath to end the party.

So on Memorial Day Weekend that year, Doogie and his boys got on the phone and invited everyone down to Virginia Beach to crash and hang out. Most of the gang made it, many travelling from far and wide to make it to Chez Doogie - DC, Charleston, and as far away as Jacksonville and Boston. It was a great weekend. One of the housemates had a boat docked near Little Creek, so we spend the afternoons water-skiing or tubing (I was horrible, and kept falling off), and of course knocking back a few 'refreshments' onboard. Or we would head down to the beach for the day, chilling and chatting with the beach patrol, all of whom were friends with Doogie and his boys. Friday and Saturday nights were spent at various clubs in Virginia Beach - Peabody's and a couple of other frat-type beer joints downtown, TCC's in Lynnhaven, and a few others whose names I've long since forgotten. We'd usually grab a quick bite to eat at Taco Bell or the Jewish Mother before heading back to the house to fall asleep haphazardly wherever we could find a place to snooze. And the highlight of the weekend was on Sunday nights, when the beachside club at the nearby Fort Story army base would open up for anyone who wanted to come, military or civilian, and they'd pump great music (i.e,, Jesus Jones, EMF's "Unbelievable" and Nine Inch Nail's Pretty Hate Machine were HUGE that summer) and dispense cheap beer well into the night (those were the pre-9/11 days, of course, when they'd let anyone through the base gates for the party; needless to say, they stopped doing that long ago).

It was a lot of fun - so much so, that during that summer, the trek to Doogie's house in Virginia Beach became a nearly-every-weekend pilgrimage. It seemed like I was down there all the time, partying with the boys. And I wasn't the only one - everyone came there, practically every weekend (one guy made the trip from Boston multiple times that summer - I still don't know how he did it and managed to remain upright). And every time I was there, it was just as fun as that first weekend. It never got old, no one fought or made asses of themselves, and everyone just laughed and had a good time. I got a little better on the water skis, and I was always one of the first ones into the pit during the slam-dance songs at Fort Story (once, during a particularly high leap, some Air Force jerk tried to 'submarine' me, taking me legs out from under me - fortunately, I recovered before hitting the ground. That was the only unpleasant incident of that summer that I recall). By the time Labor Day rolled around, I was sure that the summer of 1992 was the best summer I ever had. And up to that point, it was.

You know how every summer seems to have a theme song? In a year full of great music played to death in every city and club I was in (including Kriss Kross's "Jump", Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back", "Jump Around" by House of Pain, Tom Cochrane's "Life Is A Highway", Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" . . . and of course "Smells Like Teen Spirit", among many, many others), for me, 1992 was the summer of The Spin Doctors, and their two huge hits "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" and "Two Princes". It seemed that these songs and this band sprung up seemingly from out of nowhere, but The Spin Doctors' roots go back further than you might think.

The origins of The Spin Doctors can be traced to the mid-80s New York City club scene. The band evolved from an earlier group called Trucking Company, featuring guitarist Eric Schenkman and vocalist Chris Barron backing the then-front man, none other than Mr. John Popper. Popper never fully committed to Trucking Company, preferring to focus most of his musical efforts on his main band, the up-and-coming Blues Traveler. So when he quit Trucking Company in the spring of 1989, Schenkman and Barron recruited bassist Mark White and Dallas drumming legend Aaron Comess, and changed their band name to The Spin Doctors.

The band spent the next couple of years gigging in the NYC area and building an audience. Despite their split with Popper, they all remained friends, so much so that The Spin Doctors and Blues Traveler regularly appeared together on double bills in the city. Their growing buzz brought them to the attention of Epic Records, which signed them in the winter of 1991. The label quickly released the band's debut EP, Up For Grabs . . . Live, in January 1991, followed by their debut album, Pocket Full of Kryptonite, that following August.

Pocket Full of Kryptonite was initially greeted, both critically and commercially, with resounding . . . crickets. Basically, it was ignored by the record-buying public, and considered a failure by the label. In their efforts to build an nationwide audience, The Spin Doctors undertook an extensive national tour schedule during the fall/winter of 1991/92, travelling on the cheap and playing tons of small colleges and one-horse towns, trying to make themselves heard. From all indications, the gigs were generally well received, but didn't exactly make the band household names.

By the late spring of 1992, the band was exhausted from making the club circuit rounds; despite their herculean efforts, their national profile hadn't increased significantly. At this juncture, their old friend John Popper came to their rescue. He too was tired of the club scene, and wanted to avoid those small, dark, hot and sweaty clubs during the upcoming summer. Inspired by the successful Lollapalooza Festival from the year before, Popper figured he could do the same sort of thing - a nationwide outdoor amphitheater tour - with bands that shared a similar approach to music as Blues Traveler. He invited Widespread Panic, Phish, The Samples and The Spin Doctors to join him that summer on what became known as the H.O.R.D.E. ("Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere") Festival.

The H.O.R.D.E. tour was a critical and financial success from the very beginning, and it made the Spin Doctors; due to it, the band's star immediately began rising. Due to popular demand generated from those shows, "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" suddenly went into heavy rotation on radio stations across the country (eventually making it into the U.S. Top Twenty), and MTV began airing the song's video practically around the clock.

The second album single, "Two Princes", was released on the heels of the first song that summer, and did even better than its predecessor, entering the U.S. Top Ten by mid-August. And the album that no one noticed or wanted the year before began flying off the shelves. Pocket Full of Kryptonite was certified Gold by the end of the summer, and by the end of the year went multi-platinum, eventually selling over 5 million copies in the U.S. alone and peaking at #3 on the national charts.

These Spin Doctors songs were always guaranteed to fill up a dance floor the moment the DJ dropped the needle - everyone out there gyrating, laughing and singing along. I danced to these tunes at Fort Story, in Virginia Beach, at Lulu's in DC (damn, I miss that place), and a score of other clubs up and down the East Coast that summer. The band wasn't hugely innovative, but they had a sound that was accessible to a lot of people back then - sort of like a frat house band that made good. And that was all right with me at that time.

Sadly, The Spin Doctors couldn't sustain their momentum. The band put out its follow-up release, Turn It Upside Down, in 1994. While it sold over 2 million copies worldwide, it was considered a disappointment of sorts, by both the band and Epic. At that point, things began to fall apart very quickly. During their tour that summer, Schenkman quit the band in the worst possible way, walking offstage during a show in California. The group hired a replacement and recorded You've Got To Believe In Something in the spring of 1996, but the album was a huge bomb, selling less than 100,000 copies. Epic dropped The Spin Doctors like a hot potato shortly thereafter, and gradually the band fell apart, all but defunct by 1999.

Just like the band, my life and the lives of my summer friends were quickly changing as well as the summer of 1992 came to a close. Doogie got married a few months later, along with a couple of other guys from our group. Other guys transferred to far-away locations, or just drifted away - I have no idea where most of them are now. As for myself, I got transferred to Christchurch, New Zealand in the spring of 1993, so I wasn't going to be around for that upcoming summer anyway. I was sad about it for a little while . . . but I sort of knew that there would be no way to repeat the epic experiences and good times we all had from the year before; it would have been futile to even try. Life moves on, and you enjoy it as it comes. I never thought I would ever have as good a time in my life ever again . . . until I settled into my new home in New Zealand, and the days I would spend in that country were to become the best period of my life, even better than those storied three months in 1992.

But that's another story . . .

So, anyway, at the "end" of another summer, I raise my bottle of Sam Adams and salute a long-ago time and place, the friends I had back then and the fun we all shared. The Spin Doctors were an integral part of that great period in my life, and I salute them as well. To Doogie, guys, all the ladies we encountered and everyone else involved in my Summer of '92 (all of whom, for purposes here, shall remain nameless) - thank you, and all the best to you in your current lives.

Here's the album, released by Epic Records in 1991. Enjoy, let me know what you think, and if you have the chance, tell me about your best summers as well.

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Various Artists - W Hotels Warmth Of Cool - Overture

My younger sister works for a large pharmaceutical company out on the West Coast, and the nature of her job has her traveling all over the country, essentially trying to entice doctors and hospitals to make use of her company's products. It goes without saying that, as one of the leaders of Big Pharm, her company has more money than God Himself, enabling the firm's sales reps to live relatively well when they're out on the road. As such, my sis stays in some pretty swank places and enjoys some fine dining while making site visits. Shoot, I used to travel quite a bit for work myself, but the ambiance I encountered rarely rose above the level of a sweaty-smelling Radisson and T.G.I. Fridays-esque fare in some second-tier Midwestern burg. But I didn't hold my sister's comparatively gold-plated travel against her or her company, especially when, on the times where she traveled to fun places like Vegas or New York, she would occasionally invite me there to hang out and have a few laughs in the city. A free hotel room in the Big Apple is hard to say 'no' to!

During her frequent travels to New York City, she almost invariably stays at one of the many W hotels that dot the town. W Hotels is a subsidiary of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, a corporation that owns and operates the Westin, Sheraton, and St. Regis luxury lodging brands (among others). W is basically Starwood's boutique brand, their attempt to move away from the stodgy, old-fashioned, musty swankiness of their other hoity-toity hotels and project a newer, funkier kind of luxury to attract younger 'urban hipster'-type customers. That "hipness" is reflected in the decor - a lot of earth tones, beiges and dark woods, along with meticulously pebbled atriums containing quiet, sleek sculptures and water art (small waterfalls, fountains, etc.). Thanks to my sis, I've stayed in several Ws in the New York City area, and while they all have their esoteric differences, that nouvelle hip aesthetic is a hallmark of every one of them.

I enjoy the hotel rooms and their amenities, but frankly, I've never felt entirely comfortable in them. Why? Well, a couple of reasons, really. One big problem I have with W Hotels is that it seems they're trying TOO hard to be contemporary and hip, so much so that the whole effect comes off as forced and false. Examples? OK - the one-word shorthand codes for services and amenities: "Bliss" for their soaps and cosmetics, the fitness center is called "SWEAT", pet services and known as P.A.W. I guess it sounded like a good, funky idea when they were setting the places up, but after a while it's just a bit annoying, at least to me.

But my main issue with W Hotels is that in their drive to be 'cooler than . . .', they create a very peculiar kind of exclusivity and snobbishness far beyond that of other higher-end hotels in the city. The lobbies of the W give off a weird vibe of studied pretentiousness. Dark-suited and/or leather-clad young urbanites (both staff and visitors), looking like they're on their way to the next gallery opening, congregate in the desks or hold court in the large open bar area, all but looking down their noses at other folks who don't rise to their perceived level of fashion and sophistication. There's not a lot of Kenneth Cole or Versace in my everyday wardrobe, so I've always felt like "the poor kid in prep school" every time I'm in a W and have to walk through that gauntlet of pretension. I've stayed in other, more storied and swank hotels in NYC (including Le Parker Meridian, Gramercy Park Hotel and the Plaza), and in all of them have felt more welcome and accommodated than I have at the W. That "We're so cool, you really shouldn't be here" vibe there is something they really need to work on to rid themselves of, if they're serious about expanding their customer base to families and regular business travelers - the 'hip' folks won't frequent the same place for forever.

But enough of that. Like I said, despite the weirdness of the lobbies, the rooms are very nice and fairly stuffed with amenities - flat-screen TVs, DVD players, iPod docks, high-end snacks, etc. At one W my sister and I booked for a couple of days, they had a CD available to play in your room during your stay called Warmth Of Cool - Overture, featuring what was described as 'contemporary, relaxing' music. I had a listen to it while we were there, and liked what I heard. Here's the lineup:

1. Wax Poetic (w/Norah Jones) – Angels (Thievery Corporation Remix)
2. Martina Topley-Bird – I Still Feel
3. Rouge Rouge – Décide-Toi
4. Blank & Jones (feat. Robert Smith) – A Forest Remix (Short Cut)
5. DJ Cam – Success (Thievery Corporation Remix)
6. Just Jack – Snowflakes
7. Natacha Atlas – Who's My Baby
8. Stigmato Inc. – Reality Check
9. Federico Aubele – Postales
10. Galactic – Paint
11. Dos Y Uno - Love Is Desire
12. Quantic – En Focus

A lot of the tunes on this disc are just what you would expect a place like W Hotels to feature - stuff straight out of a dance club that they thought was 'cool' (hence the name). However, I do have some favorites on this disc, including the remix of The Cure's "A Forest" by Blank & Jones, featuring Robert Smith himself on vocals; Just Jack's Euro-rap "Snowflakes"; and both of the Thievery Corporation remixes. All in all, it's not a half-bad collection.

Of course, if you liked the CD and decided to keep it, the hotel would charge you something like $25 for the privilege. Fortunately, I had my computer with me. So I quickly burned a copy of my own - problem solved (at least for me!).

So, for your listening pleasure, here's the W Hotels Warmth Of Cool - Overture compilation from 2005 (released in conjunction with Rock River Records). Despite my overall dissatisfaction with the hotels themselves, they DID manage to redeem themselves by making some decent music available. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

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More than one way to skin a cat . . .

Hello all.

Well, it's come to this. You might have noticed that I changed all of my music links into email hypertext. That's because my files keep getting shut down by various carriers, no doubt skittish after the authorities kicked in Kim Dot.com's door last year. So I've removed all direct links to my tunes, and am keeping them in my own private area. If you want a particular set of tunes, just click on the link at the bottom of each posting that automatically forwards me an email request; I'll respond with the appropriate music requested ASAP.

Yeah, it's a little more cumbersome than before, but with the state of things as they are, that's the way it's gotta be. Keep on coming back, and send me those requests when you can!

Thanks.

Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944

When I first began working in Newark, Delaware in the middle of the last decade, there were two decent record stores in town, both on East Main Street within walking distance of one another. Bert's Compact Discs, the one I preferred, was a little further away from the main campus of the University of Delaware, closer to Academy Avenue. This place was a pure music store, stocking a pretty wide selection of import and independent music. The other place, Rainbow Books & Music, was practically sitting inside the university gates. Its selection of music was a lot narrower; in addition, the discs shared space with a textbook and used-book shop. In other words, music wasn't the main focus there, like it was at Bert's.

So for my first couple of months in the area, my visits to Rainbow were few and far between - for me, Bert's was where the 'action' was. I got turned on to Of Montreal in that store, when during one visit, the shopgirl played a prerelease version of a song off of the band's upcoming album, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, that I went nuts for. I found ultrarare CDs by New Zealand noise artists (and old favorites) The Dead C there, along with a bunch of other great stuff. I really loved that record store.

During that winter, I went through a lull for a couple of months where I didn't visit the CD shops or purchase any music. I can't recall why I stopped for a while; there probably wasn't anything left that I wanted to get my hands on at that particular time. Finally, one day after work, I decided to drive downtown on my way home and see what was new at Bert's. I was shocked to discover that Bert's had disappeared, seemingly overnight - replaced by a religious bookstore. The change was so thorough and complete that you couldn't even tell that a great music store once resided there. I stood there in front of the entrance in stunned silence, snow flurries swirling around me, shocked and saddened to find that Bert's was no more. I then turned, and for the first time in many months, trudged up the street to Rainbow.

As I mentioned earlier, Rainbow had nowhere near the quantity and selection of music that the other now-defunct record store had. But Rainbow had two things going for it - a fairly large used CD section full of discounted music (a lot of dross to be found in there, to be sure, but in my later visits I found more than enough that was worthwhile), and a section of shelves around the corner and behind the register that held special staff picks and promotions.

I browsed the used racks, but nothing jumped out at me. So on my way out, I stopped to take a look at the promotions shelf. The theme that month was jazz and swing, and featured prominently was a large purple-and-black boxed set containing ALL of Billie Holiday's Columbia Records recordings.

Now, I'm a HUGE Billie Holiday fan, and have been since high school. Back when I was a freshman and involved in the school drama club, one of my first parts was as a featured player in a one-act play called "The Death of Bessie Smith". Up until I had been cast for that show, I had no idea who Bessie Smith, the former "Queen of the Blues", was, nor had any real understanding or interest in the jazz and blues music from that period. So I began educating myself, checking out old records from the local library and reading up on Ms. Smith and other artists from that era, eventually coming around to Billie Holiday. She quickly became my favorite from that period. A family friend had a couple of old Billie Holiday records, that I borrowed and copied onto cassette tapes, and kept in my possession for years. To me, her voice was the personification of jazz and blues. My favorite Holiday song was (and is) "Speak Low" (Please use the email link to contact me for the link to this song: Send Email), which I thought was an original of hers; I learned later that the song was a reworking of a tune from an old WWII-era Broadway show called One Touch of Venus, and was written by none other than the great Kurt Weill, with lyrics by the famous poet Ogden Nash. Holiday just made the song her own, and in my opinion her version of it vastly improves upon the original.

So needless to say, when I saw this ten-disc set, I was very excited . . . until I saw the price tag. The sum thar Rainbow was asking for it was well beyond my means at the time. But I coveted those tunes, so much so that I made what was at that point a rash decision - I was bound and determined to head to Atlantic City that weekend and WIN the purchase price of that music at the poker tables there. I asked the shopkeeper to hold the set for a couple of days, and I would come back for it by Monday. He did as I requested, but all in all he didn't seem too jazzed about it . . .

At that point in time, the prospects of me coming away from New Jersey's casinos with any kind of gain were slim at best. I'd recently started playing no-limit hold 'em again after a layoff of a couple of years, and my once-awesome skills were more than a little bit rusty. My last few trips to Atlantic City had been disasters; guys who I normally would have been wiping the floor with were taking my money seemingly at will. This was coupled with a long and demoralizing run of insanely bad luck, with opponents again and again catching miracle suck-out cards on the river to destroy me - the worst instance occuring during a session at the Borgata, when I turned one of only two straight flushes I've ever held in my life . . . and LOST the hand (that one STILL hurts to this day . . . ). But even with those multiple sessions of ass-kickage, I was confident that I would eventually turn it around and get back into my formerly winning form - hopefully sooner rather than later. I left for A.C. that weekend, full of hope.

Upon arrival in the New Jersey coastal city, I steered clear of bad-luck Borgata, and headed down to the string of casinos located along the famed Boardwalk. I decided to try the Tropicana, a favorite due to their large poker room and the overall ambiance of the property (I try very hard not to be superstitious . . . but at that point I could use all the positive vibes I could find). I made my way down past the shops and restaurants, and quickly found a seat at a $1-2 no limit hold 'em table. My hands were actually sweating as I sat down - the ghosts and memories of all those bad sessions and hellacious beats all came storming back. But I tried to calm down, push those bad thoughts aside, and concentrate on what I was doing . . .

And for the first time in a while, my focus paid off - I made an absolute KILLING at the table that day! Cards kept falling my way, time and time again. By the end of that session that evening, I needed two racks to hold all of the red and green chips I had acquired. I felt like I finally got my poker mojo back! I drove home that evening a very happy man.

In the early afternoon of the next day, Sunday, I drove back to downtown Newark and entered Rainbow. "Remember me?", I asked the guy behind the counter. "I hope you held on to that Billie Holiday set." He seemed very surprised and happy to have me come back as I promised I would; I suspect that his prospects for selling such an expensive set to impoverished students in a college town like that probably weren't too optimistic, so essentially I was doing him a favor by taking it off of his hands. I raced home with the huge leather-bound folder and over the rest of that day, proceeded to burn all ten discs onto my computer and into my MP3 player. In terms of quality and quantity of music, this set could not be beat. I must say that, even all these years later, I'm still very happy with my purchase!

So, on the 53rd anniversary of the death of one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, I proudly present to you Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944, the full ten-disc set, the definitive collection of the music of the sublime Billie Holiday. This one is for the fans and yet-to-be fans of one of the greatest song interpreters of the century. As always, enjoy, and let me know what you think.  

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The Beatles - Magical Mystery Year (Purple Chick) (Discs 1 - 4)

Well . . . I'll start off by saying "Sorry", to all of my devoted readers.

A combination of circumstances (mostly happy and positive, I might add) have kept me away from my blog for the past couple of months . . . well, 'circumstances' coupled with a weird combination of writer's block and general lethargy. Frankly, I hadn't realized how long it had been that I had posted something until a couple of weeks ago. Since that time I have been wracked by guilt, browsing through the nearly dozen unfinished posts I've got queued up (in various stages of completion) and trying to summon the wherewithal to get at least ONE of them completed and up on the site, if only for my own peace of mind, to break out of this writing funk I seem to be mired in. I've still got some good stories to tell (at least, I think they're good) related to some music I've encountered and admired and loved (and hated) over the course of my life . . . it's just putting pen-to-paper, or fingers-to-keyboard as it were, and getting them out of my brain - that's the current issue.

But fear not - I'll get back into the swing of things soon. Until then, I figured I might as well honor a recent request, and provide you all with another one of those Beatles 'Purple Chick' bootlegs. This time, it's Magical Mystery Year, a four-disc set of music recorded by the Fabs around the same time they were recording their Magical Mystery Tour album - 1967 and into 1968. Here's the lineup for each disc:

Disc 1 (Magical Mystery Tour and related Stereo Mixes):

01 - All You Need Is Love (Stereo)
02 - Baby You're A Rich Man (Stereo)
03 - Hello Goodbye (Stereo)
04 - Magical Mystery Tour (Stereo)
05 - Your Mother Should Know (Stereo)
06 - I Am The Walrus (Stereo)
07 - The Fool On The Hill (Stereo)
08 - Flying (Stereo)
09 - Blue Jay Way (Stereo)
10 - Lady Madonna (Stereo)
11 - The Inner Light (Stereo)
12 - All Together Now (Stereo)
13 - Hey Bulldog (Stereo)
14 - It's All Too Much (Stereo)
15 - Across The Universe (Stereo)
16 - Christmas Time (Is Here Again) (Stereo)
17 - I Am The Walrus (US Stereo)
18 - Magical Mystery Tour (88 Video Stereo)
19 - Blue Jay Way (88 Video Stereo)
20 - Your Mother Should Know (88 Video Stereo)
21 - All You Need Is Love (Anthology DVD Mix)
22 - I Am The Walrus (Anthology DVD Mix)
23 - Hello Goodbye (Anthology DVD Mix)
24 - Lady Madonna (Anthology DVD Mix)

Disc 2 (Magical Mystery Tour and related mono mixes):

01 - All You Need Is Love (Mono)
02 - Baby You're A Rich Man (Mono)
03 - Hello Goodbye (Mono)
04 - Magical Mystery Tour (Mono)
05 - Your Mother Should Know (Mono)
06 - I Am The Walrus (Mono)
07 - The Fool On The Hill (Mono)
08 - Flying (Mono)
09 - Blue Jay Way (Mono)
10 - Lady Madonna (Mono)
11 - The Inner Light (Mono)
12 - All Together Now (Mono)
13 - Hey Bulldog (Mono)
14 - It's All Too Much (Mono)
15 - Across The Universe (Mono)
16 - Christmas Time (Is Here Again) (Sessions)
17 - I Am The Walrus (US Single)
18 - All You Need Is Love - RM 11 (SSIP)
19 - Magical Mystery Tour (Mono Film Mix)
20 - I Am The Walrus (Mono Film Mix)
21 - Your Mother Should Know (Mono Film Mix)
22 - Anthology DVD Medley (bonus)

Disc 3 (Magical Mystery Tour studio takes and etc.):

01 Free Now
02 Magical Mystery Tour - RM4
03 Magical Mystery Tour - RM7
04 All You Need Is Love - take unknown
05 All You Need Is Love - warmup
06 All You Need Is Love - take 58
07 Your Mother Should Know - take 8
08 I Am The Walrus - take 7
09 I Am The Walrus - take 8
10 I Am The Walrus - take 9
11 I Am The Walrus - rehearsal
12 I Am The Walrus - takes 16+17
13 I Am The Walrus - RM4
14 The Fool On The Hill - take 1 demo
15 Blue Jay Way - RM1
16 Flying - RM4
17 Your Mother Should Know - take 27
18 The Fool On The Hill - take 4
19 Flying - take 8+overdub takes 1-5
20 I Am The Walrus - King Lear overdub
21 Hello Goodbye - take 1
22 Hello Goodbye - take 16
23 Christmas Time (Is Here Again) - take 1

Disc 4 (Magical Mystery Tour studio takes and related):

01 - The Inner Light - Stereo Backing Track
02 - Lady Madonna - Take 3
03 - Across The Universe - Take 2
04 - Across The Universe - Take 7
05 - Lady Madonna - Take 4 Overdub Track
06 - Lady Madonna - Take 4
07 - Lady Madonna - Take 4 + Overdubs
08 - Lady Madonna - Take 5 False Start
09 - Lady Madonna - Take 5
10 - All You Need Is Love (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
11 - Baby You're A Rich Man (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
12 - All Together Now (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
13 - Hey Bulldog (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
14 - It's All Too Much (Yellow Submarine Songtrack)
15 - Hello Goodbye (1993 Mix)
16 - All You Need Is Love (Take Unknown) (Anthology DVD)
17 - Across The Universe - Take 2 (Anthology 2)
18 - Lady Madonna - Takes 3+4+5 (Anthology 2)
19 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 1
20 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 2
21 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 3
22 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 4
23 - The Fool On The Hill - Rumitape Part 5
24 - Across The Universe - Take 2 Monitor Mix
25 - Lady Madonna - Monitor Mix A
26 - Lady Madonna - Monitor Mix B
27 - Lady Madonna - Monitor Mix C

As with all of Purple Chick's releases, these bootlegs have been recorded with the highest possible fidelity - so if some songs sound like shit (like some the the "Rumitape" tracks on Disc 4), don't blame these guys; they did the best with what they had to work with. And again, these discs are in .m4a format - sorry.

I hope that, for the moment, this post tides you all over until I get my act together. Until then, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Renegade Soundwave - Biting My Nails 12"

I used to love "Biting My Nails"!

I'm pretty sure I first heard this song in the spring of 1988 at the old Fifth Column nightclub on F Street in DC, back in the day when that dance club was the undisputed leader and center of DC's nightlife in that part of town.

Back twenty/twenty-five years ago, downtown DC used to have a PUMPING bar/club scene - with Fifth Column and its next-door neighbor, The Vault, anchoring the F Street dance circuit (the old 9:30 Club was right across the street, along with a really good multi-story club whose name currently escapes me that ran through the entire block from E to F St. - one section was an old-school R&B dance club, one section was a quiet live jazz lounge, another featured house music, etc.). The 80's-themed dance club Polly Esther's was just half a block away. A few blocks northwest, close to the Treasury building between 14th and 15th Streets, was Zei Alley, home to Club Zei and its cross-alley dance club companion, the Spy Club. In the scary, dangerous, decrepit neighborhood over by the Navy Yard was the legendary Capital Ballroom/Nation and the nearby Tracks, a gay dance club that nonetheless drew a mixed crowd due to its great music. There was Anastasia's (New Romantic) and Poseur's (New Wave) in Georgetown; reggae clubs on U Street and 18th Street (near the current 18th Street Lounge); samba and live jazz in Adams-Morgan - frankly, there were great places all over town, and you could strike sparks wherever you went for whatever sort of music you were in the mood for. Things have definitely changed in Washington nowadays - most of those clubs have long gone, and with them a major chunk of the city's great nightlife that once made the place so special.

But I digress . . .

Like I said, I probably initially encountered this during one of my forays into DC, and I recall purchasing the EP at 12" Dance Records on P Street, close by Dupont Circle, and transferring it to cassette shortly before leaving the States on my six-month European cruise later that year.

Renegade Soundwave was formed in 1986 by three musically like-minded London friends, Carl Bonnie, Gary Asquith and Danny Briottet. The sound that Renegade Soundwave championed, a dancable sort of industrial/electronic music, was somewhat outside of what was happening musically in Britain and Europe during that time - namely the rise of house music in the late 80s and the advent of Madchester at the beginning of the 90s. To put it kindly, RSW was a bit 'retro' for that period; to put it harshly, they were old fashioned, and more than a step outside of the times. As such, their time window for mainstream acceptability and success was very small indeed - although Lord knows they tried.

The band released their Kray Twins single on Rhythm King Records in mid-1987, followed by the Biting My Nails single the following year. I didn't know it at the time, but the latter song was actually a cover version. The original "Biting My Nails" was done by Genevieve Waite, a South African singer/actress of limited ability who had the foresight/good fortune to marry John Phillips (of The Mamas & The Papas) in the early 70s. Her new husband produced her only album, 1973's Romance Is On The Rise. On it, Ms. Waite wraps her annoyingly high-pitched, Betty Boop-esque vocals around a set of songs that both obliquely and blatantly referred to the early 70s cocaine-and-decadence scene (that I assume she knew of first-hand, being married to an allegedly big-time drug-gobbler and notorious sex fiend like Phillips). I mean, just have a look at the lyrics for "Biting My Nails" in particular:

"Catch you later, baby - I've gotta split

I've got a habit I've just can't quit . . ."

or . . .

"A flake of snow on a silver spoon . . ."

and . . .

"I've got a habit, and it's all mine!"

Sheesh - doesn't leave much to the imagination, eh?

As bad as this album was, in its day it still earned some rather over-the-top acclaim from some quarters - in 1977, one critic even ranked it as one of the top 200 albums of all time (he must have fried his brain being part of that cocaine crowd himself . . .). You would think that a Seventies disco drug anthem would be an odd choice for an electro-industrial band to cover nearly two decades later . . . but Renegade Soundwave pulls it off, and in doing so they created their first big UK hit.

The group moved to Mute Records in 1988 and spent most of the next two years putting together content for a long-player; in the end, they released two - Soundclash in late 1989 and In Dub six months later. The former performed very respectably on the national charts, reaching #74 and spawning a UK Top Forty hit, "Probably A Robbery". But soon after that success, the band began falling apart. Bonnie left the band shortly after the release of In Dub, leaving Renegade Soundwave as a duo. The two remaining members released a couple more albums of limited appeal, 1994's Howyoudoin'? and The Next Chapter In Dub in 1995, before disbanding at the end of 1995.

I can't say I've spent a lot of time contemplating this band or their music since the late '80s - like I said, their sound was of a certain time and place, and it really doesn't do much for me now. But I do have a warm place in my heart for this record - else I wouldn't have kept it for all of these years!

So here you are, burned off of my original vinyl disc, Renegade Soundwave's Biting My Nails 12", the original and instrumental mix, released by Mute Records in 1988. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Big Audio Dynamite II - Ally Pally Paradiso

Wow . . . I didn't know this one was so rare. I've had this disc for forever; I picked it up in early 1992 at either Phantasmagoria Records or Vinyl Ink Records, two legendary Washington, DC-area music stores that sadly are no longer with us. From what I've read, this album was a promo, attached to a limited edition version of Big Audio Dynamite II's 1991 album The Globe, or available through mail order from NME magazine. The place I bought it from had it out separately for sale from the main album. I recall acquiring it in the run-up to the band's scheduled 1992 concert in DC as part of their international Globe tour.

The group was slated to play the Citadel Center, which back in the day was a great place for Washington-area concerts. It was located on Kalorama Road in the heart of the Adams Morgan neighborhood of the city, and from what I understood was a former roller skating rink. As such, the place was a cavernous barn; a huge room with a stage at one end and no seats - just standing-room only. But it was simply an outstanding venue for seeing bands . . . although you took your life in your hands if you stood too close to the stage - not due to flailing mosh pit idiots or aggressive bouncers, but because of the constant crush of people behind you surging forward. I saw The Pixies there (with Pere Ubu opening) in November 1991 with my sister, and being huge Pixies fans, we wanted to be right up front for the show. Well, I spent the entirety of The Pixies' set with her in front of me, while I held my arms locked rigidly on either side of her against the stage barrier, trying to keep both of us from being squashed. It was a great show, mind you, but my arms were so sore afterwards that I couldn't lift them to drive; my sister had to take the wheel to get us home.

Despite the drawbacks of this concert hall, I saw a lot of bands there. When I heard that BAD II was going to be at the Citadel Center over the summer, I was completely jazzed. I'd been a fan of Big Audio Dynamite from the get-go; I regard the original band lineup (featuring The Clash's Mick Jones on guitar and vocals, the vocals and found sound additions of Don Letts, Dan Donovan on keyboards, Leo Williams on bass, and drummer Greg Roberts) as the best, 'classic' lineup. When Mick Jones & Co.'s first album (This Is Big Audio Dynamite) was released in 1985, I acquired it practically the moment it came out. In subsequent years, I purchased and enjoyed the follow-up albums by the original band as they appeared - No. 10 Upping St. in '86, Tighten Up Vol. '88 (in . . . well, guess what year), Megatop Phoenix in '89 - but I could tell by the end of the decade that there was a definite lack of spark and originality remaining within Big Audio Dynamite. If there was, it certainly wasn't making it onto the albums. So there was disappointment in some quarters, but I don't think anyone (including me) was really surprised when the original BAD lineup dissolved in 1990.

When I heard that Mick Jones was putting together a brand new lineup and planning to record/tour under the name "Big Audio Dynamite", I must admit that I was more than a bit concerned. To me, it sounded as though Jones was making the same mistake that Joe Strummer made back in the mid-eighties, when in the wake of Jones' acrimonious departure from The Clash, Strummer gathered up a group of nobodies and recorded the embarrassing, widely-panned and vilified Cut The Crap under the 'Clash' moniker. I figured Jones would have learned his lesson after witnessing that debacle - but apparently not.

When The Globe was released in the summer of 1991, I forced myself not to pay attention to it - I just didn't want to be disappointed. But songs from the album began appearing in heavy rotation on some of my favorite radio stations, including DC's WHFS, and to my happy surprise I discovered that the replacement band (now dubbed "Big Audio Dynamite II") had risen to the challenge, and had actually put out a pretty good record. The new guys brought an infusion of energy and new ideas, which was basically what the group needed. I greatly enjoyed songs like "Rush" and "Green Grass", and looked forward to their upcoming show.

But alas, to my intense dissatisfaction, the show was cancelled at the last minute, for reasons that were unclear to me at the time. From what I heard later, the homeowners who lived near the Citadel Center were up in arms about having a concert venue all but on top of their houses, and were ticked off about dealing with the noise, rowdy crowds and incidental property damage that occurred during show nights. So eventually, the city shut the place down. In recent years, the location has been converted into a Harris-Teeter supermarket. Too bad - for a while there, the Citadel Center was THE place to see a show in DC.

The songs on this live album were recorded at two European shows Big Audio Dynamite II played in 1990, at the Alexandria Palace in London and at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Holland (hence the name, Ally Pally Paradiso). On this album, some of the live song names were changed from the names of the original songs on the BAD albums; when necessary, I've noted the 'real' names below:

1. "Ritual Idea" [aka "E=MC2", off of This Is Big Audio Dynamite]
2. "Babe" [aka "Baby, Don't Apologize", off of Megatop Phoenix]
3. "Free"
4. "Messiahs of the Milk Bar" [aka "Hollywood Boulevard", from No. 10 Upping Street]
5. "City Lights"
6. "Situation No Win" [aka "Rush", from The Globe]
7. "All St.'s Rd" [aka "The Battle Of All Saints Road", from Tighten Up Vol. '88]
8. "I'm On the Right Track" [aka "Contact", from Megatop Phoenix]
9. "1999" [Prince cover]

I think that this album catches much of the energy, excitement and sound of a live BAD concert in the early '90s. Listening to it now, you can also hear a huge dollop of the then-current rave/Madchester sound contained in what BAD II was doing back then. But in my mind, it doesn't really date the album all that much. As a standalone disc, I think that it holds up pretty well, and as part of the overall Big Audio Dynamite I/II oeuvre, it's not essential . . . but neither is it a frivolous or unnecessary album to own.

Anyway, you decide. For your listening pleasure, here's the only live album ever put out by any iteration of Big Audio Dynamite, Ally Pally Paradiso, released in 1991 on Columbia Records (then a subsidiary of CBS). Enjoy, and let me know what you think:

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White Town - "Your Woman" Single

I was going through a storage box just the other day, looking through some old letters and photographs . . . and realized, wow, it's been fifteen years since I was last in England. I used to go there quite a bit, for work and on vacation, but until that moment it hadn't occurred to me that I'd been away from there that long. Time certainly has a way of getting away from you . . .

The last time I was in Britain was in the late winter of 1997, while I was in graduate school. All University of Virginia MBA students were required to do a big group project near the end of the second and last year. This project was usually one of assisting one of UVA's foreign and domestic corporate partners with a business problem or issue they were currently facing; it's basically free consulting work for them, and hands-on training for us. The group I ended up in was assigned to a large British insurance company, with the task of determining the feasibility and cost effectiveness of the insurer owning and operating its own nationwide chain of auto repair facilities. As part of our research for this project, we were to spend a week in England, meeting with our corporate contacts and making site visits, at the end of which we would deliver a preliminary report of our findings.

So one morning in early March of that year, I drove up from Charlottesville to Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia, and with my fellow classmates took a Virgin Atlantic flight across the ocean into London Heathrow. There, an insurance company car was waiting to take us on a 90-minute drive northwest to lodgings in a small village called Tiddington, close to the corporate headquarters located in Stratford-upon-Avon, the legendary birthplace of the great William Shakespeare. By the time we arrived there, it was already getting dark, although due to the time change we were all functioning as though it were still in the early afternoon of the time zone we just left. Still, we had a lot of work to do the next day (although the company acknowledged our incipient jet lag by scheduling our first meetings for late the next morning), so we had an 'early' dinner at a local Indian restaurant and hit the hay long before 10 p.m. local time.

I woke up before the rooster early the next day, our first morning in England, and decided to take a walk and do a little exploring around the area before our first scheduled meeting with the insurance company people later that a.m. I pulled on my shoes and my beloved long black wool overcoat (mentioned here) and stepped out into the frosty, somewhat misty morning, heading west down the main road. I wasn't really going anywhere - I was just having a wander. I heard a faint gurgling off to my right, where the morning mist seemed to be the thickest, so I turned down the first side street I came to and headed towards it. In a few minutes, I found myself standing on the weedy banks of the Avon, a river steeped in history and legend. The river itself wasn't that impressive; in the States, a run like that would barely qualify as a brook, much less a stream. But, still, I was powerfully affected standing by it. With the heavy fog serving to obscure the sights and muffle the few early morning sounds of modern society, it was easy to imagine that Shakespeare had long ago once stood in the very spot I stood in, gaining inspiration from the same natural, bucolic sights I was then taking in. Even with all of the things we did in England later during that trip, that brief moment I spent alone beside the Avon was one of my personal highlights.

The rest of the day was spent down the street at work, getting our assignments and gearing up for the week to come. My fellow grad students and I split up into three or four two-man teams, each assigned with conducting on-site interviews at body shops and repair facilities all over the country. Beginning the next day, we were going to be driving into every corner of England, ostensibly to see if there were regional differences in the nature and cost of repair work being done. I made it back to my room late that afternoon to rest up and decompress a bit; I fired up the telly and was pleasantly surprised to find an episode of "Shortland Street" on one of the channels ("Shortland Street" is a long-running primetime New Zealand soap opera; back when I lived in Christchurch, it was almost required viewing for everyone there. Even the people who badmouthed the genre, the implausible plots and clichéd acting were, more often then not, devoted viewers). Later that evening, feeling a little "dry", I went across the street to an authentic-looking public house I'd noticed earlier that morning, The Crown Inn. I was not disappointed; the Crown had the look, feel and ambiance of what an American imagines an old English pub to be like - old and creaky, dark and smoky, with tankard-scarred oak tables, genial, ruddy-faced barkeeps and clientele, and a roaring blaze in the fireplace. I sat there near the fire with a pint of Guinness in front of me, writing a letter to a girl I liked back in the States, and happily felt like, yes, I really was in England.

My partner and I began our journeys early the next morning. He was in charge of driving for the first leg down to Slough, just west of London. That gave me time to take in the early morning countryside on either side of the highway. But after a while, that got old, so I switched on the radio. While spinning around the dial, I chanced upon the middle of a catchy little number I'd never heard before. The song was built upon a steady electric piano-and-drum groove, and punctuated by a nifty three-note repeated riff, played by what sounded to me like electronic horns. At first, I couldn't get a clear handle on the gender of the singer; the voice in the song lamenting relationship problems could have been either a man's or a woman's. Then came the chorus, which I heard as "I could never be a woman . . .", which indicated to me that the singer was a dude. My initial impression was that the tune was about a guy admitting to and commenting on his poor behavior to his girlfriend, while at the same time sympathizing with her over putting up with his bullshit. "I could never be a woman" - to me, that was a brilliant line and premise! I didn't catch the name of the singer or song then, but I knew that eventually I would.

I heard that song several more times that day as we made our way from place to place west and south of London - while it was unknown in the States, it apparently was a big hit over in England. The more times I listened to it (in some cases now in its entirety), the more mistaken my initial take on the song seemed to be. Various lines just didn't add up to what I assumed the overall premise was. Was the guy in the song projecting his feelings onto his girlfriend? Was he gay? Was it really a woman singing, and not a guy at all? I finally caught a broadcast where the DJ gave out the song details - it was called "Your Woman" by a band called White Town. That's when it all made sense to me - it wasn't "I could never be a woman"; it was "I could never be your woman". The male singer was impersonating a woman in the song - fair enough. I didn't learn more about the group until I returned to the States.

The "band" White Town was (and is) essentially one man, India-born Englishman Jyoti Mishra. When he was 23, he saw The Pixies play during their April/May 1989 English tour (immediately in the wake of their recently released album Doolittle). Inspired by what he saw, Mishra put together the first version of his band a couple of months later. With Mishra fronting a group consisting of a bassist, drummer and guitarist, they were the typical small town combo (based in Derby), trying to make a name for themselves by playing support gigs for other more famous and established bands passing through the area. The band's first release, the self-financed 7" White Town EP, came out in 1990 and was greeted with a deafening silence. By the end of that year, all of Mishra's supporting musicians had abandoned him, and White Town became a solo enterprise. For the next few years, the singer began making records (mostly EPs, and one album) out of his home studio, utilizing the occasional assistance of local Derby musicians, and releasing them on small independent labels. All of these releases failed to chart, in England or elsewhere.

White Town and its records were essentially Mishra's single-minded, unsuccessful conceit until the >Abort, Retry, Fail?_ EP was released in late 1996 on independent Parasol Records. This disc featured "Your Woman", a reworking of an old Bing Crosby song from the 1930s called "My Woman" - the most popular version of which was sung by Al Bowlly with the Lew Stone and Monseigneur Band and featured in the movie Pennies From Heaven (Mishra appropriated the trumpet riff from the original version (contact me with the following email link if you want this file: Send Email) and featured it prominently in his song). Mishra's "female" voice in the song was a bold, gender-skewing move, but one based on art rather than on sexual orientation. Either way, it made quite a stir. For once, a White Town release gained significant airplay and buzz, so much so that Chrysalis Records (a subsidiary of industry giant EMI) quickly swooped in and put together a joint distribution deal with Parasol and a recording contract with Mishra before the end of the year. With EMI's marketing muscle behind it, "Your Woman" made it to #1 on the UK charts by January 1997.

Chrysalis/EMI was eager to capitalize on the success of the single, and pushed Mishra unmercifully to put out a supporting album as quickly as possible. This heavy-handed pressure led to an ongoing, bitter dispute between the label and artist during the recording and subsequent release of White Town's Women In Technology in late February 1997. The album made it to the lower reaches of the British Top 100 chart, due almost entirely to the inclusion of the hit single in the song lineup. But the bad blood between Mishra and EMI remained and even intensified, so much so that by the end of 1997, barely a year after signing on, White Town was booted from the label.

"Your Woman" was sort of like the unofficial theme song for my time in the UK. We travelled all over the country for our site visits, mostly in the South of England. However, there was still plenty of time for fun and sightseeing - among other places, we went to Blenheim Palace, my hero Winston Churchill's ancestral home; Oxford University, a campus and area so steeped in history and gravitas that it made our own University of Virginia seem like some sort of 2-year vocational school; and the Ashdown Forest, home of Winnie the Pooh. We met up with the rest of our team members in London for a night; none of them besides me had ever been there before, so I sort of served as the tour guide there. And back in our home base, the insurance company made sure that we got a full appreciation of the city of Stratford-upon-Avon. We toured all of the Shakespeare-related attractions, including his home (which was interesting, but it was sort of off-putting to look out of his window to see a Laura Ashley shop directly across the street), and one night we

attended a performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (an unknown by the name of Damian Lewis had a small part in the production). On our final evening there, our hosts ferried us up to a very old village in the Cotswolds, where we spent the night toasting one another's health in a 200-year-old pub that had an ancient, rutted skittles lane in the back room (I knew it was going to be a good night when, on a whim, I asked the barkeep for a Mackeson XXX Stout, an old favorite and deeply mystical selection nearly impossible to find in the States, and up to that point difficult to come across in England - the man served it up instantly, at the perfect temperature). Through it all, that song played everywhere, and I made a note to myself to acquire a copy when I returned to the States.

By the time I returned to Virginia, "Your Woman" was making a small run on the American charts, eventually reaching #23 on the Hot 100. That was the group's high-water mark. With the demise of the contract with EMI, White Town/Mishra rapidly returned to obscurity. He continues to release albums and singles on independent labels and his own Bzangy imprint, all of which have been met with tepid reviews and low sales. Until the increasingly unlikely event of lightning striking twice for him, White Town was and is considered a one-hit wonder. But hell - I guess that's better than NO hits, eh?

Here's the 2-song White Town Your Woman single, released by the American arm of Chrysalis in 1996. For me, this song will always be associated with England, and especially with a cold, foggy morning when I stood on the banks of the Avon and briefly imagined myself communing with the spirit of the immortal Bard.

. . . or not. Either way, enjoy - and as always, let me know what you think.

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The Residents - The Commercial Album

Although I didn't like living in California all that much in the first couple of months after I moved there from Massachusetts in 1980 (as I mentioned here) , I quickly came to love and appreciate it. California, and the Monterey Peninsula in particular, were so much different from the things I'd known and experienced while living on the East Coast for most of my life. I'm not just talking about the weather there - it was the entire attitude and vibe of the place that I came to enjoy.

Generally, in Monterey I felt less constrained, both socially and literally. My family moved to California from a very wealthy and quite snobby small town on Massachusetts' South Shore, where the cliques and castes were rigidly defined and heavily defended, especially in school. In addition, the town was far enough away from the influence of larger cities like Boston, and isolated just enough (due to proximity and economic status) from the neighboring towns, that the community mindset was quite insular and constrained. When you lived there, you weren't aware of it as much. But upon my relocation to the West Coast, I began to realize how much of a cage I was in back in New England.

At my new high school, a lot of that 'clique' and 'status' crap, while still present, was toned down considerably over what I had previously experienced. Generally, everyone was cool with everyone else. Years later, when I began to spend time in San Francisco, one thing that struck me about that city was that, on the whole, people didn't give a shit who you were and what you were up to, just so long as what you were into wasn't illegal or being a nuisance or bother to them. I then realized that that attitude wasn't restricted to San Fran - Monterey had that same kind of vibe going.

For me, the new openness I felt there was reflected in the design and curriculum of the school. All of my life on the East Coast, I attended brick-and-mortar monolithic schools, everything contained within the same structure - juvenile jails without bars, places where students were all but locked in (except for recess) from 8 am to 3 pm. Monterey High was my first experience with an open structure - several buildings spread around the campus and grouped around a courtyard, allowing you to at least get some air and see the sky en route between classes. And students weren't required to be on school grounds all day; if you had a free period or other long breaks between classes, you were allowed to head out into the nearby downtown area to do whatever the heck you wanted. This was absolutely mind-blowing to me, being able to go to Round Table Pizza on Alvarado Street with Jeff and Rick and Jim and my other buddies for lunch! It was a novel concept to be treated like a responsible human being there, instead of a knuckleheaded kid.

That different attitude seemed to be everywhere - a guy I knew in school turned down a college scholarship so he could go surfing in Australia for a year; the Dream Theater on Prescott Avenue constantly pulled in crowds for late-night weekend showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Pac-Man came out in the States early that fall, and was so popular that even my straightlaced mother was known to sneak over to the airport game room to play it; Carmel and Cannery Row were as yet mostly untouched by commercialism or tourists, and were still full of history and interesting activities; and the town's leading florist operated out of the "Planet Claire Flower Shop".

For me, California was just so COOL, and so much in the forefront of everything that was happening, much more than anyplace else I'd ever been.

One weekend that fall, my folks and siblings had gone out for the evening, leaving me by my lonesome in an otherwise vacant home. Bored, I turned the TV on and started flipping around the dial. I landed on a program that immediately caught my interest called "Videowest", airing on a public television station out of San Francisco. "Videowest" was a music video program, predating the premiere of MTV by almost a year.

Although the origins of short filmed musical performances date back to before the 1930s [believe it or not, the term "music video" was coined by none other than DJ and singer J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, who died in the 1959 plane crash with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens], in the U.S. in the late '70s/early '80s, they were still considered novelties and rarities, and people got very excited here whenever the odd one would pup up on TV every once in a while. The British Commonwealth countries were way ahead of the U.S. in pioneering, developing and disseminating the music video format - Australia's video program "Countdown" began airing in 1974, New Zealand's "Radio With Pictures" started in 1976, and Britain's "Top Of The Pops" began showing music videos in 1977. But in these parts, the only chance you had of seeing the odd one would be a one-off airing on a music or variety show. I remember seeing a video for XTC's "Making Plans For Nigel" in late 1979 (can't remember what show it was on) and being completely stunned. And I recall when "Saturday Night Live" had the U.S. premiere of Paul McCartney & Wings' then-groundbreaking "Coming Up" video (with McCartney simultaneously playing various roles, predating Outkast's "Hey Ya!" clip's use of this concept by almost 25 years) in May 1980 - I thought it was amazingly innovative and cool. But in my experience and to my knowledge, at that time there was no weekly show anywhere in the States that aired music videos exclusively . . . until I stumbled onto "Videowest".

Every week, "Videowest" would usually concentrate on a particular theme or genre, and intersperse music videos among interviews, commentary and humorous pieces related to that theme. A couple of program samples, with the themes of "Television" and "Beauty", can be found here and here (the music videos have been removed due to licensing issues). It was all very arty and avant garde, as properly befitted a show out of San Francisco. And while all of that was interesting, my main reason for tuning in was to see the videos, almost all of which were on the cutting edge of music of that time.

The first Devo videos I ever saw (including "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize" and "Girl U Want") were aired on "Videowest", along with my first exposure to a 'new' band out of New Zealand called Split Enz and their first semi-big U.S. hit, "I Got You". The first time I ever saw or heard of Laurie Anderson was through the show, the start of my lifelong fascination with her work. "Videowest" sometimes served as a showcase for obscure San Francisco bands as well. One night, I was treated to a video for the song "(Sooner Or Later) Some Of My Lies Are True" by a bar band with a local following, Huey Lewis & The News - my first glimpse of a band that became international superstars a few years later.

In the minds of many viewers and critics at the time (myself included), Devo was considered to be the most innovative and groundbreaking of the early music video pioneers. Their clips were so off-the-wall and visually mesmerizing, no other band could even come close to what they were doing . . . or so I thought. One evening in early 1981, "Videowest" devoted an entire show to the videos of a band they claimed out-Devo-ed Devo, an obscure, secretive San Francisco collective called The Residents. What I was treated to that night were some of the most off-kilter and disturbing videos that any band had dared to make at that time (or any time thereafter, in my opinion). Almost all of the clips were for songs off of the most recent Residents release, The Commercial Album - a disc containing forty songs, all exactly sixty seconds long.

The origin and background of The Residents is murky and steeped in mystery - to the point that the identities of the group members are officially unknown. As Wikipedia states:

"Throughout the group's existence, the individual members have ostensibly attempted to operate under anonymity, preferring instead to have attention focused on their art output. Much outside speculation and rumor has focused on this aspect of the group. In public, the group appears silent and costumed, often wearing eyeball helmets, top hats and tuxedos - a long-lasting costume now recognized as their signature iconography."

According to information released by the band (which may or may not be entirely factual), The Residents are all natives of Shreveport, Louisiana, and met when they were all in high school there in the 1960s. After graduation, they all headed to California as a group, at first settling in San Mateo in 1966 when the van they were traveling in broke down there, and later moving to San Francisco in the early 1970s. While in San Mateo, they began working on various art projects involving photography, sculpture and experimental recordings on crude reel-to-reel tape recorders. Over the next several years, the band made dozens, possibly hundreds, of recordings of their decidedly weird music and sounds. In 1971, they forwarded one of these reel-to-reel tapes to Warner Brothers, hoping to receive the same type of consideration and support that Warners had provided to their musical heroes, label artist Captain Beefheart. But Warner Brothers rejected the recording out of hand. Since the group had not included a name on their mailing address, the rejection letter included with the returned tapes was addressed to "The Residents" . . . and thus a band name was born.

Soon after their major label rejection, the band moved to San Francisco and started their own label, Ralph Records, to release their music. Their first studio album on the label, Meet The Residents, was put out in 1974. Throughout the '70s, the band was prolific, releasing five more albums, several singles and EPs, and for several years working on an ambitious (but ultimately unfinished) film project called Vileness Fats, which if completed would have been the first long-form music video. The Commercial Album, their seventh studio album, was released in 1980.

On "Videowest", the concept behind The Commercial Album was explained as such: the standard three-minute pop song played on the radio generally consists of a verse, chorus and break, repeated three times. It was the idea of The Residents to distill this standard structure down to its essence - a song comprised of a single verse, chorus and break lasting just one minute. That way, if a listener wanted a "pop song", all her or she had to do was play each tune on the album three times in a row.

It was both a wickedly subversive idea, and a hilarious way to take the piss out of popular radio fare, which the band considered to be too rigidly formulaic, by converting this commercial music into ACTUAL 'commercial' (as in 60-second radio/television commercial) music. To that end, and also to promote their album, The Residents purchased 40 one-minute advertising slots on San Francisco's most popular Top-40 station at the time (KFRC). Over three days, the station was obligated to play each track of their album during those station breaks - a brilliant way to promote their album, while simultaneously blurring the line between art and commerce.

The band members wrote and played on every song on the album, and got some help from their friends during the recording, using Phil "Snakefinger" Lithman and Fred Frith for some session work, along with anonymous guest vocalists Lene Lovich and XTC's Andy Partridge on a couple of songs. And in keeping with their arty multimedia background, The Residents completed music videos to accompany many of the songs, several of which were featured that night on "Videowest". Here are but a couple of examples of the clips that charmed, frightened, and jolted me that evening (the link below includes videos for "Moisture", "The Act Of Being Polite" "Perfect Love" and "The Simple Song", all of which were featured on the show):



The thirty-minute presentation I watched that evening was my only exposure to The Residents for a very long time. But the memory of their music and those mind-bending videos lingered with me for years, past the end of high school and well into college . . .

My four years at Navy was the time when I really began to expand my music collection, searching far and wide for the latest sounds of that era (mostly punk, post-punk and New Wave - hey, it WAS the mid-80s!). I quickly exhausted my search for non-mainstream music in the shops that were the most easily accessible to me, namely the Midshipman's Store and the record retailer at Annapolis Mall (neither locale known for being smoldering hotbeds for unconventional albums). So I began to expand my horizons and look further afield. An acquaintance of mine, a fellow "weird music" fanatic, tipped me off regarding an obscure used record store located in a small industrial park area of Annapolis, down West Street between the McDonalds and the old Parole Shopping Center. So one warm weekend afternoon during my Second Class (junior) year, I put on my summer white uniform, laced up my shoes, and began the four-mile walk towards this reputed place (I had no car, it was too remote to be served by bus, and I was too cheap to hire a cab).

I found the small shop tucked away down a side street, amidst machine shops and auto repair facilities. The hippie-fied owner looked as alien and unfamiliar to me as I'm sure I looked to him - a midshipman clad in gleaming white strolling into his dank, out-of-the-way store. As nonchalantly as I could, I made my way over to his stacks, which were mostly vinyl. A glance at his wares confirmed what I suspected from my first glimpse of the proprietor - most of what he had to offer were '60s Woodstock rock/'concept' albums and '70s prog rock freakouts. I had the sinking feeling that I had come all that way for nothing. But out of both politeness and boredom, I lingered a bit and looked carefully through the LPs.

It was there and then that a copy of The Commercial Album leapt out at me - The album name boldly emblazoned in red over the green-tinted faces of John Travolta and Barbra Streisand, with images of The Residents superimposed over them, giving the cover stars an eerie bug-eyed look. I'd never actually seen a Residents disc for sale anywhere up to that point (although, truth be told, I hadn't exactly been looking for one up to then). But one look at that album brought back to me every aspect of that long-ago night in Monterey, watching "Videowest" and getting blown away. I quickly took my selection to the register and paid the shopkeeper, who wore a look on his face of mingled incredulity and admiration, no doubt surprised that a supposed straight-arrow Naval Academy attendee was with-it enough to know and appreciate who The Residents were.

I still have that vinyl version, and a few years ago I acquired a copy on CD, containing ten bonus songs. That is the version I'm providing you here. So, for your listening pleasure, I give you The Commercial Album, released in 1980 on Ralph Records. This is a disk to be enjoyed and appreciated not all at once, but in snippets. Not everything on this album works, but there are definitely things here that will have you coming back to them, time and time again. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

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Poll Results - "The following bands have NEVER been nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - which is the worst travesty?"

[I should have posted this a couple of months back, at the end of the polling period. But I got unavoidably sidetracked, and in addition an exercise related to this poll took a little longer to complete than I figured it would. So please pardon my delay.]

Thanks for all of the participation regarding this question. Here are the results to the question of which current non-inductee deserves immediate enshrinement in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:

  8 (19%) The Smiths
  5 (12%) Captain Beefheart
  4 (9%) Roxy Music
  3 (7%) Nick Drake
  3 (7%) T. Rex
  3 (7%) Stevie Ray Vaughan
  2 (4%) The B-52's
  2 (4%) Dick Dale
  2 (4%) Hall & Oates
  2 (4%) Todd Rundgren
  2 (4%) Sonic Youth
  1 (2%) Black Flag
  1 (2%) Devo
  1 (2%) ELO
  1 (2%) X
  1 (2%) Yes
  0 (0%) Chubby Checker
  0 (0%) The Flying Burrito Brothers
  0 (0%) Los Lobos
  0 (0%) The Go-Go's
  0 (0%) Willie Nelson
  0 (0%) Jethro Tull
  0 (0%) The Replacements

Frankly, almost every band and artist listed above has a legitimate claim for inclusion. But for such an intensely subjective topic, I knew that I would have trouble in attempting to come up with even a semi-objective way to measure a band's "worthiness" for the Rock Hall of Fame. I mean, I'm a big fan of The Smiths, The B-52's and X, and would love to see them in the RRHOF someday. But are they more deserving of more immediate induction then, say, Roxy Music or Captain Beefheart? And if so, how could I 'prove' it? For weeks, I wracked my brains for a method by which to compare these bands that could fend off, if now wholly withstand, partisan criticism and finger-pointing. But I had no such luck . . .

. . . until, by chance, I stumbled across a copy of a book called Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life, by an author named John Sellers. The book, released in 2007, is both a witty memoir of and heartfelt homage to the author's longtime obsession with music, especially with alternative/indie bands, like Pavement and Guided By Voices, that the vast majority of people have never heard of. The book is a little chatty, filled with anecdotes of Sellers' personal encounters with his music heroes, like Robert Pollard and Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg. But all in all, it is a very entertaining read for those of us who have the same affinity for this type of tuneage.

For me, the best part of the book came in the back, with a series of appendicies added by the author. And in one of them, I believed that I found the solution to my problem. In this section. Sellers conducts a mock debate with himself, over the relative 'coolness' of one particular band over another. To resolve this question, he actually comes up with an obsessively detailed equation, involving many factors and variables, that measures "exactly how much your favorite band rocks". These variables include the quality of an artist's entire oeuvre, their 'image', and an "X" factor, with the music quality factor accounting for the majority (2/3rds) of the overall score.

Now, admittedly, a lot of the variables that Sellers comes up with are silly and/or tongue-in-cheek ("If the band members have costumes, -10 points, unless that band is Kiss, in which case, +75"; "Every lyric equal to or better than 'Her love’s a pony'?"). But the section regarding music quality was pretty straightforward. So, for lack of a better alternative, I decided to use this formula in my analysis and determination of "Worst Rock Hall of Fame Travesty of Non-Inclusion".

Utilizing album critiques and band information found on the Web to fill out the equation, I came up with the following scores/rankings:

1. Los Lobos (9,849.20)
2. Roxy Music (8,601.07)
3. Rundgren, Todd (7,542.98)
4. Yes (7,215.74)
5. ELO (4,074.89)
6. Sonic Youth (3,461.98)
7. Dale, Dick (2,914.92)
8. B-52's, The (2,497.10)
9. Hall & Oates (2,242.42)
10. Smiths, The (1,859.05)
11. Captain Beefheart (1,744.35)
12. T. Rex (1,559.47)
13. Replacements, The (1,510.93)
14. X (1,277.58)
15. Vaughan, Stevie Ray (1,157.38)
17. Devo (907.83)
18. Flying Burrito Brothers, The (764.17)
19. Go-Go's, The (465.35)
20. Jethro Tull (388.83)
21. Drake, Nick (241.52)
22. Black Flag (203.23)
23. Checker, Chubby (57.44)

Details of each band's scores are included here.

A couple of notes regarding this analysis:

- The most important consideration driving this band quality formula, the factor that raised scores the most, is that the band/artist had to have put out a high percentage (of their overall output) of critically-acclaimed studio albums over an extended period of time. For example, Los Lobos has released a total of fourteen albums in their 36-year history; two-thirds of them are considered 'good' or better, with five ranked as 'brilliant'. On the other hand, all four of The Smiths' studio albums were acclaimed, with 3 considered 'brilliant' . . . but The Smiths were only together for four years total. In this equation, longevity counts.

- According to this evaluation, the highest-scoring artist of the 24 considered was Willie Nelson. But I removed him from consideration for the RRHOF, since almost all of Nelson's celebrated output has been in the country genre (and besides, Willie's already in the Country Music Hall of Fame; give someone else a chance for the Rock Hall).

Again, this is an attempt to use objective methods to answer a subjective question. I am not a huge fan of the top five scorers on this list; my tastes lean toward bands like the aforementioned Smiths, the Bee-Fives, Devo, etc. But taking a step back and looking at each band's career with a cold, unprejudiced eye, I can see how those other bands would and could be more deserving than my own personal favorites.

If you have the chance, download and take a look at the spreadsheet, and let me know your thoughts on all of this. I'm looking forward to some comment on what is, in many ways, a highly personal issue. Thanks, and sorry again for taking so long to get this done. I'll try to come up with another poll question sometime soon.